The Empire distributes goods and services. The finest, the most plentiful, the most convenient. In return, you get to be a citizen of the Empire and are subject to its laws. The Empire is the only civilization on the planet. Everywhere else is... well. Nobarland. The Empire is The Grid. You live on it. It lives in you. Escape at your own peril.
I've written before about this phenomenon when I realized (but still can't manage to get it through my thick skull) that there very well may be a practically infinite upside to computing. That is to say whether or not we are accellerated by Moore's Law, we are going to keep building more and more huge systems, and keep expanding the economy of the digital revolution.
I asked if it makes sense to consider that everybody wants to be loyal to democracy. The difference between global democracy and global empire is subtle, but I don't think that we in America recognize or care about that difference. In that regard we are all Wilsonian Neocons. We all want Doctors Without Borders, we all want Google Without Borders and we all want our cellphones to work everywhere and never drop a call. We want everyone in every country to stop polluting and stop greenhouse gas emissions. We want people everywhere to survive AIDS and breast cancer and floods and famine. And as our friendly neighborhood interlocutor DMG reminds us, we want to live on the Moon.
None of that comes for free, except that if you live in America, you're already halfway there. If you don't live in America, we already know what you want because we are living in the future your leaders must promise you. I'll repeat that. If you are not living in America, know that we are living in the future your leaders must promise you. Because if they don't promise it to you, you'll just run across the border and get it here. You can do that, you know. With our doctors, and our Google, and our JP Morgan Chase and our AT&T. And you might call your cellphone provider Vodaphone or your Google Baidu, but underneath it's the same protocol. There's only a few ways to survive breast cancer and the protocols belong to the Empire. You must attend our Universities to learn it. There's no way you can do it on your own.
In fact the things you can do on your own off The Grid are dwindling in number and social significance. If you don't want Luxury, we already know where you're going to be. We call it Nobarland aka the Hobbsian Hell on Earth, where life is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'. Yeah that Hobbes. He knew it in 1651.
I just wanted to remind you of all that. You see, there is this rather annoying presumption by our friends to the Left that America shouldn't be an Empire. But in fact it already is. It is the Empire of Western Civilization, and we're all Western now.
There are several unstated implications of this desire for civilization and its various manifest destinies that have to do with law and military force that our liberal friends are loathe to admit. Which is why they would like to believe that there is nothing but seduction involved. Seduction is just marketing. You will be branded all the same.
--
My interest in this looks to immigration and The Last ID, as well as XRepublic and public transparency.
Recent Comments