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I agree, but I don't think we have 4 years. It took like 2 weeks for things to start falling apart, a month to dismantle all of our global soft power, and probably like 6 months for people to start dying in the streets. Our economy is collapsing, and with it the global economy
Bird flu could make the jump at any point too... Cutting regulations and public health funding is basically breeding another pandemic. Hell, honestly we might not even know it's happening until we have a whistleblower
On the plus side, we've got constant protests, Europe is stepping up in a big way, and Trump has hurt right wing causes across the globe. We've got maga people screaming to get Musk out of the white house, Republicans and Democrats alike are booing their representatives for not doing something, and Trump looks like he's rapidly aging. Billionaires who handed Trump the presidency control the media, and you know what most people aren't seeing? The daily speeches trump is making, weirdly turning everything into something about real estate development. People hate Vance - Trump seems to be setting musk or his son up to be his successor, but they're pretty universally hated too
We're over the cliff - the pax America is over, there's no going back. Things are going to get rough, things are going to get complicated, but an end is a new beginning. Maybe we can start building something better. I think we will. To me, the only question is how many people will die along the way, how long will we have to endure this slow (but now pretty fast) decline before we get past this
Or maybe this is just the end for our species. Either way, I don't think there's a "next time" in 4 years... There's no going back. Only forward, into the unknown
Nah, we're in late stage capitalism - the economy is divorced from reality, the way we measure it ie basically based on speculation. And the effects haven't had time to ripple through yet, that'll take months
And yeah, we have people dying in the streets and people locked up... But this isn't remotely at the same scale. This is like at least one person you know will be a victim here on average... This is old people in the suburbs dying on the sidewalk. This is tons more people living in their car, this is people being pushed to crime to survive en mass
It's hard to explain how bad things are going to get... This isn't more of the same, this is going to be much less abstract for most people
History is written by the winners... Every history class we get is written through the lens of "capitalism is the only option"
The great depression is exactly where to look... Let me put together some facts you probably know in a new way
What was the new deal? It was wealth redistribution. Job creation en masse through government programs (to do basically busywork at times), sociatal safety nets, worker protections... Sound familiar?
How did it play out? The establishment fought it every step of the way. America voted in younger and bolder representatives to both parties.
FDR won the election 4 times - until very recently he was said to be "the closest America has come to a king". But he wasn't... He was performing the will of the people, and that threatened the establishment. It took 2 generations to slowly dismantle what he put in place
And on the other note... Billionaires can't build a utopia. They can't build a company, let alone a city state. They're genuinely dumber than normal people - they don't ever build things. They invest in others, the ideas never come from them. They are the manifestations of the financial empire that is a billionaire, they too are prisoners of their own wealth
Ah fair, the capitalist propaganda is definitely more intense over here, but nowhere in the anglosphere is safe from it
But to answer your question, a billionaire can build a compound, but they're literally incapable of building a town. A town requires people, it's made up of webs of interconnected people. If you plop a few thousand people somewhere, they organize themselves.
If a billionaire built a compound and set up some farms, some infrastructure, and then subsidized the cost of people moving there, they could easily form a town. But that's not enough - you can't become a billionaire without a compulsive need to stand at the top.
Let's talk company towns - basically you have a resource, and to that end a company builds the infrastructure to develop it. They set up a monopoly on trade, and basically enslave people once they're there
How do they maintain control? Control the food and travel in and out. But still, people tend to rise up when they feel injustice - you need guards for the day to day, and response teams for riots and mutiny
Here's the thing... Consultants told doomer billionaires that if you want to be a feudal lord, you have to inspire loyalty. To make your knights feel like family - you have to invite them for family dinner and make them absolutely certain that if they die in your service, you'll support their family
Instead, they asked about explosive collars and biometric locks on food storage
Billionaires can't build societies. Not city states, not even company towns - if there's not someone ready to enforce their claim of ownership, they die.
By their very nature - if they could share, they wouldn't be a billionaire. They would live in the highest possible luxury, but they wouldn't be billionaires... They are mentally unwell by definition