Evanescence of Cities
Andre Willers
6 Jan 2014
Synopsis :
Cities are created and abandoned ad hoc .
Discussion :
1.Humans build cities and discard them .
2.A city is a hierarchical machine .
3.This is tolerated , because the concentration of capital
by elites enables nifty things like Literature , Science ,Culture , Opera ,
etc.
4.But it also enables professional military soldiers .
5.If the balance between City with soldiers and Soldiers
with a city shifts to the latter , the whole city evanesces .
Taxes .
6.Examples :Any Empire , Maya , Angkor Wat , middle East ,
Europe .
Every place is lousy with ruins of cities where they just
walked away .
This is the norm .
Everybody likes to think the barbarians conquered . But they
just walked into abandoned palaces .
7.Basically , a tax revolt . The population does not even
decrease , but is redistributed into smaller units .
8.Can this happen today ?
Yes ,funnily enough .
I thought that the driving force of cities was higher
population densities .
It used to be that the removal of population from the food production area increased
production .
This is no longer true . Even cities can be self-sufficient
(with a bit of effort)
9.Evanescence of Cities :
9.1Gobekli-Tepe and their ilk .
Cities were invented and used ad-hoc for a specific purpose
, then moth-balled .
9.2 Detroit and Hamashima Island
Present day examples . The City served it’s purpose , and is
then abandoned, mothballed or re-purposed .
10. Are Cities
obsolescent ?
Too early to tell . Some will be kept for nostalgia .
But people have been leaving cities for decades . Like Suburbs
.
11. What I am trying to say , is that within decades you can
walk through the ruins of New York , London , Amsterdam , etc .
The people will still be there . They would just have walked
away . The burden became too onerous .
12.Will population drastically decrease ?
Not necessarily . You are substituting Virtual Cities for
Real Cities .
In previous civilizations , they became unglued because of
the professional military not being funded any more . So they simply took it .
But they most sincerely would prefer to be on the payroll .
13. Present USA situation :
Academi (formerly Blackwater) The largest Mercenary group .
Well , at least they won’t run out of funding .
In 2010, a group of private investors purchased Xe's training
facility in Moyock, NC and built a new company around it named Academi. The new
ownership instituted a Board of Directors and entirely new management system,
including a full compliance and governance program. The Academi Board of
Directors includes former Attorney General John Ashcroft,
former White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton and
former Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore, Jack Quinn, retired Admiral and former Director
of the National Security Agency Bobby Ray Inman,[33] and
Texas businessmanRed McCombs, who serves as Chairman of the Board.[34] Jack
Quinn and John Ashcroft both serve as Independent Directors of Academi.[35]
In May 2011, Academi named Ted Wright as CEO.[36] Wright
hired Suzanne Rich Folsom as Academi's chief regulatory and compliance officer
and deputy general counsel.[37] The
Academi Regulatory and Compliance team won the National Law Journal's Corporate
Compliance Office of the Year Award for 2012.[38]
In 2012, Brigadier General (ret.) Craig Nixon was named the new
CEO of Academi.[39]
14. As long as the Tax situation remains stable , and free-lance
security services are loyal to the government , the cities will continue to
evanesce . Quite rapidly too . Expect more Ruins of Detroit ,or Orleans ,or
Chicago .
15 . Remember : people just walk away . Like the Maya , Angkor Wat
, Detroit . They are still there in their numbers . Just disgusted with the
whole enterprise . The City no longer enabled a better living or larger
population .
16.This is deeply rooted in Human Societies .The memes are there .
If the politicians are stupid enough to overtax (38% upper threshold) , people
just walk away .
17. I would be surprised if any large city exists in 50 year’s
time .
This advice is tax-free.
Andre .
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