Evanescence of Cities III
Andre Willers
16 May 2014
Synopsis :
Now humans are deserting cities just after they built them ,
but before they lived in them .
Discussion :
1.Ghost cities of China .
Built during a property bubble, no attempt to find buyers .
Now crumbling into ruins .
2. A big one :
3.There are so many .
It is just unbelievable .
Nary a human .
China has built more than 500 of these empty
cities since the cultural revolution in 1978, with hundreds more set to come
online by the end of the decade.
All
deteriorating into ultra-modern ruins as we speak .
4.Where
does all the money come from ?
Gullible
westerners , mainly Americans .
They evict
their own citizens from their homes and build ghost cities half a world away .
Another
triumph for capitalism .
5. Old
style abandonment :
See
Appendix AA . Evanescence of Cities .
At least
the city had some use .
6. But
this is a new style of abandonment . They walk away just after they built it .
Not just
one . More than 500 full cities , turning into ruins .
7. This
dwarfs Ozymandias by Shelley
Not exactly
what old Percy had in mind .
Conspicuous
consumption driven to its extreme .
Hundreds
of cities of ghosts .
I wonder
what future archaeologists would make of it ?
“I met a
traveller from an antique land
Who said:
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in
the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk,
a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And
wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that
its sculptor well
those passions read
Which yet
survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand
that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the
pedestal these words appear:
"My
name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my
works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing
beside remains: round the decay
Of that
colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone
and level sands stretch far away.”
8.Why do
humans do this ?
Their ability
to build cities have obviously outstripped their willingness to destroy them .
They
rebuilt Europe in 10 years after bombing centuries of brickwork flat . (WWII)
Yet they
continue to build cities , even though they immediately abandon them .
Superficially
it seems like economics .
But humans
will continue to build , even if they cannot afford it .
My pyramid
is bigger than your pyramid .
9. They
just like it .
I
considered many fancy psychological reasons , as well as historical ones .
The only
one that held water was that humans simply liked to build things .
Even if it
had no purpose , they would still build it , just for the hell of it .
10 . Then
tear it all down , or bomb it , or just walk away .
This is
just an excuse for itchy fingers to start building new things .
11. No
hovels required .
The
impulse to stone is simple : there is no satisfaction in dismantling a hovel .
But ,
dismantling the pyramids . Now there is
something .
So ,
paradoxically , the ghost cities are built to enable them to be demolished .
Everybody feels
satisfied .
The Capitalist
exploiters made money . The Greens get to recycle the ruins into new instant
ruins.
The
proletariat might not get to stay in these fancy new apartments , but there
would be some work for them .
12. New
Art-Form .
Transform
a new ruin into a newer ruin , or into an old ruin .
Things could
be worse .
You might
have had to stay in one of these Palace’s of the People .
Suffice to
say that the bottom apartment ceiling of a 20 story block of flats that leaks
when it rains
Time to
reach for Thor’s Hammer : the real one .
13. The
Kali Effect .
Destroy
and Create .
When in
doubt , smash it , then use super-glue .
Stickily
yours
Andre
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Appendix AA
Sunday, January 05, 2014
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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