War of the Future - Here Today

[dr_mabeuse]

The Chinese have just made a bid of 18 billion dollars to buy the American oil company Unocal, and it looks like they might do it. I'm not exactly sure who the official bidder is, but I imagine it's one of their semi-autonomous/semi-government-owned conglomerates.

I've maintained for a while now that realnation-to-nation war is obsolete. Why go through all that trouble and destruction when you can just buy what you want? The Japanese did it in the '80's (though they had to seel a lot of it back when their economy stalled), and Saudi Arabia and various other oil baronies own great swathes of US industry.

It's said that the Chinese are looking to corner some of the world's scarcer resources, like copper and molybdeum and other metals. They've been snapping stuff up in South America and Australia and are looking to make themselves into a kind of OPEC, only with metals. Then they'll be able to set the price and generally dictate terms to the rest of the global market.

All this goes under the heading of globalism, I guess. Still, it kind of worries me. How much of the United States would someone have to buy before they owned us?

 

[Guest]

Eventually countries will only be things on a map.

Companies will control everything and compete with one another as countries once did. People will be reduced to merely being "human resources" and "customers"; both to be minimally educated, and carefully manipulated.

Or, are we already there?

I remember Heinlein's book "Friday" where a war was perpetrated as a battle not among countires, but among various departments of one corporation!

As an aside, I remember hearing once during Vietnam, that for much less than what we spent making war, we could have purchased all the land in both countries.

 

[CrazyyAngel]

Eventually countries will only be things on a map.

Companies will control everything and compete with one another as countries once did. People will be reduced to merely being "human resources" and "customers"; both to be minimally educated, and carefully manipulated.

Or, are we already there?

I remember Heinlein's book "Friday" where a war was perpetrated as a battle not among countires, but among various departments of one corporation!

As an aside, I remember hearing once during Vietnam, that for much less than what we spent making war, we could have purchased all the land in both countries.

Reminds me of this book ... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-0048105-3249515?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Where two consumer benefit programs go to war with each other ...

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Reminds me of my unfinished NANO novel. The governement of Earth is gone and all athority now rests in The Corporation. All human affairs are handled by the bord of directors who weigh everything in monetary terms. Money=Power and Power is absolute, there is no oversite of anything.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The Chinese have just made a bid of 18 billion dollars to buy the American oil company Unocal, and it looks like they might do it. I'm not exactly sure who the official bidder is, but I imagine it's one of their semi-autonomous/semi-government-owned conglomerates.

I've maintained for a while now that realnation-to-nation war is obsolete. Why go through all that trouble and destruction when you can just buy what you want? The Japanese did it in the '80's (though they had to seel a lot of it back when their economy stalled), and Saudi Arabia and various other oil baronies own great swathes of US industry.

It's said that the Chinese are looking to corner some of the world's scarcer resources, like copper and molybdeum and other metals. They've been snapping stuff up in South America and Australia and are looking to make themselves into a kind of OPEC, only with metals. Then they'll be able to set the price and generally dictate terms to the rest of the global market.

All this goes under the heading of globalism, I guess. Still, it kind of worries me. How much of the United States would someone have to buy before they owned us?

It isn't how much the need to buy. merely whom. Senators are going for cheap, I hear Santorum sponsored legislation to keep the national weather service from releasing information that competed with one of his corporate owners. And the donation was only a couple of thousand dollars.

Reps are even more reasonable, considering you have to own more of them to get a majority.

Not sure on the pres, but with W, you can apparently buy in cheap by sending a few trops to help out in Iraq so he can pretend there is a coalition there rather than us and the UK up to pur necks in jihadists and bombs.

 

[rgraham666]

I created a role playing game based around the concept.

In the year 2060, power belonged to the corporations for the most part. There were nations (four, only one big), an Empire (Islamic) and several megalopolis.

There were also only 2 billion people living here. The corps were prepared to conquer, but not to rule. There's a big difference.

So things like clean water, public health care, vaccination programs, meat inspection etc. went by the wayside.

The Four Horsemen, especially Pestilence and Famine had a field day.

The corps aren't doing that well. Markets are too small and people are poor. The free market only works if you have a lot of reasonably wealthy people.

 

[TheEarl]

Reminds me of this book ... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...104-0048105-3249515?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Where two consumer benefit programs go to war with each other ...

I love that book. Thought the scene with the schoolchild explaining why USA is so great was superbly done.

The Earl

 

[BlackShanglan]

Let the national governments collapse. I plan to work for Cosa Nostra Pizza.

(Snow Crash does the government-disintegrates-into-corporate-entities very well.)

 

[rgraham666]

So did The Cold Cash War. The corps promptly got into bed with the Soviets as their world views are remarkably similar.

If you do not wish us to buy America, do not sell it - Akio Morita as I recall.

 

[BlackShanglan]

At least it does cut both ways. When the French go on another crusade about the dilution of French culture, it always amuses me a bit. Americans are really quite simple. If you don't pay them, they don't generally give you anything. If you don't want a McDonald's in Paris, blessed are you! You have the simplest solution in the world. Do nothing. Never eat there, and it won't be there long.

Alas, our worship of convenience turns out to be as seductive to others as it is to ourselves.

 

[SeaCat]

Anyone here ever read any of the Cyber Novels? Burning Chrome etc.? If not you might want to.

Cat

 

[rgraham666]

Oh yeah. Have them all.

Burning Chrome is a great short story. My favourite though is New Rose Hotel.

The Sprawl novels, Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive are among my favourite reads.

 

[Guest]

I remember Heinlein's book "Friday" where a war was perpetrated as a battle not among countires, but among various departments of one corporation!

That was one of my favorites. The concept of Corperate Nations was facinating. They they hold no property other than their offices. Very hard to combat.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Anyone here ever read any of the Cyber Novels? Burning Chrome etc.? If not you might want to.

Cat

i have a couple of stories set in the dark future of Corporate rule. Not as scary as some, but I think chilling, intheir own way.

 

[rgraham666]

I really liked the one I read Colleen.

I figure the corporate future will be a lot like Renaissance Italy.

A lot of rather minor powers constantly fighting over minor additions to their power.

Life will be very nice for the few people at the top. Except for the likelihood of being poisoned, stabbed, shot or being taken apart by a nanotech weapon.

Those close to the top will at least be clothed and fed on a regular basis.

Everyone else will be living short and brutish lives.

I'm glad I won't be around to see it. I hope.

 

[Couture]

Just so I can be clear here. China is a communist country. China's oil company is state owned. Therefore, China's oil company is communist. Now, China's oil company is buying Unocal, a privately owned US company. The Chinese also own enough Treasury bonds that the US gov't can't afford to say shit about the Unocal purchase or the low value the yen has been set at.

Oh gee whiz, all this effort to fight communism, only to be bought by the communists.

"How much for your country?" Chairman Mao.

 

[rgraham666]

Funny how things turn out.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

So what does it mean? Just that money's more important than anything else?

 

[Guest]

So what does it mean? Just that money's more important than anything else?

It is today. Money is power.

 

[SeaCat]

It is today. Money is power.

What's that old quote? Money talks and Bullshit walks? Hmmmmmm.

Cat

 

[cantdog]

You wake up in the morning, most people, and Money decides what you will do today.

 

[shereads]

How much of the United States would someone have to buy before they owned us?

Not much. They'd just have to call in their debt.

We're borrowing from China to cover GWB's deficit spending binge, at a rate sufficient to assure that in the real world, the USA wouldn't be able to buy a new car without getting its parents to co-sign the loan.

 

[shereads]

Paddy Cheyevsky's screenplay for the 1976 movie "Network" predicted globalism and reality TV with eerie accuracy.

Most people remember Network for the scene where Peter Finch, as an idealistic TV news anchor, goes rogue on the air and incites viewers to throw their TV sets out the windows of their high-rise apartments while screaming, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

But the scene that comes to mind more often these days is the one where Finch is called on the carpet by the CEO of the corporation that owns the network, played to smarmy perfection by Ned Beatty. Instead of firing the anchorman (whose on-air nervous breakdown has made him a ratings hit) Beatty preaches a sermon on the global economy and sends him back on the air, a convert to globalism.

"There are no nations," he explains, "There are no Arabs. There are no Russians. There is no America. There is no democracy." There are only currencies and exchange rates, the "system of systems." The rest is an illusion.

In 1976, the premise of Network was entertaining, but too audacious to be truly worrisome. Like all really effective conspiracies, you'd have to be crazy to believe it.

I think globalism is further entrenched than we'd like to believe, and that global economic interests, not U.S. interests, made the Iraq war a promising investment. The war was a success to the people who wanted it, from the moment there were contractors on the ground. The victory was an economic one that benefits those whose financial interests are global - whether or not there is an end that will satisfy the American public. Nationalism is an essential tool of control, and it will survive, no matter what. It's too deeply ingrained and too carefully nurtured to suffer much of a setback, no matter what the outcome of the war. Our personal losses and our national ones - the sacrifices of our troops and the damage to what most of us consider "the economy" - are relatively small concerns to the multinational-registered subsidiaries and sister companies of Halliburton, Raytheon and co. A U.S. oil company run by communists in China isn't ironic ata all, if you believe, like Cheyevsky, that there are no nations. If China is smart, it will hang onto just enough Communism to keep the world a little edgy and keep its drones in line. Meanwhile, in the backrooms where the world is run, it'll do business with Ned Beatty.

 

[SnoopDog]

The Chinese have just made a bid of 18 billion dollars to buy the American oil company Unocal, and it looks like they might do it. I'm not exactly sure who the official bidder is, but I imagine it's one of their semi-autonomous/semi-government-owned conglomerates.

I've maintained for a while now that realnation-to-nation war is obsolete. Why go through all that trouble and destruction when you can just buy what you want? The Japanese did it in the '80's (though they had to seel a lot of it back when their economy stalled), and Saudi Arabia and various other oil baronies own great swathes of US industry.

It's said that the Chinese are looking to corner some of the world's scarcer resources, like copper and molybdeum and other metals. They've been snapping stuff up in South America and Australia and are looking to make themselves into a kind of OPEC, only with metals. Then they'll be able to set the price and generally dictate terms to the rest of the global market.

All this goes under the heading of globalism, I guess. Still, it kind of worries me. How much of the United States would someone have to buy before they owned us?

This reminds me of the movie-quote from 'Die Hard' where the Japanese manager says "Hey, we're flexible. Pearl Harbor didn't work out so we got you with tape decks."

Science Fiction often pictures future wars to be wars between companies. Who knows, maybe that is what we're steering towards....


Snoopy

 

[ishtat]

Cuba

I have always thought that Fidel Castro would have been ousted years ago if the USA had supplied cheap Coca Cola rather than just sufficient political oposition to give FC something to rant at.