The Fire This Time
Climate Change doesn’t give a damn if Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t believe in it.
Hell is truth seen too late. — Thomas Hobbes.
It’s disturbing to witness the elevation of stupidity as both a rigid moral virtue and a vicious, burn-it-to-the-ground political strategy, but unfortunately that’s where we’re at in the not-so-United States right now, thanks to the Republicans and The Billionaire Aristocracy.
Denial is an ideological tool to be used. Ignore those inconvenient truths, pretend the problem is fixed and then never mention it again. Big Algorithm is watching you so it can tell you what to buy and how to vote.
Corporations are people, my friends.
However, it’s becoming harder for people to ignore what’s happening with the weather nowadays. Regardless of how loud she is, the planet ain’t listening to empty-headed climate change denialists like Marjorie Taylor Green.
So what happens next when a big problem gets bigger and bigger until it finally becomes apocalyptic?
Easy Peasy: let’s continue to fiddle while the Earth burns, same as it ever was.
In response to this escalating and inevitable threat to the existence of all life on earth, the free-market capitalist elite and their right-wing partners in crime around the world are gearing up to dismantle all green initiatives and loosen all restrictions on the fossil-fuel industry.
Bottom line, they’re all in on a lousy hand because oligarchs are greedy bastards, it’s their Prime Directive.
But don’t worry, the rich guys who own everything got a plan ‘B’. In addition to their golden parachutes, they’re compiling a stockpile of golden lifeboats to keep them safe from the approaching ecological disaster.
On deck, here’s Mark (“I am Meta, prepare to be assimilated") Zuckerberg:
Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Top-Secret Hawaii Compound
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is building a sprawling, $100 million compound in Hawaii—complete with plans for a huge underground bunker. A WIRED investigation reveals the true scale of the project—and its impact on the local community.Interviews with several people associated with the project, along with public records and court documents seen by WIRED, suggest that since then, the planning and construction of the roughly 1,400-acre compound has been shrouded in secrecy. The property, known as Koolau Ranch, will, according to planning documents, include a 5,000-square-foot underground shelter, have its own energy and food supplies, and, when coupled with land purchase prices, will cost in excess of $270 million.
According to evidence reviewed by WIRED, the project has relied on legal maneuvering and political networking, and at times, sources believe, it has shown disregard for the local public. All the while, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan continue to build one of the most expensive properties in the world.
There are times where this type of psychotic behavior is incomprehensible to me, so I remind myself of the conversation F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway supposedly had.
Fitzgerald [savoring his epiphany]: The rich are different from you and me.
Hemingway [gruffly, no time for bullshit]: Yeah, the rich have money.
To be blunt, only rich corporate Ayn Rand fanboys like Zuckerburg can afford to pay the rent on the enormous amount of crazy taking up space in their heads because the reality that normal people live in doesn’t exist for them.
But it really shouldn’t be surprising. There’s never been a moment in their privileged lives where money hasn’t been able to make a problem go away.
An unexpected medical emergency will bankrupt a blue collar family, a late car payment means explaining to your pissed-off boss you won’t be in today because the Kia got towed, and WTF the basement got mold!
Those events wouldn’t be life-changing disasters to Zuckerburg; they’re trivialities that his army of accountants would deal with, so any fables Zucko might say about his early days as a struggling college student eating ramen noodles six days a week are damned lies.
So is it any wonder that a billionaire would think that an global apocalypse is just another minor inconvenience that his wealth can make disappear?
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong,” Frantz Fanon wrote in ‘Black Skin, White Masks’.
“When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.”
It doesn’t help that there’s rarely any consequences for them being so aggressively obtuse. These moneyed despots can afford to build more impenetrable guardrails to isolate them from their mistakes. Worse, they give themselves bonuses after their fuck-ups.
But we’re getting closer to a “something is happening and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” day of reckoning.
What happens when the infrastructure which empowers the bosses and enslaves everybody else…goes bye bye?
What happens when the circumstances change so radically that everyone stops believing in “money” as a thing of value?
Paper currency is something you use to either start a campfire with or wipe your ass. Gold is a pretty rock you use to bash in a trespasser’s head.
Without the internet, what the fuck does Mark Zuckerberg have of value?
There’s an episode of The Walking Dead that comes to mind. Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors release a group of inmates who were locked up in the prison cafeteria for months, so they have no idea how goddamned bad things have gotten.
Rick Grimes : There is no army.
Tomas : What do you mean?
Rick Grimes : There's no government, no hospitals, no police. It's all gone.
Axel : For real?
Rick Grimes : Serious.
Oscar : What about my moms? My kids. And my old lady? Yo, you got a cell phone or something that we can call our families?
Daryl Dixon : You just don't get it, do you?
Rick Grimes : No phones, no computers. As far as we can see, at least half the population has been wiped out. Probably more.
It won’t take a zombie outbreak to end the world as we know it. The icebergs melting will be bad enough.
Zuckerberg’s tunnel vision can’t imagine a scenario where the Emperor Has No Internet. I’m sure he never wondered who scrubbed the toilets in Galt’s Gulch either.
And considering Zuckerberg’s limited skill set, I’m certain he has no idea what medium of exchange his new bosses will expect from him in this new world. It’s a mercy, I suppose.
[Zuckerberg’s screams are brief]
“When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
__Jean Jacques Rousseau
