3 ms·

Indeed, megaprojects are something of a hallmark of central planning, for good and for ill.

• sneak 3y ago
  Then step one is to enslave an entire nation of people to force them to pay for your megaproject. Given that the existing nations large enough to do such projects in a reasonable timeframe are disinterested in anything that doesn't expand or perpetuate their dominion over territory solely on Earth (even the Apollo program was an anti-USSR thing), that means either going to war with one of them (again, gigabucks required to begin, along with a willingness to engage in large scale violence) or starting a new one (which takes generations, which is too slow given the rate of Earth's current inhabitants actively incinerating their existing society). Not enough people accept cryptocurrency to amass usable gigabucks to hire an army; the existing issuers of money already thought of that avenue even before Satoshi. Your assets as a private citizen can never be used to raise an army, no matter how wealthy you become, as your bank balance exists only as long as the state says it exists. (This is why Musk says Putin is the richest person in the world and not himself. True wealth is not measured in USD or RMB or even kilograms of gold, but in opportunity.) That only leaves the current plan, which is to delay that incineration, and develop the technology to escape independent of (although naturally with the tacit approval of) one of the existing states.