Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [52]
Now would we sell these productive assets for gold? At what price, if they were essentially irreplaceable? What would we do with our pile of gold if we can't go anywhere, can't grow food and have no power source?
The holder of gold assumes that all goods can be purchased with a means of exchange holding a tangible value, i.e. gold or an equivalent commodity. But this may not be entirely true. Yes, we will sell some of our power/energy output for gold, but we will not sell our "wealth," i.e. the power plant for gold, which may or may not be able to buy a replacement. As a store of wealth, gold is no match for a productive source of energy.
The reason is "money" as a store of wealth is simply stored energy. From this point of view, fertilizer is stored energy. You may or may not be able to exchange "money" in any form for stored energy, for "wealth" is either stored energy or the capacity to generate energy sustainably. Everything else is merely a means of exchange.
Will gold hold more value as a means of exchange than paper money? If history is any guide, yes—but that's a different "problem" than building or storing wealth.
There are many other examples of "problems" whose solutions may well completely fail to address the structural challenges we face. Once again we must explore complacency, not just as an emotional haven, but as a cognitive attractor.
If we define the "problem" incorrectly, that is a way of selecting a "solution" which may only turn into a positive feedback loop, i.e. make the real problem worse.
Here is another example: consider these two questions and what each implies about the politics of experience and goal (i.e., who benefits from the implied outcome) of the person posing the question (that is, framing the context):
Since we have 400 years' supply of coal in the U.S., why not build "clean coal" plants to generate electricity?
How many owners/executives of "clean coal" plants live downwind of one of their own plants?
The context and politics of experience reflected in each question is radically different; the response implied by each question is thus also radically different. The first question implies that it is "obvious" we should construct "clean coal" plants in volume, while the second question implies that it is equally "obvious" that "clean coal" may be a propagandistic fabrication of a self-serving industry controlled by members of the Plutocracy who have no intention of risking their own health with exposure to the airborne results of "clean coal."
To assemble an integrated understanding of "clean coal," we would have to begin by asking "to whose benefit?" and examining the politics of experience of each participant/commentator. Those who do in fact live downwind of "clean coal" plants trump the well-paid analysts and academics who are members of the high-caste technocracy tasked with supporting the State and Plutocracy. Everything they claim as fact must be viewed with rigorous skepticism, starting with basic questions such as: how many "clean coal" plants are currently operating? By what metric is a coal-burning plant declared "clean"? Where is the long-term data to support this claim of "cleanliness"? and so on.
Those who stand to profit immensely from the construction and operation of such plants have a tremendous incentive (windfall exploitation) to create simulacrums of environmental cleanliness and statistical justifications for their windfall exploitation. As for "consumers" and residents surrounding the proposed plants and coal mines: a rigorously transparent cost-benefit analysis might conclude the benefits of the new plants outweigh the environmental costs--or it might not.
For we must be aware from the outset that the analysis presented on behalf of the Plutocracy and its