This film is hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
For those who’ve seen it: yes, we’ve been there. Not in the White House — but in Luxembourg. Just before the initial outbreak of COVID-19, we tried to nudge our representatives toward action. Our topic? Black swan events: the climate emergency, societal collapse, pauperization, alternative socio-economic systems — and above all, people’s money. Specifically, a blockchain-based digital currency as the cornerstone of resilience.
We spoke of issues strikingly similar to those in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future. Robinson describes the world without relying on images — like noctilucent clouds (pictured here, courtesy of Wikimedia). I think I understand our politicians and bankers a little better because of him. He writes: “One principle for bankers in perilous times was to avoid doing anything too radical or untried. And so they were all going to go down” (p. 189). And Luxembourg? It’s full of bankers.
Our meetings were professionally polite. A handful of young representatives kept glancing at their phones. I didn’t care much — but they made no secret of it: we were insignificant. Two little scientists, barely more relevant than the characters in Don’t Look Up, condescended to by the political staff as “coming from Michigan State.” Perhaps they’d already consulted a few professors from the University of Luxembourg — their local equivalent of “Columbia” or “Princeton.” For many, it seems Luxembourg is too rich to collapse. One deputy murmured to us in passing: “In any case, Germany or France will make the right decisions. We’ll just follow.” Maybe they still think that way.
Our hosts were acutely aware of political gains, corporate interests, optics — but in my view, they had no real grasp of what money is: an exchange of goods, a store of value. How it’s created out of nothing. How blockchain works. How our banks, fiat systems, and financial structures simply crumble under the weight of accelerating climate catastrophe.
So they decided to “sit tight and assess.”
It was just before the global pandemic.
But you — and we — are too smart to sit back. You know better. You won’t look away.
(In the film, they mention Okinawa, Hiroshima, Subaru… I wonder: is David Sirota related to Beate Sirota Gordon?)
a noctilucent cloud, credit Wikimedia