03/09/2024
"Guns, Germs and Steel" is often cited as being a prime source for explaining why and how the most powerful countries in the last thousand years prevailed. Those three item, G,G&S but there is are two overwhelming factors that orbit around the same sun: wealth and technology. One might argue that, after the birth of agrarian societies, GGS did a lot of the heavy lifting. However, in the Common Era (and to a significant degree, BCE as well), two others factors occupy that triumvirate's source of power and influence and those are wealth and technology. These two factors perpetually potentiate each other. The more foresighted among us point at the ineluctable global disaster guaranteed by the ownership/control of immeasurable wealth. At this time in history, Bernie Sanders may be the most notable public figure to focus on this issue. Those who control the use of such tremendous wealth describes one of the most significant factors that point to the end of civilization. Perhaps, aside from the recognized competitors for that honor may be AI, but let's set that aside for the moment. Certainly, global warming, nuclear weapons etc are nothing to sneeze at either, however, consider this:
Elon Musk: Twitter, SpaceX
Rupert Murdock: who controls perhaps the largest media entity in world history.
Bill Gates: owns 1% of Microsoft and the largest single owner of US farmland.
Jeff Bezos: Amazon and the Washington Post.
Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook, Site, Governance
Brin/Page: 51% of Google's (Alphabet) voting power
Top Ten Richest people in the world:
The top 10 richest people in the world as of March 1, 2024, are:
Elon Musk.
Jeff Bezos.
Bernard Arnault.
Mark Zuckerberg.
Bill Gates.
Steve Ballmer.
Warren Buffett.
Larry Ellison.
and Bernie Sanders may, at this time, be the most notable agitator on this issue.
