[ExI] e: Acceleration of the wealth gap

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2020 8:27 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] e: Acceleration of the wealth gap

<spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> Hi Keith, I don't know why it looks different on your end with the 
> lines and
white space.

Whatever you did fixed it.

>> kilolooter: I can imagine most of them go somewhere else to do their
looting.  Their big problem is that somewhere else comes to their neighborhood and burns their neighborhood stores.

>...It's more complicated than you might think.  Last night on a zoom chat, there was someone who has looked into the large scale organized looting.  The vehicles involved are mostly stolen...

This caper in Fairfield with the forklift has me thinking.  Front door is bashed in, after the store is closed.  Mysteriously there is a crowd already there in the closed store parking lot, as if they knew something like that was going to happen.  There are perhaps 100 or more looters and not that many police, but even if they had enough, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to rush in and start fighting the looters.  A better, cheaper alternative: slash exactly one drive tire on every car in the parking lot.  Theory: every car there has looting on its mind.

Bad guys put the loot in trunk, drive off with a flat tire, constables calmly bag the perp a coupla miles down the freeway with the evidence in her trunk, recover the loot and the stolen car in good condition (minus one tire (tires are cheap)) arrest the looter under safer conditions than the chaotic parking lot at the mall.

>...As for the looters,

>..." It ain’t just a question of misunderstood; Deep down inside him, he’s no good!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7TT4jnnWys

Keith thanks for that.  All my life I have heard people quote from West Side Story, but I never actually saw the musical.  I like all the songs from it, so now I will finally get around to viewing that classic.


>...  The locals forward the collection to someone in Denver and sure enough, she wound up dead in a ditch...

Do you ever worry about the dark web and strong encryption?  Perhaps many of these latest Chicago murders are a result of someone making a deal with a hit-human who resides on the dark web and accepts Bit Coin.  I worry about that.

>>...If that happens, some of the most tightly-packed cities will start to deflate.

>...Not likely.  The reason people are packed into slums is that they can't afford to live anywhere else.  See Jay Forrester's _Urban Dynamics_ for how this works.  Keith

_______________________________________________

In some of the most dangerous slums, conditions will change dramatically as a result of the looting.  In Chicago, they are looking around in some of those wards trying to locate the nearest remaining pharmacy and grocery store, and finding it is a long ways off.  There is some critically important infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed.  

I am working thru the math trying to estimate the challenges involved in rebuilding at least some of that.  Can you even imagine?  In many cases the building itself was damaged or destroyed by fire, so in the very best case (which I do not expect) just getting a new building could take at least a coupla years.

spike