[ExI] imaginable wealth

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
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>
>>... I don’t know Keith, but my best guess is that the huge cavernous 
> cathedrals somehow makes one feel small and insignificant,

>...Ok, how does that get selected?  Why?

On further thought, I realized that notion wouldn't explain why they built them to start with.  That one is easier, and opposite to creating a feeling of humility: it created pride.  It was an ego boost to whoever could build the biggest and best cathedral.  And why not?  Proles were willing to pay for it, if the priests were successful in convincing them their offerings would reduce their suffering in the next life.  Hell you and I would do the same: think of every trick to build it bigger and better than the heretics over in the next big city.  I bet we could come up with some pretty cool tech tricks.

So why does it make the worshippers feel humbled, he asked.

My best guess is that it is such an audacious technical accomplishment.  It causes a prole to wonder how it was done.  Even now, it is not at all obvious how one would build such a thing with the technology available at the time.  

>...I would be standing there thinking about the nanomachines to drill into those graves and pull out DNA.  Would you need to pay women to birth a clone of either of them or would there be volunteers?

There would be so many volunteers, one might consider creating thousands of clones and letting them all have a shot at it.  Why not?  Consider there were dozens of serious volunteers to go to Mars, with the knowledge up front that they were not bringing a rocket capable of returning.  It was not just one way, it wasn't all that long on the surface.



>>...  I don’t even know how to insert the word ‘freaking’ into the word Audi, so it isn’t clear how to emphasize how amazed I am at the complete transformation.
>


>...I can't locate and don't think I was ever at such a place.

Keith


Good.  It was very dangerous then.  Had you told me you hung out there, I would assume you had gone in there to buy drugs.  Retail couldn't make it, so the town had very little income, so they only had two cops, and they were afraid to go outside the station.  East Palo Alto was in a poverty trap.  

Then... considering the excellence of the location location location, a business decided to give it a try, one which was inherently difficult to steal from: Ikea.  The reason for this is two-fold.  One is that Ikea sells primarily furniture, which is hard to pocket.  The second reason is that it is inherently difficult in an Ikea to locate the exits.  Many go in there only to be lost, often for decades.  Charlie of the MTA, who was said to be riding forever 'neath the streets of Boston, managed to come up with his nickel and get off of that train, however, he stumbled from the MTA station into an Ikea, from which he never returned, no he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned.  

But I digress.  Ikea came in there, they had an actual business, sales tax paid for basic services, proles began to realize the location^3 of East Palo Alto is the best of the best.  More businesses followed Ikeas lead.  Some of these businesses failed after their CEOs went into Ikea, where they are wandering lost to this day, but some heeded the warnings and stayed out.  Now East Palo Alto looks really nice, modern office space all over the place, high end retail everywhere.  In three decades it grew from poverty to imaginable wealth.

spike