Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Friday, 24-Jan-2025 01:44:21 JST

@graydon @alessandro A secondary factor: the spread of multimodal container freight, which cut intercontinental transport costs by about 98% circa 1960-1980. Imperialism—in the Marxian sense—relies on maintaining distance between raw materials/capital-intensive production/consumption. That distance has now imploded. The only natural scale for an economy to function on today is global, which means the oligarchs require a global hegemony in order to avoid "domestic" threats.