Thread by @leashless

So here's my prediction: 30% odds that America splits up the next few years.

But not in the way you think. Everybody thinks it's Democrats vs. Republicans, and flashpoint issues will be guns and abortion. I don't think that's true any more. I think it's more medieval.

The split will be much more brutal: science vs. religion. Less Wrong vs. Mike Pence, if you like. Vaccines, abortion, transness, global warming one once side, and mass medievalism on the other. Post-industrial vs. industrial giants, and unclear where the Pentagon fits in.

Weirdly, I think Seattle is a real hub - Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing. It's a huge, understated power center.

How does this fight play out? It's entirely economic, and over regulatory control: State governors fighting for Federal pork, not the National Guard closing roads. Porkwar

It's about who is paying who tribute: right now, blue states pay for red states. Some of that's Defense pork, some of it is direct subsidies. As the red states take an absolute beating from covid and the end of fracking which has been their absolute salvation, they approach broke

Electoral college etc. come into play too. But this is not north v south. That's fighting the previous battle. No, this is old economy vs new economy. High tech vs. primary resource extraction. Manufacturing used to side with primary, but manufacturing all went to China, oddly.

High tech want to reorganize the economy to work in this new normal: Amazon etc. become critical national infrastructure. Primary want people back to work, taking things out of the ground.

We either ignore the dying, or fix the dying. High tech wants to fix the dying. Statistics

But it's *not* fedgov bombing buildings and teenagers making cool weapons: it'll come down to use of various emergency powers by all levels of government to protect their patch from their perceived enemies, and it's all going to be about money and resources: local currencies?

To save the American economy, moribund things must die, and their real estate given to the future. You have to unleash huge innovation to survive this.

The Federal political parties are too deep in bed with deep pocket incumbents: they can't vote for real innovation, not ever.

And it's that question, of a return to a broken normal, vs a "phoenix rises from the ashes" strategy that is at the heart of the new conflict.

Do we use Money Printer Goes Brrrrr to make a new work, or shore up the illusion that these dead industries can rise?

Zombie companies!