The World Economic Future

Can I own myself?

Admit it, when you first saw it, you thought it was a joke. I would be shocked, if anyone reading this said that they have never seen the picture.

The outrage over the first ‘prediction’ overshadowed the blatant stupidity of the rest. The lack of definitions, logic and even coherence and common sense in all of them. We could take apart all points, but I want to focus on the main point, which is prediction #1

You will own nothing and you will be happy
Whatever you want you’ll rent and it’ll delivered by drone

What does that mean exactly? What does it mean to own something, and for that matter, what does it mean to be happy? What is ‘nothing’?
Will I be able to own myself? My body and its parts? My work, my thoughts, my achievements?

Will I own my socks and my underwear? How many? And since we are talking about underwear, will I own my toilet paper, or will I have to rent that too? This is not an idle question. One of the things that we learned from the pandemic was that in times of crises toilet papers can become a valuable commodity.  If I am allowed to own some toilet paper, how much? Who will decide?

Imelda Marcos was famous for her shoe collection. Ok, I understand that I will have to rent mine, but for what duration? Daily, weekly, yearly? If not me, then who will own them? When I rent a pair of shoes, will they be new, or ‘previously enjoyed’? If I rent it for long enough to wear it down completely, who will dispose of it? Who will decide the rental rates? Where will the profit go? Who will own the shoes and the toilet paper?

Will I own the occasional steak (prediction #4) before I eat it? How could I possibly rent it?
Can I offer some of it to my friends in the form of a dinner? What about the bottle of wine they ‘rented’ coming for the dinner? Who will own that?

What if he wants to show his gratitude by cutting my hair? Or giving me a professional massage?

How about the soap, the body lotion and the expensive parfum my wife likes?

Come to think of it, what is renting?
Ownership, (in my own admittedly limited, non WEF quality mind) means two things: the right to make decisions about and taking responsibility for whatever I own.

Rental is an exchange of money for the temporary ‘ownership’ of some objects, meaning a temporary reassignment of both the rights and the responsibilities that came with it. If I rent a car, I should be able to go with it wherever I wish, but if I damage it, I should be responsible for the cost of the repair.

Come to think of it, how can I possibly rent anything if I own nothing?
I would need to OWN some MONEY before I can rent anything. So, the question is: how much money will I be able to own? Will I be able to save my money? Lead a frugal life so that I can give some to my children? Will they be allowed to own it? How about renting my money out on interest?

The steak I mentioned above, cooked into a gourmet meal is far more valuable than the raw meat. If I open a restaurant, will I own it? If not me, who will?
Will I own the product of my own work? I find a piece of wood on the beach and carve it into a statue. Will I be able to sell it? Won’t the person who gave me money for it own it? Will he have the right to sell it, or only to rent it to somebody? Will it be any different if I just give it away?

Come to think of it, will I own my own body?
How about my bodily fluids? If I donate my blood or sperm to the appropriate bank, will they own it? Will they sell it or rent it out?  
Ownership means control and responsibility. Who is responsible for the well-being of my body? Me or the government? Who should have the right to make decisions about it?  Me or the government?

How about my thoughts? Will I, as a writer, own my work? If I do not, will I still be responsible for it?
If it’s not mine, how could I be? Will I own my salary? My savings? (You know, the money I will put aside for the occasional steak.)

Come to think of it, will I ‘own’ my children, or will I have to rent them too?
Will they belong to me, meaning will I have the right to make important decision concerning them and taking full responsibility for them? To a large extent, they already belong to the state that can brainwash, poison and mutilate them without parental input or veto.

Come to think of it, who will own everything that I can only rent?
While I will own nothing, will there be another class of people who OWN EVERYTHING? Who will they be? What criteria will separate the people who will own nothing and are happy, from those who own everything, end feel (presumably) miserable? Why should we, the happy people, subject them to such misery?

Come to think of it, do you realize how little you own already?

• Social security means that you do not own your pension, you are ‘renting’ it.  The government decides how much you will have to contribute, how much will they pay you and how much that amount will actually worth. If you die before you have a chance to collect, the government keeps the money.

• Public education means that you do not ‘own’ your children’s education. The government does.

• Socialized Healthcare in Canada means that I do not own my ‘own’ body. I cannot even get a blood test without a doctor’s approval. My drug choices are limited. Canabis is in, Ivermectin is out.
  Vaccine mandates mean that you do not own your ‘own’ body.

We could keep mocking these notions about ownership, control and responsibility, but I think it is already clear how stupid the WEF idea is. Of course, this is not what they meant, but that is the point, that not much thinking went into it. The WEF is completely blinded by its own woke stupidity, which is based entirely on Marx’s idea:

“The enemy of being is having”

I don’t think it is emphasized enough how deeply Marxist the WEF is.
Just like Marx, they didn’t really think this through. Nor did they the rest of their predictions.

Let’s run through them:
8 predictions for the world in 2030
(Based on the input of members of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils)

1. You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy
   Whatever you want you’ll rent and it’ll delivered by drone

   The message is clearly targeted to those who eschew responsibility.

2. The US won’t be the world’s leading superpower. A handful of countries will dominate.

   No kidding. Not much of a prediction, it is happening already.

3. You won’t die waiting for an organ donor.
   We won’t transplant organs, we’ll print new ones instead

   Seriously? It will take at least another 20-30 years before it can be done safely.

4. You’ll eat much less meat. An occasional treat, not a staple
   For the good of the environment and our health.

   This is interesting, but very much wishful thinking. As for the ‘reasoning’, there is no scientific evidence for either claim. Not eating meat helps neither us nor the environment.

5. A billion people will be displaced by climate change.
   We’ll have to do better job at welcoming and integrating refugees.

   1, Nonsense.

   2, The second sentence is not a prediction, but a supposed (and cheesy) imperative.

6. Polluters will have to pay to emit carbon dioxide.
   There will be a global price on carbon. This will help make fossil fuels history

   Again, not a prediction, but a goal. We understand that this is what they WANT, but it ain’t going to happen.

7. You could be preparing to go to Mars. Scientists will have worked out how to keep you healthy in space. The start of a journey to fine alien life?

   In six years? Seriously? We won’t even have a proper moon base in six years.
   The US and Europe is slowly rotting away. The Baltimore Bridge will not be fixed by 2030.
   As for the second sentence, what sort of a prediction a question is?

8. Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.
   Checks and balances that underpin our democracies must not be forgotten.

   What the hell does this mean???
   What are ‘Western values’ and how are they tested?
   The second sentence is yet another imperative and not a prediction – and void of any discernible meaning on the top of it.

After I did the transcript watching the video, another video came up in my recommendations:
The World in Numbers: Gender Parity | Davos 2024  
It is a two-person panel discussion.
It is a great demonstration of woke Karenship. If you have any interest in Karenology, watch it.
I could not take it for more than a few minutes, but that was enough to see several examples of the communist attitudes. Communist, socialist, leftist communication is always built on ‘coulds’, ‘shoulds’, ‘need tos’ and ‘musts’. Imperatives, wishes and desires. The vaguer the better. The left does not want to solve problems, they thrive on them. They do not want analysis, they want power.     

Since we are talking about ownership, let me finish with a few questions:

Will the WEF ever be made to own its stupidity; meaning will it ever be forced to take responsibility?
Can they possibly win, establishing a globalized governance structure?
Can they survive the fall of the US hegemony and the emergence of the BRICS+?

Let me know in the comments.

As for me:

Further reading

This is part four of a series on the WEF, here are the first three:

The WEF Casting Agency

Vee, zee people in zis wroom

The World Economic Word salad

Worthwhile reading

As I was reading up on the subject, I came upon this very promising book:

You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back: Roth, Carol: 9780063304932: Amazon.com: Books

I browsed through it, then got the audio-book version. It will take a few gym sessions to finish it.

References

The World in Numbers: Gender Parity | Davos 2024 | World Economic Forum
What Ever Happened to Imelda Marcos’ 3,000 Pairs of Shoes? (vice.com)