Termination Shock

by Neal Stephenson

the way to display, or to enjoy, great wealth was to build an environment that could only have been wrought, and could only be sustained from one hour to the next, by unceasing human effort.

having seen shit you wouldn’t believe in Indonesia, he had arrived at the conclusion that political stability anywhere was an illusion that only a simpleton would believe in.

“It’s an asset, you’re saying. The sheer incompetence of the United States.” “People have come to rely on it.”