“They aren’t going to be here in the future, so, as far as they are concerned, they have every right to extract its value now, while they are alive.

You need to understand this with crystal clarity. The are going to convert the future to manipulable abstractions of wealth before it is born. In every possible domain.

The way it works is that you simply step into the chain of renewal and permanently interrupt it by converting its irreplaceably valuable self-renewing assets into relatively minute one-time profits now.

As long as it doesn’t matter that you converted a billion dollars in assets into fifty dollars you can collect now — as long as you can continue to, for example, burn down ancient forests to plant soy, you can add up those little results rapidly into a fortune that can be enjoyed and employed right now.

The way they see it, only an idiot would pass up such an opportunity, and they intend to divvy up the remaining resources in precisely this fashion.

The web of life on your world is being obliterated for the sake of numbers in machines, and the power they confer upon what are, effectively, people so tyrannically wealthy that they can burn down the future of your world for the sake of nothing more than a few moments of luxury.”

— an anonymous informant