The Going Direct Reset: A Complete Chestertonian Tale
Being a True Account of Financial Phantasms and Digital Desperados
# The Going Direct Reset: A Complete Chestertonian Tale
## Being a True Account of Financial Phantasms and Digital Desperados
*With References to H.G. Wells, Edmund Burke, and the Going Direct Mind Map*
## Contents
- Part The First: Of Painted Ceilings and Prophetic Visions
- Part The Second: Of Whigs and Digital Desperados
- Part The Third: Of Resistance and Digital Dragons
- Part The Fourth: Of Future Paths and Present Paradoxes
## Primary References
1. Wells, H.G. - [The World Set Free (1914)](https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303661h.html)
2. Wells, H.G. - [The Open Conspiracy (1928)](https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1303571h.html)
3. Wells, H.G. - [The New World Order (1940)](https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301241h.html)
4. Burke, Edmund - [Thoughts on the Present Discontents](https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/15700)
5. BlackRock - "Dealing with the next downturn" (August 2019)
6. Going Direct Reset Mind Map (2019-2024)
# Part The First: Of Painted Ceilings and Prophetic Visions
*"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away.'"* - G.K. Chesterton
### Chapter The First: Wherein We Meet Mr. Wells Upon the Ceiling
It is a peculiar thing, dear reader, that we should begin our tale by looking upward, as if searching for divine guidance, only to find H.G. Wells instead. Not the corporeal Wells, mind you, but rather his ghost, which haunts our digital age with a persistence that would have amused him greatly. For Wells, who once dreamed of being a painted pagan god upon a ceiling, has become something far stranger: a prophet of our present predicament.
Consider, if you will, the remarkable fact that we now live in a world where money itself has become as atomic as Wells' imagined bombs. The Going Direct paradigm, that great architectural scheme of our modern financial wizards, bears an uncanny resemblance to Wells' World State, though it has emerged not through the dramatic explosion of atomic power, but through the quiet implosion of traditional banking.
### Chapter The Second: On the Matter of Prophetic Paradox
There is something delightfully paradoxical - and therefore true, for paradox is often truth standing on its head to attract attention - about finding Wells as our guide through this financial labyrinth. For in his New World Order, he wrote of a transformation so gradual that most would not notice until it was complete. How like our present condition! The Going Direct reset, mapped out in its branching complexity, resembles nothing so much as a great tree of digital destiny, its roots buried in the soil of 2019, its branches now spreading across the sky of 2024.
### Chapter The Third: The Open Conspiracy Made Manifest
Now we come to a most curious junction in our tale, where Wells' Open Conspiracy meets our modern monetary machinations. The parallel is enough to make one's head spin, rather like a digital coin that never comes to rest.
# Part The Second: Of Whigs and Digital Desperados
### Chapter The Fifth: The Tremendous Trifle of Modern Money
*
"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected."
* - Your Humble Narrator
It is a peculiar thing about modern money that it has become both more and less real than it ever was before. Like the smile of the Cheshire Cat, it has gradually disappeared leaving only its digital grin behind. The Going Direct paradigm, which our financial magicians have conjured from the depths of their Bloomberg terminals, is rather like a man who, having discovered he can walk on water, decides to drain the ocean.
### Chapter The Sixth: The Whig Junto and Other Modern Mysteries
Now, dear reader, we come to that most curious of modern institutions, which I shall call, for want of a better term, the New Whig Junto. Burke wrote of the old one in his Thoughts on the Present Discontents, but would surely be amazed to find its modern equivalent wearing algorithms instead of wigs.
Consider the tremendous trifle that is BlackRock's "Dealing with the next downturn" paper of August 2019. Like all truly important documents in our age, it was published with the sort of fanfare usually reserved for telephone directories, yet contained within it the architectural plans for our financial future. It is rather like finding the blueprints for St. Paul's Cathedral stuffed inside a takeaway menu.
### Chapter The Seventh: On the Matter of Digital Desperados
The modern financial oligarchy, which our Going Direct mind map shows spreading like ivy across the walls of civilization, has achieved something quite remarkable: they have made the old Whig aristocracy look positively democratic by comparison. For while the old Whigs at least had the decency to wear recognizable faces, our new lords prefer to hide behind the masks of corporate logos and algorithmic abstractions.
Let us examine, with the careful attention of a man studying a suspicious pudding, the three-headed hydra of our modern oligarchy:
1. **The Financial Phantasms**
Rather like the ghost of Marley, but rattling digital chains instead of iron ones, our financial oligarchs have mastered the art of being everywhere and nowhere at once.
2. **The Digital Desperados**
These are our modern highway robbers, though instead of standing in the road demanding "Your money or your life!" they simply ask for both through Terms of Service agreements.
3. **The Military-Industrial Mathematicians**
Here we find the curious marriage of Mars and Mercury, where the god of war has learned to trade derivatives.
# Part The Third: Of Resistance and Digital Dragons
### Chapter The Tenth: The Romance of Resistance
*"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."* - Your Humble Narrator
It is a peculiar thing about resistance that it becomes most necessary precisely when it appears most futile. Like the medieval dragon-slayer who discovers that modern dragons wear pinstripe suits and carry smartphones, we find ourselves in need of entirely new forms of heroism.
### Chapter The Eleventh: On the Matter of Digital Distributism
Consider these tremendous trifles from our Going Direct mind map:
1. **The Distributed Ledger Paradox**
Where once we had the village common, we now have blockchain - a commons made of mathematics rather than grass.
2. **The Community Banking Conundrum**
Local banks, those stalwart institutions that once knew their customers by name rather than number, find themselves in the peculiar position of being both necessary and endangered.
3. **The Peer-to-Peer Puzzle**
We have created systems of peer-to-peer exchange that somehow require the permission of central authorities.
### Chapter The Twelfth: The Tremendous Trifle of Local Resistance
From our Going Direct mind map, we see the points of vulnerability in the great machine:
1. **The Local Market Miracle**
Every farmers' market is a quiet rebellion against the digital economy.
2. **The Community Credit Revolution**
Local credit unions and community banks persist like stubborn weeds in the manicured lawn of global finance.
3. **The Digital Commons Rebellion**
Open-source software, community networks, and local mesh systems - these are the modern equivalent of the medieval common lands.
# Part The Fourth: Of Future Paths and Present Paradoxes
### Chapter The Fifteenth: The Painted Ceiling Revisited
We return at last to Wells' painted ceiling, though now we see it through different eyes. The digital pantheon that looms above us is both more and less real than the gods of old. Its algorithms may be invisible, but their effects are as tangible as thunder from Olympus.
### Chapter The Sixteenth: The Practice of Resistance
The practical resistance to our digital oligarchy must take three forms:
1. **Financial Independence**
- Not the independence of isolation, but the independence of interconnection
- Local banking relationships
- Physical asset ownership
- Community-based exchange systems
2. **Digital Sovereignty**
- Privacy tools and practices
- Local network creation
- Open-source software adoption
- Data minimization strategies
3. **Community Building**
- Local market participation
- Skill sharing networks
- Mutual aid systems
- Educational initiatives
### Chapter The Last: Beyond the Going Direct Paradigm
And so we come to the end of our tale, though it is really just a beginning. The Going Direct paradigm, mapped out in all its Byzantine complexity, shows us both the problem and its solution. For in trying to make everything digital, our financial overlords have revealed the enduring value of that which cannot be digitized: human relationships, local communities, and the simple dignity of looking another person in the eye while buying a loaf of bread.
The path forward lies not in rejecting technology entirely, nor in embracing it uncritically, but in ensuring that it remains our servant rather than becoming our master. As Chesterton might have said, had he lived to see our digital age: "The problem with our financial system is not that it is too big to fail, but that it is too big to be human."
*[The End]*
## Additional References and Notes
1. Mind Map Nodes Referenced:
- Central Bank Digital Currencies
- BlackRock Going Direct Reset
- Community Banking Initiatives
- Digital Commons
- Local Market Systems
- Distributed Networks
2. Key Concepts:
- The Wells-Chesterton Paradox
- Digital Distributism
- Local Resistance Strategies
- Community Sovereignty
- Financial Independence
- Human-Scale Economics
3. Implementation Framework:
- Individual Actions
- Community Initiatives
- Institutional Reforms
- Technical Solutions
- Educational Programs
- Market Alternatives
*"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."* - G.K. Chesterton
Integral Analysis of The Oligarchy.
← An integral Analysis of these present discontents.
← integral
↓ There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious
↓ Towards an Integral Analysis of World Views in the Oligarchy Part 2 ( The Military Industrial Complex )
↓ Towards an Integral Analysis of World Views in the Oligarchy. part 4 Wheels within wheels the ying and yang of AnekÄntavÄda
↓ Towards an Integral Analysis of World Views in the Oligarchy. Part 3. The Three Oligarchies. ( Michael Hudson)
↓ Towards an Integral Analysis of World Views in the Oligarchy. Part 5 (The new Grand Strategy of the United States)
↓ Towards an Integral Analysis of World Views in the Oligarchy. Part 6 ( From Iron Law to Iron Law )
