{"id":39509,"date":"2017-07-25T03:00:36","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39509"},"modified":"2024-11-23T16:37:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T21:37:36","slug":"great-man-theory-no-impersonal-forces-of-history-no-how-about-the-bond-villain-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/07\/25\/great-man-theory-no-impersonal-forces-of-history-no-how-about-the-bond-villain-theory\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Man Theory? No. Impersonal Forces of History? No. How about the Bond Villain Theory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Stross<\/a> may have cracked the mystery of what the heck is happening in our particularly odd time period:<\/p>\n

History: is it about kings, dates, and battles, or the movement of masses and the invisible hand of macroeconomics?<\/p>\n

There’s something to be said for both theories, but I have a new, countervailing theory about the 21st century (so far); instead of the traditional man on a white horse who leads the revolutionary masses to victory, we’ve wandered into a continuum dominated by Bond villains.<\/p>\n

Consider three<\/del> four<\/del> five, taken at random:<\/p>\n

Mr X: leader of a chaotic former superpower with far too many nuclear weapons, Mr X got his start in life as an agent of SMERSH<\/del> the KGB. Part of its economic espionage directorate, tasked with modernizing a creaking command economy in the 1980s, Mr X weathered the collapse of the previous regime and after a turbulent decade of asset stripping rose to lead a faction of billionaire oligarchs, robber barons, and former secret policemen. Mr X trades on his ruthless reputation \u2014 he is said to have ordered a defector murdered by means of a radioisotope so rare that the assassination consumed several months’ global<\/em> production \u2014 and despite having an official salary on the order of \u00a3250,000 he has a private jet with solid gold toilet seats and more palaces than you can shake a stick at. Also nuclear missiles. (Don’t forget the nuclear missiles.) Said to be dating the ex-wife of Mr Y. Exit strategy: change the constitution to make himself President-for-Life. Attends military parades on Red Square, natch. Bond Villain Credibility: 10\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Y: Australian multi-billionaire news magnate. (Currently married to a former supermodel and ex-wife of Mick Jagger.) Owns 80% of the news media in Australia and numerous holdings in the UK and USA, including satellite TV channels, radio stations, and newspapers. Reputedly had Arthur C. Clarke on speed-dial for advice about the future of communications technology. Was the actual no-shit model upon whom Elliot Carver, the villain in “Tomorrow Never Dies”, the 18th Bond movie, was based. Exit strategy: he’s 86, leave it all to the kids. Bond Villain Credibility: 10\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I think there’s a pattern here: don’t you? And, more to the point, I draw one very useful inference from it: if I need to write any more near-future fiction, instead of striving for realism in my fictional political leaders I should just borrow the cheesiest Bond villain not already a member of the G20 or Davos.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Stross may have cracked the mystery of what the heck is happening in our particularly odd time period: History: is it about kings, dates, and battles, or the movement of masses and the invisible hand of macroeconomics? There’s something to be said for both theories, but I have a new, countervailing theory about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,57],"tags":[1570,122,463,85,1469],"class_list":["post-39509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-humour","tag-greatmantheory","tag-movies","tag-parody","tag-sf","tag-worldeconomicforum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ahf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39509"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79427,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39509\/revisions\/79427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}