r/Cascadia • u/CascadianAtHeart Cascadian Ambassador • 4d ago

Microsoft’s President Envisions a Transformed Cascadia Mega Region

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/brad-smiths-vision-for-the-pnw-microsofts-tomorrowland-everywhere/
119 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

155

u/scough 4d ago

While I do agree that we should work with Vancouver/Canada a lot more, I don’t want an oligarch doing the planning. Especially if Cascadia eventually became independent, we don’t want to leave one oligarchy for another.

83

u/Byeuji Seattle 4d ago edited 3d ago

Notice how he managed to dig in on WA state's upcoming tax revisions and argue against wealth and payroll taxes. He literally wants the wealthy to continue building an advantage, and even the Seattle Times had to pump the brakes on him there.

This dude is not who we want championing Cascadia, and neither is Gregoire.

21

u/Less_Likely 4d ago

It wouldn’t be a new oligarch. The same oligarchy, just a more defined fiefdom.

10

u/aithendodge 3d ago

Yeah, like, Seattle and the I-5 corridor from Olympia to Vancouver as a technocratic city-state, dig? And like, some ley lines appear, and then some orcs and elves and shit show up, right? We could have, some hackers, with these decks, for hacking. We call 'em Deckers, kinda like Deckard, from Bladerunner, right? And maybe some samurais - like, on the streets, protecting people, like Street Samurai! Fuck yeah! Alright, hold on, I've got something for this...

Uh, so, anyone in the Tumwater/Oly area wanna play Shadowrun?

2

u/jspook 3d ago

It's supposed to be a game! Not real life!

1

u/sacrificial_blood 3d ago

Happy cake day!

1

u/Less_Likely 3d ago

Thanks!

10

u/SocialTechnocracy 4d ago

How do you feel about government oligarchies? As a Canadian Cascadian (Canscadian?), I'm nervoullsly looking left and right. We are... Very prone to oligopoly. Some good, some bad.

11

u/jspook 4d ago

Kill the corporations. The only guarantor of personal economic liberty is private property. If you don't have property, you aren't free. Our social safety nets should account for this, I guess I'd call it libertarian socialism.

7

u/Maxtrt PNW Tree Octopus 3d ago edited 3d ago

Kill corporate person hood and corporate charters should be revocable at anytime. Corporations should not be allowed to own any residential properties. Corporations should also be forced to share 50% of it's profits with it's non executive employees and tie executive salaries, bonuses and stock options to a maximum of 20 times what the lowest paid employees receives.

2

u/jspook 3d ago

And the other 50% is distributed amongst the populace, for "publicly traded" businesses above a certain size and gross income bracket.

6

u/Less_Likely 4d ago

Agree. We are hyper-speeding toward a rental economy, feudalism not of land and military protection but of IP and legal protections. Oh, and probably land /military too.

0

u/aithendodge 3d ago

A friend of my refers to himself as a "bleeding heart libertarian," and I kind of like it.

3

u/TheNorthernRose 4d ago

Yeah letting them lead the way is just asking for corporate stateship. I don’t want corporate overlords over me in Cascadia anymore than I’ve not wanted it in all of the US.

2

u/solveig82 3d ago

Right? No fucking way the people want some asshat billionaire “with a vision” in charge of anything. JFC

2

u/Arachnoid666 2d ago

Right? Meet the new boss- the same as the old boss.

61

u/pettythief1346 4d ago

Id love a new cascadia that didn't host billionaires. No one that accrues that amount of wealth does so in good faith.

-2

u/raz_MAH_taz Salish Sea Ecoregion 3d ago

I think a pretty good deal would be 70% wealth tax and they can keep those ridiculous estates in Medina and Mercer Island.

22

u/dimpletown Washington 3d ago

I love Cascadia, I do not love oligarchs even thinking about it

37

u/Arachnoid666 4d ago edited 4d ago

yeah right. and who would run that? another oligarch? The goal right now is to destroy what is, then rich guys who run corporations making new cities and citystates that they run like a monarchy. It this just a repackaging of that yarvin crap?

19

u/jspook 4d ago

Corporate feudalism. It's been building for decades.

7

u/Arachnoid666 4d ago

yeah well no thanks on that shit.

4

u/jspook 4d ago

Agreed!!

5

u/Arachnoid666 4d ago

they want to make us desperate enough to let it happen. Americans better wake up and act

3

u/TheBman26 4d ago

It is and why people should tread carefully with the idea of cascadia

7

u/Arachnoid666 4d ago

The idea of Cascadia isn't this. This is an attempt to co-opt the idea of Cascadia and bend it to their whims. We desperately need rich people out of politics.

1

u/TheBman26 3d ago

I meant the article is not Cascadia as an idea but the fact that they plan to make countries out if the us means this idea needs to be treated carefully.

13

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Cascadia-ModTeam 3d ago

Sorry, we had to remove your comment. Reddit is very strict about this stuff, and we don't want to lose this sub.

13

u/Repulsive-Row803 4d ago

There are 13 billionaires in Western Washington that we have to contend with.

In contrast, Eastern Washington is relatively very poor with no billionaires—which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, we don't experience nearly the same level of wealth disparity within the region. On the other hand, we rely heavily on the high concentration of wealth around the Puget Sound to fund things like infrastructure. If we're allowed in (which sometimes feels like some people would rather keep us out entirely), I’m sure there would be some of us ready and willing to eliminate such wealth disparity through taxation and other methods, including myself.

7

u/raz_MAH_taz Salish Sea Ecoregion 3d ago

Well, we kinda need E-Wa: that's where all the agri is!

We need a wealth tax. Whichever form it takes.

6

u/Repulsive-Row803 3d ago

We're gonna replace Central Valley as the world continues to warm, with increased agricultural output/significance.

The money from the West side can support the infrastructure of the East side, which, in turn, helps feed the West side.

This is the way. Much love from Spokane ❤️

3

u/raz_MAH_taz Salish Sea Ecoregion 3d ago

Yes! Exactly.

And, that kind of social and infrastructure planning and logistics are definitely outside my wheelhouse, but this just makes sense to me.

3

u/Repulsive-Row803 3d ago

Fortunately, there are lots of intelligent and passionate Cascadian engineers that can tackle this. We got this!

2

u/raz_MAH_taz Salish Sea Ecoregion 3d ago

🤘🥰

25

u/jspook 4d ago

That's a huge red flag

7

u/Niyeaux Vancouver, BC 3d ago edited 3d ago

"Microsoft's President" should be at the top of the list of people we're throwing out the door

also this guy's from fucking Milwaukee! take a hike loser!

2

u/CrotchetyHamster 3d ago

also this guy's from fucking Milwaukee! take a hike loser!

Are we anti-immigrant already?

1

u/Niyeaux Vancouver, BC 2d ago

i suggest familiarizing yourself with the difference between an immigrant and a colonizer.

this guy wants to be your boss, not your neighbour.

1

u/CrotchetyHamster 2d ago

Colonization is not an action an individual can take, and I'm not convinced it's useful to apply this terminology to class war, since it fundamentally changes the narrative and directs focus away from socioeconomic inequality.

5

u/smp501 3d ago

He wants to turn it into those Curtis Yarvin “Freedom cities.” Don’t trust him.

3

u/goergesaintpiere 3d ago

Hell no. Cascadia for the people

4

u/Abysha 4d ago

I always knew that if the ROC becomes reality, it'll be largely backed by Microsoft. It always made me kinda sad but I'd take that over the united states of tesla at this point.

2

u/harbourhunter 3d ago

sure, but hopefully we won’t be completely disarmed by them (ahem m114)

2

u/Ataraxic_Animator 3d ago

To make it perfectly clear, our priorities need drastic revisions.

There should be a cap on private wealth, for example. In the modern technological world, no single human being, in a society of humans, should have a billion dollars as long as others in that same society go without a roof over their head and at least a subsistence level of food on the table. That is just a barely more refined version of serfdom.

Something unsavory happens to humans when they gain a certain threshold level of wealth-power. Nothing, however much, is ever enough and beyond that they would sooner euthanize the poor than share the slightest fraction of "their" money to care for the less advantaged when they are not immediately useful to their personally preferred ends. They will never build and fund a children's hospital over and above their fiftieth mansion or twentieth yacht.

We have long had the technology and collective wherewithal to end poverty and human misery, it is simply not done because the parasitic oligarch class prefers things as they are.

1

u/appleman666 3d ago

If they want to push the idea that's fine but we will not allow this project to be run by oligarchs. Be careful what you wish for.

1

u/Zalenka 3d ago

The united states of Boeingsoft