You People Have No Idea Whatsoever What We’re Facing: Why the New World Order Will Not Allow Democracy to Jeopardise Their Techno Paradise
The elite have discovered a problem. The future they promised requires materials that do not exist in sufficient quantity. So they will take them. By force, if necessary.
When billionaire mining magnate Robert Friedland stood before an audience at the University of Southern California in January 2025, he delivered something the assembled academics and business leaders were not expecting: the truth.
“You people have no idea whatsoever what we’re facing,” he told them, his voice cutting through the polite optimism of clean energy projections. “You’re dreaming.”
Friedland’s presentation laid bare a crisis that Davos attendees acknowledge in private but rarely admit in public: the material foundations of the promised green energy transition do not exist. To maintain current economic growth without adding a single electric vehicle, data centre, or wind turbine, humanity must mine the same amount of copper in the next 18 years as it extracted over the previous 10,000.
That figure bears repeating. The next 18 years must yield 700 million metric tonnes of copper, matching the entire cumulative output of human civilisation from Mohenjo-daro to the present day. This calculation excludes electrification, excludes the AI revolution, excludes every solar panel and offshore wind farm that elite summits proclaim essential to planetary survival.
The mathematics are unforgiving. S&P Global projects copper demand will surge 50% by 2040, reaching 42 million metric tonnes annually, while production will peak at 33 million tonnes in 2030 before declining. The International Energy Agency anticipates a 30% supply shortfall by 2035. Every data centre requires approximately 60 tonnes of minerals per megawatt. Microsoft’s modest 80-megawatt Chicago facility consumed 2,100 tonnes of copper. The AI infrastructure Goldman Sachs projects for the next decade would require production increases that mining executives privately describe as “physically impossible.”
Three tier-one copper mines, each producing 300,000 tonnes annually, must open every year until 2050 to meet projected demand. That’s 87 new world-class mines in less than three decades. The industry currently struggles to replace one.
This is where Friedland’s presentation departed from the reassuring sustainability narratives. He did not offer technological solutions or recycling optimism. He stated the obvious: “Copper is money. And the energy demand is beyond anything you can possibly imagine. It’s just crazy.”
The Geography of Desperation
The elite consensus understands what Friedland articulated. They understand that Chile’s copper mines are century-old operations on declining ore grades. They understand that from discovery to production now averages 16.5 years rather than the seven it took in the 1970s. They understand that Chinese dominance of critical mineral processing, 80% of global refining capacity, represents not market efficiency but strategic stranglehold.
They understand, in short, that the green energy transition they’ve spent two decades marketing is materially impossible without a level of resource extraction that would make 19th-century colonialism blush.
Which brings us to Greenland.
Trump’s threats to acquire the Danish territory, by force if necessary, struck European allies as crude American imperialism. His administration’s seizure of Venezuela’s government and immediate exploitation of its oil reserves appeared equally brazen. But strip away the theatrical indignation and examine the material facts: Greenland hosts 1.5 million tonnes of rare earth reserves, 25 of 34 European Commission critical minerals, vast untapped copper deposits, and graphite reserves of exceptional purity. Venezuela possesses claims to 340 million tonnes of nickel, substantial copper resources, and South America’s largest gold reserves.
When Stephen Miller declared, “nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” he was not boasting. He was stating calculated probability. When Trump insisted, “We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not,” he was not negotiating. He was announcing material necessity dressed as geopolitical ambition.
The pattern repeats wherever geology offers what economics demands. Qatar Investment Authority commits $500 million to Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines. China secures copper supply through loans to commodity-rich nations. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite severe human rights abuses including widespread child labour, receives American military support in exchange for preferential access to cobalt and copper. Australia and Canada expand critical minerals partnerships not from environmental conviction but strategic anxiety.
This is resource competition in its rawest form, the return of imperial zero-sum logic that defined the scrambles for Africa and Asia. The difference is rhetorical framing. Where Victorian-era powers spoke of civilising missions, contemporary elites speak of climate action and technological progress. The underlying dynamic remains identical: he who controls the materials controls the future.
The Democratic Problem
Democracy becomes a problem when material scarcity conflicts with elite ambition.
The British establishment understood this in 1956 when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. American planners understood it throughout the Cold War when resource-rich nations elected governments insufficiently compliant with corporate interests. The contemporary elite consensus understands it now, watching projected copper shortfalls threaten their vision of an electrified, AI-powered, climate-controlled techno-utopia.
Democracy means populations might object to having their water supplies poisoned by lithium extraction. It means communities might resist being displaced for rare earth mining. It means electorates might question whether doubling electrical infrastructure to power AI systems constitutes sensible resource allocation during claimed climate emergency. It means sovereign nations might refuse to sell their territory regardless of offered price.
These are not abstract concerns. The Online Safety Act enables mass social media arrests. The Palantir NHS contract establishes surveillance infrastructure marketed as healthcare efficiency. Digital ID schemes advance despite massive public opposition forcing temporary retreat. Journalist detentions under terrorism legislation become routine. Each mechanism serves immediate stated purposes while establishing precedent for more comprehensive control.
Labour’s government, notionally of the left, has proven as committed to this architecture as any Tory administration. The elite consensus transcends partisan division because material scarcity transcends politics. When copper supplies fall 30% short of demand, when data centres require mineral inputs that don’t exist, when the gulf between promised transition and available materials becomes undeniable, democratic processes that might delay resource extraction become luxuries the system cannot afford.
Friedland stated this plainly: “We don’t even have the capability in this country to weld the containment vessels in a traditional nuclear power plant.” The infrastructure required to build the infrastructure for the energy transition has been dismantled or offshored. Ore grades decline while energy requirements for extraction increase sixteenfold since 1900. Water consumption for mining has doubled as grades worsen. Chile’s copper operations, accounting for 24% of global production, face cost crises and energy shortages.
The S&P Global study released in January 2026, timed for Davos consumption, made the supply deficit explicit. It termed copper shortage a “systemic risk for global industries, technological advancement and economic growth.” The United States responded by designating copper a critical mineral in November 2025. The designation changes nothing about geology but signals everything about intent.
The Abandonment of Pretence
We should understand Trump’s Greenland threats and Venezuela seizure not as aberrations but as previews. The old imperial powers maintained elaborate fictions about international law, sovereign equality, and rules-based order. These fictions served useful purposes during periods of relative resource abundance and undisputed American hegemony. They become impediments when material reality intrudes.
“I don’t need international law,” Trump declared regarding Greenland. That statement will shock liberals who believed legal architecture somehow constrained power. It should not. International law has always bent to accommodate powerful states’ material interests. What’s changing is the abandonment of pretence.
The Davos set understands what Friedland articulated. They see S&P Global’s projections. They receive mining industry briefings explaining why promised supply increases won’t materialise. They know that China controls not only rare earth processing but increasingly the mines themselves through strategic investments. They recognise that without massive new copper production, the AI revolution stalls, the green transition fails, and economic growth that underpins social stability evaporates.
Faced with this material impossibility, they have a choice. They can abandon or dramatically scale back the techno-utopian vision, accepting that current consumption patterns and economic structures require fundamental restructuring rather than electrification. Or they can ensure that democratic processes, environmental protections, and national sovereignty do not interfere with resource extraction necessary for their vision’s realisation.
The surveillance infrastructure, the authoritarian legislation, the casual dismissal of international law, the threats of military force against allies, these are not separate developments. They represent the logical evolution of a system that has promised outcomes it cannot deliver without levels of control and extraction it could not pursue under genuinely democratic constraints.
Friedland’s warning was not that copper supplies are insufficient. Every mining executive knows this. His warning was that the elite classes consuming comfortable narratives about electric vehicles and renewable energy have no comprehension of the material revolution their visions demand. They believe ham sandwiches emerge from refrigerators. They cannot conceive the scale of mining, energy consumption, water usage, and environmental destruction required to build their imagined future.
When that future collides with geological reality, when copper shortfalls force choices between data centres and grid reliability, between electrification ambitions and manufacturing capacity, the system will not choose democratic deliberation. It will choose control.
Beyond the Rhetorical Veil
Venezuela offers instructive precedent. Within days of Maduro’s removal, Trump announced extraction of 50 million barrels of oil. The administration speaks openly of “fixing” Venezuela’s mining sector, reviving its “great mining history.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick declared Venezuela has “all the critical minerals” with enthusiasm that barely concealed acquisitive intent.
The humanitarian rhetoric that typically accompanies such interventions, the liberation narratives and democracy promotion language, are increasingly dispensable. Trump describes Maduro’s replacement government as cooperative and promises Venezuela will “do fantastically well,” meaning it will facilitate resource extraction on terms favourable to American interests.
Greenland follows similar logic. Trump dismissed Danish concerns by describing Greenland’s defence as “two dog sleds.” He alternates between purchase offers and military threats, confident that material necessity trumps diplomatic niceties. European allies issue statements defending territorial integrity while recognising their own critical mineral dependencies. Germany proposes Arctic Sentry, a permanent NATO mission in Greenland modelled on Baltic deployments. Denmark reinforces its military presence. Everyone manoeuvres for position because everyone understands the stakes.
The tragedy is that these resource scrambles will not solve the fundamental problem Friedland identified. Even if every copper deposit in Greenland reaches production, even if Venezuela’s claimed nickel reserves prove accurate and accessible, even if African nations accept renewed extraction on neo-colonial terms, the timeline from discovery to production remains 16 years. Ore grades continue declining. Energy requirements for extraction continue rising. The mathematics of exponential demand growth meeting finite geological resources remain implacable.
What the elite secure through imperial resource grabs is temporary advantage in an unwinnable race. China’s control of processing cannot conjure minerals from beneath earth. American acquisition of territory cannot accelerate geology. The green transition as currently conceived requires materials that do not exist in required quantities at grades that permit economic extraction using available energy.
The rational response would involve reconsidering the transition itself, questioning whether electrifying everything represents ecological salvation or just substitution of one form of extraction for another. It would involve examining whether AI systems requiring copper-intensive data centres constitute human priority over, say, reliable electrical grids or basic manufacturing capacity. It would involve democratic deliberation about how societies allocate increasingly scarce materials.
But rationality and democracy become casualties when elite visions meet material constraints. The New World Order that conspiracists imagine as shadowy coordination is simpler: it’s the logical evolution of a ruling class that has promised outcomes requiring resources that don’t exist. They will not abandon their vision. They will instead abandon the democratic constraints that might force them to.
What This Means
Friedland’s warning was not aimed at his audience’s comprehension. Mining executives understand copper shortfalls. The warning was documentary: when the supply deficits become undeniable, when data centres go dark and EV production stalls, when the promised transition collides with geological reality, remember that you were told. The materials were never there. The mathematics never worked. The vision was always fantasy.
And remember that the elite knew. They commissioned the S&P Global study. They attended the Davos panels. They heard the IEA projections. They understood what Friedland stated plainly: maintaining economic growth without electrification requires mining humanity’s entire copper history again in under two decades. With electrification, with AI, with the green transition, the demand is beyond comprehension.
They knew, and they chose to proceed. They chose surveillance and control. They chose military threats against allies. They chose resource imperialism dressed as climate action. They chose to abandon democratic constraints rather than techno-utopian ambitions.
Because the alternative, admitting the vision was always materially impossible, would require a reckoning with the economic structures that demand perpetual growth, the consumption patterns that treat planetary resources as infinite, the technological fantasies that substitute extraction for efficiency.
That reckoning would threaten their position. So they will take Greenland’s copper. They will mine Venezuela’s nickel. They will impose the surveillance necessary to suppress democratic resistance. They will do this while marketing themselves as visionaries saving humanity through electrification and AI.
And Friedland will remain correct. Most people, even the educated professionals in urban centres, have no idea whatsoever what we’re facing.
They’re dreaming.
The copper crisis is not coming. It has arrived. The authoritarian infrastructure is not hypothetical. It’s operational. The resource imperialism is not potential. It’s policy. The only question is whether democratic resistance can match elite determination, or whether the 21st century becomes what the elite already envision: their techno paradise, sustained by your subjugation. And just like silver, the price will reach top dollar…
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