Telosa Dream Living, or 15-Minute City Trap? Maybe the tin-foil hat people were right all along!

BY MICHAEL THOMAS

I do not know about you, but when a guy whose net worth is five billion dollars suddenly has dreams of building a so-called heaven-on-earth city where there is: equity, financial success, and sustainable living for all, my BS detector goes off immediately.

Marc Lore is the man in question here and I want to outline his: sales pitch, promises, and talking points, especially his talking points which sound very familiar, that’s if you have been listening to anyone affiliated with the WEF (aka World Economic Forum).

Phase one of Telosa’s development is projected to cost $25 billion and will be funded primarily by investors and philanthropists. The total cost of building Telosa is estimated to surpass $400 billion, and Lore plans to pay for some of the costs out of his pocket by using returns on his startup investments.

From its inception, there have been serious living problems, like water for a start, because some of the greatest expenses in Telosa will be related to the city’s environmental challenges. Building on cheap land in the desert comes with disadvantages, most notably a lack of water.

Telosa’s website boasts the city’s environmental plans, which include a sophisticated system that can: store, clean, and reuse fresh water on-site, as well as an energy system powered by renewables. This has the sound of water rationing written all over it. I wonder if the developers and shareholders will be living there as well.

Your form of transportation will be walking and biking. There are plans for autonomous vehicles in the form of shuttles, and other forms of mass transit. I did not see any mention of private car ownership in this pitch.

Let us examine who will dwell in this proposed city. Lore has suggested that the first 50,000 residents be selected using an application process that will be focused on diversity and inclusion. Mr. Lore has pledged that the future city will be governed by transparent participatory democracy. All this is possible if you have no objections to living in the middle of the desert.

Lore has emphasized how building Telosa from a blank slate will enable the creation of superior transportation designed around: walking, biking, and transit. Lessons learned during the Covid pandemic show that with bold policy changes and investments, cities can reconfigure their existing transportation systems to prioritize people instead of vehicles.

Readers, I hope you are recognizing the talking points I spoke of earlier. Even though this model is proposed to Americans, it is also being showcased as a model for future cities worldwide.

“We have a chance to prove a new model for society that offers people a higher quality of life and greater opportunity,” Lore said in a statement. “When I look out 30 years from now, I imagine Equitism serving as a blueprint for other cities — and even the world — and Telosa being a place of pride for all who live there.”

“This pandemic has created a unique opportunity for a Great Reset.” Is anything sounding familiar as yet? The fifteen-minute cities are being pitched to us as beautiful places, but let’s be real here. If I wanted to imprison unsuspecting people, would I tell them the truth? Think about it. While you are thinking, read this as well and read good.

The official website for Telosa cites that one billion people will be affected by climate change in 2050. That figure falls in line with a United Nations climate change report in August dubbed a “code red for humanity,” noting that Earth could reach 1.5°C by 2040.

By now you must be asking who in hell is Marc Lore? He is the architect of Walmart Inc.’s digital ascent, former president and CEO of Walmart U.S. e-commerce.

He worked with Jeff Bezos earlier in his career, and now with his five billion he has big plans for the ordinary man, that is if you believe that.

We must not be distracted by fancy wordplay and farfetched promises. This is a time to take a second look at everything and everyone, including Marc Lore and his potential 15-minute city plans.

If all goes according to plan, the first 50,000 people will be moving in by the end of 2030. Have you seen the agenda yet?

Remember where not questioning the two weeks to flatten the curve got us?