11. Capacitors

Power Capacitors are accumulative capital that serve as potential mechanisms of Power, which can then be used to either expand or contract boundaries of freedom once converted into Negotiators. The many different types of Capacitors - economic, social, symbolic, and so on - can be combined in a variety of ways to provide entities with a number of advantages.

Capacitors have context-sensitive and relationally determined values. While they can be mixed, there isn't always a clear exchange rate... HOWEVER, classifying each of the types is a good start! So let's dive in.

Economic

Economic Capacitors are among the more quantifiable Capacitors. Money, stocks, and other material assets allow folks to fulfill many of life’s basic needs, including food, shelter, and transportation. In a zero-sum economy with finite resources, wealth accumulation is necessarily at the expense of another, so Distributon facilitates the allocation of these resources.

Anyway, here's an interesting website that visualizes disparities: https://realtimeinequality.org/

Social

Social capital consists of relationships, recognition, networks, club affiliations/membership, etc.

Informational

Informational capital is access to and utilization of knowledge. Is leveraged most frequently for normalization and repression. Higher for folks who produce/share knowledge and can set the terms of "truth" for others. Not an exhaustive list but includes:

• Folks who have a wide audience/platform/reach, like the media or online influencers
• Those with credibility or formal credentials, like academia or government
• Those who exchange their economic capital for it, like advertisers
• Those who make the rules/algorithms on digital platforms

And also, 12GB military documents =/= 12GB of Twilight fanfiction

Political

Political capital is correlated with one's ability to shape institutions through law and regulation.

• To super oversimplify it, imagine it as the President having 1,000 political capital and the average voter having like 1.
• This obviously gets way more complicated when you factor in voter initiatives, interest groups, etc... and how economic capital can often translate to more political capital but not always

Since it impacts institutions, it can result in significant changes to society's dominant Realm directly (e.g., X thing is now illegal) or can impact the accumulation of another Capacitor (e.g., X group now pays fewer taxes).

Cultural

Cultural capital is correlated with one's familiarity with, and ability to shape, culture. (knowledge, skills, and other cultural acquisitions)

Symbolic

Symbolic capital is basically honor and recognition, all the good stuff that comes from aligning with Mythoscapes and their dominant interests...