• cosecantphi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Don't let the imperialists know this, but there exists an actually legal way for them to buy all of Afghanistan's mineral rights for significantly cheaper than market rate.

    They just need to buy this yellow shaded portion of the Pacific ocean: https://i.imgur.com/WD8CUSh.png

    It's on the exact opposite side of the world as Afghanistan. Since land ownership extends infinitely deep into the Earth (and also infinitely high into space, but that's irrelevant in this case) they can simply set up a base camp at the bottom of that patch of the ocean and construct a tunnel through the Earth to Afghanistan. Once there they can legally take the minerals since all of it will technically be under the purchased plot of land.

    This shaft through the Earth will also provide an easy means of transportation to bring the minerals home. If they evacuate the tunnel of all air, they can just drop the resources down the hole and they'll fall straight to the center of the Earth reaching a maximum speed of about 8km/s. That momentum will then carry the resources back up to the surface of the Earth at the ocean base camp.

      • cosecantphi [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        By my calculations the tunnel should pay for itself with a few decades as it becomes the main shipping lane between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. And since the Earth's gravitational field provides all the energy, it will help cut back a ton on CO2 emissions