I recently had a chance to watch "Age of Disclosure." The premise of the documentary is interesting: UFOs are real,
antigravity technology exists, and all the major powers of the world possess it—and it's within our grasp.
So, why wouldn't we just release it? Why wouldn't we use it?
The true answer is complex and rooted in the way society must collectively update its understanding of reality. We are conditioned to believe that transportation is constrained and finite, fuel costs are high, and—economically speaking—the total value of the global airline industry is enormous (X Amount).
So let's think about this: how could society effectively integrate antigravity, and what would the implications be?
US Antigravity Corporation
Welcome to 2025, the US Antigravity Coroporation has announced their seed round led by INQTEL. They raised $100,000,000 at $1B Post with follow on from Founders Fund, General Catalyst, and, of course, Andreessen Horowitz.
Their flagship prodcut is the AG-001, a small, portable antigravity engine. Alongside their engine they release a small personal craft the FP-MK-0 (named after the Falco Peregrinus)
Its available starting at the small price of
[Note: Analysis below is AI-assisted]
What Changes
Moving mass upward costs energy: mass × height × 9.8 m/s². Every airplane, rocket, crane, and elevator exists because lifting is expensive.
Antigravity makes vertical movement free. Not cheaper. Free.
Every civilization in history has been shaped by gravity as constraint. Remove the constraint, and you don't get incremental gains. You get phase change.
The Destruction Ledger
INDUSTRIES AT RISK (Annual Value / Assets) ══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Shipping & Logistics ████████████████████████████ $14.0T └─ 3D routing kills ports, highways, rail Oil & Gas (transport) ██████████████████ $4.2T └─ 60% of petroleum is transportation Commercial Aviation ████ $0.8T └─ Hub-and-spoke airports become obsolete Space Industry ██ $0.4T └─ Falcon 9 becomes museum piece Construction (vertical) ████████ $2.0T └─ Foundations, cranes, elevators: all gravity tax ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── TOTAL EXPOSURE ~$21T
$21 trillion in assets exist because gravity is a problem. If gravity stops being a problem, that wealth doesn't transfer. It vanishes.
Who Fights, Who Wins
Mancur Olson explained why bad policies persist: concentrated losers organize, diffuse winners don't.
LOSERS WINNERS
┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ • Concentrated │ │ • Diffuse │
│ • Wealthy NOW │ │ • Wealthy LATER │
│ • Organized │ │ • Unorganized │
│ • Aware │ │ • Unaware │
│ │ │ │
│ Airlines, Oil, │ │ Everyone, │
│ Shipping, Aerospace│ │ Eventually │
└─────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────┘
│ │
▼ ▼
LOBBY HARD ────────────────────── DO NOTHING
│ │
└──────────► LOSERS WIN ◄─────────┘
(for now)
No conspiracy needed. Just incentives. A few trillion dollars and institutional self-preservation do the work.
Why Gradual Adoption Fails
Cars didn't kill horses overnight. The transition took decades. Infrastructure evolved. Buggy whip makers retrained.
Antigravity can't work that way.
WHY AG IS DISCONTINUOUS:
1. PRICE CONTROL FAILS
Can't price high enough ──► Black markets emerge ──► Tech spreads
2. GEOGRAPHIC CONTAINMENT FAILS
Not like nukes (rare isotopes) ──► If engineerable, reproducible
3. MILITARY PRESSURE
Any nation that delays ──► Loses dominance to those who don't
Everyone might agree slow transition is better. No one can commit to it. Defection pays too well.
THE CIVILIZATIONAL PRISONER'S DILEMMA
NATION B
Suppress Release
┌───────────┬───────────┐
Suppress │ Status │ B wins │
NATION A │ quo │ A loses │
├───────────┼───────────┤
Release │ A wins │ Chaos │
│ B loses │ (but fair)│
└───────────┴───────────┘
Dominant strategy: RELEASE
Nash equilibrium: CHAOS
The Math on Transition
Total wealth created by antigravity exceeds wealth destroyed. Asteroid mining alone dwarfs all terrestrial resources. Geographic barriers to development disappear. Transportation costs hit the poor hardest, so the poor gain most.
But "total wealth increases" and "smooth transition" are different claims.
TRANSITION TIMELINE
Present ─────────────────────────────────────────────► Future
LOSSES GAINS
(concrete) (abstract)
(now) (later)
(real people) (unborn people)
│ │
▼ ▼
POLITICAL NO LOBBY
POWER NO VOICE
Present losses are concrete, future gains are abstract. Humans trade poorly across that gap. Institutions trade worse.
Four Options, All Bad
┌────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ OPTION │ PROBLEM │ ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Government │ Captured by incumbents. FAA won't │ │ monopoly │ deregulate aviation out of existence. │ ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Patent-protected │ Unenforceable if tech is simple. │ │ rollout │ 20 years of artificial scarcity on │ │ │ civilization-altering tech is obscene. │ ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Open-source │ Fastest wealth creation. Also fastest │ │ release │ wealth destruction. Probably wars. │ ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ International │ Requires trust that doesn't exist. │ │ coordination │ First defector wins. No one signs. │ └────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Every path leads to suppression (delayed benefits, pressure builds) or disruption (wealth destruction, lives lost). Pick your poison.
The Equilibrium
If antigravity exists and can be suppressed, the stable state is:
SUPPRESSION EQUILIBRIUM
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ Major powers possess AG secretly │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Use for military (advantage too large) │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Suppress civilian use (regime stability) │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ Leaks occur ──► Discredited ──► Suppressed │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ REPEAT until: │
│ • Secret becomes unkeepable, OR │
│ • Major power defects for advantage │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
"Age of Disclosure" fits this model. Disclosure isn't truth-seeking. It's someone calculating that breaking the equilibrium now beats continued suppression.
The jig is up. Or someone wants to force transition before a rival does. Or the suppression apparatus degraded past functionality.
Implications
If you believe AG is real:
- Avoid long positions in gravity-dependent industries. Timing uncertain, direction clear.
- Location-dependent real estate is fragile. "Near the airport" means nothing without airports.
- Logistics/transport/aerospace careers face disruption. Pivotability matters.
If you don't believe AG is real: the framework still applies. Swap in strong AI, or any constraint-removing technology. Same political economy. Same transition problem.
Civilization-altering technologies will emerge. The question is whether institutions can handle constraint removal. Track record on smaller disruptions suggests: probably not.
That's the real economics of antigravity. Not "what does an AG-001 cost?" but "can human institutions survive the removal of fundamental constraints?"
History says: eventually, yes. Gracefully, no.