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Strudel Man posted:You seemed to think that people have been 'socialized' to associate quality of life with consumption (recently, presumably?), when People Wanting More Things has kind of been a key component of human behavior since we started using tools. Hoping for this to substantially change is not a viable plan for addressing our ecological problems. This is the 'multi-billion dollar marketing and advertising industries have no effect' fallacy.
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Jan 7, 2012 09:44
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deptstoremook posted:You unwittingly do the exact same thing you criticize later on. You're brushing off consumption (fueled by the full faith & credit of the first world) as though it were some trivial concern. It's not unwitting, it's just not a real comparison. I agree, the richest 10-15% of the world could stand to cut back their resource use quite a bit without significantly impairing their quality of life. Much like "curbing government waste" in the other austerity argument though, that's not going to fill the hole. Not if we want to bring those other billions up to a similarly reasonable but presumably not excessive quality of life. They're going to need technology, they're going to need infrastructure and cleaner industry, they're going to need goods, and they're going to need the power that makes all of that. quote:Also, nice job on advocating for "population control" in the third world: I guess the scare quotes are needed to villainize "population control" that consists of increasing worldwide health and standards of living to the point where all evidence suggests that they have fewer children and support them better. As has happened in the developed world, as is happening in the developing world. This is one of those things that I happily call "really loving awesome for everyone involved." The best part is that it's a solution of stabilizing resource consumption in the long term without either gross violation of reproductive freedom like the One Child Policy, or the mass Malthusean die-offs that some people seem to furtively masturbate to in their version of survivalists talking about shooting looters "WTSHTF."
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Jan 7, 2012 09:49
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killer robot posted:The rest of the world is the point ...so make them build the nuclear reactors?
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Jan 7, 2012 09:53
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Ratios and Tendency posted:This is the 'multi-billion dollar marketing and advertising industries have no effect' fallacy. My position here, the one I have staked out, is that the desire to acquire more material goods is a fairly fundamental human behavioral characteristic, and that while it may be somewhat culturally malleable in the extent to which it drives us, it is not something that can extinguished or strongly suppressed. Do you, in fact, disagree with this position? And if you do, how would your characterize your understanding of consumption?
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Jan 7, 2012 09:53
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eh4 posted:...so make them build the nuclear reactors? Thankfully, signs are that they are! China and India will develop cheaper and more efficient nuclear reactors whether or not the rich nations keep hand-wringing about them, then sell them to other countries in need. It just won't be as quick or offer as many options if they're the only ones doing it. Still, it's a technology and development that's good wherever you put it: the more practice and refined the methods become the cheaper and more reliable the plants are, boosting availability worldwide. Not to mention that cleaner energy can be used to replace dirtier energy. The industrial world can and should eliminate coal and gas, for example, but it's neither likely nor even desirable to simply eliminate the existing energy capacity and not replace it. Modern nuclear isn't a sole solution there, but it's one. This is not unique to nuclear though: wind, solar, and other non-fossil sources are great things to be developed and employed both in the industrialized and developing world, for reasons common to both and also for reasons unique to each.
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Jan 7, 2012 10:18
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Strudel Man posted:My position here, the one I have staked out, is that the desire to acquire more material goods is a fairly fundamental human behavioral characteristic, and that while it may be somewhat culturally malleable in the extent to which it drives us, it is not something that can extinguished or strongly suppressed. In what way does the numeric quantity of acquired things relate to survival? A naked human being on the savannah can only carry two things at a time, and if they did so it would make their hands unavailable. For a substantial period of human history, we did not have the ability to fashion tools that were substantially more effective than our hands for dealing with our environment. Would you still say this human being is fundamentally motivated to acquire more objects? It seems reasonable to assume that the possibility of a human being to actually make use of and consequently desire to acquire many objects is dependent on a number of other developments more closely tied to affecting their ability to survive. Given this, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the desire to accumulate more objects than necessary for survival must necessarily have been a behavioral trait developed much later, and therefore not fundamental? Orbis Tertius fucked around with this message at 11:04 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 10:42
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Killer robot posted:Thankfully, signs are that they are! China and India will develop cheaper and more efficient nuclear reactors whether or not the rich nations keep hand-wringing about them, then sell them to other countries in need. It just won't be as quick or offer as many options if they're the only ones doing it. Still, it's a technology and development that's good wherever you put it: the more practice and refined the methods become the cheaper and more reliable the plants are, boosting availability worldwide. What a coincidence! We're selling them uranium! Well that's settled.
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Jan 7, 2012 10:46
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Strudel Man posted:One thing I've come to greatly dislike about arguing here (and, honestly, I'm often guilty of it myself), is that everyone responds in, well, quips. Brief, often sarcastic snippets that are meant more to vaguely suggest at an argument or simply to satirize an opponent than to actually present any kind of thesis. It turns discussions into this vague and mushy (and hostile) back and forth of tearing into the last thing said, and half the time no one has or even tries to have a solid notion of what the other person actually thinks. Material consumption is just an arbitrary style of ornamentation, which are culturally sensitive means of sexual display. The sexual competition part is the non-negotiable behavior, not the specific items or amounts people are squabbling over.
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Jan 7, 2012 10:54
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Strudel Man posted:My position here, the one I have staked out, is that the desire to acquire more material goods is a fairly fundamental human behavioral characteristic, and that while it may be somewhat culturally malleable in the extent to which it drives us, it is not something that can extinguished or strongly suppressed. Then why don't primitive tribes with limited or no access to modern civilization not really seek to accumulate 'stuff', beyond what their tribe requires to live their lives. You could say that they don't know any different. You could also say that about us. There's far too much conditioning in our modern culture to really say what fundamental human behaviour is. In fact, I'd think that we are exceptionally malleable in that sense, because our world changes so fast and what is considered fundamental human behaviour seems to shift dramatically between generations and cultures. edit: Of course, such tribes don't really have the capacity or resources to manufacture stuff so I guess my first para is kinda silly. That said, the human desire to be consumers, as it exists now, is certainly a deliberately manufactured desire by the TV industrial complex that is saturation of advertising, to the point where people link their personal worth with their stuff. Maluco Marinero fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 12:22
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eh4 posted:What a coincidence! We're selling them uranium! Well that's settled. They might have more use for thorium, hopefully.
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Jan 7, 2012 12:53
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VideoTapir posted:edit: nevermind, this was idiotic. Your not thinking enough like a goon. You see because Fukushima (which "only" displaced about 100,000 people, totally nothing at all!) didn't have good safety measures like us here in the west whos reactors are staffed by actual robots instead of humans and are thus imperveous to human failures, we should deduce our safety standards are too strict because apparently people who worry about safety literally run about shouting "ATOMS" at the top of their voices..
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Jan 7, 2012 14:19
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Killer robot posted:It's not unwitting, it's just not a real comparison. I agree, the richest 10-15% of the world could stand to cut back their resource use quite a bit without significantly impairing their quality of life. Much like "curbing government waste" in the other austerity argument though, that's not going to fill the hole. Not if we want to bring those other billions up to a similarly reasonable but presumably not excessive quality of life. They're going to need technology, they're going to need infrastructure and cleaner industry, they're going to need goods, and they're going to need the power that makes all of that. Look, this is ethnocentric still. Bear with me, because this is important. You presume in your post that "they" need "technology, infrastructure, industry, goods, power." In other words, you seem to be saying that the Third World ought to and must follow a specific course, outlined by Westerners, which will essentially turn them into replicas of one another. In my own ecocritical reading I've noticed a bit of a (maybe unwitting) imperialistic streak. I think this is what you're doing. In this case, it's not religion that will "civilize" the Other. Rather, it's clean energy, technology, industry: consumption. This is tricky ethical territory but I think you need to think about whether it's right for the West--once again--to impose its world view and norms on the third world. It hasn't gone well in the past, nor have we ever been good role models. quote:I guess the scare quotes are needed to villainize "population control" that consists of increasing worldwide health and standards of living to the point where all evidence suggests that they have fewer children and support them better At the end of the day though you're still advocating for population control via Western intervention (see above) and that's really, really lovely. You don't get a pass just because your way doesn't literally involve sterilizing people. In fact, this kind of passive method is possibly even more devious.
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Jan 7, 2012 18:24
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It's not a conspiracy, it's a fairly well known correlation. That's a strong inverse correlation between per factors and indicators of social and economic development and per capita consumption of primary energy, especially the fertility rate and therefore the rate of population growth. Countries with high standards of living and higher per capita consumption generally have very low or no population growth. The important milestone appears to be around 1 ton of oil equivalent per capita per year of primary energy consumption, where live expectancy reaches around 70, fertility decreases, and population growth slows down.
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Jan 7, 2012 18:46
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deptstoremook posted:Look, this is ethnocentric still. Bear with me, because this is important. You presume in your post that "they" need "technology, infrastructure, industry, goods, power." In other words, you seem to be saying that the Third World ought to and must follow a specific course, outlined by Westerners, which will essentially turn them into replicas of one another. So, are you saying that third world countries are only able to develop technologically by way of western intervention? And you seem to be also implying they have no will of their own to do so. Please, correct me. I realize development of society is not a teleological process towards some western pinnacle but you seem to be dismissing some really objective measurements like level of education and health. Not to say there is only one way to attain those but you sound like you are idolising some fictional noble savage.
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Jan 7, 2012 18:50
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Jerome Agricola posted:So, are you saying that third world countries are only able to develop technologically by way of western intervention? And you seem to be also implying they have no will of their own to do so. Please, correct me. I realize development of society is not a teleological process towards some western pinnacle but you seem to be dismissing some really objective measurements like level of education and health. Not to say there is only one way to attain those but you sound like you are idolising some fictional noble savage. I think he's commenting on the idea that further consumption is an empty solution so long as we face catastrophic climate change, and it's a fair point, there are no easy answers here.* I really disagree with the notion that increasing energy consumption and a correlated increase in the standard of living is the West imposing a particular world view, rather in many cases the West has crippled the development of those countries. e:* Just wanted to add a bit about competing factors - We can expect certain improvements in energy conversion efficiency which will deliver social and economic development at a lower "cost" per capita, perhaps up to a doubling of overall life-cycle efficiency. Human population is also expected to double though, and it's not a given that efficiency upgrades will reach the areas that require them most over a reasonable time frame. Narbo fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jan 7, 2012 |
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Jan 7, 2012 19:39
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Narbo posted:It's not a conspiracy, it's a fairly well known correlation. Yes, but Killer robot assumed two bad things: A) the burden should not be on the first world to reduce its energy consumption (even though America alone regularly hits 5-8 TOE/capita/annum depending on who you ask), and B) the third world having its birth rate reduced (note the passive voice) is a desirable thing for their own good. Jerome Agricola posted:So, are you saying that third world countries are only able to develop technologically by way of western intervention? And you seem to be also implying they have no will of their own to do so. Please, correct me. I realize development of society is not a teleological process towards some western pinnacle but you seem to be dismissing some really objective measurements like level of education and health. Not to say there is only one way to attain those but you sound like you are idolising some fictional noble savage. Learn to read. Killer robot is suggesting intervention by means of Western technology (industry, energy) to suit Western mores (low birth rate). At the same time he suggests Western energy consumption is a relatively minor corollary to some larger problem, situated in the third world. There is no such thing as a "noble savage," and in fact I'm advocating for third world autonomy, not third world correctionalism. If we're talking purely in terms of the environment, the 20,000ish years of preindustrial nomadic and agri-culture had a minor impact on the environment when compared to 300 years of industrialized production. And yet we've got people here who literally think that more industrialization is the answer.
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Jan 7, 2012 19:54
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deptstoremook posted:If we're talking purely in terms of the environment, the 20,000ish years of preindustrial nomadic and agri-culture had a minor impact on the environment when compared to 300 years of industrialized production. And yet we've got people here who literally think that more industrialization is the answer. Narbo posted:Just wanted to add a bit about competing factors - We can expect certain improvements in energy conversion efficiency which will deliver social and economic development at a lower "cost" per capita, perhaps up to a doubling of overall life-cycle efficiency. Human population is also expected to double though, and it's not a given that efficiency upgrades will reach the areas that require them most over a reasonable time frame. Exactly this. Resource productivity per unit of GDP is a ubiquitous measure of the progress towards sustainability - efficiency is basically the entire rationale behind "green economies". BUT it describes relative reductions, not absolute reductions in resource use. If you look instead at environmentally efficient well-being (i.e. not GDP but literacy, life expectancy and income; or "life satisfaction" as the Happy Planet Index uses) then some developing countries are doing very well. By this account, Costa Rica should be our model to emulate.
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Jan 7, 2012 20:27
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deptstoremook posted:Yes, but Killer robot assumed two bad things: A) the burden should not be on the first world to reduce its energy consumption (even though America alone regularly hits 5-8 TOE/capita/annum depending on who you ask), and B) the third world having its birth rate reduced (note the passive voice) is a desirable thing for their own good. North American consumption is around 8 toe/capita, yes, but I think we need to look at a forecast of energy needs around the world to put that in perspective. By the end of the century, it's reasonable to assume that Africa and South Asia will grow their share of population from 1/3 currently to 1/2 of the world. North America, Australia/NZ, Japan, Western and Eastern Europe currently share around 22%, that will drop to between 10-15%. Per capita energy consumption is around half of North American values for the rest of these regions. Efficiency improvements will drop the per-capita consumption of industrialized nations and partially mitigate the increase from developing countries (probably, because of uneven distribution), so while there will certainly be a rise in overall energy consumption we can expect a slight drop in the world average per capita primary energy consumption. I think that without getting into who deserves what, we can say that there is a lot of room for North Americans to reduce their per capita consumption of primary energy without necessarily experiencing a drop in standards of living (besides maybe the dream of turning the desert into New Hampshire). Energy consumption and development in Asia, China, and Africa will however drive the energy mix in the future. We can also say that the birth rates in developing countries become extremely important to the future energy mix and potential for a rise in the standard of living for that country. A reduction in the birth rate of a developing country is positive for the planet, as we can assume that there are fewer people consuming energy and polluting. From what I've read, it's positive for the community and the woman as there are fewer strains on local resources, reduced risk of complications with fewer pregnancies, and all of the positive effects that come along with increased control of their health and lives. Whether or not it's good for a particular nation is hard to answer as it would depend on the development challenges and current demographics, but I don't really think that matters here. I don't understand why you would single out the passive voice as offensive, it isn't as though a reduction in birth rate is achieved through Western doctors intervening or forcing contraception on people who don't want it. Maybe you could explain that part a bit. Also Hi Myotis!
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Jan 7, 2012 21:07
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deptstoremook posted:Learn to read. Why did you have to go and spoil a perfectly good point (I'm sure it was, didn't read it) with this? Boo.
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Jan 7, 2012 22:20
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deptstoremook posted:If we're talking purely in terms of the environment, the 20,000ish years of preindustrial nomadic and agri-culture had a minor impact on the environment when compared to 300 years of industrialized production. And yet we've got people here who literally think that more industrialization is the answer. What is the answer then? It seems you are pushing for a return to pre-industry, what do you suppose we do with the other 6.5 billion people who will be unable to eat in this scenario? Massive renewable high tech industrialization is the only way to reliably support the whole planet while fighting climate change. The 3rd world is not going to stop it push for westernization no matter how much we crow about the environment.
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Jan 8, 2012 00:19
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Balnakio posted:What is the answer then? It seems you are pushing for a return to pre-industry, what do you suppose we do with the other 6.5 billion people who will be unable to eat in this scenario? Massive renewable high tech industrialization is the only way to reliably support the whole planet while fighting climate change. The 3rd world is not going to stop it push for westernization no matter how much we crow about the environment. People tend to get caught up in the whole equity issue while failing to consider the difference between needs and wants.  These are regressions of HDI and primary energy, carbon emissions from 1975 to 2005 (Source: Steinberger & Roberts / Ecological Economics 70 (2010) 425-433). Notice the decoupling of human well-being and resource use around 50-100GJ Energy / 1-2T carbon. We can all live perfectly well on resources that are well within the limits of the biosphere, IPCC scenarios included. Rich countries just gotta degrow; then we need absolute caps on all resources, including population (it is a key IPAT identity after all). Tough decisions have to be made, but they may be done with a minimum of regressive policies while using market mechanisms (see Prosperity Without Growth). Massive renewable high tech industrialization would spell disaster for the planet. Besides Jevon's paradox, there is a strong correlation between energy use and environmental impact. Myotis fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 00:59
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Balnakio posted:What is the answer then? It seems you are pushing for a return to pre-industry, what do you suppose we do with the other 6.5 billion people who will be unable to eat in this scenario? Massive renewable high tech industrialization is the only way to reliably support the whole planet while fighting climate change. The 3rd world is not going to stop it push for westernization no matter how much we crow about the environment. We can feed everyone on the planet easily without increasing the amount of industry. The problem is not a lack of food but the lack of an equitable method of distribution. I tend to agree that "the third world" (and everyone else too) is going to keep doubling down on using industrial solutions to solve problems, environmental costs be damned. I'm not particularly convinced there is a real "solution" to climate change. I've said it in other threads, but we're in for suffering and it's best we accept it and move past it. Preventing hundreds of millions from dying due to climate change is near impossible at this point, and almost assuredly impossible if you're looking at solutions from within the current economic order. It's nice to think that we might have the ability to "save" the lives that we're currently ruining but I don't really buy it.
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Jan 8, 2012 01:25
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deptstoremook posted:At the end of the day though you're still advocating for population control via Western intervention (see above) and that's really, really lovely. You don't get a pass just because your way doesn't literally involve sterilizing people. In fact, this kind of passive method is possibly even more devious. *pulls off rubber mask* Ah, I should have known I couldn't fool you, Doctor Maltheus. All that literal conquest and genocide of past centuries was relatively benign and amateurish, but I've been the real imperialist all along! First, through lowering infant mortality rates throughout the third world I robbed them of their rich cultures of child funerals and forced them into the uniquely Western model of being able to comfortably assume their children will see adulthood. By allowing the spread of modern agriculture, I made ancient prayers against drought and famine go unsung and forgotten, forcing their writers' children into soulless ways of being able to better plan for and recover from bad cultures, and receive aid from outside at worst. Oh, but that's just the start of my evil plan! As they move away from labor-intensive economies they'll be able to not see those living, well-fed children as a labor resource to be intensively used as soon as they can weed the crops or carry jugs of water. They'll decadently let those children play and go to school to learn imperialist indoctrination, like "science" and "foreign languages." The most insidious part will come when those children grow up and see "marry young and have lots of kids" as just one choice they can make with their lives rather than an imperative. And, get this, thanks to all that imperialist brainwashing many of them won't make that choice! It's a slap in the face of their cultures, just like they just decided to sign on to total clones of that 1950s Americana fantasy with 2.5 children and a picket fence! And that's not even counting how letting them develop those Western-influenced communication and transportation infrastructures might let those children see what other cultures are like, go out and visit them, maybe even move to those oppressing nations themselves with only daily telephone and internet conversation with family reminding them of their proud roots. I've hung you in this cage, Doctor, to suspend you over the Chamber of Poors and watch as your nightmares become true! As, without any coercive force, these people's lives improve and they make decisions which just might mirror those that past cultures in their situations, with access to their tools, have made. And then they're going to reach stable levels of population and resource consumption, without a mass death in sight. Mwahahahaha! Can Captain FuckYouGotMine and his Armchair Anti-Imperialists save you now? deptstoremook posted:Yes, but Killer robot assumed two bad things: A) the burden should not be on the first world to reduce its energy consumption (even though America alone regularly hits 5-8 TOE/capita/annum depending on who you ask), and B) the third world having its birth rate reduced (note the passive voice) is a desirable thing for their own good. To get to the more serious part of the response, I could continue here with how I've already said that efficiency and reduced consumption is a good goal for the wealthy and is worth pursuing even for its own sake, but it wasn't read those times either and I don't really expect it to be this time. Still, I can't stress enough that "starve the beast" as a strategy for this, favoring reducing industry over developing improved industry at all turns, will not even work within the industrialized world, and beyond that does nothing to answer the broader question of "how do we meet the energy needs of the world more safely, especially as the effects of climate change increase those needs?" If your only answer is "but imperialism" you have only established that maybe imperialism isn't the real danger here. I hope you're actually for third world autonomy rather than third world correctionalism, because that will mean that you won't actively stand in the way when the third world makes these necessary steps on its own. Still, I reject the idea that anything short of leaving the developing world to its culture and its bootstraps is terrible destructive imperialism. The wealthy helping the poor to become less poor, whether by transfer of knowledge or actual transfer of goods, is not an evil thing. It may need care and thought to be useful rather than destructive, but so has every worthwhile tool we've developed back to fire, which doubtless was only adopted by neighboring tribes out of imperialism.
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Jan 8, 2012 02:10
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Orbis Tertius posted:In what way does the numeric quantity of acquired things relate to survival? A naked human being on the savannah can only carry two things at a time, and if they did so it would make their hands unavailable. For a substantial period of human history, we did not have the ability to fashion tools that were substantially more effective than our hands for dealing with our environment. Would you still say this human being is fundamentally motivated to acquire more objects? He didn't say that. He said that people have wanted "more stuff" since humans first developed tools. He's saying consumerism isn't a recent development, but that it's a fundamental aspect of our culture, thousands of year old, which nowadays is being positively reenforced by billion dollar marketing campaigns. Let's consider your own example: Why on Earth would a naked, lone, likely starving human on a savannah want more stuff? Could it be because they are naked, in the middle of a savannah covered in predatory animals, and need to rely on a variety of material possessions (water carrying gourds, hand weapons, spears, butchery tools) to survive? None of those tools are interchangeable: you can't butcher an antelope with a spear, and good luck fending off hyenas with a gourd. And these tools break, and it takes time, resources and skill to construct replacements. A naked, lone human on the savannah is the prime candidate for "someone who wants more stuff". More water, more back-up water gourds in case one cracks, more food, more hunting implements. And, on top of that, your example is a straw man: typically humans would never be on their own, they'd be in small family groups and close knit troops. Humans are social creatures, always have been. We evolved from social being, who developed tools. Tools (possessions) make the individual more capable and more desirable. Everyone likes the guy who has the tools needed to dig up yams, and everyone wants to be the guy with the tools to dig up yams. Possessiveness, greed, consumerism, consumption and social status based on material goods conveying perceived power are absolutely fundamental to our culture. They are not a recent development. The magnitude, however, is. So you won't be able to get rid of consumerism, but holy poo poo there is a lot of room for it to get dialed down if we make the effort. Cinnamon Bastard fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 18:52
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Cinnamon Bastard posted:Possessiveness, greed, consumerism, consumption and social status based on material goods conveying perceived power are absolutely fundamental to our culture. They are not a recent development. I'm interested to hear your anthropological background, because your argument seems somewhat reliant on a shaky brand of just-so "biotruth" inductive reasoning.
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Jan 8, 2012 19:22
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paumbert posted:I'm interested to hear your anthropological background, because your argument seems somewhat reliant on a shaky brand of just-so "biotruth" inductive reasoning. To be the fair the guys in charge have always been "the most important" and these people always want the most stuff (Pharaohs, Kings, Emperors). They also leave behind the biggest cultural footprint (monuments, portraits). This leaves this impression that most of humanity was trying to live it large. Most of us were just trying to survive and provide an ounce of compassion for one another. In the the past 300 years literacy and the shrinking world have strengthened these values just as much as they've strengthened the "important" people's need for stuff.
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Jan 8, 2012 19:32
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It seems to me like the disagreement between Killer Robot and deptstoremook has to do with the idea that the Third World becoming more like the First World is neither necessarily desirable nor necessarily inevitable. Does that sound right to both of you?
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Jan 8, 2012 19:37
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paumbert posted:I'm interested to hear your anthropological background, because your argument seems somewhat reliant on a shaky brand of just-so "biotruth" inductive reasoning. This isn't biotruth. Biotruth is people trying to claim that it's genetic (edit: you know, like "women like pink because berries" and all that bullshit). I'm saying "humans suck at survival compared to other animals, we survive because the entire basis of our culture is the construction, use and allocation of tools and resources". Human learn at a very young age that having things is a lot better than not having things, and that leads to us wanting lots of things. Tools and resources have value, which means they are going to end up getting valued by people. Add a few thousand years starting from that basis and that leads to all the 'wonderful' hierarchical power structures we're all mired in, that lead to over consumption. I'm saying it is cultural. This is the most important point: It's cultural. But it's not new by any means. It's fundamental to our culture, and at this point in our history it's being fed and blown up to a ridiculous degree by our culture in the form of modern media and mass production. Under the right conditions we could absolutely change it. I'm honestly astonished that this is somehow getting cross-wired with biotruths. Especially considering Orbis Tertius's post started out with "well we only have two hands, so why would we want more than two things?" edited because I missed a chunk of a sentence. Cinnamon Bastard fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jan 8, 2012 |
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Jan 8, 2012 21:09
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Chantilly Say posted:It seems to me like the disagreement between Killer Robot and deptstoremook has to do with the idea that the Third World becoming more like the First World is neither necessarily desirable nor necessarily inevitable. Does that sound right to both of you? I'd say yes, but largely there's a really wide gulf there. I agree that the Third World doesn't need to become exactly like the first world and probably shouldn't. I reject that "long, healthy lives, ample food supply, first-class communications/transport infrastructure, stable population size, and the industrial base needed to support all of these" equates to "destroy their culture, make them just like 'merica." I also think that strong anti-industrial approaches are incompatible with both third-world autonomy and choice (said countries seem to have made that choice already, and I'd be hard-pressed to say it was the Coca-cola advertisements that made up their minds in the end), and with the maximum avoidance of death, misery, and violation of human rights in the event of catastrophic change.
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Jan 8, 2012 21:27
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Cinnamon Bastard posted:Tools and resources have value, which means they are going to end up getting valued by people. Buy gold.
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Jan 9, 2012 12:23
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VideoTapir posted:Buy gold. Gold isn't exactly a tool or a resource for the most part. Which makes a really interesting point in itself. For all that the modern flavor of consumerism dates back only as far as the industrial capacity that made it possible for more than a very few to possess a great deal of goods, humans have prized and collected art, cosmetics, and all sorts of goods with absolutely zero direct survival value at least since the onset of behavioral modern humans 50,000 years ago, and possibly further to or beyond the development of our species. This is in addition to trending toward more numerous and more specialized tools, which certainly predates our species. What's valued(many cultures weren't that excited by gold, say), what ways wealth are pursued or displayed, all of that, those vary; on the other hand, if "having more than two things, even when they're not needed to survive" is not a natural human behavior, neither are art, language, funeral customs, or peaceful interaction with those outside of your immediate tribal group. There are strong arguments for why modern western attitudes toward material goods are often unhealthy. "Wanting more than you absolutely need to survive is a new and unnatural disease!" is not one of those.
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Jan 9, 2012 13:07
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Guys, good news! Thanks to climate change we've moved back the expected Ice Age that will occur in 1500 years time! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807 Better burn more fuel! 
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Jan 9, 2012 13:11
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Killer robot posted:The wealthy helping the poor to become less poor, whether by transfer of knowledge or actual transfer of goods, is not an evil thing. It may need care and thought to be useful rather than destructive, but so has every worthwhile tool we've developed back to fire, which doubtless was only adopted by neighboring tribes out of imperialism. You only need to look as far as India to see how many different faces the gifts of imperialism have, and whitewashing it into mindless applause for technological advance and the ever-nebulous "progress" is not acceptable, since based on their history Western imperial powers (or any imperial powers at all) are not capable nor will ever be capable of providing the enlightened guidance their stewardship promises. Deleuzionist fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 13:34
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WMain00 posted:Guys, good news! Thanks to climate change we've moved back the expected Ice Age that will occur in 1500 years time! Jesus christ. Yeah, we know exactly what will happen if we do that... no unintended consequences will happen no sirree bob.
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Jan 9, 2012 13:51
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VideoTapir posted:Buy gold. Yeah, I know. When I wrote that sentence I stared at it for a good twenty seconds trying to think of a way to word it better and decided "gently caress it". You know what I was trying to say. *purchases Pure-Strain gold*
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Jan 10, 2012 01:01
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WMain00 posted:Guys, good news! Thanks to climate change we've moved back the expected Ice Age that will occur in 1500 years time! I hate when this happens and it happens somewhat frequent. The denier will completely hate the science and are against it, denying that C02 is even warming the planet. Then a study comes out saying that C02 is having an affect on the ice age and now it is wonderful that it is there. Lets not forget what the actual implications of not having a natural ice age are. It is like they are cheering because they don't have heart disease but were shot in the face. I swear these people do daily cognitive loopty loops and don't give me much hope that we are actually going to get through this.
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Jan 10, 2012 01:41
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I binge-read this thread and a bunch of news articles regarding climate change over two weeks. Reading this thread, and stuff like this makes me realise how well and truly hosed we are. Seriously, what the gently caress? How does everyone with a vested interest with the major carbon emitting industries seriously think that their current model can remain profitable forever? Their money isn't going to mean much if there's billions of people out there literally starving on the streets and gathering outside the houses of the wealthy, begging for a scrap of food or a sip of water. All the security in the world isn't going to protect them from hordes of people rushing their houses, trying to take anything and everything possibly edible. I want to curl up in a corner and not exist anymore, my heart aches reading these terrible things. What can an individual do? We literally need to change nearly every single society in existance in its attitudes towards transport, housing, consumption and population growth. Even the things that are considered the quickest, cheapest, most cost-effective methods of reducing emissions in the short term aren't being implemented simply because it involves getting hundreds of independant self-interested parties agreeing. Why won't our governments wake up? Isn't it obvious enough now? Also, is this an appropriate thread to discuss things we can do to minimise our carbon footprint? I've done the obvious and stopped using the car and a few of the other things mentioned earlier in the thread but I feel there's only so much I can do without living in a hut in the middle of nowhere or joining an Amish community.
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Jan 17, 2012 15:47
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froglet posted:Why won't our governments wake up? Isn't it obvious enough now? There is no money in cleaning up the environment, only cost. There is, on the other hand, money in making things worse. Money drives policy, and anti-climate change lobby is a thing. We're not talking about people that are thinking long term here. What's today's bottom line? Nobody gives a poo poo about 100 years from now, (or 50, or 20), because there's money to be made today by making GBS threads up the environment.
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Jan 17, 2012 16:26
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froglet posted:Seriously, what the gently caress? How does everyone with a vested interest with the major carbon emitting industries seriously think that their current model can remain profitable forever? No one lives forever. froglet posted:Their money isn't going to mean much if there's billions of people out there literally starving on the streets and gathering outside the houses of the wealthy, begging for a scrap of food or a sip of water. All the security in the world isn't going to protect them from hordes of people rushing their houses, trying to take anything and everything possibly edible. If you're already in your seventies, probably even younger, it could well work for long enough. froglet posted:What can an individual do? Spend time with your family and those who you care about. froglet posted:Why won't our governments wake up? Isn't it obvious enough now? Governments don't act with singular intent, they're just collections of people, who have varying reasons for denying/ignoring/being-ineffective-in-dealing-with climate change. Drastic lifestyle changes are always a tough sell, and it doesn't get any easier when there's a lot of money behind arguing that they are unnecessary. froglet posted:Also, is this an appropriate thread to discuss things we can do to minimise our carbon footprint? I've done the obvious and stopped using the car and a few of the other things mentioned earlier in the thread but I feel there's only so much I can do without living in a hut in the middle of nowhere or joining an Amish community. Why are you interested in reducing your carbon footprint? Sir Kodiak fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jan 17, 2012 |
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Jan 17, 2012 19:54
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 09:32 |
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Man, we are so hosed. Nasa: Climate change may bring big ecosystem changes The areas in red will experience a complete shift in biomes within the next 88 years. Most of the indigenous plants and animals will change/die. And if that's not scary enough, NASA is already building in a "2 to 4 degrees Celsius" warming into their reports. I thought 2+ was already super dangerous? And what happens when the North does warm up and allows us to explore the gently caress out of its oil/gas/coal deposits? Are we really just going to keep going until we make Earth into some kind of Mars/Venus hybrid?
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Jan 17, 2012 20:15
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