|
deptstoremook posted:So I guess what I'm saying is this plank of opposition to primitivism (and there are many) is actually the response of a privileged bourgeois subject. You're making the wildly inaccurate assumption that most people under multinational capitalism have access to health care and reproductive services. Hey, here's a thought: Maybe capitalism and primitivism are not the only possible options! Maybe, just maybe, it's possible to dismantle capitalism without dismantling technological civilization! You're buying in wholeheartedly to one of the foundational myths of capitalism -- the idea that it's synonymous with civilization; that the only alternative is a return to the stone age (or, at best, the middle ages.) I hate to break it to you, but primitivists don't have a monopoly on left-wing thought. What you've been doing, basically, is telling every socialist, syndicalist, and urban anarchist that they're totally irrelevant, and that they shouldn't even bother trying to come up with a better method for governing society. Or, for that matter, of keeping people from dying of starvation or disease. Can you see how this might piss people off?
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2012 20:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 12:09 |
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:I'm not necessarily a fan of those things. I don't object to, for example, iPads on a moral level, outside of the fact that the people building them are subjected to hellish subhuman working conditions that can be considerably improved to non-slavery standards while having a pretty insignificant impact on the price/bottom line/etc. And I definitely see that as a clear example of lovely oppressive capitalism; but one that could be refined and fixed, not one that needs to be demolished entirely. But you can't separate the product from its mode of production, so if you oppose the labor that made the iPad you must also oppose the (fetish-object) iPad itself. Nuclear energy won't make the suburbs or our way of life sustainable except in the sense that we'll stop burning coal or oil or whatever. The suburbs will still be a blight on the surface of the planet, and less poetically they'll still continue to consume every other material that we are quickly depleting (fresh water, rare earth metals, arable land, et cetera). Everyone wants to rehabilitate technology, declare that capitalism is in crisis, and use buzzwords like "postindustrial," but 400 years of economic imperialism make me more than a little skeptical of what would be left to rehabilitate, and that kind of discourse strikes me as the last dream of an increasingly desperate and complacent bourgeoisie. DSPaul posted:Hey, here's a thought: Maybe capitalism and primitivism are not the only possible options! Maybe, just maybe, it's possible to dismantle capitalism without dismantling technological civilization! You're buying in wholeheartedly to one of the foundational myths of capitalism -- the idea that it's synonymous with civilization; that the only alternative is a return to the stone age (or, at best, the middle ages.) I hate to break it to you, but primitivists don't have a monopoly on left-wing thought. What you've been doing, basically, is telling every socialist, syndicalist, and urban anarchist that they're totally irrelevant, and that they shouldn't even bother trying to come up with a better method for governing society. Or, for that matter, of keeping people from dying of starvation or disease. Can you see how this might piss people off? Nope, I'm not advocating for primitivism but nice try. At this point I believe that any philosophy that tries to rehabilitate or mediate capitalism is totally irrelevant (see socialism) and denialist.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2012 21:49
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:And please quit that population control poo poo, which again is symptomatic of your position as a first-world liberal: we're having fewer kids, so why don't you? We all know who you're talking about when you talk about limits on reproduction, and it's not the sterile, gentrified Western "democracies." e: it's hilarious that you assume that I'm privileged and spoiled just because I think that living without reliable health care and electricity/running water is a bad thing. Like, it couldn't possibly be because I had to live like that and I know how awful it is or anything. I must be some chubby white dude in suburban America who refuses to give up his SUV and giant flat screen TV. the kawaiiest fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Jun 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2012 23:34
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:
Tell us more about how socialism tries to rehabilitate or mediate capitalism 
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2012 23:49
|
|
|
I don't know which concept is dumber, "the truth lies in the middle" or "everyone is wrong burn it all down". deptstoremook, who is advocating for maintaining status quo suburbia? I've been saying throughout the thread that we need urbanization in addition to nuclear. Also tell us how you're going to get rid of "unfair global labor practices" and "industrial agriculture" without mass poverty and starvation. Mc Do Well fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jun 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2012 23:59
|
|
|
DSPaul posted:Hey, here's a thought: Maybe capitalism and primitivism are not the only possible options! Maybe, just maybe, it's possible to dismantle capitalism without dismantling technological civilization! You're buying in wholeheartedly to one of the foundational myths of capitalism -- the idea that it's synonymous with civilization; that the only alternative is a return to the stone age (or, at best, the middle ages.) I hate to break it to you, but primitivists don't have a monopoly on left-wing thought. What you've been doing, basically, is telling every socialist, syndicalist, and urban anarchist that they're totally irrelevant, and that they shouldn't even bother trying to come up with a better method for governing society. Or, for that matter, of keeping people from dying of starvation or disease. Can you see how this might piss people off? Thank you for saying this. Often when I try to engage someone on questions of value or questions of capital people want to respond with something like "well if you hate capitalism so much... then what are you doing talking to me over the internet!" As if post-industrial financial capitalism is inextricable from the internet; as if by questioning the way our economy is currently set up I am implicitly hating on electricity. Nope. I think all these technologies are cool - I just think they could be put to better uses.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 01:53
|
|
|
McDowell posted:deptstoremook, who is advocating for maintaining status quo suburbia? I've been saying throughout the thread that we need urbanization in addition to nuclear. If you take suburbia as a stand-in for rampant consumerism and a reluctance to acknowledge the option of reducing energy consumption as evidenced by taking a blind leap in hoping for miraculous new technologies that are decades off at least, then the lines are a bit more clear in this thread. McDowell posted:Also tell us how you're going to get rid of "unfair global labor practices" and "industrial agriculture" without mass poverty and starvation. Getting people to be more self-sufficient, even within the confines of our current culture and economic system, would be a great start. The same could be said for towns and regions. It's not just a kill switch on current labor practices and industrial agriculture that stops factories and farms overnight. A transition toward better practices, theoretically, would ease any negatives and allow us to adapt. Realistically, however, the people who have the most power over our ability to make this transition are pretty happy with how things are right now.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 06:24
|
|
|
the kawaiiest posted:I've been living in the US for all of 10 months. I spent my entire life poor as poo poo in a third world country. I said that people would have an easier time accepting "have less kids" over "learn to live without reliable health care, electricity and running water" and suddenly I'm a "privileged liberal from a first world country" and I want the dirty third world poors to stop having kids. That's just precious. Please, keep making assumptions about who I am and what my beliefs are, I'll just stand over here and continue to argue against a system that would make the lives of my friends and family even worse than it already is. Sorry about misrepresenting you, environmental justice gets me mad as well as all the hand-wringing liberal apologetics around it. The perspective that people need to have fewer kids, as I've argued elsewhere, is very much a first-world liberal (in the bad sense) crypto-racist argument. It assumes that these people secretly want to have fewer kids, that the West can (as usual, again) be the missionaries of an enlightened way of life that we have discovered and wish to spread for the good of the less civilized. Just bein' discursive imperialists, I guess it's what we do best. The undercurrent of this argument is that poor people in the West and elsewhere will have to pay for our sins. This may be practically true but we can never let ourselves forget that it's our fault that you even need to propose this idea. V. Illych L. posted:Tell us more about how socialism tries to rehabilitate or mediate capitalism I'm more referring to the kind of mealy-mouthed socialism (i.e., capitalism with "safety nets") that seems to be held by liberal environmentalists, at least here in Utah and America. McDowell posted:deptstoremook, who is advocating for maintaining status quo suburbia? I've been saying throughout the thread that we need urbanization in addition to nuclear. As FuglyStik implies suburbia is a stand-in but it also illustrates my belief that if nuclear or some Fossil fuels, anthropogenic global warming, industrial agriculture, the suburbs, and so forth--they're all symptoms, symptoms of a culture, people, and perspective of eternal growth. Eventually this growth won't be possible, that's a simple math equation. It seems to me that nuclear is a line of advocacy which seeks to obscure this increasingly obvious fact, the focus on "green energy" as a solution to any problems at all is a myopic and desperate fantasy, conjured up by a people for whom the end of growth is the end of life. Nuclear can preserve that growth but will continue to deplete land, freshwater, raw materials, and human lives. Is that the advocacy of a good environmentalist? Every environmentalist needs to understand that the root cause of environmental destruction is multinational capital, and any policy proposition which preserves even the specter of it is dead in the water. That's the closest thing this movement has to a dogma.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 18:52
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:Sorry about misrepresenting you, environmental justice gets me mad as well as all the hand-wringing liberal apologetics around it. The perspective that people need to have fewer kids, as I've argued elsewhere, is very much a first-world liberal (in the bad sense) crypto-racist argument. It assumes that these people secretly want to have fewer kids, that the West can (as usual, again) be the missionaries of an enlightened way of life that we have discovered and wish to spread for the good of the less civilized. Just bein' discursive imperialists, I guess it's what we do best. Social Democracy is just a slightly left of centre form of liberalism, it has nothing to do with socialism.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 19:37
|
|
|
It's time for the environmental movement to accept that we've royally hosed the Earth and there is no going back to the "good old days" without massive depopulation (and even then the environment that rebounds won't be the mythical prehuman ecosphere). We should be making durable goods instead of disposable junk to drastically lower our consumption rate. We need to expand our resource base into space to maintain civilization. Humanity can then achieve the greatest environmental feat of all, spreading life beyond the Earth and making it a permanent part of the universe. At best we're doing this in an incredibly rear end-backwards way and we'll eat ourselves alive before we even get to Mars.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 19:59
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:Sorry about misrepresenting you, environmental justice gets me mad as well as all the hand-wringing liberal apologetics around it. The perspective that people need to have fewer kids, as I've argued elsewhere, is very much a first-world liberal (in the bad sense) crypto-racist argument. It assumes that these people secretly want to have fewer kids, that the West can (as usual, again) be the missionaries of an enlightened way of life that we have discovered and wish to spread for the good of the less civilized. Just bein' discursive imperialists, I guess it's what we do best. I think though that the undercurrent of the argument is more along the lines of "we have too many people and limiting births is the only way to reduce our enormous population". I never thought of it as being anything other than that. I guess I'm a little slow.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 20:15
|
|
|
McDowell posted:It's time for the environmental movement to accept that we've royally hosed the Earth and there is no going back to the "good old days" without massive depopulation (and even then the environment that rebounds won't be the mythical prehuman ecosphere). Space colonization is hardly an "environmental" goal, and the desire to spread this life or our poisonous variety of life to other planets has a distinctly anthropocentric and imperialist flavor (which is why the operant verb is always "to colonize"). The environment (here on Earth) will do just fine with or without us, it's been through far worse and life persists. Environmentalists who champion the preservation of natural life (usually cute life) are barking up the wrong tree. This is only partially directed at you, McDowell, but the space colonization crew is actually the group in the very deepest denial about the feasibility of our "civilization" (always put it in scare quotes because it's not really civilized). It's usually explicitly predicated on resource exploitation (again, operant verb "to exploit"), and bound up with repressed religious and imperialist beliefs about the "place of men" in the universe.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 20:34
|
|
|
Who gives a poo poo? There isn't an environment on any of the colonizable objects in the solar system to ruin. No environment = nothing to ruin by large scale resource exploitation. There are some people who think that the surfaces of the Moon and Mars should remain pristine and untouched but those people deserve the uproarious laughter they get in response to their beliefs.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 20:43
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:This is only partially directed at you, McDowell, but the space colonization crew is actually the group in the very deepest denial about the feasibility of our "civilization" (always put it in scare quotes because it's not really civilized). It's usually explicitly predicated on resource exploitation (again, operant verb "to exploit"), and bound up with repressed religious and imperialist beliefs about the "place of men" in the universe. Human beings inherently "exploit" the environment; we chop down trees for tools and shelter, kill animals for food and clothing, and clear land so we can "exploit" certain species of plants to provide a reliable food source. We also "exploit" certain animals to provide labor/meat/companionship. Not to mention we colonized the entire planet before recorded history. The smart way forward is to stop exploiting our fellow humans and to exploit the Earth's renewable resources (plants and animals) in a way that doesn't pull the rug out from under us. Explain again how you aren't a "Man is an evil animal, burn it all down" primitivist. Mc Do Well fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jun 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 21:06
|
|
|
-Troika- posted:Who gives a poo poo? There isn't an environment on any of the colonizable objects in the solar system to ruin. No environment = nothing to ruin by large scale resource exploitation. I give a poo poo because (read my post!) it reentrenches the systems of multinational capital that you should by all rights be against. The level of argumentation here is atrocious ("let's laugh lol"), why don't you just say "ATOMS!!!11" and be done with it? McDowell posted:Human beings inherently "exploit" the environment; we chop down trees for tools and shelter, kill animals for food and clothing, and clear land so we can "exploit" certain species of plants to provide a reliable food source. We also "exploit" certain animals to provide labor/meat/companionship. Yes, we exploit all of those things. We're all heterotrophs and killers. There's probably no way around that, but it doesn't mean we need to extrapolate it into a Truth about the inevitability of colonization and the systematic exploitation of the oppressed. "Heh, that's just the way it is  " is lazy argumentation and probably shows you're unwilling to engage the discussion seriously (like how you want me to show you how I'm not a strawman, below).I don't even know where I'm talking about "evil," and if my long view is pretty misanthropic it's because I am thoroughly disgusted by the intrusions of power exercised by this particular set of cultures for the last couple millennia. That doesn't mean I adhere to some named philosophy, unless you count radical non-anthropocentric social justice as a philosophy. Won't be that easy to shoehorn me, I'm afraid!
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 21:22
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:I don't even know where I'm talking about "evil," and if my long view is pretty misanthropic it's because I am thoroughly disgusted by the intrusions of power exercised by this particular set of cultures for the last couple millennia. That doesn't mean I adhere to some named philosophy, unless you count radical non-anthropocentric social justice as a philosophy. Won't be that easy to shoehorn me, I'm afraid! So you're a crazy person who thinks all of Eurasian history is bad, ok. It would be nice if we could all live like the American Indians, but we can't. The genie of technology is out of the bottle, we have to learn to use these new powers without destroying ourselves and our planet.
|
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2012 21:38
|
|
|
I'm torn on the whole space colonization idea. Supposing we terraform a planet currently not capable of harboring life, then I guess I have no issue. Supposing there is life that terraforming would exterminate, I'd have a hard time thinking that permanently destroying the opportunity to study a radically different ecosystem from what we know would be worth it. Even if life on this planet could survive alongside life on the other planet, I'd be hesitant to go monkeying around with that ecosystem. Invasive species, resource exploitation, and all that fun stuff colonization has brought along as baggage in the past. Where it really gets complex is a hypothetical planet with intelligent life. If they are tribal, then do we drop in like the ancient alien nutcases believe happened to us, or do we simply let them be for study and preservation? I think Avatar was just hamfisted in exploring this issue, but based on our history of colonization, we have a bad habit of wiping out the natives whenever we colonize a new place. Of course, this is all assuming we make it as far as to colonize another planet. McDowell posted:So you're a crazy person who thinks all of Eurasian history is bad, ok. It would be nice if we could all live like the American Indians, but we can't. The genie of technology is out of the bottle, we have to learn to use these new powers without destroying ourselves and our planet. I'm having a great time reading you two debate since I'm roughly in the middle of both positions on a lot of things from this page. The hyperbole about mud huts, nomadic lifestyles, and limiting medicine to folk remedies is killing me, though. Deptstoremook, I've got two questions for you. 1)What do you see when you think of a truly sustainable society that will actually work? 2)I see you're from Utah and hold some hardline environmental beliefs. You've happened upon Edward Abbey's writings, I suppose? If not, I see you as enjoying some of his books on these topics and his novels greatly.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 04:20
|
|
|
Pretty much no one besides Robert Zubrin thinks terraforming terrestrial bodies is a good idea for colonization in a time frame anything shorter than 10,000 years, for what it's worth.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 04:23
|
|
|
McDowell posted:It's time for the environmental movement to accept that we've royally hosed the Earth and there is no going back to the "good old days" without massive depopulation (and even then the environment that rebounds won't be the mythical prehuman ecosphere). Sure, we can continue to smash our skulls into iron triangles of our respective governments to change poo poo, but at this point it's kinda late to avoid significant negative change. I'd rather place the well-being of my family ahead of that and continue to plan ahead for the dismal future.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 05:19
|
|
|
TheFuglyStik posted:Deptstoremook, I've got two questions for you. 1) If only I knew, I'd be repeating it at every opportunity someone gave me. Honestly, I don't think anyone alive today knows what a sustainable society looks like. At this point in my education, I'm content to critique the institutions that are unsustainable--perhaps it's like a block of marble: once all the things that are unsustainable are shorn away, only the sustainable society will remain. Or maybe nothing will remain. 2) Ed Abbey is pretty cool and actually writes some pretty convincing fiction on the subject of ecoterrorism (read The Monkey Wrench Gang, everyone) and is sufficiently anti-capitalist for my tastes, though he has his share of problems. He's definitely racist and sexist. Also, I haven't seen this critique very often, but another problem is that he feels that nature should be the preserve of those who are able to access it. In other words, people with disabilities and the (urban) poor are hosed. That doesn't sit well with me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 06:01
|
|
|
deptstoremook posted:1) If only I knew, I'd be repeating it at every opportunity someone gave me. Honestly, I don't think anyone alive today knows what a sustainable society looks like. At this point in my education, I'm content to critique the institutions that are unsustainable--perhaps it's like a block of marble: once all the things that are unsustainable are shorn away, only the sustainable society will remain. Or maybe nothing will remain. Thanks for the reply. I was pretty curious about where you stand on these two topics, and it helps me a great deal in understanding where you are coming from in your arguments. It's not too far from my own reasoning on the broader issues, so I know where to stand on interpreting your statements. As an aside not meant to be a leak from the book thread, an author hailing from my state of Kentucky on these topics is Wendell Berry. The Unsettling of America should be required reading for all people studying agriculture or who have concern about modern agricultural practices and their effect on the environment and our communities. Both Berry and Abbey also knew each other on a close basis. TheFuglyStik fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Jun 23, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 06:22
|
|
|
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel I agree with his despair over the religious fervor some people have for the topic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 11:17
|
|
|
Barto posted:http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel quote:(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 13:51
|
|
|
Magical Zero posted:"I personally can't stand windmills at any price." - wise words from the 'lock. This guy seems way past his intellectual expiration date. Maybe you should expand on why exactly you agree with him? All of his arguments seem pretty spurious to me. See, that's what I mean. I didn't say I agreed with him, I said I was tired of the dogmatism- just as bad as the Catholics, really.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 14:03
|
|
|
Barto posted:See, that's what I mean. I didn't say I agreed with him, I said I was tired of the dogmatism- just as bad as the Catholics, really. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 14:13
|
|
|
Magical Zero posted:No, I don't see what you mean. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the similarities between the contemporary 'green movement' and the Catholic church, though. I think he pointed it out in the article rather well. I suppose it's not just the green movement though, all the leftist ideologies have similar issues. Most people are not mentally self-sufficient enough to live in a world without belief, so even though they don't believe in a god per se (it's not fashionable anymore), they need some kind of replacement as a comfort blanket. Basically, non-religious people, especially Americans and Britons, tend to use Catholic or fundamentalist framing for their ideology. You might have had the unpleasant experience of stumbling into one of those men's rights or women's rights threads. You'll usually find everything framed in terms of guilt and scruples. By scruples of course, I mean that over-exacting or Jesuitical attention to detail in order to do the very legally correct thing. I suppose it's more than a little similar the very amusing ways that middle eastern religions discuss the cleanliness of seafood or what happens if you touch the dirty animals (oh no!). Most people are stupid, and they feel like they need rules and guidelines and something to believe in. Of course, being stupid, they also need DETAILED REGULATIONS and, because they're really stupid, having escaped the confines of religious belief (which they now frown upon with great shows of contempt), they bring their own desires to be made feel guilty with them! (white privilege, western privilege, "what will our children think of what we've done to earth", etc) And of course, there is always the very amusing "SHUN THE UNBELIEVER" reaction given by people who obviously have as little education in the field they're talking about as the people they're attacking (a typically religious attitude if you've ever spoken to one of those door-to-door evangelists). Which isn't to say that many things espoused in this thread or regarding the causes I've mentioned above aren't true or worthy of note. I am simply saying that the method of discourse amuses me, because it is basically religious, no, evangelical. But despite the fact that I've said that I have no contention with whatever science discovers, I'm sure I'll be attacked for having the temerity to mention any of the above. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 14:28
|
|
|
Those greens and their dogmatic criticism of carbon dioxide. Its all about guilt and religion, yes, thats the lens which will make this all clear. You're right that kind of stupidity does take temerity.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 15:52
|
|
|
Yiggy posted:Those greens and their dogmatic criticism of carbon dioxide. Its all about guilt and religion, yes, thats the lens which will make this all clear. As I said, my point wasn't about the concepts being discussed but rather about the messaging. Obviously, we are both people who believe that global warming is happening, yet the mere appearance of criticism (however slight!), creates in you a reaction, a desire to offend and shun. This is not a reasonable reaction, but rather a religious one.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 17:06
|
|
|
That is such a disingenuous argument that I think you have to be trolling at this point. Your poorly formatted post is full of "people are stupid!!!!11" and "human nature!!!!11" arguments (loving sheeple amirite?) so if you actually have anything concrete to say instead of trying to smugly snipe from the sidelines with out contributing anything at all to the discussion in this thread, do so, or 
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 18:46
|
|
|
Barto posted:As I said, my point wasn't about the concepts being discussed but rather about the messaging. Obviously, we are both people who believe that global warming is happening, yet the mere appearance of criticism (however slight!), creates in you a reaction, a desire to offend and shun. This is not a reasonable reaction, but rather a religious one. Just because religious people do x, does not make x a religious thing. That's a pretty serious fallacy for someone boffing on about reason.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 18:46
|
|
|
A 92 year old man who's most notable contribution is the lame Gaia hypothesis (what if like...all the ecosystems* are one organism mannnnnnnn) and endorses fracking? Nothing to see here. *which is itself a painful reductive model - nature is not a collection of circuits in a perfect balance, it is a chaotic and unstable thing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 19:00
|
|
|
A lot of the argumentation I'm seeing in different forms in this thread are to do with some people's inability to distinguish between technology and civilization, which strongly reminds me of the subject matter of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. You can't "fix" technology by ignoring it, you have to understand its limitations. Many of our industrial processes are problematic because either a) its cheaper to do it that way b) its easier or c) a bit more efficient; even when we know we can do it cleaner or safer. We tend to be lazy and go with 'good enough is enough', and then build on top of that. Civilization isn't an enemy: its just the result of improving the efficiencies that comes from having lots of people in cities, and we're still learning how to manage that. Unfortunately we're now in the grip of 'more money is barely enough' thinking and its getting in the way of dealing with those issues. That kind of thinking is more emergent behaviour rather than anything fundamental, and what we think of as capitalism these days is nothing like actual capitalism. McDowell posted:...nature is not a collection of circuits in a perfect balance, it is a chaotic and unstable thing. No it isn't, but its not pure chaos either. It's that word again, emergent behaviour which in a locality appears to be self-contained, but is temporarily stable. More a question of time-scale and point of view.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 20:16
|
|
|
Barto posted:I think he pointed it out in the article rather well. quote:(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion. Obviously, appealing to guilt isn't an inherently positive thing; without a venue through which amends can be made, feelings of guilt might just result in frustration and powerlessness rather than a want for action and change. I think there's definitely an argument you could make against an overly moralistic approach to climate change, and I'm sympathetic towards it, because the issue is by definition so enormously complex and abstract that the average person simply does not have a useful and direct way to facilitate their guilt - except for detached gestures like buying green grocery, etc. (e:which might also be unavailable for economic or other reasons) That's not what Lovelock is saying, though. He just made a vague reference to religion in an attempt to discredit people he disagree with. Barto posted:Most people are not mentally self-sufficient enough to live in a world without belief, so even though they don't believe in a god per se (it's not fashionable anymore), they need some kind of replacement as a comfort blanket.  gently caress you dad Im not cleaning my room 
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 23:10
|
|
|
Magical Zero posted:"The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are." is faulty reasoning, because nothing about social guilt necessitates religious belief. Our civilization explicitly uses guilt as a form of social imperative and control. Guilt as an explicit social mechanism predates Abrahamic religion with thousands of years - probably much more. In fact, I don't feel uncomfortable saying that our species explicitly uses guilt as a form of social imperative and control. Today we even pathologize the inability to experience guilt. It strongly reminds me of the  atheism is a religion crowd. Religion implies a sense of spirituality, which a belief in trying to keep this place livable doesn't necessarily have.
|
|
#
?
Jun 23, 2012 23:23
|
|
|
Barto posted:As I said, my point wasn't about the concepts being discussed but rather about the messaging. Obviously, we are both people who believe that global warming is happening, yet the mere appearance of criticism (however slight!), creates in you a reaction, a desire to offend and shun. This is not a reasonable reaction, but rather a religious one. It's an educated reaction from people who have read the literature... It would be as if someone who had not read the bible jumps into the literary interpretations crowd and begins spewing crude representations of the work as a means to support their personal beliefs and agenda. There is a space for atheistic people to discuss the bible as a work. The interests of business and anti environment types have a place for discussion and lobbying but if you plan on walking into the climate change summit with your ayn rand book talking about some poo poo about individualism and how maybe its not that bad, don't expect the people there to not call you out and shame the poo poo out of you for your dumb rear end beliefs. It is !not! the job of the educated community to educate you. That is your job and if you get laughed out of a room for arguments outside the scope of what is known in the field. you should feel ostracized and out of touch, that doesn't make the believers a religion... it makes you an idiot, sorry. And yes it is a reasonable reaction to laugh at a grown man talking about things he doesn't understand as if he has some authority.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2012 02:28
|
|
|
Barto posted:I'm sure I'll be attacked for having the temerity to mention any of the above. I want to criticize it but I want to emphasize that what you said, taken on its own terms, fails, as otherwise you'd likely ascribe my criticism to some sub-conscious ulterior motive.
|
|
#
?
Jun 24, 2012 02:43
|
|
|
Some guy on facebook posted a huffpo piece about how the "oil nabobs" are lying about peak oil (but also oil companies are evil price gougers, I guess this is the new denier tactic) http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Oil-%20The%20Next%20Revolution.pdf There's plenty of oil guys! We just have to embrace shale oil and fracking! 
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2012 23:50
|
|
|
If you ever get a chance to attend a lecture or a book signing from Dr. David Suzuki, go for it. One of Canada's top environmental advocates, spokesperson, professor, and who-knows-now how many government / academic / notary awards he's got under his belt - he will tell you that a good green does *not* use guilt. A green using guilt probably isn't really green at all, and wants to sell you something. To take an exerpt from his book "Good news for a change" - people have an inherant desire to do something good for their surrounding ecosystems, be it for their children, their living environments, or their communities. If you bombard them with bad news on just how bad things are going - people start to tune out; wall themselves in, or simply withdraw from it all and not care. The key, as a good green will put it, is to find small ways in which everyone can make a difference. Yes, there are many things that can only be accomplished through government action - but if you tell people that they have some small locus of control; some small way to enact even the smallest bit of change - then like a tree, that little seed can grow into something really, really big. Sure, as an individual, I can't do much on a global scale - I'm not as intelligent, orative, or creative as some of the greater minds on this planet. I can do my little bit to be less wasteful at home. From there, I can then make common bonds with other people in my neighborhood who feel the same - (EG: we just changed an old city depot lot into a large community garden, and our city council is now looking to repeal a bylaw forbidding solar panels on rooftops). So, in a nutshell, a Good green doesn't use guilt - they tap into that spirit, that desire, that positive hubris which motivates people to do something good. Even if everything around them is burning to ash; because the alternative is to do nothing, and let it happen anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2012 23:52
|
|
|
McDowell posted:Some guy on facebook posted a huffpo piece about how the "oil nabobs" are lying about peak oil (but also oil companies are evil price gougers, I guess this is the new denier tactic) I really loving hate this argument. "No, it's okay guys, we have plenty of oil!" Even if I assume you're right, Mr. Hypothetical dipshit, we still need to get off of it. Even if the entirity of our planet was composed of pure oil, we would still need to get off it sooner or later because it is a finite loving resources that we consume at an astronomically higher rate than nature produces it, so in the absolute best case scenario we're kicking the can of worms down for some later generation to have to deal with, and even the slightest bit of self-reflection would tell you what an rear end in a top hat that makes you. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2012 00:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 12:09 |
|
|
Spiritus Nox posted:I really loving hate this argument. I agree, that's why clean, 0-emission, modern (recyclable) Nuclear Power is such an attractive option, which unfortunatly everyone in this country likes to ignore. Not only do we have enough uranium occurring naturally in the states to power our country for at least a couple thousand years (read: not shipping billions of USD to the Middle East/Venezuela). Even the old issue of "what to do about the waste" is invalid. Currently the US recycles none of it's spent fuel (for "security" reasons) and even so, in the past 40 years that Nuclear Powerhas been in business, 67,500 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel have been produced. Sounds like a lot, untill you realize that my local power station burned somewhere around 250,000 metric tons of Coal to provide power for a few hundred thousand people. Couple the above with how we have the tech to recycle up to 95% of that spent fuel for another tour in the reactor. Seriously, cheap nuclear solves most of our immediate energy needs. Even for driving your car it works. The new Hydrogen Fuel cell engines combust Hydrogen gas producing just water for an emission. Furthermore, to get that Hydrogen gas all you need to do is preform electrolysis on Water, the electricity for which you just got from nuclear power. That said, they have been saying "We only have (insert arbitrary #) years of oil left!" for the last 50 years, so it's probably not going anywhere, anytime soon.
|
|
#
?
Jun 28, 2012 02:58
|
|
