A summary of today
A summary of today
Currently, I see our globe in a near mayhem – especially when it comes to geopolitics; as nationalism thrives, nations are growing apart, while the very poor drift even further down. This is not only true for developing countries that in many cases lack the resources or knowledge, but also of many Western countries. This is manifested in many ways, one of which is the increasing number of homeless individuals. But how can this happen today? We have never had this much money circulating in the economy, we also have never been as productive as we are right now. The gross domestic product is rising everywhere, but the profit only goes into a couple of hands. The inequality of today is bigger than it was in Ancient Rome when slavery was still a total normality.
What kind of grim paradox is this?
In my opinion, we as humans have to escape the illusion everyone lives in, try to see the bigger picture and maybe remember where life started, because strictly speaking we are all related to each other, it does not matter if you believe in science or in any religion. We are a “being family”. Empathy has gotten lost or it may have never been around in the first place. Therefore I am not happy with our world even though I grew up in Switzerland where you can say the welfare is extremely high. No one has to suffer in terms of essential needs and everyone gets help if its needed. You cannot relate this standard to the majority of the countries. The world needs new, less self-centered leaders in politics and economics. This change has to start in schools and universities. Empathy has to be taught. A teacher or professor has the biggest impact on a student, on a generation - and therefore on the society.
What I am trying to say is that our system that we have created still has a lot of room for improvement, in the sense of being inclusive and thinking on a wider scale. In the present world our great minds think about, how do we make more money? Or how can we raise the gross domestic product? Or how do we get more clicks on Instagram? But this shouldn’t be question. Why don’t we think about how the human family can live together in peace, sharing knowledge and thoughts? Imagine we include the brilliance of every human individual and put this together. I see humanity working with nature, as if they were one, I see humanity exploring space, making new discoveries, extending their knowledge. I see humanity as one nation but still with different cultures.
Who feels the same way?
What do you think brought us to this state?
And how can we make a change?
Currently, I see our globe in a near mayhem – especially when it comes to geopolitics; as nationalism thrives, nations are growing apart, while the very poor drift even further down. This is not only true for developing countries that in many cases lack the resources or knowledge, but also of many Western countries. This is manifested in many ways, one of which is the increasing number of homeless individuals. But how can this happen today? We have never had this much money circulating in the economy, we also have never been as productive as we are right now. The gross domestic product is rising everywhere, but the profit only goes into a couple of hands. The inequality of today is bigger than it was in Ancient Rome when slavery was still a total normality.
What kind of grim paradox is this?
In my opinion, we as humans have to escape the illusion everyone lives in, try to see the bigger picture and maybe remember where life started, because strictly speaking we are all related to each other, it does not matter if you believe in science or in any religion. We are a “being family”. Empathy has gotten lost or it may have never been around in the first place. Therefore I am not happy with our world even though I grew up in Switzerland where you can say the welfare is extremely high. No one has to suffer in terms of essential needs and everyone gets help if its needed. You cannot relate this standard to the majority of the countries. The world needs new, less self-centered leaders in politics and economics. This change has to start in schools and universities. Empathy has to be taught. A teacher or professor has the biggest impact on a student, on a generation - and therefore on the society.
What I am trying to say is that our system that we have created still has a lot of room for improvement, in the sense of being inclusive and thinking on a wider scale. In the present world our great minds think about, how do we make more money? Or how can we raise the gross domestic product? Or how do we get more clicks on Instagram? But this shouldn’t be question. Why don’t we think about how the human family can live together in peace, sharing knowledge and thoughts? Imagine we include the brilliance of every human individual and put this together. I see humanity working with nature, as if they were one, I see humanity exploring space, making new discoveries, extending their knowledge. I see humanity as one nation but still with different cultures.
Who feels the same way?
What do you think brought us to this state?
And how can we make a change?
Comments (101)
What brought us to this state is the triumph of the American Empire (let's call it AE). AE became the dominant global power in the aftermath of WW2. And following the collapse of the USSR, AE's global supremacy was basically unquestioned. However, America doesn't like to think of itself as an empire. AE doesn't conquer nations or set up colonies. Rather, it rules by trade. AE dominates other countries by giving them no other option than to business with it. And when you do business with AE, you do business on AE's terms.
In a lot of ways, America does a much better job at ruling than its imperial predecessors. It goes to war less frequently than the Romans did, and it doesn't violently impose its culture upon other peoples the way the British did. But because Ae rules through economic might, it's caused wealth and power to become nearly synonymous. And that, I think, is why we are so obsessed with filling our coffers and raising our GDPs no matter the human cost. Under the current global order, money makes the world go round. You can't do anything without money. All the noble objectives you want to accomplish require an enormous amount of money. And in order to get that money, you need to act like a greedy soulless capitalist.
So that, I think, answers the question of why we're in this state. But the question of how to make a change is far more difficult.
I strongly believe that socialist revolution is not the answer. For one, it hasn't worked in the past. And I don't see how it ever could. If you give the government enough power to radically redistribute the wealth in society and centrally manage all large scale economic activity going forward, they will almost certainly abuse that power. And if you think that power can remain with 'the people,' you should read Animal Farm. I could write a lot more about why socialism (even if it's democratic) isn't the answer. But for now, I'll focus on what I think might be a better answer. Because America is the source of the problem, it also has to be the source of the solution. Of course, we could just try to destroy America, but that would probably end in massive wars and global chaos. So let's cross that off our list.
I think you're right that we need better leaders. But how do we make them better? I don't think we can just educate a generation of exceptional people who will naturally take charge and fix our problems. What we need to focus on is changing the aspects of our system of government which cause our leaders to make bad decisions. And when we think of possible changes we could implement, we should make them as realistically achievable as possible. So we can't just design a new system of government.
I'm sure there are many flaws in our system that we should try to change, but I'll focus on one for now.
Our politicians are too dependent on special interests. But we can't just get money out of politics. Corruption will always find a way to creep back in. We need to adjust the rules of democracy so our politicians aren't so desperate for donations. Right now in America, Democrats and Republicans are fighting with everything they've got to maintain their power. And in order to win, they need money. They need to act like corrupt, morally bankrupt traitors who care more about undermining their political opponents than serving their country. This dynamic is tearing America apart. It needs to end. And the only way to end it is for one side to win and the other to lose. It's too late for us to come together. We don't need a total victory where Democrats absolutely wipe out Republicans or vise versa. We just need one side to dominate the other enough so that the two can reach an understanding about who has the power. Following WW2, the Democrats had all the power. From the early 50s till the mid 90s, they never once lost their majority in Congress. During that period, the Republicans understood that the only way they could have any influence is if they cooperated and sometimes even went along with the Democrats.
But given the current demographics of America, neither side can dominate the other. So both sides have to bend to corporate interests in order to raise enough money to win elections. Both sides have to refuse to compromise in order to satisfy the people who vote for them and give them money. What we need to do is change the rules so that one side has a clear advantage. We shouldn't change the rules too much, because that might cause political instability and make the situation even worse. And we should change the rules in a way that makes sense, seems justified, and isn't just clearly ad hoc. If we do that, we'll at least be capable of having effective leaders. And maybe these new leaders will be able to address some of the problems you're talking about. And whether the changes to democracy should result in Democratic or Republican leadership... I've already written too much, so I'll save that part for later.
As I pointed out in your other thread where you made this same mistake, GDP as it is measured. i.e. in terms of the total quantity of money and goods and services circulating in the economy gives a false picture of productivity. The first world is exploiting the third world's resources in a desperate attempt to maintain its lifestyle.
True, it is currently bringing many people into a more prosperous middle class lifestyle, but everyone (except the very wealthy) is working longer and harder to service the exponentially increasing debt which is all that is enabling the illusion of growth to continue. Credit (new money creation) is premised on increased productivity in the future, but if productivity (really the illusion of productivity) can only continue to be increased by creating more debt, and not by increasing profitable and sustainable utilization of real resources to create more products, then there will inevitably be a day of reckoning.
It is true that if wealth were redistributed, then those people currently at the lower strata of prosperity would obviously be better off. But everything is interconnected and the current global economic structure, which is constituted by, among other things, the way the wealth is currently distributed with all the precise details and balances of consumption that go along with that, is becoming increasingly complex and fragile, so the overall economic effects of any such large scale redistribution are unpredictable, and could hasten catastrophic global economic collapse.
In other words, there is no one in control and nothing that can be done, and any attempted radical action could quite likely rapidly bring about a situation in which everyone, except the hunter-gatherer and most basic agrarian communities, basically everyone except those who can find or produce their own food and water, suddenly finds themselves far worse off.
The question always seems to be: where will the money come from? If the money is taken from the rich, by massively increasing taxation at the higher income levels, reintroducing death taxes or disallowing inheritance (above a certain level say) and the money gained thereby is given to the poorer sectors, then sales of luxury items that only the very rich can afford will decline, and they will decline to the degree that the wealthy are, so to speak impoverished.
If these industries generally decline and some even collapse what effect will this have on the global economy, if everything is interconnected, as it seems to be, in complex, and increasingly complex, ways?
Also, if the poorer people have more money to spend, then there may be a shortage of goods, which will cause inflation. Of course that would not seem to be a problem now, with inflation at historically low levels. It's a very complex situation, but I think whichever way you look at it, the current level of prosperity cannot continue, and bringing ever more people up to that level is unsustainable.
The only hope would seem to be that everyone very gradually reduces their level of consumption, particularly of fossil fuels; just to the degree that avoids collapsing current industries. But it would seem to be impossible to enforce, such a "rationing", or even quantify how austere would need to be, and people generally seem too complacently self-centered and unable to sustain voluntary cooperation for such a thing to come about through the "will of the people", anyway, even if they could know just how frugal they needed to be.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-offshore-wealth/super-rich-hold-32-trillion-in-offshore-havens-idUSBRE86L03U20120722
Yeah, go figure. Any thoughts about this "issue", @andrewk?
Let me respond as a semi-untrained economist: The current taxation level on the rich is about 30%. It used to be closer to 90%. And you know what? When it was at 90% there were still rich people getting richer. Granted, it might have taken more work on their part to get rich, and their children may not have been made quite as rich through inheritance, but they made do. They recycled their mink coats into mink stoles, their silk gowns into fancy curtains (the opposite of Scarlett O'hara in Gone With the Wind), and so on. The Gold Corvettes could eventually be used for grocery shopping instead of lavish display, etc.
Quoting Janus
Just to alert the rich to the risks they face, "after another 5 seconds of whining about being impoverished, we'll just blow your tits apart". If they don't shut up, fire away.
Quoting Janus
OK, so here you have stumbled upon an inconvenient truth: The present level of consumption (all goods and services) is unsustainable. Global warming is a reality, and one way or another consumption is going to get cut -- probably by some unpleasant process where heat and high water eliminates large batches of consumers from existence. Fossil fuels are not just our achilles heel, they are the bulging aneurism in our aorta that will burst, bringing this whole fandango to an abrupt and clumsy finish.
I agree with all of that. The rich could still get richer when tax rates were much higher. But, given the increasing amount percentage of debt to GDP and diminishing and consequently more costly resources, do you think they could get richer today if taxation levels were at those mush higher levels? Perhaps they could continue to grow richer, but only at the expense of being able to purchase the said luxury items. I don't know this, obviously, I'm just speculating. If this were the case though, is it plausible to think this would have no destabilizing effect on the global economy?
Quoting Bitter Crank
:rofl: Yeah, fuck'em; I have no sympathy!
Quoting Bitter Crank
I love your colourful language Crank! Totally agree! There is global warming indeed, nonetheless there is the other side of the problem which is the increasing fragility of the global economic system, which seems to be due to a number of converging factors, not least of which is depletion and hence increasing real cost (that is cost in energy terms) of resources. We just don't know which will hit us hard first, and just how soon we will be hit, but one of them will hit us, it seems fairly sure.
For example, before the supply of oil is exhausted (maybe 100 years away), once heavy manufacturing becomes impossible because of labor, resource, and market, problems, global trade is going to come to shrink. It isn't that people won't want to buy anything; producers may not be able to make stuff to sell, AND get it to where buyers are. And if the buyers economy is collapsed, they won't be able to afford to buy anything. The fracturing and collapse of parts of the world economy probably isn't 100 years away--it's somewhat less. No, I don't know.
But it stands to reason that with heat waves, floods, crop failures, fires, and disease (animal, plant, human) taking an ever larger toll, (I left out major wars) economic activity is going to shrink.
You underestimate the power of the markets. The invisible hand works its magic through the ever-increasing creative destruction that we are perpetuating.
But, "consume less"! Not really, just change the means of production to robots and the endless demands of productivity increases and all boats will rise.
I'm just going to be blunt and call you out on your catastrophizing here. The markets have lifted countless people in India and China out of destitute poverty. You might brush that aside and counter with another knee jerk response that this has happened at the cost of the environment, especially in China. But, it goes without saying that there is no free lunch and we might as well accept the fact that the world is becoming a better place despite what Marx or Engels might have said some 100+ years ago.
My gripe is only that the picture you paint is devoid of all else considered or caeteris paribus.
Yes, Wallows, but where are the resources, both economic and energy, not to mention scientific and technological, going to come from to build all those robots? And where is the money going to come from to radically transform all the existing infrastructure to serve the new regime? And where is all the money to support all the humans who will be out of work going to come from? Where is the political cooperation, globally speaking, going to come from? Where is the willingness to sacrifice our precious lifestyles, not to mention the knowledge as to precisely how and to what degree to do it going to come from?
Quoting Wallows
It's arguable that the "countless people" brought out of poverty is on account of increasing debt, and it seems obvious that this cannot be sustainable. Perhaps you might think it is not productive to think catastrophically, but if we really are facing catastrophe, would it not be more helpful; to face the fact rather than bury the collective head in the sand. What solid reason do you have to think we are not facing a catastrophe, when everything seems to point to the conclusion that we are? It's no good saying something like, "Oh, well we should try to look on the bright side", because that would likely be nothing more than wishful thinking.
It seems to me that we would do better to think that collapse, or at least a great and rapid reduction and transformation, of civilization as we know it is inevitable, and perhaps much sooner than we think, and to try to prepare as best we can for that, than to vainly hope that we can sustain "business as usual" indefinitely into the future.
Education? Human capital? Amazon is tirelessly working on automating all its distribution centers. Tesla, last week, released a fully autonomous electric car. It really never ends, as long as people want things instead of being satisfied with less, like myself. Now, there is undeniably an enormous amount of waste created through this indecisive nature of human wants and needs. And, I feel like that's the issue here. The amount of waste we produce is staggering. Just go to a food bank and realize that if your a glutton, then you just landed in heaven if you can get around the fact that the food is about to expire, which never really bothered me.
Quoting Janus
Nothing needs to be sacrificed. That's a myth that I see pushed by nay-sayers of the economic system that governs capitalism. We will simply adapt and change the way we behave. If you get my gist here, it's like placing the horse behind the cart. Expectations are malleable and not concrete.
Quoting Janus
Substitute "wishful thinking" with "expectations" and my point should become more clear.
Quoting Janus
I don't believe in the notion of "collapse and inevitable" here. Others might differ.
Are you saying that we will not need to drastically reduce consumption (a reduction of consumption that I refer to as "sacrifice:) or that we will not see the drastic reduction of consumption as a sacrifice? You or I may not see such a reduction of consumption as a sacrifice, but how can you be confident that no one will, or that most, or even many, will not?
It seems to me you are just assuming that we will be able to do all these things without being able to give a plausible explanation as to how we will be able to do them.
Yes, we won't see it. It will just be a new "equilibrium" that we adapt to. Again, to repeat, expectations change due to things within or beyond our control. Hurray capitalism!
Quoting Janus
Well, it's not a zero-sum game and we don't see change unless it has already happened. But, according to the snapshot or image I can present at this moment, there is a dramatic shift in the market towards a more sustainable future due to a rise in the efficiency of existing products.
Quoting Janus
It just happens. I can't tell you how it does happen because we don't live in a communist central command economy that determines or transcends human wants and needs.
What cogent reason do you have for your apparently great faith in human resourcefulness?
Something like that. Though you seem to be missing the point that markets are composed of people and not an abstract entity like the invisible hand that Adam Smith talked about.
Quoting Janus
The market is not a machine contra Marx. It's composed of people who drive it. Although if you read my first post in this thread you might be able to discern that it's actually a handful of people that are controlling the money stream.
Quoting Janus
Well, I'm not part of the picture so I can somewhat objectively state that most people have a zest or zeitgeist for things in life. To sound philosophical there's an unsatisfiable desire for "more" than what people already have. This breeds discontentment and alienation of group interactions. But, I'm kind of not part of the composite of people who feel that way.
I'm a positivist, so there you have it. That's my attitude on the matter.
People want too much, and can't carry the burden of it.
It's always pushing and pulling; an overstressed heart.
A heart attack is a learning experience for some and a death sentence for others.
Quoting lucafrei
Generosity.
That said, rock bottom isn't so bad, when you realise you can't go any lower and all that's left is elevation.
So, do you think that "the desire for more" is the basic driving force in human development? Some people think it is. Should we suppose that human beings have been hungering for more for the last... let's say, 100,000 years? It seems like our species has spent far more time living in equilibrium with needs, wants, and resources than in incessant hankering after more.
Most of our history has been lived as hunter gatherers whose societies were very stable and who did not accumulate goods. The couldn't carry more than the absolute minimum gear needed to carry out hunting, gathering, and consuming food. Studies of contemporary hunter gatherer societies reveals people who are reasonably healthy, and reasonably happy. Our basic formula for success has been 'travel light'.
Of course, we want 'more'; just because you ate well at breakfast doesn't mean you will not want 'more' at supper time.
The idea that humans hunger for ever more and better goods, experiences, and services is a treadmill made to serve corporate purposes, not an inherent human desire. "Always more" is the motto of capitalism, which requires ever expanding sales to maintain profitability. This, by the way, is capitalist theory, not Marxist theory. It's just a fact: corporations can not achieve steadily increasing profitability on the basis of flat sales and consumer contentment.
Henry Ford understood this. His very short list models (any color you want as long as its black) were not made to be bought and enjoyed for decades. Ford engineers strove to produce a vehicle that would not last too long. Why? Because if everyone who wanted a car bought one, and the car lasted them for decades, Ford would be out of business fairly soon. Ford soon had the company of many auto manufacturers who offered an array of cars in various styles, colors, luxury, or utility. They all followed the same principle: car sales can be driven by encouraging dissatisfaction with what you have in hand in favor of what is at the showroom. And we haven't gotten to 1930 yet!
So, this idea of driving sales by the whip of dissatisfaction wasn't invented in 1901. Sales of fashionable goods (clothing, shoes, jewelry, home furnishings) had been applying this principle to the affluent bourgeoisie for a while; let us say, during the 19th century. The further back you go, the fewer people there were who had sufficient resources to engage in discontented buying (we are talking about very small numbers).
You know this: there is a huge industry devoted to the careful, 24/7 cultivation of discontentment. It is so ubiquitous that it might seem invisible. It is certainly so ubiquitous that it is inescapable short of becoming a cloistered monastic or falling into a coma.
What, pray tell us, is efficient and sustainable about selling water in plastic bottles? arranging society so that everyone who can owns at least one car? A product packaging system that consumes and buries or burns many tons of paper, plastic, and metal every day? Housing built for 2 people that comprises at least 3,000 sq. feet of space, where a century ago, a house for 2 people might have had 1000 square feet?
When you sign the agreement you are agreeing with the terms/conditions set out within the agreement.
The sheer size of some multinational corporations lends their board of directors and/or ceos a tremendous amount of power, including but not limited to free speech; the power to influence an entire electorate during what are supposed to be free and fair elections; the power to appoint specific people in charge of lobbying on the corporations own behalf by virtue of helping write and/or actually writing legislation that has a direct effect upon the profit margin of the corporation. Interest of employees and/or workers(everyday citizens) are always in conflict with corporate profits.
Of the people, for the people, by the people? What bullshit.
There is nothing illegal about a citizen of a foreign nation who sits on a multinational corporation's committee/board directly influencing how American laws are written. There's nothing illegal about the same people having the power to govern the discourse, even when it is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from what ought be the focus.
Collusion? Pffft. That shit's legal.
Thanks Scalia.
And you think I'm dreaming!
Quoting Wallows
That's fine; you don't have to believe whatever catastrophizing I do here. And I would agree with you that economic activity in China, India, SE Asia, Korea, and elsewhere has indeed lifted many people out of destitution over the last few decades. Trade has helped, internal consumption has helped. Shaking off very stultifying systems of peonage has helped a great deal too.
Yes, there have been environmental costs. There were, are enormous environmental costs as a result of our own economic development. Economic development, in general, has tended to be a dirty game, because whether in a command economy or a capitalist economy, managers prefer to externalize costs by throwing waste into the river.
The catastrophe that I catastrophacize about, however, is quite novel. the crisis of global warming owing to CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases is unprecedented and is pretty much cross cultural for industrialized nations. It's also novel in that it isn't a crisis that can be thrown into reverse quickly or easily. We already may be past the point where strenuous reductions of CO2 will prevent a sharp rise in global average temperature. Strenuous reductions would certainly be a good idea, but we might get the consequences of CO2 increase before we experience the benefit of CO2 decline.
Global warming probably won't wipe out our species. I don't think it will do that. But it is already wiping out many species. Warming, and excessive use of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and so on. And global warming certainly threatens to cull human population. that will be pretty ghastly. It's worth avoiding.
A much bigger class of people who are just comfortable enough to not want to riot. Keep them fed clothed and housed...
Evidence and counter evidence please? Anyone can make a sweeping claim about anything, but without actually presenting evidence for this why should I believe you given that what I’ve learnt - from actual empirical evidence - is generally opposite to what you’re saying?
Well, everything is becoming automated. The Luddites were aware of this impending doom to their welfare and claimed that machines should be banned from becoming the means of production, yet here we are enjoying ourselves due to these machines that are sorting your mail or building new electric cars.
Keep in mind that things are progressing in a manner where costs are decreasing or remaining stable comparatively to inflation. This is just me pointing out the fact that technology, productivity increases, and efficiency gains - through automation and other factors - are causing deflationary tendencies in the economy, not inflationary.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yeah; but, it attracts attention and is misguided. Just trying to point that out.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So, before we claim that this will continue to happen, let's take a step back and realize that this is a big issue that people are aware of, much like how Rachel Carson's, Silent Spring raised awareness of the use of pesticides and their detrimental effects on eggshell density, which caused hatchlings to prematurely die. Furthermore, there's a shift taking place, most notably in the car industry, and in the energy sector to go electric. Indirect fusion (solar panels) is becoming cheaper than oil and gas. The fracking industry will only last so long, despite the mind-boggling fact that the US is becoming a net exporter of oil and gas, which was unthinkable some 30 years ago.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, no disagreement here on my end. And oil and gas companies were campaigning against nuclear, through promoting solar some 30 years ago, when solar was never going to compete with oil and gas, at the time. But, times are changing and nuclear is experiencing a renaissance.
Disinformation is a cause for concern; but, the oil and gas companies seem to have accomplished their goal of vilifying nuclear, which is still the safest and a practical alternative to oil and gas. It's a tragedy that liberals in office still think nuclear is evil and all that crap, which paradoxically Republicans have been very fond of. So, interests and goals are misaligned and are warped and distorted over at Washington due to disinformation and special interest groups. But, this is where we have to realize that economics dictates what is most cost-effective, and not any particular group of people or president for the matter.
It would seem to require a rather drastic shift in values, and that takes time, probably much more time than we have left before the shit hits the fan. Oddly, I think people would generally be much happier if their values were shifted toward seeking meaning and happiness, rather than wealth, status, and distraction. In a culture that values meaning and happiness, "rationing" may not feel like rationing but simply living cooperatively for mutual benefit.
Not according to those inclined to agree with Marxism. The revolution is always around the corner; but, seemingly never comes about as long as cooperation is enforced by a higher authority. And, that's sort of the paradox with Marxism. That people don't seem to want it, not in capitalist society at least. Marx understood this and elaborated about the need for this "shift" to occur gradually from capitalism to socialism, and eventually towards communism. China is perhaps an exception to this, in how they accomplished this shift within the span of one or two generations.
Quoting praxis
So, classical and neo-classical economics doesn't really delve into cooperation and mutual benefit as much as it should. The solution to the tragedy of the commons, which is pretty much a summary of the current predicament we have with climate change, is in essence relinquished through highlighting the benefits of cooperation. Combine neo-classical economic theory with laissez-faire sentimentality, and you can't address the problem until it the negative externalities (such as carbon emissions) start affecting growth and prosperity. One solution to this problem that is compatible with neoclassical economic theory is through internalizing externalities such as a carbon tax. This seems like the only "rational" solution to the issue, yet it has its downsides. The main downside is that economies that are less well developed are going to get hit with an equivalent price to pay as more developed economies. To resolve the problem you have to determine (a nearly impossible task) the number of emissions that each country has emitted to the atmosphere of CO2 and based on the amount to create, what I would call a "guilt-tax" proportional to the amount previously emitted to the amount currently being emitted.
Anyway, my favorite field of science being game theory would never allow such an "unfair" guilt-tax to ever be implemented.
And that's exactly your problem.
You don't see the positive side in the World as you have grown up what many would see as the model of a peaceful prosperous country where various ethnic groups speaking different languages live in harmony (or at least we don't hear about any ethnic strife in Switzerland). No news is good news. And the Swiss don't get much into the news. The only bad things you hear from Switzerland is that there is a drug problem (but which country wouldn't have one).
Quoting lucafrei
Yet isn't that actually happening? American astronauts have still gone to the International Space Station with Russian rockets. Doesn't that at least tell something?
It is an inherent aspect of Western culture to be critical about the way things are. We have that what could be called Angst. We are restless about the problems we perceive the World having and we have this urge to solve them. Or at least to speak about them. The globe isn't in a near Mayhem. We portray it to be so as to highlight the importance of the present.
We wouldn't be happy if our time now would be just the backwater of the far more interesting 20th Century to future historians, who don't see much happening in the 21st Century (especially compared to the awesomely exiting 22nd Century and the epic 20th Century).
:up: +1, yes, and amen. Thank you Professor Crank. That about sums the last 100,000 years (as far as I’m concerned). Excellent point about planned obsolescence being an integral factor from the very start of industrialization. It is extremely wasteful. I’ve thrown away 3 microwaves and 2 TVs in the last five years. Multiply that times a billion or so. This must change if we want to live somewhere other than a garbage dump.
Yes. I would agree. Adding the small point that I don’t think any major shift will happen until “the shit (shift?) hits the fan”. Many want change, and many work towards improvement. But there is a cultural and economic logjam of epic proportions. Those on top absolutely don’t want things to change, unless it is to make it even more in their favor, if that can be imagined. I am not a revolutionary, and think that violence is usually counterproductive, poisonous, and a complete waste. It might be an ecological disaster that shakes things up so that new ideas are seriously considered, not just given lip service. Will we still buy from Amazon if the real Amazon forest has been turned into grazing land and parking lots?
As a semi-potty-trained economist, I am inclined to agree with that assessment. A vacuum “Black hole” created by greedy people with their heads up their black holes. The thing about black holes is that they really suck. Money is just more power and leverage to the 1%. It’s all just a game, it seems. It is food, clothing, and shelter to us. Somebody please convince me that the system isn’t broken beyond repair, that we aren’t in complete sociological, economic, and planetary meltdown... despite flying AI drone smartphones that can read your mind and stock your refrigerator. (wait... is that a good thing?)
Thanks for the insightful post. I might quibble slightly about the US violently imposing its culture. But I get your point that business sets the pace. Multi-national corporations are ultimately loyal to and answer to no one, not stock holders, governments, or concerned citizens. They are more machine than human.
I’m not a believer in robot saviors-servents either. Not that I think robots will turn into Terminators. It’s the ones pulling their strings, the man behind the curtain, that is more worrying.
It's the human robots that you gotta be real scared of.
Well, on the bright side, you, I, and everyone else currently alive won't see the full impact of climate change. Most likely the next generation won't either. So, there's some time to prepare for the worst. I'm going to harp the Keynes saying that we're all dead in the long run. Kinda sucks; but, it is what it is.
I can appreciate the thinking and optimism behind this, and your other posts. And I can see the logic, and partially agree. Science, knowledge, and technological advancements have both a neutrality and a goodness. Keep the knowledge and technical abilities, lose the rapacious and devouring modus operandi. Easier said than done, by far. It’s not just the climate, oil, deforestation, and pollution problems, bad as they may be.
There is something fundamentally wrong with our culture. Not with humans, since humans, in one form or another, lived upon the earth for millions of years as relatively harmlessly as apes, snakes, and squirrels. Survival of the fittest involves killing, but only a small-scale “necessary” killing for food and reproduction. We were the first to evolve to be smart enough to commit planetary murder-suicide. (Even putting aside nuclear weapons for the moment). We are the first to be at war with everything, including the earth itself. By war, I mean a violent conquering operation. If there is coal we want in a mountain, level it completely and leave a pile of gravel. Because we NEED IT, dammit, no time for politeness. Rape is the name for it, on a large (and therefore invisible) scale. There are many Sarumans, not just one evil wizard as in The Lord of the Rings. It is measurable ratio here: the injustice and violence that a culture unleashes on the earth, will be unleashed upon its citizens in due time. And will render such culture ultimately unsustainable on many levels. We are sawing off the branch we are sitting on, and developing more powerful saws every year.
Humans as a species can’t go backwards. We can’t live in caves again, or even mostly in small villages. Huge cities are here to stay. But we are smart and inventive enough to learn from our mistakes and find solutions. The solutions are already out there, like seeds waiting to sprout. There are those who would kill the sprouts as a contender to their throne. Our weakness is not our intelligence, but our stubbornness, fear, and isolation. These weaknesses are encouraged by the powers that be. But as powerful as they may be, it is not them who must be overcome. It is the ideology behind them that is antiquated, toxic, and overdue for a change...
Yes, interesting metaphor. A heart clogged with stuff, but desperate for love and a feeling of belonging. Can we be open again? Can we cast off, like torn and soiled clothing, the tiresome and strained ways that no longer work for us? (That is, if they ever really helped us at all).
Thanks.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Oh; but, how the Japanese circa the end of WWII disagree here, along with the scientists that created the atomic bomb felt guilt and repugnance at their own creation.
Quoting 0 thru 9
No, no, no... We want it. Needs have been met a long time ago. Wants and values are endlessly manufactured out of thin air. It's amazing really how malleable expectations are, and how this endless lack is perpetuated ad infinitum...
Quoting 0 thru 9
Yes, let us hope we go electric in a short enough time.
Quoting 0 thru 9
These problems are being passed on to the next poor fucks to deal with it. The can keep's on being kicked down the road here.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Hmm, this is somewhat distorted. Homeostasis eventually tells us, through self-regulation that we have enough, yet we endlessly watch TV and other outlets that perpetuate our alienation and disenfranchisement with ourselves and others. And, this is why I dropped out of college. The noble institution that it once was has been perverted and subjugated to the demands of the economy. I see no solution to this problem. Perhaps, I need to become more religious to stave off the wallowing.
Perhaps you've heard this story.
In ancient Egypt, the hearts of the dead were measured against the feather of Maat, to determine their passage in to the afterlife. Maat being truth, law and balance.
Should the hearts outweigh the feather, they are fed to Ammut - which would lead to a second death.
Now, swap out Ammut for the ego; the constant cravings for fame, power, items and so forth.
You feed over yourself and all your time, trying to please a thing that won't be pleased, and whereas you may have lived a content life, gratifying yourself - you throw everything away and start chasing a dangling carrot. And so, by throwing life away during the act of living, acquire a second death - realised at the moment of passing away, when all your regrets suddenly start piling up.
This modern problem isn't modern at all, but it's highly saturated and it was known for ages that it would become highly saturated with the propagation of trade, which would in turn leave people to value items over themselves. People are too enamored with owning, rather than being.
Owning knowledge, rather than being knowledgeable - that's why diplomas are commonplace.
Do people not tend to put money over their own life?
When I see beggars, they always ask for money to buy food, rather than just directly ask for food.
So many are too busy trying to live, when they could just live.
Someone pursuing happiness, is simply forgetting to be happy.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Addition advantages: The Holy Robot would obey the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, would leave the cute boys alone, wouldn't gossip, and would never have heretical ideas. When the unit was not busy, it could monitor the behavior of congregants. Further more, given robotic power, it could do something about misbehaving parishioners who thought they could get away with a little adultery or embezzlement. It would certainly be able to balance the diocese's books, while monitoring congregants and turning bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
The shortage of priests would be solved. And, for that matter, the shortage of nuns and monks could also be solved. The Church would have that large, reliable, and low cost work force again.
Sounds like a win/win/win to me.
Reminds me of that poem you shared a while ago about the gracefully watching over of our robot overlords.
Wait till you see what our robotic soon to be overlords determine as what we really want. It will be spoon-feeding us drugs and blasting pornographic videos based on our irrational tendencies with respect to human desire.
Frankly, I would love a good robo Zen master who could effectively lead me to realize emptiness.
How long have we been doomed for now?
Two hundred years? More?
But now it's really going. Just now, Honestly.
Have you noticed that people of a different era could already talk of you as a cyborg? Of course, the machines you use aren't attached to your body, but still. Spending your time in communication with total strangers through various machines calledthe internet and using all those computer algorithms and electronic widgets in your life. It's not just coming, that horrible future is already here. Has been for quite some time.
I can imagine the time when we would be writing actual letters in candle light: "Dear Mr. Bitter Crank, on the letter you sent me last October..."
Amazing the shit we get all testy about and worked-up over.
Time for TRUE INTELLIGENCE (not "artificial" intelligence) to come along and rid this planet of its worse virus.
The floor is yours, Frank A.
:up: Thanks for that take on the economic situation. Every adjustment to one group affects the whole. It’s mind boggling. I think nearly everyone is resistant to change, including the less wealthy. Being less wealthy myself, often I see proposed change as a trick or con. What’s the catch? I think suspiciously. There is very little trust on any side. It reminds one of trench warfare. I am for a “meritocracy”, where there is incentive to achieve and create. Still, a universal basic income, whether joined with a public works program or local currency or not, seems like an idea whose time is quickly approaching. But as I mentioned above, the situation is in a gridlock logjam mostly continued by those with the gold. And the opportunity for any significant change won’t happen as long as the “1%” keep throwing monkey wrenches into the machine, to put it politely. (And the political leaders who officially rubber-stamp the whole deal likely won’t change of their own accord, either. They are implicated in the whole process. The two party system is simply two sides of the same old gold coin).
There is no real reason, except capital gain and perhaps inertia, that each area or country cannot mostly make its own goods. (Though this would require time, effort, and investment of course). The manufacturing drain from the US for the last 40 or so years has been devastating. And the reason was purely profit-driven. The advantages of having each community more or less self-sufficient in many goods are many. More employment and less travel, fuel, and effort required for getting goods from creation to consumer. Shipping goods across the world is unnecessarily wasteful. Of course, there will still be some trade between states and nations, just not as much. And large cities will never be completely self-sufficient within their boundaries, foodwise most of all. But why on earth must most of our clothing come from the other side of the world? Also as already mentioned, planned obsolescence is a drain on the environment, everything, and everyone, except to those selling the products. But even they are affected eventually.
Thanks.
I've had my say.
Agreed. I would propose that each “tecreation” (product of technology) exists within a “spectrum of help or harm”. Some products, like lamps, have very little harm built into them. (Although almost anything could be used as a blunt weapon). Some things, like nuclear weapons, are solely for the purpose of killing. They seem unable to be “beat into plowshares”, so to speak.
Quoting Wallows
I meant that line to be read ironically... as in the character of a capitalist mining boss (with dangling cigar) or something. Sorry, should have put it in quotes. Anyway, I agree with your statement that wants are endless, even though needs are not. We are like the hungry ghosts of Buddhism.
Quoting Wallows
Sorry if that wasn’t clear. May have been in semi-rant mode, lol. I meant that all of us in general have enough intelligence. The issues are more in the psychological realm than the intellectual one. And that is perhaps better not to fight against particular “bad guys”. Rather maybe better to perceive, then attempt to change/improve the system of ideas, feelings, and images. Change the mythology, if you will. (Mythology being used neutrally here as meaning a system of beliefs that underlie a culture, mostly subconsciously. Religious or not, functional or not.)
This characterises "government" as something malevolent, something external. It is neither. Government is simply a collection of individuals we have appointed to make decisions on our behalf, so that we don't all have to spend our lives doing so. We are the government; the government is us. Government does (should do) what we ask it to, whether we ask for a little (right-wing) or a lot more (left-wing).
@Janus
(Hope you don’t mind that I’m responding to your post from another similar thread by the same OP here, since this thread is getting more traffic. From here.)
Quoting Janus
Charles Eisenstein, as you mention, has IMHO some very creative, interesting, and useful thoughts on the general topic of “Western civilization” (ie. Where are we? How did we get here? Where are we going? Can we improve anything?) For me, he kind of picks up where the late Daniel Quinn left off, and builds upon that foundation, and that of Jared Diamond and others, as well. For those interested, Mr. Eisenstein generously has the excellent book you mentioned, The Ascent of Humanity, as well as several other of his works on the general topic, available to read for free on his website. (Donations graciously accepted, of course... And Amazon has a deal on the combo print and audiobook versions of The Ascent of Humanity $14.99 for both. Good deal, as the audiobook is over 27 hours long, lol!)
Haha, I remember the idiocy of the "atomic for peace" campaign...
Quoting 0 thru 9
Hehe, pretty witty statement there.
Yea, nuclear fission energy with all its dangers and radioactive waste, is not really sustainable. And it simultaneously makes me cringe and chuckle when reflecting on the fact that they used to put uranium into dentures, for that glow-in-the-dark smile. :grimace:
Well, here I disagree. Nuclear is remarkably safe and sustainable. The amount of nuclear waste is trivial (would fit in a football field stacked a meter high).
Anyway, I'm actually pro-nuclear. I've done my research on the matter and think it's pretty safe alternative to coal and gas.
Not in my backyard, dangumit! :mask: I will concede that it is renewable non-fossil fuel that may end up saving us, especially with some improvements. It needs top-notch equipment and personnel, which this cost-cutting economy seems averse to. I think The Simpsons and Chernobyl have soured me on the whole nuclear deal. I can be bribed to change my mind though...
The American Dream need a mention here. It seems we like to sleep a lot in America, despite all the amphetamine and methylphenidate we are feeding to American born kids in school who don't want to study. I heard the people in India don't even need to compete with foreigners they do that themselves. And, the Chinese are off the scale with their command economy meshed with mercantilist tendencies.
Yeah, there's a new series coming out from HBO about Chernobyl.
Have a looksie.
Thanks for sharing that. I think our general nature (somewhere in there) is to have enough, no more, no less. Our “cultural conditioning” on the other hand, says MOAR! To the victors go the spoils, to the victims go the toils. So moar is always better!
It is a useful skill to be able to tell your cultural conditioning to shut up sometimes.
How about this graph?
Quoting Wallows
Interesting, surely will be dramatic (even if the story isn't untold, but well documented). Yet in order to put things into perspective, I would urge people to review the United Nations report from 2005 on the Chernobyl disaster, link: CHERNOBYL: THE TRUE SCALE OF THE ACCIDENT
Those who don't bother to read the thing, here's a quote:
And let's put this into perspective on just how many are killed by coal fired nuclear plants YEARLY:
(See Forbes article Pollution Kills More People Than Anything Else)
So there you have it. The worst possible nuclear accident ever will kill roughly a third that are killed just in the US in one year thanks to coal power.
And of course there are sane opinions about the subject:
I encourage anyone anti-nuclear to check out this documentary or film about nuclear energy and dispelling the prejudices about it:
Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
by Adam Higginbotham
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
by Kate Brown
Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten Kindle Edition
by Kate Brown
@ssu
There were a lot more than 50 "liquidators" at Chernobyl exposed to massive doses of radiation, doses falling into the rapid fatal-effects range.
Two nuclear plants supply a lot of my electricity. There have been no accidents at these plants (that we know of) in the 30-40 years that they have been operating. I am reasonably confident that they will continue on until decommissioning in the next few decades. Both plants have large containers of spent fuel stacked up. I'm not worried about somebody stealing them (they're way too heavy to surreptitiously swipe) but eventually they will have to be put some place. We're not making much progress in finding that place.
If the nuclear plants in my backyard are just fine, the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel production is pretty bad. American and Soviet (now Russian) operations have been filthy. For instance, the Rocky Flats plutonium bomb plant, located not far from Denver, had a fire which burned off much of the roof and the particle filters on the ventilators. Quite a few pounds of plutonium aerosol drifted down on Denver. There were huge releases of radioactive material at the Hanford plant (the site of cold war US Plutonium production), the Idaho reactor research center, and other places.
Ozersk was the Hanford equivalent in the USSR. A river ran out of it, loaded with enough radioactive isotopes that standing next to the river for an hour gave a person a 200 rem dose. The soviets moved all the Kazakhs that lived along the river to somewhere else, right? No, indeed. Ozersk was a secret facility that officially did not exist, and the waste flowing out of the plant was also secret. So... no. The people were not moved away. A tank of waste, buried and covered with a cement plug, went critical and blew up -- an atomic explosion about the size of the Nagasaki or Hiroshima bombs. Very messy.
How about Hanford. Surely America wouldn't do stuff like that! How about running water from the Columbia River through the huge reactors and flowing it directly back into the river? How about the visible plumes of radioactive material (like yellow plumes of radioactive iodine) that came out of the stack above the plant where the fuel rods were dissolved in acid? The plume didn't dissipate as planned, but would quite often curl down to ground level in places like Walla Walla, Washington -- or onto the people who worked and lived at the plant.
All the waste buried in those places is still there, still gnawing through the walls of the tanks, leaking into the adjacent ground...
Fukushima was, perhaps, inauspiciously located. But it was also inauspicious to put the spent fuel storage pools above ground in the buildings with the reactors. What, were the Japanese stupid? No, the plant was built according to American power plant plans. Some of our plants are designed the same way.
The military on the one hand, and the capitalists on the other hand can not be counted on to put safety first. That goes for command economy communists too.
Get a few beers, maybe some puffs of cannabis and enjoy the documentary I posted in this thread on Friday or whenever you have your happy hours or two.
I find arguing with anti-nuclear sentimentality as futile and ultimately leads to frustration.
It's a pretty good documentary, that leaves you edified and satisfied with it.
https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/
Have a looksie.
It's not 1080p; but, it might suffice for anyone interested in the facts of the matter.
If that one doesn't work, here's one with German subtitles.
As I said, the UN/WHO have come to the conclusion that 4 000 people likely will die of the accident. Equivalent to 27% of Americans that die annually thanks to pollution from coal plants.
The popular anti-nuclear stance is more of a religion of ignorance and stupidity that simply rejects any objective understanding of the reality of energy production and energy policy. And the spineless politicians go with the flock to appease the clueless voters. Who cares about the actual effects as everything can be spun.
Just take Angela Merkel's decision in 2011 (after Fukushima) to close down all German nuclear plants by 2022, which was hailed as great news by the typical idiots. So what was the actual result of closing down the nuclear plants? German has to use more coal energy. Wind and solar power, although having been increased, have not been able to replace nuclear energy. Hence if Germany's carbon emissions shrank during from 1990 to 2010, after 2011 it has increased it's carbon emissions and has been busy opening new coal plants. Last year the German energy minister has admitted that the country will fail to meet it's ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions for 2020. Germany still produces roughly 40% of it's energy from coal. And of course, coal generated electricity is imported from Poland. Partly thanks to the hysteria against nuclear energy.
And it has still 7 nuclear power plants working, that should be closed in three years.
From the WHO link I posted:
Quoting Joint News Release WHO/IAEA/UNDP
Yeah, go figure.
Quoting ssu
I never did figure out why nuclear was so vilified in Germany? Was this Kraftwerk's doing?
Anyway, Japan, which is more cool-headed on the issue is perhaps the only nation where "consume less" would apply following Fukushima. I heard hand washing your apparel is making a return there. Hyperbole and that kind of stuff aside, they are reopening their nuclear power plants one by one. Otherwise, they're limited to importing coal from China or some other country.
I think that the anti-nuclear power stance comes from the issue that people are simply so ignorant that they link nuclear energy to nuclear weapons. Of course there was a huge peace movement in Germany during the Cold War as obviously Germans understood that they would be the central battlefield in a possible outbrake of WW3. Back then even Germany itself had an arsenal tactical nuclear weapons (which sounds astounding now). You can argue that it's easy to be against everything nuclear when you oppose deployment of nuclear weapons. And do remember the absolute hysteria of Fukushima. The actual earthquake and tsunami were of little importance after Fukushima happened: who cares how many died (15 000+) if there is a nuclear power plant accident!
That ignorant scepticism we will see in reality if an actual energy producing fusion reactor will be built, I'm sure of it. A lot of people will be sceptical of nuclear fusion power.
On the other hand coal has been used for ages, it employs a lot of people in Germany and with nuclear we have the image of in our minds of Hiroshima and radiation a silent killer that we cannot smell or notice. With coal? Well, just to cook food every day with an open fire is very dangerous to your health. But of course who wouldn't know the nice comforting smell of smoke from a fire?
Ignorant Germans? Sort of hard to grasp in my limited world view.
Anyway, Japan was bombed twice by nuclear bombs, yet still had to deal with that stigma along with lack of natural resources by opting for nuclear.
Is France with their 80 or so percent of electricity derived from nuclear the only sane nation with respect to nuclear?
*Scratches his head*
OK, so let's track what happened. First came nuclear weapons. They weren't a secret. Hundreds of them (a good sized war's worth) were being exploded in the atmosphere, every one of them blasting an isotope salad into the atmosphere, to be distributed by wind and water. All that went on from 1945 until 1963. After that, tests were conducted underground.
The concern about nuclear bombs didn't disappear in 1963, of course. We could just stop worrying about fallout from above-ground tests. Nuclear bombs remained in production until the late 1980s, when I think we all had accumulated something like 36,000 bombs.
The first Earth Day was 49 years ago--22 April, 1970. I don't remember it. I suppose it was about butterflies and pesticides, trees, flowers, and children. It probably wasn't about CO2 levels in the atmosphere. though acid rain was a known consequence of burning coal and oil. CO2 hadn't become a big issue, yet.
Nuclear power plants were on line were humming away by 1970. In 1970, though, people were still worried about nuclear weapons. They had not gone away. Then there was the 3 Mile Island accident, which wasn't so very terrible but the people were frightened, the way sheep are frightened when they see a wolf. The brakes were slammed on and not much new happened in nuclear power. But the plants that were operating continued on, pretty much.
Chernobyl happened in 1986. This was much worse than 3 Mile Island. This one blew up, blasting tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.
People are afraid of plutonium, uranium; cesium 137, iodine 131, strontium 90, and lots of other isotopes that they had heard about during atomic testing. These and other isotopes came out of the Chernobyl blast. I suppose we could forgive people for thinking that a dusting of plutonium or iodine 131 is what killed the liquidators at Chernobyl. What killed people there were gamma rays -- harsh, penetrating, ionizing radiation. Workers brought to hospital from Chernobyl were themselves emitting gamma radiation.
About this time, give or take a few years, CO2 became an issue, and as a decade or two have passed, seems like the most pressing issue of the day -- no longer atom bombs (though they haven't disappeared), radiation from nuclear power plants (which haven't disappeared either). Those who have inquiring minds that want to know, are now aware of how exceedingly dirty nuclear weapons production has been. Suspicion might have continued to dissipate had not an earthquake's tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant. Another melt down, another mess. Not to worry, the levels of radiation are not too much above background radiation. It's all being diluted, we'll clean it all up, everyone will be happy again, yada yada yada.
So, friends, we have more to worry about now. There are the still ticking atom bombs; all the nuclear power plants that haven't blown up yet, and all the CO2 that is clearly screwing things up. The Ozone Hole seems to be OK for now. Bees are disappearing, along with other non-honey bee pollinators, and that could be really bad. Human sperm counts are dropping around the world (about 50% since WWII). Childhood cancers--which were once a rarity--are fairly common now. Various chemicals being used resemble hormone molecules, and these look-alike chemicals are screwing up development of fish and humans (other animals too).
If there is a common enemy here, it's capitalists and state monopolists (USSR) that have always preferred to externalize the costs of their profit making by dumping the crap in the river, blowing it out the stack, burying it in holes (out of sight, out of mind), or just using the lumpen proles as a sponge to soak it all up.
People feel like they have been tricked, and in fact they have been tricked about a lot of things. Tricked, fucked over, screwed, cheated, and been had, altogether. The solution, doing away with capitalism and unmitigated industrialism, is unacceptable. I don't want to go back to the original daylight savings plan--you go to bed at sundown and get up at sunrise. Without industrialism, we won't even have kerosene, and we've pretty much wiped out cetaceans so whale oil is out. That leaves a wick in grease for lighting.
Our choice seems to be "all or nothing". We either keep the whole industrial thing running (until it buries us with a plastic stake through our hearts) or we slip back into a pre-industrial, real simple agrarian economy.
Perhaps the reason they argue so much is because each side is arguing about a different USSR or America (but call their mental representations by the same name).
Well, I thought the whole documentary with pretty good packed with testimonies, facts, and a lack of ulterior agenda or policy.
So, what's preventing you from stop worrying and learn to love nuclear?
Apres moi, le deluge.
"I have some memory of America and I interpret this memory as EVIL."
Then when Tom counters with:
"But America is actually good. YOU'RE evil."
What Tom is actually saying is:
"I have some other mental representation of America. It differs from yours and I think you're wrong."
But if both Tom and Bob have different mental representations of America, doesn't that mean that each person is talking about a different America (but call it by the same name)? Tom is talking about Tom's representation of America and Bob is talking about Bob's mental representation of America. Since these representations are not the same, then in effect each person is talking about a 'different' America.
A broader question: Why do we assume that if two people use the same "words" they're thinking the same "concepts?"
Most people find something sufficiently constant about the USSR or America to use these terms as if they represent something reasonably stable and commonly perceptible to all observers. Granted, everybody on earth has a distinct perspective on the world, and supposedly no two of them is alike. How the hell do we ever communicate?
We communicate by being familiar with the most common denominators in complex fractions like "Europe", "soil", "birds", "philosophers", and "USSRs". Once we get past the shallows of common denominators, then we have to get more specific: "When I was in Moscow in 1992, people on the streets displayed more than the usual minimum of soviet enthusiasm." [disclaimer: I have never been in Moscow.] Or, "It is wonderful to visit Washington, D.C. when the cherry trees are blossoming." That's probably true if you don't get mugged while you are traipsing around under the pink petals. [disclaimer: I have not seen Washington's famous cherry trees in bloom. Caveat: They are probably a lot like cherry trees blossoming elsewhere in the world.]
At what point is this assumption inaccurate? For example if two people have completely different mental representations of America, then doesn't that mean each person is thinking about a different America?
Again, if there are NO common denominators in two people's mental representations of a word, then why do we assume that when each person uses that word they're referring to the "same" concept?
The USSR is the same entity whether you think it was the workers' paradise or the nightmare from hell. The United States is the same entity whether you think it is the perfect democracy or a racist, sexist disaster. Correspondence between person A's apprehension of the USSR and the USA and person B's apprehension of the USSR and the USA will never be 100%. It might be only 50% or 25%, but that is sufficient to allow for a discussion.
Almost everything there is has many aspects. We all know that, and don't expect 100% correspondence with the people we talk to. People who do expect 100% correspondence quickly become tiresome and we stop talking to them.
Your answer makes no sense. Even if we assume two people's similarity of concept can be measured on a linear scale, what does it even mean for two people to have "25% correspondence" on a topic?
This doesn't seem to be the topic of this thread, but... what the hell.
Occasionally people run into the problem of using a word for which several people assign QUITE different meanings. In those cases, communication breaks down. If one of the 3 thinks Jesus is the hispanic guy that lives down the street, somebody else thinks that Jesus is the son of god, and a third person thinks that there is nobody named Jesus, obviously they are not going to have a productive discussion of Jesus.
In real life it happens that people sometimes have difficulty communicating and it usually isn't the end of the world.
I'll make up my percentages and you can make up yours. Works for me.
Communication is difficult when people are overly literal. 25% or 2% are guesses, conversational gambits. Tokens. The meter measuring the degree of correspondence between two people will be jumping all over the place as the conversation goes along, because some words will have 90%, 100%, or 2%, or 45%... correspondence.
Every now and then I come across words that have zero correspondence. I don't know what the word means. Like "phlebasing". I never did find out what that word meant. The author made it up. Camarilla means, in my terminology, a group of running dog lackeys. I had to look it up before it meant anything. How about 'flocculent', and 'synecdoche'. Two more words with zero correspondence. Many people like callipygian rear ends -- from the Greek meaning beautiful buttocks. Nice ass, in other words. I had to look it up. Zero meaning at first.
Question: Why does Tom assume Bob is referring to the "same" Buddhism as Tom? Buddhism is a very large and vague religion, with many different practices and beliefs. After watching Bob's angry video on Buddhism it's just asreasonable for Tom to assume that Bob is referring to a different Buddhism then Tom and then shrug his shoulders and say:
"Well, Bob must believe in a different Buddhism than me, and its obvious from his video that Bob hates his personal concept of Buddhism. This man, Bob, must have a lot of self-hatred in his soul."
And yet this almost never happens. Why?
Tom and Bob may not agree about aspects of Buddhism, but what Buddhism is (in its several main forms) isn't open to invention. It is what it is. The same goes for capitalism, organic chemistry, the French language, and a lot of other things. They all have specific meanings that don't overlap extensively with other terms. So, "capitalism" and "socialism" mean different things. A parliamentary system is not the same as one man rule. Anarchism and Communism have distinct meanings--they don't overlap.
Make sense?
Write a one paragraph definition of Buddhism (no cheating). If someone else writes a different definition of Buddhism (which is likely) then why do you assume you're discussing the same Buddhism as him?
"This is what it is" is not an argument. No one points at a bridge and says "this bridge exists because it is what it is." Or at least no one serious.
I might possibly understand what you are aiming at. How do definitions have any validity when people have diverse, often incompatible definitions? (But again, we're off the topic here.)
The words in language have meaning by consensus. In the case of objects, the consensus is usually correct. 99% of the population agree on which bridge in the United States is the Golden Gate Bridge and which is the Brooklyn Bridge [100% made up statistic]. True enough, some small town with the name of "Brooklyn" might have a bridge which could be called the Brooklyn Bridge, but no body would confuse some small highway bridge with THE Brooklyn Bridge. [Fact: some small towns are named Brooklyn.]
"Justice" on the other hand is a condition whose meaning maybe only a small number of people will agree with. Everyone wants justice, but who has gotten screwed by the courts and who received justice is (often) in dispute. Should the cop who shot the guy who looked like he had a gun be tried for murder? Opinion will be all over the place. "Justice" will be hard to name. "It is what it is" will definitely not be the case.
There is (or was) a consensus about what the USSR was. It was a union of 15 republics. For all practical purposes it was a single state -- the same what the USA is a single nation, even if it has 50 sub units. It was run by the Communist Party of the USSR, with a very strong executive at the top (a dictator more or less). so on and so forth... The histories of the USSR and the USA are both known. These facts are not open to dispute. "Nations" are collectivities of many people, many points of view, many government units, many industries, and so on. Of course, someone growing up taking care of pigs in the USSR or the USA will have a different take on the country than someone dancing at the Bolshoi or making movies in Hollywood.
But the facts of history are still the same, pig farm or Hollywood.
Someone involved in organized crime in the Soviet Union or the United States will have a radically different POV than somebody engaged in honest work. But the facts of the nations history -- including the fact that some people engaged in crime -- remains the same.
Now, if someone has no idea of what the USSR was (this is possible -- the USSR went out of business almost 30 years ago) then they will just be at a loss to understand what knowledgeable people are saying about the USSR. Someone born and raised in New York City, who has never traveled much, probably doesn't know what a pig farm smells like. Or, for that matter, what a barn for milk cows smells like. That doesn't mean that their understanding of the USSR or the USA is invalid. One could know a lot about the history of both countries and not know what pig shit smells like.
I'm afraid I can't go any further here. My knowledge and interest in the topic is what it is. So, if you want to talk about this more, what you could do is take your opening question to me...
and start a new thread. You might want to expand those two sentences a bit. Like, adding which Buddhism, or which Christianity people are talking about.
https://www.businessinsider.com/even-the-roman-empire-wasnt-as-unequal-as-america-today-2011-12?r=US&IR=T
https://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/
Have you been there? I haven't.