EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 1746
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States22991 Posts
On August 10 2019 06:49 xM(Z wrote: it can't work because they don't mention consumption, reducing consumption, and that's mandatory at the stage we're in. they assume they can recycle the over-consumption, and that's wishful thinking. Feel like there are a lot of reasons it's little more than a gimmick but the US is a country where an elementary school getting shot up doesn't change gun laws, children dying in concentration camps doesn't change immigration, and elderly couples killing themselves, and diabetics dying because they can't afford healthcare doesn't spur us to fix that either. At this point I can't be surprised an existential threat of extinction isn't going to dissuade people (myself included sometimes) away from short-term profits and convenience who owns the means of production won't matter to the environment if the people in power are not respecting the waste hierarchy There are only so many positions available here. The issue is that under capitalism, the people with the power don't respect the hierarchy because they just plan on living in luxury bunkers, biodomes, and other planets. They know we (the rest of us) are doomed and have planned around it, it's not that they don't get it? The people that both get it and know we have to change don't own the means of production and won't under capitalism. It's basically definitional. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5278 Posts
...changing from a consumption based economy model to a quality and service based model that doesn't even frame it properly. you need REDUCTION and there's no way that's implied there. Edit: but just so you'd get the scale of that's required - ex: you talk about going from a fossil fuel car to an electric one while what's needed, is going from a car to ... walking. biodomes are a tricky issue; people failed with the first one they've tried and the second one, had outside inputs for for a good amount of time(until they've understood some processes and such). i stopped following it because there were many problems to overcome(plants would die after some years) then i forgot about it  .bunkers also have issues with ventilation; long term, you die/fail to reproduce in them. | ||
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Pangpootata
1838 Posts
Every company wants people to consume more of their products. Every advertisement you see is encouraging you to consume more. Smart phones are designed with planned obsolescence and will spoil after about 3 years to get you to consume more, as with a lot of other consumer products as well. Government manipulates monetary policy to get people to spend and consume. Inflation of fiat currency makes it more worth it to consume now than later. Debt economics allows people to consume now rather than in the future. The economic metrics that countries are judged by such as GDP are based on consumption. Public policy is geared towards optimizing consumption, although consumption is hardly related to happiness or quality of life past a certain basic standard of living threshold. One solution to avoid consumption is for society to optimize for a different metric instead e.g. human happiness as measured by yearly surveys. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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xM(Z
Romania5278 Posts
![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Waste_hierarchy.svg) there's no reduction ... the only reduction in the whole idea, comes from "Source reduction is typically measured by efficiencies and cutbacks in waste." and that does not cut it. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5278 Posts
On August 10 2019 09:28 Pangpootata wrote: there's a gimmick that could be employed here - the proponents of such an idea know that a consumption reduction is mandatory, but fail to mention it(on purpose) due to people flipping the fuck out when they hear that term, and while applying their idea, hope and pray the consumption will decrease(if and only if they're good guys). The modern economy is based on consumption. Every company wants people to consume more of their products. Every advertisement you see is encouraging you to consume more. Smart phones are designed with planned obsolescence and will spoil after about 3 years to get you to consume more, as with a lot of other consumer products as well. Government manipulates monetary policy to get people to spend and consume. Inflation of fiat currency makes it more worth it to consume now than later. Debt economics allows people to consume now rather than in the future. The economic metrics that countries are judged by such as GDP are based on consumption. Public policy is geared towards optimizing consumption, although consumption is hardly related to happiness or quality of life past a certain basic standard of living threshold. One solution to avoid consumption is for society to optimize for a different metric instead e.g. human happiness as measured by yearly surveys. that's to grey of an area to me; i won't even give it a "...but at least it's something!" rating. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Pangpootata
1838 Posts
Prevention = not buying and consuming something one doesn't need Minimization = using less material/resources so that when consuming the same product, there is less environmental footprint edit: Prevention is higher in the hierarchy because it consumes no resources. Minimization still consumes resources albeit less. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5278 Posts
On August 10 2019 10:18 JimmiC wrote: in the practical sense, minimization is not reduction because it allows for choice, human choice. it's a grey area in which how much of it to happen is left to the discretion of the people.Please explain to me how Minimization is not the same as reduction. Go! edit: also source reduction is real reduction. WTF are you talking about. If you redesign a bed so it takes 50% less wood you are reducing the wood requirement by 50%. It would have the same impact to that resource then if you sold 50% with the original design. Now ideally in the circular model you do both but that doesn't make it not real, which is why the word prevention is at the top. mainly, minimization is a guideline-for, while reduction is a hard-cap-for. every word on that pyramid refers to waste: waste prevention, waste minimization, waste reuse ... etcetcetc. there is no wood prevention, that is left to the human choice which means, it could happen or it could not. the concept itself does not require it. | ||
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Yurie
11766 Posts
On August 10 2019 15:13 xM(Z wrote: in the practical sense, minimization is not reduction because it allows for choice, human choice. it's a grey area in which how much of it to happen is left to the discretion of the people. mainly, minimization is a guideline-for, while reduction is a hard-cap-for. every word on that pyramid refers to waste: waste prevention, waste minimization, waste reuse ... etcetcetc. there is no wood prevention, that is left to the human choice which means, it could happen or it could not. the concept itself does not require it. Why would you want to prevent most wood usage? It is one of the few renewable resources we have. Can even make bio-fuels from it. I know that wasn't the discussion topic, just an example but feel I have to point out wood has a bad reputation in many places. If properly managed wood is the best resource we have available from an environment point of view. Though if you care about people's health it isn't as good in all situations. It also isn't the best in transport due to weight needed compared to many other materials (though as transport gets better this is less of an argument). | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5278 Posts
On August 10 2019 17:31 Yurie wrote: because it was in his example/argument and nothing more.Why would you want to prevent most wood usage? It is one of the few renewable resources we have. Can even make bio-fuels from it. I know that wasn't the discussion topic, just an example but feel I have to point out wood has a bad reputation in many places. If properly managed wood is the best resource we have available from an environment point of view. Though if you care about people's health it isn't as good in all situations. It also isn't the best in transport due to weight needed compared to many other materials (though as transport gets better this is less of an argument). i know there are fast-turnover-trees(biomass gained per time grown) that are grown specifically to be harvested; that passes as a renewable resource in its context, but if you think that we should turn into forest a land mass the size of North America to begin with ... the perspective from which you look at things also matters. | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7858 Posts
On August 10 2019 07:11 GreenHorizons wrote: Feel like there are a lot of reasons it's little more than a gimmick but the US is a country where an elementary school getting shot up doesn't change gun laws, children dying in concentration camps doesn't change immigration, and elderly couples killing themselves, and diabetics dying because they can't afford healthcare doesn't spur us to fix that either. At this point I can't be surprised an existential threat of extinction isn't going to dissuade people (myself included sometimes) away from short-term profits and convenience There are only so many positions available here. The issue is that under capitalism, the people with the power don't respect the hierarchy because they just plan on living in luxury bunkers, biodomes, and other planets. They know we (the rest of us) are doomed and have planned around it, it's not that they don't get it? The people that both get it and know we have to change don't own the means of production and won't under capitalism. It's basically definitional. You would find capitalist countries with a social democrat tradition, like scandinavian nations, that prove that under the right frame, capitalism can go and to hand with a rather harmonious society. Then again, as usual no one knows what socialism means for whom in this discussion, because when Bernie says socialism he basically means Denmark, when republicans say socialism they mean both North Korea and Obama (insert logic) and when you say socialism it seems that you mean some strictly marxist version that afaik has never existed anywhere. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
On August 10 2019 10:13 xM(Z wrote: there's a gimmick that could be employed here - the proponents of such an idea know that a consumption reduction is mandatory, but fail to mention it(on purpose) due to people flipping the fuck out when they hear that term, and while applying their idea, hope and pray the consumption will decrease(if and only if they're good guys). that's to grey of an area to me; i won't even give it a "...but at least it's something!" rating. I've always thought that the consumption reductions necessary for a sustainable environment are actually quite small. Take air travel as an example. Emissions from air travel are almost double compared to what they were twenty years ago, yet people had fun on holidays in the 20th century. If as a world we could decide to set our consumption expectations to that of around the late 20th century we could very easily address global warning. It's just that despite knowing about global warming since the 80's, we have continuously increased carbon emissions. That's what always gets me when people talk about the difficulty of reducing carbon emissions and how it's very complicated to do. As a species we're actually constantly organizing to increase carbon emissions, somehow we're capable of that, but not capable of lowering it. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22991 Posts
On August 10 2019 18:35 Biff The Understudy wrote: You would find capitalist countries with a social democrat tradition, like scandinavian nations, that prove that under the right frame, capitalism can go and to hand with a rather harmonious society. Then again, as usual no one knows what socialism means for whom in this discussion, because when Bernie says socialism he basically means Denmark, when republicans say socialism they mean both North Korea and Obama (insert logic) and when you say socialism it seems that you mean some strictly marxist version that afaik has never existed anywhere. I've said several times Marx is too European and outdated to be "strictly marxist" personally. If you're going to attempt to condescend at least have the decency to not be bad at it. As for Scandinavian countries, they basically have mostly functional social programs and don't treat the environment like a toilet they can flush unlimited times, they aren't exactly applicable to the US (beyond that). The problems the US faces are rather different as are the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but the big problem is the same as it was in 2016. Even if most of us vote for it, it ain't happenin. | ||
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korrekt
76 Posts
On August 10 2019 18:56 Grumbels wrote: I've always thought that the consumption reductions necessary for a sustainable environment are actually quite small. Take air travel as an example. Emissions from air travel are almost double compared to what they were twenty years ago, yet people had fun on holidays in the 20th century. If as a world we could decide to set our consumption expectations to that of around the late 20th century we could very easily address global warning. It's just that despite knowing about global warming since the 80's, we have continuously increased carbon emissions. That's what always gets me when people talk about the difficulty of reducing carbon emissions and how it's very complicated to do. As a species we're actually constantly organizing to increase carbon emissions, somehow we're capable of that, but not capable of lowering it. I think your example doesn't really get the point. In the 80s fewer people could afford to fly due to relatively higher prices. So is your suggestion to get back to the good old days where only rich people would be able to pollute the environment? The world has turned since the 80s and you won't be able to solve this problem by just going back to how it was ~30 years ago. We need a solution where particularly the people who are responsible for large amounts of co2 emissions need to cut back (and I do include myself in that group). | ||
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Biff The Understudy
France7858 Posts
On August 10 2019 19:25 GreenHorizons wrote: I've said several times Marx is too European and outdated to be "strictly marxist" personally. If you're going to attempt to condescend at least have the decency to not be bad at it. As for Scandinavian countries, they basically have mostly functional social programs and don't treat the environment like a toilet they can flush unlimited times, they aren't exactly applicable to the US (beyond that). The problems the US faces are rather different as are the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but the big problem is the same as it was in 2016. Even if most of us vote for it, it ain't happenin. I know first hand that what makes scandinavian success is first of all cultural traits and ethics. They have a idea of common good, a disposition to humility and sobriety and a general ethics of solidarity that contrasts with american individualism and flamboyant machismo. You can’t replicate a system designed by people who frown upon ostentation and excessive display of self confidence in a country where common wisdom divides the world between winners and losers and preaches that everyone has got what they deserve. In that respect, I am as pessimistic when it comes to changing america into a better, kinder place, as I would be in getting rid of corruption in Italy. It’s not about socialism vs social democracy, it’s about how people think, and, having read Toqueville, it seems to me that it’s multi secular traits that are in question there. American capitalism just reflects american mentality, just as swedish social democracy is a reflection of how people think and behave there. Which is also why I believe that a small, incremental approach has more chances to make the country a better place than any revolution. Hell, the current backlash seems to indicate that even Obama was too much to take for many, many people, and he was not precisely a communist. | ||
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farvacola
United States18820 Posts
That's why I don't think it makes sense to refer to populations with such a hard and fast method of labeling; the propriety and applicability of particular labels is itself a battleground that is fought on every day in popular US culture. There's no doubt that Hollywood and Fox News are as American as apple pie, but those easily observed bastions of loud US culture are propped up by decidedly more difficult to pin populations of people that differ wildly in terms of their identification with any particular set of beliefs. In this way, I'd argue that constantly fighting over what constitutes US identity is itself likely the most accurate way to label the US population, and given how relatively young the US is relative to its European counterparts, this makes some historical sense. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22991 Posts
On August 10 2019 21:22 Biff The Understudy wrote: I know first hand that what makes scandinavian success is first of all cultural traits and ethics. They have a idea of common good, a disposition to humility and sobriety and a general ethics of solidarity that contrasts with american individualism and flamboyant machismo. You can’t replicate a system designed by people who frown upon ostentation and excessive display of self confidence in a country where common wisdom divides the world between winners and losers and preaches that everyone has got what they deserve. In that respect, I am as pessimistic when it comes to changing america into a better, kinder place, as I would be in getting rid of corruption in Italy. It’s not about socialism vs social democracy, it’s about how people think, and, having read Toqueville, it seems to me that it’s multi secular traits that are in question there. American capitalism just reflects american mentality, just as swedish social democracy is a reflection of how people think and behave there. Which is also why I believe that a small, incremental approach has more chances to make the country a better place than any revolution. Hell, the current backlash seems to indicate that even Obama was too much to take for many, many people, and he was not precisely a communist. Given an infinite timeline I'm right there with you on incremental change (other than the massive suffering that happens in the interim which opponents of revolution tend to ignore completely), it's that we don't have time for incremental change that happens at an acceptable pace for US citizens (I feel this is a demonstrable fact at this point) which makes the argument "incremental approach has more chances to make the country a better place " completely useless other than to defend the status quo without explicitly defending the status quo. Which is practically what arguments for incremental change have always been in the US. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22991 Posts
On July 09 2019 10:21 GreenHorizons wrote: I see this ending one of two ways for Epstein, either he gets off yet again, or he gets killed/dies mysteriously. But he's got too much on too many people to rot in prison. Called it. Epstein dies in jail cell because mysteriously he wasn't on suicide watch despite a previous attempt... Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide in his Manhattan jail early Saturday morning, three law enforcement officials told ABC News. He was being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy and sex trafficking. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and a judge said he wouldn't face trial before June 2020. He's accused of arranging to have sex with girls as young as age 14 in the early 2000s at Epstein's residences in Manhattan and Florida. The 66-year-old was also hospitalized in July after he was found unresponsive in what appeared to be a possible suicide attempt. abc7.com In a completely unshocking turn of events, none of his cohorts will be exposed and their secrets are safe for now. For those unfamiliar, strangling someone with a belt or whatever looks exactly like someone hanging themselves with a belt to people that don't give a shit. | ||
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