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On January 16 2020 06:36 IgnE wrote:
Maybe global warming won’t be so bad
Aah, the good old faith strategy.
thoughts and prayers
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On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 06:38 Belisarius wrote:Ah good, we are here again.
It will take a monumental change of peoples lifestyles and goals to fix the environment, globally. The environment does not care if workers own the means of production or not. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable.
This is the core problem that I have never seen a satisfactory response to. At this point, you two might as well be advocating we solve everything by magic. You are welcome, at any time, to remove that impression by describing what you would like to do. No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term. The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower. This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly. Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that. The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now. That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. Show nested quote +And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough".
Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you?
On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book.
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On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 06:38 Belisarius wrote:Ah good, we are here again.
It will take a monumental change of peoples lifestyles and goals to fix the environment, globally. The environment does not care if workers own the means of production or not. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable.
This is the core problem that I have never seen a satisfactory response to. At this point, you two might as well be advocating we solve everything by magic. You are welcome, at any time, to remove that impression by describing what you would like to do. No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term. The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower. This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly. Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that. The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now. That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook.
Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with.
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great.
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
If your system is by many projections going to destroy the climate, and cannot be realistically reformed to prevent such an eventuality then maybe it’s a shit fucking system?
And it is the system, we can leave discussions about socialism or communism or whatever it happens to be out of it.
It is what it is. If you could positively incentivise other solutions within the current capitalist framework, well have at it.
Regarding this issue I really don’t care how it pertains to my life, it’s a potentially existential threat for a big portion of humanity.
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On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 06:38 Belisarius wrote:Ah good, we are here again.
It will take a monumental change of peoples lifestyles and goals to fix the environment, globally. The environment does not care if workers own the means of production or not. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable.
This is the core problem that I have never seen a satisfactory response to. At this point, you two might as well be advocating we solve everything by magic. You are welcome, at any time, to remove that impression by describing what you would like to do. No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term. The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower. This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly. Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that. The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now. That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with.
I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working.
It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me.
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
On January 16 2020 08:15 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 06:38 Belisarius wrote:
Ah good, we are here again.
[quote]
This is the core problem that I have never seen a satisfactory response to.
At this point, you two might as well be advocating we solve everything by magic. You are welcome, at any time, to remove that impression by describing what you would like to do.
No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term. The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower. This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly. Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that. The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now. That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I still don't think we have any idea what that idea is, other than it is further than social democracy. Which is pretty darn vague. Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:06 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great. No that was not the discussion, it was that socialism is a political system, with strengths and weaknesses, not some magical thing that will solve all the worlds problems. And that the "capitalist class" are not the only people that are causing the problem, we are all to various degree's.
There is no capitalist class only the capitalist system.
A system which demands exponential economic growth. I will agree that we are all part of the problem but we don’t have a huge amount of choice there.
Socialism doesn’t fix anything either incidentally. What is needed is a universal decrease in both demand and consumption of unnecessary things.
If you don’t have that, it doesn’t particularly matter what system of governance you employ.
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On January 16 2020 08:22 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:15 JimmiC wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term.
The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower.
This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly.
Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that.
The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now.
That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I still don't think we have any idea what that idea is, other than it is further than social democracy. Which is pretty darn vague. On January 16 2020 08:06 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great. No that was not the discussion, it was that socialism is a political system, with strengths and weaknesses, not some magical thing that will solve all the worlds problems. And that the "capitalist class" are not the only people that are causing the problem, we are all to various degree's. There is no capitalist class only the capitalist system. A system which demands exponential economic growth. I will agree that we are all part of the problem but we don’t have a huge amount of choice there. Socialism doesn’t fix anything either incidentally. What is needed is a universal decrease in both demand and consumption of unnecessary things. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t particularly matter what system of governance you employ.
The capitalist system requires that the means of production are privately owned, by individuals. Those individuals are called the capitalist class.
It isn't incorrect to say that we need to reduce our consumption, but it's only one side of the coin. We can't fight climate change efficiently if we ignore the other side.
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
On January 16 2020 08:27 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:22 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 16 2020 08:15 JimmiC wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]You didn't address his point tho.[quote]
If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry.
It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I still don't think we have any idea what that idea is, other than it is further than social democracy. Which is pretty darn vague. On January 16 2020 08:06 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great. No that was not the discussion, it was that socialism is a political system, with strengths and weaknesses, not some magical thing that will solve all the worlds problems. And that the "capitalist class" are not the only people that are causing the problem, we are all to various degree's. There is no capitalist class only the capitalist system. A system which demands exponential economic growth. I will agree that we are all part of the problem but we don’t have a huge amount of choice there. Socialism doesn’t fix anything either incidentally. What is needed is a universal decrease in both demand and consumption of unnecessary things. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t particularly matter what system of governance you employ. The capitalist system requires that the means of production are privately owned, by individuals. Those individuals are called the capitalist class. It isn't incorrect to say that we need to reduce our consumption, but it's only one side of the coin. We can't fight climate change efficiently if we ignore the other side.
My point is more that there is no ‘capitalist class’ to be ostracised as boogeymen, more that there is an entrenched system in which most buy into, of which some benefit more than others. But by and large people buy into the system and perpetuate it.
Which in aggregate is disastrous for the climate. It really doesn’t matter how the wealth is ultimately distributed if we all buy into the cult of consumption.
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On January 16 2020 08:35 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:27 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 08:22 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 16 2020 08:15 JimmiC wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe.
It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial.
You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I still don't think we have any idea what that idea is, other than it is further than social democracy. Which is pretty darn vague. On January 16 2020 08:06 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great. No that was not the discussion, it was that socialism is a political system, with strengths and weaknesses, not some magical thing that will solve all the worlds problems. And that the "capitalist class" are not the only people that are causing the problem, we are all to various degree's. There is no capitalist class only the capitalist system. A system which demands exponential economic growth. I will agree that we are all part of the problem but we don’t have a huge amount of choice there. Socialism doesn’t fix anything either incidentally. What is needed is a universal decrease in both demand and consumption of unnecessary things. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t particularly matter what system of governance you employ. The capitalist system requires that the means of production are privately owned, by individuals. Those individuals are called the capitalist class. It isn't incorrect to say that we need to reduce our consumption, but it's only one side of the coin. We can't fight climate change efficiently if we ignore the other side. My point is more that there is no ‘capitalist class’ to be ostracised as boogeymen, more that there is an entrenched system in which most buy into, of which some benefit more than others. But by and large people buy into the system and perpetuate it. Which in aggregate is disastrous for the climate. It really doesn’t matter how the wealth is ultimately distributed if we all buy into the cult of consumption.
It's true that we have to talk about our level of consumption but that's not enough for the full picture. The system influences how much we buy into that cult and it will continue to do so unless we fight against it and have a systemic critique (which I know that you do have).
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
On January 16 2020 08:35 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:22 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 16 2020 08:15 JimmiC wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]You didn't address his point tho.[quote]
If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry.
It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I still don't think we have any idea what that idea is, other than it is further than social democracy. Which is pretty darn vague. On January 16 2020 08:06 Wombat_NI wrote:
Oh cool 2 pages of trying to deal with climate change is unrealistic and didn’t you know socialism is bad to wade through, great. No that was not the discussion, it was that socialism is a political system, with strengths and weaknesses, not some magical thing that will solve all the worlds problems. And that the "capitalist class" are not the only people that are causing the problem, we are all to various degree's. There is no capitalist class only the capitalist system. A system which demands exponential economic growth. I will agree that we are all part of the problem but we don’t have a huge amount of choice there. Socialism doesn’t fix anything either incidentally. What is needed is a universal decrease in both demand and consumption of unnecessary things. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t particularly matter what system of governance you employ. Exactly we agree completely. GH does not. And @Neb this is how it feels to the rest of us. Any topic is brought up. In jumps GH to say that the world is going to end because of climate Catastrophe. Some one asks how socialism will solve it. You take this as an attack on "socialism" and get defensive. Long conversation occurs that winds its way to in fact you don't have any answers but you think socialism might be it and you want to work with people to come up with it. People offer to work with you on it and ask you to get it started. You decline. Rinse and repeat, over and over and over. So it is not that you have not said that before it is that people think it is disingenuous because while you say you want to work together you are often entering a conversation already made very contentious by GH and you are passionately defending him and whenever we get to the point of discussing this new system, what would be the starting point, what might be the flaws based on other situations, we can never get to the point of actual solutions. Instead we go on the merry go round over and over and over. And it sounds a hell of a lot more like populism where you have a simple solution to a complex problem with a enemy we need to fight against then actual socialism or any actual political system that might actually work.
Well one can flip this the other way.
Most projections are for catastrophic climate events that may be impossible to prevent without radical change.
‘It can’t be done, because reasons’ is as obnoxious to my ears (and presumably GH’s) as a demand for social revolution with no comprise is to moderates.
Climate change is a thing, its severity remains to be seen.
It would be easier to attack if it WAS an enemy. If climate change was instead an asteroid on course to destroy the earth, we’d figure a way to nuke it out of existence.
Well it isn’t, we have to deal with it in other ways.
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On January 16 2020 08:17 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 06:38 Belisarius wrote:
Ah good, we are here again.
[quote]
This is the core problem that I have never seen a satisfactory response to.
At this point, you two might as well be advocating we solve everything by magic. You are welcome, at any time, to remove that impression by describing what you would like to do.
No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term. The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower. This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly. Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that. The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now. That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working. It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me. My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us.
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Northern Ireland25642 Posts
On January 16 2020 08:47 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:17 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term.
The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower.
This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly.
Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that.
The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now.
That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working. It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me. My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us.
Why would that help? Within the current framework all such technology is being utilised into more efficiently converting people into being good little consumers.
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On January 16 2020 08:47 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:17 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term.
The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower.
This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly.
Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that.
The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now.
That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue. You didn't address his point tho. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry. It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working. It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me. My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us.
An AI will be conceived by humans which means it will act based upon the morality of the humans who made it. Any answer to climate change and to basically all the major questions within society will not include solely rationality, but also some moral choices and axioms.
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On January 16 2020 08:50 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:47 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 08:17 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:15 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]You didn't address his point tho.[quote]
If you change up who owns the industry then they become the class of people who fight against climate change regulations because they now control the industry. By changing ownership from a couple of rich people to a lot of 'poor' people your just increasing the number of people you are fighting and not reducing their power at all, they still control the industry.
It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe. It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial. You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working. It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me. My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us. Why would that help? Within the current framework all such technology is being utilised into more efficiently converting people into being good little consumers. Through Magic mostly, didn't say it was a great shot. But I'm also not trying to convince people its the right way to go on the internet.
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On January 16 2020 08:58 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2020 08:50 Wombat_NI wrote:On January 16 2020 08:47 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 08:17 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:On January 16 2020 07:21 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
It's somewhat easy for a few rich people to insulate themselves from the consequences of climate change. It's a lot harder for the entirety of the workers of a company to do so. So no, I don't think that a democratic worker force would make the same decisions than a single CEO would, in fact I think that's pretty ludicrous to believe.
It's not just that, it would also be harder for them to promote actively lying to the people for personal benefit, as the whole enterprise would have to agree to do that. So we wouldn't see as much propaganda and in consequence, not as much climate change or overall science denial.
You are underestimating the dynamic of an elite vs a people. Replacing the elites with the people doesn't just make the people the elite. They're still the people. They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green. People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late. Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why. I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit. Which again goes back to what Belisarius said. And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable So far your answer still is 'magic'. Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough". Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you? On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book. Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook. Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with. I should have mentioned that I don't want you to jump aboard my ideas, I want us to come together and figure out better ideas together once we have acknowledged that the ideas we have currently aren't working. It's a pretty massive failure of me to never have mentioned that before on the forum, I realize that if I had people would stop saying this to me. My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us. Why would that help? Within the current framework all such technology is being utilised into more efficiently converting people into being good little consumers. Through Magic mostly, didn't say it was a great shot. But I'm also not trying to convince people its the right way to go on the internet.
So what was the point of bringing it up?
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EPT
