You should know by now the generic undefined “capitalism” is the source of all that is wrong in the world.
Yeah, so? The question was about capitalism and climate change. You don’t think wealth, consumption, production and waste all have something to do with capitalism?
2 Likes
Well, it is causing climate change.
We’re just flat out lucky that renewables are cheaper than coal and oil and electric motors are superior to internal combustion. If those things weren’t true, we’d have no hope.
1 Like
That’s a good point about capitalism not being well defined, because some call the USSR “state capitalism”.
2 Likes
LOL no. The Commies are just as bad. It’s not socialist states -vs- capitalist states. ZOMG… are we back in the Cold War or something.
As I’ve mentioned, the liberals think life is ordering off a menu. They imagine they can order up this option, or that other option, like side dishes. The world doesn’t work that way.
The problem is one of hierarchy, absentee ownership and the estrangement of those effected. Any system that has these attributes is not environmentally sustainable. Since absentee ownership is integral to capitalism, it is not environmentally sustainable. QED.
There is no need to figure ‘socialist states’ into this truth at all. That’s all cold war era what-about-ism.
1 Like
The proper comparison is, say Rojava -vs- Turkish Kurdistan.
Capitalism made them cheaper grauble grauble grauble…
So, can we put a fork in this ‘socialist state’ derail?
You peeps get so hung up on your labels and definitions, to the point of forgetting WTF you are even talking about.
Let’s try this…
- The ‘glerbo’ system features absentee ownership for profit extraction.
- All systems that feature absentee ownership for profit extraction are environmentally unsustainable.
- Therefore the ‘glerbo’ system is unsustainable.
Note: Regarding #1: It’s not relevant if the ‘glerbo’ system == capitalism. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Either way, it doesn’t change the truth value of the above proposition. Regarding #3: it necessarily follows from #1 and #2, if they hold.
The crux of the matter is #2. The liberals feel #2 is false. We know #1 is true. If there is a “rigorous debate” to be had… it would be a debate regarding the truth value of #2 alone.
1 Like
I’ve been thinking about the line in Star Trek where Picard is talking about why humans use to go to war. Paraphrasing but he basically talks about religion, resources, and believe it or not economic systems.
LIBERALS!
Star Trek never made sense in that once you have a replicator no economy could exist.
You liberals just crack me up. WTF do you think “means of production” means?
All it would take to impose capitalism is to privatize the replicators. That’s what capitalism is.
Anyways, we better x-nay on the Star Trek because @ cuserounder will be mad. He doesn’t like SciFy it seems.
You mean like Pelosi and Schumer and Biden? they probably have like 76-99% faith.
Avoid the end of humanity? 90%. Avoid mass catastrophe well beyond the current scale of it? 40-60%.
No, I’m just guessing. They don’t seem too worried, but I think they’re overconfident.
I mean the issue is I don’t have faith they’ll really put their efforts into it. If they did I’d say 99%. My lack of faith is a lack of faith in them to actually put full effort in.
I don’t know enough about historical attempts to regulate for the environment so I’m ill informed to comment. Obviously we made some level of progress in the 70s but we need to do way, way better.
Most of our farthest left members here seem to be very all or nothing.
Let’s say I grant you this. So what? What are you proposing instead?
“A system without absentee ownership” is not magically a solution to climate change. People are going to need to produce energy.
I thought we were done with people rolling their eyes and pronouncing us dumbasses for not being on board with something existing only in their heads after the great ACist defeat of the late 2000s.
1 Like
I wasn’t around for the great ACist defeat so I’m not really getting the reference.
Well, I’m always referencing IRL activists in my mind… not ~7 ex-poker players here. But regardless, I think you are just misunderstanding what is being said. Grab a quote of this “all or nothing”, and I’ll explain.
But let’s chat a little bit about your comments in general.
- Why do you imagine that those relatively more to the right are less likely to “all or nothing” than those relatively more to the left. To me, all/nothing-ness seems to be completely unrelated to left/right-ness.
How do you figure they have any connection at all?
You are a professional gambler, and I used to be. Do you find this all/nothing correlation with left/right holds at the poker table? My experience at the sports book is “lol no”.
- Regarding your use of the word ‘pragmatic’… according to this source, synonyms are businesslike, down-to-earth, efficient, hardheaded, logical, practical, realistic, sober. utilitarian. commonsensical. hard. hard-boiled, matter-of-fact, unidealistic. While antonyms are excited, impractical, irrational, unrealistic, unreasonable, idealistic.
Sounds to me you are saying the more to right you are the smarter you are.
Edit: fixed link.
2+2 Politics circa, idk, like 2006-2009 consisted entirely of Borodog, pvn, Nielsio, tomdemaine and assorted other annoying people explaining their mind palaces of how an ACist utopia would work. Eventually Borodog and Nielsio moved on to other things and we converted pvn and tomdemaine to liberalism/leftism. I think it was just that pvn and tomdemaine got older and wiser though, I’m not sure we actually won any arguments. It’s impossible to argue on behalf of a flawed reality against a perfect idea which doesn’t actually exist. Sabo has the same smug tone of the ideologue here, again arguing on behalf of some system which exists only in his head, I have no idea what it even is.
There’s an annoying trend on the forum at the moment to pronounce all reform of capitalism impossible, despite the existence of social democracies which have tamed it to an extent, while just assuming that a socialist system would not merely succeed but, as a certainty of its existence, implement exactly the policies which the poster would want implemented. In reality there’s nothing about non-capitalist systems which guarantees better environmental performance. I brought up the Soviet Union because Soviet socialists thought environmentalism was a bourgeois concern.
6 Likes
This is a thread about climate change? I assume you’re arguing that some non-capitalist system is a solution to climate change. If you’re not, I have no idea why you’re here.
Edit: I mean the thread is about climate change and the environment, sub in “environmental problems” in the above paragraph instead if you like.