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.
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.
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.
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.
The hilarious thing is that @ ChrisV playing the ACer side in this thread.
We’d point out ACism was self-contradictory gibberish. They’d whine we must defend ‘statist-ism’ so as to have a ‘debate’.
We point out that capitalism is by nature unsustainable. @ ChrisV is whining that I’m not giving him some imaginary Marxist utopia so as to have a ‘debate’.
The truth value of (ACism is gibberish) or (capitalism isn’t sustainable) are stand alone Qs.
I think you have plenty of knowledge. Regulation before the 1970s created the 1970s. Regulation after the 1970s created today. The proof is in the pudding.
The point is that ‘well regulation’ has it’s never been sustainable, not for an instant, not ever. It’s never worked in the past, it’s not working now… why would you imagine something literally magical is going to happen in the future so that all of a sudden it starts working?
I mean I’m done here because I don’t even know why this conversation is happening here (every other thread on the forum is for capitalism vs other things debates) but that analogy is gibberish. When ACists demanded that we defend statism they were talking about the system prevailing in the real world; ACism was the imaginary utopia. Here capitalism actually exists and whatever the hell you’re proposing instead, which is still unclear to me, is the imaginary utopia.
Here is a bit of my post I have bolded to emphasise that I am very smart and my words are of great importance.
I am an idealist in forming my opinions and choosing which policy I want. I am a pragmatist in supporting the best option available. I supported Bernie, but I’ll vote for Biden. I support single payer, but I’ll be glad if we get a public option (then keep fighting). I support the GND, but I’d be happy to make Immediate progress in 2021 and keep fighting.
You can be left or right and be idealistic or pragmatic. As an example, if I were POTUS and had 51 Dems in the Senate, my healthcare strategy would be different than if I had 57.
I know regulation was shitty for some period of time before 1972 or whatever, to get to how bad it was. But I couldn’t tell you if it was always thus or if it got bad after that. I know 1972 - ? was better but not perfect. I don’t know when we went off the rails or if it always sucked, but my guess is Citizens United played a role in making it worse.
Regulation is not magical. Well-regulated is not magical. If getting from where we are now to well-regulated is magical, getting from here to where you want to go is even more magical.
The best, likely only, shot at saving ourselves from ourselves in terms of the climate is major action like yesterday. Hopefully if we can get major action in the next year and follow to with even more in 2023 and 2025, we can mitigate a lot of it.
That’s going to have to happen through our current system, unless you have a plan to raise up an army and defeat the greatest military on the planet, or a plan to get like 20 million people to protest full-time.
My hope that is at least somewhat realistic is:
Sweep on 11/3, pass some major legislation on this and Biden works with allies to try to get better collective action and get the US back in the mix.
Gain seats for the progressive/AOC caucus. Primary even more eDems in 2022 and get that caucus up to 40+ seats - enough to hold anything and everything hostage legislatively and force action from the entire caucus.
I don’t think people are more practical or idealistic depending on if they are more to the left or more to the right. A MAGA is to the right of you. Would you say they are more practical than you… and you are more idealistic than them?
This just sounds like trying to find patterns in static.
Not at all. What we know (the premise to you) is that capitalism is unsustainable. If that (premise) is true, then moving from anywhere to “sustainable capitalism” would take magic.
What can I say to get you folks off this both-sides fixation.
Let’s say you told some fool: “You can’t drive a car from Perris California to Paris France without magic”. The fool replied: “Well if driving from Perris to Paris is magical, driving from Perris to wherever you want to go is even more magical”. How would you proceed?