[onlooker]

Again Ibon I must belabor the point though I would rather focus on the present and future than the past. Will you not see that the creators of our world are more culpable than the easily seduced and prodded masses. One is about willful premeditated intent the other is about inherent vulnerability to be swayed. One is fashioning a world inherently immoral, the other is succumbing to our natural appetites on an individual basis. The transgressions are at different levels.

[dohboi]

Good try, onlooker, but it sounds like that's his story and he's stickin' to it.

"As I see it, culpability is ... spread pretty evenly across ... socio economic background."

That's his position, nice and clear.

The tiny percent of the world's elite population that possesses most of the wealth and therefor has most of the power--both direct economic power and the ability to sway elections, politicians, policies, research--to their will and their benefit..those folks have essentially the exact same level of blame/culpability for our current situation as the billion poorest people on the planet living on about a dollar a day, constantly short of food and safe water, with essentially no ability to influence any political structures much less fund research, etc.

That's his (absurd) position and he's sticking to it. So no sense in trying to talk sense to him.

[Ibon]

Again Ibon I must belabor the point though I would rather focus on the present and future than the past. Will you not see that the creators of our world are more culpable than the easily seduced and prodded masses. One is about willful premeditated intent the other is about inherent vulnerability to be swayed. One is fashioning a world inherently immoral, the other is succumbing to our natural appetites on an individual basis. The transgressions are at different levels.

The creators of our world is everyone who plays by the current paradigm, whether they fall into the category of oppressed or oppressors is largely irrelevant.

A mind game. If you were a sentient endangered species of flora and fauna in the world today looking out at the exponential expansion of Kudzu Apes spreading on the landscape about to eliminate the last of your kind would you differentiate between those Kudzu Apes that are oppressed and those oppressors?

To answer your question. No, I see no difference in culpability.

A question back to you. Are you going to sit around for the next 20 years while you are waiting for the breaking point and feel depressed about this conundrum or are you willing to put your life on the line to fight a noble warrior fight to change this?

Is typing posts on this cyber venue all you can muster?

As long as the masses are content with mediocrity they are as culpable as those exploiting them.

[dohboi]

Enormous power, according to this ideology, implies zero added responsibility--zip, nil, nada...

What an...interesting...moral universe to live in.

...

Ah, and then followed up with the old: "If you are spending any time at all online, the rest of your life is obviously a useless waste"

Rather an...odd...position for an administrator of a website, to imply that all those the use the site are utterly hapless losers. In any case, it's really none of your business what kind of political activities we engage in offline, but it is obnoxious to suggest that we have no other agency than posters online.

[Ibon]

Good try, onlooker, but it sounds like that's his story and he's stickin' to it.

"As I see it, culpability is ... spread pretty evenly across ... socio economic background."

That's his position, nice and clear.

The tiny percent of the world's elite population that possesses most of the wealth and therefor has most of the power--both direct economic power and the ability to sway elections, politicians, policies, research--to their will and their benefit..those folks have essentially the exact same level of blame/culpability for our current situation as the billion poorest people on the planet living on about a dollar a day, constantly short of food and safe water, with essentially no ability to influence any political structures much less fund research, etc.

That's his (absurd) position and he's sticking to it. So no sense in trying to talk sense to him.

Tiny percentage? How quickly we have forgotten that just 40 years ago huge swaths of China and India and areas of Africa and Latin America where part of these miserably poor living on a dollar a day. You would have been including them in your argument 40 years ago had we been debating this back then. The landscape has certainly changed. Of course I am sticking to my position. My eyes and ears have remained open for the past 40 years. There will always be the billion or so of the poorest of the poor who you can use to prop up your argument of the culpable oppressors, forgetting how many billions have willingly pursued a pathway with similar aspirations. What socio-economic segment of the global population has grown the most in these past 40 years? Willingly.

[Ibon]

Rather an...odd...position for an administrator of a website, to imply that all those the use the site are utterly hapless losers. In any case, it's really none of your business what kind of political activities we engage in offline, but it is obnoxious to suggest that we have no other agency than posters online.

Elaborate please. What are you doing outside of this cyber venue. I have shared what I am doing quite a bit here. I would appreciate to hear from any poster here effective ways that they resist the mediocrity of our times. Help me not peg you as content in your cyber identity Dohboi, having over 14,000 posts here at PO.com. 10 times more than me as a moderator. Geez...the evidence is right there on right hand side below your avatar.

[dohboi]

"Tiny Percentage?" ??

Oh, my apologies, I overstated how tiny it is. It's not a 'tiny' percentage. It's the tiniest possible percentage you can name with an integer: It is actually just global 1% that own half the world's wealth.

http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/1-percent ... it-suisse/

Nice attempt at trying to change the subject with your other observations.

But this is the raw fact:

A tiny portion of the global population have an enormous amount of its wealth, and therefore they have power to largely dictate what goes on.

I think that this implies that they have a greater amount of responsibility and culpability for what does, then, go on.

You don't.

We just have a disagreement on the nature of fundamental morality and responsibility.

If you think I have mischaracterized the above, let me know. But don't try to change the subject to wiggle out of it, please.

As to "What are you doing outside of this cyber venue," I already pointed out that it's none of your business, and its beside the point anyway. I'll just say that some of us do actually manage to be able to tie our shoes while chewing gum at the same time. Again, trying to change the subject rather than admit that your basic position is morally reprehensible. Nice try, again, though.

(Again, how bizarre as an administrator of a site to ridicule people for participating in the site. Is that how this site plans to promote itself from now on, by ridiculing people who post here merely for the act of posting here. We really are getting into bizarro world here!

But since you seem to be trolling me here on this now and are obnoxiously insisting on knowing things about me for some reason, I'll just point out that for most of the time I've been posting I've had one very much more than full time job, and others on top of that, meanwhile over that period I've been involved in efforts to make changes at pretty much every level--neighborhood groups, NGOs, worked on a city council advisory board, umteen committees through work, even involvement in a local church doing good things though I'm not a member, stat level campaigns and issues, national campaigns of various sorts, started and community urban farm, maintained musical hobbies as well as continuing to develop my skills in translating Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Old Irish, Old Norse, Old English, French, German, and a variety of other languages, developed curricula in the same, composed a chrestomathy for the study of the ancient Umbrian language, reviewed about half of all articles that have come out anywhere in the world involving any Old English words (I split these responsibilities with another scholar)...besides of course a rich life of meeting and partying regularly with friends and with a large extended local family, raising a child, maintaining a loving marriage, etc...There's lots I've left out, but that should give some idea.

Do you need me to go into more detail?

Am I now going to be subject to more ridicule for something or other??

Do you have other long-time posters here that you want to heap scorn on or imply that they are losers merely for the fact that they actually do post on your sad and dying website?

Do you anticipate that such a strategy will greatly increase involvement by other posters??

It is informative, though, to know that the administers despise and assume the very worst of the posters on their own site just for posting on their site!!!...something to keep in mind...)

...And sorry if I don't get back to you right away on any response, a soup kitchen/community meal that I've been co-managing (sorry I forgot to mention that above, what amounts to a more than half time job on top of my teaching and other duties) that has served over 20,000 bowls in the last year or so just got an important local award, so I'm off to celebrate with friends, coworkers and volunteers!

[Ibon]

If you think I have mischaracterized the above, let me know. But don't try to change the subject to wiggle out of it, please.

We have different positions on who we define as the elite. For you it is the 1%. For me it is a far larger precentage. If you are well educated with material privilege you have had all of the tools and knowledge to control and decide on your values, consumption habits and life choices. When it comes to culpability in ecological overshoot, related to this thread, then there is no difference for me whether you are the designer or the consumer.

You point to the poorest 1 billion who frankly for me are victims, either directly or indirectly, to a combination of ecological overshoot and failures of governance. I concede that they are not culpable, after all, as long as they stand outside the current ideological paradigm of consumption culture. We do have to acknowledge however the dynamic that happens when you enable these poorest of the poor an entry into consumption culture. My point about China and India. You can make the claim that the elite in any country had the choice to build a school instead of a shopping mall, a nature reserve instead of a parking lot, and therefore conclude that they are more culpable. I disagree that the culpability is on the elite. The culpability is spread evenly across all those who aspire to participate in consumption culture.

As to "What are you doing outside of this cyber venue," I already pointed out that it's none of your business, and its beside the point anyway.

Fine. I invited you to elaborate. You decline. I am quite transparent.

Again, trying to change the subject rather than admit that your basic position is morally reprehensible.

I am not a moral hypocrite. I have no illusions that I am as culpable of the current paradigm as you are. You want to draw a distinction blaming the elite while you move about with much of the same consumption and privilege especially when compared to those poorest of the poor. That is why I am challenging you in your presumption of culpability.

how bizarre as an administrator of a site to ridicule people for participating in the site. Is that how this site plans to promote itself from now on, by ridiculing people who post here merely for the act of posting here. We really are getting into bizarro world here!)

I have every right to wear two hats, as a moderator and as an active poster. I am not abusing my moderator privilege in this discourse. We are dissecting our differences and from my perspective I am calling you out on where you are placing culpability. I am not singling you out though. Not Onlooker either. You both have my praise in your evolved morals regarding what is dysfunctional that has brought us to human overshoot. I just disagree with you both in seeing the elite as this sub human evil and pathological component of our population.

To repeat, I see very little difference between the designer and consumer of what is dysfunctional, especially if you had the privilege of enough material wealth to know the difference. That represents far more than 1% of our population.

[onlooker]

First thank you Dohboi and Ibon for your history of engaging and interesting posting. I will leave the argument in question at this point and simply point out that Consumerism culture has spread far and wide and that is a product of peoples tastes and well as the enforced and dictated policies coming from the elites and decision makers of the political/economic world. So assigning blame in this context is fairly futile as the choice and ability to stay outside the dominant paradigm was limited to a relatively few people and even if was not, most as India and China demonstrate will eagerly chose this lifestyle. In another context without such influence from the consumer paradigm perhaps people would be more reluctant to participate. Oh and I would like to also comment on the personal issues we delve into. First, I am highly honored to participate in a site with such highly educated and interesting people. I myself, do not consider myself at your levels. I continue to work doing translations both independently and working with my sister in NYC where I commute for a few days every week. I occasionally do volunteering. Other than that I live a relatively calm lifestyle with my wife and have no children. I appreciate your repeated attempts Ibon to encourage people to not dwell on Doom and have other pursuits other than being on this site not the least because I feel you do it out of genuine concern for us posters. Obviously, I think all of us do have other pursuits. I sincerely hope this site does not shut down as I have enjoyed conversing with many of you about this Melodrama that is unfolding here on Earth. Oh and I also hope both you Ibon and you Dohboi do not become like Ennui and Pstarr ie. mortal enemies

[ralfy]

" that does not mean that most people would wish to be the engineers and designers of a world that is perversely and insatiably about greed and money. A world where the profit motive reigns supreme over all other considerations including the life and well being of all living creatures present and future. "

Nicely put.

Not every time, but often enough, native peoples have been offered large amounts of money to relinquish their rights to sacred lands that they technically still have rights to be treaty. These are generally very poor people, and the dominant paradigm would assume that they would accept such large pay outs, since there is little chance that they're ancient treaty rights will ever actually be recognized. The rich can't understand such things, and just call them 'irrational' and worse. But there are in fact other value systems in the world besides the one that says, "I want to have all the toys in the store."

According to many of my former business associates I made a very irrational decision when I pulled the plug on the world of commerce and came down here to Panama and invested money in creating a private reserve. My exceptional action is exactly the exception that proves the rule. As is Dohboi's example of indigenous culture resisting selling their land. If we were arguing that humans can't do this then both Dohboi's example and my own actions would be proof otherwise. But let's put aside a moment our own moral positions and actually look at the vast cultural landscape, nation states, language groups, religions, ethnic and racial communities around the planet and see how they have fared in resisting the consumption machine that these so called evil elites have set up. All of this planet's inhabitants wanting to materially progress from their first washing machine up to cars and homes and plane rides etc. etc.

A weird Ibon going off to Panama or an indigenous culture here and there that held onto to their tradition over consumption is not making your case. Not when you put this side by side with the thrust of humanity embracing consumption culture.

I am not pessimistic about this changing. I actually believe that a strong bounce back toward traditional values and community and more sustainable life styles isn't that far off on the other side of consequences. I am only observing where we are now, at this moment, and most of worlds inhabitants have swallowed the consumption bait hook line and sinker..... still this late in the game.

Likely, the ultimate source of investments, including those used in private reserves, is the same consumer spending society.

[ralfy]

Ibon of course they do! If they can lay all the blame on the "rich" or the "elites" instead of acknowledging the people they vote for and put into office foster those "rich" and "elite" people then they can separate themselves from the consequences of their votes.

USA for good or ill is a democratic republic where the voters decide who leads. The politicians have divided themselves up into 'pro-business' claims (republican) and Anti-rich claims (democrats) in their rhetoric, but the reality is they all belong to club of Elites and 99 percent of them work every day to maintain that club for their own personal benefit.

In terms of the technology trap, the elites have been working to reduce the influence of Joe6P and Jane6P for generations. Vast swaths of laborers have been priced out of the market squeezed by automation on one side and globalism labor wage pressure on the other side. I see lots of technotopia stories popping up in the media about driverless cars and wonder advances in soar energy technology all of which completely ignore the double edge cost involved. The latest one I just read is about driverless dump trucks for large open cast mines. Basically eliminating 80 percent of the remaining work force in the mining industry if this change gets pushed through. The double edge is, who is going to pay for this new technology? and Where is the energy to power this new technology going to come from?

The world population today is becoming less and less employed due to technology, while at the same time energy to power that technology is getting herder and harder to extract. You have to be some sort of starry eyed utopian to believe the automation revolution will supply all the basic needs of 8 Billion humans who will be living in the lap of luxury with no opportunity to work even if they want too.

I think your second paragraph counters your first.

Also, the elite still need consumers, or else no one will buy the goods and services produced by their businesses. Also, one of the sources of funds for buying them is employment. Given that, this is probably where increased credit comes in.

[ralfy]

Some of you are familiar with some of my rants on the grip cyber reality has on humanity in the way it eclipses organic reality. Of course this is only the most mature manifestation of something that started back with television and how slowly american culture became socialized through the conduit of dumbed down media and entertainment. Trump is the embodiment of this and truth be told there is a huge percentage of Americans that enjoy seeing American politics reduced to what feels and looks and sounds like an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.

So this reality is the fault of the corporate media elties is what Dohboi would have us believe and the American voter is simply as powerless as beef cattle in the feedlot 40 days before heading to the slaughterhouse?

What we are seeing likely started many decades before Trump entered the political scene.

[ralfy]

In a healthy eco system you have predator prey dynamics, parasites, pathogens, decomposition, growth, competition, cooperation, a complex web of life and death and recycling that is as much about symbiosis as it is tooth and claw. A functioning economic system should mirror this dynamic. Unfortunately our global economic system no longer is recycling and churning in this way. It is flowing in one direction and the average citizen is being sapped and sucked dry.

I think we are close to an inflection point finally. We have been wrong about this in the past and when it seems things cant possibly become more dysfunctional low and behold they actually do! So I am not holding my breath. There is a disintegration happening that is slowly reaching a breaking point BUT the capacity of the average citizen to eat the shit that is fed them and delude themselves that it tastes like chocolate has been underestimated repeatedly again and again.

So where is the breaking point here?

Puts into question the hope of a "strong bounce."

[ralfy]

Funny, this is sort of what the movie "Logan's Run" was about. Can a technologically advanced society live within the carrying capacity of its habitat, even an artificial habitat? Maybe, but it would probably require a very obedient population willing to completely forgo reproductive rights and willing, nay even HAPPY to march right into an early death.

The ending of the movie was telling, the protagonists discovered a whole world outside the domed cities that had returned to a sort of garden of Eden once it had been freed from the burden of human overpopulation.

They promptly freed the other people from their "technology trap", presumably to start breeding like rabbits again...

Reminds me of the behavioral sink:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/42/wiles.php

[Ibon]

Oh and I also hope both you Ibon and you Dohboi do not become like Ennui and Pstarr ie. mortal enemies

I appreciate your post. Onlooker, do not under estimate your wisdom. You come from the heart as much as from the brain, and this is rare especially with this medium. I congratulate you for this.

Dohboi and I can never compete with Ennui and Pstarr. Their love affair burns with a passion we simply will never be able to match!

[dohboi]

"Dohboi and I can never compete with Ennui and Pstarr. Their love affair burns with a passion we simply will never be able to match!"

Just so we can be clear on the nature of our disagreement here, would you, Ibon, agree or disagree with the statement:

"With greater power and privilege comes greater responsibility."

[Ibon]

"With greater power and privilege comes greater responsibility."

In the deepest ecological sense yes I agree. As a species that has great power and great privilege with our brain we cannot simply be ruled by our primal instincts and not manage and regulate somehow this power otherwise we will be doomed to extinction.

We are a brilliant species that has mastered technology and yet collectively, we have not assumed the responsibility in a deeper ecological sense to self regulate. This applies to all races, ethnic groups, nation states, religious traditions, rich and poor alike.

The wealthy and educated are equally lacking in this responsibility as the ignorant and poor.

After having raised two daughters we talked about what do we do now in a deeper spiritual sense. Having pro created what was left was to have some positive deep impact in giving something back to mother earth. This was the deepest sentiment that lead us to do what we are doing in Panama. So to answer your question I embody that with greater wealth comes greater responsibility and although I am a tiny fish with just a couple million net worth (this does not put me in the 1% but surely places me in the top 5%) we have directed the financial good fortune and put it to work in something greater than ourselves.

But the elite and wealthy along with the poor are all equally blind to the truth of this greater ecological responsibility we have as a species and that is why I claim that you cannot isolate culpability to the wealthy. Yes they have greater power and greater influence but there still has not ocurred any consequences that has honed our species, the citizens of the world, to hold leaders accountable in a deeper ecological sense. And leaders and wealthy are not taking the initiative. There is a bit of a catch 22 I acknowledge. The electorate, passive and content with mediocrity and consumption, aren't pushing for change. The elite, the beneficiaries of the system, aren't incentivized to change. By advertising mediocrity you might be making the claim that they are more culpable since they should know better. I disagree, how can they know better? The elite are in many ways more duped in consumption ideology and far away from ecological truths. They are culpable along with everyone else. In a court of law ignorance is not an excuse to culpability but I am afraid this is a truth for our species as a whole at the moment. External consequences that can act as catalysts maybe will change this. Maybe.....

I agree that corporations that deny cimate change to defend thier business are in the same category as the tobacco companies where when they denied the health risks of smoking. But I do not hold them culpable when the society at large, consumers of their products, dependent on them, are happily consuming away. There is a synergy that needs to take place between those who design and those who consume where external events force them to the table collectively. Then we might see governance, the population and corporations and the economy moving in a responsible direction. Then we might take greater responsibility.

In answering your question my personal morals agree. But I am not answering this from my personal morals. I am answering this from what I observe in the collective ignorance of our species at the moment. Not how I think things should be from my moral persuasion but how things actually are.

That is the best at the moment I can answer.

[ozcad]

"With greater power and privilege comes greater responsibility."

How about "With greater power and privilege comes the NEED for greater responsibility".

Needing and getting are two different things. Like the need for a good meal or a good sleep, you don't necessarily get one.

ETA: Sadly, the needing does not guarantee the getting.

[dohboi]

"yes I agree"

So I guess we can kiss and make up now, to the tune of Kumbaya!!??

Really, though, that was a very thoughtful response.

For clarity sake, when you say:

"I do not hold them culpable " By this did you mean "I do not hold them any more culpable than the I hold the populace, or do you mean they are actually not culpable at all"

oz: Nicely put.

[Ibon]

"I do not hold them culpable " By this did you mean "I do not hold them any more culpable than the I hold the populace, or do you mean they are actually not culpable at all"

I wrote in my last post But the elite and wealthy along with the poor are all equally blind to the truth of this greater ecological responsibility we have as a species and that is why I claim that you cannot isolate culpability to the wealthy Equally ignorant = equally culpable. I do have a further comment on this. When consequences occur guess who will lead the way to fundamental change? It wont be the wealthy who will be locked into "Elite Panic" because they have the most to lose. Change will be lead from the bottom up and those with wealth that embrace and ride that tide will be beneficiaries. Those that resist will become fossils.

This process could last decades and might only reach some new stable plateau in a couple of centuries with the help of some punctuated disastrous consequences and calamities along the way. This process will not happen without those punctuated consequences. Remember I once stated that we should embrace climate change as a solution? Since we obviously lacked the will at mitigation and continue to demonstrate this incapability before consequences then by default we can begin the process of embracing climate change as an agent of change, as a solution to human overshoot.

Again this does not reflect my moral position but does reflect the conclusions I draw from empirical observation of my species. Until my species proves otherwise..........