[dohboi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ-LYElvtEU

"Enough Is Enough" 18 minutes very well spent!

Here's the blurb:

Enough Is Enough lays out a visionary but realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth—an economy where the goal is enough, not more. Based on the best-selling book by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill, the film explores specific strategies to fix the financial system, reduce inequality, create jobs, and more. Drawing on the expertise of Tim Jackson, Kate Pickett, Andrew Simms, Natalie Bennett, and Ben Dyson, Enough Is Enough is the primer for achieving genuine prosperity and a hopeful future for all.

[Graeme]

D, Wonderful to see you post something positive! I've already started a thread on steady state economics. It is so different from our present system. The only way I can see that it will be adopted by all countries is to crash our present one then start again. So radical change one way or another is required.

[dohboi]

Thanks for taking the time to look it over,G. Bump your steady-state thread and I'll try to keep it active.

But since you mention crash, let me add this to the mix: http://www.mixcloud.com/21stCenturyPerm ... -feb-2014/

[AndyA]

It's kinda as if 'economic growth' is something that 'economies' do. Wrong, economic growth is what people do. Want more money, clothes, PV, windmills, insulation, EV, land, etc. etc. Wanting more then what you currently have right now is the chief driver of economic growth. To end economic growth means using less every day, because the population is growing, something these professors have clearly failed to grasp, or if they understand, then they have clearly failed to do.

This is why there is no way, but the hard way. There is no happy ending.

[Plantagenet]

The US and the Eu are hardly growing at all. The real growth is happening in the BRICs and the undeveloped nations



Its all fine and dandy to talk about ending growth in the developed countries, but that is meaningless without also stopping growth in China, India, Brazil, South Africa and the rest of Asia, Africa and South America.

That isn't likely to happen for the foreseeable future. At the very least China and India and all the other countries will want to attain something close to US-EU living standards.---- otherwise they'll yelp about how unfair everything is.

[americandream]

Capitalists slaughtered communist by the millions on frontlines all over the world. Those who survived that purge either sold out like the Maoists or gave up from sheer exhaustion. People would be advised to remember that when consider putting an end to their golden goose.

[americandream]

The US and the Eu are hardly growing at all. The real growth is happening in the BRICs and the undeveloped nations

All global growth is now largely centred in China from whence its commodifying is distributed worldwide. To consider growth at an end in one region of this global paradigm is to miss the true nature of its evolving accumulation methodology.

[sunweb]

All lifeforms will use the resources in their environment to the greatest extent they can. Our use comes along with ego attached but that is the human way.

There are five natural factors that determine and will continue to determine our history and future.
* All life reproduces to the maximum their environment allows(population density).
* All life will use all the resources in its environment to promote its present living (population pressure).
* Much of life manifest an us against them protectionism (even plants release poisons to the soil to protect their territory. This is the convergence of territoriality (which is manifest by all life) and the need to belong for this dependently social animal called human.
* We are immersed in an environment of our own making and our "brilliance" threatens us with unintended consequences (whether agriculture or nuclear power).
* Groups larger than the small group of 30 to 200 people, which is the social environment in which we evolved for a million years, creates power-over and inequality.
These five factors are a natural part of life and being human. For more detailed exposition:

http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/05/we-are-here.html

[dohboi]

* All life reproduces to the maximum their environment allows(population density).
* All life will use all the resources in its environment to promote its present living

Sorry, but most traditional societies do not do this.

Really, the only human society that does is large-scale civilizations, and the only one that has done it to the current absurd extent we have is the current industrial society driven mostly by fossil fuels and by an insane ideology of endless growth.

Even here, we don't use "all the resources." As omnivores, we could be eating the insects, worms...around us, but mostly we don't. All human societies are like this--they are governed by a wide range of taboos that determine what they should and shouldn't eat, use and do, in general, and in specific circumstances and seasons.

So back to the drawing board with your vast over-generalizations.

[Ibon]

Whether humans can create cultural values, tabus, laws, legislation, commandments, etc. that manage the prime directive of pro creating your population beyond carrying capacity has not yet been adequately answered because we have never suffered the consequences on a global scale and therefore what we have now before us in this century is a major milestone for our species. External consequences will provide us with the opportunity to resolve this most important of questions. History is often a guide and there are clues but nothing since the advent of agriculture some 10000 years ago provides any real guidance here. Many argue that what we are now in is just another historical cycle. I don't agree with that. Events of this century will mark an inflection point in our cultural evolution.

[dohboi]

Yes, the scale of the issues is...humbling.

"Events of this century will mark an inflection point in our cultural evolution."

Well, that's one way to put it. Another way..."Going Down"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XmwiwQjU8E

[sunweb]

dohboi » Wed Feb 05, 2014 1:44 am
* All life reproduces to the maximum their environment allows(population density).
* All life will use all the resources in its environment to promote its present living

Sorry, but most traditional societies do not do this.

This is the belief in the noble savage. Many raided their neighbors for land and women, certainly here in North America as well as Africa. They practice various forms of infanticide. They didn't have the tools (rifles, axes) to cause much destruction until we gave it to them.
Also define traditional society?????? Where do you find them?

[dohboi]

Ummm, no one said anything about nobility. And....practicing infanticide was/is a way of staying within their ecological limits--did you think they did it for fun? In fact, the practice of infanticide alone completely destroys your claims here. You obviously have no glimmering clue about the things you claim to have great wisdom about. It is not generally very useful to carry on long conversations with such people, in my experience.

If you or others are actually interested in anything close to accurate info on these matters, may I suggest any introductory anthropology text book. Also relevant in this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

[Subjectivist]

Ummm, no one said anything about nobility. And....practicing infanticide was/is a way of staying within their ecological limits--did you think they did it for fun? In fact, the practice of infanticide alone completely destroys your claims here. You obviously have no glimmering clue about the things you claim to have great wisdom about. It is not generally very useful to carry on long conversations with such people, in my experience.

If you or others are actually interested in anything close to accurate info on these matters, may I suggest any introductory anthropology text book. Also relevant in this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

The thing is every time humans moved into a new ecoregion there was a megafuna die off. They were easy to hunt and prduced large calorie boosts. A mastadon or mammoth could feed a village for a couple weeks, a moa or elephant bird for several days. When humans entered Australia, New Zealand, North America, South America there were none of our homind relatives present as their were in Africa, Europe and Asia from millions of years before. Megafauna in those three regions coevolved with us and lived or are still living because they recognized us as predators. Australia had giant marsupials when humans arrived, but they were hunted to extinction. New Zealand and South America both had giant flightless birds. North America had Mammoths and Mastadons and Short Face Bears and Humpless Camels when humans arrived, but they were all hunted to extinction long before Europeans arrived.

[onlooker]

The problem with changing at this point is very intractable. That is because as seems to me, we put all our eggs you may say into one basket, the fossil fuel basket. So, at this time for most basic necessities we rely on fossil fuels directly or indirectly. The other problem of course is our immense population and how that by itself virtually insures continued degradation and depletion of the Environment. I am inclined to agree with Ibon, in that only after consequences, meaning a certain amount of die off and a considerable downgrade in our Civilization will we really have the opportunity and the real impetus to change. Will it be too late at that point? Who knows, only the shadow knows haha

[onlooker]

It seems some will NOT allow growth to end even if it means murdering others.
https://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/rep ... us-ground/
On Dangerous Ground

2015 was the worst year on record for killings of land and environmental defenders – people struggling to protect their land, forests and rivers

[Newfie]

Not suprising.

[KaiserJeep]

Let's talk motives and reasons. Firstly, homicide rates, gun crimes, and violence have all been declining since 1994:

If "environmental defenders" (a class of victim never distinguished before) is in fact up, where is the data?

I'd speculate that such people are annoying in-your-face protesters and even environmental terrorists, and bear some responsibility for their own deaths, as does the government that tolerates such behavior until quiet protests cross the line and turn violent.

[onlooker]

i have not in depth looked at this but I would venture to say your totally wrong Kaiser. More and more people everyday are fighting for their land against intrusions from urban sprawl, resource exploiters etc. Also, I think more and more are aware of the fact that the Earth is fast losing its vitality and life giving properties, so they are trying to make a difference in a positive way. But has history has always shown do not stand in the way of profit or wealth acquisition or you will be run over.

[KaiserJeep]

I note only questionable generalities and no verifiable facts in your response. I think the above linked article was an opinion piece, and has no verifiable data. I note that they are soliciting donations on every page, that is a danger sign of a bogus cause.