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THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Cog » Wed 17 May 2017, 21:13:05

Earth first are terrorists who should be chain-sawed in half.

After a fair trial of course. ;)
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Midnight Oil » Wed 17 May 2017, 21:21:20

Please, mind your own, again not knowing a thing and name calling.
Go find another place to comment...
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Ibon » Wed 17 May 2017, 22:23:48

Midnight Oil wrote:Elitism? Good for you....as long as you identify being a lucky member you won the lottery in human history,


I won no lottery and do not consider myself lucky....although years ago when I was hitchhiking across America in the dead of winter I would end up at a truck stop somewhere and then walk to an underpass and sleep under a bridge, -10 degree F, curled in my sleeping bag warm with a cap on as trucks and cars drummed overhead, the stars crystal clear, the gray cold steel of the bridge glistening with ice. I did at those moments feel like I won the lottery. A type of freedom I can still access fond memories of today in my old age. I lived fearlessly. Of that I am grateful for but this had nothing to do with luck.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 08:58:01

The simple truth is the creed of Capitalism encompassing greed, profit and growth has bought humanity to the edge (many other creatures to the edge and over) of the precipice. For a relatively brief period it enabled a minority % of Earth's human population to have easily their basic needs tended to. Those are the facts. So, on balance then one should conclude that it has been an unmitigated catastrophe for us and much of life on Earth
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 18 May 2017, 09:51:51

onlooker wrote:The simple truth is the creed of Capitalism encompassing greed, profit and growth has bought humanity(many other creatures to the edge and over) of the precipice. For a relatively brief period it enabled a minority % of Earth's human population to have easily their basic needs tended to. Those are the facts. So, on balance then one should conclude that it has been an unmitigated catastrophe for us and much of life on Earth


Total BS. We have a problem now because 7.4 Billion human beings exist on a planet that could sustain 1 Billion human beings long term.

Peak oil is a symptom of overpopulation. Excessive atmospheric carbon dioxide is another symptom of overpopulation. Environmental destructtion is another. The collapse of the ocean food chains is yet another. In fact every problem we have today would not be a problem on a world with a sustainable population level.

Capitalism didn't do that, human beings behaving as apes behave did that.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 10:09:31

Not quite. For much of our history our population remained within a relatively stable range. Our medical advances, our exploitation of fossil fuels, our agricultural success are all the product of our relentless striving to dominate, excel and grow. Yes, we have those innate traits, I am not denying that. In turn by fashioning an economic system predicated on those traits, we masterminded a world capable of supporting so many with a sizable portion living materially abundant lifestyles. Those same lifestyles are and have been a major source of environmental degradation. The real point of dissension between you and me is you see this as inevitable and not all bad and I believe it could have been avoided and that the consequences as is plainly clear now, are catastrophic. We are victims of our own success
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Cog » Thu 18 May 2017, 11:38:07

Leave it to onlooker to complain about how good he has it.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Midnight Oil » Thu 18 May 2017, 12:07:55

Leave it to Onlooker to say...we are speeding 120 mph into a brick wall..
Man, do we have it good for now.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 12:10:16

Midnight Oil wrote:Leave it to Onlooker to say...we are speeding 120 mph into a brick wall..
Man, do we have it good for now.

:lol: :lol:
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Cog » Thu 18 May 2017, 12:37:47

I'm starting to doubt that onlooker has ever held a job outside kitty litter patrol in mother's basement.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 12:46:15

Cog wrote:I'm starting to doubt that onlooker has ever held a job outside kitty litter patrol in mother's basement.

Don't you know Doom prognostication is one of the fastest growing businesses :-D :lol:
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby evilgenius » Thu 18 May 2017, 13:33:48

I hate how the Forest Service closes roads. There has been an effort on their part for decades now to cut off access. When I was very young, this was introduced as an effort to stave off erosion. You don't want erosion because that would ruin a place for everybody. But how do you hold a place for 'everybody' when only a subset can enjoy it?

I'm with KJ, those who make the policies need to realize that people can become both weak and old. I understand the danger of erosion, but I also understand what a foot in the door accepting that as a blanket principle has been.

I believe that the closure policy is a parental effort. To bring this back to capitalism, we see the same thing happen when we judge the world according to either its compliance with advertising or whether a business can be successfully launched. There is an inherent lack of faith in anything other than the mean. In this case the Forest Service understands the mean to be young, able bodied people who can leave their vehicles at the trailhead. This is probably a reflection of the view we had of ourselves as a country in the 40's and 50's, before we started to see ourselves as getting old. The mean most certainly does not include people who would like, or have, to use a vehicle, unless they are going to the same places everybody else goes to.

Incidentally, this also opens up that whole can of worms over paying taxes to provide for an infrastructure that only a few will use. If you are going to keep the roads open, or maintain them, or pick up trash there will be an appearance of this. Mind you, there is no one type of prescribed person who will venture into the back country. Still, opponents won't have any trouble characterizing all adventurous people the same. It's very easy to judge anyone who differs from the mean in any way, be that because of poverty (freeloaders) or riches (oppressors).
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 18 May 2017, 14:12:35

Nobody "fashioned" capitalism. It is just a label for how humans behave, quite naturally. The label was applied by a couple of idiots named Marx and Engels. These two idiots are actually kind of tragic, they tried so hard and failed so much. They were contemporaries of Darwin, they did not understand that mankind was simply the most successful great ape. They lacked the appreciation of the anthropologists who followed Darwin, who proved the ape nature of man and that all the same instincts that drive our behavior are found in the other primates as well.

The prescription for curing our economic ills which Marx and Engels fashioned was collectivism. Variations on this collectivist theme are Communism, Socialism, Fascism, etc. All are alike in that they ask mankind to behave in ways that go against those ape instincts. These variations have been tried again and again and they have always failed, and when they fail, people revert instinctively and spontaneously to Capitalism for relief of their economic woes.

I believe that the nature of our economy and the details of how we socialize are in the end, completely irrelevent with regard to how we interact with our environment and exploit it. Just as many environmental disasters happened in the USSR as the democracies - in fact more, and including Chernobyl. The Socialist economies of Europe are today stripping the Canadian northwoods, burning them for fuel pellets, and claiming to be green as they pillage the environment.

In other words, whatever "ism" you favor, we are still apes, acting as do apes.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 18 May 2017, 17:17:44

KaiserJeep wrote:

In other words, whatever "ism" you favor, we are still apes, acting as do apes.


One thing to keep in mind is that civilization came along just 9000 years ago or so and in our species time line this is like about a second ago. In other words, civilization is a novel arrangement for our species and still being honed and tested. It is no surprise that civilizations have been so tumultuous because they represent this punctuated inflection point as a novel social arrangement departing from our tribal hunter gatherer past. Natural selection of our species basically occurred during a long stable period of equilibrium when our social arrangement was HG tribal culture. Civilization is something still very new and it is hard to tell in these short 9000 years to what degree it has acted as a force of natural selection. Probably insignificant.

I make this point because capitalism as an economic and social system does not represent an end point. It is an economic system that is part of this still novel arrangement of civilization, still part of this punctuated tumultuous inflection point in our species history. Part of a novel continuum that is still very much volatile. If you want an example of that volatility then just consider 7.5 billion humans on the planet.

Most likely capitalism as we know it will morph into something totally different as an economic system in the future especially when we consider the obvious external consequences coming our way. We are in severe human overshoot. We have only witnessed capitalism relatively unbridled and unregulated when resources were unlimited and when the environment was integrated and healthy.

The consequences of human overshoot with a tightening resource base and increasingly unstable environment represents an external wedge into growth based capitalism. It will change and adapt just like cultural values will as well. I think stability and security will increase as cultural values and individual consumption as status will decrease. Increased regulation would seem unavoidable but this may be embraced more willingly from a population valuing stability and security in an increasingly unstable environment. Capitalism will enter a phase certainly of increased regulation. Collectivism will rise as a result of increased regulation. How can this not happen?

This should give pause to many out there who yearn for going back to the good old days when government was less obtrusive. I think we can also pretty much forget about wealth and opulence remaining options for a broad based middle class. Our economic system will adapt to constraints and the fat will be trimmed and the low hanging fruit where this can be easiest achieved should be obvious. The middle class is not part of the power structure but this demographic in aggregate is like the fat underbelly of a salmon. It will be trimmed way back. This is more ecological than ideological.

But we can only identify with a broad brush the forces that will act as the agents of change to our economic system. We really don't have much of a clue.

I have always found that those most rigid and adamant about a certain outcome usually are those trying to drag unsustainable ideologies along with them into an uncertain future. This applies to the entitlement you see from the political left that we can somehow preserve justice and egalitarian outcomes for all 7.5 billion kudzu apes just as much as it apples to the entitlement we see from the political right that we can get through the bottle neck of human overshoot without government regulation of capitalism and without constricting the freedom of the individual. Less justice for all and less unregulated freedoms. Our politics are polarized because both sides are hopelessly entitled.

Not to single any one out but if you take two of our posters like Cid and Cog and watch them fighting it out on these boards you can see how these two positions are both hopelessly unprepared for the external forces that will drive change moving forward.

Personally I look forward to external consequences stamping out mediocrity.

I never saw a mediocre cheetah or a mediocre gazelle.

I do see however billions of mediocre Kudzu Apes currently living shallow indolent lives ripe for culling.... by natural forces of course.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 18 May 2017, 17:45:36

evilgenius wrote:I hate how the Forest Service closes roads. There has been an effort on their part for decades now to cut off access. When I was very young, this was introduced as an effort to stave off erosion. You don't want erosion because that would ruin a place for everybody. But how do you hold a place for 'everybody' when only a subset can enjoy it?

I'm with KJ, those who make the policies need to realize that people can become both weak and old. I understand the danger of erosion, but I also understand what a foot in the door accepting that as a blanket principle has been.


I would like to make two points. Closing road access in our natural forests is a result of declining budgets. Maintenance of roads is expensive and roads are also access points that require monitoring by forest staff. When you close roads you require less patrolling of these areas.

The other point is that wilderness and the value of what this represents for the human spirit will never be understood by those who haven't known this. I am 60 years old and I cannot go deep into wilderness areas that I experienced as a young adult but I do not feel entitled to access to remote areas with a car because I am physically limited. I know those deep wilderness areas are still there and can be appreciated by those still fit and this gives me a deep spiritual contentment imagining young adults still able to access this space. So on this point I disagree with KJ about access. Come on dude, your older, your physically limited, your boundaries are shorter. You or me have no right to make a claim by access with a vehicle to remote areas because of physical limitations. This is entitlement that is arrogant. Pass it on to the youth and be a wise mentor.

One last point which I hesitate to make because I feel I am throwing pearls before swine. When you go into the back country you do not hit base line until day 3 or 4. Unless you know wilderness you will not understand what I am saying. You cannot drive to a trail head and enjoy an aerobic walk for 4-6 kilometers and know wilderness. That can be a nice activity and healthy and mentally good for you but this is not knowing wilderness. On day 3 or 4 in the back country you settle into that base line that then will carry on for as many days as you journey in this walk about. I cannot explain something if you haven't witnessed what this is. This base line is when the veil between you and nature falls away and you are present. This takes at least 3 -4 days to start. This is something primal and deep and those of you who have been there know what I mean and I don't have to elaborate. Those that don't know this will think I am making some esoteric comments about being one with nature. So why bother? But I mention this because this is the reason why we need to preserve wilderness areas. Which is actually happening strangely enough since 99% of visitors to natural areas in the US (and everywhere else on the planet) go to crowded campsites and do day walks under 7 miles. This is fine but this will not allow you to experience the deeper aspects of wilderness. Just saying.

So wildnerness is actually doing just fine in protected areas because there are less and less humans around these days that have the integrity, stamina and vision to go reach for that base line space. Because most of humanity are so attached to their cars and technology that they live in mediocrity. I like it this way. This preserves more wilderness and keeps all those kudzu apes cluster fxxcked together in campsites. That is what I meant on my post upstream on this thread about that epiphany I had around feeling disdain for shallow humans. I don't feel that way anymore. I like them this way as they stay clustered in a consensus reality that has no future.

Again , I apologize if this comes off as elitist. It is just my views sincerely shared.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 18:06:47

Wow, this actually brings to mind a movie which I watched based on the biography of a real person named Christopher McCandless. Here is an excerpt from the plot "Four months later, at the abandoned bus, life for McCandless becomes harder, and he becomes less discerning. As his supplies begin to run out, he realizes that nature is also harsh and uncaring. McCandless concludes that true happiness can only be found when shared with others, and he seeks to return from the wild to his friends and family. However, he finds that the stream he had crossed during the winter has become wide, deep, and violent due to the snow thaw, and he is unable to cross. Saddened, he returns to the bus. In a desperate act, McCandless is forced to gather and eat roots and plants. He confuses similar plants and eats a poisonous one, falling sick as a result. Slowly dying, he continues to document his process of self-realization and imagines his family for one last time. He writes a farewell to the world and crawls into his sleeping bag to die. Two weeks later, his body is found by moose hunters. Shortly afterwards, Carine returns to Virginia with her brother's ashes in her backpack." Basically, an adventurous soul, who wished to live apparently away from Civilization. Ironically, though he came to miss other human company. So, this echoes Ibon's thoughts about the healthy desire of some who recognize the caged neurotic ambit of our societies and wish to escape from them. This should not be sad. He did want he wished though it cost him his life. We should all be so lucky to be able to really do what we wish.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Midnight Oil » Thu 18 May 2017, 18:16:12

http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/fastfacts

Overall, however, only about 5% of the entire United States—an area slightly larger than the state of California—is protected as wilderness. Because Alaska contains just over half of America's wilderness, only about 2.7% of the contiguous United States—an area about the size of Minnesota—is protected as wilderness

And worldwide

Only 23 Percent of Wilderness Remains

http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/20 ... tudy-finds

Losses have occurred primarily in South America, which has experienced a 30 percent decline in wilderness, and Africa, which has experienced a 14 percent loss

Ibon...sorry that you took all that effort on your post...
If you attended any EARTH FIRST! Roundups, you would have wrote
Wilderness areas are doing just fine...not
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby onlooker » Thu 18 May 2017, 18:20:12

Here is link to movie I mentioned
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_(film)
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 18 May 2017, 18:26:43

I will say one thing about the nature of wilderness...

There is something really special about a true woods in which the canopy has fully closed it in. I have crossed over into this sort of environment and it is wholly unlike "disturbed" public parks which feel sort of woodsy where there is dappled sunlight coming in. There is a level of natural balance in a true woods that you can experience with all your senses. It's pretty dark because of the tree cover and you hear a lot of wildlife (especially crickets and things) without seeing it and the floor level is just teaming with diversity.

That kind of thing was probably how most of the US was when settlers first arrived. Then they immediately started clearcutting to make way for agricultural fields.

What you see in the greenspaces of urban and even rural america is mostly a crippled version of nature where it's largely planned out and tended by humans but is never allowed to go through forest succession for one reason or another.

I'm not saying this to issue a luddite screed or appear elitist. It's just a neutral observation.

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-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: THE Capitalism Thread Pt. 4

Unread postby Ibon » Thu 18 May 2017, 19:04:05

Midnight Oil wrote:If you attended any EARTH FIRST! Roundups

No thanks. I'll pass.

Wilderness areas are doing just fine...not


Reread what I wrote. Wilderness in protected areas are doing fine. Of course wild lands are disappearing all over the planet n unprotected areas. Biodiversity loss and extinctions are on the rise. The majority of terrestrial earth is now human landscapes.

I don't interact much with political environmental activists and frankly I find most of them boring, opinionated and not at all effective in what they are trying to accomplish. They exist in a bubble. They are mostly not a good source of information.

Trained ecologists and zoologists on the other hand are often great sources of information. We do receive many ecologists and researchers here at Mount Totumas that are doing direct studies in ecology. In the past year herpetologists, entomologists, botanists, ornithologists, geologists. This evening we have our mercury vapor lights on as we have an entomologist from Montreal Canada here with us for the next 7 days. This afternoon we mixed molasses, beer and rum together as a bait and set up traps in the forest in over 20 locations. His focus is beetles.
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