[Newfie]

Yours and mine are identical!

[Ibon]

Worshiping the Overshoot Predator gives me the creeps, even though I think I understand it to some degree.

Getting rid of the elites may feel good for a bit, but............

Newfie, what makes you squirm and gives us all the creeps is what we intuitively know but do not want to confront.

It is not the elites. It is us...... the hundreds of millions of middle class and aspiring middle class who account for the vast vast vast majority of consumption and yes, damage to the planet. When the Overshoot Predator takes down the very poor there is very little impact. When the Overshoot Predator takes down an elite there is very little impact. When, however, the Overshoot Predator starts to draw down the population of the middle class, the segment of the population of our species doing the most damage, then we will be making progress toward sustainability.

The elites actually are required, for our species survival, to increase the disparity of wealth or we will plunder our planet into extinction. The best policy toward reaching sustainability would be to weaken, disable and further disenfranchise the global middle class.

This is deep down inside what gives everyone the creeps when I take the courageous step in laying down the gauntlet about The Overshoot Predator that none of us want to confront.....

Sorry for the interuption, now go back to bashing the elites......

[Plantagenet]

....The elites actually are required, for our species survival, to increase the disparity of wealth or we will plunder our planet into extinction. The best policy toward reaching sustainability would be to weaken, disable and further disenfranchise the global middle class.

This is deep down inside what gives everyone the creeps when I take the courageous step in laying down the gauntlet about The Overshoot Predator that none of us want to confront.....

More beautiful writing from Ibon, High Priest of the Overshoot Predator.

You're exactly right, of course. You're also exactly right that very few of us in the global middle class are going to voluntarily do an austerity number on ourselves to cut down our consumption.

Austerity? Thats something the evil elites are for.

[Newfie]

In his latest book Jared Diamond makes the case that the elites are necessary to bring order between smaller social groupings or we would all kill ourselves in tribal warfare. Good thing Ludi isn't around to hear me say that or I'd be dead. Anyway, he cites a fair amount of research, whether it's good or not I don't know.

It does provide a possible reason for their existence. He theorizes that the elites mitigate hostility and provide, through government, non lethal (civilized?) ways to settle grievances. This mitigation is necessary for a culture to grow.

If you look at the recent spat of failed states idea does seem to have some currency.

[Ibon]

In his latest book Jared Diamond makes the case that the elites are necessary to bring order between smaller social groupings or we would all kill ourselves in tribal warfare. Good thing Ludi isn't around to hear me say that or I'd be dead. Anyway, he cites a fair amount of research, whether it's good or not I don't know.

It does provide a possible reason for their existence. He theorizes that the elites mitigate hostility and provide, through government, non lethal (civilized?) ways to settle grievances. This mitigation is necessary for a culture to grow.

If you look at the recent spat of failed states idea does seem to have some currency.

I read his book also and he mentions also the role religion plays in managing large social groups, mitigating hostility as well. If elites and religion act as controlling mechanisms to large social groups of humans it is not hard to imagine that environmental consequences of overshoot might eventually cause sustainability principles to be encoded in future laws and scripture.

[Newfie]

Sorry Bon, you lost me on that last logical leap.

I just don't share your faith.

Here's to hoping you are right and I'm wrong.

[Ibon]

Sorry Bon, you lost me on that last logical leap.

I just don't share your faith.

Here's to hoping you are right and I'm wrong.

I don't know what my faith really is beyond a spiritual world view that does not put humans at the top of any heirarchy. Religions like the elite are here to stay I am afraid. I am optimistic that if 2-4 billion of us get taken down this will provide a powerful engine for a reconfigured spiritual belief system in our society. Hopefully more philosophical that allows for a goddess whose only dominion is a heaven called our biosphere.

[Pops]

If elites and religion act as controlling mechanisms to large social groups of humans it is not hard to imagine that environmental consequences of overshoot might eventually cause sustainability principles to be encoded in future laws and scripture.

Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the most popular religions nowadays put humans squarely at the center of the universe, in a position of dominion next only to the creator himself, going so far as to place this physical existence and all nature except for us as merely a passing tribulation to be endured before our ultimate "reward."

Gonna be hard to top that.

.

[Newfie]

I've been in Ethical Humanism for over 20 years. While it has a lot to recommend itself, as a no theistic religion, I could never get beyond the point where they faith in humanities ability to fix problem and their centering of humanity in the universe.

That said I find the leaders I know well, when plied with beer, agree. Though suspect others do not, just waaaay too tight assed.

[Ibon]

Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the most popular religions nowadays put humans squarely at the center of the universe, in a position of dominion next only to the creator himself,
.

The Overshoot Predator is going to shove himself right between the creator and humans and force the biosphere down the priests and imans throats until they choke and like whipped dogs they will comply to putting the environment back in the exhalted position it was historically amoungst our HG ancestors.

And as Timo said, don't piss on my Kool aide!!

[Pops]

Cheers!

[Timo]

If elites and religion act as controlling mechanisms to large social groups of humans it is not hard to imagine that environmental consequences of overshoot might eventually cause sustainability principles to be encoded in future laws and scripture.

Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the most popular religions nowadays put humans squarely at the center of the universe, in a position of dominion next only to the creator himself, going so far as to place this physical existence and all nature except for us as merely a passing tribulation to be endured before our ultimate "reward."

Gonna be hard to top that.

I'll top that. We're created in God's own image. Or, perhaps God's envisioned to look just like us. What a powerful, intoxicating leap of faith!

You're so vain. You probaly think that God looks just like you. (Sing along!)

[Strummer]

In his latest book Jared Diamond makes the case that the elites are necessary to bring order between smaller social groupings or we would all kill ourselves in tribal warfare. Good thing Ludi isn't around to hear me say that or I'd be dead. Anyway, he cites a fair amount of research, whether it's good or not I don't know.

It does provide a possible reason for their existence. He theorizes that the elites mitigate hostility and provide, through government, non lethal (civilized?) ways to settle grievances. This mitigation is necessary for a culture to grow.

If you look at the recent spat of failed states idea does seem to have some currency.

Another interesting book, Steven Pinker's Better Angels Of Our Nature has a huge amount of research and statistics on the decline of violence (both individual and collective) due to the "civilizing process":

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels-Our ... 143122010/

[jupiters_release]

Pinker's a bit of a dunce, I can't imagine a more violent society than what we have today.

[Subjectivist]

Pinker's a bit of a dunce, I can't imagine a more violent society than what we have today.

What? Havn't you ever heard of the Salem Witch trials, or the Fugitive Slave laws, or German Concentration Camps of the 1933-1945 period? What about Pol Pot massacering thousands of the Khmere people, or the machete massaceres in Africa a decade ago? Western Europe and North America have been very blessed on the peaceful life scale the last fifty years, but things have been much worse i other times and places.

[Strummer]

Pinker's a bit of a dunce, I can't imagine a more violent society than what we have today.

Are you joking? The chance of a person dying a violent death, or even sustaining an injury from violence is minuscule today, compared to any previous time period.

[Ibon]

Pinker's a bit of a dunce, I can't imagine a more violent society than what we have today.

Then your imagination needs some reality medicine. Any world history book or even the Bible is all you need to give your imagination a vitamin boost to understand that indeed we live in one of the safest times in our species history. Enjoy it while it lasts and be grateful of this fact in spite of all that is so very dysfunctional.

[dohboi]

While I hardly think of Pinker as a dunce, even very smart people can have major blind spots.

While there is indeed a decrease in the usual idea of violence, what we have done is massively projected violence into the future:

What could be a more violent act toward future people than making their planet largely uninhabitable?

This is violence on a scale unimagined by previous generations. That, at least, is what I would see as the blind spot in Pinker's analysis here.

[ralfy]

This might help:

"List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... death_toll

[Strummer]

This might help:

"List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_w ... death_toll

The problem with those numbers is that they don't show the total population numbers and the ratio of violence. That's what Pinker (and Diamond) got right.