Even global climate change can get taxed!

[HERESY]

You've once again shown how you've lost it!

1. There is no difference between "them" (the big companies + the government) and "us" (the people).

There is a big difference between "them" and "us." When was the last time you dictated policy? When was the last time you gave an order to launch missiles? When was the last time you set the pace for the stock market? Since when did you control the flow of information?

It is all the same civilization with the same mentality, and it is the mentality that matters.

The same civilization but two completely different cultures.

There is no difference in the behavior of the rich and the poor, it is equally destructive,

There is a major difference between the behavior of the rich and the poor, and anyone suggesting otherwise is oblivious to the chaos, poverty, disease and war in third world countries.

and if the poor were rich, they would be doing exactly the same things as the rich are doing

I'm curious, what study did you use to come up with this tidbit?

2. If just one person is shitting in the river, there isn't really a problem; if a million are doing it, then we have a problem.

See, this is where you're wrong again. In our world, WHO does the shitting is more important than how many people have done it, and that is the problem.

The people on top that the people on the bottom like to blame for everything are very few; the majority of the damage has been and is being done by the huge masses of middle-class consumers in the West not by those who ruled them.

No, to be 100% honest, the majority of this worlds problems can be directly attributed to people of European origin. From world wars, to the spreading of disease, to the mishaps associated with post industrialization, to bankrupting third world countries...it can all be linked to people of European origins. Moreover, you fail to realize that the people you blame for the problems would not consume if they were not being bombarded with messages to consume.

Of course, it is to a certain extent the people on top's fault that the masses behave that way, however what I am repeatedly trying to drive home is that both groups share the same kind of ecologically illiterate mentality that is the root of the crisis.

What is this "certain extent" you speak of? Are we talking 10%? 40%? What you're constantly trying to drive home is of no concern because it is 100% incorrect. The people at the top, those who control the majority of the worlds resources, do not CARE. Do you understand this? They don't CARE. There is a difference in being illiterate (or not having knowledge) and NOT CARING.

3. That's why I am also repeatedly stressing how important it is to understand human nature in its proper context, and how without that understanding any attempts to fix things are doomed to fail.

But do you yourself understand human nature in it's proper context? If so, explain it here so everyone will know it.

That is definitely not the view of human nature that we have been conditioned to accept uncritically from the very beginning of our life by the culture we live in.

And who set about conditioning us and who will benefit from us being conditioned?

4. If we don't change our culture into something that is radically different from what it is right now, there is no hope. The problem is that people are so attached to it that there seems to be no way that this can realistically happen.

Do we deserve hope? Why do we need to continue as a species?

One problem is religion, the magical thinking associated with it and the "specialness" it attributes to us. All of that, especially the latter part, has to go.

One problem is WHITE PRIVILEGE, the magical thinking associated with it and the "specialness" it attributes to white people. Another problem is the far-flung belief, and assumption, that science has the answer for everything and that all scientists have good intentions. Both of these must be addressed before this world can move forward.

The second problem is that Western civilization has developed by detaching itself from reality and propagating that detachment further and further during history, a tragic misallocation of intellectual resources. If you think about it, our present culture was developed by the nobility and other people who had no connection with the land, but who, precisely because of that had the time to engage in other activities. The result is that most of our literature, arts and philosophy that we cherish so much is dealing with totally irrelevant problems such as love, morality, politics, etc.

What you just said is the majority of our culture is Eurocentric in nature. Thanks for proving my point, good job!

None of that really matters for our survival - all that matters is that in the end our energy balance is positive and we haven't decreased the carrying capacity of the environment by achieving that. You can see the evolutionary psychology roots of our obsession with some of those things, but in general they are a huge distraction from reality, and now when we have to face reality, they aren't helping at all.

You want people to become drones and slaves with a hive like mentality. You really do want people to run around like ants, speak in a robotic monotone voice that can't even be replicated in auto-tune and say, "None of that really matters for our survival - all that matters is that in the end our energy balance is positive and we haven't decreased the carrying capacity of the environment by achieving that." Are you the leader of the Borgs or something? Get off that Star Trek shit and realize people are going to do what they do.

 

[radiostationrep]

The blame is entirely on the people.

People need to understand several things:

1. There is no difference between "them" (the big companies + the government) and "us" (the people). It is all the same civilization with the same mentality, and it is the mentality that matters. There is no difference in the behavior of the rich and the poor, it is equally destructive, and if the poor were rich, they would be doing exactly the same things as the rich are doing

There is no difference between the corporations/government and we the people?
you cant be serious.

i agree that every group however classified, lower/middle/upper class, contributes to global warming. not that i'm against making a dollar, but this same civilation you talk about has extreme differences,if that's what you want to call it. it is definately one filled with different people with different personalities and thinking, although we are the same species. this is about energy/environmental issues. science proves that our influence and consumption of natural nonrenewable resources are destroying our environment. data and studies prove this. saying the poor would be doing the samething is an opinion, not fact. the rich/upperclass make the laws and influence politics, as in MONEY. ultimately, that is what this is about.

2. If just one person is shitting in the river, there isn't really a problem; if a million are doing it, then we have a problem. The people on top that the people on the bottom like to blame for everything are very few; the majority of the damage has been and is being done by the huge masses of middle-class consumers in the West, not by those who ruled them. Of course, it is to a certain extent the people on top's fault that the masses behave that way, however what I am repeatedly trying to drive home is that both groups share the same kind of ecologically illiterate mentality that is the root of the crisis.

once again, the rich/upperclass make the laws and influence politics, as in MONEY. when you have a company failing, whoever is running that company is responsible. The employees do what they are told, sort of like the people in easy terms. the key here is MONEY, once again. controlling the nonrenewable natural resources on our planet is the biggest business, period. specifically petroleum, the biggest contributor to global warming, controlled by the upperclass/governmentS. why would they be interested in going to an alternative energy source that is environmentally friendly when they are raking in the billions? it wont affect their life. it's an attitude that's more like "the environment can wait, i'm getting money", selfishness and greed. saying we THE PEOPLE really have a say when we STOP depleting these nonrenewable resources and move to an environmentally friendly energy source is very inaccurate, imo. we go green when they say. passing on these taxes in the name of the environment to the consumers is the problem, bottomline. this problem can be solved, but because of the amount of money involved, wont be until the well is dry so to speak. what we humans do is want a better life and just like for them, money makes that happen. if anything the people are guilty of the greed factor, not for what energy resources we use and what regulations are set regarding our environment.

 

[radiostationrep]

my response was before i even seen heresy's. funny how they are pretty similiar.

 

[ThaG]

my response was before i even seen heresy's. funny how they are pretty similiar.

Yes, because you share the same common, very deeply rooted misconceptions.

And that's because none of y'all has thought deeply enough about these things.

White people, colored people, it's this group's fault, that group's fault, that's completely missing the point.

While the blame for the current crisis is mostly on Western civilization, the cause of it is the same common characteristics and cognitive deficiencies that all humans share. This is not the first civilization to destroy itself in this manner, there is a laundry list of civilizations, most of them developed completely in isolation from European influence who did exactly the same things we are doing now, the only difference is that we are doing it globally now (which is why it is really a big problem). If you think about it, the only civilizations who have not collapsed from environmental destructions are those who developed along rivers constantly carrying sediments and thus renewing the top soil or in volcanic areas where the ash was playing that role. Everyone else who had the time to do so before the development of Western civilization managed to destroy themselves. Again, what we are doing now is by no means unique to people from European ancestry, although we are probably the worst in terms of our arrogance with respect to nature (largely imposed on us by the Abrahamic religions).

Also, if the above isn't enough to tell you why you are just as much guilty about what is coming as the Big Oil CEOs and the politicians, ask yourself the question what would you do and how would you behave if you were in their place. And try to be honest with the answer.

BTW the people on top probably care a lot more than the average Joe, even if simply because they have the information; or at least I would hope this is the case. What is certain is that the average Joe is completely clueless about what's going on and this is entirely his fault. No one in a secret academy for the training of future dictators (as some might think) has spoon fed me these things, I have come to these conclusion by means of my own curiosity and passion for learning, as have other people. Unfortunately these are characteristics that aren't so common in humans, despite what we would like to think, and there are very good reasons for that too (you know, those who were very curious to find out how that funny looking mushroom tastes were in an obvious selective disadvantage; once language and culture were in place, that barrier became even stronger). The people on top have probably realized that the momentum of ignorance is too huge and there is really no way to avoid the cull. You don't cure a cancer by feeding it, you know. In the worst case they aren't more ignorant about the situation than the vast majority of the population

I don't advocate a world where we breed people in incubators and train them to be robots. I do think that the family as it exists right now is a highly undesirable feature in any society designed for long-term stability, because right now parents will do everything to make sure their kids succeed (that Darwinian urge to propagate your genes) and because their are no rules in the Darwinian game, this leads to all kinds of problems that if, again, one thinks deep enough about it, can be eliminated by eliminating the family and the connection between children and biological parents. But I digress, what I want to see is a society that is capable of long-term survival, which will allow us to make it out of this planet and avoid extinction for as long as possible, and in which each and every human being is a Person.

I think we are much closer to your robotic vision right now than what I envision, I personally have a very hard time seeing what makes the majority of people living today different from each other, or useful in any way other than as cogs in the great machine of our industrial so called civilization.

 

[NovaFire]

No, to be 100% honest, the majority of this worlds problems can be directly attributed to people of European origin. From world wars, to the spreading of disease, to the mishaps associated with post industrialization, to bankrupting third world countries...it can all be linked to people of European origins... .

co-sign

 

[radiostationrep]

Yes, because you share the same common, very deeply rooted misconceptions.

And that's because none of y'all has thought deeply enough about these things.

White people, colored people, it's this group's fault, that group's fault, that's completely missing the point.

While the blame for the current crisis is mostly on Western civilization, the cause of it is the same common characteristics and cognitive deficiencies that all humans share. This is not the first civilization to destroy itself in this manner, there is a laundry list of civilizations, most of them developed completely in isolation from European influence who did exactly the same things we are doing now, the only difference is that we are doing it globally now (which is why it is really a big problem). If you think about it, the only civilizations who have not collapsed from environmental destructions are those who developed along rivers constantly carrying sediments and thus renewing the top soil or in volcanic areas where the ash was playing that role. Everyone else who had the time to do so before the development of Western civilization managed to destroy themselves. Again, what we are doing now is by no means unique to people from European ancestry, although we are probably the worst in terms of our arrogance with respect to nature (largely imposed on us by the Abrahamic religions).

Also, if the above isn't enough to tell you why you are just as much guilty about what is coming as the Big Oil CEOs and the politicians, ask yourself the question what would you do and how would you behave if you were in their place. And try to be honest with the answer.

BTW the people on top probably care a lot more than the average Joe, even if simply because they have the information; or at least I would hope this is the case. What is certain is that the average Joe is completely clueless about what's going on and this is entirely his fault. No one in a secret academy for the training of future dictators (as some might think) has spoon fed me these things, I have come to these conclusion by means of my own curiosity and passion for learning, as have other people. Unfortunately these are characteristics that aren't so common in humans, despite what we would like to think, and there are very good reasons for that too (you know, those who were very curious to find out how that funny looking mushroom tastes were in an obvious selective disadvantage; once language and culture were in place, that barrier became even stronger). The people on top have probably realized that the momentum of ignorance is too huge and there is really no way to avoid the cull. You don't cure a cancer by feeding it, you know. In the worst case they aren't more ignorant about the situation than the vast majority of the population

I don't advocate a world where we breed people in incubators and train them to be robots. I do think that the family as it exists right now is a highly undesirable feature in any society designed for long-term stability, because right now parents will do everything to make sure their kids succeed (that Darwinian urge to propagate your genes) and because their are no rules in the Darwinian game, this leads to all kinds of problems that if, again, one thinks deep enough about it, can be eliminated by eliminating the family and the connection between children and biological parents. But I digress, what I want to see is a society that is capable of long-term survival, which will allow us to make it out of this planet and avoid extinction for as long as possible, and in which each and every human being is a Person.

I think we are much closer to your robotic vision right now than what I envision, I personally have a very hard time seeing what makes the majority of people living today different from each other, or useful in any way other than as cogs in the great machine of our industrial so called civilization.

you typed alot but i'm having trouble understanding your point. you are way off the subject now.

 

[ThaG]

what is so hard to understand?

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

While the blame for the current crisis is mostly on Western civilization, the cause of it is the same common characteristics and cognitive deficiencies that all humans share. This is not the first civilization to destroy itself in this manner, there is a laundry list of civilizations, most of them developed completely in isolation from European influence who did exactly the same things we are doing now, the only difference is that we are doing it globally now (which is why it is really a big problem)

Well said.

 

[JoMoDo]

I'm way into Cap & Trade, and lol at it ruining our financial system. What a load of B.S. please provide an iota of evidence of how this would damage our economy?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/07/waxman-markey-worth-it
Is Waxman-Markey Worth It?
— By Kevin Drum | Wed July 1, 2009 11:03 AM PST
—Photo by flickr user Bob Cox used under a Creative Commons license.

I've got a bit of a ramble teed up on climate change and the Waxman-Markey bill, which unfortunately means that my conclusion is going to be buried at the end of a long post. So if that's all you want to read, feel free to skip down to the last two paragraphs. The rest is just throat clearing.

Still here? Then here's the ramble. Over the past couple of weeks there's been a lot of blogospheric chatter surrounding a cost-benefit analysis of Waxman-Markey done by Jim Manzi. I'm not going to link to the dozens of posts going back and forth about it, but suffice it to say that Manzi concludes that W-M isn't a good deal. Over the next century, it's going to cost us more in lost economic growth than it will benefit us in reduced global warming.

I didn't get involved in this conversation for a simple reason: I've been on both the producing and receiving end of too many cost benefit analyses to trust them. If you're being relatively honest and if you're dealing with fairly concrete, short-term issues, they're useful tools, but even then it's still the case that you can manufacture strikingly divergent conclusions by manipulating your assumptions and inputs by surprisingly small amounts. Cost-benefits usually look like they're grounded in hardheaded thinking simply because they're numerically based, but quite often they're nothing of the kind.

And that's in the best case. Climate change is far worse. Not only are we decidedly not talking about concrete, short-term issues, but there's a huge asymmetry in what we can say about the cost side and the benefit side of fighting global warming.

On the one hand, you have the actual science of climate change. And although climate models are enormously complex and subject to considerable uncertainty, they're fundamentally based on physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics. We know how much CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere and we can project with pretty good confidence how much that's going to increase over the next century if we do nothing to stop it. We know how the greenhouse effect works, we have pretty good historical records of how CO2 concentration correlates with global temperatures, and we have a pretty good sense of the feedback loops involved in things like melting icecaps and saturation of the ocean sinks. Basically, our level of uncertainty is within tolerable bounds here. And what we know is that if we do nothing, global temps are absolutely certain to rise 2°C over the next century, fairly likely to rise by 4-5°C, and at least somewhat likely to rise by 6-7°C. The lower number would be bad but, just possibly, manageable. You could at least make an arguable case, as Manzi does, that the cost of preventing an additional 2°C is higher than it's worth. The two bigger numbers, however, would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, the science increasingly suggests that these higher numbers are considerably more likely than we thought even a few years ago, and any serious cost-benefit analysis needs to address that. Using only the lower number avoids tackling the real problem we're up against.

So that's the climate analysis in a nutshell. On the opposite hand you have the economic analysis. And that's simply hopeless. An economic analysis that goes even ten or twenty years into the future is as much guesswork as anything else. One that goes a hundred years into the future is just voodoo. It looks like economics, but you might as well be throwing darts. Compounded over a century, even minuscule changes in assumptions and operating parameters produce enormous changes in your conclusions, and the result is that you end up deep in the weeds arguing over tiny differences in those assumptions instead of simply admitting that they're flatly impossible to forecast. That's good for slowing down the debate, but not much else.

(For a couple of more detailed versions of this argument, see Dave Roberts here and Patrick Appel here.)

So where we stand is fairly simple: we have a pretty good idea of what climate change is going to do to the planet, and we have a pretty good idea that there's at least a reasonable chance that the results are going to be catastrophic (and much more catastrophic for some than for others). However, we don't have a good idea of the economic impacts of addressing climate change, and we never will. The problem is simply too nonlinear and too long-term to be analyzable, especially when the differences between high-end and low-end projections are on the order of two or three percent. When it comes to climate change, cost-benefit on anything other than a very broad scale is a mug's game.

Still, let's grant several things. First, Waxman-Markey is a kludge of a bill. It's possible that its cost-benefit is negative, and it's almost certain that, by itself, its cost benefit is quite small even if it is positive. Second, W-M's carbon caps by themselves will probably have only a tiny effect on rising temperatures. Third, global warming is a hopeless problem if we don't get the rest of the world to address it too. If China and India and the rest of the developing world don't play along, nothing the U.S. and Europe do by themselves will be enough to halt it.

That's all true. So why support Waxman-Markey? There are all sorts of reasons. For one thing, it's a good start. Also: it may be hard to persuade other countries to join us, but it will be impossible if we aren't willing to do something ourselves. And although the cap-and-trade piece of the bill starts out weak, at least it puts in place the administrative framework we'll need down the road if and when we work up the will to address climate change more seriously.

But here's what I think is the overriding reason to support W-M despite its flaws: even if it's weak, and even if the rest of the world doesn't join in immediately, it starts to align incentives in the United States in favor of inventing and deploying green technologies. (Ditto for the ETS cap-and-trade system in Europe.) And that's critically important: it's in the advanced economies of the world that new green technologies will be invented. And it's in the advanced economies of the world that existing green technologies will be proven to work on a wide scale. Once that happens — once the technologies are proven and economies of scale start to bring down their costs — the rest of the world will start to adopt them too. W-M, in its final form, may not be a strong bill, but by raising the price of carbon even a little bit, it makes the development and deployment of green tech far more likely in the United States, and therefore, far more likely on a global basis too.

And that's critically important. Conservation and efficiency and cutting back are all necessary parts of addressing climate change, but human nature being what it is, that's never going to be enough. We're going to have to invent entire new technologies as well. W-M makes that more likely, and that's why it needs to be passed. Warts and all.

 

[GTS]

Yes, because you share the same common, very deeply rooted misconceptions.

And that's because none of y'all has thought deeply enough about these things.

White people, colored people, it's this group's fault, that group's fault, that's completely missing the point.

While the blame for the current crisis is mostly on Western civilization, the cause of it is the same common characteristics and cognitive deficiencies that all humans share. This is not the first civilization to destroy itself in this manner, there is a laundry list of civilizations, most of them developed completely in isolation from European influence who did exactly the same things we are doing now, the only difference is that we are doing it globally now (which is why it is really a big problem). If you think about it, the only civilizations who have not collapsed from environmental destructions are those who developed along rivers constantly carrying sediments and thus renewing the top soil or in volcanic areas where the ash was playing that role. Everyone else who had the time to do so before the development of Western civilization managed to destroy themselves. Again, what we are doing now is by no means unique to people from European ancestry, although we are probably the worst in terms of our arrogance with respect to nature (largely imposed on us by the Abrahamic religions).

Also, if the above isn't enough to tell you why you are just as much guilty about what is coming as the Big Oil CEOs and the politicians, ask yourself the question what would you do and how would you behave if you were in their place. And try to be honest with the answer.

BTW the people on top probably care a lot more than the average Joe, even if simply because they have the information; or at least I would hope this is the case. What is certain is that the average Joe is completely clueless about what's going on and this is entirely his fault. No one in a secret academy for the training of future dictators (as some might think) has spoon fed me these things, I have come to these conclusion by means of my own curiosity and passion for learning, as have other people. Unfortunately these are characteristics that aren't so common in humans, despite what we would like to think, and there are very good reasons for that too (you know, those who were very curious to find out how that funny looking mushroom tastes were in an obvious selective disadvantage; once language and culture were in place, that barrier became even stronger). The people on top have probably realized that the momentum of ignorance is too huge and there is really no way to avoid the cull. You don't cure a cancer by feeding it, you know. In the worst case they aren't more ignorant about the situation than the vast majority of the population

I don't advocate a world where we breed people in incubators and train them to be robots. I do think that the family as it exists right now is a highly undesirable feature in any society designed for long-term stability, because right now parents will do everything to make sure their kids succeed (that Darwinian urge to propagate your genes) and because their are no rules in the Darwinian game, this leads to all kinds of problems that if, again, one thinks deep enough about it, can be eliminated by eliminating the family and the connection between children and biological parents. But I digress, what I want to see is a society that is capable of long-term survival, which will allow us to make it out of this planet and avoid extinction for as long as possible, and in which each and every human being is a Person.

I think we are much closer to your robotic vision right now than what I envision, I personally have a very hard time seeing what makes the majority of people living today different from each other, or useful in any way other than as cogs in the great machine of our industrial so called civilization.

lol

says the guy that will never have kids or have a women even consider the notion.

You have no idea what it is like to be a father and I'm sorry your life was fucked but your a fuckin nutt.

 

[ThaG]

lol

says the guy that will never have kids or have a women even consider the notion.

You have no idea what it is like to be a father and I'm sorry your life was fucked but your a fuckin nutt.

That's what I am talking about - living organisms have one major task to do during their life and it is to propagate their genes as much as possible. Everything else is secondary. However, this drive is ultimately self-destructive because it makes sure that given ideal conditions it will all end with a massive dieoff for the population in question. Like yeast in culture - you seed them, they grow exponentially and then if you don't feed them continuously they die from starvation and from their own toxic waste. Which is where the rhetorical question "Are we smarter than yeast" originates from (the answer is no).

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more intelligence, education and self-awareness for that instinct to be somewhat suppressed (it can never be suppressed completely) than most people possess and the first step towards that is appreciating its existence, which, quite tragically, is a repugnant idea for the majority of us.

 

[HERESY]

Yes, because you share the same common, very deeply rooted misconceptions.

What are these common, very deeply misconceptions?

And that's because none of y'all has thought deeply enough about these things.

How deeply do we need to think about these things? Do we need to join death cults, read literature devoted to depopulation and ponder the existence of man over and over like a 4 bar drum loop?

White people, colored people, it's this group's fault, that group's fault, that's completely missing the point.

No, it isn't missing the point. It's addressing WHO has contributed to the problem, and addressing this issue may help remedy the problem and make sure those responsible for it don't repeat it.

While the blame for the current crisis is mostly on Western civilization, the cause of it is the same common characteristics and cognitive deficiencies that all humans share.

What you're implying is we are all the same and do not differ when it comes to values, and this is certainly NOT the case. All humans do not share the characteristics and cognitive deficiencies of greed, vanity and consumption at the expense of their fellow man or the planet. There are people, good people, who have their fellow man, and planet, in their mind when they do what they do.

there is a laundry list of civilizations, most of them developed completely in isolation from European influence who did exactly the same things we are doing now, the only difference is that we are doing it globally now (which is why it is really a big problem).

List those nations that did exactly what america is doing now. Nations and empires that overconsumed? You have plenty. Nations that conquer, use the majority of resources available while spreading influence? I'll help you out by listing Rome.

If you think about it, the only civilizations who have not collapsed from environmental destructions are those who developed along rivers constantly carrying sediments and thus renewing the top soil or in volcanic areas where the ash was playing that role.Everyone else who had the time to do so before the development of Western civilization managed to destroy themselves

No, if you think about it, many civilizations that did not collapse from environmental destructions were those who kept Europeans OUT.

Again, what we are doing now is by no means unique to people from European ancestry, although we are probably the worst in terms of our arrogance with respect to nature (largely imposed on us by the Abrahamic religions).

Abrahamic religions are not the problems here.

Also, if the above isn't enough to tell you why you are just as much guilty about what is coming as the Big Oil CEOs and the politicians, ask yourself the question what would you do and how would you behave if you were in their place. And try to be honest with the answer.

I'm for the equal advancement of all people. I am not for the subjugation of people for my gain. If I were in their shoes, ME, HERESY, with my mentality, I would go against the grain. Would I be killed for it? Most likely, but at the end of the day, the blood of innocent people and the demise of the planet wouldn't be on my hands.

Now what would YOU do?

BTW the people on top probably care a lot more than the average Joe, even if simply because they have the information; or at least I would hope this is the case. What is certain is that the average Joe is completely clueless about what's going on and this is entirely his fault.

The people on the top DON'T care, because if they cared, we wouldn't be in this situation. You wouldn't have Waxman-Markey, you wouldn't have countries being raped for resources, and you wouldn't have gas guzzling SUV's driven by suburban housewives killing off our air.

In regards to the average joe, it is not entirely his fault that he is completely ignorant. The supression of information by those in power, the constant bombardment of messages to consume and the a broken education system are all contributing factors to his ignorance.

No one in a secret academy for the training of future dictators (as some might think) has spoon fed me these things, I have come to these conclusion by means of my own curiosity and passion for learning, as have other people.

Yale University. Can you tell me how many american presidents, senators, members of congress and intelligence members attended?

Unfortunately these are characteristics that aren't so common in humans, despite what we would like to think, and there are very good reasons for that too (you know, those who were very curious to find out how that funny looking mushroom tastes were in an obvious selective disadvantage; once language and culture were in place, that barrier became even stronger). The people on top have probably realized that the momentum of ignorance is too huge and there is really no way to avoid the cull. You don't cure a cancer by feeding it, you know. In the worst case they aren't more ignorant about the situation than the vast majority of the population.

The people on top realized the momentum of ignorance is a huge PROFIT. They are killing two birds with one stone with their methods, and couldn't care less of curing anything--their actions show this.

I don't advocate a world where we breed people in incubators and train them to be robots. I do think that the family as it exists right now is a highly undesirable feature in any society designed for long-term stability, because right now parents will do everything to make sure their kids succeed (that Darwinian urge to propagate your genes) and because their are no rules in the Darwinian game, this leads to all kinds of problems that if, again, one thinks deep enough about it, can be eliminated by eliminating the family and the connection between children and biological parents.

So you advocate the elimination of the family and connection between children and biological parents? Are you familiar with the problems that arise because of broken family structures and disconnection between parent and child? You sound just like a globalist, and what you just said is in direct accordance to their doctrine.

But I digress, what I want to see is a society that is capable of long-term survival, which will allow us to make it out of this planet and avoid extinction for as long as possible, and in which each and every human being is a Person.

No, what you want is to save your own hide. If we are nothing more than a species of animal, you're just wishing to prolong the inevitable.

I think we are much closer to your robotic vision right now than what I envision, I personally have a very hard time seeing what makes the majority of people living today different from each other, or useful in any way other than as cogs in the great machine of our industrial so called civilization.

In other threads your peers have told you exactly why you have a hard time seeing things. You should get those eyes checked out...

 

[radiostationrep]

what is so hard to understand?

you are comparing the have's and have-nots like their isnt a difference. i dont understand how you dont see that. the have's dictate policy/guidelines. the have-nots follow said guidelines/procedures laid out by the have's. in this case the have's are passing their acrueing environmental destruction/costs on the have-nots in the name of the environment which is a croc of shit quite frankly. we all play a part, i agree with you there, but acting as if the economically challenged people of our society dont suffer consequences due to rediculous claims by the have's is ludacrious, imo. in a perfect world your idealogy would make sense. but this is the real one we are talking about.

@jomodo: the technology is there to go green now. the transformation will take time but what we have here is the oil companies aligning with the government, their good ole buddies, and setting up tax increases knowing that non-renewable resources will eventually be depleted entirely, thus leaving us no choice but to move on to an alternative energy source. this tax isnt about the environment, it is about their pockets, plain and simple. allowing them to rake in record profits continuously at will is the problem here. scientific data/research is available in the form of a j shaped grid proving our environment is warming as our population and energy consumption increases. government and oil scientists are called upon to brainwash people that it isnt happening and is all part of the cycle we call evolution, or in their terms, personal interest. this isnt about the environment. once again, it is about MONEY. greed is what got us in this whole mess to begin with.

 

[Fucky McFuckerson]

The people on the top DON'T care, because if they cared, we wouldn't be in this situation. You wouldn't have Waxman-Markey, you wouldn't have countries being raped for resources, and you wouldn't have gas guzzling SUV's driven by suburban housewives killing off our air.

In regards to the average joe, it is not entirely his fault that he is completely ignorant. The supression of information by those in power, the constant bombardment of messages to consume and the a broken education system are all contributing factors to his ignorance.



..

Amen.

It is strangely surprising to me that ThaG is DENYING that those in power are somehow NOT responsible for their own actions anymore than me. Everything in a sociocultural setting is Dependant on cycles and stings of actions...this is what binds people to a culture.

Rich and powerful people start wars...poor and powerless people fight and DIE in them. Does that not seem problematic to ANYONE?

 

[radiostationrep]

Rich and powerful people start wars...poor and powerless people fight and DIE in them. Does that not seem problematic to ANYONE?

and this is the case on the other end of the spectrum in the form of drug dealers, gangs, etc. i guess it makes sense that the people feel a career in politics is up there with the drug dealers and criminals in terms of corruption.

 

[GTS]

That's what I am talking about - living organisms have one major task to do during their life and it is to propagate their genes as much as possible. Everything else is secondary. However, this drive is ultimately self-destructive because it makes sure that given ideal conditions it will all end with a massive dieoff for the population in question. Like yeast in culture - you seed them, they grow exponentially and then if you don't feed them continuously they die from starvation and from their own toxic waste. Which is where the rhetorical question "Are we smarter than yeast" originates from (the answer is no).

Unfortunately, it takes a lot more intelligence, education and self-awareness for that instinct to be somewhat suppressed (it can never be suppressed completely) than most people possess and the first step towards that is appreciating its existence, which, quite tragically, is a repugnant idea for the majority of us.

how does the human race survive if you don't have children?

 

[james blunt]

question? those thag actually know what he is talking about or is he just full of shit?

 

[ThaG]

how does the human race survive if you don't have children?

there is a difference between having no children, enough children and too many children

 

[ThaG]

you are comparing the have's and have-nots like their isnt a difference. i dont understand how you dont see that. the have's dictate policy/guidelines. the have-nots follow said guidelines/procedures laid out by the have's. in this case the have's are passing their acrueing environmental destruction/costs on the have-nots in the name of the environment which is a croc of shit quite frankly. we all play a part, i agree with you there, but acting as if the economically challenged people of our society dont suffer consequences due to rediculous claims by the have's is ludacrious, imo. in a perfect world your idealogy would make sense. but this is the real one we are talking about.

You need to ask yourself what precisely you mean by "have's" and "have-nots". You need to do that in general for everything actually, i.e ask yourself where does this concept come from, why do we have it, what its meaning is and what is it useful for. When you do that you will understand the world much better, and will much more rarely fall in the traps of indoctrination and incapaitation of critical thinking imposed by the culture you've been raised in.

So regarding the "have's" and "have-nots" - how do we define them? The "have's" are those that have more material possessions and power than the rest. The power that they have is typically directly sourced from their material possessions, but more on that below. The "have-nots" on the other hand do not have that much material possessions and power as the "have's".

However, and here is the critical insight, the way we defined them, there are no absolute values of the material possession that determine whether you are a "have" or "have-not", it is the fact that some have MORE than others that distinguishes them. And the disgruntlement of the "have-nots" stems from the fact that the "have's" have more than them, not so much from whether they don't have ENOUGH.

So what exactly is "enough"? Aside from the people in the third world who are dying from starvation, most people who are defined as "have-nots" today live a much more comfortable lifestyle than anyone except for maybe only the super-super-rich just a few centuries ago lived. The basic needs of a human being are food and shelter; nobody needs billions of cash, yachts, sport cars, etc. The basic needs are pretty much covered for most, especially in the West. Yet, the people who don't have as much as the people who have a lot aren't feeling good about it.

Why is that? The answer comes from some basic evolutionary psychology. Most have probably heard about the male peacock tail and how it is totally disadvantegous in terms of individual fitness, however it evolved because the females perceive it as attractive because it signals that the male is fit enough to be able both to survive and afford such an extravagant expenditure of metabolic resources and the decrease in fitness resulting from not being able to escape predators as well as if he didn't have that huge thing on his tail. It is exactly the same thing in humans, we strive toward having more things not because we really need them for our own survival but because they are a status symbol that we use in competing with other members of the species for reproduction with the most attractive individuals from the other sex. That's why the act of getting things feels much better than having them, and that's why we can never have enough. That's why we feel envious for those who live a luxurious lifestyle and that's why we will do everything to increase our material possessions and in turn our status. Which is also the reason why the people with a lot of material possessions have power over those who have little, because those who have little will do a lot of things to get more.

Consumerism and exploitation of the masses by "those on top" are critically dependent on these basic features of our psychology. If people realize how powerful these instincts are, and somehow manage to overcome them, the whole house of cards will fall apart. The fact that they haven't while all that information is out there is entirely their fault (or more the fault of our inherent tendency not to be bothered by things that require too much effort spent into investigating them)

 

[radiostationrep]

You need to ask yourself what precisely you mean by "have's" and "have-nots". You need to do that in general for everything actually, i.e ask yourself where does this concept come from, why do we have it, what its meaning is and what is it useful for. When you do that you will understand the world much better, and will much more rarely fall in the traps of indoctrination and incapaitation of critical thinking imposed by the culture you've been raised in.

So regarding the "have's" and "have-nots" - how do we define them? The "have's" are those that have more material possessions and power than the rest. The power that they have is typically directly sourced from their material possessions, but more on that below. The "have-nots" on the other hand do not have that much material possessions and power as the "have's".

However, and here is the critical insight, the way we defined them, there are no absolute values of the material possession that determine whether you are a "have" or "have-not", it is the fact that some have MORE than others that distinguishes them. And the disgruntlement of the "have-nots" stems from the fact that the "have's" have more than them, not so much from whether they don't have ENOUGH.

So what exactly is "enough"? Aside from the people in the third world who are dying from starvation, most people who are defined as "have-nots" today live a much more comfortable lifestyle than anyone except for maybe only the super-super-rich just a few centuries ago lived. The basic needs of a human being are food and shelter; nobody needs billions of cash, yachts, sport cars, etc. The basic needs are pretty much covered for most, especially in the West. Yet, we people who don't have as much as the people who have a lot aren't feeling good about it.

Why is that? The answer comes from some basic evolutionary psychology. Most have probably heard about the male peacock tail and how it is totally disadvantegous in terms of individual fitness, however it evolved because the females perceive it as attractive because it signals that the male is fit enough to be able both to survive and afford such an extravagant expenditure of metabolic resources and the decrease in fitness resulting from not being able to escape predators as well as if he didn't have that huge thing on his tail. It is exactly the same thing in humans, we strive toward having more things not because we really need them for our own survival but because they are a status symbol that we use in competing with other members of the species for reproduction with the most attractive individuals from the other sex. That's why the act of getting things feels much better than having them, and that's why we can never have enough. That's why we feel envious for those who live a luxurious lifestyle and that's why we will do everything to increase our material possessions and in turn our status. Which is also the reason why the people with a lot of material possessions have power over those who have little, because those who have little will do a lot of things to get more.

Consumerism and exploitation of the masses by "those on top" are critically dependent on these basic features of our psychology. If people realize how powerful these instincts are, and somehow manage to overcome them, the whole house of cards will fall apart. The fact that they haven't while all that information is out there is entirely their fault (or more the fault of our inherent tendency not to be bothered by things that require too much effort spent into investigating them)

what ever it is you smoke on thag, pass it here, because that is some good shit!