Was Unabomber right? Will civilization collapse?

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How well will you enjoy a short life span for you or your children?

ruveyn

Time spent alive =/= Time spent living
50 years from now we might see living to 100 as far too short, the same way we see living to 25 as too short.

Edit: Missed a full stop

Hobbes referred to the unsocial life as "nasty, brutish and short" Is that what you want?

Society and Civilization whatever their other faults make order and long term planning possible.

ruveyn

We ARE headed towards collapse. And it has all been made possible by monetary economics. Because our current system requires infinite growth and infinite consumption to keep going. But we live on a FINITE planet with FINITE resources. There is only one thing that exists in nature that needs to perpetually grow and grow in order to survive, but in doing so invalidates its ultimate sustainability. Its called cancer.

Only when we recognise this and shift out of our current infinite growth paradigm towards a Steady State Economy such as a Resource-Based Economy will we survive.

www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

There is no such paradigm. In the long run we are doomed as a species. If we last long enough an extinction level event cause by the impact of a comet or large asteroid will wipe us out. Existence in the long run is a losing game. Enjoy it in the short run.

ruveyn

I understand how YOU would prefer to think that we're doomed, partly because you don't want to consider how we can make this world better, but please don't condemn the rest of us to the same fate because of your cynicism. If we all thought like you, then yes, we would be doomed. However there are a great many people who actually WANT to survive. Unlike yourself.

You cannot fight human nature and win. We are at our heart and soul nasty fighting primates. We are the baddest the the smartest of the apes.

ruveyn

ROFL. This get the 'Most Predictable Man Alive' award.

Classic.

*Facepalm*

I have already dispelled the fallacy of human nature NUMEROUS times. The fact that you refuse to view the information and keep ignorantly spouting "human nature" at me like some icon that you're despeately guarding against the truth with, that's your problem, and it gives your argument ZERO weight. There is ZERO science to back it up. Sorry.



*Facepalm again* Ad homs get you nowhere. And you're supposedly a MODERATOR for goodness' sake! You're supposed to be setting an example, and look what you're doing. I would have expected better from someone in a position such as yours. Howabout trying something like I dunno ADDRESSING THE POINT AT HAND? Yea? Coz that MIGHT gain you an ounce of integrity.

Last edited by Adam-Anti-Um on 23 Aug 2011, 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

We have an infinite Universe so we can have infinite growth.

Of course we have an infinite universe in terms of size, but we don't have infinite resources on this planet, and unless you hadn't noticed, the incorporation of resources from outside our atmosphere isn't exactly a booming industry, is it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg8hsSn2Ybs[/youtube]

For over 40 years we have had the technology for manned intersteller space travel.

So? How does that prove the point that we CURRENTLY can provide for infinite wants? What has that done for the interstellar resource business? Nothing. Such an industry doesn't exist because we have been groomed to prefer to use our technology to kill people instead of provide for humanity and explore the stars.

A friend of mine used to work for the space shutle programme as a systems engineer. He can tell you ALL ABOUT how monetary concerns are putting anything outside of our atmosphere permanently in the closet.

I've got a thread for ya to read:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt170481.html

If you don't like my green sticker email Alex about it - I've already tried.


The problem is - what I said above was perfectly on point; you are a man of one topic and one topic only. To read one of your posts, throughly and entirely - which I have, is to have read everything else. Its all on the same topic, its all technocommunism (which I may be coining a term here but phonetically I think anyone, even without any formal etimology training, can figure out what I mean), I suppose when we have enough innovation that close to 50% of the populace literally has no availability for work and when work starts becoming obsolete to where we need to rethink our whole system - that's fine. On the other hand, we're just barely now stepping out of a dominantly theological world view. Bolshevism and similar totalitarian forms of communism came about because it was too far ahead of practicality, much like the notion of the government forcing some type of green car right now would be a terrible idea - its still too expensive. That and we still have an IMMENSE amount of growing up to do, as a species, before we could even think about a centrally planned share-everything economy. The best we can hope for is that we gain greater and greater efficiency to where technology itself melts the tensions of capitalism. Apparently the poorest person in the US, physically, has more ammenities today than John D Rockefeller did. Seems like there's some good possibility that the poorest person thirty or fourty years from now might be enjoying the ammenities of what a middle-class life is today. If social heirarchy erases all of that to you - well, don't look at our systems, look at our genes.

Another thing, didn't you have an article recently about a cancer cure being surpressed? I'd just say - in good taste - avoid posting anything in the activism folder about magnets or power crystals curing autism, might not go over well.

Very well. You may not hold the authority, but from the initial perspective, you wear the uniform. Not that that alone is enough to say that you need to treat your fellow man with respect and not resort to ad homs.



What I don't like is your attitude. Cut out the personal attacks. They only make you look like a bully.



Pure conjecture. Try having the courage of your convictions and prove to me that EVERY post I have ever made on this site has been about the exact same subject matter, then I will take you seriously.



That is your ASSUMPTION about my communications. Hell, ANYONE can assume that about ANYONE. Does that make it empirical fact? Of course not.



*Facepalm* Oh DEAR. You have read 1 post I have made, no further, and to top it off you didn't even understand it properly *gives an applause* Bravo.



Its already happening mate. Just look into a phenomenon known as "technological unemployment". Coz automation is FAR more economically viable for the short-term profits of those implementing it. The only thing is that it has devastating effects on human purchasing power. That is why it is called "the contradiction of capitalism".



Exactly. Which is why money WILL NOT EXIST in an RBE. That is one of the main things that you conveniently brush to the side every time, because acknowledging it doesn't serve your argument. And that is one of the main DFIFFERENCES between an RBE and ANY other system that has come before. Because EVERY system proposed thusfar has used money in some capacity. And that is why your FUTILE attempts to lump it in with any other system that has existed prior, (mainly because your frame of reference doesn't know anything else) will not curry any favour for you.



Absolutely. I completely agree.



An RBE is not centrally planned. Its DEcentralised.



Efficiency is an ENEMY of profit, hense it is an enemy of our current system. And I do agree. Technology has the potential to do SO much more than it does today.



What's your source for this supposition? But as an aside do you REALLY think that with our ever-growing rates of consumption we will LAST in this current paradigm for another 40 years?



The genetic argument, just like the human nature argument is a cop-out. So that people can have a whipping boy that they can lump all their questions on and no longer have to think about the root causes of anything.



Are you attempting to dictate to me what I can freely say? I would advise you not to think you have the authority to do so. You have admitted you are not a mod, so don't try to pretend you really are.

Besides ASSUMING that I have a complete lack of tact and respect for the categorisation of certain topics and I would just BLITHELY splatter my views across any medium regardless of its relevance, it is rather arrogant, presumptious and contemptuous of you to ALSO ASSUME that because I don't subscribe to the common consensus of the status quo, that MUST mean that by association that I MUST also hold all these other craaaaaaazy conspiracy theories. How pathetic.

Lol, nah, I am saying you could do to relax a little. Post casually, socialize, rather than just jump in here with epic public service annoucements and dissapear till the next one. That way people have a chance to debate and nuance ideas, you get a sense of where people are coming from, and it doesn't end up like you're going on about the sky falling.

I'd agree with you that we can't have perpetual improvement, perpetual progress - the human is obviously quite limted genetically and yes, technological unemployment (currently called 'structural' more commonly I think) is getting greater. What I'm saying though - everything that's going to happen will happen naturally. We're a capitalist society right now because its the second worst choice to everything else available - at the moment. That said though it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to blast the horns and trumpets on it either, if its coming its coming, because it makes sense - it won't need to sell itself and it won't really need people standing on soap boxes.