Daniel Pinchbeck, How Soon is Now, Heavy-Handed Climate Apocalypse Stuff |343|

So just because some climate scientists cheated and manipulated data, for different reasons and agendas, therefore we should shelve all the data and ignore the poisoning of the biosphere and do nothing?
The tobacco industry used similar arguments to maintain the fiction of plausible doubt over the negative health impacts of smoking
I think Daniel is right about Alex's tone of resistance - it's like Alex knows deep down that smoking cannot be good for you, but he resists actually doing anything about it
But humanity will not be able to ignore the biospheric crisis which our industrial civilisation is causing
And we wont be able to talk about it for ever
Very soon we will have to act; and it will have to be coordinated global action - that is to say we will have to cooperate and regulate etc
and that is where a lot of people have a problem - especially neoliberals; they see is as threatening their ideology of competitive individualism
But the free market is not competent to deal with this crisis
We need new systems of economy and production and distribution

Lol!
 
Is all of this climate change nonsense caused by the rise of secularism in the West? Someone once said that 'everyone needs a place to put their crazy.' Is this what we're witnessing here? Statists needing to force non-adherents to conform to one of their main tenets?.. And the priests are the bankers, who feed off their delusions.
 
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http://www.economist.com/node/21564412

Oct 13th 2012
...
Thanks to deregulation, budget discipline and an extensive overhaul of the welfare state, Sweden’s economy has been transformed in the two decades since its banking crisis. The new Swedish model is quite different from the leftist stereotype.

...

The inheritance tax was eliminated in 2005, the wealth tax in 2007 and taxes on residential property in 2008. Thanks, in part, to these tax changes, capital income has soared, particularly at the top of Sweden’s income scale.

...

Sweden has cut taxes on labour, especially for the low-skilled. The Earned Income Tax Credit, which offers strong incentives for lower-skilled people to work, marks the biggest change. Other innovations, such as a credit for hiring household help, are designed to spur demand for low-wage workers. Union membership dues, in contrast, no longer qualify for tax relief. Benefits have been reformed at the same time as taxes. All handouts, from jobless aid to disability benefits, have become less generous, more short-lived and harder to qualify for.
...
Many schools are now independently run, and in health care private management is a growing trend​

I like this tactic, when you realise it can no longer be argued that Sweden isn't doing well as a country, argue that it's not that left wing anyway!
 
I like this tactic, when you realise it can no longer be argued that Sweden isn't doing well as a country, argue that it's not that left wing anyway!
Whatever else has gone on, and whatever government gets power, Sweden still has a strong socialist backbone and it is that that has given the people of this country the rights and freedom that they have. Capitalism only serves big business, giving the rest of us the myth that the economic effects will trickle down to us. History has proved that this just doesn't happen.
 
Indeed. StrawMan completed in the first sentence. Hard to beat that.

I blame public schooling. Today people don't learn about Logical Fallacies until escape University and begin learning Logic, Reason, and Grammar on their own. This situation is not an accident.

*Until they escape

Maybe work on that grammar a little ;).
 
I'm not quoting anyone in particular, but I will say that I find that in real life, I am able to have productive conversations with friends and family. I can ask why some voted for Trump without thinking they are nasty, white-supremacist, neo-Nazis. I can have productive conversations with my liberal friends without thinking or accusing them of being "commie scum" who want to spread "cultural Marxism" and perversions around the world.

They are just people, with everyday human concerns. They really aren't the enemy. I think Jim Smith is right about how this polarized rhetoric keeps us distracted and divides us. JMO.
 
A little on "Pizzagate"

The Young Turks and Cenk Uygur being obnoxious and smug as usual. I quit watching his show three years ago because of this, and he never talks about the real problems. Ugh.

As I said in another thread, I am not a Alex Jones fan; I've been critical of pizzagate. But backing down in the face of moneyed lawsuits is not unusual. I suppose the problem is that people have started researching other cases of elite pedophile rings inspired by pizzagate, which they have renamed PedoGate. I mean, it does happen! But let's blame Alex Jones even though the whole thing started on 4chan and spread to Reddit, and the subreddits discussing it were banned, which made it worse. Now the pizzagaters are on Voat, but are now researching ACTUAL pedophile rings. I guess that is the real problem. And it has no party, all of them are implicated.
 
Whatever else has gone on, and whatever government gets power, Sweden still has a strong socialist backbone and it is that that has given the people of this country the rights and freedom that they have. Capitalism only serves big business, giving the rest of us the myth that the economic effects will trickle down to us. History has proved that this just doesn't happen.

I would guess that it is not a socialist backbone nor unfettered capitalism that results in a free and open and prosperous society. I think it is common trust and honesty among the general population along with the people maintaining a constant check on hierarchical centralized power.

It is easy to get caught up in defending or attacking ideologies with certain labels that have so much baggage attached to them. From browsing the thread here, I think it would be best to do away with labels altogether and evaluate each proposed solution to a problem individually so that there will be more clarity.

As I keep saying over and over again (hoping the concept will put down roots elsewhere), the problem is not government or individualism or collectivism in general, but human nature combined with the hierarchical organizational structure which centralizes power and creates a feedback loop that over time tends to amplify the worst aspects of human nature leading the hierarchy to become tyrannical and oppressive.

In the capitalist system, if corporations (hierarchical organizations) are not limited in size and power, they will grow and grow and eventually subvert or co-opt government leading to a collapse and dystopia. In the socialist system, if the governmental power structure is too hierarchical without enough checks and balances, the same thing will happen: corruption will grow until collapse.

There are some reasons that socialism evokes such strong reactions from people: 1) the worst democides and betrayals of justice to the common man in the 20th century came out of nominally communist or socialist nations, 2) the involuntary confiscation of the fruits of one's labor under threat of violence is legalized theft, and 3) socialism requires relinquishing some individual rights for the good of the state or collective, and this is typically not a one time event but a process that continues and snow-balls because the tendency is for centralized hierarchical power to grow at the expense of those at the bottom of the power pyramid.

Socialism works wonderfully for a while and capitalism works wonderfully for a while and monarchies can also work wonderfully for a while. But nothing is static. We have to consider the dynamics of how the power structures will evolve.

Going with the "as above so below" hermetic fractal philosophy, I believe that political power structures are an iteration of pattern that is repeated on smaller scales in the dynamic between man and woman in marriage and also between "left-brain" and "right-brain" mental structures.

Right brain feminine organization is chaotic, networked crowd-sourced, and better at gestalt pattern recognition (which is why the internet alt-media is better at seeing patterns aka conspiracy theories). Left-brain sequential hierarchical organization is more efficient at specific actions and so is more powerful and tends to dominate.

Creating a prosperous free and open society is no different than becoming a stronger individual of sound mind or no different than strengthening a marriage. The same steps are required because the same masculine/feminine or hierarchy/network structural dynamics is in play.

The masculine hierarchical aspect must be kept benevolent not allowed to overpower the feminine aspect which must be allowed to freely network and speak.

The anarcho libertarians (who I strongly resonate with) will have another failed utopia if they succeed because they are essentially advocating a completely feminine form of organization which will result in being conquered by a non-benevolent hierarchy. To keep things stable the masculine and feminine organizational structures must keep each other in check and there must be pervasive honesty and trust. This is true no matter what label is attached to the governmental system.
 
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So just because some climate scientists cheated and manipulated data, for different reasons and agendas, therefore we should shelve all the data and ignore the poisoning of the biosphere and do nothing?
The tobacco industry used similar arguments to maintain the fiction of plausible doubt over the negative health impacts of smoking
I think Daniel is right about Alex's tone of resistance - it's like Alex knows deep down that smoking cannot be good for you, but he resists actually doing anything about it
But humanity will not be able to ignore the biospheric crisis which our industrial civilisation is causing
And we wont be able to talk about it for ever
Very soon we will have to act; and it will have to be coordinated global action - that is to say we will have to cooperate and regulate etc
and that is where a lot of people have a problem - especially neoliberals; they see is as threatening their ideology of competitive individualism
But the free market is not competent to deal with this crisis
We need new systems of economy and production and distribution
What's really peculiar about Alex's climate denial reasoning is this. He has acknowledged human caused environmental degradation on a local scale. He arbitrarily stops when it comes to human environmental degradation globally. He makes this acknowledged I think in the thread about sea level rising.
 
What's really peculiar about Alex's climate denial reasoning is this. He has acknowledged human caused environmental degradation on a local scale. He arbitrarily stops when it comes to human environmental degradation globally. He makes this acknowledged I think in the thread about sea level rising.

He says in the actual podcast he believes in ocean acidification, deforestation and widespread animal extinction. Deforestation is inarguably caused by Man, I don't know if he thinks man is responsible for the other two. Could you link to the specific post?
 
Yes Alex accepts there are real issues of biospheric degradation and poisoning
But he is conflicted about doing anything coherent about it because he fears it will undermine neoliberal capitalism and reduce individual rights
At least that is the impression I got from his arguments

On the other side of the debate there is no doubt that the CO2 issue (and all biospheric issues) is being used and manipulated by various special interest groups
The entire debate is distorted and skewed
Many powerful groups see the issue as a means to impose their own agendas and forms of control and governance etc

Most ordinary humans presume that when bad things like wars and famines and planetary pollution etc are being dealt with
they are thought about in moral terms of right and wrong and people want and try to do the right thing
- prevent or stop the war; feed the hungry; clean up the environment
But that is not what happens among the global financial and political elites; that's not how they think

They think and act strategically for their own agendas and ends
So when a crisis issue like biospheric poisoning arises they will have their boffins in the their foundations and think tanks
come up with all kinds of reports and analyses as to how they can use the issue to their advantage

One of the euphemisms they use to sell the so-called solutions they propose to the public is...
(and remember the public proposal is rarely the actual underlying policy)
a market solution
 
The anarcho libertarians (who I strongly resonate with) will have another failed utopia if they succeed because they are essentially advocating a completely feminine form of organization which will result in being conquered by a non-benevolent hierarchy.

So you're saying that if anarcho-libertarians were to succeed the worst thing that could happen is that we revert back to what presently exists?
 
So you're saying that if anarcho-libertarians were to succeed the worst thing that could happen is that we revert back to what presently exists?

No, not saying that.

I don't know the exact path that would be taken or how bad things could get. We're dealing with hypotheticals on top of hypotheticals. I only believe I know what the trend would be over time.
 
Are voluntary decentralized networks and alternative currencies hypothetical?

No, I think we have those now and it's a good thing we do.

4Chan's recent "capture the flag" episode is a great example of a spontaneous voluntary network swiftly solving a problem and accomplishing a task that might take a hierarchical organization much longer.

The internet has increased the networking capacity of the body politic which has restored some balance to the increasingly oppressive hierarchical creatures that have ascended the political food chain. It seems like this balance existed in colonial America and shortly after the war for independence but was gradually weighted towards the hierarchy over time as the federal government became more centralized and implemented the income tax in the mid 20th century and corporations grew so powerful that the government was no longer the people's government.

Corporations don't have natural rights because they aren't products of nature. They are products of government, so government can provide or revoke those rights as is deemed necessary to benefit the people. Corporations should be able to be terminated or inhibited with a vote since they are creations of the government which should be the voice of the people and an advocate of the people's best interests. Corporations should have expiration dates and must prove they are serving the interests of the people in order to continue to exist.

In other words corporations being generally hierarchical, should be treated with as much caution and suspicion as governments since both are likely to become corrupt over time.

My vision of the ideal political balance is not anarchy (no power pyramids) or statism (a few monolithic power pyramids), but lots of fairly short and not too steep power pyramids all networking together and keeping a weary watchful eye on the others to make sure none get too big for their britches.
 
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