:
: : : In thermodynamic terms; in physical terms, the Earth is very definitely a zero-sum-gain system; and the whole human concept of 'wealth' as applied to cars becomes redundant as soon as the oil runs out.: : : What use is a luxury commodity made out of plastic if you can't power it? What use is land if it becomes too polluted to produce food?
: : Farinata, look around and it's obvious that the Capitalist system is producing those things that peasants from all over the world want.
: Really? Can it be said to be providing a marked improvement to the lot of the common man worldwide?;
Nice dodge. I would reply that any leader of any country who chose to could turn to democracy coupled with the rule of law and individual freedom and give it a shot. There's no doubt in my ex-military mind that many of these experiments would fail, probably because some cultures cannot change.
: or is it just benefitting the richer tenth of the world's population; who justify their greed with the weak excuse that it will somehow 'trickle down' to the poor people in the end - against all the evidence.
You call it greed. Yet you benefit from the advances of capitalism yourself. Are you also greedy? If not, what differentiates your comfort from the comfort of others?
: : You have to little faith in man's creative powers. The new plastic of fifty years ago will one day be replaced by a new synthetic material created by a man who refuses to be locked into a zero sum world.
: From where? Care to state any potential sources?
I can't begin to guess. But who'd a thunk in 1902 that plastics would have such an impact on human affairs today? Don't you have the wherewhithal to imagine the condition of people who lived only a century ago and imagine the world as it appeared to them?
: Fact remains, fossil and vegetable-based fuels are humanity's sources of energy; and have been since the beginning of history.
So your saying that man from the beginning of time has used wood to build fires and since the middle of the last century he found a better source; oil. Does that necessarily mean that will occur in the future as well? How about nuclear power?
What would your ideal solution be?
: I can give you combustion reactions for all of the major chemical processes involved. There are only so many things that will burn or oxidise or combust; and most of them are already exploited in some way.
: This is ignoring the fact that combustion of carbon-based fuels on a sufficient scale to support an industrial society (even at the present level) will result in global warming sufficient to disrupt large parts of society over the next 200 years; as this research published today finds.
This is pure conjecture on the part of tree-huggers. Besides, climate changes have been going on since the beginning of time. Science, commandeered by envirowackos, has been discredited. Their stories change from month to month.
: What is actually needed is moderation of consumption, not just new forms of consumption; and industrial capitalism is lousy at self-regulation.
Yes, and a dictator like statlin or castro would be much better for everyone.
: : New oppoortunities will be created, old technologies will wither, but man will survive.
: Great. Large parts of humanity will wish they hadn't, though; we're talking mass suffering here.
Luddite.
: : If there are savage tribes that live in a jungle, cold, infected and ignorant, why wouldn't any person say "That's a tragedy, let me show you something better"?
: There are human beings that live in a polluted and deeply unequal society divided into the haves and the have-nots. 40,000 under-fives die of poverty-related causes every day; and the last 30 years have seen the gap between rich and poor grow from 30-to-1 to 74-to-1 as more wealth became concentrated in the hands of those who already have enough.
Again, your assuming a zero-sum scenario. What can you tell us about the society where these terrible things take place? Do they value the individual over the collective? Where are they, specifically? Do your ratios ignore a slow improvement in the standard of living in spite of the claims that you make? Are the countries where these things happen responsible for the suffering of the people?
: It's a tragedy. Let me show you something better.
: : The original post is a good illustration of propaganda at work on illiterates. That "doctor" ought to be pistol whipped, tarred and feathered and driven out of town.
: Why? Because he brought them to the realization that they didn't have to just do as they were told? Because he put them on the road to self-government?
: Just what kind of libertarian are you, to say such things?
I say the very same thing about teachers in public schools who indoctrinate young students about the homosexual lifestyle. The teachers are, from their point of view, 'liberating' those young children, but a certain percentage of the young children who act on the teachers beliefs will die of AIDS before their 30th birthday. In both cases there is a person with a superior education taking advantage of persons who cannot defend themselves against propaganda, and may not even recognize it. Self-government is not obtained via one point of view, from one teacher pushing an ideology. There is very good reason today to distrust much of what the elites have to say.
