As Grand Moff Tarkin once observed, "This bickering is pointless."It is quite clear what the general feeling is behind all of these spurious lines of thought. Simply put, the principle is that the world is too complicated to be run without a managerial elite. The present 'regime' is incompetant ("the only way ... humanity is master of the world is that we can wreck it ..."), and must be replaced by enlightened 'planet-mechanics', communist experts, and such. It is pointless to demonstrate the regular and consistant failings of these 'experts', because I have not received the appropriate credentials from them. Thus, the successes of the agricultural revolution are actually unsustainable failures, increased productivity from industry is actually counter-productive because it is not a linear function, free-markets are actually tools of exploiting the gullibility of the poor, and so on. I believe Orwell was most cognizant of these sorts of arguments.
The fact remains that these conclusions are unsupportable in the real world, and that this is obvious to the majority of people. Temperatures fluctuate, flaunting the calls of doom from pundits; capitalist economies flourish whilst those under communism flounder; the rain forests continue to be cleared, with nary a thunderbolt from yonder Ivory Tower. The sky, contrary to these most educated and learned opinions, is most obviously not falling.
This can go on indefinitely. Where there is wealth, there will always be a claim on it, the more ingenious in relation to the magnitude of the creation. The very prosperity of capitalism is its Achilles' heel - it enriches those who would find novel ways to undermine it. One can imagine such 'science' being used to thwart settling of the West (destruction of the North American wilderness will lead to unpredictable climate changes, perhaps even a Greenhouse Effect).
Very well. This 'pompous buffoon' apparently has not the necessary credentials to run his own affairs. Yet, strangely, I feel moved to do so regardless. I have seen the products of such enlightened thinking firsthand, and am quite resistant to 'enjoying' them myself.
And really now ... did you actually think that you'd convince people to re-enter the Stone Age willingly, because there is only enough oil for about two centuries or so of growth? (Not counting synthetic fuels, ethanol from biomass, geothermal energy sources, heretofore undiscovered technologies, etc.) Come now ...
"Doc" Cruel
P.S. In reference to a 'finite' state of affairs ... I believe then you are an advocate of the 'open', rather than 'closed' universe theory? Heat death, and all that ...
