Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 315 posts

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#281

Post by dane-pgp »

aeternum wrote: post #265
jhoechtl wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This, again, proves that as an educated society we need to decisively counter the for-profit lies of influential corporations. There is a fundamental problem that may cost us severely in the not too distant future. Who do you think has or rather should have more power than corporations? The state! And who is constantly crying for a less influential state? The current US administration. As long as we as the voters d…

Don't we have just as much if not more power over corporations? You effectively vote for a corporation each time you do business with it. We can choose to buy zero emission cars and purchase products exclusively from environmentally friendly corporations. Corporations will either adapt or go bankrupt.

The difference is, with a decent voting system, it only takes 51% of the population to decide government policy, but with corporations, even 1% of the population can keep harmful corporations from bankruptcy.

Even ignoring the problem of those 1% potentially being the richest 1%, there is the issue that harmful businesses often have lower costs than ethical businesses, and some consumers are too price-sensitive (or don't have time to become informed about every corporation's business practices) to vote "correctly" with their purchasing power.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#282

Post by glogla »

renewiltord wrote: post #232
ookookookook wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns and bombs it is, then.

You can say this but no nation as a whole has the balls. That's the power of fighting off an invasion from a rich country. I can lose ten for each one of yours and you will lose hope first. To say nothing of the fact that the first American soldier who dies to stop climate change will cause, by his death, the crucifixion of your "liberal tree huggers". Your internal politics will fracture and break you. You are too w…

There's no need for invasion or occupation, bombing is enough - look at per capita carbon footprint of Afghanistan or Somalia. And that can be done "cleanly" with drones, no risk for the attacking nation.

Other than that, some parts of American / Western population would be gladly sold on "the overpopulated non-whites are destroying the world by over-consumption and need to be kept in check" - without realizing the irony of "over-consumption" and without seeing the parallels between "overpopulation" rhetoric and eugenics of old.

Moreover eternal war is more money for the capitalists, while there's little profit in saving the world peacefully. And you know who truly rules the West.

So hopefully we can all agree on stuff. I'm not sure it's all that likely.

EDIT: also if you're a "leader of a developing nation", chances are you're going to see effects of climate change, like drought and famine, way sooner than the rich parts of the world. And if you get no aid because you refuse to cooperate ... you know. Maybe your replacement that got to power after you got hanged by an angry mob will do more solar panels or whatever.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#283

Post by aeternum »

dane-pgp wrote: post #281
aeternum wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we have just as much if not more power over corporations? You effectively vote for a corporation each time you do business with it. We can choose to buy zero emission cars and purchase products exclusively from environmentally friendly corporations. Corporations will either adapt or go bankrupt.

The difference is, with a decent voting system, it only takes 51% of the population to decide government policy, but with corporations, even 1% of the population can keep harmful corporations from bankruptcy. Even ignoring the problem of those 1% potentially being the richest 1%, there is the issue that harmful businesses often have lower costs than ethical businesses, and some consumers are too price-sensitive (or d…

Is it right that the 51% of the population is able to coerce 100% of the population into paying higher prices for the more ethical businesses?

High and mid income earners can and should choose more ethical/environmental businesses as they have the means to do so.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#284

Post by renewiltord »

glogla wrote: post #282
renewiltord wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say this but no nation as a whole has the balls. That's the power of fighting off an invasion from a rich country. I can lose ten for each one of yours and you will lose hope first. To say nothing of the fact that the first American soldier who dies to stop climate change will cause, by his death, the crucifixion of your "liberal tree huggers". Your internal politics will fracture and break you. You are too w…

There's no need for invasion or occupation, bombing is enough - look at per capita carbon footprint of Afghanistan or Somalia. And that can be done "cleanly" with drones, no risk for the attacking nation. Other than that, some parts of American / Western population would be gladly sold on "the overpopulated non-whites are destroying the world by over-consumption and need to be kept in check" - without realizing the i…

The developed world can't afford it. Both those countries were fucked already. And the Afghanistan war barely has support - despite sheltering someone who performed the most significant terrorist attack on America in decades, perhaps centuries. If you want to stop Brazil or China or India from industrializing you're in for it. It's not going to work. It won't work there and it won't work in Pakistan or Indonesia. And it won't work in Nigeria. And it won't work in Argentina.

You just can't do it.

And the benefits of industrialization are huge. Especially now before we put carbon caps in because everyone knows you get grandfathered in.

When the famines come, you'll be expected to buy food. And the West will be expected to sell it. Because what are you going to do, say "No aid because you didn't play along"? You'll get absolutely mulched in your Parliaments and your Congresses.

To say nothing of what will happen, which is that China will sell them food because it is unlikely everyone gets a drought at the same time. And then you will have committed a geopolitical own goal.

You can force a lot of things. A lot of things. But China put the cat among the pigeons. Everyone knows that burning hella fossil really fast is optimal, because sooner or later the West is gonna ask for some deals. And since we'll wipe the slate clean of emissions then, it is optimal to burn now. Burn everything because the jubilee will come.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#285

Post by dredmorbius »

yongjik wrote: post #250
qubex wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The millenary histories of the Egyptian and Chinese empires disagree. Yes, dynasties came and went, but those polities endured for thousands of years—indeed one could argue that the ongoing governance of China by the Communist Party is just the latest dynastic swing.

Chinese dynasties got overthrown pretty regularly every two or three hundred years, with a good amount of divided kingdoms, or foreign invaders ruling over much of China, thrown in between. Oh, also switching dynasties frequently resulted in the entire previous royal family being summarily executed. For a brief(?) summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history

And cultural knowledge:

Burning of books and burying of scholars, Qin dynasty, 213 BCE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_o...

Xianyang Palace Archives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xianyang#History

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#286

Post by glogla »

renewiltord wrote: post #284
glogla wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no need for invasion or occupation, bombing is enough - look at per capita carbon footprint of Afghanistan or Somalia. And that can be done "cleanly" with drones, no risk for the attacking nation. Other than that, some parts of American / Western population would be gladly sold on "the overpopulated non-whites are destroying the world by over-consumption and need to be kept in check" - without realizing the i…

The developed world can't afford it. Both those countries were fucked already. And the Afghanistan war barely has support - despite sheltering someone who performed the most significant terrorist attack on America in decades, perhaps centuries. If you want to stop Brazil or China or India from industrializing you're in for it. It's not going to work. It won't work there and it won't work in Pakistan or Indonesia. And…

It's so weird, in movies there's always the villain going out of their way trying to "destroy the world" and it seems so far fetched - and now I'm talking to one.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#287

Post by tasuki »

nullsense wrote: post #262
tasuki wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The peak of what aspect of human civilization? And why 2015? [Edit: I find it highly unlikely the peak of human civilization, whatever it means, should happen during my lifetime. Surely the Romans in 100BC might have thought the same as you do? Why do you think there won't be people in 2222 who think the same?]

I personally felt that Brexit / Trump marked a turning point where the foundations of the Western world were fundamentally called into question. Things have felt a lot less stable to me since then. Geopolitics is one thing, but climate and environment are another. I remember in the 90s growing up as a kid hearing all this talk about the environment and if we act now we can turn it around etc. That turn around never c…

Thank you for elaborating.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#288

Post by marcus_holmes »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #107
lrem wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid democracies are inherently unstable. Athenian lasted 200 years and got swallowed up by Macedonian autocracy. Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army. Polish lasted 350 years and the parliament voted to allow neighbouring empires to divide the country. The US is at 250 years and people are seriously worried about it devolving into either Gilead or Cyberpunk any moment now.

It's not just democracies. I can't think of a system of governance that's stable over centuries. Oppressive regimes tend to implode once amassed suffering reaches a peak of rebellion, or evolve into something more benign (and potentially get conquered then). Even Rome, the long-lasting empire, wasn't ruled the same way throughout its history. I think that's what GP meant when they wrote that "we could end up in a sup…

Whenever I get into this, I come back to the political genius in the 4th century who turned the Roman Empire into the Roman Catholic Church.

Rome continued to rule the world for a ~15 centuries. There is still a sizable chunk of the global population that obeys Rome, even though they are not ruled by anything like the Roman Empire.

Realising that the military empire wasn't going to work any more, and changing Rome's historically laisse-faire attitude to religion into an effective method of rule... that's genius at work.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#289

Post by renewiltord »

glogla wrote: post #286
renewiltord wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developed world can't afford it. Both those countries were fucked already. And the Afghanistan war barely has support - despite sheltering someone who performed the most significant terrorist attack on America in decades, perhaps centuries. If you want to stop Brazil or China or India from industrializing you're in for it. It's not going to work. It won't work there and it won't work in Pakistan or Indonesia. And…

It's so weird, in movies there's always the villain going out of their way trying to "destroy the world" and it seems so far fetched - and now I'm talking to one.

Hahaha! I am flattered. But, like all the villains in the movies, I don't see myself as the bad guy. You're trying to screw me out of my share while clearly not contributing your share, and I have access to a slow WMD you can't stop. That's just bad negotiating on your part.

You can:

1. Try to disarm me, but you are unable.

2. Try to not screw me, and it'll be fine.

3. Do your bit, and it'll be fine.

Listen, what that will look like is that the US+Europe has to reduce carbon emissions some 75% for a few decades and India+Brazil+developing_nations get to boost theirs to 250% for a few decades. Then we will all have emitted the same carbon into the atmosphere and the playing field is leveled. Fair. Equitable. Unachievable only because you don't want to be fair or equitable.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#290

Post by pleasedontbanme »

Lammy wrote: post #119
sushshshsh wrote: post #8

I was educated at my university that the hinge of history was actually World War I. Hundreds of millions died in horrific new waus, the world centralized around a pole of power, and basically the world has only been getting better since.

> basically the world has only been getting better since You made me really curious how we measure this! Sorry this turned into a massive wall of text but considering how depressing every news cycle has been for the past few years I hoped it would feel grounding to be able to put some numbers to things, even if they aren't happy numbers :) Worldwide average human is what I want an idea of, but the closest and largest…

Personal liberties is a good metric.
Post reply on HN