91–100 of 187 posts
I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is natural. Unfairness is the basis of civilization. In order to mobilize a group of humans for the common good they must be artificially incentivized to do it as the tragedy of the commons usually prevents people from doing these things collectively. Look up the tragedy of the commons. But in order for a group of humans to be incentivized like that there must exist an authority with enough wealth to incentivize h…
Has it occurred to you that the narrative you're repeating here is awfully convenient for the elite? Don't question their wealth - don't you know civilization itself depends on it! > I’m not making this shit up. Literally in anthropology one of the theories It's a theory, yes. And there's another theory which says that's all BS invented by the ruling classes over time - the church and kings back in the day, the billi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil t…
Not sure why you're being downvoted, because you're absolutely right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?
How do you think billionaires became billionaires? How can you extract a billion dollars of wealth in your life time, or even several generations? Certainly not by creating value. Almost certainly by destroying something else, privatising the profits and socialising the losses. E.g. mining, commercial fishing. Etc. We will never see billionairs act as a force for good because the current system only allows for evil t…
It's up to political structures and laws to keep billionaires under control.
Since wealth naturally accumulates to those who already have wealth and power, I would say it's a natural process. Look at history and how many elites had huge power and wealth. Just compare the richest man now, Musk, with Augustus Caesar, Genghis Khan, etc... . Musk is a nobody.
It's not up to the billionaires to keep themselves under control, it's up to us to create political structures to keep it under control. Which we are already doing (some countries better than others), and we could still improve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Greenpeace used to drop boulders into the ocean to prevent bottom trawling circa 2021-2022. Unsure if they still do. Fairly straightforward to solve for if you’re willing to drop chunks of rock (granite, non reactive) or concrete in the ocean at the right spots. Bans are nice, destructive force against adversaries works better though. Hard to take the selfish out of the human, so you have to engineer systems accordin…
I think it would be a great PR idea for a billionaire to buy a few old ships and use them to drop rocks over the most popular/vulnerable fishing grounds. What happened to rich people who were all not evil?
Public opinion drove them crazy and turned them evil anyways.
I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…
I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…
I think the EU planned to ban bottom trawling completely by 2030 and that got nowhere, but it still upholds a ban on bottom trawling in marine protected areas[0][1], in addition to national ruling (e.g. Italy bans it near the coast and in shallow waters).
[0] https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/2025/05/22/eu-court-uph...
[1] https://www.bairdmaritime.com/fishing/regulation-enforcement...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is natural. Unfairness is the basis of civilization. In order to mobilize a group of humans for the common good they must be artificially incentivized to do it as the tragedy of the commons usually prevents people from doing these things collectively. Look up the tragedy of the commons. But in order for a group of humans to be incentivized like that there must exist an authority with enough wealth to incentivize h…
Has it occurred to you that the narrative you're repeating here is awfully convenient for the elite? Don't question their wealth - don't you know civilization itself depends on it! > I’m not making this shit up. Literally in anthropology one of the theories It's a theory, yes. And there's another theory which says that's all BS invented by the ruling classes over time - the church and kings back in the day, the billi…
I hate billionaires. I think it's unfair. But I'm also scientific. That means if unfair and unequal distribution of wealth is what resulted in civilization we need to admit it.
But that doesn't mean we need to worship billionaires. Civilization is built off of blood and corruption. That doesn't make the blood and corruption justified.
If you want to deal with wealth inequality then why don't we just fight for communism? Communism is the ideal theory for fair wealth distribution. But what happens when we go for the ideal? Reality hits. Communism works in theory BUT not in reality. It's an idealist fantasy concept.
The big question here is that how do we meet our ideals WHILE NOT ignoring REALITY. Like ok, so a billionaire loves what I'm saying. I don't give a shit. To hell with him. We need to attack problems with the truth. Not some fantasy witch hunt bs trying to build a utopia that isn't inline with reality.
So maybe something in between works right? Not communism, you need a bit of inequality. But maybe not too much. What system like that has worked? Do we have examples? I mean Elon is a billionaire ass hole, that much is true, but the allowance of the existence of such billionaire ass holes in the United States has also allowed the existence of rocket catching technology never seen before by the likes of mankind. What's the tradeoff? Do we know? Are we examining the full reality of it? Maybe if we taxed billionaires like crazy and reduced them to millionaires... maybe the rocket catching technology would've still existed... Do we know? No. We don't But let's not blind ourselves to reality before we know.
One thing is for sure: wealth inequality is RESPONSIBLE for civilization. Are you rational enough to be impartial about this or are you so against wealth inequality that you can't even look at the good parts of it.
I watched David Attenborough's recent film 'Ocean' on a big screen. The footage of bottom trawling was really shocking. I don't understand how that has been allowed to continue in UK coastal waters, let alone to be subsidised in marine protected areas. Madness. It's like napalming a forest to get a few deer. Thankfully things may be changing: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-proposes-to-ex... Don't know…
Seaspiracy is another eye opening documentary.
While the core ideas may be right, it's basically a propaganda piece.
I think that not seeing how the story ends will be a blessing in disguise. (I do not share his optimism that we fix this, the forces of Line Must Go Up are going to win... at least until we all rapidly lose)
-George Carlin