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seems to be a Reuters photo with this caption:
"AVIANO, Italy (Reuters) - A protestor throws a rock at riot police outside the Aviano Air base in northern Italy Sunday. More than 300 protestors took part in the demonstration against NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia. Photo by Stefano Rellandini"
Funny that this is so high up on Hacker News. The first quote on the page: “Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.” There won't be too many startup accelerators or funding rounds when we ditch capitalism, folks. Funny how there was none of this talk on iPhone Launch Day, either...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A culture can stop being capitalistic and consumer-driven without becoming a fear driven dictatorship. Do you equate spending money with freedom and civil liberties? Is that the only way for you and I to be free, is to buy things?
Yes, the only way you can be free is to be free to produce, buy and sell things. And to do a million other activities that other people might not find virtuous.
Most decisions being made about your water supply and the limited natural resources in your area do not include your input and are not for your benefit. That is the face of capitalism today.
People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.
“Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.” Move to North Korea, everyday is buy nothing day and best of all, none of that horrid capitalism.
A culture can stop being capitalistic and consumer-driven without becoming a fear driven dictatorship. Do you equate spending money with freedom and civil liberties? Is that the only way for you and I to be free, is to buy things?
Do you have an empirical example of this?
“Today, humanity faces a stark choice: save the planet and ditch capitalism, or save capitalism and ditch the planet.” Move to North Korea, everyday is buy nothing day and best of all, none of that horrid capitalism.
I buy nothing about 95% of the days in a year. I don't get why this is supposed to make such a difference?
People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.
could there be a case however against economic growth being too fast? an example of too fast would be building a chernobyl before the safety infrastructure was up.
I also think it is ironic that you chose as an example an infrastructure project not built as the result of capitalism.
I buy nothing about 95% of the days in a year. I don't get why this is supposed to make such a difference?
This leaves 18 days per year to buy things, each 20 days from the last. Do you grow your own food, or do you eat only nonperishables?
I guess this doesn't count jumping on the odd humble indie bundle.
People who think it's bad to want the world economy to grow probably haven't stopped to think about what economic growth consists of. Economic growth isn't just fat Americans buying bigger SUVs. It's also people in poor countries increasing their standard of living, and advances in medical care.
Criticizing globalism and the externalities of "wanting the world economy to grow" is not an argument against increasing the standards of living worldwide, and I'm not sure why you're conflating the two.
As pathetic as it is to see people camping out at Wal-mart to buy products they do not particularly need (indeed, many of them would be better off if they saved the money that they will spend today), one of the results of that behavior is additional economic opportunity for poor countries and poor people.
You could state a case that the net gain from this behavior makes it not worth having, as the social and environmental costs of using natural and human resources to produce unneeded products obfuscates the value of the resultant economic growth, but then you would need to present data and math.