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Human history in the very long run (2021)

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Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#91

Post by darby_nine »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #81
hattmall wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>major dental or surgical needs that are today fixable with little fuss I guess perhaps that's true in some countries, but not for the US. People put off major medical needs for years and even decades to wait until they can get on medicare. Dental issues are even worse. Yes, the availability of the treatments is nice, but the majority of people are deeply stuck in modern society to have access to those treatments.

Truly? You're comparing problems in access to smooth insurance coverage among a certain percentage of the U.S. population to a total lack of existence for anything resembling modern medical and dental care in the world of the pre-industrial era? I could make a large list of all the ways in which this comparison is laughable.

Dental insurance in the US is more like a subscription service than actual insurance. It only really covers preventative care, and only to a very limited extent.

You should make a list. I would find it very helpful. The people claiming the world progresses in a single direction will eat their words one day.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#92

Post by tim333 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #90
tim333 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "criticizes Marx on his own terms"? What terms are those? A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. Not a fan myself. He seems to do a lot of taking everyday life and splitting the people into classes who should fight each other which was then ceased upon but unpleasant people to cause 100m + deaths and much suffering. Also much of the basic conten…

> A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. It sounds like you're referring to a book? Maybe you can clarify. I read Capital Vol 1 during COVID, and I've come to realize that, without being hyperbolic, I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. It's commenting without reading the article on steroids and it frankly makes the c…

Well it's true I haven't read much of Marx. Glancing at Amazon the combined capital 1-3 is 1392 pages and the Communist Manifesto 176 pages and god knows what else he's knocked out and I don't much like his stuff I have read so I can't be bothered to plow through that. But when you get statements like the capitalistic system will inevitably destroy itself that seem obviously rubbish it makes me ok disliking his stuff in the same way I can dislike say Hitler without having read his book. I mean capitalism does have issues like increasing inequality but that can be dealt with democratically by taxing the rich rather than overthrowing the "capitalist class" and having the resulting nightmares seen in Russia, China, N Korea etc.

Maybe if I went through the 1500 pages I'd find some justification... who knows. But on holiday in Cambodia looking at the thousands of skulls of the educated class executed in the name of Marxist ideas is enough to put me off the whole business.

And aside from the mass murder he seems so pompous intellectually.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#93

Post by racional »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #90
tim333 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "criticizes Marx on his own terms"? What terms are those? A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. Not a fan myself. He seems to do a lot of taking everyday life and splitting the people into classes who should fight each other which was then ceased upon but unpleasant people to cause 100m + deaths and much suffering. Also much of the basic conten…

> A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. It sounds like you're referring to a book? Maybe you can clarify. I read Capital Vol 1 during COVID, and I've come to realize that, without being hyperbolic, I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. It's commenting without reading the article on steroids and it frankly makes the c…

I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written.

So you're a fundamentalist, basically.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#94

Post by kelseyfrog »

racional wrote: post #93
kelseyfrog wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. It sounds like you're referring to a book? Maybe you can clarify. I read Capital Vol 1 during COVID, and I've come to realize that, without being hyperbolic, I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. It's commenting without reading the article on steroids and it frankly makes the c…

I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. So you're a fundamentalist, basically.

Just to clarify, What's the point you think I'm trying to make?

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#95

Post by kelseyfrog »

tim333 wrote: post #92
kelseyfrog wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A problem I have is there are hundreds of pages of stuff he wrote so he's hard to pin down. It sounds like you're referring to a book? Maybe you can clarify. I read Capital Vol 1 during COVID, and I've come to realize that, without being hyperbolic, I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. It's commenting without reading the article on steroids and it frankly makes the c…

Well it's true I haven't read much of Marx. Glancing at Amazon the combined capital 1-3 is 1392 pages and the Communist Manifesto 176 pages and god knows what else he's knocked out and I don't much like his stuff I have read so I can't be bothered to plow through that. But when you get statements like the capitalistic system will inevitably destroy itself that seem obviously rubbish it makes me ok disliking his stuff…

Reversing this, if I said to you, "I think Adam Smith was a shithead, so capitalism is wrong, and his ideas are directly responsible for wars of imperialism, and resource control," I'd expect you to not really see how that's relevant to the ideas contained in Wealth of Nations.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#96

Post by DaoVeles »

defrost wrote: post #70
DaoVeles wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is why I'm bullish on solar, BTW. It's better to have SOME energy, even if it's only daytime, than none at all if the Middle East decides it wants to veto the US again. Having worked with solar for a long while, I am always trying to tame people expectations of it. I think that and most renewables are awesome but we are trying to make them match the societal paradigm of fossil fuels and I think that is a fools…

> I don't think we will be living the same level of today's abundance. I don't think we will be living the same level of today's waste . Already per capita energy consumption has ceased to grow in countries such as the US and elsewhere, this is due to better effeciences in energy use. It's not just solar, across the board there is more and more research on better ways to make hydrogen from water, better ways to make…

I agree with your core idea, lower energy requirements are coming. Heck, ICE vehicles turn about 70% of their energy into heat - electrification is going to do a lot to help reduce our energy needs.

But the issue is a lot of the slightly more pessimistic smart money is betting on us going from a 20 TwH society to a 5TwH society. That is a sizable drop that efficiency alone cannot account for. That will also lead to a societal change that could potentially be for the better.

To go Y contaminator on this, with fossil fuels we have funded a lot of companies but as we more to the more sustainable long terms energy flows we will have to find out what can genuinely last. Like warren buffet said "When the tide goes out, you figure out who is skinny dipping".

On a deeper level, in a sort of Yin and Yang kind of way; the good news if we don't manage to keep up our consumption is that it means the rest of the world will get some relief from the tyranny of man. Is this good or bad? That dependents on the ethics of the individual.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#97

Post by DaoVeles »

mjamesaustin wrote: post #65
DaoVeles wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Michael Greer has a great term for this. Lenocracy. The first part of that word comes from leno, the Latin term for a pimp. https://www.ecosophia.net/beyond-lenocracy/ Like most of Greers writing, it makes you think and also wonder what is in the water at his house.

Interesting to find the author focus almost entirely on the public sector aspect of this. When I read the definition, my mind went immediately to the private sector and how almost every startup or big tech success story is chasing the ideal of being a pimp. The service economy is all about taking a whopping cut of everyone else's work, and it seems like venture capital is only interested in funding companies who will…

Yeah, JMG's writings are fascinating but don't take them too seriously. Generally seem to lean a lot more right wing as time progresses. Also on his other blog a lot of anti-vax and occult magic stuff.

Never have I come across an author I simultaneously agree and disagree with.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#98

Post by Xen9 »

ta20240528 wrote: post #88
Xen9 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organizations not connected to remote manipulation of public opinion have an evolutionary disadvantage. Were there no one using it, then it would be a power vacuum, and those tend to get filled regardless. My personal theory regarding morality is that since we did not spend long time evolving to world where writing is a technology, there is no emotional reaction to contract that will allow a factory to pollute killin…

Who trained you to vote and - you know - buy milk and bread and fuel…?

I don't vote or work for money.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#99

Post by southernplaces7 »

darby_nine wrote: post #91
southernplaces7 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly? You're comparing problems in access to smooth insurance coverage among a certain percentage of the U.S. population to a total lack of existence for anything resembling modern medical and dental care in the world of the pre-industrial era? I could make a large list of all the ways in which this comparison is laughable.

Dental insurance in the US is more like a subscription service than actual insurance. It only really covers preventative care, and only to a very limited extent. You should make a list. I would find it very helpful. The people claiming the world progresses in a single direction will eat their words one day.

Dental care at least exists in the modern US, along with antibiotics and cavity fillings and of course, anesthesia. Comparing it, with its defects, to anything passing for dentistry or medicine from the preindustrial past is simply foolish.

> The people claiming the world progresses in a single direction will eat their words one day.

That's a completely unfounded assumption on your part. It may end up being true, since the future is uncertain at all times, but at least right now anyone can say that the world has improved for humans like never before in measurable ways from those of earlier. That's a hard fact.

Re: Human history in the very long run (2021)

#100

Post by racional »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #94
racional wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've encountered zero people with criticisms of Marx who have read what he's written. So you're a fundamentalist, basically.

Just to clarify, What's the point you think I'm trying to make?

That no one who has read Marx can have significant criticisms of his work.
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