Can somebody explain to me what's the point of the 'modern economy'?

[Dachs]

No, I didn't. I criticized that subset of economists that stick to a disproved theory, or subset of people that still hold on to that disproved theory.

But they aren't relevant, for the most part, cause even the Austrian school you love to hate thinks that Homo economicus is a laughable relic...oh, I see, I didn't notice who was saying what five pages back in the thread.

 

[BasketCase]

I think we should have some concern regarding population growth, but not too much concern.

Disagree. Population control is NOT the biggest concern. It's the ONLY concern. Plunk enough people together in one place, and here's the nasty surprise--NO economic system is sustainable.

Overpopulation can and will destroy any economic system CFC's armchair economists could possibly ever come up with. People have to eat, there's only a finite amount of farmland on the planet. Pack enough people together and somebody will starve. Unless overpopulation is addressed, Earth's problems HAVE NO SOLUTION.

I was waiting till someone comes up with this allegation Nope, Avatar has nothing to do with it. If you're looking for someone to blame, go talk to Jared Diamond - his books were my "eye openers".

Glad to help out. News flash, dude. A whole lot of people (besides you) who have seen the movie, made exactly the association I described last post. The part they left out is the reason the Na'Vi exist in harmony with their environment: because every now and then they get eaten alive by predators.

What is happening now is that we are, for the FIRST TIME IN HISTORY about to cause a GLOBAL collapse of our civilization AND the environment which sustains any sort of civilization in general. This has never happened before so stop talking about periodic economic collapses - they are nothing compared to the big one I am talking about on this forum.

Not gonna happen. Any collapse will be local, and confined mostly to Third World nations. The current economic crisis is doing exactly that. Once the Big Crunch finally does happen, First World nations will simply stop exporting food (and everything else) and stop lending money. In an "us or them" world, everybody is gonna vote "us".

 

[Algeroth]

I was waiting till someone comes up with this allegation Nope, Avatar has nothing to do with it. If you're looking for someone to blame, go talk to Jared Diamond - his books were my "eye openers".

You know, Winner, that's your problem. You always find some book and then you stick to it. First the Clash of Civilizations, now Collapse.

 

[Theige]

Because you don't know anything whatsoever about where we're coming from, especially when you say it's equating Environmentalism with Communism.

I really just read the first page or two, and quickly saw you people were hijacking the thread.

 

[Yeekim]

Not gonna happen. Any collapse will be local, and confined mostly to Third World nations. The current economic crisis is doing exactly that. Once the Big Crunch finally does happen, First World nations will simply stop exporting food (and everything else) and stop lending money. In an "us or them" world, everybody is gonna vote "us".

Environmental catastrophes and pollution do not respect national borders.

 

[Winner]

Have a bit of optimism Winner. Economics will eventually evolve in the right directions.

There's no guarantee of that, especially not that it happens in time. As I said, there is plenty of examples of civilizations and societies which failed to change their ways - they all collapsed. On the other hand, there are many which have averted the disaster (at least for the time being).

I am sceptical because achieving any sort of change on global scale (without violence) is not exactly easy.

Yeah, that's what I'd imagine.

But what would it take to bring about a change this dramatic? I don't think anything less than a collapse Winner predicts would be enough.

Yup. The problem is that the environmental->social collapses seem to happen shortly after a civilization reaches its peak in terms of population, food production, material wealth, cultural growth, etc. In other words, when you actually realize that things are going really, really bad, it's already too late.

Given the unfailing human capacity to ignore potential future dangers, I think scepticism isn't misplaced.

I think we should have some concern regarding population growth, but not too much concern. As women move towards having ~2 children, the population levels will eventually stabilise. Each region is slowly moving towards ~2 children/woman. This might cause our population to rise to 9-11 billion, but it won't grow much beyond that (if we don't screw things up).

The whole point is that since Earth cannon sustain even the present-day population in the long term, if the overall human impact on the environment increases further (which it will), it is absolutely vital to stop the population from expanding. Not in a hundred years or so, but now.

Also, the predictions that the birth rates are going to decrease to ~2 children per woman are based on the observations of some recent cases of modernization. All of these cases include countries in which living standards rose rapidly as a result of the modernization. In Africa and some other places, this is not the case - living standards stagnate or even fall, but the population continues booming. As the environment continues to deteriorate, it will be harder and harder for some poor countries to ensure that their economies grow fast enough to yield benefits to their populations.

Simply put, it is possible that the "Western" model of modernization will not apply - the population in the Third World will continue expanding (perhaps not at the current rate, but still way too fast given the 'exponentiality' of population growth in countries where birth rates are above replacement level), the living standards will not improve and thus there will be nothing to prevent further population growth. In the West, Japan, Korea and some other places, the birth rates fell because people were given opportunities to attain wealth and personal growth. If this motivator isn't present, there is no economic mechanism which prevents people from having more than 1-2 kids.

Thus, the hypothesis that birth rates in the Third World and the developing countries will fall in time is at the very least questionable - certainly not carved in stone as some people believe.

Knowing that we're going to get to 9-11 billion means we have to plan for it. There's nearly no way to stop this population growth (intentionally), though there are obvious ways to decrease the rate. There are no moral ways of reducing the population load within this century.

Absolutely not. Wide use of contraceptives, voluntary sterilizations, government enforcement of one child policy, etc. are all viable options. They might go against the narrow Western notion of liberalism, but unlike the West the countries affected by the population explosion today don't have the luxury to obsess about it.

Additionally, while we cannot support 9 billion people at the level of the modern poor American's consumption, there are many ways to increase lifestyle without increasing damaging consumption. We need to plan for the inevitable, instead of bemoaning it.

That's like saying that the captain of a ship which is about to collide with an iceberg shouldn't try to evade it, but merely order the crew to prepare lifeboats and alarm the passengers.

We need to do both, actually - as I already said, the way of life of the first-worlders must change in order to profoundly reduce their environmental impact. At the same time it cannot afford to watch as the population of the Third World doubles every 30 years or so, because this alone will totally negate anything the First World may potentially achieve in the field of environmental sustainability.

Those behemoths aren't even good memorials: They'll erode away in less than half a century if not continuously maintained...

Perhaps at least the skyscrapers will remain preserved in the dry desert environment

You do know of course, that our Fish-Genocide is almost complete anyway? Look at the Dutch harbor logs for instance. In the 1600s each boat caught lots of fish and relative close to land as well. Today, with our many-times larger factory-trawlers we are struggling to do better than the Dutch fishermen did in the 1600s, with far cruder technology. Indeed, the world's trawlers are just finishing the jobs now.

Yep. It's funny that every time the EU reduces the fishing quatas a bit (not nearly enough to prevent fisheries from being depleted), angry mobs of fishermen all over Europe start organizing blockades and demonstrations claiming the evil EU is destroying their livelihood.

No, it's not, you morons, it's trying to ensure you'll still have it in few decades Unbelievable cretins, but unfortunately they just demonstrate how difficult it will be to force people to think and adjust.

We are. This is only for crop-plants for the time being though: Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

I heard about it, but that's not what I mean. We need to take dozens of samples from most known species of plants and animals (not just the ones we find useful) and preserve them in a way which will allow us to clone them after they become extinct.

In other words, we need to build a sort of G.E.C.K.

Disagree. Population control is NOT the biggest concern. It's the ONLY concern. Plunk enough people together in one place, and here's the nasty surprise--NO economic system is sustainable.

Overpopulation can and will destroy any economic system CFC's armchair economists could possibly ever come up with. People have to eat, there's only a finite amount of farmland on the planet. Pack enough people together and somebody will starve. Unless overpopulation is addressed, Earth's problems HAVE NO SOLUTION.

At least you understand one thing right.

Glad to help out. News flash, dude. A whole lot of people (besides you) who have seen the movie, made exactly the association I described last post. The part they left out is the reason the Na'Vi exist in harmony with their environment: because every now and then they get eaten alive by predators.

Well, I'd been talking about these things on this forum before Avatar even entered cinemas. And although I really liked it, I certainly don't base my ideas on a movie, for Christ sake. It's not my fault that most people can recall only this particular film when I mention something that's related to environmentalism

Not gonna happen. Any collapse will be local, and confined mostly to Third World nations. The current economic crisis is doing exactly that. Once the Big Crunch finally does happen, First World nations will simply stop exporting food (and everything else) and stop lending money. In an "us or them" world, everybody is gonna vote "us".

Ah, if only it was so easy (for us first-worlders). But it's not. Major collapse starting in any part of the world will inevitably affect the whole of it. The immediate problem will be the hundreds of millions of people trying to get on board the "lifeboats" - that is the countries which haven't collapsed yet. This will start a domino effect across the world, as country after country will be overwhelmed by refugees and their own restless populations and economic problems.

If the first-world suddenly finds the courage, it will try to stop the illegal immigrantsfrom coming by force - and that is the only thing that could stop them in such a scenario, let's not fool ourselves - we'll have to send our armed forces to shoot hungry, sick, desperate and unarmed people, including women and children, to prevent them from getting "on board" our "lifeboat". If nothing else, this will totally destroy any moral backbone we'll have left by then and deeply traumatize the whole society (not to mention the soldiers...).

Then there will be terrible economic problems - no resources (metals, oil, various foodstuffs, etc.) from the collapsed third world, no overseas international trade with other surviving countries (because the oceans will be infested with pirates, many of them former sailors who've simply taken over their military vessels) - we'll be left with the basics and the things we'll still be able to produce (not much, if present-day trends continue). Living standards will not just fall, they'll plunge into a free-fall. Imagine something like the Gaza strip without all the aid the Palies are getting from the UN. Russia in the 1990s will look like Disneyland compared to what the first-worlders will have to endure.

Eventually, you might be proven right - if the first-worlders manage to overcome their own economic collapse, rampant poverty, social unrest, waves and waves of refugees and the lack of everything except the most basic necessities (even these will have to be rationed), they might find out that the population of the rest of the world has returned to pre-industrial levels. With most of its environment totally disrupted (forests chopped down for firewood and land, animals killed for food, soil eroded by wind and water, cities rotting away releasing all kinds of toxic pollutants...) and useless, these survivors will literally live in a stone age. Then, perhaps, with the little the first-world will have left, it will start rebuilding what was lost. But it will take a looong time to get anywhere near the living standards it enjoyed before the collapse.

But that's the most optimistic scenario for the first-world I can think of. The likelihood of it collapsing too is pretty high.

You know, Winner, that's your problem. You always find some book and then you stick to it. First the Clash of Civilizations, now Collapse.

Nah, I simply give a credit to the authors of the ideas upon which I am basing my own ideas and opinions. It doesn't mean I follow their works as if they were the word of Gods (though Diamond is close ).

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

If you're looking for someone to blame, go talk to Jared Diamond - his books were my "eye openers".

This is the problem, right here.

 

[RedRalph]

There's no guarantee of that, especially not that it happens in time. As I said, there is plenty of examples of civilizations and societies which failed to change their ways - they all collapsed. On the other hand, there are many which have averted the disaster (at least for the time being).

I am sceptical because achieving any sort of change on global scale (without violence) is not exactly easy.

Therein lies the rub. There will be blood.

This is the problem, right here.

I don't fully understand you and RC's hostility towards him, what's the big problem with his books?

 

[Winner]

I don't fully understand you and RC's hostility towards him, what's the big problem with his books?

The problem is that he's not a historian by training, ergo he must be an amateur sticking his nose where he shouldn't. Isn't it funny how tribal the academia is, even today?

 

[Brighteye]

The problem is that he's not a historian by training, ergo he must be an amateur sticking his nose where he shouldn't. Isn't it funny how tribal the academia is, even today?

I'm not a historian either, but I've never understood why he's revered. He simply presented one, fairly easily thought-up, way of seeing the past. What makes him special is that he uses the language of economics, which made him hugely popular.

The history of ideas and individuals seems not to concern him, and many people who revere him explicitly call these pointless fields of study that are subservient to the economic analysis.

That is the problem.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I don't fully understand you and RC's hostility towards him, what's the big problem with his books?

He goes well out of his way to apologize for the status quo of the world, basically arguing that everything in history was justified and right and that we're better now for it. It has nothing to do with being "trained" at the discipline he's working in, if that were the case, I would despise Noam Chomsky.

And a personal point against him: its really annoying that he fills up 400 pages of book by repeating the same points over and over again; it could have easily been 100 pages or maybe even 50.

 

[RedRalph]

He goes well out of his way to apologize for the status quo of the world, basically arguing that everything in history was justified and right and that we're better now for it. It has nothing to do with being "trained" at the discipline he's working in, if that were the case, I would despise Noam Chomsky.

And a personal point against him: its really annoying that he fills up 400 pages of book by repeating the same points over and over again; it could have easily been 100 pages or maybe even 50.

I have to say I never took that from the few of his books I read, I always felt he was seeking to explain rather than excuse. Everyone can interpret things differently, but that's what I took from it. He makes some points towards the end of Collapse about corporations having no social responsibilities, but he was speaking in a legal sense, not a moral one.

And I see no conflict whatsoever between our views with his contention that economic and environmental circumstances are what formed societies and economics. On the contrary, he shows that western capitalism didn't succeed because of some inherent superiority in its system, but because of favourable circumstances.

 

[Yeekim]

This is the problem, right here.

He goes well out of his way to apologize for the status quo of the world, basically arguing that everything in history was justified and right and that we're better now for it. It has nothing to do with being "trained" at the discipline he's working in, if that were the case, I would despise Noam Chomsky.

And a personal point against him: its really annoying that he fills up 400 pages of book by repeating the same points over and over again; it could have easily been 100 pages or maybe even 50.

That could be valid criticism about Diamond (haven't read him) but how is it a "problem" with what Winner is saying?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Because his world view has been fundamentally defined by the musings of such a person.

 

[Winner]

I'm not a historian either, but I've never understood why he's revered. He simply presented one, fairly easily thought-up, way of seeing the past. What makes him special is that he uses the language of economics, which made him hugely popular.

The history of ideas and individuals seems not to concern him, and many people who revere him explicitly call these pointless fields of study that are subservient to the economic analysis.

That is the problem.

He's far from disregarding the role of individuals in Collapse.

Guns, Germs and Steel deals with the root causes of inequality on global level which, according to him, stems from different geographical and ecological starting positions. At this level of analysis, the role of individuals is really irrelevant.

As for the language he uses, he's doing a great job demonstrating how economic growth depends on environmental factors and how protection of the environment is in fact a very good long-term investment. For this alone he deserves to be called one of the greatest thinkers of our time.

On a side note: each time someone makes a name for himself with something new and original, he'll be scoffed at by the old guard which will try to ridicule him (or her) and split hairs over less important details of his work, ad nauseam. Diamond is no exception.

 

[Winner]

He goes well out of his way to apologize for the status quo of the world, basically arguing that everything in history was justified and right and that we're better now for it.

He's saying no such thing and if you claim that, you should prove it.

This is the usual pitfall of explanations of why something bad happened - people often misconstrue them as justifications for these bad things.

It's ridiculous and childish, IMO.

And a personal point against him: its really annoying that he fills up 400 pages of book by repeating the same points over and over again; it could have easily been 100 pages or maybe even 50.

And if he did as you say, you'd ridicule him in this thread for not providing enough evidence and real word examples to support his claims.

Catch-XXII.

I have to say I never took that from the few of his books I read, I always felt he was seeking to explain rather than excuse. Everyone can interpret things differently, but that's what I took from it. He makes some points towards the end of Collapse about corporations having no social responsibilities, but he was speaking in a legal sense, not a moral one.

And I see no conflict whatsoever between our views with his contention that economic and environmental circumstances are what formed societies and economics. On the contrary, he shows that western capitalism didn't succeed because of some inherent superiority in its system, but because of favourable circumstances.

It doesn't happen very often, but I'd gladly put my signature under this post of yours

 

[Yeekim]

Because his world view has been fundamentally defined by the musings of such a person.

I must have missed the part where Winner "defends status quo of the world" and argues that "we're now better for everything what's ever happened".
Then again, I haven't read every post of the thread...

 

[Winner]

I must have missed the part where Winner "defends status quo of the world" and argues that "we're now better for everything what's ever happened".
Then again, I haven't read every post of the thread...

You're welcome to try - you won't find it in my posts

 

[aelf]

I really just read the first page or two, and quickly saw you people were hijacking the thread.

It's just a case of you being ignorant of our position, so we'd appreciate it if you don't make such accusations. Kthx.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I must have missed the part where Winner "defends status quo of the world" and argues that "we're now better for everything what's ever happened".
Then again, I haven't read every post of the thread...

He said Diamond "opened his eyes;" that's about all it really could mean, save for the literal reading of the statement.