Is technological advancement ultimately compatible with capitalism?

[yung.carl.jung]

I do believe that you're supposed to cry wolf when the wolf happens, not sooner.

so we just ignore climate change until the Netherlands are swept away by a giant wave? who is the arbiter of "when the wolf happens"? it is precisely this mentality that allowed the US to poison it's citiziens and kill millions of animals with DDT, "innocent 'til proven guilty" should not ever be applied to industrially produced chemical, medication, food additive and so on. it is this mentality that is going to keep ******* future generations until there are no future generations anymore.

 

[Yeekim]

It's true that there were different times because of material changes, but there's nothing inherently job ending about technology. I know it's not to your argument, but we could automate every paid position in today's economy and without some kind of break would still find ourselves working for money.

Of relevant:

Veles used to make porcelain for the whole of Yugoslavia. Now it makes fake news.

https://money.cnn.com/interactive/media/the-macedonia-story/

 

[Hygro]

so we just ignore climate change until the Netherlands are swept away by a giant wave? who is the arbiter of "when the wolf happens"? it is precisely this mentality that allowed the US to poison it's citiziens and kill millions of animals with DDT, "innocent 'til proven guilty" should not ever be applied to industrially produced chemical, medication, food additive and so on. it is this mentality that is going to keep ******* future generations until there are no future generations anymore.

I'm glad you asked because I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the cry wolf story. There are so many unanswered questions and many possibilities. What we know:
There was a wolf threat proximate the town
The town chooses that boy to look out for wolves
The boy cries wolf
When the town arrives, no wolf is noted by the town
The town picks the same boy the next night
The boy cries wolf again
Town arrives again, no wolf noted
Town orders the same boy out the third night
Boy cries wolf again
Town waits before checking
Boy eaten by wolf

BEGS A LOT OF QUESTIONS DOESN'T IT

 

[Ryika]

So what do we learn from that? Don't trust the media, look on Social Media if there are videos that show the wolf in proximity of the town.

 

[Hygro]

That's your agenda. The town's, however, might have been to kill that boy in the first place. Or they were just stupid.

 

[Ryika]

Nah, had they been trying to kill him, they would just have waited on day 1, wouldn't they? They're just comically stupid for a medieval town given that they made him do the job again on day two and three instead of spanking the hell out of him to teach him the lesson to never do that again.

But I do agree the story doesn't really make sense if it's looked at closely, because why would you put a guy on guard duty and then ignore his warning? Not that important though, as the message of the story is that you should not lie because if you do then you might not be believed in the future.

In any case, I don't think warning about climate change is "crying wolf". We do, after all, see the results of climate change already, and know that it is true. One could make the argument that the people who put out overly dramatic consequences that are based mostly on speculation are crying wolf, but that's not what most reputable climate researchers do. They focus on the things we see today, and make predictions based on models that they very clearly say are not entirely accurate.

Similarly, I don't think making arguments about how this time it's different from the other times in the past where people have thought the job market is going to collapse is "crying wolf" either. It's just the creation of a predictive model that may or may not come true. Unless people claim to "know" what will happen it's just people entertaining a potential problem.

 

[Hygro]

Teach him to never do what again? Cry the word "wolf"? It seems like there was a wolf. Nowhere do we know the boy lies.

 

[Ryika]

Well actually, the original story tells us that he cries wolf because he's bored, to get the attention from the village. Your summary just omitted that information. #FakeNews

 

[Hygro]

Where's the right translation of Aesop I'm seeing some different ones.

 

[red_elk]

The wolf used the classic trick of overwhelming security system with multiple false alarms.

 

[luiz]

so we just ignore climate change until the Netherlands are swept away by a giant wave? who is the arbiter of "when the wolf happens"? it is precisely this mentality that allowed the US to poison it's citiziens and kill millions of animals with DDT, "innocent 'til proven guilty" should not ever be applied to industrially produced chemical, medication, food additive and so on. it is this mentality that is going to keep ******* future generations until there are no future generations anymore.

Has the damage of DDT to health ever been proven?

The damage of banning DDT is quite easy to measure, in Malaria coming back to Bangladesh, for instance, and killing an obscene number of people.

 

[Samson]

Has the damage of DDT to health ever been proven?

The damage of banning DDT is quite easy to measure, in Malaria coming back to Bangladesh, for instance, and killing an obscene number of people.

The main damage caused by widespread use of DDT was to wildlife, and yes the link if well demonstrated (proven is not usually used in science). Localised use of DDT, such as bed nets and within homes is still used and is a major weapon against malaria and other parasitic diseases. The spraying of swamps with DDT is used as an example of damaging and long term ineffective pest control. It reduced mosquito numbers in the short term but is the best way to make them develop resistance, meaning that even now good use of DDT is not as effective and it could have been had we really understood the effects of this practice before we did it.

 

[luiz]

The main damage caused by widespread use of DDT was to wildlife, and yes the link if well demonstrated (proven is not usually used in science). Localised use of DDT, such as bed nets and within homes is still used and is a major weapon against malaria and other parasitic diseases. The spraying of swamps with DDT is used as an example of damaging and long term ineffective pest control. It reduced mosquito numbers in the short term but is the best way to make them develop resistance, meaning that even now good use of DDT is not as effective and it could have been had we really understood the effects of this practice before we did it.

I was under the impression that Silent Spring stated that DDT causes cancer, which has not yet been proven many decades later.

Therefore, as far I know, it's false to state that DDT "poisons" people.

 

[Lexicus]

I know it's not to your argument, but we could automate every paid position in today's economy and without some kind of break would still find ourselves working for money.

Those of us who're left after the few decades it'll take for the capitalists to figure out how to Make Us All Profitable Again, anyway.

 

[Samson]

I was under the impression that Silent Spring stated that DDT causes cancer, which has not yet been proven many decades later.

Therefore, as far I know, it's false to state that DDT "poisons" people.

I have not read it, from wiki:

About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:

In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some "justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas." Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a "chemical carcinogen.​

So she said someone said DDT may cause suspicious liver tumors. She actually said much the same as I did above:

She said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:​

 

[luiz]

I have not read it, from wiki:

About DDT and cancer, Carson says only:

In laboratory tests on animal subjects, DDT has produced suspicious liver tumors. Scientists of the Food and Drug Administration who reported the discovery of these tumors were uncertain how to classify them, but felt there was some "justification for considering them low grade hepatic cell carcinomas." Dr. Hueper [author of Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases] now gives DDT the definite rating of a "chemical carcinogen.​

So she said someone said DDT may cause suspicious liver tumors. She actually said much the same as I did above:

She said in Silent Spring that even if DDT and other insecticides had no environmental side effects, their indiscriminate overuse was counterproductive because it would create insect resistance to pesticides, making them useless in eliminating the target insect populations:​

The problem with Silent Spring (and similar works) is that it took a "spiritual" approach to environmentalism, as in "nature is in balance, every species has it place, messing with it can only bring harm" kind of nonsense. The truth of course is that there is no balance, nature is in context flux, and even absent any human interference we can see many "imbalances", extinctions, etc. There is no reason we shouldn't mess with nature for our own advantage.

 

[timtofly]

So the wolf represents capitalism? The problem is still the integration of each individual into society. Economy was the attempt to provide equality. But as humans we cannot force all of society to conform to a set of norms. We just hope as a town, technology and economy will make life go as smoothly for the majority as it can. Which led to politics and that is what led to stratification. The town gave the boy the power to control a certain outcome. Capitalism will not regulate itself, and placing, greedy, lazy, bored, or plain selfish people in charge of capital will end up predictably not well for the town as a whole. It is not technology or even economics that is the issue. It is humans and society itself and their choices that determine the future.

 

[Hygro]

The wolf represents a wolf. Sure, we can use it to consider capitalism, and, timtofly, I enjoy your explorations of the parable, and indeed, agree that the parable can be used to discuss these things.

Ok, reread some translations. Seems what we know is this:

There was a flock of sheep
There was a boy attending the flock of sheep, probably a nomad linked to the village
The boy would cry wolf
The villagers would come
The boy did this a few times
Repeat until villagers
Then the wolf ate the sheep, or maybe also the boy, but most likely the sheep

We tell our kids the boy was lying, if true in which case the person who kept him in charge was an absent sack of poo. Or the boy was too vigilant and the wolf got away too soon, you never know. Some translations allege the boy laughed at the villagers, in which case, the moral is not to be a liar necessarily although yeah that too, but to recognize when someone is a toxic ******* abusing his abilities, which the village does. With the flock eaten, perhaps the boy now is free of his responsibilities, and perhaps as intended. He obviously wasn't about being a shephard but about being a troll, if he was doing it for the lulz.

Perhaps, the moral was as simple as the story. Ignore the trolls, don't put them in charge, let them or theirs get eaten. Might even be better to lose some sheep in the total village economy than let this malcontent stir trouble.

So, and still, begs a lot of questions, and provides a lot of potential answers.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Has the damage of DDT to health ever been proven?

The damage of banning DDT is quite easy to measure, in Malaria coming back to Bangladesh, for instance, and killing an obscene number of people.

is killing literally hundreds upon thousands of animals not enough? I am not 100% certain that it is highly carcinogenic. there is evidence that it is potentially carcinogenic in humans. but so is Bacon and BBQ and a million other things. DDTs effect on humans really isn't my primary gripe with it to be honest, I should have just left it out.

I love the route this thread has taken. Props for Hygro for doing all this research on Aesop and for Timtofly for his well thought out post.

 

[Lexicus]

There is evidence that DDT has other adverse effects on human health e.g. birth defects. It is perfectly accurate to say that it poisons people. It also without a doubt nearly caused the extinction of several species of birds of prey in the US. Of course, since luiz believes that

There is no reason we shouldn't mess with nature for our own advantage.

it's doubtful he considers these near-extinctions to be bad things at all.