The Anti-Civilization Thread

[JustBob]

No, you just aren't seeing the essence of my argument. If we are so concerned about change we should start by looking at ourselves. You will always be able to provide me examples of people who destroy the environment more. So? What about us, what are we doing and how does looking over the other people's fence to justify our inactions help?

t76

Point taken. Ok so we should lead by example. If you read this thread, it seems to be all about pessimism and inaction. Are there not positive actions being taken? How about BC's recently announced "Going Green" program and the partership with California to create a "Green Bloc Along the Pacific?". Note that California now has the toughest environmental regulations in the US. So it isn't all doom and gloom, regardless of the fact that some will argue it's not nearly enough.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

I can think of a few areas in which Canada has led the international community by example...t76

Tax evasion?

 

[JustBob]

Here's an idea! Why don't we kill the fragile seed of environmental consciousness growing in people's brains by advocating eco-terrorism and turning the population against environmentalists!

 

[beautydigger]

I can think of a few areas in which Canada has led the international community by example...
t76

The mass production of indoor grown marijuana.

 

[Agrippa]

Do a search on "Orinoco Tar Belt" and get back to me.

I stand corrected, I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.

Though technically I was still correct because according to Wikipedia: "The Orinoco river deposits also contains extensive tar sands in the orinoco oil belt, which may be a source of future oil production." So they haven't been polluting as much as Alberta, yet.

 

[Rexroth]

A blip on a very big radar screen?

Sure, what's the problem with that? I'm sure the few Papuans who regained their right to scavenge, one of their only ways of making a living, don't see a problem. And then again, blips and radar screens are maybe not the right metaphor: how about seeds and fields instead?...

Your question is the one I was asking, albeit not all that adroitly. Rather, it would be more accurate to say are they just blips or are they seeds?

We are very good at winning specific battles. When attention is focused on a specific object, people do have a remarkable history of success in pulling together and getting things done. But what about the war? Maybe there isn't a war, just skirmishes, some larger than others. I don't know. My pessimistic side says that there is indeed a war and that, other things being equal, these battles are disconnected incidents that will not affect the outcome.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

We are very good at winning specific battles. When attention is focused on a specific object, people do have a remarkable history of success in pulling together and getting things done. But what about the war? Maybe there isn't a war, just skirmishes, some larger than others. I don't know. My pessimistic side says that there is indeed a war and that, other things being equal, these battles are disconnected incidents that will not affect the outcome.

By outcome, you mean the extinction of the human specie? It's inevitable.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

The race is getting too close to call: 1129 to 1136 (for ACT)....


t76

Given that Anti-Civilization threads are just as unsustainable as the Civilization it means to bring down, I predict a win for the pussy thread.

Anyway, don't pussies ALWAYS win?

 

[rumpleforeskiin]

Anyway, don't pussies ALWAYS win?

It has been said that the meek will inherit the earth. My sense is that there's more than a shade of truth to that. Only the meek won't have the nerve to refuse what's left of it.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

Here's an idea! Why don't we kill the fragile seed of environmental consciousness growing in people's brains by advocating eco-terrorism and turning the population against environmentalists!

If I interpret the above jest as the expression of a wish, then there are reasons to hope because there's nobody more prompt than a detractor of the environmentalist movement to discredit its relevance by constantly pointing to its excess. From past experience - think of feminism for instance - when detractors would resort to such lower form of criticism, the movement would gain ground.

Now, if I interpret the above irony as a reprimand then, while the cowards, the expedients and the vanitous are questioning all together the safeness, the correctness and the popularity of their actions, the conscious will abnegate himself with the feeling he did the right thing.

Eco-terrorism is not a subcategory of the environmentalist movement with its own subset of action. It's basically a mechanism of self-defense when one realizes that it'll soon be too late. Suppose it was discovered today that the greenhouse effect has been grossly underestimated, and that the catastrophic effects are actually going to set in 10 years from now instead of - say - 100, as it was previously estimated, and that the attitude of the political leaders is one of denial, do you think the people will wait 10 years to see? Suppose you've got a gun pointed at you and the trigger is being pulled, what would be the correct action according to you? Accept your impending death? Try to reason the killer? Or pull a Jack Bauer on him? What?

 

[Agrippa]

Suppose you've got a gun pointed at you and the trigger is being pulled, what would be the correct action according to you? Accept your impending death? Try to reason the killer? Or pull a Jack Bauer on him? What?

Jack Bauer, Jack Bauer!

The thing is it's only effective if it's sabotage or destroys the infrastructure. If people are dying then it hurts the cause like JustBob says. Wasn't it Stalin who said "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic"?

 

[z/m(Ret)]

If people are dying then it hurts the cause like JustBob says.

If it hurts the cause then there is a cause. April 10, 2005: when thousands of villagers rioted in eastern China, injuring dozens of police after two of about 200 elderly women protesting over factory pollution were run over by police cars during efforts to disperse them, there wasn't a cause, there was an urgency to act. The April 10th uprising was one key event of a string of outbreaks of rural violence as the population of China was facing disgruntlement over a widening wealth gap, widespread corruption and ecological disintegration. Now, following the events, what did Cowardice ask? All together: "IS IT SAFE?" What did Expediency ask? Everybody! "IS IT POLITIC?", you get my point...

 

[z/m(Ret)]

They are not being killed in the name of the economy. A free market would be just as happy to pay them as anyone else. They are being killed because their local government is corrupt and is stealing money that should otherwise go to them.

This is a side issue but we were talking about East Timorese being slaughtered and deported by Indonesian death squads, one known as Kopassus, trained by - guess who? - US Green Berets! Trivia question for you, Kepler: who, on December 7th 1975, gave president Suharto the green light to invade East Timor? Check the National Security Archives located in the GWU archives webpage and come back to me.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

It has been said that the meek will inherit the earth. My sense is that there's more than a shade of truth to that. Only the meek won't have the nerve to refuse what's left of it.

It is also known that rats and cockroaches have a genuine chance to survive the Apocalypse.

 

[eastender]

The Last 100 Years

During the last hundred years our life expectancy has gone from app. 47 years to app 80 years.Our doctors have developed penicillin,drastically limited the ravages tuberculosis,the treatment of heart disease has progressed by leaps and bounds and cancer is no longer the death sentence that it was but a disease that is manageable.Similar medical advancements have been made in virtually every sphere of medicine.

The world has seen the rise and fall of communism - replaced by incredible growth in China and the former Soviet Bloc. Two world wars that had a tremendous human price but saw the emergence of Germany and Japan as world powers.

We have developed elaborate transportation systems and visited the planets.Radio,television and the internet have facilitated communications.The levels of literacy and education have increased tremendously.

Yes there have been a few bumps in the road - the nuclear age produced the ability to obliterate our planet within moments and our medical professionals have to overcome the challenge of "new age" diseases - AIDS,etc. We have not been able to overcome our evil nature - genocide,forced famine, terrorism, etc but in one form or another these traits have been around since mankind discovered that it was possible to walk erect.

One of the problems with the various eco theories is that their margin of error is paper thin.Anyone that understands game theory and chaos theory will tell you that based on the models and calculations that predictions regarding what may happen 10 years from know may be off by 10,000 years.

App 35 years ago saving the whales and finding alternative fuel sources were the causes.There was concern that both the wales and gasoline would disappear within 10 years or a generation.Well you can still fill up with gasoline at a cheaper price than bottled water and whales are plentiful.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

During the last hundred years our life expectancy has gone from app. 47 years to app 80 years.Our doctors have developed penicillin,drastically limited the ravages tuberculosis,the treatment of heart disease has progressed by leaps and bounds and cancer is no longer the death sentence that it was but a disease that is manageable.Similar medical advancements have been made in virtually every sphere of medicine (...)

What proportion of world's population, according to you, benefits of the great achievements you have listed?

 

[eastender]

Benefits

What proportion of world's population, according to you, benefits of the great achievements you have listed?

Everyone in the world is in a position to benefit from the achievements.The issue is applying the necessary remedy to the specific situation and getting the people concerned to go along.

The dying peasant in Timor could be airlifted to a medical facility and saved should the powers that be provide the funds,manpower and equipment.

Predicting storms and floods is one thing, getting people out is another but the real issue is why do people insist on living in flood/storm zones when they can live in safer zones.True in sophisticated countries as well - Florida hurricane zones or "Twister Alley" in the USA Heartland and southeast.

 

[z/m(Ret)]

Everyone in the world is in a position to benefit from the achievements.

Definitely not at the same rate where the poorest segments of populations live. Example: child mortality rates in rural sub-Saharan Africa over the last 50 years period has, indeed, declined albeit nowhere close to where it could be. Immunizations have contributed to the decrease but increased cases of malaria rebound based on seasonal variations were noted. Another example: AIDS. For the longest time, parts of the world most afflicted by AIDS happen to be parts of the world that have least access to antiretroviral tritherapy. After the longest battle led by various groups of activists, a court decision was rendered in favour of producers of generic medecines to make and distribute the compounds of tritherapy where it's mostly needed. Note that it took a fight to eventually reach this happy conclusion: while GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim were doing all they could to delay this decision, tens of thousands of Africans were dying every month of the consequences of AIDS. These deaths would have been easely avoided in the West.

 

[Agrippa]

eastender,

nonsense -- dying (of what?) peasant in Timor -- people in Canada don't have access to that kind of treatment, (or at least have to wait in line for them).

Besides I think you're missing the point of the thread. Of course the advancements you've pointed out are positive. It's industry, commercialization, producing demand/desire/need where there is none, multiplying it by the 6 billion people that walk the earth and projecting where it leads us. If everyone insists on eating meat, driving a car, living in a McMansion on their parcel of land, watering the lawn and then spraying it with chemicals (that aren't even supposed to exist, who knows if they will be absorbed by (any) organisms, how it will be broken down, and how it may affect them) so that it's green... etc, can you imagine what would be left?

What does it matter if the margin is thin or not. Is it not intrinsically idiotic, narrow-minded, short-sighted for us to continue living the way we do? It's just a matter of having a smaller foot print... the number of us keeps growing, but the area available to us is not.

Maybe there are still whales left because people aren't allowed to fish/hunt for whales like they used to. You also speak of oil as if it were a renewable resource...

 

[z/m(Ret)]

What does it matter if the margin is thin or not. Is it not intrinsically idiotic, narrow-minded, short-sighted for us to continue living the way we do?

When the good loyal employee who never missed a day of work becomes useless, the Corporation dismisses him. The 5th Estate would benefit from learning some of the ways of the corporate world and apply these to Industrial Civilization: "You were good to us for a while but now you've become a burden and you must be removed"...