4 ms·

Over-use of resources is actually a direct consequence of the consolidated global corporate power (from planned obsolescence through destroyed local markets/ind

Over-use of resources is actually a direct consequence of the consolidated global corporate power (from planned obsolescence through destroyed local markets/industry(with all its micro and regional economic and social consequences) .. just so global corporation A can ship products that were originally manufactured and consumed/sold locally - at a huge human and environmental cost - across the planet and make profits. Not because a product is cheaper for the consumer, nor because its better, this is solely the consequence of various coercive techniques (military, economical). Patents(yes, Watt actually postponed the onset of the industrial revolution at least 2 decades .. one example out of many), licenses and concessions(both meant as economic terms), etc et Too complicated topic for this kind of discussion but that's one huge misconception/piece of economic propaganda you cited there that had to be addressed The other one - even more potent and dangerous - is the notion that global problems need global governments(or, more precisely a consolidated global power). This is actually a two-part-question, a) Why is our current civilization unable to solve global problems(education, healthcare, social welfare, environmental damage) - which is a complicated topic on its own; b) how can a decentralized global society with a mostly local scope solve global issues. This is a special question of sorts because if you answer the a) part you will with high certainty arrive at an answer to the b) question too. (and no, centralization of power is not the answer)

smallnamespace 10y ago
I don't know what your proposed solution is, since you elected not to share it. I will say though that historically, the only examples I can recall of independent polities being able to work together to solve common problems involved both an outside enemy, and a shared set of values, culture, and experience. Global warming doesn't fulfill either criterion. Despite the Internet and modern media, Western culture and values are not universal. And even in the US, a large fraction of the population doesn't even acknowledge that global warming is a problem, much less be willing to pay for a fix. How are you going to get those people to come along without some level of coercion?
openfuture 10y ago
The fact that money does not represent value on a holistic scale (humanity) is the root problem imo. Instead money is designed to represent value to an individual, which creates an incentive for making instant gratification i.e. something an average person will value. If things of value were worth money then the world would 'automatically' go in the 'right' direction. I think decentralization is the end goal of any system, it is much easier to design a centralized system (a minimum viable product if you will - like the current internet) but more robust to have it decentralized. The egalitarian eutopic vision that people keep dreaming of is basically ultimate decentralization. Where somehow the system is designed so that the rules 'are invisible', people do what benefits them the most but it's also the best thing to do and legal. Any move towards this limit is a step in the right direction in my mind.
- onetimepadder 10y ago
  I was unable to reply to smallnamespace(and it just did not pass my internal value system to create a 2nd account just for that) @smallnamespace: I actually did answer, or, if you can't get an exact(ish) pointer out of my answer there are hints scattered all over .. yes, not all answers are of the one-sentence-gives-you-all kind @openfuture: In many aspects, albeit put in different terms, I do agree that money, or the monetary system per-se is at the core of today's dystopia-to-be-built but what I think you meant by your answer(and correct me if I'm wrong here) is some sort of resource(or environmental-impact)-based currency which is -in my opinion- counter to what money actually is/should be: primarily, in its pure form, a _tool_ to make exchange of goods and services easier. I recommend reading about Silvio Gesell's work, IIRC both Hayek(Constitution of Liberty and probably others) and Friedman(can't help you here) cited him as one of the greatest economists of the century(commercial over). Of course once you understand what he was getting at, you have to strip all that's unsuitable and convert the rest to a 21c world, nevertheless a fun exercise which will give you a ton of new ideas(like, on-demand per transaction currency for exchange w an intrinsic value-loosing personal currency as your own saving option within your asset pool). Wurgl experiment, BI, 21century state-of-affairs - lot of mind experiments I invite you to here so get a deep breath and start reading ;)
  - 10y ago
dredmorbius 10y ago
Good points, though I disagree with a few elements. Overuse of resources is a typical pattern of not only human but nonhuman species. One of the first instances was cyanobacteria, which overused both the then-abundant atmospheric methane source, as well as the sinks of free molecular iron (through the great rusting) and the atmosphere's ability to absorb oxygen without reaching levels both toxic to the cyanobacteria itself and sufficiently high to disable greenhouse warming via methane, plunging the planet into what seems to have been its deepest and longest ice age, "Snowball Earth". I describe some of the dynamics here: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/5l_8mqtvwllvx_dabpjy-g https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/5l_8mqtvwllvx_dabpjy-g My point isn't that what humans are doing here and now is sustainble or good (it's not), but rather, that playing the blame game, or trying to assign causality, is frequently nonproductive and/or fraught. It's what William R. Catton, Jr. calls "futile vilification", from his book Overshoot. I love the example of Watt's steam-engine patent extension. I picked it up from Vaclav Smil's books, where'd you learn about it? On coercion -- you might be interested in William Ophuls. He's a political writer (Yale PhD and professor, worked in the US Foreign Service as well). His primary work is Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (1977), which lays out the fundamental problem and dynamics. He's continued the discussion in a series of books published through 2013, of which Plato's Revenge and Requiem for Modern Politics are probably the best supplements to his first book. http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=au%3Aophuls+william http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=au%3Aop... Ophuls argues, despite his strong belief in liberal political philosophy, that some level of mutual coercion will be all but necessary should a sustainable technological society be achieved. His critique of the present decentralised system (well, since 1977 and before), isn't very assuring.
- onetimepadder 10y ago
  @"overuse of resources is a typical pattern" - I don't agree, the drive for overuse of resources may be considered as such but this is hugely species-dependent, and besides a lot of cost-to-gather-resources vs energy-you-get abstractions one can knit oneself into, the main (limiting) factor is and always has been the (ever changing) environment and a sort of equilibrium all systems within are forced to adapt to/operate in(or, extinct). Without steering even further from the thread, humanity is unable to adapt to the ultimate limiting factor as of today(one can say earths biosphere) and the cause for that is as I pointed out earlier .. at least that's what I came to realize once I dived into all that boring policy/economy more-pr-than-science. @Patent-law: stumbled-upon a freely-available book about the patent system and its evolution years ago(maybe via HN), I'm not on my PC so can't tell you what the name or authors were(from UCLA IIRC), but one gets pretty upset when reading it :) @"playing the blame game, or trying to assign causality, is frequently nonproductive and/or fraught" I Don't agree, wrapping one self's mind into a nicely-picked-set of philosophical nuances is whats unproductive. Its like going through academia without ever asking anyone for clarifications/more information on a subject because you were brought-up/"propagandized" into believing that everyone who is asking is a non-productive burden to society. Its time to point fingers even knowing you could be wrong(which should be the default anyway), at least you get some information out of that process .. @Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity - haven't read that one, but based on your last point, although I do agree that some level of coercion will be present in the society for years to come(since, its a product of "our nature") .. I don't think there is room for critique of a "decentralized system"(other than of a decentralized system made of competing centralized systems), same as there is no room to criticize democracy(once defined properly) because every other competing system was killed-off(no, Churchil was not right). Will give that book a look nevertheless(if only to get some ammunition:)

smallnamespace 10y ago

I don't know what your proposed solution is, since you elected not to share it. I will say though that historically, the only examples I can recall of independent polities being able to work together to solve common problems involved both an outside enemy, and a shared set of values, culture, and experience. Global warming doesn't fulfill either criterion. Despite the Internet and modern media, Western culture and values are not universal. And even in the US, a large fraction of the population doesn't even acknowledge that global warming is a problem, much less be willing to pay for a fix. How are you going to get those people to come along without some level of coercion?

openfuture 10y ago

The fact that money does not represent value on a holistic scale (humanity) is the root problem imo. Instead money is designed to represent value to an individual, which creates an incentive for making instant gratification i.e. something an average person will value. If things of value were worth money then the world would 'automatically' go in the 'right' direction. I think decentralization is the end goal of any system, it is much easier to design a centralized system (a minimum viable product if you will - like the current internet) but more robust to have it decentralized. The egalitarian eutopic vision that people keep dreaming of is basically ultimate decentralization. Where somehow the system is designed so that the rules 'are invisible', people do what benefits them the most but it's also the best thing to do and legal. Any move towards this limit is a step in the right direction in my mind.

onetimepadder 10y ago
I was unable to reply to smallnamespace(and it just did not pass my internal value system to create a 2nd account just for that) @smallnamespace: I actually did answer, or, if you can't get an exact(ish) pointer out of my answer there are hints scattered all over .. yes, not all answers are of the one-sentence-gives-you-all kind @openfuture: In many aspects, albeit put in different terms, I do agree that money, or the monetary system per-se is at the core of today's dystopia-to-be-built but what I think you meant by your answer(and correct me if I'm wrong here) is some sort of resource(or environmental-impact)-based currency which is -in my opinion- counter to what money actually is/should be: primarily, in its pure form, a _tool_ to make exchange of goods and services easier. I recommend reading about Silvio Gesell's work, IIRC both Hayek(Constitution of Liberty and probably others) and Friedman(can't help you here) cited him as one of the greatest economists of the century(commercial over). Of course once you understand what he was getting at, you have to strip all that's unsuitable and convert the rest to a 21c world, nevertheless a fun exercise which will give you a ton of new ideas(like, on-demand per transaction currency for exchange w an intrinsic value-loosing personal currency as your own saving option within your asset pool). Wurgl experiment, BI, 21century state-of-affairs - lot of mind experiments I invite you to here so get a deep breath and start reading ;)
- 10y ago

dredmorbius 10y ago

Good points, though I disagree with a few elements. Overuse of resources is a typical pattern of not only human but nonhuman species. One of the first instances was cyanobacteria, which overused both the then-abundant atmospheric methane source, as well as the sinks of free molecular iron (through the great rusting) and the atmosphere's ability to absorb oxygen without reaching levels both toxic to the cyanobacteria itself and sufficiently high to disable greenhouse warming via methane, plunging the planet into what seems to have been its deepest and longest ice age, "Snowball Earth". I describe some of the dynamics here: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/5l_8mqtvwllvx_dabpjy-g https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/5l_8mqtvwllvx_dabpjy-g My point isn't that what humans are doing here and now is sustainble or good (it's not), but rather, that playing the blame game, or trying to assign causality, is frequently nonproductive and/or fraught. It's what William R. Catton, Jr. calls "futile vilification", from his book Overshoot. I love the example of Watt's steam-engine patent extension. I picked it up from Vaclav Smil's books, where'd you learn about it? On coercion -- you might be interested in William Ophuls. He's a political writer (Yale PhD and professor, worked in the US Foreign Service as well). His primary work is Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity (1977), which lays out the fundamental problem and dynamics. He's continued the discussion in a series of books published through 2013, of which Plato's Revenge and Requiem for Modern Politics are probably the best supplements to his first book. http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=au%3Aophuls+william http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=au%3Aop... Ophuls argues, despite his strong belief in liberal political philosophy, that some level of mutual coercion will be all but necessary should a sustainable technological society be achieved. His critique of the present decentralised system (well, since 1977 and before), isn't very assuring.

onetimepadder 10y ago
@"overuse of resources is a typical pattern" - I don't agree, the drive for overuse of resources may be considered as such but this is hugely species-dependent, and besides a lot of cost-to-gather-resources vs energy-you-get abstractions one can knit oneself into, the main (limiting) factor is and always has been the (ever changing) environment and a sort of equilibrium all systems within are forced to adapt to/operate in(or, extinct). Without steering even further from the thread, humanity is unable to adapt to the ultimate limiting factor as of today(one can say earths biosphere) and the cause for that is as I pointed out earlier .. at least that's what I came to realize once I dived into all that boring policy/economy more-pr-than-science. @Patent-law: stumbled-upon a freely-available book about the patent system and its evolution years ago(maybe via HN), I'm not on my PC so can't tell you what the name or authors were(from UCLA IIRC), but one gets pretty upset when reading it :) @"playing the blame game, or trying to assign causality, is frequently nonproductive and/or fraught" I Don't agree, wrapping one self's mind into a nicely-picked-set of philosophical nuances is whats unproductive. Its like going through academia without ever asking anyone for clarifications/more information on a subject because you were brought-up/"propagandized" into believing that everyone who is asking is a non-productive burden to society. Its time to point fingers even knowing you could be wrong(which should be the default anyway), at least you get some information out of that process .. @Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity - haven't read that one, but based on your last point, although I do agree that some level of coercion will be present in the society for years to come(since, its a product of "our nature") .. I don't think there is room for critique of a "decentralized system"(other than of a decentralized system made of competing centralized systems), same as there is no room to criticize democracy(once defined properly) because every other competing system was killed-off(no, Churchil was not right). Will give that book a look nevertheless(if only to get some ammunition:)