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> The real world has never been better Better for whom? And why do you think Bill Gates is any kind of authority on this subject? Read some of Derrick Jensen's

> The real world has never been better Better for whom? And why do you think Bill Gates is any kind of authority on this subject? Read some of Derrick Jensen's writing instead.

kortilla 6y ago
Better for the vast majority of the planet. Extreme poverty has been on a constant decline.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Extreme poverty has been on a constant decline only as defined by the world bank (by choosing an arbitrary dollar amount of 1.90 international dollars that could barely buy some food, but not medicine or shelter). In real terms, it has been stagnant or increasing, especially as people who were living well off the land have been forced to participate in the monetary economy or die of starvation. And even by the world bank standards [0], the only gains have been because of China (a planned economy that has ignored any american or european economic orthodoxy), and to a lesser extent, India, which has mostly advanced by freeing itself from the burdens of colonialism (before colonialism, it was one of the richer areas of the world). In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has actually been increasing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Total_population_living_in_extreme_poverty,_by_world_region_(PovcalNet,_World_Bank_(1987_to_2013)),_OWID.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:To...
  - sltkr 6y ago
    > In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has actually been increasing. According to your source, only in absolute terms, not in relative terms. Ideally, both should go down of course, but it does mean a smaller percentage of Africans live in extreme poverty today than they did 25 years ago.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > a planned economy that has ignored any american or european economic orthodoxy I implore you to look up how China’s economy functions. It is successful because they threw away the majority of the “planned economy” bits of communism and have a capitalist economy. They have a stock market, citizens invest in companies they choose, starting a business doing whatever you want is easier there than many places in the US, businesses fail all of the time. None of those are features of a planned economy. > and to a lesser extent, India, which has mostly advanced by freeing itself from the burdens of colonialism It has little to do with that and more to do with making themselves globally competitive in many sectors (IT and outsourcing being obvious ones). They also operate under a capitalist economy that fosters these successful projects. > In real terms, it has been stagnant or increasing, especially as people who were living well off the land have been forced to participate in the monetary economy or die of starvation. Funny how people throw out actual concrete definitions and then say things like “In real terms” without providing any kind of definition. Maybe start by defining that. Furthermore, the amount of people who were “living off of the land” are included in the 1.90 figure measured by the world bank. That’s not based on receipts at the grocery store or tax returns. Finally, the number of people “living well off of the land” (who just were fucked if they got meaningfully suck btw) is vanishingly small compared to how many were “living malnourished off of the land”.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      You are looking at how China's economy functions today in a few cities, and not how it functions in the vast majority of the rest of the country. More importantly, while China has mostly or entirely gotten rid of the planned economy, it's success has come in large part because of massive monetary interference by the state in the economy, protectionism, forcing western companies to give up some of their IP to do business there, and of course a good dose of slave labor, like every successful economy in history unfortunately (I am absolutely opposed to this last one, and it is one of the things we have profited most from in Chinas's growth). Countries that moved from a planned economy to capitalism under the IMF and WB's guidance have generally rushed to privatize their industry, have accepted and dutifully implemented all international IP treaties, have opened up their arms to foreign investors and sold their industries to them, and are almost all in much worse situations than China, with no hope of regaining the lost ground for now. For India, I will only say one thing - India would not have been an IT powerhouse if it had been under colonial rule. The British wanted cotton and spices and other raw or lightly processed materials from India, and that is what it would have been forced to do - same as the path the American colonies rebelled against. Industrializationa and high-technology was for the mother land, not the colonies, in the horrible economic principle of the 'competitive advantage'. --- Related to poverty, you're right, I probably should have given a definition. Extreme poverty means not having access to one or more of the the basic necessities of life - water, enough food not be malnourished, enough shelter not to die of hypothermia or heat, and access to medical care to survive the most common diseases in your region. If you have only these basic necessities and nothing else, you are still poor, but not living in extreme poverty. From what I understand, the monetary threshold for these should be somewhere around 15 dollars per day to get out of extreme poverty (note that this 'income' includes begging, access to communal resources etc). There are of course many opinions on this number. However, the 1.9 USD value is pitifully low, and you can easily check that yourself: please think about what you can buy for 3 USD in you region each day, without any kind of borrowing, begging, living off the land, sharing etc (as those are already included in the number). Would you consider yourself to not be in extreme poverty? Note that if we look at malnourishent, the percentage and number of people who are malnourished has stayed roughly the same since we started collecting data (1981), after increasing steadily up to ~2000. And about people living off the land, they are indeed included in the data since 1981, but not in the data since 1800, as often presented. Edit: and yes, you are right that people living off the land were usually doomed if they got significantly sick. But this is also true of, for example, everyone living on minimum wage in the US today, so I fail to see what's improved.
ImprobableTruth 6y ago
... you might want to add why Derrick Jensen is an authority instead. From a quick google search he just appears to be some random anprim guy that wrote some environmentalist books. Bill Gates has his foundation that is working to mitigate climate change, so I'd say he at least has some qualification since he is presumably in contact with scientific authorities. What does your guy have?
- kazagistar 6y ago
  Not that I am in any way a fan of anprim thinking, but anyone with massive vested interest in the perpetuation of present day power dynamics (eg massive wealth) has negative starting authority when it comes to evaluating the quality of that world and the value of its preservation.
- sedachv 6y ago
  Jensen, in addition to being a prolific author, is one of today's leading environmental and social philosophers. The only reason you know or care about who Gates is, is because he became very wealthy from predatory business practices. Kind of a stupid reason to pay attention to someone.
  - ImprobableTruth 6y ago
    I care about what Gates says because he's founded one of the world's largest charity organizations and has done a great deal to reduce human suffering as well as specifically a lot of work in regard to climate change. Being rich alone doesn't matter to me, I don't give a damn what e.g. Jeff Bezos has to say about the matter. Being a prolific author doesn't mean much to me and neither does being an environmental philosopher in this context. Someone like Peter Singer definitely is an authority on environmental ethics, but on the effect of climate change/the ecological state of the world I don't see why anyone would consider him an authority.
    - sedachv 6y ago
      > I care about what Gates says because he's founded one of the world's largest charity organizations So your criteria for who is and is not worth listening to is "rich man who gives a lot of money to charity." Wealth is not some kind of superior substitute for expertise or insightful ideas. Unfortunately this seems to be a popular delusion today; that does not make it any less stupid.

> The real world has never been better Better for whom? And why do you think Bill Gates is any kind of authority on this subject? Read some of Derrick Jensen's writing instead.

kortilla 6y ago

Better for the vast majority of the planet. Extreme poverty has been on a constant decline.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Extreme poverty has been on a constant decline only as defined by the world bank (by choosing an arbitrary dollar amount of 1.90 international dollars that could barely buy some food, but not medicine or shelter). In real terms, it has been stagnant or increasing, especially as people who were living well off the land have been forced to participate in the monetary economy or die of starvation. And even by the world bank standards [0], the only gains have been because of China (a planned economy that has ignored any american or european economic orthodoxy), and to a lesser extent, India, which has mostly advanced by freeing itself from the burdens of colonialism (before colonialism, it was one of the richer areas of the world). In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has actually been increasing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:Total_population_living_in_extreme_poverty,_by_world_region_(PovcalNet,_World_Bank_(1987_to_2013)),_OWID.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty#/media/File:To...
- sltkr 6y ago
  > In sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty has actually been increasing. According to your source, only in absolute terms, not in relative terms. Ideally, both should go down of course, but it does mean a smaller percentage of Africans live in extreme poverty today than they did 25 years ago.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > a planned economy that has ignored any american or european economic orthodoxy I implore you to look up how China’s economy functions. It is successful because they threw away the majority of the “planned economy” bits of communism and have a capitalist economy. They have a stock market, citizens invest in companies they choose, starting a business doing whatever you want is easier there than many places in the US, businesses fail all of the time. None of those are features of a planned economy. > and to a lesser extent, India, which has mostly advanced by freeing itself from the burdens of colonialism It has little to do with that and more to do with making themselves globally competitive in many sectors (IT and outsourcing being obvious ones). They also operate under a capitalist economy that fosters these successful projects. > In real terms, it has been stagnant or increasing, especially as people who were living well off the land have been forced to participate in the monetary economy or die of starvation. Funny how people throw out actual concrete definitions and then say things like “In real terms” without providing any kind of definition. Maybe start by defining that. Furthermore, the amount of people who were “living off of the land” are included in the 1.90 figure measured by the world bank. That’s not based on receipts at the grocery store or tax returns. Finally, the number of people “living well off of the land” (who just were fucked if they got meaningfully suck btw) is vanishingly small compared to how many were “living malnourished off of the land”.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    You are looking at how China's economy functions today in a few cities, and not how it functions in the vast majority of the rest of the country. More importantly, while China has mostly or entirely gotten rid of the planned economy, it's success has come in large part because of massive monetary interference by the state in the economy, protectionism, forcing western companies to give up some of their IP to do business there, and of course a good dose of slave labor, like every successful economy in history unfortunately (I am absolutely opposed to this last one, and it is one of the things we have profited most from in Chinas's growth). Countries that moved from a planned economy to capitalism under the IMF and WB's guidance have generally rushed to privatize their industry, have accepted and dutifully implemented all international IP treaties, have opened up their arms to foreign investors and sold their industries to them, and are almost all in much worse situations than China, with no hope of regaining the lost ground for now. For India, I will only say one thing - India would not have been an IT powerhouse if it had been under colonial rule. The British wanted cotton and spices and other raw or lightly processed materials from India, and that is what it would have been forced to do - same as the path the American colonies rebelled against. Industrializationa and high-technology was for the mother land, not the colonies, in the horrible economic principle of the 'competitive advantage'. --- Related to poverty, you're right, I probably should have given a definition. Extreme poverty means not having access to one or more of the the basic necessities of life - water, enough food not be malnourished, enough shelter not to die of hypothermia or heat, and access to medical care to survive the most common diseases in your region. If you have only these basic necessities and nothing else, you are still poor, but not living in extreme poverty. From what I understand, the monetary threshold for these should be somewhere around 15 dollars per day to get out of extreme poverty (note that this 'income' includes begging, access to communal resources etc). There are of course many opinions on this number. However, the 1.9 USD value is pitifully low, and you can easily check that yourself: please think about what you can buy for 3 USD in you region each day, without any kind of borrowing, begging, living off the land, sharing etc (as those are already included in the number). Would you consider yourself to not be in extreme poverty? Note that if we look at malnourishent, the percentage and number of people who are malnourished has stayed roughly the same since we started collecting data (1981), after increasing steadily up to ~2000. And about people living off the land, they are indeed included in the data since 1981, but not in the data since 1800, as often presented. Edit: and yes, you are right that people living off the land were usually doomed if they got significantly sick. But this is also true of, for example, everyone living on minimum wage in the US today, so I fail to see what's improved.

ImprobableTruth 6y ago

... you might want to add why Derrick Jensen is an authority instead. From a quick google search he just appears to be some random anprim guy that wrote some environmentalist books. Bill Gates has his foundation that is working to mitigate climate change, so I'd say he at least has some qualification since he is presumably in contact with scientific authorities. What does your guy have?

kazagistar 6y ago
Not that I am in any way a fan of anprim thinking, but anyone with massive vested interest in the perpetuation of present day power dynamics (eg massive wealth) has negative starting authority when it comes to evaluating the quality of that world and the value of its preservation.
sedachv 6y ago
Jensen, in addition to being a prolific author, is one of today's leading environmental and social philosophers. The only reason you know or care about who Gates is, is because he became very wealthy from predatory business practices. Kind of a stupid reason to pay attention to someone.
- ImprobableTruth 6y ago
  I care about what Gates says because he's founded one of the world's largest charity organizations and has done a great deal to reduce human suffering as well as specifically a lot of work in regard to climate change. Being rich alone doesn't matter to me, I don't give a damn what e.g. Jeff Bezos has to say about the matter. Being a prolific author doesn't mean much to me and neither does being an environmental philosopher in this context. Someone like Peter Singer definitely is an authority on environmental ethics, but on the effect of climate change/the ecological state of the world I don't see why anyone would consider him an authority.
  - sedachv 6y ago
    > I care about what Gates says because he's founded one of the world's largest charity organizations So your criteria for who is and is not worth listening to is "rich man who gives a lot of money to charity." Wealth is not some kind of superior substitute for expertise or insightful ideas. Unfortunately this seems to be a popular delusion today; that does not make it any less stupid.