4 ms·

> Capitalism is doomed. What's your suggestion?

aspyct 3y ago
There is no suggestion, that's the whole point.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
My suggestion doesn't matter, because it won't happen. As Carl Sagan mentioned in the video of him testifying before Congress on climate change in the 80s that's currently on the front page, even if the US and Russia agreed to stop burning fossil fuels today, China isn't planning to stop anytime soon, and neither is India or any of the other less rich countries. So, my prediction is that this will be a self-limiting problem. Unfortunately, the mechanism will be that behind the old saying "The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution." And, at that point, it's going to be so (literally) hot, bloody, and violent that nobody will escape, and the ones who will survive will be the ones who are willing to use the most violence. I would be surprised if we have 25 years before we hit that point. My 95% confidence interval for when I expect global civilization to collapse into something like what you'd see in a post-apocalyptic movie is currently from 2035-2070. You heard it here first, folks. There it is. You heard it here first.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  > The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution. If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? I do think democracy, the way it currently works, has a problem. It doesn't seem to be able to actually solve problems anymore. This appears to be a relatively recent problem, as it's certainly solved problems before. I'm not sure exactly what it is or when it happened, I've seen it suggested the fall of the Berlin wall and the loss of credible competition from the east bloc is the cause. Could be, but it seems obvious something has broken. So far it's been able to rest on its laurels and coast on the good name of democracy, but I'm concerned that if it stays dysfunctional and is seen visibly floundering amidst growing problems, then what faith is left in the institution may come to evaporate. I don't know if revolution is the logical conclusion, seems more likely to just sort of fall apart. What gives the state authority is that people believe it has authority. If enough people stop believing that, so the state goes away.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > > The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution. > If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? I mean, that's when the international (and not entirely nonviolent) revolution in which the modern mixed economy generally replaced classic capitalism in the developed world happened, but WWII and, even more, the subsequent Cold War in which state capitalist “Communists” squared off against mixed economy “Capitalists” really made recongition of that both difficult and politically inconvenient.
  - Bendy 3y ago
    > I do think democracy, the way it currently works, has a problem. It doesn't seem to be able to actually solve problems anymore. I agree with you and this is because democracy is terminally on the defensive. Which is alas, a losing strategy. Technological advances (accelerated by capitalism) have brought ever increasing power to the individual and private organizations that the state has to run like a red queen introducing more and more legislation, regulation and increasingly byzantine bureaucracy backed up with the sorcery of propaganda and fiscal–monetary policies to fortify its paranoid self against the imaginary, and very soon to be real horde. “A dying society accumulates laws like a dying man accumulates remedies” because you can’t be under siege forever. “The bomber always gets through”.
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    > If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? Perhaps you've seen those old photos of lines of people standing outside soup kitchens? Might I remind you that there was no global ecosystem or global climate collapse in the 1930s? Such things have happened on a local scale in the past, before there was such a thing as "global civilization," resulting in the collapse of individual civilizations, but this time really is different.
- listenallyall 3y ago
  > You heard it here first, folks. There it is. You heard it here first. Are you actually giving yourself credit for being the first unhinged doomsayer out there? Lol
  - Paul-Craft 3y ago
    Right. The headlines are all reading "faster than expected," "sooner than expected," "more severe than expected," but yet, I'm the unhinged one? lol.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago
  Sure random HN contributor - I'll believe you over the IPCC, which predicts even in the worst-case scenario nothing anywhere close to "global civilization collapse" in 2100. Stop with the doomerism - it just gives people an excuse to do nothing. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=none&country=SSP1+-+Baseline~SSP2+-+Baseline~SSP3+-+Baseline~SSP4+-+Baseline~SSP5+-+Baseline&Metric=Population&Rate=Per+capita&Region=Global https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=no...

There is no suggestion, that's the whole point.

My suggestion doesn't matter, because it won't happen. As Carl Sagan mentioned in the video of him testifying before Congress on climate change in the 80s that's currently on the front page, even if the US and Russia agreed to stop burning fossil fuels today, China isn't planning to stop anytime soon, and neither is India or any of the other less rich countries. So, my prediction is that this will be a self-limiting problem. Unfortunately, the mechanism will be that behind the old saying "The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution." And, at that point, it's going to be so (literally) hot, bloody, and violent that nobody will escape, and the ones who will survive will be the ones who are willing to use the most violence. I would be surprised if we have 25 years before we hit that point. My 95% confidence interval for when I expect global civilization to collapse into something like what you'd see in a post-apocalyptic movie is currently from 2035-2070. You heard it here first, folks. There it is. You heard it here first.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
> The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution. If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? I do think democracy, the way it currently works, has a problem. It doesn't seem to be able to actually solve problems anymore. This appears to be a relatively recent problem, as it's certainly solved problems before. I'm not sure exactly what it is or when it happened, I've seen it suggested the fall of the Berlin wall and the loss of credible competition from the east bloc is the cause. Could be, but it seems obvious something has broken. So far it's been able to rest on its laurels and coast on the good name of democracy, but I'm concerned that if it stays dysfunctional and is seen visibly floundering amidst growing problems, then what faith is left in the institution may come to evaporate. I don't know if revolution is the logical conclusion, seems more likely to just sort of fall apart. What gives the state authority is that people believe it has authority. If enough people stop believing that, so the state goes away.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > > The world is only nine missed meals away from revolution. > If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? I mean, that's when the international (and not entirely nonviolent) revolution in which the modern mixed economy generally replaced classic capitalism in the developed world happened, but WWII and, even more, the subsequent Cold War in which state capitalist “Communists” squared off against mixed economy “Capitalists” really made recongition of that both difficult and politically inconvenient.
- Bendy 3y ago
  > I do think democracy, the way it currently works, has a problem. It doesn't seem to be able to actually solve problems anymore. I agree with you and this is because democracy is terminally on the defensive. Which is alas, a losing strategy. Technological advances (accelerated by capitalism) have brought ever increasing power to the individual and private organizations that the state has to run like a red queen introducing more and more legislation, regulation and increasingly byzantine bureaucracy backed up with the sorcery of propaganda and fiscal–monetary policies to fortify its paranoid self against the imaginary, and very soon to be real horde. “A dying society accumulates laws like a dying man accumulates remedies” because you can’t be under siege forever. “The bomber always gets through”.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  > If true, why didn't civilization collapse into Mad Max during the great depression? Perhaps you've seen those old photos of lines of people standing outside soup kitchens? Might I remind you that there was no global ecosystem or global climate collapse in the 1930s? Such things have happened on a local scale in the past, before there was such a thing as "global civilization," resulting in the collapse of individual civilizations, but this time really is different.
listenallyall 3y ago
> You heard it here first, folks. There it is. You heard it here first. Are you actually giving yourself credit for being the first unhinged doomsayer out there? Lol
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  Right. The headlines are all reading "faster than expected," "sooner than expected," "more severe than expected," but yet, I'm the unhinged one? lol.
GlibMonkeyDeath 3y ago
Sure random HN contributor - I'll believe you over the IPCC, which predicts even in the worst-case scenario nothing anywhere close to "global civilization collapse" in 2100. Stop with the doomerism - it just gives people an excuse to do nothing. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=none&country=SSP1+-+Baseline~SSP2+-+Baseline~SSP3+-+Baseline~SSP4+-+Baseline~SSP5+-+Baseline&Metric=Population&Rate=Per+capita&Region=Global https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=no...