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I agree that the plot repeatedly follows society making choices which I find implausible -- but if one reads that alienation (one's inner critic saying "this is

by abeppu 3y ago

I agree that the plot repeatedly follows society making choices which I find implausible -- but if one reads that alienation (one's inner critic saying "this is not the world we live in") as part of the experience of the work, then it can function as a kind of compelling tool. Noting all the points where humanity in the book takes necessary and beneficial actions to improve their situation, that are available to but refused by our society, one arrives at a pretty jarring condemnation. Not only is the current disaster entirely of our making, but all the ways in which it will fail to be addressed are also our responsibility.

allemagne 3y ago
Is it particularly jarring to realize that central banks issuing a carbon-backed cryptocurrency will probably not save us from climate change?
- abeppu 3y ago
  I'm not familiar enough with international diplomacy or central banking for that to be the most jarring part. But, when the head of an international organization takes a week and a half to get to a meeting on the other side of the planet, and thinks that it's nicer to take a sequence of trains and sailing ships than it used to be to fly ... that seemed totally alien. When subsistence farmers were surprised by the large amount of money they were paid for getting more carbon into their soil, that seemed really implausible. When KSM glosses by how easy and quick it was to make giant wildlife corridors across North America, and talks about whole communities packing up and voluntarily abandoning towns to ceded those areas to nature ... that seemed wildly implausible. There were a lot of these moments for me, and while I get the people that use these as a criticism against the realism of the book, I also think that gap is a criticism against all of us.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  As much as the story centered around central banking machinations, the buried narrative was that a lot of people in power probably have to die. This realization and it's impossibility make the story a tragedy when compared to the real world.
  - abeppu 3y ago
    Sorry, why is it an impossibility for people in power to die? I'm not advocating for violence, to be clear, and in the novel KSM seems to take the stance that at some point violence is really counter-productive. But certainly there have been places and periods in which e.g. targeted kidnappings of rich people, assassination attempts on politicians, and terrorist attacks against high-profile targets have all been around -- why do you think is it impossible for those to be directed at people in power in the future? Especially if there are progressively more climate victims, it seems like we're setting the stage for a generation of people to be ripe for radicalization.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      TMftF heavily hints and at times outright describes the existence of secretly funded UN blackops missions that target and assassinate people in power with strategic importance. It's been a few months since I read it, but if I can recall, it also described it's connection with ostensibly grassroots eco-activist/terrorists. Submarine accidents not withstanding, I'm not convinced the UN in our current timeline could be transformed into one that engages in this behavior.
LeifCarrotson 3y ago
The ways in which we fail to address societal issues are not in fact our responsibility, they're a systemic issue that is a function of human nature - or political nature/societal nature - that will not be solved by morose feelings of condemnation. "Why can't people not be the way they are" is just as useless a sentiment as "Why can't mathematics not be the way it is", and will be just as ineffective at causing 2 and 2 to add to 5. I'm going to go back to my comparatively easy computer engineering tasks after writing this comment, and have the greatest respect for those willing to confront coordination problems in the political sphere. That's playing the game on hard mode. The whole thing reminds me of this thread [1] from a few weeks ago referencing Orwell's critique of Dickens: >> The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. ... His whole ‘message’ is one that at first glance looks like an enormous platitude: If men would behave decently the world would be decent. > I can't help but feel like TS Eliot's "public-spirited pigs" are the same thing as Dickens' "good rich men". The good news is that we've developed systems of governance and economics that are not exclusively worse than uneducated tribalistic hunter-gatherer anarchy - a very large number of people live in significant comfort in relatively ordered, mostly polite societies, generally free to do what they want, and for the most part those societies build things like roads, landfills, electric grids, and fire departments together that make the community better. It's not perfect, for sure, and we're really missing the ball on this particular externality of global warming, but I have some hope that we'll figure out a way to address the problem that doesn't rely exclusively on weak moral appeals. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130896
- abeppu 3y ago
  To me this response just seems incoherent. > The ways in which we fail to address societal issues are not in fact our responsibility, they're a systemic issue that is a function of human nature ... - that will not be solved by morose feelings of condemnation. Are we not society? Do we not make up the system? But more importantly, you're refuting a statement of responsibility by saying the underlying problem won't be solved by feelings. Whether a statement of moral responsibility is _true_ and whether concurrent emotions on their own solve anything are fundamentally different propositions, and denying one implies nothing about the other. If I murder someone by stabbing them, perhaps that reflects part of human nature -- but a jury telling me I'm guilty is _correct_, even though their condemnation will not bring back my victim. It would be absurd for me to say "oh your moralizing emotional condemnation won't solve the issue of murder which has always existed in human societies, and certainly won't bring back the person I killed -- therefore I'm not responsible." But somehow, if a few generations knowingly trash a whole planet, aware that this would cause chaos which results in a large number of deaths, illness, property damage, etc you want to believe that the fact that morose feeling will not suck carbon out of the atmosphere somehow implies that responsibility cannot be assigned. One can argue about whether moral statements can meaningfully be "true" (I think they can), but one can't jump from "moral condemnation doesn't on its own solve problems" to "therefore moral responsibility can be denied in any instance". If anything, I think the reluctance to fully face the problem and acknowledge our role in it, and to recognize the ways in which our own lives will need to be different to stop exacerbating the problem, is part of the foot-dragging. > The whole thing reminds me of this thread [1] from a few weeks ago referencing Orwell's critique of Dickens: >>> The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. But The Ministry for the Future is basically nothing _but_ constructive suggestions put in a nice palatable narrative container. We're not talking about a moral judgement in the absence of specific ideas about how to address climate change, environmental justice, and even wealth inequality. We're talking about acknowledging responsibility when, though opportunities stare us in the face, we do little or nothing to fix the situation we've created.

by abeppu 3y ago

allemagne 3y ago

Is it particularly jarring to realize that central banks issuing a carbon-backed cryptocurrency will probably not save us from climate change?

abeppu 3y ago
I'm not familiar enough with international diplomacy or central banking for that to be the most jarring part. But, when the head of an international organization takes a week and a half to get to a meeting on the other side of the planet, and thinks that it's nicer to take a sequence of trains and sailing ships than it used to be to fly ... that seemed totally alien. When subsistence farmers were surprised by the large amount of money they were paid for getting more carbon into their soil, that seemed really implausible. When KSM glosses by how easy and quick it was to make giant wildlife corridors across North America, and talks about whole communities packing up and voluntarily abandoning towns to ceded those areas to nature ... that seemed wildly implausible. There were a lot of these moments for me, and while I get the people that use these as a criticism against the realism of the book, I also think that gap is a criticism against all of us.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
As much as the story centered around central banking machinations, the buried narrative was that a lot of people in power probably have to die. This realization and it's impossibility make the story a tragedy when compared to the real world.
- abeppu 3y ago
  Sorry, why is it an impossibility for people in power to die? I'm not advocating for violence, to be clear, and in the novel KSM seems to take the stance that at some point violence is really counter-productive. But certainly there have been places and periods in which e.g. targeted kidnappings of rich people, assassination attempts on politicians, and terrorist attacks against high-profile targets have all been around -- why do you think is it impossible for those to be directed at people in power in the future? Especially if there are progressively more climate victims, it seems like we're setting the stage for a generation of people to be ripe for radicalization.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    TMftF heavily hints and at times outright describes the existence of secretly funded UN blackops missions that target and assassinate people in power with strategic importance. It's been a few months since I read it, but if I can recall, it also described it's connection with ostensibly grassroots eco-activist/terrorists. Submarine accidents not withstanding, I'm not convinced the UN in our current timeline could be transformed into one that engages in this behavior.

LeifCarrotson 3y ago

The ways in which we fail to address societal issues are not in fact our responsibility, they're a systemic issue that is a function of human nature - or political nature/societal nature - that will not be solved by morose feelings of condemnation. "Why can't people not be the way they are" is just as useless a sentiment as "Why can't mathematics not be the way it is", and will be just as ineffective at causing 2 and 2 to add to 5. I'm going to go back to my comparatively easy computer engineering tasks after writing this comment, and have the greatest respect for those willing to confront coordination problems in the political sphere. That's playing the game on hard mode. The whole thing reminds me of this thread [1] from a few weeks ago referencing Orwell's critique of Dickens: >> The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. ... His whole ‘message’ is one that at first glance looks like an enormous platitude: If men would behave decently the world would be decent. > I can't help but feel like TS Eliot's "public-spirited pigs" are the same thing as Dickens' "good rich men". The good news is that we've developed systems of governance and economics that are not exclusively worse than uneducated tribalistic hunter-gatherer anarchy - a very large number of people live in significant comfort in relatively ordered, mostly polite societies, generally free to do what they want, and for the most part those societies build things like roads, landfills, electric grids, and fire departments together that make the community better. It's not perfect, for sure, and we're really missing the ball on this particular externality of global warming, but I have some hope that we'll figure out a way to address the problem that doesn't rely exclusively on weak moral appeals. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130896

abeppu 3y ago
To me this response just seems incoherent. > The ways in which we fail to address societal issues are not in fact our responsibility, they're a systemic issue that is a function of human nature ... - that will not be solved by morose feelings of condemnation. Are we not society? Do we not make up the system? But more importantly, you're refuting a statement of responsibility by saying the underlying problem won't be solved by feelings. Whether a statement of moral responsibility is _true_ and whether concurrent emotions on their own solve anything are fundamentally different propositions, and denying one implies nothing about the other. If I murder someone by stabbing them, perhaps that reflects part of human nature -- but a jury telling me I'm guilty is _correct_, even though their condemnation will not bring back my victim. It would be absurd for me to say "oh your moralizing emotional condemnation won't solve the issue of murder which has always existed in human societies, and certainly won't bring back the person I killed -- therefore I'm not responsible." But somehow, if a few generations knowingly trash a whole planet, aware that this would cause chaos which results in a large number of deaths, illness, property damage, etc you want to believe that the fact that morose feeling will not suck carbon out of the atmosphere somehow implies that responsibility cannot be assigned. One can argue about whether moral statements can meaningfully be "true" (I think they can), but one can't jump from "moral condemnation doesn't on its own solve problems" to "therefore moral responsibility can be denied in any instance". If anything, I think the reluctance to fully face the problem and acknowledge our role in it, and to recognize the ways in which our own lives will need to be different to stop exacerbating the problem, is part of the foot-dragging. > The whole thing reminds me of this thread [1] from a few weeks ago referencing Orwell's critique of Dickens: >>> The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. But The Ministry for the Future is basically nothing _but_ constructive suggestions put in a nice palatable narrative container. We're not talking about a moral judgement in the absence of specific ideas about how to address climate change, environmental justice, and even wealth inequality. We're talking about acknowledging responsibility when, though opportunities stare us in the face, we do little or nothing to fix the situation we've created.