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If Zeus himself descends from Mount Olympus and says to you, "I am going to reestablish slavery in society. I will select slaves by lottery, and when it's all

If Zeus himself descends from Mount Olympus and says to you, "I am going to reestablish slavery in society. I will select slaves by lottery, and when it's all over most of the population will be held in the bonds of slavery. No one will remember a time before slavery. It will be as though it has always existed. I will never let slavery be abolished again. I give you, and you alone, the choice to be free or enslaved." Which do you choose?

pdonis 13y ago
What does this have to do with anything? I could answer the question as you ask it (of course I would choose to be free), but I don't see how it's relevant to this discussion, because in the real world, slavery is not dictated by Zeus, it is enforced by some humans on other humans.
- mitochondrion 13y ago
  Let me rephrase: For much of history, civilizations and other groups of people took conquered peoples as slaves to support the conquerors' lifestyles. The slaves served as the cheap energy that today has been supplanted by fossil fuels. Our Western lifestyle is predicated upon these fossil fuels in much the same way that prior societies' lifestyles were based upon slavery. Slavery has undesirable characteristics that we (being dependent on it no longer) are free to scorn the evils of. Fossil fuels also have undesirable characteristics: they're polluting the atmosphere, polluting the water, and releasing boatloads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Sea levels are rising, coral are dying, and storms are projected to continue increasing in magnitude. Perhaps you've heard the economics saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. And there's absolutely nothing we can do to convince anyone else to stop using fossil fuels. If you're anything like me (and other normal humans), you ignore the costs associated with your actions and continue to use fossil fuels for transport, for food, and for electricity to power your electronic gadgets. To change your lifestyle would require severe unpleasantness. *edit for clarity
  - pdonis 13y ago
    Ok, this makes things a lot clearer. > You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. Depends on the alternative. If the alternative is a much lower standard of living, you're right, there's no way you're going to convince a significant number of people to choose that alternative. (You and I are both providing evidence of that just by having this discussion in this forum.) OTOH, if the alternative is using non-fossil-fuel sources of energy to maintain our standard of living, I'm all for that. I think the chief obstacle in the way of that is people's unwillingness to accept that any source of energy will have some undesirable characteristics. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies to any way of achieving a standard of living beyond bare subsistence. So the goal can't be to find an energy source that has no undesirable characteristics; the best we can do is to find sources that have less net undesirability, so to speak, than fossil fuels--just as fossil fuels have less net undesirability (by a very large margin, IMO) than slavery. There are at least two such sources that I can think of that have the potential of supporting a first world standard of living: nuclear, and solar done right.
    - mitochondrion 13y ago
      I totally agree with what you've said, although I personally think that in terms of long-term misery that fossil fuels have the potential to be just as damaging as slavery.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        > I personally think that in terms of long-term misery that fossil fuels have the potential to be just as damaging as slavery. To me that says that you are either drastically overestimating the potential misery due to fossil fuels or drastically underestimating the actual misery that was caused by slavery.
        anonbanker 13y ago
        perhaps you could cite some sources that would calibrate those of us that agree with the GP's mindset.
pharrington 13y ago
I try to kill Zeus.

pdonis 13y ago

What does this have to do with anything? I could answer the question as you ask it (of course I would choose to be free), but I don't see how it's relevant to this discussion, because in the real world, slavery is not dictated by Zeus, it is enforced by some humans on other humans.

mitochondrion 13y ago
Let me rephrase: For much of history, civilizations and other groups of people took conquered peoples as slaves to support the conquerors' lifestyles. The slaves served as the cheap energy that today has been supplanted by fossil fuels. Our Western lifestyle is predicated upon these fossil fuels in much the same way that prior societies' lifestyles were based upon slavery. Slavery has undesirable characteristics that we (being dependent on it no longer) are free to scorn the evils of. Fossil fuels also have undesirable characteristics: they're polluting the atmosphere, polluting the water, and releasing boatloads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Sea levels are rising, coral are dying, and storms are projected to continue increasing in magnitude. Perhaps you've heard the economics saying, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. And there's absolutely nothing we can do to convince anyone else to stop using fossil fuels. If you're anything like me (and other normal humans), you ignore the costs associated with your actions and continue to use fossil fuels for transport, for food, and for electricity to power your electronic gadgets. To change your lifestyle would require severe unpleasantness. *edit for clarity
- pdonis 13y ago
  Ok, this makes things a lot clearer. > You and I are so utterly dependent on this source of energy that our brains can't fully comprehend the consequences of choosing the alternative. Depends on the alternative. If the alternative is a much lower standard of living, you're right, there's no way you're going to convince a significant number of people to choose that alternative. (You and I are both providing evidence of that just by having this discussion in this forum.) OTOH, if the alternative is using non-fossil-fuel sources of energy to maintain our standard of living, I'm all for that. I think the chief obstacle in the way of that is people's unwillingness to accept that any source of energy will have some undesirable characteristics. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" applies to any way of achieving a standard of living beyond bare subsistence. So the goal can't be to find an energy source that has no undesirable characteristics; the best we can do is to find sources that have less net undesirability, so to speak, than fossil fuels--just as fossil fuels have less net undesirability (by a very large margin, IMO) than slavery. There are at least two such sources that I can think of that have the potential of supporting a first world standard of living: nuclear, and solar done right.
  - mitochondrion 13y ago
    I totally agree with what you've said, although I personally think that in terms of long-term misery that fossil fuels have the potential to be just as damaging as slavery.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      > I personally think that in terms of long-term misery that fossil fuels have the potential to be just as damaging as slavery. To me that says that you are either drastically overestimating the potential misery due to fossil fuels or drastically underestimating the actual misery that was caused by slavery.
      - anonbanker 13y ago
        perhaps you could cite some sources that would calibrate those of us that agree with the GP's mindset.

pharrington 13y ago

I try to kill Zeus.