Collapse

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This is the place for discussing the potential collapse of modern civilization and the environment.

Collapse, in this context, refers to the significant loss of an established level or complexity towards a much simpler state. It can occur differently within many areas, orderly or chaotically, and be willing or unwilling. It does not necessarily imply human extinction or a singular, global event. Although, the longer the duration, the more it resembles a ‘decline’ instead of collapse.

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What to make of this new Abundance school? (www.simonandschuster.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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This book is creating quite a buzz. See the basics and one review among many.

People being what they are, there's no doubt that this is an election-winning agenda for the Democrats. And the authors are both very serious people. I'm reluctant to write off Ezra Klein, who IMO is not just very smart but also circumspect and fair-minded.

But all this also looks to me like an advanced case of deluded wishful thinking. Or of "cornucopian economics", as EO Wilson called it.

What to conclude?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

absolutely standard of living is severely restrained by laws that actively block humans from solving their problems.

Just think about it like this. for the cost of 1 years california minimum wage in materials and using my own labor i could build a permanent house that is small but completely adequate for me to last the rest of my life sheltered never again paying rent. The reason people cant do that is simply its illegal.

then think about zoning , the reason people even need cars and all the HUGE expenses associated with that is because its illegal to put stores , cafes, multi service gov offices, and other things where people need them where the people live .

our society is batshit crazy and the thing that drives me insane about this personally , when you talk to any yuppie about this they will absolutely irrationally freak out as if anything changing around the way things are is an existential threat. the reaction to the ideas like this are so extreme, to them it is inconceivable, and i dont understand what the origin of this particular mental blockage and emotional reaction is to them.

HOWEVER , another deeper issue is economic rent-seeking where people extract wealth in a way that is negative to standard of living, See georgism / geoism/ progress and poverty book to understand. there are types of economic activity that are creating more pies and selling them which generally ends up with more pie and cheaper for everyone, and then there is rent seeeking which is taking one pie, taking control of it then selling microslices to the highest bidders while using some profits to lobby making laws that say its illegal for pie makers to compete by producing more pies.

its good that the dems are at least trying to come up with something and recognize the working class matter but its too little too late. the dems heads are so far up their owns asses i don't see them managing to escape their elite bubble and ideological straight jackets anytime soon until enough of these neoliberal dinosaurs die off.

wouldnt surprise me if we have to go through full civil war with fascists first. and then the most likely outcome isnt reform its just a pendulum swing to authoritarian leftism rather than reason.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Your conclusion I definitely share.

Otherwise you're making many of the same points as the authors. Perhaps you should read their book, you might feel more optimistic! They seem to be advocating 20th century liberalism, with tons of planning, and spending, and big public projects, and knocking down any regulations that get in the way, including billionaire tax loopholes. And a relentless focus on economic growth and more-more-more. You want all this, the voters probably want it, I probably want it.

But can the biosphere handle this? Why is this not ecologically illiterate? That's still my question here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are some papers about distributing resources so that everyone has enough. we can elevate standard of living while reducing ecological impact. Much of the west is miserable because despite having tons of clothes and TVs and iphones etc... they dont have basic shit like shelter or healthcare or friends. just this hollow life on the treadmill miserable. So you could substantially reduce the GDP of somewhere like america while potentially increasing gross national happiness just by doing something like legalizing shelter , reducing workweeks , having community bbqs and block parties , switching roads for bike lanes etc.... Lower total ecological impact but have better life.

then with resources that would go to all the rich first worlders distribute those resources to people in actual material poverty like the ones starving to the point of permanent stunting.

Then if we continue with womens rights and birth control we can taper off the human population to sustainable levels over the next 200 years without requiring draconian measures. we just have to make it past the next few hundred and come out the other side in a good place.

We dont have the top down global coordination to do this so we will just crash this train and have to pick up from degraded afterfuture. best to start making small scale lifeboat communitiies to practice this stuff

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Little to disagree with there.

We dont have the top down global coordination to do this

True. But why? This is where I diverge from the standard theory of greens and leftists - roughly, that it's all a conspiracy of greedy selfish capitalists and elites. Personally, I'm inclined to look right inside our nature as biological beings. When you analyze it this way, in a way it's surprising that we've made it this far without crashing our population catastrophically.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i think the argument can be made that about 4% of the population are sociopaths and they rise to the top. if we continually liquidated them we could get to a new equilibrium that wasn't dystopia.

the domesticated people who just folllow and do their bidding like zombies are the source of power unfortunately.

unfortunately the benevolent do not rise to the top or else the good could harness the followers rather than the malevolent using them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This seems to me to be an absolutely terrible take and a recipe for completely societal breakdown if not genocide. But of course I recognize your right to have it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

whats the terrible take? im just describing society