The Communication Cube

[netcat]

Some say our behavior is fine overpopulation is the problem. Ok. What’s the solution then?

Its painfully clear many of my basic everyday activities trash the planet. For instance buying lunch.

And most green initiatives are PR stunts, half-assed at best and counterproductive actually.

 

[TeDaDeS]

Some say our behavior is fine overpopulation is the problem. Ok. What’s the solution then?

Its painfully clear many of my basic everyday activities trash the planet. For instance buying lunch.

And most green initiatives are PR stunts, half-assed at best and counterproductive actually.

I think we need more people but less stuff, especially things that are obviously future trash. In my opinion gadgets like computers and smartphones could help there. Although the process of making a chip is still very polluting, so there needs to be a good balance there.
We improved and optimized food creation for years already and we are able to easily feed everyone. But also in this case, we somewhat overdid that part by also feeding loads of animals to produce meats. So a healthy balance between all those things could already help a lot. But as for now it probably doesn't happen, as the trend is that everyone wants more when possible. In-line with that though giving people everything digital sounds more promising compared to giving everyone real stuff, digital food doesn't exist though.

 

[pyrat]

Some say our behavior is fine overpopulation is the problem. Ok. What’s the solution then?

Don't have children. You no longer have a planet to give them to live on anyway.

Its painfully clear many of my basic everyday activities trash the planet. For instance buying lunch.

Just keep that in mind and do less, less often.

And most green initiatives are PR stunts, half-assed at best and counterproductive actually.

Not sure most. In any case it's better to go against capitalism that subscribe to green washing. Just don't consume, that's it. Train yourself to need less and less each day.

I think we need more people but less stuff, especially things that are obviously future trash. In my opinion gadgets like computers and smartphones could help there. Although the process of making a chip is still very polluting, so there needs to be a good balance there.
We improved and optimized food creation for years already and we are able to easily feed everyone. But also in this case, we somewhat overdid that part by also feeding loads of animals to produce meats. So a healthy balance between all those things could already help a lot. But as for now it probably doesn't happen, as the trend is that everyone wants more when possible. In-line with that though giving people everything digital sounds more promising compared to giving everyone real stuff, digital food doesn't exist though.

It's not physical or digital. Digital goods take a lot of energy and datacenters cause a lot of waste. It's possibly more ecological to borrow a book from a library than to keep thousands of servers ready to stream a film for you.
About gadgets, the thing is trying to get as few as you can and as repairable as you can. This means free software, no blobs, etc. So that you can keep using one gadget instead of throwing them away.
And about services try to avoid any service that requires newish gadgetry. That's consumism. And of course no DRM, etc.
There's a form of sustainability in cutting dependencies. If an ebook reader can save trees since it doesn't require paper, but it needs chips that are only made in a part of the world where you can't vote and try to ensure environment and humans are respected, then mayeb book crossing is better than ebook readers.
Anything you can fix yourself is better than anythign you need someone to fix, but that's better that anythign that you have to throw away...
I don't think less is more, but less is better.

 

[TeDaDeS]

Don't have children. You no longer have a planet to give them to live on anyway.

Just keep that in mind and do less, less often.

Not sure most. In any case it's better to go against capitalism that subscribe to green washing. Just don't consume, that's it. Train yourself to need less and less each day.

It's not physical or digital. Digital goods take a lot of energy and datacenters cause a lot of waste. It's possibly more ecological to borrow a book from a library than to keep thousands of servers ready to stream a film for you.
About gadgets, the thing is trying to get as few as you can and as repairable as you can. This means free software, no blobs, etc. So that you can keep using one gadget instead of throwing them away.
And about services try to avoid any service that requires newish gadgetry. That's consumism. And of course no DRM, etc.
There's a form of sustainability in cutting dependencies. If an ebook reader can save trees since it doesn't require paper, but it needs chips that are only made in a part of the world where you can't vote and try to ensure environment and humans are respected, then mayeb book crossing is better than ebook readers.
Anything you can fix yourself is better than anythign you need someone to fix, but that's better that anythign that you have to throw away...
I don't think less is more, but less is better.

Digital doesn't always mean internet. You could store loads of data centrally but offline. That would require travel again to retrieve data.
Digital transfer (internet) would replace some travelling, which also costs energy. I guess humans are already pretty efficient for (short distance) travel compared to internet infrastructure.

 

[pyrat]

Digital doesn't always mean internet. You could store loads of data centrally but offline. That would require travel again to retrieve data.
Digital transfer (internet) would replace some travelling, which also costs energy. I guess humans are already pretty efficient for (short distance) travel compared to internet infrastructure.

Ah, OK. You're right. I was speaking about how people do things and you about how we could do it well.

 

[netcat]

don't consume, that's it

This is what I meant by counterproductive. They make you believe that you are doing your part by modifying your behaviour insignificantly. Meanwhile automobile emissions (and profits) continue unchanged.

 

[TeDaDeS]

I think most people are sensible and would try to do the 'best' thing. But it appears there isn't a consensus about what 'best' is.

For example: Old cars pollute more, so you'd want people to have modern cars. But producing modern cars is polluting also, but keeping old cars forever isn't an option either. Electric cars fail faster, as batteries just don't last for 15 years like gasoline cars. And you don't want to have cars that long either, so is consumerist behavior actually needed here? Or should we remove intensives to travel by car, use cleaner ways for traveling or remove reasons to travel (like travel to work for jobs that not really required physical presents). Should companies be incentivized to hire more local people that don't require much travel and require others to move closer (maybe having to reject more capable future employees that don't want to move). How much would that improve the situation, as usually we don't know. One thing is for sure: if you're in a country that is really poor you probably don't care, you just want to feed your family. If everyone on the planet has enough food they'll be able to care about the planet to.

 

[pyrat]

This is what I meant by counterproductive. They make you believe that you are doing your part by modifying your behaviour insignificantly. Meanwhile automobile emissions (and profits) continue unchanged.

Well yes. Consuming has two parts. One is you get a product or service, and that may have a backpack of negative impacts in its production. This part may be greenwashed or even maybe really mitigated.
But the other part is you pay money for it. You pay to someone who you can't control what does with your (ex-your) money. So that money is potentially spent on things with negative impacts. If you pay locally and your society has strong compulsory rules on negative impacts you might have some hope on the impacts of your spending, but that's daydreaming in the current world.
That's because "pecunia non olet", and that is the most important property of money. Money has no meaning because that's necessary for everyone to agree on a meaning (an empty meaning). Money is just a number, and it's value is a belief system or a majoritary religion, something abstract and transcendental that can't be fixed or measured, where everyone tries to get more value for their money, but that value does never mean the same to two people.
Capitalism accumulates money and desincentevises any work not done for money (by starving the masses so they have to use all their work for survival). So the power of the rich is always above the power of the regulators, be they democratic or totalitarian.
There is no way you can move money around and pretend to observe some ethical rules. You can do political work, or even vote and pretend that results in regulation and enforcement that may have some impact (we're far from that, but it's a theoretical possibiliity),
but anything you pay for instead of doing yourself is sure to eventually help some activity you disagree with. Because that's the main purpose of money: decoupling good and services (and therefore any ethic evaluataion of those) from one another. Instead of exchanging a kilo of potatos from someone you know plant them as they should for a spoon you know how you made, you sale your spon for a dollar and buy the potatos with it. That dollar comes from anywhere and goes to anywhere (legal, hopefully).
So to fix the world you need better regulation, and work on that, but your personal contribution can only be not to move money. Don't earn money and don't spend money. If you do it radically you'll starve (and you'll starve alone). So do it as much as you can but survive and even enjoy your life. Nobody said life had to be easy.

 

[TeDaDeS]

Capitalism accumulates money and deincentivizes any work not done for money (by starving the masses so they have to use all their work for survival). So the power of the rich is always above the power of the regulators, be they democratic or totalitarian.

"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit."
Capitalism doesn't force people to join the system, that's governments forcing you to own a bank account and pay taxes. Capitalism doesn't mean you need a money to purchase something, you can still just trade with others using goods or services. If you want to own anything, you either make it yourself or buy them with something, that's your own choice.
Having a political system in place that can resist forces from wealthy individuals is probably needed. Somewhat related example about this kind of influence: the WHO is ~30% funded by governments and the rest is by donations that usually have special requests attached to it.
Capitalism, free-markets, democratic government: it's not the best, but best we appear to have at the moment. Not having capitalism means you might not own stuff and can't control means of production,it's handled by the (possible corrupt) government, which might be worst than being poor.

 

[ElPoco]

Not having capitalism means you might not own stuff and can't control means of production,it's handled by the (possible corrupt) government, which might be worst than being poor.

There are plenty of economic system other than capitalism that have private property. In a gift economy, people still own their stuff. They just exchange it differently from how it's done in a market economy.

There's also a difference between private property and personal property. You can have an economic system where resources are pooled but even if your toothbrush isn't your private property, it's still yours and exclusively yours. But you didn't "buy" it, it was allocated to you from the common pool of resources.

As for the means of production, some schools of thought like anarcho-syndicalism have them controlled by the workers themselves.

I'm not sure that capitalism is the best we have/can have. I find this discourse quite saddening. It's like Thatcher's "there's no alternative". It' the death of imagination. It might also be the literal death of many people, since capitalism seems completely unadapted to our current challenges.

 

[TeDaDeS]

I'm not sure that capitalism is the best we have/can have. I find this discourse quite saddening. It's like Thatcher's "there's no alternative". It' the death of imagination. It might also be the literal death of many people, since capitalism seems completely unadapted to our current challenges.

Some times things could change in the long term, but first you need to win on the short term (which usually isn't fair). But life usually isn't fair either, it's a miracle our planet and all life on it even exist I guess.

Regarding capitalism, with best I mean: until now, the countries that raised the most people out of poverty are capitalist countries. I define best in this case as: improving everyone's life.
If you look at which animal on this planet is 'best', you could claim it might be humans. We can adapt ourselves and can co-operate locally and globally. Do we also not co-operate and harm each other: yes. But if everything goes as it's now going, looks like humans will survive most situations (until we are all dead, and some bacteria and small celled organisms still live making them win). Making us winners compared to much cuter and friendlier animals.

Take free open-source software for example. You could state this is sort of a gift-economy, as people donate time and effort to make something they'll not sell. Everyone can (re-)use it for free, which is great.
Compare this with closed source commercial software. Those companies are usually out-lived by their open-source counter parts, still they can sometimes achieve things much faster with sometimes superior results.
Eventually open-source might be a better model (cuter and friendlier) but doesn't mean it will eventually win compared to other strategies. Usually fair strategies don't win. Human for example optimized for short term living, not for a long term (due to evolution) which sucks for us.

 

[netcat]

Capitalism is decentralised allocation of capital designed to weed out inefficient companies. Was a great idea and it worked. It's logical endpoint is total exploitation/depletion of all resources but the idea is we will achieve utopia and change course before then. Rapid environmental degradation was not a major concern and indeed I don't see an easy way out, a way to be clean and adequately wealthy (in general).

 

[Djoga'Ro]

There's also a difference between private property and personal property. You can have an economic system where resources are pooled but even if your toothbrush isn't your private property, it's still yours and exclusively yours. But you didn't "buy" it, it was allocated to you from the common pool of resources.

Ah, 'Bind on Pickup".

the countries that raised the most people out of poverty are capitalist countries.

Honest question, did one do so without war or its aftermath?

 

[TeDaDeS]

Honest question, did one do so without war or its aftermath?

I think all countries were involved in war at some point. I wouldn't know if you can link it to capitalism. As mentioned capitalism is just a small aspect of a country. An economic system that allows you to produce and sell your own things to me doesn't imply you would increase the need of war.
In my experience it's usually not the preference of most people to go to war.

 

[netcat]

 

[Djoga'Ro]

I think all countries were involved in war at some point. I wouldn't know if you can link it to capitalism. As mentioned capitalism is just a small aspect of a country. An economic system that allows you to produce and sell your own things to me doesn't imply you would increase the need of war.
In my experience it's usually not the preference of most people to go to war.

I mean that raising people out of poverty aspect in particular. I rather think capitalism tends to throw most people into poverty. Though around war it seems to be able to indeed have enough employment for all - like say Germany rebuilding after WWII.

 

[TeDaDeS]

I mean that raising people out of poverty aspect in particular. I rather think capitalism tends to throw most people into poverty. Though around war it seems to be able to indeed have enough employment for all - like say Germany rebuilding after WWII.

That appears to be a common perception of capitalism. Again, having people being able to produce their own things and sell them doesn't make people poor, it usually makes them more productive.
If you look at countries that adopted capitalism, is your general perception they have the most poor people? Usually countries that only allow people to work in government owned facilities have a lower standard.
If I remember correctly the 1% keeps roughly 2% of the value they add to the economy, which is still a lot of money obviously. And this money isn't made by stealing from people, they sell products or services that generate income from consumers.
People are usually free to buy or pay for a service, it's not government mandated you use Netflix or buy chocolate bars. People usually buy those because they want to, and companies, the owners and employees earn money that way.
If many people produce and sell products you usually get higher quality at a lower price. Take Apple with their highly priced iPhones, those things are expensive for sure. But Apple set a standard and is pushing all other companies to improve and be cheaper.
They do this so much that I see people in every country have a phone even if they don't have a place to sleep. Are capitalist countries also using China low-wage production: for sure, even Apple hasn't been able to stop that yet.
But if I remember correctly China still makes most money from these kind of hybrid free-market activities, raising the average wealth for every citizen. Hopefully to a point where their situation is acceptable.
Usually if you don't have a choice, due to lack of competition, you run into issues. In a free-market place competition could start competing, as prices are too high. Governments can act to create or break those situations if needed.
But as far as I see, having people making goods and services for their own profit makes it possible everyone can have things for a reasonable price. It's not directly tied to wars and I also don't see everyone being poor in capitalist countries.
I've found this quote to summarize my text: "Not all capitalist countries are successful, but all successful countries are capitalist". If some country tries something different and succeeds, I bet everyone will start doing that to.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

We are to productive technologically. So there's not enough work for everybody and for most positions you get employees at a discount rate.

 

[Null]

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[netcat]

China still makes most money from these kind of hybrid free-market activities, raising the average wealth for every citizen

China is an interesting case. Everyone just sold their farms and moved into a city because it the gov promoted it but now you can only get a degrading service sector job, have much less space and breath dirty air. But you can afford gadgets.

The golden age of capitalism is behind us. In the 80's everyone had a comfortable suburban home but now we all live in small apartments. China, South Korea and many other developing nations leapfrogged into heavy urbanization trying to be modern but now the younger generation have a much lower standard of living, high suicide rates and low birth rates. I can tell you for a fact Korea is not a balanced, optimistic society.

So we're at the tail end of capitalism. It worked great for North America, Europe and Japan but trying to get on board now seems like a poor choice. China - with their iron-grip regime - missed the boat. We are now further from utopia.

Capitalism is about companies competing on quality and cost. But now competition is so fierce if you want to survive you best be a mega-corporation. And children now start studying 8+ hours a day at age 7, effectively sacrificing their youth. For what? There aren't enough jobs so it's all such a waste, nature is gone and you can only afford processed food. But you look good on tiktok.