Doomstead

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 02:31 AMWe appear to be having ourselves an online debate even if I didn't ask for one.

Here on the Diner you don't have to ask for a debate in order for one to pop into existence out of the infinite pool of ideas out in the ether waiting to be explored by curious sentient life forms, in this case homo saps.  It's the distinguishing feature of Diner participation.  So are disagreements on core beliefs and periodic napalm contests where members involved in a particularly heated disagreement devolve into ad hom argument and language usage generally not considered acceptable in a court of law or formal debate according to Robert's Rules.  :)  I try to maintain order when things get out of hand.  So far, you guys are doing fine, just a reminder to stay cool.

RE

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 03:18 AMTo answer your question, democratic management is necessarily rational.

I haven't found that to be true, since a democracy is composed of people and people aren't always rational.  In fact, as often as not they are irrational, governed by emotions and seduced by their appetites.  They are easily habituated and addiction prone.  The are not created equal in many respects, from physical attributes like size and strength to a range of intelligence that goes from dumb as rocks to theoretical physicists and social, religious and mystical philosophers.  They have hormonal differences that make some incredibly aggressive and others ridiculously passive.  Half carry & birth new ones, the other half doesn't. Some are followers who if you don't tell the to tie their shoes they will trip every day, others are leaders who won't do anything anybody else tells them to do.  etc, etc, etc.

Democracy tends to fail because of all of these inequalities, and you can't legislate them out of existence.  The larger and more complex the society becomes, the greater becomes the problems inherent in all these differences.  Our genetic evolution and reproductive strategy is closest to Bonobos, and anthropologically speaking, the best we ever did on a social level was as small groups of Hunter-Gatherers.  With the advent of agriculture and large civilizations, a whole slew of moral imperatives, rules and social structures have evolved to keep these unwieldy size groupings of people organized, and all of them are flawed.  The Nation State was bad enough, Globalism has made it totally unsustainable.  Most of the problems we have as a society actually predate industrialization and Marx, they go back to the dawn of civilization in prehistoric times.

Far as my claims for what human nature is, it is to live as Bonobos do.  But ya can't do that with 8 Billion people infesting every square inch of habitable land.  If were going to have a society of Homo Saps that accurately reflects human nature, we'll need a serious reduction in population.

RE

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 03:18 AMThe majority of people aren't choosing to do anything with fossil fuels........ Why wouldn't they choose to rationally manage fossil fuels, population etc?

Excellent point. 

The way we live our lives is dictated by culture and power.  As citizens we are dis-empowered.  With isolating technologies now deployed to make sure people only connect in ways power finds acceptable.

A tax on carbon paid to all citizens (with which they can buy anything they want) What would happen?

This dog would make sure I spend less on carbon.  I would want to use less than average so I have tax money left to invest on happiness.

Others would ENVY the prosperity of my ways.

A low carbon lifestyle would become socially acceptable and common.  There would be a cascade effect. Low carbon would become a thing. All this would happen from a tax on carbon that gets distributed as a UBI.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 16, 2024, 12:34 AMA tax on carbon paid to all citizens (with which they can buy anything they want) What would happen?

Although I agree a Carbon tax is an essential component of reducing consumption of FFs, like all end-user sales taxes it's highly regressive and hits low income people much harder than it does the rich.  Fuel for transpotation to work and home heating consumes a much larger percentage of a min wage worker than it does a CEO.  While the Starbucks barrista may not be able to afford gas for the beater he drives to work to serve lattes to the CEO, the CEO will still easily have plenty of money to buy fuel for his Private Jet to fly down to Brazil for afternoon coffee break and have his coffee brewed from beans recently picked and roasted on his plantation just outside of Rio.

How would you structure the carbon tax scheme to in a progressive manner so that it hits the rich harder than the poor?

(https://as1.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/03/16/13/54/1000_F_316135453_JauP9CN5qs0Jkdj9ZuxmsDhGzZrXXbLg.jpg)

RE

QuoteAlthough I agree a Carbon tax is an essential component of reducing consumption of FFs, like all end-user sales taxes it's highly regressive and hits low income people much harder than it does the rich.  Fuel for transpotation to work and home heating consumes a much larger percentage of a min wage worker than it does a CEO.  While the Starbucks barrista may not be able to afford gas for the beater he drives to work to serve lattes to the CEO, the CEO will still easily have plenty of money to buy fuel for his Private Jet to fly down to Brazil for afternoon coffee break and have his coffee brewed from beans recently picked and roasted on his plantation just outside of Rio.

I am going to be blunt.  I thought you had a brain.  You totally do not understand how CARBON DIVIDENDS work and how they are fundamentally different than a CARBON TAX. 

You have not bothered to do any research on the subject.  If you had you would know they are fundamentally different.

If you don't like me being so blunt, too bad.  If I am not blunt about this then you (concerning this idea) are no better than a troll who comes in and throws a hand grenade into this discussion.

Get clear on this.  What you call a 'tax' is collected at the point of origin AND NOWHERE ELSE. This is an iron clad rule of carbon dividends.  This way all proceeds are passed on to all people equally.  As it can only be collected at the point of carbon extraction carbon dividends cannot be an actual tax.  It is impossible to itemize carbon dividends on a receipt.  Taxes can always be visible.

Iron clad rule number one, essential for equal distribution of dividends.

Second rule, you can't call carbon dividends a tax.  GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GET THE MONEY.  Tax money always goes to the government. 

Carbon dividends never do.  The money is EQUALLY DISTRIBUTED TO ALL CITIZENS. 

Iron clad rule number two, essential for equal distribution of dividends.

This second rule makes sure the final math is not fucked up so pay attention. 

If your CEO fuels his private jet and carbon dividends have added $250 dollars on the cost of an hours flight the CEO is going to get $125 dollars BACK into his personal account.  On which he will pay income tax.  Unearned riches transferred from the corporation to the rich, the horror you think?  Like that never happens?  Relax there is more.

THE BARISTA GETS THE OTHER $125. On which they too will pay income tax if they manage to make more than the standard deduction, which AS A BARISTA they will not!

This is not a new idea.  The man on the right (Robin Hood) had a similar idea centuries ago.  He too started collecting 'tax'.  For the government of the people.

Calling carbon dividends a 'tax' makes sense insofar as it is money collected by the government.  But there any similarity ENDS.

Carbon dividend is not a 'tax", as the money  DOES NOT GOT TO GOVERNMENT.  None of it.  No sixty-forty split, nothing to fuck up the math of the final distribution checks. 

Back to the weekly distribution.  The barista only spent $80 for the week on gas.  The Barista only paid $12 extra because of what was taken by collecting the carbon dividend when the oil came out of the ground.

The fucker who flew in the private jet is going to get $6 from the barista, and the barista is going to get $6 back.

Now add it up.  Both the CEO and the barista get a weekly distribution.  Your troll comment:

QuoteFuel for transpotation to work and home heating consumes a much larger percentage of a min wage worker than it does a CEO.

Is irrelevant.  Percentage here is without any relevance at all.  What matters here is that the barista will always use less fuel than the CEO.  They pay less and get more back than they pay in.

$125 + $6 = $131

The barista only spent $80 on gas but got $131.  That is $51 ahead and the barista will be able to get a coffee at AM PM and a $2 chocolate twist on their way to work every day FOR FREE.

And so will I.

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffrenchgourmand.eu%2F4740-large_default%2Fchocolate-twist-90g-70-bridor.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=53bfc3bb7119b3b890ff889261d3b551f9acbc45c644b2b36cc03639a602cc73&ipo=images)

* Some say citizen assemblies would determine the tax rate.  Iron clad rule three.

** The cost of the fuel in the private jet was about $1670.00 A 15% carbon dividend was collected in that total.

*** To all Putin haters.  Hope Putin does not find out about Carbon Dividends and order that all Russians get one.

**** The CEO spent his $125 on cheap sex, got a disease from it.  Then he wound up getting a divorce.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 16, 2024, 11:52 AMThe man on the right (Robin Hood) had a similar idea centuries ago.  He too started collecting 'tax'.

Blunt is fine, and no I haven't done any research on it which was WHY I asked you to elaborate.  Really, take a chill pill.  The BOLD and Big Fonts are wholly unnecessary.

Still not clear on how it works. When does Robin Hood steal the money?  From who does he steal it?  How did the person RH steals the money get it? All the money collected over the year by RH from this person/entity is thrown into a pile divided equally among all citizens?  Does that include all the kids also?

RE

The money is taken at the wellhead.  At first sale.  If a dollar worth of oil is pulled out of the ground a percentage of value is taken.  The percentage determined by a citizens assembly.  After that the cost is simply passed on as markup in the distribution chain. 

The money is equally distributed and kids get a percentage starting at 16.  Younger kids don't use gasoline or diesel, and the money needs go to people who use oil products.  Young kids are excluded.  They do not buy anything.

The users of oil products need to use their part of the payout to offset the extra cost that must be passed on after collecting the dividend.  The point of the dividend is to compensate the average user for now more expensive gasoline or whatever carbon product they are addicted to.  If everyone used the same amount of carbon, carbon dividends would do absolutely nothing.

But some people use more fossil fuel products than others do.  Those who use more wind up giving money to people who use less.  That is the whole point of carbon dividends, and why money should not be given to citizens too young to drive.  Age 16 makes sense for a lot of reasons as the starting age.  Younger kids use fossil fuel products, but adults pay for them.

It is essential that all the money collected be equally distributed.  The point is to make carbon dividends invisible to the average user.  But those who use more fossil fuel products than average will pay more because they use more.  People who use less than average essentially get a small UBI.

The barista who only rides the bus makes bank.  She only pays a slightly higher bus fare. 

Homeless people get the most money from Carbon Dividends.  Maybe enough to keep them fed and in a good tent.  A lot better than the fuck all they get now.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 16, 2024, 11:52 AM

QuoteFuel for transpotation to work and home heating consumes a much larger percentage of a min wage worker than it does a CEO.

Is irrelevant.  Percentage here is without any relevance at all.  What matters here is that the barista will always use less fuel than the CEO.  They pay less and get more back than they pay in.

$125 + $6 = $131

The barista only spent $80 on gas but got $131.  That is $51 ahead and the barista will be able to get a coffee at AM PM and a $2 chocolate twist on their way to work every day FOR FREE.

This works only if there is a CEO for every J6P, but there isn't.  10,000 J6Ps pay in the tax on the $80/wk of gas for every 1 CEO that pays in tax on $1670 in jet fuel.  Lets use round numbers now to make the calculations easier.  Say it's $100 for the gas & $2000 for the jet fuel.  Make the tax 10%.  Each J6P pays $10 X 10,000 J6Ps = $100,000.  CEO pays $200 in tax.  Total Revenue = $100,200.  When the tax is returned, each person gets $100,200/10,001 people, or >$10 but <$10.01 back.  The CEO has paid $200, each J6P received less than a penny more than they paid in.  Granted, the scheme doesn't cost J6P any more money, but nobody's getting rich on their carbon dividend here.  Nor will the CEO be too worried about spending $200 extra for his jet fuel.  You also have to pay the bureaucrats running this scheme.

If I missed something here, please lemme know without the big fonts.  I still may not understand how it's supposed to work correctly.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 17, 2024, 01:43 AMIf I missed something here, please lemme know without the big fonts.  I still may not understand how it's supposed to work correctly.

RE

While it is true that most carbon taxes are regressive, there is one carbon pricing policy that is actually anti-regressive and helps lower income people the most. It's called Fee and Dividend and it is quite simple: A fee is collected from fossil fuel companies at the point where fossil fuels enter the domestic market — at the mine, well or port of entry. The fee starts small — about $15 per ton of carbon dioxide embedded in the fuel – and goes up $10 every year.

What does that mean for consumers? By the time it reaches $100 per ton, the fee will raise gasoline prices 90 cents per gallon. It will also raise the price of every product or activity that relies on fossil fuels. This higher price will spur development of low carbon energy and products made with little or no fossil fuels, driving a transition to a clean energy economy.

Here is the key to Fee and Dividend: The money collected — every penny — is distributed as a dividend to all legal residents on an equal basis. You and Bill Gates get the same amount, received every month in your bank account, or on a debit card if you have no bank. The dividend will be substantial — a $100 per ton carbon fee with today's fossil fuel use translates to about $5,500 per year for a family of four — a significant sum for lower income Americans.

Because wealthy people generate much more carbon dioxide than poor or middle-class people do, the dividend for almost all lower income people will exceed the increased prices they pay due to the carbon fee. In fact, the U.S. Treasury Department estimates that the bottom 70 percent of households by income will make money under Fee and Dividend, with the poorest having the biggest increase. The top 30 percent of households will pay more in higher prices than they get in the dividend, but it won't be a big relative cost for them. 

source: JAMES E. HANSEN

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 17, 2024, 11:30 AM

Quote from: RE on Apr 17, 2024, 01:43 AMIf I missed something here, please lemme know without the big fonts.  I still may not understand how it's supposed to work correctly.

RE

While it is true that most carbon taxes are regressive, there is one carbon pricing policy that is actually anti-regressive and helps lower income people the most. It's called Fee and Dividend and it is quite simple: A fee is collected from fossil fuel companies at the point where fossil fuels enter the domestic market — at the mine, well or port of entry. The fee starts small — about $15 per ton of carbon dioxide embedded in the fuel – and goes up $10 every year.

What does that mean for consumers? By the time it reaches $100 per ton, the fee will raise gasoline prices 90 cents per gallon. It will also raise the price of every product or activity that relies on fossil fuels. This higher price will spur development of low carbon energy and products made with little or no fossil fuels, driving a transition to a clean energy economy.

Here is the key to Fee and Dividend: The money collected — every penny — is distributed as a dividend to all legal residents on an equal basis. You and Bill Gates get the same amount, received every month in your bank account, or on a debit card if you have no bank. The dividend will be substantial — a $100 per ton carbon fee with today's fossil fuel use translates to about $5,500 per year for a family of four — a significant sum for lower income Americans.

Because wealthy people generate much more carbon dioxide than poor or middle-class people do, the dividend for almost all lower income people will exceed the increased prices they pay due to the carbon fee. In fact, the U.S. Treasury Department estimates that the bottom 70 percent of households by income will make money under Fee and Dividend, with the poorest having the biggest increase. The top 30 percent of households will pay more in higher prices than they get in the dividend, but it won't be a big relative cost for them. 

source: JAMES E. HANSEN

Well, I get the concept there to make it antiregressive and transfer money from the rich to the poor, but I would have to see the way the money distributes out, and my sense is that the estra cost will not affect Bill Gates at all, obviously he can pay anything you could charge.

For the really poor who make less than $50K year, an extra $5K will be a nice bonus if they drive 0 miles, and don't take public transport, but few are that low in carbon footprint.

The average person with average income driving average miles will end up even at zero.

As you move outward on the curve away from the median, above average consumers would pay more and get back less on a scale going from 0--->$5500  Below average $5500-->0.  Basically it would be a reversion to the mean with some above average income people spending less, but past a certain income they don't give a shit.  Lower income people would get a bonus, but would probably use the money to take a vacation or burn carbon in some other way.

So, bottom line I still don't see it reducing consumption all that much.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 15, 2024, 04:13 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 02:31 AMWe appear to be having ourselves an online debate even if I didn't ask for one.

Here on the Diner you don't have to ask for a debate in order for one to pop into existence out of the infinite pool of ideas out in the ether waiting to be explored by curious sentient life forms, in this case homo saps.  It's the distinguishing feature of Diner participation.  So are disagreements on core beliefs and periodic napalm contests where members involved in a particularly heated disagreement devolve into ad hom argument and language usage generally not considered acceptable in a court of law or formal debate according to Robert's Rules.  :)  I try to maintain order when things get out of hand.  So far, you guys are doing fine, just a reminder to stay cool.

RE

I get it but was caught off guard by this particular disagreement, which is mea culpa for reading the title as being critical of Malm & co in the same way I tend to be.

Quote from: RE on Apr 15, 2024, 04:55 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 03:18 AMTo answer your question, democratic management is necessarily rational.

I haven't found that to be true, since a democracy is composed of people and people aren't always rational.  In fact, as often as not they are irrational, governed by emotions and seduced by their appetites.  They are easily habituated and addiction prone.  The are not created equal in many respects, from physical attributes like size and strength to a range of intelligence that goes from dumb as rocks to theoretical physicists and social, religious and mystical philosophers.  They have hormonal differences that make some incredibly aggressive and others ridiculously passive.  Half carry & birth new ones, the other half doesn't. Some are followers who if you don't tell the to tie their shoes they will trip every day, others are leaders who won't do anything anybody else tells them to do.  etc, etc, etc.

Democracy tends to fail because of all of these inequalities, and you can't legislate them out of existence.  The larger and more complex the society becomes, the greater becomes the problems inherent in all these differences.  Our genetic evolution and reproductive strategy is closest to Bonobos, and anthropologically speaking, the best we ever did on a social level was as small groups of Hunter-Gatherers.  With the advent of agriculture and large civilizations, a whole slew of moral imperatives, rules and social structures have evolved to keep these unwieldy size groupings of people organized, and all of them are flawed.  The Nation State was bad enough, Globalism has made it totally unsustainable.  Most of the problems we have as a society actually predate industrialization and Marx, they go back to the dawn of civilization in prehistoric times.

Far as my claims for what human nature is, it is to live as Bonobos do.  But ya can't do that with 8 Billion people infesting every square inch of habitable land.  If were going to have a society of Homo Saps that accurately reflects human nature, we'll need a serious reduction in population.

RE

Human nature is what human society makes of it, hence not really human nature. The alternative view, yours, is to bring in a third factor which in the post 19th century world tends to be some combination of 1> genes 2> culture and ideology, ie culture/ideology sublimated out of social determinations (at least the direct material/economic kind). I disagree, but without erring in the opposite direction. Those things can and do affect what people become, but I'm unaware of any compelling evidence or theory indicating they override or at any rate function independently of socio-economic constraints and incentives.

Most of the bio/gene stuff was soundly debunked in the 70s and 80s by people like Stephen Jay Gould. The debates today are derivatives of derivatives of the original. We know that genes are not blueprints, that individual genes have diverse expressions across the whole phenotype, and also that Mendelian inheritance patterns only work as they should in theory for artificially regulated and purified lineages.

All of this is uninteresting to me because reality itself as I see it flatly contradicts it, especially through the lens of Marxism + resource-constraint-based analysis that I subscribe to. It is blatantly clear that the standard of what human nature entails is overwhelmingly determined by the given social structure. For example, the slave-based ancient societies thought slaves were naturally inferior to slave-owners, or the members of a powerful genos/clan/tribe superior to weaker ones. Nowadays no one thinks like that, not only because it's considered immoral but also because it doesn't fit in with how this society works. Even human traffickers are just trying to make a buck, same as everyone.

You're expressing the logic of decadent bourgeois liberalism when you postulate an impartial biological lottery, combined with a substratum of flawed human nature being the downfall of civilizations throughout history. If you'd lived in the middle ages, these ideas would have been incoherent (e.g the idea of 'history' as we use it simply did not exist back then). To sum up, your opinion on innate human nature is itself a product of socially determined human nature. Funny ain't it? :)

I find much more interesting your statement that most of the problems of society predate capitalism/industry. This I absolutely agree with. Capitalism is just the latest, greatest manifestation of the rule of alienated wealth over society. Capital is the transhistorical contradiction and capitalism (wage-based profit accumulation), feudalism, slavery etc are the historically progressive stages or forms. Marx himself acknowledged and wrote about this. His magnum opus is after all Capital, not Capitalism.

Anyway, so regardless of the changing structure, the social metabolism has always been rooted in the contradictory metabolism between mankind and nature. To be human is to be conscious of pain, death and scarcity. But that means the contradiction existed ever since humans attained consciousness and was always going to progress towards larger more complex forms of organization capable of manipulating nature in the service of human needs.

This is where the collapse angle is useful. Maybe things just didn't line up the right way for it to reach the stage of (real) democracy. After all capitalism did not develop equally all over the world. It developed in Europe/N America who were insatiable parasites on the global south, which developed only later on and within the severe constraints imposed by the effects of said parasitism. The ability of imperialist countries to stabilise their domestic class antagonisms, combined with discovery of cheaper-than-free oil in the colonial and settler-colonial regions has prolonged capitalism far beyond its historically tenable limits. Marx and Engels predicted socialism--->communism within 50 years, which didn't happen despite the USSR. Even Lenin thought W Europe would be socialist by 1925. Nothing worked out like it should have, and there's no certainty it will this time around.

Hunting-gathering could well be the future... although the level of destruction it would take to get there is likely to cause extinction, not to mention lingering effects of industrial civ like pollution bio-diversity loss and radiation with no means to ameliorate let alone erase them. But even if it happens, it cannot be the solution cus if it was we wouldn't have come to this point to begin with. And it still wouldn't be caused by 'human nature'.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 16, 2024, 12:34 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 15, 2024, 03:18 AMThe majority of people aren't choosing to do anything with fossil fuels........ Why wouldn't they choose to rationally manage fossil fuels, population etc?

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ec/c4/9e/ecc49e3fc5501193d39c7dce8e8f3dc1.jpg)

Excellent point. 

The way we live our lives is dictated by culture and power.  As citizens we are dis-empowered.  With isolating technologies now deployed to make sure people only connect in ways power finds acceptable.

A tax on carbon paid to all citizens (with which they can buy anything they want) What would happen?

This dog would make sure I spend less on carbon.  I would want to use less than average so I have tax money left to invest on happiness.

Others would ENVY the prosperity of my ways.

A low carbon lifestyle would become socially acceptable and common.  There would be a cascade effect. Low carbon would become a thing. All this would happen from a tax on carbon that gets distributed as a UBI.

My problem with these types of ideas is they're always premissed on a 'this far but no further' technocratic logic. Who is defining carbon footprint, what part of that is taxed, and in whose interest? If you say by and for the people, well in that case they would skip this roundabout system of economic redistribution and just organize in a way that minimizes unnecessary surplus/waste. Rainfed tropical land gets less fertilizer than irrigated temperate land unless the added surplus is useful/can be distributed at reasonable energy cost. At that level of international working class coordination production will be centrally directed (just like now). No need to punish/incentivize owners of production, as if that has ever actually helped the mass of producers.

Currently we have nice companies making up reasons for why they're green, then selling the carbon credits they've earned to the naughty companies who can't afford to pretend. Judging by your description I don't see how carbon dividends will work any better under this system. And under a democratic system they'd be unnecessary.

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 22, 2024, 01:31 AMHuman nature is what human society makes of it, hence not really human nature.

That is a circular argument I won't bother giving any credibility to by debating it.

QuoteThe alternative view, yours, is to bring in a third factor which in the post 19th century world tends to be some combination of 1> genes 2> culture and ideology, ie culture/ideology sublimated out of social determinations (at least the direct material/economic kind). I disagree, but without erring in the opposite direction. Those things can and do affect what people become, but I'm unaware of any compelling evidence or theory indicating they override or at any rate function independently of socio-economic constraints and incentives.

Lack of anybody else proposing a theory has never been an impediment for me, I just make my own theories based on what I observe in behavior, both in the animal kingdom and in human society.  There are analogues all over the place in survival strategies for different species, and homo saps demonstrate many of them at different times under different circumstances.  Stockholm Syndrome is a classic example, where captives come to identify with their captors.  Imprinting is another, catch a child early enough in development al sorts of odd behaviors can manifest later.  And so on and so forth.  All of these macro effects come from associations made in the brain by neurons, all mediated by connections that are genetically determined at birth, then react to stimuli along the way.  More or less of various neurotransmitters get produced, further developing a given personality.  Depending of the nature of the environment, it will develop in many different ways.  Your example of slaves in a slave society would be one of a myriad of possible outcomes.  All I am saying is that generally we were most successful as a species under the least complex social organizations.  That would be the baseline of human nature.  All the rest are environmental factors determined by therule set and organization of the society.

QuoteMost of the bio/gene stuff was soundly debunked in the 70s and 80s by people like Stephen Jay Gould. The debates today are derivatives of derivatives of the original. We know that genes are not blueprints, that individual genes have diverse expressions across the whole phenotype, and also that Mendelian inheritance patterns only work as they should in theory for artificially regulated and purified lineages.

All genes do is code for proteins.  We really have no clue how genes program the shysiological structure of the body or brain, why we have 5 fingers and toes, opposed thumbs, a large cerebral cortex, blah blah, but we know all Homo Saps have them unless their genetic code is wickedly messed up.  All our brains are built in basically the same way and respond to stimuli the same way.  Human nature begins inside this structure and is circumscribed by it.  It is genetic, we are born with it before ever being exposed to language or social structures.  Once we pop out of somebody's vagina, we each begin to develop inside that social setting, so thereafter things can change quite a bit.  We nevertheless still have the structure and neuroons and transmitter system we were born with no matter what.  It can and does adapt and change along the way, sometimes irrevocably.  That doesn't mean there isn't a best or at least better set of social conditions for that brain to operate.

QuoteYou're expressing the logic of decadent bourgeois liberalism when you postulate an impartial biological lottery, combined with a substratum of flawed human nature being the downfall of civilizations throughout history. If you'd lived in the middle ages, these ideas would have been incoherent (e.g the idea of 'history' as we use it simply did not exist back then). To sum up, your opinion on innate human nature is itself a product of socially determined human nature. Funny ain't it? :)

Now you're devolving into ad hom argument, name calling me as a "decadent bourgeois liberal".  I thought that kind of nonsense went out of style in the 1920s.  Shall I retaliate and call you a commie pinko leftist?  I don't live in the Middle Ages, evidenced by the fact they didn't have the internet back then.  Obviously I argue based on what I know about the world and biology, behavior and neurochemistry based on stuff that has been elucidated over the last few hundred years.  If you consider scientific knowledge to be bourgeois, I plead guilty.

QuoteHunting-gathering could well be the future... although the level of destruction it would take to get there is likely to cause extinction, not to mention lingering effects of industrial civ like pollution bio-diversity loss and radiation with no means to ameliorate let alone erase them. But even if it happens, it cannot be the solution cus if it was we wouldn't have come to this point to begin with. And it still wouldn't be caused by 'human nature'.

Don't know if it will be the future or the solution, I never said it would be.  I merely said it was the type of organization we were most successful with as a species.  Would it necessarily lead to the same outcome if we did end up returning to that style of living?  No, it can't, because fossil fuels were a onne time shot for homo saps, the earth won't have time to collect them up again for another round of burning.  Also, surviving Homo Saps would not be the same as the original cro-magnons that bootstrapped up from stone tools.  Some knowledge gained over the millenia will persist.  It's not definitive that the same mistakes would be repeated if there is enough left for 1000 breeding pairs to survive this knockdown, as there were 75,000 years ago.

Neither of us will be around to find out thoough, so it's a moot point.

RE

Biofuels Will Be A Key Part Of The Net-Zero Solution.


Imagine a world where jets fly around the planet on fuel sourced from plants, replacing fossil fuels at cost parity, all without displacing huge amounts of forest land and animal life.

Today, such a fantasy probably seems as distant as Mars. Biofuel, which is a type of renewable energy made from living matter, makes up just 10% of U.S. gasoline, mostly in the form of ethanol. Ethanol made from corn provides the equivalent of about 1 million barrels of oil per day, according to Daniel Schrag, a professor of public policy, environmental science and engineering at Harvard University. It's far from enough: the U.S. uses 20 million barrels of oil per day.

"But you can't grow 20 times as much corn to actually eliminate oil from our energy system," Schrag points out. While many motor vehicles will become electrified in the long run, "what you need is oil for the rest of the demand, such as from trucks, ships, and airplanes. There's a big debate about what that winning technology will be."

Environmentalists contend * that the fuel of the future should be green hydrogen energy, which is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity and is neutral in carbon emissions. However, the costs are too high to be competitive with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and experts acknowledge it is not an immediate next step in transitioning the economy to a cleaner fuel source.
"If we're going to replace petroleum and avoid really catastrophic climate change, biofuels will be part of the solution," Schrag says. "The challenge is to make biofuels with the lowest cost and the lowest land use footprint."

To realize the vision of carbon-neutral aviation, there are outstanding questions that must be solved: What's the best organic source material of the fuel? Wood chips, agricultural waste, crops? What's the yield, and at what cost? And what's the final product?

While there's still a long way to go, the good news is that innovative companies are working on the problem and making progress.

An established player in the space is Poet, the largest producer of ethanol in the world. A privately held company, Poet, based in South Dakota, buys about seven percent of the industrial corn grown in the U.S. and produces three billion gallons of ethanol annually. They have 34 bioprocessing facilities in eight states that produce ethanol, animal feed, and other products.

Doug Berven, Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Poet, sees "tremendous potential" for agricultural products like ethanol to underpin a significant shift from fossil fuels to renewables.

The current blend rate – the percent of ethanol per gallon of gasoline – is 10% in the U.S. That reduces the price per gallon roughly 40 cents, while also reducing particulate emissions in the air. Berven says it's possible to scale up to 15% without planting any more corn. That's because advances in seed technology and farmer tools are allowing for greater yield, even as climate and growing conditions are less than ideal.

Not that anyone expects ethanol to replace or eliminate fossil fuels – but more biofuels per gallon are beneficial for both the planet and consumers. Berven says that a 15% blend rate would reduce the price at the pump another 10 cents to a dollar per gallon as well as secure a dependable domestic market for America's corn farmers.

Berven sees the latter point as key for scaling biofuels in developing countries * . Right now, it's cheaper in Kenya, for example, to import corn rather than grow it. However, by enhancing agricultural practices with better seeds and practices, Berven says, they could increase their yield up to nine times and service an "untapped" market for ethanol with their excess grain.

"Biofuels are a catalyst for successful agriculture, and successful agriculture is the key to solving the globe's most pressing issues with hunger and energy," says Berven.

Another company tapping into an agricultural resource for biofuel is CoverCress Inc. (CCI), which was originally a Leaps portfolio company that later became majority owned by Bayer together with Bunge and Chevron. CCI, which just won recognition as a BloombergNEF Pioneer in the category of net-zero fuels, uses plant breeding to improve yield and maturity and gene-editing to modify the oil and fiber composition of a common winter weed. Through these product development efforts, CCI has created CoverCress®, the first rotational cash crop of its kind. It grows well in the Midwest during the winter without requiring new land, and its grain can be crushed to make an oil that is an ideal feedstock source for producing sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel. Meal, the other co-product produced when the grain is crushed, is a high-protein animal feed.

The first commercial crop was planted last fall on 3,000 acres and will be harvested in late spring. It's a win-win for farmers, who get paid $175 per bushel under contracts with CCI for harvested CoverCress® grain grown between their traditional corn and soybean rotation. CCI will initially sell the harvested grain as an ingredient for broiler chicken feed and in the future the grain will be sold to a crusher, who turns the grain into an oil and animal meal product.

"We need to take every step we can to lower our carbon emissions," says CEO Mike DeCamp. "I'm a big believer that it takes a village to get that done. * For the role that renewable fuels will play, you need sustainably produced feedstock sources to make that work. I know we've got a product to do that."

Countering Objections

To be sure, those who are critical of biofuels as an alternative fuel source worry that growing the plants needed for wide scale risks harming biodiversity.

"In Malaysia," Schrag acknowledges, "a quarter of land is deforested for palm oil plantations. That's been an ecological disaster. You don't want to do that on steroids. So that's the challenge: Pursue conservation strategies while pursuing biofuels. With innovation, yield can be improved. Find the most efficient plants that grow the most in the smallest land area with the least inputs."

Schrag is excited by pyrolysis, a technique that heats the plant biomass without air and turns it into charcoal and liquid that could be turned into a form of crude oil — but isn't ready to call a winner.

"Whether it's woodchips, agricultural waste, or energy crops, whatever the feedstock, we don't yet know the right technology. It's too early to say. We need to let early-stage research and demonstration play out."
As far as the deforestation concerns, Berven of Poet contends that more land is not necessary. "We are completely against cutting down trees," he says. "We need to manage the land that is available properly." He points to recent scientific reports that one billion acres of former farmland around the world are now abandoned.

Berven believes the biggest challenge to a broader market for biofuels is not land availability, but rather what he views as the oil companies' monopoly on fuel. Yet those companies are also conscious of their greenhouse gas emissions and are investing in alternatives. In fact, Chevron is a minority stakeholder in CoverCress.

"The only solution for them to reduce their emissions is to put additional cleaner fuel into the marketplace," Berven says. "Existing and emerging biofuels are the best path forward to reduce transportation emissions around the globe. *"

* Oh Really?

* Colonialism relabeled.

* Unfucking believable. Yes CEO man, it takes a village to support your lifestyle.

* Reducing travel of any kind not being on the path at all.

This article from Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/juergeneckhardt/2024/04/22/biofuels-will-be-a-key-part-of-the-net-zero-solution/?sh=50d6a8f85de9) is disgusting.  Things jumped out at me, and I was compelled to add highlights.  The Author is:  Juergen Eckhardt  Head of Leaps by Bayer and Head of Pharma Business Development and Licensing. Executive Vice President, MD, MBA

(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.9QS2PdXgUPR7Wiz2z7W9KgHaDt%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=7a6b5b569889e4eed657c2f29bc4c0660af113bba0e98c92e4f841c18c2a415f&ipo=images)

I know at least one person who would consider Juergen to be part of The New World Order.  Dedicated members of the hooked-up affluent who intend to magnify class differences as long as they can.  Business as usual, because they make out big.  My friend would take out certain members of the 0.01% on sight.

I won't say I approve or disapprove of his urge, but I know a detail or two that makes him feel this way.  I will say I understand. 

And jets must fly while people die.  NOT

How much fuel to get from LA to New York.

• Flying: Approximately 12.7 gallons per person
• Driving with a car: 28 gallons per person (4 people in a car)
• Driving with a bus: 9.34 gallons per person
• Driving with a train: 6.22 gallons per person

Driving with a car should not really be considered.  That would be a days long road trip and not a logical choice only considering long distance transportation.  Days on a bus would totally suck, but I have gone from Seattle to Chicago on a bus so it can be done..  The train makes sense.

And in my world Juergen will be on the bus with us or Juergen will be meeting some citizens who go from LA to NY on a chopper when he gets off his jet.  And not these two.  The ones he would meet would be less in a hurry, but they would be very angry.

The bottom line on ethanol is a choice being made: feed the people or feed the machines?  In many 3rd world countries the price of grain for both human consumption and animal feed has reached the point where people are getting priced out of minimum caloric intake.  As the price of oil rises, the price a farmer can get for corn to be converted to ethanol increases in lock step with it.  The more corn you devote to the machines, the less left over for the people to eat.

About the only tie biofuels don't compete with the food market is with the waste products from some crops and wood chips and sawdust that are byproducts of the milling process.  In that case also though, you sometimes have a choice in land use made for wood over crops again because a better total price per acre comes from the wood+waste than from an alternative food crop.  Not always true, sometimes the land isn't suitable for a food crop but will grow some type of fiber crop.  One thing not mentioned is Lucid Dreams favorite plant, Bamboo from which you can get food or fiber.

With the steadily decreasing cost of solar PV and wind, combined with the fact it looks like a long haul before a grid connection is made for some plants, the cost of carbon free hydrogen is coming down fast and seems to me to be a better choice than biofuels for aviation at least.  Nuke seems better for container ships and tankers, we already use it for aircraft carriers and subs.  That is of course a huge increase in nuke plant numbers, and many of those ships are flagged with Libyan, Saudi and Iranian ownership.  Forgetting the politics though, it seems the better choice of alternative energy for this purpose.

RE

Technical details are not the point here.

The Author is a CEO in the Bayer Machine.  We are talking about fuel for private jets.  Bayer owns Monsanto.  A global company decides how we should live?  I'm not liking it.  I do not care about hearing 'this is the way it is.'  Money is in charge of the authors brain and I do not have to like it.

Air travel needs to go away as much as possible.  Capitalism has produced a world of excess where humanity is forgotten.  Pyramids of money with the social and financial inequities pyramids of money brings through entitled economic drones makes us all slaves in service to our own destruction. 

A student of Jevon's paradox should see a great flaw.  If you do not restrict consumption at the same time you improve efficiency then you are ignorant if you think you improve anything.  This is not an article about running ambulances on bio-fuels.  This is about flying private jets.  The kind of jets that fly the Kardashians, or the author of this article.  The kind of private jet that flies 150 people if they pay enough money too. 

An article about fueling ambulances would be a different kind of article.  Bayer masters of the universe drones are incapable of reining themselves in or writing the other kind of article.  Masters of the universe should not be controlling the narrative.  This article was in service to BAU and not change.

It there are great men who should choose the direction of the humanity.  Entitled supervisors and the inheritors of privilege should not be the deciders.  They should be different kind of men.

* I don't accept the great man hypothesis.  Change comes from contradictions in material conditions resolving themselves.  Great men, though they be qualified, are still men who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Definitely, anybody connected with the Bayer/Monsanto does not have the greater good for mankind or the planet as a significant factor in his thinking.  Using food to keep jets flying would probably kill more people in a year that Xyclon-B killed in all off WWII in the Nazi gas chambers.  So yeah, this article and his POV and prescription for maintaing BAU is particularly loathsome.

However, the article also talks in more general terms about biofuels as alternative energy because they currently come in somewhat cheaper that carbon free hydrogen, and that was the aspect I was focusing on.  I'm not even sure that's true if you tok away some of the Ag subsidies.  So you have to wonder, if this guy could still have his private jet using hydrogen, WTF use corn and other biofuels?

The answer of course is simple.  Bayer/Monsanto is a chemical company, not an energy company.  They own the patents on the enzymes and processes used for converting plant matter into fuels.  The more  energy we get from biofuels, the more $BILLIONS$ Bayer makes and the bigger his compensation package is.  Cui bono?  He does.

Totally self-serving propaganda, of course.  And yea, the fact that the Masters of the Universe and Influencers who are running the show are the very same type of people like John D. Rckefeller, JP Morgan, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison who got us into this mess by creating the technologies and the markets for burning fossil fuels in the first place is like putting the Fox in charge of the Hen House.  Gasoline was a waste product of the refining business with the diesel engine, in order to profit from it, automobiles running on gas were mass marketed to J6P.  Money and technology, greed and self interest drove the industrial revolution, and they are driving the collapse also.  Nothing has changed.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 22, 2024, 07:21 PMThe answer of course is simple.  Bayer/Monsanto is a chemical   profit extraction company.

Fixed that, chemists are not in charge and Monsanto soil scientists are not being paid to take care of the soil.  Since Monsanto will monopolize seed on any bio-fuel they can.  Developed by them or stolen by them, I say they are indeed an energy company.

There should be a way to build up soil and sequester carbon and extract an amount of biomass for fuel, all at the same time.  Capitalism can't do it.  In capitalism profit is always maximized.  Building soil and sequestering carbon is not part of the American capitalist equation.  The American capitalist market will also murder its citizens before it accepts regulation of any kind.  In America, profit is anointed as the only authority which determines what is to be done.  Profit chooses to maximize profit.

If you are a janitor who smokes a fat doobie and watches You Tube all day you do not need the same political rights as Bayer does.  Bayer knows what to do with stuff and you don't.  Juergen I am sure is much more able to explain this point of view than I can.  The Trump Supreme Court is hard at work to make sure this point of view remains the law of the land.

At the end of the day, fat doobie or no, keep any ideas of balance to yourself.

Quote from: RE on Apr 22, 2024, 04:28 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 22, 2024, 01:31 AMHuman nature is what human society makes of it, hence not really human nature.

That is a circular argument I won't bother giving any credibility to by debating it.

Another way of putting it is, human nature is an expression of social organization. Circular reasoning arbitrarily relates/equivocates two things. Nothing arbitrary about saying that the wealth created by the poor is what enables the rich to eat and live better than the poor not genes or innate character.

Quote

QuoteThe alternative view, yours, is to bring in a third factor which in the post 19th century world tends to be some combination of 1> genes 2> culture and ideology, ie culture/ideology sublimated out of social determinations (at least the direct material/economic kind). I disagree, but without erring in the opposite direction. Those things can and do affect what people become, but I'm unaware of any compelling evidence or theory indicating they override or at any rate function independently of socio-economic constraints and incentives.

Lack of anybody else proposing a theory has never been an impediment for me, I just make my own theories based on what I observe in behavior, both in the animal kingdom and in human society.  There are analogues all over the place in survival strategies for different species, and homo saps demonstrate many of them at different times under different circumstances.  Stockholm Syndrome is a classic example, where captives come to identify with their captors.  Imprinting is another, catch a child early enough in development al sorts of odd behaviors can manifest later.  And so on and so forth.  All of these macro effects come from associations made in the brain by neurons, all mediated by connections that are genetically determined at birth, then react to stimuli along the way.  More or less of various neurotransmitters get produced, further developing a given personality.  Depending of the nature of the environment, it will develop in many different ways.  Your example of slaves in a slave society would be one of a myriad of possible outcomes.  All I am saying is that generally we were most successful as a species under the least complex social organizations.  That would be the baseline of human nature.  All the rest are environmental factors determined by therule set and organization of the society.

You seem to be more or less agreeing with me except for the part about connections in the brain being genetically determined at birth. As for us being most successful under simple social structures, well those lead to where we are now and current hunter-gatherer societies are as fucked as the rest of us. The minuscule population of genuinely isolated peoples are allowed to live that way by other people. And even if those other people magically vanished, there will always be a need and a desire for more complexity and universality else we wouldn't have transitioned from one to the other when allowed to do so by circumstances.

Another point that complicates the picture - simpler nomadic tribes invaded more complex settled tribes and created even moar complex empires/kingdoms.

Quote

QuoteMost of the bio/gene stuff was soundly debunked in the 70s and 80s by people like Stephen Jay Gould. The debates today are derivatives of derivatives of the original. We know that genes are not blueprints, that individual genes have diverse expressions across the whole phenotype, and also that Mendelian inheritance patterns only work as they should in theory for artificially regulated and purified lineages.

All genes do is code for proteins.  We really have no clue how genes program the shysiological structure of the body or brain, why we have 5 fingers and toes, opposed thumbs, a large cerebral cortex, blah blah, but we know all Homo Saps have them unless their genetic code is wickedly messed up.  All our brains are built in basically the same way and respond to stimuli the same way.  Human nature begins inside this structure and is circumscribed by it.  It is genetic, we are born with it before ever being exposed to language or social structures.  Once we pop out of somebody's vagina, we each begin to develop inside that social setting, so thereafter things can change quite a bit.  We nevertheless still have the structure and neuroons and transmitter system we were born with no matter what.  It can and does adapt and change along the way, sometimes irrevocably.  That doesn't mean there isn't a best or at least better set of social conditions for that brain to operate.

Having five toes, or being a living organism needing food/air... is very different from personality, talent and rational thought and learning. It's a truism that genes determine who we are and are influenced by environment. The contention is about the terms of that interaction. So far nothing from you explaining why Homo Saps living in complexity surpassing hunting-gathering are innately dumb and evil.

Quote

QuoteYou're expressing the logic of decadent bourgeois liberalism when you postulate an impartial biological lottery, combined with a substratum of flawed human nature being the downfall of civilizations throughout history. If you'd lived in the middle ages, these ideas would have been incoherent (e.g the idea of 'history' as we use it simply did not exist back then). To sum up, your opinion on innate human nature is itself a product of socially determined human nature. Funny ain't it? :)

Now you're devolving into ad hom argument, name calling me as a "decadent bourgeois liberal".  I thought that kind of nonsense went out of style in the 1920s.  Shall I retaliate and call you a commie pinko leftist?  I don't live in the Middle Ages, evidenced by the fact they didn't have the internet back then.  Obviously I argue based on what I know about the world and biology, behavior and neurochemistry based on stuff that has been elucidated over the last few hundred years.  If you consider scientific knowledge to be bourgeois, I plead guilty.

I admit the decadent part was a bit mean-spirited. The argument itself isn't personal at all. You are in fact reproducing the logic of the liberal-capitalist mode of surplus accumulation, even while being critical of it. Liberalism assumes a contradiction between human nature and scarcity, and postulates the state as a regulating/harmonizing force. (The problem being human nature is a self-serving assumption and scarcity is a historical category.) You're just swapping out the state as a regulator with a future situation of less complex organization caused by collapse.

My point about the middle ages was you/whoever would have justified innate human nature using the hierarchical logic of feudalism instead of the cynically regulated globalised 'markets'. Both are wrong, for that same reason. But one thing in favor of the earlier forms of self-justification - at least they were more honest. They had no use for the 'rational' social darwinism of the 20th century.

Quote

QuoteHunting-gathering could well be the future... although the level of destruction it would take to get there is likely to cause extinction, not to mention lingering effects of industrial civ like pollution bio-diversity loss and radiation with no means to ameliorate let alone erase them. But even if it happens, it cannot be the solution cus if it was we wouldn't have come to this point to begin with. And it still wouldn't be caused by 'human nature'.

Don't know if it will be the future or the solution, I never said it would be.  I merely said it was the type of organization we were most successful with as a species.  Would it necessarily lead to the same outcome if we did end up returning to that style of living?  No, it can't, because fossil fuels were a onne time shot for homo saps, the earth won't have time to collect them up again for another round of burning.  Also, surviving Homo Saps would not be the same as the original cro-magnons that bootstrapped up from stone tools.  Some knowledge gained over the millenia will persist.  It's not definitive that the same mistakes would be repeated if there is enough left for 1000 breeding pairs to survive this knockdown, as there were 75,000 years ago.

Neither of us will be around to find out thoough, so it's a moot point.

RE

But you do see it as A New Hope (TM) with different possibilities, and the best/only way out of the current situation which has exhausted it's own. 1000 breeding pairs won't have FFs but there'd be a whole bunch of other stuff they could use to build more complexity. My view is that the current situation is the best way out of itself, while also being resigned to bitter soul-crushing disappointment. Speaking of which I might be (reluctantly) alive to at least witness the general direction of how it ends/up.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 22, 2024, 08:55 PMThere should be a way to build up soil and sequester carbon and extract an amount of biomass for fuel, all at the same time.

There is. Legal right to the minimum caloric intake of W Europe worldwide and no market exchange of corn, dairy, poultry. Increase ag laborforce by x200, redistribute land equally then convince them to progressively collectivize up to the largest feasible local organization. Centrally subsidize and improve local land augmentation/reclamation while guaranteeing 6 hr work day, healthcare, schooling, basic amenities. Do away with animal products apart from dairy and poultry.

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 23, 2024, 12:16 AMYou seem to be more or less agreeing with me except for the part about connections in the brain being genetically determined at birth. As for us being most successful under simple social structures, well those lead to where we are now and current hunter-gatherer societies are as fucked as the rest of us. The minuscule population of genuinely isolated peoples are allowed to live that way by other people. And even if those other people magically vanished, there will always be a need and a desire for more complexity and universality else we wouldn't have transitioned from one to the other when allowed to do so by circumstances.

Actually no, there is no universal "need and desire" for more complexity, that is post agricultural social development that came with the discovery of metallurgy and large sedentary societies that divided up a working caste, military caste, spiritual caste and ruling caste.  Societies such as the tribes of the Pacific Northwest lived quite peacefully for 1000s of years in a relatively open and loose confederacy with each tribe numbering anywhere from about 150 to 1500 in size and at the tie of the European invasion of Turtle Island totalled about 250,00 by some estimates.  Other estimates put it higher at over 1M.  They didn't use money, production in the society was distributed by the Potlatch system and they governed themselves with a council of elders and periodic gatherings where representatives from the tribes met and gifts were exchanged between the groups.

What occurred in the fertile crescent in the Middle East, in India and China in the rice paddies didn't happen everywhere in North America, though it did in Central America and was beginning in the Ohio Valley also.  Long as you don't take that step as a society that leads to greater population size and density and demands you control and protect property and perpetually expand to new land and subjugate it and the people living there, a society can maintain a relatively stable population size that uses resources at a sustainable rate.  If we were to start over, hopefully that would be one ofthe bits of knowledge and experience we will retain for a redo.

QuoteHaving five toes, or being a living organism needing food/air... is very different from personality, talent and rational thought and learning. It's a truism that genes determine who we are and are influenced by environment. The contention is about the terms of that interaction. So far nothing from you explaining why Homo Saps living in complexity surpassing hunting-gathering are innately dumb and evil.

Personality, talent and rational thought differ between people partly duee to genetics and partly due to  their environment.  The easiest example of this comes with identical vs fraternal twins.  While doing my Master's, I did my thesis for my Child Development class by studying the various forms of intelligence displayed by competitive gymnasts (I coached girl's team, so I had a ready made population to study), contrasting their behaviors, academic ability and musical talent with the general population.  Basically it demonstrated how people are wired differently and it manifests itself on how they end up behaving.

Later I had a great opportunity when I had a set of triplets, all girls 2 identical, the 3rd fraternal.  Raised by the same parents, given the same opportunities, they even all wore identical clothing though since 1 was not blonde you knew she wasn't identical.  The 2 identical ones had similar gregarious personalities, talked a lot and were very fast in their reaction times with a lot of quick twitch muscle.  The 3rd was quiet and shy and hard worker.  She didn't have quite the physical gifts her 2 sisters did, but she made team first because she didn't waste time chit chatting and stayed focused.  The 2 identical ones thought so much alike they answered questions the same sway at the same time.  The other one nearly always answered differently.  All these differences add up over time, but they begin because of differences in the genetics.

I also never said homo saps living in an ag society are inherently dumb and evil.  What individual people develop in terms of intelligence and moral behavior is not the same thing as what societies demonstrate in aggregate behaviors.  That is an emergent property of systems.  You can have good people and bad people, smart people and stupid people under any system.  No matter what system you have, if stupid, evil people run it the system will be stupid and evil.  But even if you have good people inside an evil system, the results always come out evil.

QuoteI admit the decadent part was a bit mean-spirited. The argument itself isn't personal at all. You are in fact reproducing the logic of the liberal-capitalist mode of surplus accumulation, even while being critical of it. Liberalism assumes a contradiction between human nature and scarcity, and postulates the state as a regulating/harmonizing force. (The problem being human nature is a self-serving assumption and scarcity is a historical category.) You're just swapping out the state as a regulator with a future situation of less complex organization caused by collapse.

No idea HTF you can come to the conclusion I am in favor of surplus accumulation or how I am swapping out the state as a regulator of anything.  There isn't much of a state with tribal organization, that's why it's called tribal and not nation-state.  lol.  I am in favor of minimalist living and no private property beyond what you can carry with you when you move around.  I lived my whole life as a nomad, most of it out of about 5 bags and containers with my clothes and cameras and computers in them.  Human nature isn't self-serving or an assumption, it's just a quality I observe.  It doesn't account for all human behavior, because it adapts depending on the environment it is immersed in.  You appear to have a lot of preconceived notions about what I believe and read a whole lot into my writing that just isn't there.  I think you do this to justify your own ideas about democratic management as  asolution that I don't agree with.

QuoteBut you do see it as A New Hope (TM) with different possibilities, and the best/only way out of the current situation which has exhausted it's own. 1000 breeding pairs won't have FFs but there'd be a whole bunch of other stuff they could use to build more complexity. My view is that the current situation is the best way out of itself, while also being resigned to bitter soul-crushing disappointment. Speaking of which I might be (reluctantly) alive to at least witness the general direction of how it ends/up.

I see it not as a new hope but rather a goal to seek of reducing complexity and reducing our demands and impact on the environment we live in.  There really won't be a whole lot we can build without the copious energy supply we've burned through here, and whatever existence we do have post collapse, it's going to be a pretty meager one.

Perhaps we'll both be reincarnated in 5000 years and we'll bee able to chat about how it all played out then.

RE

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 23, 2024, 01:01 AM

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 22, 2024, 08:55 PMThere should be a way to build up soil and sequester carbon and extract an amount of biomass for fuel, all at the same time.

There is. Legal right to the minimum caloric intake of W Europe worldwide and no market exchange of corn, dairy, poultry. Increase ag laborforce by x200, redistribute land equally then convince them to progressively collectivize up to the largest feasible local organization. Centrally subsidize and improve local land augmentation/reclamation while guaranteeing 6 hr work day, healthcare, schooling, basic amenities. Do away with animal products apart from dairy and poultry.

How do you propose to implement any of your plans? 

Disagreeing with or agreeing with any of your proposals right now would not make progress.  But minimum caloric intake is something we all can agree on (unless we are insane).  So how to implement your program?  Who pays for it?  How do you make it happen?  How do you make sure there is no abuse in your system?

Carbon fee and dividend would put the infrastructure for a universal payment system in place.  With F and D in  place payments could easily be issued.  The functional homeless could have their basic needs met.  We can talk about the impaired on another day.

How will you make sure there is enough work for everybody who can pay into your system so your system says solvent?  What about freeloaders.  Until new social values develop which honor and sanctify your system, you will have to incentivize good behavior.  How will you do that?

I posted this at ecosophia (https://www.ecosophia.net/) today:

QuoteOpen posting. OK then I will. I'll post about carbon fee and dividend. To begin with. Carbon fee and dividend is not a tax. Taxes are collected by government for government use. A fee collected and paid to all people equally is a payment from the social commons not a tax. It is important to understand this or you likely will dismiss the benefits. Consider oil as the example, coal and gas would have fees collected as well but talking about one is easier. Money is taken at the wellhead where it is mined. Before first sale. If a dollar worth of oil is pulled out of the ground a percentage of value is taken from it. A percentage determined by a citizens assembly. After that the added cost is passed on as markup in the distribution chain. All the money is equally divided among all citizens. This allows the individual to cancel the fee added at the wellhead if they use an average amount of fossil fuel. If you use less fossil fuel than average the system pays you money. If you use more you pay more. Collected money is equally distributed with kids getting a percentage starting at 16. Younger children don't use gasoline or diesel, and the money, all of it, must go to citizens who use oil products. Younger kids are excluded because they do not buy anything and the money is paid out to consumers to offset the added price consumers must pay. Having a citizens assembly set the fee is appropriate and should not be done by government. Government provides infrastructure, but the commons should decide to do with the commons. Not an elite group.

I made some corrections.  I think this is the closest I have come to describing what carbon fee and dividend is.  The benefits have to be figured out on your own.  But if you do not think money influences human behavior you will see no benefit to carbon fee and dividend.  If that is the case move on, there is nothing to see.