Pretty decent video. The guy lays down the issues rather well and it is good to see him connecting the dots between energy/resource consumption to our problems of pollutions and the way all these symptoms are tied to excess growth in our economies. Where the video falls down is how he suggests there is a solution. In this current climate I don't believe there is a solution whereby we can have all 8 billion people alive to the same living standard we are accustomed too. Also got to remember a lot of folks expect their standard of living to go up in places like India/China.

Whilst I would agree a reduction in total consumption will alleviate the issues of exploitation and excess pollution the issue here is that this reduction will cause the economy to fail and with our interdependent systems and globalised supply chains this will lead to chaos. Food will not be delivered, lights going out not enough energy to heat homes, hospitals will not be able to function and so on. This will cause an immense amount of suffering and it is hard to fathom anyone thinking they will be winners in this scenario. Collectively we would be getting materially poor with rich suffering disproportionately.

Couple this with the fact people often measure their self-worth by how money they earn and this lack of income (and likely employment) will be seen as massive failure on their part. I find it hard to imagine how people will see themselves as winners in this scenario especially if their loved ones are suffering. This type of suffering will create a lot of pushback and people will demand that the status quo continue. This desire to keep BAU running will certainly not be limited by big corp and corrupt politicians. Average Joe will also want it as the current system supports them and their family. To change course the system has to fail so utterly that people see no choice but to pursue other economic options.

But even if, for sake of argument, the masses discovered the inherent flaw in our economic/monetary system there would still be a lot of suffering. What we have is a predicament and not problem. The difference between the two is a problem can be solved while a predicament can only be managed.

To put this as an analogy it is bit like a patient being diagnosed with cancer. For quite some time the patient is dying but there are no visible symptoms. There are underlying issues but they can go unmasked or are explained away. It is only at the end when things unravel quickly and the patient dies. The condition can be managed if treatment is started early but if the condition is too far advanced we can only manage the final outcome (death) by minimising the amount of pain that will be inflicted.

The way I see things is we are at stage 4 cancer but remain in denial that we have cancer. The future pain can still be mitigated even at this late juncture but the longer the delusions continue the more painful the death will be. In this case death refers to BAU.

Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 08, 2024, 11:41 AMWould you rather have Trump or Biden for the next four years or this guy?

This is a serious question.

Well not hard to beat any of those two. I do get the feeling if this guy became president then he would suffer an "unfortunate" accident during his first term. This assumes he tries to follow through with his goals. Saying that considering the open hostility he would face from not just the Republican party but the Democrats it is likely he would become an impotent president.