[RE]

Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I'm sure you do too.

Of course he does.  He couldn't be more wrong, which really IS the problem.  Even well intentioned rich folks can't see that the problem is the system itself, not how well it is managed.  It reequires mass consumption.  The more that gets consumed, the bigger the profits.

Nick was a salesman who got lucky and was one of the founding investors of Amazon.  The rest of it comes simply from having a big enough pile to gamble with as a venture capitalist.  The bigger those companies got, the richer Nick got.  End of story.

RE

[K-Dog]

Of course he does.  He couldn't be more wrong, which really IS the problem.  Even well intentioned rich folks can't see that the problem is the system itself, not how well it is managed.

Nick is a billionaire so the article is all the insight we can reasonably expect from him.  Gold tinted glasses prevent clear sight.  It is worth reading because 'the problem' is presented from a different perspective.  A perspective that might resonate with Ruth who represents perhaps a more British 'Posh' perspective.  I say perhaps, I don't know her.

Billionaires of all kinds will have a twisted perspective.  Life is magic to them and such magic results in a distorted perspective which subjugates actual reality below thought.  Elite perspectives will always promote the primacy of their idealism onto the real world.  Reversing the correct perspective which understands that thought is a product of the material world and subject to it.  Material conditions have primacy over thought.

Living off the fruits of capitalism as billionaires do makes them unable to see any other way.  They have un-natural control over reality.



That Nick got as far as he did.  Good for him.  Nick is still 'that guy', but maybe not 'that guy'.

[RE]

That Nick got as far as he did.  Good for him.  Nick is still 'that guy', but maybe not 'that guy'.

WTF does that mean?

RE

[K-Dog]

That Nick got as far as he did.  Good for him.  Nick is still 'that guy', but maybe not 'that guy'.

WTF does that mean?

RE

It means dicks come in different sizes.

[RE]

So are you suggesting Nick Hanauer has a tiny cock? 

RE

[K-Dog]

Shrinking humanity from 8 billion people to a more sustainable 2 billion?  Robert Jensen wrote a book with Wes Jackson (The Land Institute) about societal collapse on a global scale being inevitable, and the need to shrink population and prepare.

According to Jackson and Jensen, there's no averting collapse – electric cars aren't going to save us. The current way of things is doomed.  It's up to us to prepare as best we can to ensure as soft a landing as possible when the inevitable apocalypse arrives.

Save as many as you can?  Hmmmmmm.  Who coulda knowd?  But is that what the authors are saying?  Or is the concentration on elite survivors.  Survivors  who absolutely will not be watching this video or have any regard for early 21st century intellectuals should somehow they encounter the advice.

An Inconvenient Apocalypse doesn't describe how decline in population will occur, or discuss the enormous trauma elimination of the majority of humanity will certainly inflict on all those left over.

The book is oriented toward social justice, but the authors make no effort to address the disaster required to get from A (where we be) to B (the other side).  Saving as many as you can moving from A to B seems less important than discussing a vision of an idealist utopia in the aftermath of B.

I think that is nuts, but I don't have the book so my 'review' based on articles and this video could be unfair.  But the idealism in this conversation is as thick as honey, and things I have learned can be too sweet.   

[RE]

An Inconvenient Apocalypse doesn't describe how decline in population will occur, or discuss the enormous trauma elimination of the majority of humanity will certainly inflict on all those left over.

This falls into the "Reality follows Fiction." or  "Fiction anticipates Reality folders on your hard drive.

Basically this is the plot of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Avengers Endgame film, where the villain Thanos instantly wipes out half the population of every planet in the Universe inhabited by intelligent life with a snap of his fingers, after the acquisition of the 6 "Infinity Stones".  We only get to see the emotional effect on the Superpower Avenger subset of the population of Earth however, but the viewer is expected to extend this outcome to all the other earthlings and aliens on other planets also.

The characters are all suitably emotionally devastated and the sets also empty of people, although emptier than you would expect with only half the people gone.  What was unrea;istic though is that otherwise the planet seemed to be operating basically the same way with all the lights working, trash getting picked up, carz driving around and so forth.  This is quite unrealistic, and would be even more unrealistic if the population was cut by 75%, even if that took a few years of an epidemic to accomplish.

It's really impossible to make an accurate prediction of how things will look after a population knockdown of this magnitude, other than to say society if it still holds together and functions at all will still look anything at all like it looks now.  I suspect it will be a hot mess, nothing like the Final Solution and route to a more wonderful world that Thanos predicts it will be.

However it will end up though, you can be sure it most certainly WILL come, and unlike the Avengers we won't be able to go back in time to bring it back to the way it was..

RE.

[K-Dog]

I suspect it will be a hot mess, nothing like the Final Solution and route to a more wonderful world that Thanos predicts it will be.

"For a generation after the fall anyone reading a book was stoned to death.  Technology had created the conditions for overshoot.  The survivors for the most part did not understand what overshoot was, but a hatred of technology had replaced techno narcissism and the draconian religion of re-wilding had the world in sway." From "When Giants Fell"  (Published in New Petrograd 2318 by Caleb Newman).



I don't accept that "Reality follows Fiction." or that "Fiction anticipates Reality, but speculation is fun.

[K-Dog]

I am posting this primarily so I will watch it again.  The reason is the interview is totally five star and I was doing other things that interfered with my concentration.

Ugo Bardi is mentioned.  We are only one step away from Rachel and this You Tube Channel.



RE and I have a Bacon number of 1 relative to Planet Critical.

This is seriously one of the best interviews I have ever listened to.

[K-Dog]

https://chasingthesquirrel.com/public/music/patrickophulsonwhycivilizationsfail.mp3

Dr. Patrick Ophuls (who writes under the pen name William Ophuls) is an American political scientist, ecologist, and author.

Interviewed by John Bell, Director of The Conciliators Guild, about his book 'Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail.'

And there's moar:

Tainter's complexity discussed, exponential growth.  Patrick understands we are in a double bind.  Collapse could be averted with massive changes that the American polity WON'T put up with.  The speed of social change needed is impossibly fast.  That is one side of this unity of opposites.
The other side of the bind is that normal social change is slow and being slow collapse happens before society makes any significant change.


People don't get that the peak always looks good.

[K-Dog]

I have been busy.  Doing what I have to do to secure the Diner from the FSoA is no small task, and I don't let it to stop me from making this website a more interesting place.

This is an easy guest post because I'll only give the audio.

You want the text?

Rather than cut and paste the article text from a link that is easily opened, I'll instead tell you how to get it:

• Click the globe in the upper right to go to the main page.
• Below the mosaic of colors tap the green open icon.  You will see the Diner.  Never mind that.
• Click the search icon magnifying glass.
• In the new search field type 'sheep' and hit return or tap the search icon again.
• Now you can make it full screen with the full screen icon.

Or, to put it another way is the title of the article.

The toolbar app you just used is not finished yet.  The men in black have slowed me down.  But it is far enough along to be better than what I had, so I put it up.