Climate change and environmental collapse-ultimate challenge to the capitalist "real"?

[noel emits]

Indeed it may not be so much a matter of scale as a question of involvement / responsibility.

Awareness of interconnectedness / interdependance needs to be increased. This applies to societies and environments.

In this light those supposedly 'smart' greedy people that currently have a grip on the global scene will be seen to be short-sighted and very simple-minded. They are not even serving their own best interests.

 

[bruno]

doll steak: you're right, pace isn't the central thing. i tend to associate speed with violence, i don't know why. and you mention the direction of change. i would add that it also has to be legitimate, or be perceived as legitimate.

 

[gek-opel]

Bleep: Yeah, I hadn't considered the lack of diversity which would ensue. That's a big problem. It would forment conflict.

 

[KernKätzchen]

Yeah, I'm not convinced though. Communications technology would ensure that such smaller communities didn't become totally insular, but theres interesting frictions that come from having larger communities that aren't culturally homogenous where our differences rub up against each other. If things slowed down a bit and we weren't so crushed under the weight of our own media I like to imagine that maybe we'd get to know each other a bit better.

Is it necessary to retreat to the smaller community model or can we attempt to change the existing model, perhaps better mediate the communities within large cities?

What are the aspects of the megalopolis that actually appeal to people?

I think the key appeal of living in the big city is the combination of everyday anonymity (nobody recognising you on the bus etc.) with the freedom to contact like-minded people if you want. So you get the security of being able to hide yourself in the crowd - and I think it is a source of security, as well as of insecurity (I've often wondered how many people would come to my rescue if I dropped down with a heart attack on a busy London street) - as well as the security that comes with being part of a community one has chosen to become a member of: one based on like-mindedness rather than mere geographical proxmity. I'm talking about the sort of communities that spring up surrounding particular music scenes, for example, or even web forums like this one (where the geographical principle is completely removed). Obviously these geographically dispersed but culturally specialised communities depend for their survival on communications technology and, in a city, on cheap local travel. Whether this means we all get to know each other a bit better or whether it means we all just seek out our little cultural niches and merely tolerate the other people on the bus, I don't know.

 

[soundslike1981]

The idea of someone pontificating about how great a post-"kapital," return-to-hunter-gathering existence will be <i>on the fucking internet</i> is hilariously absurd. Techno-hippie babbling on the backs of pretentious university degrees.

Is it not better, perhaps, to oppose the rampant, myopic exploitations of "late" capitalism; but to say that the goal of "civilisation" is ultimately better than alternatives based on mere survival?

It's crap like this thread that sadden me most, because of all of the obvious intelligence being wasted on fantasy. So many conservatives who conserve nothing; and liberals who forget that liberation is a product of, rather than the opposite of, civilisation.

It's shit like "Amerikkkan" that means our bright minds are impotent. You can't do better than that?

 

[soundslike1981]

if the cure is worse than the sickness, let the patient die in peace.

Amen.

 

[soundslike1981]

Bruno: Hate to say it but your responses only demonstrate the shackles imposed at present on the imagination--- that its either Cambodian year zero or what we have now! You are correct that a "year zero" style approach will lead only to the throwing of various beneficial babies out with the rancid bathwater they are currently bathed in-- but realistically the solutions are going to be relatively simple, and probably not as extreme as reverting to a primitive society. Somewhere in between that extreme and where we are now lies the solution, and it is perfectly possible to negotiate that within the bounds of the principles of our society (although these are rather less fundamental and more fluid over time than you might imagine). A question: Will America be able to cope with this shift from endless exploitable horizons? Or to put it another way, are its own basic tenets so antithetical to the reforms necessary as to render them impossible without the collapse of its society?

Oh and Re: China and other developing nations--- they aren't ignoring them, they are MASSIVELY investing in certain parts of Africa at least, and are welcomed as they don't ask too many ethical questions apparently...

Please, please tell me you're still at university. Please?

Edit: or, alternatively, please tell me what it is you <i>do</i> to eat, clothe and shelter yourself while pondering ways to free your creativity from the shackles of Amerikkkan Kapitalist hegemony or whatever. I hope to goodness you're at least working for Oxfam or the like, not being a painter or a poet or something.

 

[soundslike1981]

Cheers Troy...

I was really looking for some Dissensians better-read than I to hit me up with some philosophical/political theory shit on the impact of these events, so I could fill my knowledge gaps in this area...

so...?

Ok, I'm sticking to the music threads at Dissensus, I guess.

One thing's for sure--the Ivory Towers will be amongst the first to fall, when it all comes crashing down. I lament the loss of actual knowledge, but the razing of minds obsessed with "philosophical/political theory shit on the impact of" events of the most severely physical, destructive sort is one of the few good things I can see about a return to a primitive survival.

 

[KernKätzchen]

The idea of someone pontificating about how great a post-"kapital," return-to-hunter-gathering existence will be <i>on the fucking internet</i> is hilariously absurd. Techno-hippie babbling on the backs of pretentious university degrees.

No-one is claiming it would be great. The point is it may happen. To point something out as a possibility is not the same as to condone it morally.

 

[KernKätzchen]

Ok, I'm sticking to the music threads at Dissensus, I guess.

One thing's for sure--the Ivory Towers will be amongst the first to fall, when it all comes crashing down. I lament the loss of actual knowledge, but the razing of minds obsessed with "philosophical/political theory shit on the impact of" events of the most severely physical, destructive sort is one of the few good things I can see about a return to a primitive survival.

Because of course, all theory is bollocks, isn't it? And academics are locked in their ivory towers, out of touch with the 'real world' and everything in it, creaming off our hard-earned taxes on their fat research grants blah bloody blah turn to page 13. I don't know what your definition of 'actual knowledge' might be, but killing off an Internet discussion thread with your pernicious brand of inverted snobbery is not, I would say, a good way to encourage any kind of intellectual development. Because these events may be destructive to the socio-economic systems upon which we all (not just the 'ivory towers') currently depend, does that mean nobody is permitted to discuss them?

 

[KernKätzchen]

and liberals who forget that liberation is a product of, rather than the opposite of, civilisation.

..."you're either with us or you're against us..."

 

[KernKätzchen]

It's shit like "Amerikkkan"

Na. Fair enough. That is shit.

 

[matt b]

"I was really looking for some Dissensians better-read than I to hit me up with some philosophical/political theory shit on the impact of these events, so I could fill my knowledge gaps in this area... "

have you read murray bookchin?

 

[bassnation]

Because of course, all theory is bollocks, isn't it? And academics are locked in their ivory towers, out of touch with the 'real world' and everything in it, creaming off our hard-earned taxes on their fat research grants blah bloody blah turn to page 13. I don't know what your definition of 'actual knowledge' might be, but killing off an Internet discussion thread with your pernicious brand of inverted snobbery is not, I would say, a good way to encourage any kind of intellectual development. Because these events may be destructive to the socio-economic systems upon which we all (not just the 'ivory towers') currently depend, does that mean nobody is permitted to discuss them?

his points are as valid as anything else said on this thread - hes injecting some much needed reality into the discussion. to turn it around, are you saying that ideas that aren't couched in pomo academic terms are worth nothing? why should these discussions be exclusive to a bunch of students?

and you say that no-one wants it to happen, but gek is quite open in saying he doesn't see anything much valuable from modern civilisation that is worth saving. thats entirely different to what you think he said.

i think its quite right to challenge bullshit ideas like that, don't you?

and when we disagree we will do it in the way we want, not in the sanctioned terms that you approve of.

 

[matt b]

i think its quite right to challenge bullshit ideas like that, don't you?

points made by me and scott disco aimed at gek on this thread remain unanswered, and link in with this one.

 

[dogger]

@ bassnation: "and when we disagree we will do it in the way we want, not in the sanctioned terms that you approve of"


out of interest, at want point does Kernkätchen infer an approval of what you call "sanctioned terms"?

 

[KernKätzchen]

his points are as valid as anything else said on this thread - hes injecting some much needed reality into the discussion. to turn it around, are you saying that ideas that aren't couched in pomo academic terms are worth nothing? why should these discussions be exclusive to a bunch of students?

and you say that no-one wants it to happen, but gek is quite open in saying he doesn't see anything much valuable from modern civilisation that is worth saving. thats entirely different to what you think he said.

i think its quite right to challenge bullshit ideas like that, don't you?

and when we disagree we will do it in the way we want, not in the sanctioned terms that you approve of.

Oh please. I wasn't saying that at all: just trying to object to the way in which soundslike1981 killed the discussion by calling everyone a bunch of students. Not a particularly useful approach imho, and one rooted in a branch of anti-academic snobbery I find particularly galling. (For the record, no, I am not still at university...)
I do think it is important to challenge bullshit ideas like: "even a return to hunter-gatherer life would be preferable to what exists now". This is clearly ill-thought-out rubbish based on very little knowledge or evidence. However, gek's original question was an interesting and valid one - whether, and to what extent, the bounds placed on people's imaginations by current capitalist notions of what is and isn't possible will be destroyed by environmental degradation. For example, I have often wondered whether capitalist economic systems rest on a 'frontier mentality' - an assumption of infinite natural resources (and an infinitely expandable human population) that did make sense in the days when the human population was still small enough to have very little impact on the environment, but false now that we know that it can have, and is having, a deeply (self-) destructive effect on a world-wide level. For example, why does economic theory take constant 'growth' as a measure of economic health? Why is it a problem for Italy's economy that its population is no longer growing? (I would still like to know if anybody who knows anything about economics has any further ideas on this - if they are still bothering to read this thread, that is.) These are the kind of questions gek was trying to raise, bassnation, before some people decided they were too academic and not sufficiently 'real'. Thanks.

 

[bruno]

i personally don't care too much what views other people hold as long as they are prepared to listen, and gek has. his comments were supposed to provoke, generate discussion - the thread is richer for it. it's a rare instance actually, this thread, because it has become all too common for people to preach to the converted, or sit in their little corner with hands over the ears, utterly convinced of their special truth. when in reality they deserve a good thrashing!

 

[polystyle]

Light up the path

Aaah yes, the 'intellectual non- real'
or is bk to a non -intellectual real'

Some believe you can make fire quicker with 2 sticks then a theory

Hard to imagine the conversation going on between citizens without computers tho'
And if it's all much too hazy you can always go to another thread , 'click'

Now Listening : Syd's She Took A Long Cold Look

 

[noel emits]

The 2 sticks theory of fire creation is OK but I personally have had some trouble verifying it's validity, especially in damp forests.