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I have corporations running ads telling me to save the earth and do my part. Mother fuckers, I do my part and your CEO destroys all my work in one day. I’m kinda getting sick of the blame being put on my poor ass who can barely afford to survive.
So, I assume you’re vegan? The ecology of this planet will collapse unless most of humanity stops consuming animal products. That or magic.
I am. And for every animal I don’t eat, a billionaire throws a meat party and goes hunting for exotic animals. Again, why are you blaming me? Even if I ate meat every meal I wouldn’t come close in a year to doing as much damage as a billionaire does in a day. So again, stop telling me about it and go after them.
The number of animals killed annually for human consumption is somewhere north of 50 billion. That’s 50 thousand million.
I want the billionaires dead as much as the next guy, but what you’re saying is not the mathematical reality, and while changing economic systems will lead to justice and fairness, it won’t even begin to solve our ecological problems. It might even worsen them, since our goal would be, presumably, to end poverty and increase standards of living.
Or is that not the plan?
I didn’t create the meat industry as it exists. Corporations did. I don’t eat an animal unless it’s local, sustainable fish. Even the poor people eating meat aren’t to blame. We didn’t create this system
I’m not blaming you. It’s a chicken and egg problem when it comes to any industry. The fact is that people like eating fish and pigs and cows, and we need them to stop. That’s the bottom line.
Human caused environmental devastation didn’t start in the 1600s, capitalism did. I don’t think humans are a virus, but I don’t think that abolishing capitalism is the only critical step in preventing environmental catastrophe.
We’ve been here 200,000 years, we’ve been farming for the last 12,000 of those. Environmental destruction is, reletively, a very very new phenomenon.
That’s an a-historical point of view. There have been several environmental catastrophes, including some causing massive climactic shifts introduced by prehistoric humans, some of them are documented in 1491, by Charles Mann. Poor farming practices, including some that have been practiced for thousands of years, are a huge factor in desertification. I completely agree that the rate and scale of environmental catastrophe is new, but the risk of it and tendency towards it is not. While I think capitalism is ABSOLUTELY the single greatest barrier to addressing the catastrophe, the scale and speed of that catastrophe could be just as easily tied to population growth as the emergence of capitalism.
Not to mention how all megafauna got extinct wherever modern humans showed up
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Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by
- the farming of animal products,
- the production and consumption of energy, and
- the extraction and transformation of material resources,
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be a vegan who doesn’t take vacations, use air conditioning, fly on airplanes, or drive a car? I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
EDIT: the reply below completely ignores my question. Very few people seem to actually give a shit about the environment. It’s all just ideological posturing. And that is why we are fucked.
Given that the environmental depredation of this planet is driven by […] can people explain why they believe that without capitalism
capitalist industry and commerce have been the driving force of the mass extinction of the last 500 years[0][1][2]. climate change didn’t begin until the late 1800s with the rise of tycoons, and accelerated with mass production in the mid-1900s.
for a current example: datacentres are wasting entire regional electricity and water supplies on investment grifter bullshit. because it makes money. it doesn’t even turn a real profit, and it’s not everyday people paying for it.
can people explain why they believe that without capitalism everyone would be […]
could be, not necessarily would. because a humanistic, socialised means of production would: allow for truly ‘democratic’ control over what is produced; remove nested interests and subsidies to overgrown polluting industries[3]; and make alternatives viable without the need to bend or break to top-down market pressures and monetary policy dictated by dragons.
I also assume they’re wearing hemp and have no interest in fashion.
capitalism has existed for less than 300 years. consumerism has existed for less than 100 years. when you have an economic system which emphasises the independent individual — simultaneously a motivator and a mere cog in the machine — and posits that the mere potential to own things is the source of value: buying wasteful, exotic, unnecessary shit is a way to define yourself and your status. it’s called conspicuous consumption, and it happens from the micro to the macro in the lower and the upper classes, and there’s top-down pressure to do so to keep currency current.
i recommend the documentary The Century of the Self for an overview of the commodification of identity and culture.
Keep in mind there are 8 billion people on this planet, so presumably they wouldn’t be having children either.
we are already producing enough food to sufficiently feed 1.5x the world population[4], and could continue to do so even within planetary boundaries[5] with changes to economic policy and the adoption of less profitable methods of agriculture.
i didn’t cover everything here, because i recommend:
- the book Less Is More.
- familiarising yourself with the concept of the superstructure; it’s a very helpful analytical tool.
- going back to the last time you were on your malthusian debatebro bullshit and really trying to engage your imagination with much of the same arguments made there.
We don’t produce 1.5 times the food we need, as you said. We produce 100 times the food we need. Know why? To feed the billions of sentient animals that are tortured to death each year in factory abattoirs. Do you have any idea how sustainable that is? It’s not. So…
You’ve taken a roundabout way to tell me that mass adoption of veganism (literally the only way to save the environment) unfortunately has nothing to do with our economic system.
- Every 3 calories of beef require at least 100 calories of legumes.
- Worse still, the average water footprint per calorie for beef is twenty times larger than for cereals and starchy roots.
- Add the methane and the nitrogenous runoff, and you have an ecological catastrophe.
- If we ended animal agriculture, 75% of all farmland could be rewilded tomorrow.
We produce 1000 times the food we need.
no, we don’t.
You’ve taken a roundabout way to tell me that mass adoption of veganism […] has nothing to do with our economic system.
no, i didn’t.
(literally the only way to save this planet)
no, it isn’t.
no, it isn’t.
says the person who cannot read, ignores sources, puts words in other people’s mouths, and makes simplistic, baseless, harmful assertions.
To feed the billions of sentient animals that are tortured to death each year in factory farms. Do you have any idea how sustainable that is?
i — a vegan — and the two sources i provided advocate for sustainable plant-based diets, and point to the systemic economic obstacles: agribusiness lobbying; little to no farmer control; subsidised incentives and poor farmers’ dependence on these subsidies; and severe economic and political inequality.
to quote another vegan in this thread who you’ve insulted:
for every animal I don’t eat, a billionaire throws a meat party and goes hunting for exotic animals. Again, why are you blaming me? Even if I ate meat every meal I wouldn’t come close in a year to doing as much damage as a billionaire does in a day. So again, stop telling me about it and go after them.
you’re arguing for a vote-with-your-wallet approach, which ignores conspicuous consumption, ignores the plight of the lower classes, and greatly favours the wealthy elite and the state (who can always outbid you). this is not to say we shoudn’t change (our) individual behaviour, but that it cannot be the sole solution, and that there are systemic changes which would boost mass adoption of sustainable choices.
i once again point you to my book suggestion, the concept of superstructures, and to the responses to your last malthusian tangents.
if you have anything else to say: tell it to a mirror.
you’re arguing for a vote-with-your-wallet approach
You quoted someone else and then accused me of arguing for something I’m absolutely not. Did you reply to the wrong person? For the benefit of anyone who stumbles over this bizarre exchange, my question is super simple:
How will you convince 8 billion people to dramatically lower their standard of living?
Currently we are consuming about 2 earths worth of resources (if everyone lived like Americans it would be 20 earths). Obviously capitalism makes this worse, but the question remains. What then?
Once we abolish capitalism, this will raise standards of living. More people will want cars and air-conditioning and so on. More people will want to eat meat. So what’s the plan?
we are producing 1000 times the food we need
no we are not
You’re technically correct. It’s closer to 100, but my point stands.
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We know and can develop superior methods in agriculture, energy production and recycling material resources. The rapid transformation of the economy to make use of these superior methods will require state intervention and economic planning like never before seen in human history.
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It is much easier to limit resource use when a certain segment of the population (the bourgeoise) are not consuming resources at 100s of times the rate of the ordinary person.
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Eliminating advertising will reduce the pressure for overconsumption.
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They would simply consume less and not be as driven to consume. Capitalism drives up the consumption to ridiculous levels, greed is not actually good. We could focus the economy on needs first and ensure it exists so people can still acquire goods and services in exchange for money so no one is working for nothing. But no more wealth accumulation into the stratosphere. There’s a lot that would need to change
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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s woefully inadequate. We need between 2 and 20 earths just to maintain our current standard of living, and keep in mind this number rises as poverty falls.
The only and I mean the only solutions that can support our absurd population is
- veganism
- tech advancements bordering on magic
It’s just math. I wish things were otherwise, I really do. But that’s what we need to save the rainforests and oceans and wild fauna that are still clinging to existence. Everything else is ideology.
Did capitalism destroy this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
The Aral Sea is considered an example of ecosystem collapse.[42] The ecosystems of the Aral Sea and the river deltas feeding into it have been nearly destroyed, largely because of the salinity being dramatically higher than ocean water.[5] The receding sea has left huge plains covered with salt and toxic chemicals from weapons testing, industrial projects, and runoff of pesticides and fertilizer. Because of the shrinking water source and worsening water and soil quality, pesticides were increasingly used from the 1960s to raise cotton yield, which further polluted the water with toxins (e.g. HCH, TCCD, DDT).[43] Industrial pollution also resulted in PCB and heavy-metal contamination
This was the result of this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plan_for_the_Transformation_of_Nature
Exploiting nature and fucking things up is not limited to capitalism.
Plus, animal consumption is among the top three causes of ecological destruction on this planet. Do people think burgers only exist under capitalism? That palm oil and pig meat are an obsession of the super rich? It’s not a matter of efficiency (farming is already absurdly efficient). It’s just math. Like everyone will give up chicken nuggets to save the planet or something? Good luck with that. People are obdurate and gross.
Getting rid of capitalism is a step in the right direction, sure, but unless folks are willing to give up meat, cars, airplanes, and who knows what other amenities, we are still just as fucked.
Israel keeps massacring Gazans and yet the carbon emissions of the region aren’t falling. I don’t understand. I was told it was an overpopulation problem. What else could it be?
These can exist at the same time. It is not binary.
ITT: The environmental consequences of precapitalistic modes of production confuse lemmies to defend a nonsense statement in a totally different paradigm.
Both can be true.
Capitalism didn’t create itself… She’s just looking at the root of the problem instead of its effects.
Yeah, I just can’t stop pooping out capitalism. It’s literally a natural thing that I do. /S
Communism will fix it, right? Right?
Hopefully something will fix it. Maybe it’ll be communism. It’s just a little ridiculous to believe that humans are hardwired to be capitalists. Especially since we’ve had two major economic systems prior to capitalism.
I’d be open to a bottom-up communist-like path of change. I’ve given it some thought but haven’t come up with anything viable that doesn’t easily succumb to corruption.
What do you mean “bottom-up Communist-like path to change?” What’s wrong with a democratic worker state?
Like a democracy?
What Communist argues against Democracy?
They typed into their smartphone.
“how dare u criticize slavery when u eat the food the master gives u sleep in the barracks the master owns and works the masters fields u have no legs to stand on”
It’s a good meme, but in all seriousness, why do you think that without capitalism everyone will stop eating meat, driving cars, taking vacations, and having children?
Would we all be hemp-wearing, bicycle-riding vegans if not for capitalism? Unless people are willing to dramatically reduce their quality of life, we are fucked.
Yes to all but the last 2. Reducing meat consumption for a communist society is as simple as allocating less resources to meat production or stopping it altogether. Reducing car use is also simple if you have efficient city designs. For example, the USSR made plenty use of micro-districts (today they would be called “15 minute cities”), which allowed the population to go around using public transport. And the Chinese HSR system allows chinese citizens to travel around the country very efficiently and have vacations and such.
reality is that the disproportionate consumption of the rich far outweighs the consumption of the working people but even putting aside the easy gains of no more private jets and the like, there are things we do and buy that dont even make us happy and are terrible for the planet and often for our bodies like cars. The real question is why people would buy tons of useless garbage they dont want nor need and ultimately dont even use in a society were people arent flooded with propaganda to buy said shit all the time and in a society were ur ability to consume isnt the only measure of a persons worth. And that not even saying anything about repeatability and planned obsolescence.
Why would people buy tons of useless garbage
Meat, cars, houses, fresh water, cell phones. That is the top of that list of ecological depredation. Billionaires for all their evil aren’t the ones eating over 50 billion animals per year. Yeah you read that right. It’s a large number.
reality is that the disproportionate consumption of the rich far outweighs the consumption of the working people
Unless by “rich” you mean “middle class Americans” you’re mathematically wrong by many orders of magnitude.
Now I’m down to kill the billionaires, very eager, but it won’t solve our ecological woes. Not even close.
I wish my hair looked like that
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Okay, but how much real communities can exist before a capitalist fucking kills them from Terraism and makes them a gorram capitalist?
I don’t know, my human body feels like some kind of ailment. Let me ascend into spiritual existence.
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So China must be a paragon of eco-friendly, right? Right? Like, you wouldn’t place all your bets in a pseudo-imaginary concept that has never been able to materialize and when it does it only seems to favor fascist behavior, right? Right? It must also mean that there aren’t capitalist nations the means and innovation for protection of the environment, right? Right? You totally aren’t setting yourself up for a scale you will define completely subjectively to suit your point, right? Right?
So China must be a paragon of eco-friendly, right?
If every country was doing as well as China right now, the world would be a much better place. But the Chinese advantage is largely in its cutting edge industrial capacity. A bit unfair to hold Vietnam or Cuba to the standards of a tech giant.
It must also mean that there aren’t capitalist nations the means and innovation for protection of the environment, right? Right?
Economic central planning that forecasts the consequences of ecological degradation on a 5, 10, and 50 year time horizon will lead administrators to policies that individual businesses fixated on quarterly profits and annual executive compensation packages don’t want to embrace.
Past that, a big part of what the Chinese environmentalist project has been about is experimentation. They’ve done manual reforesting along the Gobi Desert. They’ve done nuclear energy R&D. They’ve done carbon capture projects. They’ve invested enormous sums in their space program.
Most of the western R&D and infrastructure development has been limited by what the O&G industry is willing to directly invest in (carbon capture, converting from coal to nat gas with supplementary wind/solar, carbon credits and other forms of green financialization) all of which are designed to immediately enrich their bottom lines. That’s not even considering the deliberate efforts to maximize fossil fuel usage (the Texas ERCOT grid refusing to buy cheap renewable/nuclear power from outside the state, various states threatening to prohibit/tax electric vehicles and renewable energy power systems).
To conclude capitalist rent seeking isn’t guiding any of these policies is deeply irrational.
So, is China capitalist? Is it communist? Thank you for your totally not subjective reply.
So, is China capitalist?
They seem to be employing a central planning model out of a public sector unconcerned with maximizing personal profits. So… No?
Is it communist?
Not yet. They appear to be exploring Socialism, but with a particular set of Chinese Characteristics. I think they’re even a book on the subject.
Thank you for your totally not subjective reply.
No problem.
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism. It has more billionaires than the United States.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive and feeds into the false right-wing narrative that socialism is fascistic.
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism. It has more billionaires than the United States.
Please read China Has Billionaires. Nobody believes China to have achieved full socialization, but it does have strong central planning.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive and feeds into the false right-wing narrative that socialism is fascistic.
What is Socialism, and what is Fascism, in your eyes? You don’t appear to be working off of Marxism with respect to Socialism, and you don’t appear to be working off of Ur-Fascism for your point on fascism.
I’m always happy to discuss socialism, anarchism, fascism, or any other topic in political philosophy, which I’ve spent half my life studying, but not with people who link PRC authoritarian propaganda. I’ve blocked you so don’t bother replying.
You’re literally on a Marxist community, I am going to link Marxists. Red Sails is a Marxist site, and Roderic Day is a Marxist. I know you blocked me, but for anyone else wandering in here, please actually be willing to engage with Marxism, without wrecking and crying about it.
You evidently were not willing to discuss Socialism or fascism. This is ridiculous, and you are no useful member of any mass Leftist movement if you can’t be willing to confront your previously held biases for even a milisecond, even if to ultimately argue in favor of them.
China’s economic system is called authoritarian capitalism.
Under the colonial model, China exported a great deal of its wealth overseas. Post-WW2, they have domesticated their wealth and accumulated capital/infrastructure for the benefit of the local working population. This transition, from colonial expropriation to domestic social development, is a crucial stepping stone towards the Socialist mode of production.
Also, please don’t call China “socialist.” It’s offensive
eye-roll
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Americans are the most propagandized people on earth
China is Socialist, in that it’s a transitional economy. There’s a large and robust Private Sector with strong central planning. It’s nowhere near fully Socialized, and nowhere near Communist, but it is a transitional economy.
China is capitalist now
This wasn’t even true under Dengism, can you seriously look at their percentage of private sector now and say they’re capitalist?
Are they a liberal laissez faire capitalist market? No. However they operate as a capitalist market that is tied to the government. Their special economic zones operate in ways that even places like the US find under regulated. They have people running corporations and making billions in private capital, while investing their capital in shares/futures/etc markets. They are a capitalist country, they are also a dictatorship that ultimately controls everything. These things are not mutually exclusive.
However they operate as a capitalist market that is tied to the government. Their special economic zones operate in ways that even places like the US find under regulated. They have people running corporations and making billions in private capital, while investing their capital in shares/futures/etc markets.
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
https://youtu.be/M4__IBd_sGE?si=AQOKB0e9RRIuIxhw
also a dictatorship that ultimately controls everything.
http://us.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/zgyw/202112/t20211204_10462468.htm
Ok under the billionaires one it literally says it is mixes private business and capital investment as a venue that makes a strong economy due to pragmatism. They find it pragmatic to be capitalists when they want to make money and increase their capital holdings, because it make the economy better.
Great, ultimately, you get to vote for one party’s offerings, and they get that appointment for life, and control a police/surveillance state. Great democracy there. Recently they have purged a lot of high ranking party members, due to graft, making them a paper tiger, of sorts, in a lot of their most important new weapons developments. Not dictatory at all.
Look, person, I do not think China is the big evil, as portrayed by western media. However they are a highly authoritarian police state, with a single party dominance, the head of which is a life time appointment. They also participate in capitalism, not the open, liberal, laissez faire type, but they have a class of capital owners, investing that capital to increase said capital holdings. They just have big brother standing behind them, hand on their shoulder, watching what they are doing.
I also do not like the capital colonialism of the west. If I had to choose to personally live under one, or the other, I would stay where I am, because I am not the personality type to conform, at least publicly, to the legal framework China practices. China is shittier than the west in some ways, and the west is shittier than China in others. Both are surveillance states, China has proven more proactive in targeting people who publicly diverge from their party line. Where I am I can openly say nearly anything about my government, and I won’t be forced into a camp, and re-educated. We just have other prison industry issues. I am actually intimately aware of, as I used to do data analysis for the “corrections” system.
Basically, there are no “good guys”.
Honestly at this point it seems like you’re not really engaging with the material: your more reasonable concerns are straight up addressed in the material listed.
Where I am I can openly say nearly anything about my government, and I won’t be forced into a camp, and re-educated.
Do you see this as a good thing? I’d rather live in a society that re-educated people who were saying Nazi shit tbh
Yeah, I absolutely believe I should be able to say what I will, about my government, without being fucked by the state. The fact that you can not see why that is a better way to live informs me of you authoritarianism. The reasons you should be curtailed are few and far between. Like I understand that if I say I am going to assassinate a poltico, that should be illegal, and things of this nature. Also, being a nazi is a non-sequitur to my statement. That goes far beyond talking shit about your own government. That requires action.
Yeah, I read them, and the way they are addressed doesn’t sound good to me. I have read more in-depth pieces discussing the same things. Sorry, I am far too against the type of control they exercise. They practice a hierarchy that is even more rigid than where I am from, so that’s not gonna work for me. I am an anti-authoritarian leftist, China does not jive well with me.
Try Eastern Europe then, before the fall of the communist regimes there. The environment got fucked hard by the commies here.
I wasn’t arguing that point. I was saying China’s new economy is a form of capitalism. Everyone can fuck things up. Who is the most vested country int he world in renewable/clean energy sources? China.
The extinction of animals because of human action predates agriculture. This comic is the middle of the bell curve meme.
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