Live Earth

[gek-opel]

just kidding. i agree. terrible figureheads for this "cause"--the problem, for me, lies in the fact that it's now the same people who insisted for so long that there would never be climate crisis who are now pushing the agenda. who are these people? the top 1% of wealth-holders in the world.

should we ever believe what those people tell us? should we ever at least be so naive as to believe what they are saying is not ENTIRELY self-interested?

such are the depths of my own cynicism.

Some of them anyway- not all. Of course they speak out of total self-interest. This is because they either think they can make money by promoting this cause, or that climate collapse represents such a fundamental real outside of capital that is a terminal threat to their (and our of course) way of being.

...In a Badiouian sense (perhaps- of course Badiou himself refuses to allow economics to enter into any discussion of the political truth) "externality" is precisely the correct term to apply to climate change---> that which the count of the (economic) situation under the rule of the "state" (ie neo-classical economics) refuses to traditionally take account of. The truth process of the environmental movement then is to force such an accommodation of the external into the count of the situation...

Now neither of these as you say requires them to actually put into motion the efforts necessary to solve the fundamentals of the problem (either technologically or organisationally). There must be enough movement to create the illusion of a fundamental shift. That at least will do for now.

Technology as solution is a nice idea, but incredibly unlikely to work in the timescales necessary to prevent disastrous climate alteration. We would probably be better off thinking about how to put things back after the change (ie- terraforming the earth).

In possibly even more depressing news, I have a theory about how we are in fact creating pedophiles now in our culture (of the type who capture, rape, and kill people like Maddie). It would take a while to elaborate but if you really want to feel like life isn't worth living, I'd be happy to do so..

Of course- I have thought this for some time. There are two things which led me to this conclusion (linked of course)-- the modern day cult of the child as arbiter of value, as sacred object around which fundamentally emptied modern life gathers meaning. And the near pornographic imagery of innocent doe-eyed Maddie gleefully, lustily slo-moed by the media, the rise of the paedo-aesthetic in the coverage of paedophile atrocities, the press colluding (within the mindset of the universal cult of the holy innocent child of course) to expand the appeal of precisely the same binary of innocent-sexual.

I have always welcomed a collapse in our way of living. As ultimately foolish and naive as it might be, the only utopia I can imagine now is an eschatological one.

 

[nomadologist]

Of course- I have thought this for some time. There are two things which led me to this conclusion (linked of course)-- the modern day cult of the child as arbiter of value, as sacred object around which fundamentally emptied modern life gathers meaning. And the near pornographic imagery of innocent doe-eyed Maddie gleefully, lustily slo-moed by the media, the rise of the paedo-aesthetic in the coverage of paedophile atrocities, the press colluding (within the mindset of the universal cult of the holy innocent child of course) to expand the appeal of precisely the same binary of innocent-sexual.

I have always welcomed a collapse in our way of living. As ultimately foolish and naive as it might be, the only utopia I can imagine now is an eschatological one.

I agree with your reasons, but have a few of my own. I suppose mostly with a more feminist spin to them based on what you call the binary of "innocent-sexual", which is not really a binary at all. The short form goes: now that women have made gains and are much harder to completely objectify (now that very few adult women make any claims to being "virginal"-"innocent") and yet the way we structure male sexuality (to need a submissive underside to the "masculine"-dominant binary) has changed little, something is missing. Barring females as a possible underside of the sexual-innocent binary, men turn to children.

Gross but true.

 

[nomadologist]

technology is the solution! kraftwerk were right

 

[gek-opel]

I agree with your reasons, but have a few of my own. I suppose mostly with a more feminist spin to them based on what you call the binary of "innocent-sexual", which is not really a binary at all. The short form goes: now that women have made gains and are much harder to completely objectify (now that very few adult women make any claims to being "virginal"-"innocent") and yet the way we structure male sexuality (to need a submissive underside to the "masculine"-dominant binary) has changed little, something is missing. Barring females as a possible underside of the sexual-innocent binary, men turn to children.

Gross but true.

It makes some sense. But I think it goes beyond merely this: it is within the mediatized web of the represented spectacular holy child that the true sexual CHARGE of the paedo-aesthetic gains its potency... and it is the self-same media who cry out about paedo-moral shock who inculcate this.

 

[gek-opel]

technology is the solution! kraftwerk were right

I am intrigued as to your cynicism on the one hand reserved for the ultra-rich (deserved of course) and yet your wide-eyed techno-positive optimism as to the ability of science to deliver... (in hoc as it is of course to the ultra-rich...)

 

[swears]

gek-opel:

Isn't the problem with the system as a whole, rather than with very rich individuals?
Most people if given the opportunity would choose to be millionaires, that doesn't make them "bad". Businessmen like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet donate millions to charity, but these acts of altruism have very little impact overall when compared to the problems created by the mechanisms that made them rich in the first place.
There probably are ultra-wealthy people who do care, (and obviously those that couldn't give a shit) but even they can't actually change anything.
You could probably explain this better than me anyway, if you see what I mean.

 

[gek-opel]

Well this gets right to the nub of the matter- not just for inequality but the environmental movement to. The problem comes in that there are large numbers (not all, sure) who want to do good. The problem arises that they will only be willing to do good if everyone else does so. In environmentalism this exerts problems at the micro-personal and macro-geopolitical levels: the individual says"yeah of course I WANT to make changes, but on my own it amounts to nothing, so I won't do anything". On the level of the nation the force of competition in economics between states results in none of them wanting to take the lead (or in the case of the EU- to take the lead but ever so gingerly)- so as not to allow the other an advantage.

As you say the charitable-ultra-rich end up doing only minimal net good given the activities necessary to accrue such fortunes in the first place. The really sinister thing is that these people think of themselves in all likelihood as "the good guys" --- "yeah, of course capitalism is wrong, but one day I'll give it all up and use my money for the good of mankind- I'm not like those other guys, those bad fat cats twiddling their mustaches whilst sucking on fat cigars laughing as they hunt the AIDS-infected sub-human untermenschen down like the animals they are- I'm a CARING capitalist". These people think that with a few tweaks here and there capitalism can be made good, made to serve the good. I don't actually think they are cynical, merely deluded, like Bono and Bob Geldof, so inside the system that gives them their power, their voice on the grand stage of the world that they fail to see their complicity, or perhaps more realistically, know they are indeed complicit but think that such complicity is a price worth paying because of the good they imagine they are able to deliver.

Here I would add that perhaps the very opposite may be necessary- anti-capitalists using capital as a weapon against the state and against the very mechanisms which allow capital to maintain itself in semi-stasis. Utilising wealth as a mechanism, its very leverage to destroy the world which sustains it.

 

[gek-opel]

Back on topic:

According to vile tabloid The Mail only 4.5 million people tuned in, compared with a whopping 15 million or more for Diana's Death day concert.

It WAS a total dud then (in the UK at least). Anyone know how many in the states watched it or how the coverage has been there? Nomadologist, what was the view from NYC?

 

[mos dan]

*looks up 'eschatological'*

 

[sodiumnightlife]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

there is a perverse part of me that would love to be present at the end of the world.

I probably wouldn't be so thrilled once i got there though i guess.

I think one of the main things about climate change and people's reluctance to do anything in the west is that climate change is never going to affect them as badly as the poor people in other countries, is it?

I mean, we're not looking at an extinction level event such as a huge comet hitting the earth are we?

I'd be grateful if anyone could suggest what are the most extreme, but realistic worst case scenarios. Obviously this stuff is hard to predict.

But here in the west, our houses are better made, our services our better. The floods in Britain were awful, but at exactly the same time, floods and storms in Pakistan killed something like 200 people to Britain's 4, yet got zero coverage. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are a global society, yet really we are limited both in our interests and ultimately our means.

 

[mistersloane]

I agree with your reasons, but have a few of my own. I suppose mostly with a more feminist spin to them based on what you call the binary of "innocent-sexual", which is not really a binary at all. The short form goes: now that women have made gains and are much harder to completely objectify (now that very few adult women make any claims to being "virginal"-"innocent") and yet the way we structure male sexuality (to need a submissive underside to the "masculine"-dominant binary) has changed little, something is missing. Barring females as a possible underside of the sexual-innocent binary, men turn to children.

Gross but true.

Lee Edelman is quite good on this


He goes right off on some great rants, example :

Fuck the social order and the child in whose name we're terrorized! Fuck the orphan Annie and the waif from Les Mis! Fuck all the poor little innocent kids! Fuck laws with capital L's and small!
Fuck the whole network of Symbolic Relations and the Future that serves as its prop!

I paraphrased slightly but not much.

 

[vimothy]

I've heard the recycling-uses-more energy argument before, but I think it depends strongly on what kind of recycling we're talking about, and how it's organised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_criticism
Also, it's worth remembering that saving energy isn't the only thing to be considered: recycling paper doesn't necessitate cutting down trees (an all-too-often forgotten factor in the CO2 argument) and less waste means less need for landfills, which makes it very attractive for a small crowded country like the UK, where space for landfills is rapidly running out.

"Recycling is the philosophy that everything is worth saving except your time."

 

[vimothy]

Man, I am so not feeling this thread...

Here I would add that perhaps the very opposite may be necessary- anti-capitalists using capital as a weapon against the state and against the very mechanisms which allow capital to maintain itself in semi-stasis. Utilising wealth as a mechanism, its very leverage to destroy the world which sustains it.

Would be interesting to see if any anti-capitalists could actually "use capital as a weapon against the state" (although, obviously for libertarians like me, that is already a function of capital in any case). Clearly, if terrorists wanted to, they could exploit a variety of market mechanisms to cause huge damage to the "system" (which is to say, they could murder and impoverish large numbers of people, and make recovery very difficult indeed). In fact, I have linked to a few security analysts in threads who envisage these very senarios and how they might be brought about.

Might also be worth considering that, if you're an anti-capitalist for egalitarian reasons (as opposed to heroic-fascistic reasons), the most lethal crashes will not occur in Wall Street or the Home Counties, but in the developing world.

 

[elgato]

Gek, with regard to eschatological change, it is necessary to accept with it terrible and massive loss of life no? And loss primarily focussed on the developing world, and on peoples who lack the necessary resources to be adequately mobile to escape the famine/war?

I cant say that I have ANY optimism for a positive outcome from the collapse of world systems as we know them, rather I see a very savage world dominated by violent conflict, in pursuit of resources, emerging. And to me it is counter-intuitive to say the least that out of such a struggle, out of a world characterised by conflict (to an even greater degree than the one we know!), would emerge a consciousness better suited to developing peaceful ways of life. Where is it that you find your optimism?

 

[elgato]

"Recycling is the philosophy that everything is worth saving except your time."

is this a joke? surely you do not actually actually advocate such extreme individualistic ideology? elsewhere you have indicated that you have ideals searching beyond this. and that you have intelligence reaching beyond such blunt sloganism. it sounds like a cheap car sticker!

apologies if that seems rude, but i was stunned by that

 

[vimothy]

is this a joke? surely you do not actually actually advocate such extreme individualistic ideology? elsewhere you have indicated that you have ideals searching beyond this. and that you have intelligence reaching beyond such blunt sloganism. it sounds like a cheap car sticker!

That's actually a (semi-) famous economics one-liner.

Some one else summed it up like this: if trash were worth anything, people would be driving down your street offering you money for it. They don't because it's not.

Actually though, given the morbid eschatological fantasies and adolescent ressentiment rippling through this thread, I'm quite suprised that you're bothered by a what is clearly a joke and not by people wishing for planetary collapse (including, probably, your own death).

 

[vimothy]

apologies if that seems rude, but i was stunned by that

You don't need to apologise mate

 

[Logan Sama]

But how about that Foo Fighters performance though huh?

Huh? Guys.....?

 

[vimothy]

Too many environmentalists disregard inconvenient truths that would undermine their faith that calamities are percolating just over the horizon. It might well be that humans' "footprint" on the Earth is larger than ever; it might even be true that this larger footprint creates some health risks for us modern humans that our pre-industrial ancestors never encountered.

But it is undeniably true that we denizens of industrial, market economies live far better and far healthier than did any our pre-industrial ancestors.

Compared to those ancestors, our life expectancies at birth today are about three times higher. Our bodies are cleaner and more free of disease. Our homes are sanitary. We have indoor plumbing and anti-bacterial soap; our ancestors had outhouses. Our clothes are cleaner and, despite recent hysteria, our food supply is safer.

What we almost never hear from self-proclaimed "environmentalists" is recognition of the upside of contemporary life. The commerce and industry that produce all the things that environmentalists ecstatically despise also produce incredible amounts of wealth, health and cleanliness -- not to mention the leisure necessary for modern people to reflect upon and enjoy nature.​

- http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/boudreaux/s_512278.html

 

[IdleRich]

Sorry to derail but I found this quite interesting:

"The short form goes: now that women have made gains and are much harder to completely objectify (now that very few adult women make any claims to being "virginal"-"innocent") and yet the way we structure male sexuality (to need a submissive underside to the "masculine"-dominant binary) has changed little, something is missing. Barring females as a possible underside of the sexual-innocent binary, men turn to children."

Which sounds like a creepily plausible explanation for any rise in the number of paedophiles - but is there really such a rise (beyond the increased visibility due to internet porn-rings and their exposure)?

Back to the main thing though. I don't understand this desire for the end of the world (in any sense) at all - but I'd certainly like to discuss it. In a sense it seems to be the logical conclusion of a type of rejection of increasingly larger frameworks as espoused and argued for by Gek. However, I don't see any reason to believe that such a change will occur and I find a constant referral to "when capitalism collapses" (not so much from Gek but from others) as a kind of belief akin to any other groundless hope. It seems to be a throwing up of the hands and an abdication of responsibility to just wait for something to happen but I find Gek's argument about using capitalism to achieve it particularly self-defeating as there are no real tactics for how to achieve that and without any plausible end in sight that strategy basically seems to boil down simply to "using capitalism".
Furthermore, and deeper than that, if the logical conclusion of what you think is basically hoping for a massive collapse in which countless people die and suffer on the off chance that what comes after might be better, then I would suggest it might be time to re-examine the basics of what you believe that have lead you to that conclusion and start again.