Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

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sushil_yadav
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26 Dec 2012, 8:42 am

ruveyn wrote:
Thats right. Let us go back to picking nuts and berries in the woods.

And 99 percent of the human race will perish.

Which, apparently you do not mind. You would rather see humans die and the rest of the flora and fauna live.


How do you jump to such absurd conclusions???

When did I suggest this......Show me when.....Show me where.

These are your words and ideas not mine.

When you fall sick you rush to the doctor, When you fall sick you rush to the hospital.

When biodiversity and ecosystems are sick and dying you are just not bothered.
.
.

I suggested getting rid of consumer goods not people.

sushil_yadav wrote:


A pure non-industrial society is not possible now because Industrialization has increased world population to 7 billion.......World population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to 7 billion in just about 200 years after industrialization.......In the absence of industrialization world population would have been only a small fraction of 7 billion today.

If we want to save the remaining environment we must minimize the things that are destroying environment.

At present we are destroying environment for Food, Clothing, Shelter plus Thousands of Industrial consumer goods and services.

We must eliminate the things that were added last to the list......which means Thousands of consumer goods and services, most of which have existed for only about 100 years out of Hundreds of Thousands of years of Total Human Existence on earth .........these have to be eliminated or minimized.

We are approaching Environmental Apocalypse.......The only way to save the remaining environment is by stopping Industrial Activity for production of consumer goods and services immediately........Industrial Activity must be limited to food, clothing and shelter.......and even in these three fields production and consumption must be kept to the minimum.



ruveyn
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26 Dec 2012, 10:06 am

The objective of all production is satisfying human wants and needs.

If we get rid of consumer goods, we also get rid of the portion of the economy that produces technology and capital goods.

People live on consumer goods. Food, medicine, light, heat, houses, cars.

Get rid of consumer goods and it is back to being hunter-gatherers which will lead to the death of most of the human race. Man does not live by bread alone. But man, in the numbers we have, cannot live on nuts and berries.

ruveyn



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26 Dec 2012, 10:58 am

I find it amusing that messages like this are transmitted to the masses via a computer that was presumably produced in a factory.

I wish these "return to the Earth" hippies would actually practice what they preach and go live in the woods, and stop using technology to spread the word about how evil technology is.

Anyway, thanks, but I'll keep my car, my computer, my food, my lights, and my heat. May Zog preserve the military industrial complex.


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androbot2084
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26 Dec 2012, 12:07 pm

One time I asked a trucker to switch over to an energy conserving synthetic oil and he refused because he was not one of those pagan environmentalists.



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26 Dec 2012, 3:11 pm

sushil_yadav, have you implemented the experiment correlating word-pacing with emotional states? It sounds interesting, I spoke to an ecopsychologist the other day and he said that a lot of mental health problems relating to stress and depression can be addressed by taking patients out into nature. It's pretty hard to go from school or working pace to relaxation, then back to work the next day.

On the other hand, I have running water because of thinking and people who put themselves through a faster pace. Life without creature comforts is hell, I liked being busy during those times too because I didn't have time to think about my circumstances.

The name of our game is using nature and defying nature to enhance the way we live. You're right that we've pushed boundaries we shouldn't push. I wish we'd give more consideration to our ecosystems and less to our economy, but that shouldn't mean we scrap all progress and go back to tribal living. Part of the reason we're so civilized is because we have enough for ourselves, if we go to having enough for half of us, civility is out the window.

Unskilled, repetitive work is increasingly being performed by computers and actuators. This should give us more of an opportunity to change pace and take a more balanced approach to life. Unfortunately, any pause in our generation of income threatens our individual way of life, and our ability to find work in the future.

In short, there is a problem, but your solution is extreme.



adb
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26 Dec 2012, 3:21 pm

The earth is just a resource to consume. When it starts to run out, we'll expand to another planet to consume.

Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that we won't sacrifice anything and anyone for our survival. You can fight all you want to preserve nature, but you'll lose in the long run.



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26 Dec 2012, 3:39 pm

Do you trash your body just because you believe you will receive a new one?



ruveyn
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26 Dec 2012, 3:47 pm

adb wrote:
The earth is just a resource to consume. When it starts to run out, we'll expand to another planet to consume.



Most likely not. We will end up like those stranded dudes on Easter Island. Up the creek without a paddle and by their own hands.

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26 Dec 2012, 3:51 pm

I can't read all that right now...but I think I get the point and I tend to agree. The fast paced consumerist society we have certainly plays a role in mental health problems. Regardless of if people want to call such a theory whining or not does not negate the fact that our society does contribute to mental health problems...and no a lot of times people can't just 'suck it up' and keep up with the game. It seems more and more people end up in that position, therefore they struggle even to simply survive and well poverty and mental illness go together. It's obvious to me but its much easier to pretend theres nothing wrong with this society but rather anyone who cannot keep up with it regardless of the reason.

Even though it hasn't happened yet, but rather has started happening......I think Marx's prediction about capitalism choking on its own wealth and collapsing in on itself (or something to that effect I read that quote a long time ago) is to come. But I suppose we shall see.


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29 Dec 2012, 8:56 pm

The manner in which we live will not be altered in any way by Luddites.
We will continue along the exponential path which leads to the Technological Singularity.

The path to the Singularity constitutes an existential threat to our species.
We may not survive.

The path to the Singularity also has the potential to change what it means to be human.
We will have control over the evolution of every species.
We will be able to merge with technology and become transhuman and even post-human.
We will be able to modify this planet in any way that we see fit (in acc. with the Laws of Physics).

If you have not studied the Singularity and its implications, I would highly recommend that you do.
This is the near future that we face.
Anyone who agrees with the OP will consider the Singularity to be the nadar of despair.
For better or for worse it is our fate.



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30 Dec 2012, 2:43 am

I think we are there. Industry is based on consumers, and we have everything. Next we can make things with less human involvment, and we are close to building machines that make China obsolete. 3-D Printers are coming along fast.

As for population, some 8.4 billion possible DNA outcomes, and we start producing doubles.

What gets edited out now is removed from the genome. Humans are not from all the people who ever lived, they are from a minority that survived, and produced children that survived, and that process continues.

Industry needed consumers to reach a level where consumers in mass are no longer needed. Those living beneath a sheet of tin outside some slum city, are not consumers.

Population will not be reduced due to enlightened programs, it will come do to sudden system failures. Depending on oil, when prices spike, supplies are short, food costs rise, and there is no way to deliver what no one could pay for. Water is another system heading for failure.

When it starts it reduces demand, as if no one can buy oil, they will also not be able to buy food. Production will be cut back.

We see it in our housing market, after the loss of great wealth, prices down by half, it is still not a buyers market, and million have made other living arangments. Loss of demand kills construction, and houses sit empty.

Our government is faced with eating it's self. Spending based on consumers has failed, debt is very real, and raising taxes will only make it worse.

We are at Post Consumer Economics, and it is all down from here.

We have entered the endless recession, and all of the spending that reduces the value of money barely keeps us there. A decline of GDP is the future, a depression that never ends.

Prices are falling because we have an excess, reduced demand, for electric, gas, and food is over produced for an export market that could dry up, when the people we used to import from no longer have our business.

We do not have to cut back food production, drought is doing that for us. We will eat, but those who used to eat our food will have to find something else.

We have enough coal and natural gas to keep things running. Other places are not so well off. Without oil imports, they no longer have the electric to pump water. They never developed a farming sector, or like the liberated Rodisia, turned the most productive farms into squatter camps, who now beg for food. HIV rates reach up to 50% in Africa, no treatment is available.

That is part of why half of Nigeria is under fifteen. still overpopulated, and about to have a population boom. It will not end well.

China runs on imported oil, food, and exports manufactured goods. Loss of market and they are in serious trouble. China has never had a recession. They have been keeping it going by building buildings that sit empty, high speed rail that costs more than flying, and even a command economy has limits.

OP is getting what he wanted, a worldwide decline of the industrial consumer economy. Unemployed people will spend everything on food and water, and demand will continue to drop. Deflation is the long term economy.

The result should be avioded, perhaps a billion will survive. The odds of several pan-epidemics being unstopable, could reduce that farther.

It will be good for the trees.

It will not be orderly, and for social and medical reasons, many of the survivors should be killed. Cannibals infected with HIV, no other way to deal with it.

Species survival is going to impose some standards.



ruveyn
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30 Dec 2012, 3:50 am

Inventor wrote:


Species survival is going to impose some standards.


As it always has. Nature will not be mocked. Nature will triumph no matter what.

ruveyn



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30 Dec 2012, 10:50 am

Inventor wrote:
As for population, some 8.4 billion possible DNA outcomes, and we start producing doubles.

Erm... what on Earth do you mean by that?



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31 Dec 2012, 1:01 am

I mean there is a limit to DNA. just like the lottery, and I have read 8.4 billion, as the possible number of tickets. After that come doubles.

I have also heard it in legal cases, out of 8.4 billion possible combinations, the DNA found at the crime matches only the defendant.

I did not check this myself, I just read alot.

Now a little math says if doubles are possible, they will start happening long before the total number is reached. Unrelated identical twins.



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31 Dec 2012, 1:10 am

I mean there is a limit to DNA. just like the lottery, and I have read 8.4 billion, as the possible number of tickets. After that come doubles.

I have also heard it in legal cases, out of 8.4 billion possible combinations, the DNA found at the crime matches only the defendant.

I did not check this myself, I just read alot.

Now a little math says if doubles are possible, they will start happening long before the total number is reached. Unrelated identical twins.



ruveyn
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31 Dec 2012, 9:36 am

Inventor wrote:
I mean there is a limit to DNA. just like the lottery, and I have read 8.4 billion, as the possible number of tickets. After that come doubles.

I have also heard it in legal cases, out of 8.4 billion possible combinations, the DNA found at the crime matches only the defendant.

I did not check this myself, I just read alot.

Now a little math says if doubles are possible, they will start happening long before the total number is reached. Unrelated identical twins.


8.4 billion possible permutations sounds a bit low. Actually it sounds more than a bit low.

ruveyn