Someone trying to promote Degrowth in her local community. Did survey of 100 local people:
1. What qualities do you value in yourself or others?
2. Do you feel these are prevalent in our society today?
3. What do envisage life would be like if in 30 years time we all practiced these qualities?
4. What do you think could be done bring those values back?
Q1: honesty, kindness, patience
Q2: No, these values are not prevalent today.
Q3 & Q4: People want to try and bring back these values.
1/2
People all over world know that this civilization is rotten, corrupt an doomed. They instinctively know that we face a moral crisis of values. But they feel trapped by a whole range of things, not least the convenience and ease of corrupt lifestyles. Big Tech and Big Consumer feeds off the worst of us. Big Tech thinks our base instincts will always triumph over our good nature.
One step at a time, we must break away from the Growth Death Cult. Resistance is slowing down, being kind.
2/2
The very first step is recognizing the options made for us we are made to choose from.
Option A boil and poison the planet with the global economy, using fossil fuels
Option B boil and poison the planet with global economy using renewables
It’s not the energy source;” it’s the economy stupid”
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @gerrymcgovern
There's a lot said about increasing the use of renewables, and that's a good thing.
But, humans being human and stuck in the capitalist mindset, we're going to consume more and more and still more.
And unlike Malthus's postulate, we're going to take a majority of species with us.
Maybe, if the marmalade moron manages to precipitate the world war he seems to be trying for, enforced degrowth will follow from the ashes.
Or, we could follow Luigi Mangione's lead and start eliminating CEOs?
One way or another the future is local. A global economy was made possible by a low volatility environment. We don’t have that anymore and over time bit by bit it will smash up the global supply chain.
A port here, a bridge there a dam, a power plant a bread basket, a watershed, and ecology. We now live in a world where large scale environmental change is normal not like the last 12,000 years
As a for instance, let’s consider any use of renewable technology in technology that does not involve long supply chains in the context of making a community car free, greening the urban environment, and localizing the food supply.
The infrastructure needed for localized economy is completely different than the one built around servicing and being a cog in the financial industrial globalized economy.
The technological needs are different. The scale is different.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @Fragarach @gerrymcgovern
Part of me is suspicious of any declaration that "humans are human", or any Hobbesian commentary on the fundamental nature of "Man".
One thing I think has become absolutely clear is that a great deal of energy use is simply capital protecting profit at the expense of life, and that cultures of consumption exist in large part because they *must* exist for capitalists to continue to make the line go up.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @Fragarach @gerrymcgovern
Electrification in part breaks that culture, which is almost enough in and of itself to promote it, even without considering its decentralizing effects and promotion of autonomy from the State.
I understand that renewables are no "solution" to the problem of humans using too much energy; but if you consider bad actors' influence and control as major factors in that excess, rather than the "fundamental nature" of human beings, their value swells
@johnzajac @Fragarach @gerrymcgovern
The end point of a global supply chain is every community.
every community has been structured around interdependence on a global supply chain, made both dependent and a cog in the system.
The future is local because a volatile warmer atmosphere renders the global supply chain financially insolvent.
Before electrification, we should talk about elimination.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @johnzajac @gerrymcgovern
Agree with the move to local for a lot of things. Capitalism (or, more realistically, parasitism) depends on artificially manufactured scarcity.
@johnzajac @GhostOnTheHalfShell @gerrymcgovern
Oh, I'm not pretending to be a philosopher, but I suppose what I meant was that societies have inertia, and change, especially rapid change, will be be resisted.
And the amount of psychological warfare the morbidly rich will undoubtedly bring into play will cause people to act against their own interests.
Gerry McGovern
GhostOnTheHalfShell
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC
Fragarach
John
Cy