I see what the problem is. You don't know what communism is.

I see what the problem is. — Benkei

You don't, because...

You don't know what communism is. — Benkei

...you always assume some sort of deficit on my part rather than assume I have reasons to say what I'm saying!

If that's your go to response, and based on this thread - it very much is, then I'm outa here for while!

Seeya later!

...you always assume some sort of deficit on my part rather than assume I have reasons to say what I'm saying! — counterpunch

The deficit is apparent when you keep imputing "communism" on the criticisms I leveled at the current way capitalism is pursued but my comments are still entirely within keeping with capitalism as understood by Smith.

it very much is, then I'm outa here for while! — counterpunch

One can hope.

you always assume some sort of deficit on my part rather than assume I have reasons to say what I'm saying! — counterpunch

One has to assume deficits when one keeps saying the stupidest things imaginable, all with the utmost confidence.

This is off-side. Read back on this thread, and you've attacked my intelligence, sanity, called me obsessive, and called me ignorant - over and over, page after page - and I'm asking you to stop it.

When I click on the notification, and find some shitty one liner reply to a post I poured heart and soul into - it negatively effects my emotional state. It's not a comment here or there, it's repeated abuse from a mob of bullies.

100 days until COP 26 - and I'd rather withdraw from this forum than place my argument in a prominent spot, with this kind of vicious ad hominem abuse going on. I'm not willing to tolerate this - so knock it off or I'm gone.

I've actually not once insulted you, while your first post to me you called me an idiot. See And after repeated corrections insist on misrepresenting my position.

So, fuck you snowflake.

I'm not willing to tolerate this - so knock it off or I'm gone. — counterpunch

You're even too stupid to see that you leaving is a desirable outcome.

Take your inflated ego, your magma pipe-dreams, your capitalism worship, and your utter idiocy somewhere else.

Then like everywhere else on the net - you left wing bullies have driven out alternate opinion, and the kicker is that your idea of sustainability really is a pipe dream. On your head be it.

Then like everywhere else on the net - you left wing bullies have driven out alternate opinion — counterpunch

But your opinion is still here is it not? Very much in print and in its full 'alternate' majesty. Do you notice any deletions? Nothing of alternate opinion has been lost just by you ceasing to repeat it.

I haven't bullied you either. I'm calling out your feigned victimhood. You started out disrespectful, I ignored it, you stayed disrespectful by misrepresenting my criticism as communist despite repeated clarification and plenty of indication you're ignorant of what capitalism and communism are. You don't get to play the victim card when you act like an asshole.

Magma is a real source of huge amounts of clean energy we need, like yesterday. It cannot be developed quite that quickly, but doesn't have to be - assuming ultimately, it would be more than adequate, we can redress the damage in due course. — counterpunch

This is, unfortunately, essentially the same crap I have heard all my life. You are using the "Magma" energy source, while the fossil fuel folks touted their crap, all the while spewing the "clean it up later" line of garbage. In this instance, "redress the damage in due course." Right. Except that it flat out never happens. EVER.

I am sitting in Alberta, home of thousands of orphan wells all built on the "clean it up later" bullshit. No one ever wants to clean it up. So, moving forward, if you have no way to accomplish something without making a mess you can't clean up, you have no way to accomplish something. END OF STORY.

No one wants to clean up the mess. They are unemployed up here, sitting around doing jack shit and still don't want to consider cleaning it up. It took a federal mandate to even make the provincial government look at it as a possible option. Never mind that it has been staring them in the face for decades.

Clean it up later is a game plan for children.

Clean it up later is a game plan for children. — Book273

:100: And my mother always said, "If you borrow something, put it back the way and where you found it."

Exactly, and return it in better condition if at all possible.

Then like everywhere else on the net - you left wing bullies have driven out alternate opinion, — counterpunch

I usually leave people like you in the rear-view mirror. But I see here a teachable moment, and hope you can be taught. I’ve been banned from more internet discussion forums than I can shake a stick at. In fact, just yesterday, while I was not banned from LinkedIn as a site, I was banned from a conversation thereon. 98% of the time where I’ve been banned, it was conservative cancel culture. It was never due to my having conducted myself as you have here. It was always due to me giving as good as I got, logically or otherwise, in playing by the same rules as those with whom I was engaged.

I’ve seen more conservative gadflies buzzing around liberal sites than you would ever see if the roles were reversed. It has only been within the last few years that I’ve seen liberal-oriented discussion forums start to ban conservative gadflies. And that was simply in a tit-for-tat fit of frustration. There might also have been an acknowledgement of how well echo-chambers and confirmation bias and cancel culture seemed to be working for conservatives, and so the push-back was on. In other words, conservatives had brought it on themselves and now they are reaping what they sew.

But this place has not banned you, to my knowledge. In fact, where I envision a gadfly as somewhat of a loner, you are no gadfly here. This place has its fair share of conservatives. They just don’t act like petulant little children. If they do, I just ban them from my engagement and don’t rely upon the forum to do it for me. Besides, the forum's tolerance is higher than mine. Anyway, I digress. Let me get to my point. Here’s the lesson:

Next time you feel the urge to “ASSume”, or to say what it is that others must, in your mind, be saying, or before you arrive at a conclusion, do this: Ask a question. But first, ask yourself: Is this an honest question and is it founded in sincere intellectual curiosity? Or is it just a rhetorical device to gain points in a debate? But try to avoid straw men and telling people what it is that they think, or that the only logical conclusion is X. Ask instead. You might learn something you did not know.

As you may remember with me, you could have simply asked how I intended to accomplish my goal. But just as you have done to so many others on this thread, you did not ask. And you were not willing to take the steps to redeem yourself. Why, pray tell, should I continue to engage one who doesn’t even know what he did wrong, is in denial, or is afraid to admit it? Having been down this road before, I’ve found the perpetrator just continues with his transgressions. I can’t argue with such a person. (Much respect to those who have beat their head against the brick wall that you have become.)

P.S. I did not even know you were conservative until you just called out the site. As I’ve said before, I don’t know shit about magma and thought your interest in it was better than the denial of doubling down on big oil, like a true conservative would do. I thought you might just be a different left lane. But apparently not.

Anyway, back to the rearview mirror with you. If you have anything worth while in rebuttal on the magma science, I look forward to reading it.

The misunderstood genius with the magic (capitalist) solution to climate change, who goes around calling people "commies," is now leaving the discussion. Boo hoo. What a loss.

Everyone here, including myself, tried engaging you politely initially. When you prove yourself an imbecile over and over again, there's really no other way to respond -- unless you're the Dalai Lama.

Good luck with your magma dreams, of which you have no clue what you're talking about.

But your opinion is still here is it not? Very much in print and in its full 'alternate' majesty. Do you notice any deletions? Nothing of alternate opinion has been lost just by you ceasing to repeat it. — Isaac

My opinion is not explored, because it is not understood - even if it is understood, I am faced with a constant barrage of incomprehension, misinterpretation, and abuse. These subjects are hard enough as it is. Do you imagine they haven't taken a toll? So to be attacked, mob handed, on the theme of mental competence is just too much. Every post for the last few pages has been met with aspersions insanity, and this has gone too far. A remark here or there is one thing. Developing a theme and inviting friends to join in is another. So, I'm outa here - and I'll leave you with this. If you are not aiming to transcend limits to resources you are aiming to fail. Best of luck!

Since the "Only-Magma!" -guy has hopefully left us, here's a question for others.

The natural reason for more (energy) production is population growth. Yet population growth is decreasing globally and likely will in the future make the global population hit a peak and from there on the population will get smaller. With advances in technology that would sound at first an environment where we can tackle our present problems.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. Our system to finance those technological innovations and advances are built on a growth model. The debt-based monetary system needs economic growth. The social welfare models we use need growth to pay for them. With decreasing populations you might have a perpetual economic bust where not much improvements and advances will happen. The technology might be there, but it wouldn't be implemented. Fossil fuels might be used, because there's no money to build new alternatives because of the economic slump. Decreasing populations might sound like a good thing, but it might wreck havoc with our great plans to change the society from a carbon based to renewable energy based society.

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here?

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here? — ssu

I think the plan is to bungle through and learn as we go.

Yeah, deal with the current disaster once they happen. That's the way it will happen.

Yet smart people can anticipate those future disasters.

You see, it's not utterly crazy to think that the present financial system can collapse. It has already been close to collapsing, but has been sustained. Such events can ruin our present plans quite quickly. Or at least hinder them dramatically. Just to give one example.

I actually raised this issue when I was working at the Ministry of Finance. How to get to a circular, zero-growth, fair and just society.

No real answer but my gut feeling: I think mostly it will be about doing more with less and technologies that will support that will continue to be implemented. I see a high risk that capital distributions will be locked in for a very long time with very little change as a result of less economic activity and mobility, which will likely lead to inescapable socio-economic classes.

I actually raised this issue when I was working at the Ministry of Finance. How to get to a circular, zero-growth, fair and just society. — Benkei

:up:
Thank you for your actual contribution. People listen to the Dutch. They are part of the smart guys in the room.

I think mostly it will be about doing more with less and technologies that will support that will continue to be implemented. I see a high risk that capital distributions will be locked in for a very long time with very little change as a result of less economic activity and mobility, which will likely lead to inescapable socio-economic classes. — Benkei

That is a well thought answer, Benkei.

If capital investments to technology will happen at good pace, then we can solve the problem where the decrease of the population will naturally decrease the size of the economy. And of course, we have two very advanced societies that are going to tackle this problem:


And other like China will face it in the future. Yet even if Japan hasn't gone off a cliff with very small economic growth, the "Japan disease" might be our future.

I myself see huge political difficulties in adapting to the new environment. Once people have benefits, they will fight for those benefits and hence transfer payments will likely win over investments to technology. Now investments in technology have been partly helped by the global financial-casino, which, we have to admit, has also given funding to smart tech research. The rapid decline in costs for renewable energy is a prime example for that.

You see, it's not utterly crazy to think that the present financial system can collapse. It has already been close to collapsing, but has been sustained. Such events can ruin our present plans quite quickly — ssu

Exactly. It's myopic to think of climate change just from our own perspective. That's like a flea assessing an elephant.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. — ssu

The old saying "The bigger they are, the harder they fall" applies here, I think. The bigger our population gets and the longer we delay, the more catastrophic the inevitable fall. As opined by frank, though, the plan is no plan. We have and will continue to just muddle through in an open conspiracy to look the other way because we mistakenly think it will be too hard to bite the bullet. It's just going to get harder and, eventually Mother Earth will do what the stock market refers to as "a correction."

We think that just because we've pulled ourselves along, we always will. Because we are in the air, we are air borne. We fly. The sky's not a limit; space is next. We and our technology will save us. No one stops to think that we might be falling and just haven't hit yet. With our mere 200k years we have no context.

If no human being was born from today forward, then we'd be at about 2 to 4 billion in 30 years. Far from ideal, but way more sustainable. We don't need continuing innovation but there is no reason why we can't have it. We need to grow, but grow smaller; grow, but grow smarter. We have several hundred thousand years of experience and a wonderful solar power plant that has been working for long before we came along (photosynthesis). We can, but don't have to rest on our laurels.

All we have to do is what Aldo Leopold recommended so long ago: Make a virtue of necessity. What this means is, change what we now deem to be good to what we know would be better. If we exalt greed, then that is what we will get. If we exalt humble gratitude, grace and giving, then those who epitomize that will become the heroes, the leaders, the people we will endeavor to emulate.

Sorry, but I don't want to hear a bunch of "Yeah, but . . ." followed by a parade of horribles. As one recent meme I saw said: "The question isn't if we can afford to change; the answer is that we cannot afford not to." The money involved and the damage done by continuing on our current path far exceeds any cost created by an entire collapse of our current way of life and being tossed back into a cave. But we don't have to do that any more than we have to murder people.

What we need to do is to do to those who run the show what they have done to us: We need to harness them like work horses and put them to work for us. Subject them to the "human resources department" like they have done to us. Milk them for all they are worth. Trickle up, not trickle down. Stimulate those who actually do all the work and who will actually spend the stimulus stimulating. If those at the top want it to trickle up, then they can work for it. And work hard and smart for it. Working for the people, instead of the other way around. Pay a god damn tax for crying out loud.

So here's the sum and substance in anticipatory response to the inevitable "yeah, but . . ." BS that I am about to hear: Tough. Too late. We had our chance to reign ourselves in and unfuck this mess by executing a gradual turn of the ship. We were warned, in plenty of time, long ago. So now is the time to pay the piper. Crash this motherfucker now. And if we can be nimble on our feet with our tech and innovation, which we think we are so good at, then let's see what we got. Put up or shut up. NOW! Let's see what we got.

I don't want to hear a bunch of counterpunchian BS about trying to not upset the apple cart. The whole conservative attraction to Trump was about having lost patience with the foot-dragging, inside-the-belt-way, bureaucratic, deep-state dominant paradigm. They'd lost patience and wanted to risk it all. Okay, I'm calling their bluff. I'm calling humanities bluff.

Never mind. Let nature take it's course. Sorry, kids. We knew better but, we're only human.

P.S. There are many different theories on population reduction out there, for those who want to look into it. Fair warning: look out for nationalist/border groups; they come up with a lot of the same search terms but their goals aren't really concerned with humanity at large.

End rant. I have to go for several weeks. While I can read remotely I don't think I can contribute much, if at all.

Bit of July reading

6th — Anthropogenic influence on extreme precipitation over global land areas seen in multiple observational datasets
8th — NASA's AIRS Tracks Record-Breaking Heat Wave in Pacific Northwest
9th — We need a carbon-removal industry – should polluting companies pay for it?
13th — ESA and NASA join forces to understand climate change
16th — Dr James Hansen on climate: June 2021 global temperature update
18th — Germany knew the floods were coming, but the warnings didn’t work

18th — Germany knew the floods were coming, but the warnings didn’t work — jorndoe

I've noticed this too: weather forecast have become really accurate. They don't make mistakes on what is going to happen in the near future. A seven-day forecast can accurately predict the weather about 80 percent of the time and a five-day forecast can accurately predict the weather approximately 90 percent of the time. Regional forecasts for tomorrow (24h) are usually dead on. Wasn't like that only a decade or two ago.

Thanks to that rainfall in Central Europe, it has been nearly a drought here in Northern Europe.

What we need to do is to do to those who run the show what they have done to us: We need to harness them like work horses and put them to work for us. Subject them to the "human resources department" like they have done to us. Milk them for all they are worth. Trickle up, not trickle down. Stimulate those who actually do all the work and who will actually spend the stimulus stimulating. If those at the top want it to trickle up, then they can work for it. And work hard and smart for it. Working for the people, instead of the other way around. Pay a god damn tax for crying out loud. — James Riley

So (if you still have the time to respond, or respond later) just what are you just exactly implying? More transfer payments in taxes? To whom are where? Just who works for whom?

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here?

I think we will find ways of managing economies based more on sustainable models through having to deal with a succession of crises. The free market capitalism model was useful for a period of technological growth during the 20th century. But is now proving to destructive, a beast with an ever growing appetite.
We are dealing with such a crisis now, something more sustainable might come out of it. For example, a way of printing money which doesn’t result in the usual negative effects. Don’t ask me how this might work, but I think such solutions are possible.

The free market capitalism model was useful for a period of technological growth during the 20th century. But is now proving to destructive, a beast with an ever growing appetite. — Punshhh

Well, Soviet-style central planning was even more destructive, but I do get your point.

For example, a way of printing money which doesn’t result in the usual negative effects. Don’t ask me how this might work, but I think such solutions are possible. — Punshhh

I've been hoping that someone would explain and basically defend modern monetary theory, because it goes over my head even with having had university-level studies in economics and economic history.

The natural reason for more (energy) production is population growth. Yet population growth is decreasing globally and likely will in the future make the global population hit a peak and from there on the population will get smaller. With advances in technology that would sound at first an environment where we can tackle our present problems.

Yet the problem is that our society is built on growth. Our system to finance those technological innovations and advances are built on a growth model. The debt-based monetary system needs economic growth. The social welfare models we use need growth to pay for them. With decreasing populations you might have a perpetual economic bust where not much improvements and advances will happen. The technology might be there, but it wouldn't be implemented. Fossil fuels might be used, because there's no money to build new alternatives because of the economic slump. Decreasing populations might sound like a good thing, but it might wreck havoc with our great plans to change the society from a carbon based to renewable energy based society.

Has any thought been given how to tackle this issue? What do people think here? — ssu

I don't understand why decrease in economic growth would be a problem if it is caused by population decrease. Doesn't population decrease also imply that we need less goods and services because there are less people?

In fact, in looking for a definition it seems that economic growth is often defined in terms of per capita:

A definition that can be found in so many publications that I don’t know which one to quote is that economic growth is “an increase in the amount of goods and services produced per head of the population over a period of time.”

This would make sense because it seems to me that per capita goods and services is ultimately what we would be interested in. Increase only in GDP doesn't mean much if the population would grow quicker then GDP for instance...

I could see decline in population being a problem for goods and services per capita because you typically get an aging population in the short term, which means less economically active and so less production relatively. Or maybe you get less benefit from economies of scale, as your population is smaller... But other then that, i don't see the necessary connection?

I don't understand why decrease in economic growth would be a problem if it is caused by population decrease. — ChatteringMonkey

Think about the debt based monetary system of ours. Basically there has to be economic growth for the interest to be paid. Then think about the "pay-as-you-go" system of pensions (and basically health care system, as old people use it far more than the young).

Both are designed for a World were there are more younger generations than older. As I said, Japan is the case example of what is going to happen. It may not be a dramatic collapse, but Japan has serious problems. It is already in a situation where it cannot raise interest rates (as then too much of the government income would go to pay the interest). If you in this situation take more debt (as Japan has done year after year), what will you think the outcome will be?

I could see decline in population being a problem for goods and services per capita because you typically get an aging population in the short term, which means less economically active and so less production relatively. — ChatteringMonkey

It's not an aging population for the short term, it is basically permanently before some equilibrium is reached on some lower level. And that can take a long, long time.

Imagine a World the machines are as old as B-52s are now, which the youngest bombers are 58 years old. One hundred or two hundred year old power plants. A World where your fathers computer from two or three decades ago are as fast and capable of running the current programs as a new computer you can buy from the store. Great! We don't need new stuff you might think, until you notice that those old power plants are coal plants...