I don’t disagree, but given the parameters I established I offer two points in response.

1) I’m defining “church” as dogma/ideology/system of beliefs, not as the Roman Catholic church. So while the historical analysis is correct and related, it’s not completely what I mean here.

2) You never quite answered the question.

It is because they have this power that church and business often seek its favor and influence. — NOS4A2

True, but if the state is owned by business, as it is, then it’s business that controls violence — as it basically does, with few exceptions. (As well as the laws that are enforced through violence and imprisonment.)





:up:

Nietzsche has interesting things to say about this. Let us say: the overman is the meaning of the earth, and the highest goal. I personally like that.

I think you’re asking an important question. Individually, we have all kinds of unique problems and goals for ourselves. This is enough to occupy most of our time and energy. It’s also a terrible mistake and the source of untold suffering. Happiness comes from caring about something beyond yourself and in joining with others. For most it’s a partner or children or religion— that’s fine, as long as it wakes us up from our otherwise narrow concerns. But until it does, we’re stuck in a seemingly meaningless cycle of personal habits and routines.

Beware of those who discourage collective goals and collective action— they’ve been ensnared by a false ideology: the ideology of self. Where this thinking abounds, there’s always unhappiness and destruction.

The human species needs a goal, and right now we have none whatsoever— other than personal gain and greed. This will likely turn the future into an unlivable hell hole, thanks to what essentially amounts to nihilism in the wake of Christian dominance — represented in scientism, in capitalism, in technological advancement — and with nothing and no one steering the ship.

Capitalism is the cause, agreed, I'm just trying to figure where to go from here. One way or another we will need to change, the question is how, to what extent and when? If we believe climate scientists, which I do, there's not much time, which kind of restrains our options at this point. — ChatteringMonkey

If the choice was between destroying capitalism or destroying earth, given the time frame we’d have no shot. Capitalism — the form we have — will stay around a while longer, and so there has to be alternatives.

And there are. The push by investors like BlackRock — and the endorsement of the Business Roundtable—towards “stakeholder capitalism” and ESGs, the acknowledgment if Exxon, Shell, etc, that something needs to be done about climate, the mobilization of young people, and (depressingly the most important) the immediate effects before our eyes— are all signs that things are shifting.

The Republican Party mainly stands in the way. The Democratic Party aren’t that far behind — they’d prefer nice words and to throw essentially crumbs at the issue, but at least there’s an acknowledgement of reality.

If voters keep turning up to elect these assholes, or too many dems stay home, we’re toast. But I can’t believe this will happen, and we should all try our best to make the opposite happen.

Right now there’s smoke all over New England, from the wildfires in the west and Canada. Never seen anything quite like this — maybe once when there was a fire in NY.

Sun was red. Like a friggin omen.

The deficit spending, which enables the US to spend way more than it gets (in taxes), enables it to fight perpetual wars in other continents. — ssu

We hand $700 billion a year in discretionary spending to defense. It’s true that contributes to the deficit, but that’s a choice. No reason it has to allocate that money in that way. So when you say deficit spending enables wars, that’s not saying much— it also enables us to fund all kinds of things, good or bad.

If you buy and sell internationally, the deals are done in US dollars. — apokrisis

Kind of a lingua franca for currency.

That’s fair though. I’m failing to see how this relates to the function of the Fed.

The Fed’s role is mainly in monetary policy. So maybe I should have titled this thread that— or FOMC. But regardless, it has the power to increase or decrease the money supply and directly or indirectly set interest rates (the discount rate and funds rate, respectively), as well as determine reserve requirements— these are its tools to control inflation and either stimulate or contract the economy.

The fact that 19 people (or 12 with voting power) get to determine what the target fund rate is and how much money should be in circulation is something worth keeping in mind. These are people who make real decisions like you and I— but theirs just so happen to effect millions of people’s lives.

The real story is Bretton Woods and how the US agreed to fund the recovery of the post WW2 broken colonial empires by making the US dollar the world currency. — apokrisis

But it isn’t the world currency. There are many currencies in the world even today, but certainly in the 40s before the Euro.

It’s true that with Marshall Plan aid, several countries were indebted to the US, but I don’t see what this has to do with currencies. Being a superpower militarily will mean your currency and language and culture are going to have an outsized influence on the world.

Maybe I’m missing something.



I would prefer that you write something yourself rather than spam the thread with links.

without the role of the dollar, the US could not live on issuing new debt as it has for decades now. — ssu

What role do you mean, more specifically?

but I have no idea what interest rates, like is it the interest rate on a mortgage or credit card? — John McMannis

I think it’s the funds rate, or the interest rate of money the Fed lends to banks to cover a certain legal minimum (to prevent bank runs). Banks can also loan excess money to other banks who are low on funds, etc. This trickles down to the interest rates you and I can receive from banks for homes, cars, credit cards, etc. That’s my understanding— happy to be corrected.

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.

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.

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.

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.

Rumsfeld of course. The great philosopher.

I'm wondering if you are happy with Counterpunch obsessing on your thread - it keeps it on the top of the discussions list, after all - or if you would prefer a different discussion. — Banno

I don't consider this my thread, in this case. Just a general discussion. If he wants to make a fool of himself, that's his business.

Terrible coincidence -- I hadn't even seen your post. Apologies.

Wind, solar, hydro, nuclear. All excellent options, all getting easier and cheaper and more efficient as time goes on. Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels. This, along with reforestation, carbon capture, etc., will all be needed to solve the crisis. This is straight out of the IPCC. Or we can instead take seriously the rantings of a crackpot on the internet, with his silver bullet. To me the choice is clear.

I cannot comprehend how inequality of wealth is relevant to my proposal - even if I thought it were a problem, which I don't. I'm happy to see someone doing well for themselves - good on 'em! — counterpunch

Good god you're an imbecile.

I love how there's nothing you cannot misunderstand somehow! — counterpunch

Yeah, that's what's happening.

capitalism is the prevailing economic system, and imperfect as it may be, has the knowledge, skills and resources to apply the technology to prevent an imminent catastrophe — counterpunch

Capitalism has personal traits now -- like knowledge and skill.

Thanks again for your abusive, ill informed, half assed, hateful opinion! — counterpunch

The only appropriate response to a deluded individual who listens to no one and has no ideas.

Scientific method emerged 100 years before the industrial revolution — counterpunch

You don't know what you're talking about. But it's nice to see you fit right in with the typical behavior of most ignoramuses -- always speaking with utmost assurance in their own (believed) acumen.

The scientific method doesn't exist. That's a fairy tale. But even if it did, it didn't "emerge" at a date, and certainly not "100 years before the industrial revolution," which is itself difficult to date. Some estimate around 1750, which would make your bogus date 1650, which is completely arbitrary. Galileo was already dead by that point -- to take one example.

I don't even know why I'm bothering, to be honest. But almost everything you say is so stupid I feel compelled to respond. It's too easy a target.

To maintain that religious, political and economic ideological description of the world - a scientific understanding of reality was ignored, downplayed, undermined - over hundreds of years. — counterpunch

:yawn:

OK Richard Dawkins. What a boring analysis. Also has the benefit of being completely wrong.

But you're welcome to keep believing it. In your world, the problem is the ignoring of science and the solution to the climate crisis is magma energy. Got it. Everyone is riveted. Now go away.

I'm not against "free" markets as we understand them in mixed economies but against the idiotic laissez-faire nonsense. I am against societies that are diminishing people, resources and everything else into their monetary value. I'm against the concentration of power that comes along with it, I'm against the asymmetry that arises from all these effects resulting in a split between "capitalists" and "labourers" and rich vs. poor. — Benkei

This is well said— and wasted on the utter buffoon you’re talking to. Still I applaud you.

You’re forgetting a simple principle: capitalism is anything that’s worked and led to benefits, and anything that doesn’t— is not capitalism.

It’s a religious belief in capitalism as a magic system that cures all, provided we do it correctly, that lies at the heart of people like magma man. Unshakable belief.

The root cause of climate change is our mistaken relation to science — counterpunch

No, it isn’t. Assert it a million times— doesn’t make it so.

Science grew up with capitalism, and has been appropriated for profit, usually at the expense of the public (eg computers, the internet, pharmaceuticals, etc).

As usual, you have no idea what you’re talking about— and I have no interest in explaining it to you. You wouldn’t hear it anyway. Just be happy with your delusions of solving the world’s problem by fiat.

The root cause of climate change is the ideological context within which capitalism operates — counterpunch

exclude science as an understanding of reality. — counterpunch

Capitalism is an ideology. It’s the religious belief in the free market and the primacy of profit— all else is externality. Capitalism doesn’t exclude science at all.

That certainly lets the USSR and the CCP off the hook. — jgill

They’re state capitalist systems as well.

A solution overlooked by the thousands of actually qualified people working on this important issue.
— Xtrix

This happens. — Benkei

No it doesn’t. Not on this level.

How could we create antibodies if we weren’t in a sense conscious of the disease? — NOS4A2

For a normal person, this would be the stupidest thing they've said on the forum. For you, maybe it makes the top 20.

invested in making capitalism the villain of the piece, but it's just not true. — counterpunch

Capitalism is the reason for climate change. That’s a fact. Holding your hand to help you understand it isn’t of interest to me. When a system values short term profits, and anything else is considered an externality, this is what happens. Seen clearly in the Exxon memos.

Take your capitalist/magma wet dreams elsewhere.

Capitalism is not to blame. — counterpunch

Yes, it is. Short term profits, all else is externality. That’s the only reason we’re here right now.

You’re not a philosopher, and you have no solutions — because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

A lot of that I like.

:up:

It's vague idea. You have no clue about its technical or economic viability. You don't even have a proof of concept at this point. — Benkei

But he, and he alone, has the solution. No clue about what he's talking about, or about pesky technical details, but he's got the solution. A solution overlooked by the thousands of actually qualified people working on this important issue.

Talk about delusions of grandeur. Leave the little crackpot to his illusions.

I am a philosopher addressing the question of whether a sustainable future is possible — counterpunch

:rofl:

Cringe-inducing. No self-awareness whatsoever.

I would have thought it were obvious capitalism is a good system — counterpunch

That's because you're an embarrassingly simpleminded individual who is too busy with his own delusions to hear a word anyone else says.

in that a left wing approach to climate change will undermine capitalism — counterpunch

Since capitalism is the cause of this mess, one would hope it's not only undermined but destroyed completely.

Unconscious doesn’t have to mean automatic and split off from consciousness. — Joshs

By definition it does. Not everything unconscious is "automatic," true. It helps to give concrete examples: things happening at the cellular level are unconscious. Your liver's function is unconscious. Your breathing is usually unconscious, but can be made to function under conscious control. I liken much of our average behavior to breathing -- yes, you can control and direct it at times, but mostly it's unconscious and automatic. Most of our behavior is habitual. Habits are mostly unconscious, again almost by definition.

It's not that it's "split off" from anything, it's just how we live. If we want to define consciousness to include habit, fine. But then we're just off to playing word games again.

Enactive, embodied approaches to cognition reveal the body as integrated with mind in a complex and inseparable fashion. — Joshs

We have no technical notion of "body," so to say they're "integrated" is meaningless to me. Yes, the human being is a complex entity. But that we knew already.

Rather, the unconscious is a kind of implicit consciousness. — Joshs

See above about word games. Now we're just defining our way into believing that everything is conscious. But that's just not the reality. There are all kinds of things I do that I have no memory of, am not aware of, etc. -- from complex behavior like driving to the inner workings of my body. If we want to claim this is "implicit consciousness," then we're off to a computer model of the mind, where rules are "stored" somewhere in consciousness. That's not convincing to me.

Didn’t know he was a General. :wink:

I am not convinced that we are that unconscious and I think that we have the ability to develop as self conscious beings. — Jack Cummins

There’s nothing to be convinced of— it’s a simple fact. Yes, we can develop as human beings and we can think and plan and develop awareness. The fact that most of our existence is not directed by conscious activity doesn’t man conscious activity doesn’t play an important role in our lives.

Also, I think that we have a certain amount of choice about how we develop as individual selves, — Jack Cummins

I’m not denying that we have choices. But when you look at your average behavior, it doesn’t involve rational choice and isn’t deliberative.

I think that it varies how people understand the concept of self, within different psychology models and within the various systems of meditation. Also, I think that individuals vary in the way in which they think about the self. — Jack Cummins

True— but this can be said about literally everything.

Some people probably operate on a more automatic basis than others, and it all depends on how much people stop and reflect on the processes. — Jack Cummins

In some ways. In other ways we’re all mostly automated, unconscious beings. There’s no way around it. From our breathing and heart beating to our internal workings of our organs, there’s far more unconscious activity going on than conscious— leaving aside more complex behavior, which is itself largely unconscious (though it does vary).

But, I do think that the models of how we think about the self probably affect how we conceptualize the experience of self because it is an interpretative process. — Jack Cummins

Yes. Our understanding of self is like the understanding of the world— it varies, it involves interpretation, perception, cultural conditioning, and so on. The same is true of human being (human nature) and existence in general. Why we think in terms of a “self” and what this term embodies is an interesting question. I think a major influence is from Descartes, but that’s not saying much.

Try meditating and see if you can find where or what the self is. In Buddhism it’s called “anatta” (Pali) — non-self. Just impersonal changing phenomena.

In our daily lives, I don’t think there’s much thought about the self. It’s an idea more basic than mind or subjectivity, but when you look at most of our activity, I don’t think “self” actually plays a big role as a concept. Much more about habit and automaticity.

In which direction exactly? Wealth inequality is higher than ever, you run the world's largest gulag system, corporate capture of government power is has probably never been more prevalent, US life expectancy is falling, your infrastructure is crumbling, your housing market is back up to 2008 levels with no countervailing forces in sight, your public services have been gutted, your press has never been more subject to corporate imperatives ... — StreetlightX

Well when you put it that way…

But we have some decent pizza places.

Significant change does not occur so long as the ruling classes do not feel threatened. — StreetlightX

Yes, but you know as well as I do that doesn’t exclusively mean threat of violence.

There’s been progress even under our oligarchic system. If we reserve “significant” only for systemic change, then unfortunately you’re right.

Yeah yeah, the organizers have been so tremendously successful so far. — StreetlightX

Because police brutality continues, yes. But by that standard the anti-war movement wasn’t successful either, nor the early civil rights movement, etc.

Burning police stations has the opposite effect as well. Just gives police more sympathy and Fox easier material. But I’m guessing you know all this already and are just being provocative. Still it’s worth reminding ourselves of when enraged by the lack of any significant progress.

80% of the American public is "politically ignorant" meaning they are so ignorant that they can not answer very basic questions about American politics. — Saphsin

What is your source for this? I’m actually interested.

ean towards Erik Olin Wright's formulation of "non-reformist reformism" on the path to socialism. Let me know if you're sympathetic to it — Saphsin

Sure. There are many paths we can take. I’m for Revolution as well, actually. It’s just that no one is starting one — and no one listens to me! So I’m left with the most realistic options.

Not enough neighbourhoods were set on fire. — StreetlightX

That’s just silly. Talk to an organizer about why, but the reasons are fairly obvious. It’d be as effective as the WU in the 60s. May make us feel better, but takes the cause backwards.

You missed the Antifa and BLM "mostly peaceful" riots last summer in which at least 23 people were shot dead, — fishfry

Shot dead by whom? Cite your sources— seems bogus to me, or hiding context.

There were massive protests all last summer, millions of people in fact. The vast majority of people—99%— were peaceful. I know conservative media loves to try to portray it all as “chaos,” but we already know why that is. The same reason they’re trying to portray the sacking of the capitol as akin to a “guided tour.”

I see you’re a consumer of this fiction. What a shocker.

No, I don’t think so and for the same reason I stated. I don’t know of any solution, but there has to be a better alternative than aggrandizing the state.

It was government posturing and regulations that led to censorship on social media in the first place. — NOS4A2

Yeah, we know. Because in your world, government — to quote St. Reagan — is always the problem.

Let me guess: the solution is the free market?

When I was younger, my mother bought me "Looking at Philosophy," which was fun. I like "Story of Philosophy" by Durant, as well. Those are fine for anyone new. A lot of other good suggestions on here as well. The hard part will be picking from all of them!