Are humanity's problems primarily technological (not enough wealth generated; stagnation in R&D of new technologies; insufficient resources) or political (wrong distribution of wealth, capital and effort, wrong laws and social customs) ?
Do we even have enough resources to make everyone live a high-quality western-like lifestyle?
Or is it going to be a great global redistribution after which majority of globally poor people get to live more decent lives, but westerners will have to limit their appetites?
Are westerners (a golden billion, a global elite) going to vote against their interest?
These are my honest questions. I'm just skeptical that politics can solve the real problems (high-grade resource depletion, technological stagnation, relying on fossils) underlying our current status quo.
This is true. Material basis of western civilization negligibly changed since 70s-80s. There is even regress in high-speed transportation and space (bye bye moon, bye bye shuttle)
Kevin Nelson
We have self driving cars, reusable booster rockets that land themselves, transplant procedures that were science fiction not so long ago, procedures for making new materials, 3d printing at the atomic level, and all of that in less than 12 months.
We are also on the cusp of eradicating a parasite for the first time in history.
Charles Gray
This is techno-optimistic POV. It is ok, but remember that these news are mostly generated by clickbaiting media. If you look closer, many supposed breakthroughs have serious shortcomings that either completely disallow widespread adoption, or make them very costly (i.e. cutting edge medical procedures that only richest americans can afford).
Except they won't be on roads before 2025, and it's not sure yet how our stagnating legal system will allow for that. Current self-driving vehicles require the driver to be in control. That being said, self-driving cars really are a counter-example to my point. But note how ridiculously hard it was to get a prototype that works in limited cases and note that there is still no universal self-driving car.
Nope, it is just limited form of fabrication of molecules, and even then it is very pricey.
They really are scifish, but they have large mortality rates, both during surgery and after several years. Also note that these transplants require lifetime immuno-suppressant prescription. Also they are super-costly, million bucks and more for a single operation.
My POV is more pessimistic, I note that: 1) Humanity still relies on fossil fuels, both for transportation and for food (fertilizers). 2) Medical technology generally stagnated, the life expectancy almost ceased to grow (compared to 20th century). Modern medical interventions either don't help in increasing life expectancy, or are unavailable to general population. In 21th century almost no new antibiotics were developed, but at the same time antibiotic-resistant bacteria become widespread. 3) Transportation stagnated 4) Space bases turned out to be a dream (don't tell me about Musk, he hasn't even began doing the mars thing yet, the monn remains the place point human ever gone) 5) Population is growing, human life is increasingly devalued by this growth, esp. in the developing world. 6) Global warming is real, the year when arctic becomes iceless in summer is predicted to happen soon. Extreme weather events happen more often.
To me it looks like there is a possibility of global collapse that is driven by shrinking amount of fossil fuels and by increasingly devastating effects of global warming and over population. I don't say it is certain, but it looks possible.
Xavier Rivera
1. There is a massive resource distribution and waste problem caused by capitalism. 2. There are too many people alive to support sustainably at a comfortable western lifestyle. Both of these statements are true simultaneously.
Cameron Jenkins
What is leftist answer to these issues?
Personally I think it would be fair to limit reproduction (and explain to the people that this limit is put into place to invest more effort into developing people already alive instead of breeding cheap slaves).
To deal with limited resources a humane decision would be to redesign western lifestyle around energy/resource conservation (think biking instead of cars, telecommuting instead of jobs, more streamlined food production focused on covering nutritional needs and not on gourmet preferences, abolition of wall street and friends, redesign of global supply chains to limit need for transportation of goods).
But it is hard to imagine for me how western people used to extremely high-energy life will support such change, either by vote or by joining revolution. That's why I'm interested how Holla Forums is going to solve these problems.
Elijah Gutierrez
No, this is unnecessary.
Joseph Moore
Actually limiting reproduction would be shuddersome and intrusive. What we need to do is be ardent about safe sex practices, which religious organizations have been fighting against for decades.
Dipshits preach abstinence and wonder why their daughter is prego.
Jose Rogers
Please prove your point.
You can creatively approach it with memes and social ads, and general education, resorting to economic control methods only in worst cases. It is really inpeople's interests to cease reproducing more consumers.
The alternative to birth control given our current tech looks like malthusian hell on earth. In India hell on earth is already the case. And yet they continue to breed…
Jonathan Davis
see
Jeremiah Miller
But there is *already* overpopulation. It doesn't look like it will work itself out and we should just sit in the sofa, eat popcorn and wait for the better future.
Bentley Hill
Capitalism manages the production and distribution of goods incredibly poorly. "Overpopulation" is just a capitalist meme used as cover for the horrific poverty that system causes. Are there enough resources to ensure that everyone lives a comfortable Western lifestyle? I don't know, but it's not like we're even beginning to try.
Connor Evans
We tried that and ended up with pregnant teenagers.
Probably because having more kids won't actually be detrimental to them all until the population event horizon.
Gabriel Kelly
Capitalism sure causes poverty, but there is still not enough resources even in case of perfect distribution. If you look how much power a single US or EU citizen consumes and multiply it by 7.4 bln you will get 15+ times current earth energy production. Defeating hunger is possible right now with redistribution (but only if you have fossils to produce fertilizer), but having western lifestyle for everyone is an order-of-magniutde impossible.
It's not just a meme, there is real fundamental issue behind it. No matter how revolutionary you are you cannot defeat physics and our earthly circumstances (you could move beyond earth but currently it is unrealistic).
I think current system doesn't try it hard enough because it benefits from having hordes of desperated people who fiercely compete with each other for dollar-per-hor jobs. Western people kind of solved population issue among themselves because of prosperity, but developed world hasn't
Kayden Wood
It's easy to lie with statistics. Is this really what the average Western household uses, or is it something more like "total power usage divided by total population", where the average consumer is conflated with much bigger power hogs?
David Price
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Matthew Roberts
I'm saying that so far, all we've seen is capitalism behaving rather predictably like capitalism. There are no real changes that "overpopulation" have caused, which leads me to believe that it's just bullshit being used as cover for a faulty system that is, according to neoliberal ideology, supposed to make everyone wealthy, but is clearly doing the exact opposite.
Joseph Miller
Yes, the calculation uses total power usage, which consists of electrical energy and oil. But it is not a "lie". You see, even if you directly don't consume this primary power, this energy is still THE thing that makes your pleasant daily life with all its modernities possible. All these plastics, computers, groceries. Ultimately consumers are the ones that motivate capitalists to build these factories, consume resources and produce stuff.
It's not politics that makes our world work, in the end it is burining of fossil fuels that moves trucks and cars and produces concrete and plastics and fertilizer. The problem is, this is unsustainable. I don't mean it in environmentalist sense but in existential-threat-to-humanity sense.
I'm interested in how left plans to solve energy scarcity problem.
Capitalistic solution is already known and is underway: rich will shield themselves from starving masses in the gated enclaves and in private islands.
What would leftists do if 1) They lived in developed country, say, US 2) They come to political power 3) There is not enough resources for every human on earth to live a US lifestyle
But there are limitless signs that said energy is not being used in the most efficient way possible. Products have to circle the globe multiple times before they finally get to their target market, which could have produced said product locally. Our societies, presently constructed, don't even approach a decent level of efficiency. They're geared to produce profit, not be efficient.
I think it's already been proven that there are enough resources on earth for everyone to live in crowded, dingy apartments and rental homes, so I think that's a non-issue.
Wyatt Foster
I agree. But having lived in a commieblock I don't think you or your average US citizen would like such life. Suburbs are huge luxury. It is hard for me to imagine how westerners would voluntarily give away their quality of life for sake of global fairness.
With this I agree, but still many luxuries will be impossible even in efficient world. For example having 7.5 bln cars is impossible. Having 7.5 bln air conditioning systems is impossible too. Having high quality western-tier healthcare for 7.5 bln people… is possible but only if a significant chunk of global material and human resources would be channeled towards this goal.
This raises a lot of loaded questions: do all or non or some people get to have a [car] [AC system] [heart transplant] and should we encourage people to breed even more consumers..
Nathan Taylor
Never advocated everyone having their own car. They're incredibly inefficient, just very profitable, which is why they are pushed over developing transportation infrastructure.
Which is why you have more efficient, centralized systems within residential complexes. Which it should be, but isn't because there's no profit in hospitals for the impoverished.
Julian Robinson
Humanity's problems are political and lead to technological.
No, cause western lifestyle is shitty consumerism.
If your appetite is to get an new iPhone every 6 mothing, fuck your appetite.
Who said anything about voting? Also, these are bourgies. They exist in Saudi Arabia too.
Good thing to have questions.
Sebastian Bennett
More and more people in the western world who live in these suburbs have to take in more and more of their family to the point that they might as well only have as much space to themselves as a small apartment, which is where a lot of people live. House after house in the suburbs is knocked down and broken into 2-3 apartments, central urban areas see more and more commieblocks put up. Those are the kinds of places people live now and will live forevermore. The suburban dream will die for everyone no matter what system we have, so its a moot point how happy we are.
Samuel Johnson
I seem to remember the people advocating it getting shitposted off the board.
Joseph Jenkins
Disclaimer :I am an uneducated fuck
I'm starting to read Capital and it's giving me the sense that Marx treats society's capability for labor as the base resource that in capitalism get allocated by the market. When people talk about " it's expensive" they mean "within the current system the regulatory effort(capital) required to get the appropriate amount of labor is prohibitive". But what if we shed the notion of profit and use other criteria for what needs to be done, who shall do it and how?
It seems disingenuous to me when people say getting resource from A to B or producing X is "expensive" , what if the goal is not "profit shall be made" what if the goal was "this area's living standards are unacceptably low", or "these people need drinking water/housing/transportation/energy/healthcare/food".
Jason Carter
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Robert Carter
SPACE MINING NUCLEAR FUSION
Asher James
These are my hopes, but there is a possibility that we won't have these soon enough to prevent collapse. When fossil energy price grows past some point the economy just collapses.
