i’ve ** been** to Cuba, Indonesia, China, and the Philippines, “among other places.”
this isn’t all book learning. some of it is “actual experience.”
you were saying something about wild assumptions…?
I accept your apology, spoke-. Your forebearers may or may not have been assholes. You probably are not.
Every human being deserves our respect and loyalty right up until the moment they prove themselves undeserving. Not a minute sooner.
I feel guilty for those wrongs I have committed to undeserving people and creatures. Not for those wrongs some white culture accepted a hundred years before my parents met. I accept responsibility for my actions, or my inactions when I could have prevented a wrong. I am responsible for that which is in my sphere of influence (spatial and temporal sphere).
If my father had killed a man before I was born, I sure would feel horrible for the victim’s family and associates. I would hold him, or the memory of him, responsible for his actions. I may even hold blame against my mother if she had any bearing on the matter. But should the victim’s family blame me? They may hold a grudge against me out of bitterness and transferred hatred, but that would be logically wrong. Those hatefull feelings would eat them up inside and halt the healing process.
But that’s just me.
ah yes, the sins of the father debate.
As I do not subscribe to any religious order that believes in Original Sin, I will not follow this either.
My great grandfather was hung as horse thief in Ireland. You want to revist his punishment on me? … bring it!!!
Laz, we must be related! Your folk was hung as a horse thief, and I’m hung as a horse!
(OK, I’m sorry.)
If you really want a 3 foot penis, go right for it. Personally, I would think that quality of sex would go downhill for you (and the oral sex would probably go away).
But whatever works for you, shooter.
…not to mention the fact that he would probably pass out everytime he got excited…
Might it be more accurate to say that people admire/envy Americans all over the world? Why wouldn’t they? We do, as you said, have it pretty damn good.
Ah, the most pathetic non-argument in existence dragged out again. Bear in mind that this can be thrown right back in your face. Methinks you need to spend more time worrying about yourself, and less time worrying about who other people are worrying about. If we all followed your advice, the GD forum would not exist!
I disagree. They do not have what we have because of their overly restrictive regulations.
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Third world countries can’t afford to have restrictive regulations. That’s why sweatshop labor and foreign exploitation thrives. Those countries are economically dependent on the crumbs that corporations throw them in exchange for labor or environmentally unsound practices. They can’t enact regulations like we have in the U.S. that protect labor standards and environmental concerns (to a certain degree). If they did, companies would set up shop in some other third world country. Your prediction would be that these countries lack of regulations would bring them prosperity. Well, I’m still waiting to see it. Much of our economic prosperity is coming directly out of the labor of people in third world countries. Corporations make huge profits because they cut their labor costs to almost nothing. It’s even a better setup than slavery, because their “employees” live in a different economy where they can feed themselves for a lot cheaper. Those companies’ profits go back into the American economy and promote the illusion that our prosperity is a result of our own hard work, when in truth, much of it is supported by disadvantaged people.
You ignore the fact that “progress” has consistently made things less efficient, not more. You doth protest? While, in terms of human effort put forth, we are able to get more output for less human effort, we do that only through consuming vast amounts of non-renewable energy sources in order to replace our own need to work. Fossil fuels are the main energy source for this. You don’t have to grow or find your own food anymore, you only have to go to the store and buy it. Very efficient, right? Well, consider the fuels being burned up by tractors on the farm fields, the energy expended in researching, developing and using pesticides which must be used in increasingly large doses, the fuels burned by the harvesting machines, the energy expended in processing the crops, preserving them, whether in a freezer, which requires constant energy, or through canning or somesuch, which uses energy to can the food as well as requires minerals which had to be extracted from the ground. Or maybe it’s packaged in plastic, which was made from fossil fuels. Then your food is shipped from warehouse to warehouse by trucks which burn fuel. It’s labeled, which requires more resources and energy. It’s shipped to the grocery store, where you pick it up while strolling around in a lighted, air conditioned building, go to the checkout counter, where an employee scans it and cashes you out on her machine which is run be electricity. Then you get in your car and bring all your food home, burning fuel all the way. You put some of it in your fridge, which requires constant energy just to keep food ready for you to eat.
It’s clear to see that industrialized society is less efficient than subsistence agriculture, which is in turn less efficient than hunting and gathering. And you think that more progress will turn this trend around? When? It’s been going in the same direction since the beginning. When is this turnaround coming? [aside]Somewhere around the time of the imminent Rapture, I’m sure. :rolleyes:[/asode] What will replace plastic when the fossil fuels are gone? Fossil fuels are a cornerstone of our society, and they will only last so long. But people like you are convinced the solution is just to burn 'em faster, thinking that will promote “economic growth” which will magically fix the problem when the time comes. Don’t drive your kids to soccer practice in a car, drive an SUV. We’re prospering. We can afford it.
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If you want to make a difference then I suggest you start helping people in all your spare time. Lobbying to control the entire world (which is what you are advocating) is a counter-productive effort if you are trying to raise the standard of living in other countries. **
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Are you missing the point on purpose, or is it just passing you by?
Engaging in debate on the SD with willing opponents is a far cry from lamenting the excesses of people you have never even met before, but only see as they pass you by on the street.
I think China and India were two of the countries being talked about, and examples were given that I was referencing.
You hold on to that fantasy.
Start walking everywhere you go and live in a house you made out of mud and reeds. See how efficient that system is for supporting a whole country.
For examples, see Africa.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling…
If there is a problem, and someone can make a forutne off solving it, then rest assured the problem will be solved.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Freedom2 *
**
well, the mud house is probably more efficient to heat, the materials are biodegradable, and 500 years from now, we’ll still be able to construct it. not so sure about that vinyl siding.
of course, you rely on the REAL great American religion: technology. i’m still waiting for the cure for acne, which i’m pretty sure would produce a windfall. after that, maybe we can tackle the ozone layer, toxic/nuclear waste and deforestation (hey, synthetic trees!)
i’m always amazed that people who call themselves skeptics (sadly, including not a small number of people here at the SDMB) can display the most disturbing blind faith in the power of technology to solve all the problems that technology itself has created. it’s like our Tooth Fairy that will take all the bad consequences away and leave a quarter under our pillow. hope we’ll still be able to breathe when she shows up…
**
Much of that debate, in case you haven’t been paying attention, does concern people we’ll never meet. We lament the people that want to force schoolchildren to listen to Christian prayers. We lament people that believe whites are better than blacks. I happen to lament people whose excesses promote and support the exploitation of other people around the world and perpetuate an unsustainable system of indulgence.
**
You hold on to that fantasy.
Start walking everywhere you go and live in a house you made out of mud and reeds. See how efficient that system is for supporting a whole country.
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**
Start carting yourself around in a vehicle that burns fuel and live in a large building with electricity and see how efficient that system is for supporting a whole world. Won’t work. You can only support a system of waste and luxury for a certain portion of the world’s population, and even then only for so long.
The only reason walking everywhere doesn’t work is because we live in a society where cars have become common, therefore becoming integrated enough so they are necessary. I do walk everywhere I go, with one notable exception, back and forth between home and college, because they’re 90 miles apart. If colleges didn’t exist, I wouldn’t need to drive there. Besides that, I do walk, rain or shine, snow or sleet. Or a bicycle, which of course requires extraction of minerals from the ground, but would be unnecessary in an ideal world.
And besides, choosing an example of disadvantaged people living in today’s post-industrial society says nothing about the state of human life before technology enabled humanity to become grossly overpopulated. Of course natural subsistence doesn’t work with 6 billion people.
**
Do you have a point here, because it seems that you are suggesting that the idea fossil fuels will run out is so ludicrous that it doesn’t even need refuting. If that is the case, you are the one in the fantasy world.
**
Oh, I see. Money solves all problems. I should have known. You ignore the fact that some problems just may not have solutions, or have solutions that people are not willing to adopt, and therefore are not moneymakers. If someone could solve the problem of death, they would be the richest person on the planet, but the death rate still holds steady at 100%.
Accutaine.
Well, I do have faith that technology, or more accurately INGENUITY will overcome all the problems we face, or create. In the end, the survival instinct is pretty strong.
I think you and I have a basic difference on how we see the world. I don’t expect nature to have the same charachteristics 300 years from now that it has today. I’m a little sad that things will change, I don’t neccesarily like all of the changes I see, but the world is bigger than me and I consider myself a realist.
Much of what I debate, and the positions I take revolve around personal freedom others getting out of other people’s lives.
I don’t need to agree with every decision a person makes, nor do I need to even LIKE it, however, I want the same freedom to make my own choices.
Start?
So far everything looks ike it is working to me.
Tell me, what point in history did they have this “sustainable system” you seem to dream about?
And your solution to the world’s ills is to…
…eliminate colleges and progress?
I think we already tried your version of an ideal world. It was called 5000BC.
Humans didn’t like it all that much so they invented all the stuff we have today.
Time to thin the herd?
Maybe you consider animals more valuable than humans? Maybe you should be appointed God and can regulate who should live and die. I’m sure you would be much better at picking the perfect number than nature is.
Yes, I said nature.
IF you believe in evolution, then man is natural. Our actions are perfectly fine.
Let’s see…
We take all the old plastic, dump it into a landfill and complain that it will not decompose for a million years.
So it seems to me…
That when (if) we run out of raw resources…
We will have a nice place to start digging for more rescources. Then there are composites…metals…
Recycling…
And what is the worst case scenario? We all end up living in your dream mudhut.
You are pushing the idea of inevitability for your scenario. If that is the case…willingness to change does not seem to be part of the equation.
Well, personally, I don’t see death as a problem.
But since you mentioned it…there are millions of people who make their living keeping people alive and extending life. From pharmacutical companies to hospitals to ambulance makers to medical suppliers…etc…etc…
Anyway…I can’t believe you see death as a problem. You seem to be lamenting the excess of human life on the planet, not the shortness of our stay.
Sorry, folks, this is a really long post. I just previewed it and Good Lord, it’s long. However, I feel it was necessary to respond to the points fully and adequately, so here it is. I have deepest thanks for anyone who bothers to read it.
Survival is one thing. People will likely survive a good long time. However, survival is not the same as being able to perpetuate our kind of society forever. Ingenuity couldn’t pull the Titanic out of the water. Ingenuity is only effective so long as a solution to the problem actually exists. I have to doubt whether there are solutions that will enable us to indefinitely maintain our standard of living that includes conspicuous consumption and thoughtless waste. Ingenuity may keep us alive, but there’s no guarantee it will allow us to live as we are forever. That ingenuity may have to take the form of an American individual building a trap to catch a deer because she can’t just go to the grocery store and buy a bag of Doritos. Will this happen in the near future? I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime, unfortunately. But there’s only so much oil in the world, and maintaining our current lifestyle will necessitate finding a substitute for every single thing that oil does. Think about that for a minute. Replacing oil is going to be a much more difficult job than simply discovering that oil burns to begin with, than finding things you can do with it. Now you’ll have to find different, non-oil solutions that do all the same things as oil. If even one use for oil can’t be replicated, the system will suffer, and someone, somewhere, is going to feel it.
I don’t expect everything to stay the same either. What do you think of me? However, it seems that your idea of being a “realist” includes being certain that things must get better. I accept the possibility that things may get worse, indeed probably will get worse eventually, though I probably won’t be alive to see the worst of it.
Fair enough. But as you know, the debate of freedom of choice is not a two sided one. There is not one group of people saying, “People should have freedom of choice,” and another saying, “People should have to do what we think is right.” It’s rather an issue of a trade-offs. There are choices a person can make that will adversely affect others. It’s just a question of deciding if that adverse affect is more or less important than that individual’s freedom of choice.
In the case of the issues we’ve been discussing in this thread, (It really should have it’s own thread by now. I’ll just respond to this one post, and if another thread hasn’t been started soon, I will start one, rather than continue this threadjack.) is it more important that, say, “Smith Textiles” have the freedom to manufacture wherever it wants as long as it obeys local laws or has the money and influence to get around them, or is it more important that the U.S. not support labor practices that we have banned for our own citizens. Today, we seem to have generally decided that our labor rights belong only to our own citizens, and if we can get our goods made cheaply, then that’s good for us in this country. I don’t think the government will ever stop this practice, and I’m not sure that they should. However, for myself, I’ll try not to support those practices. Yes, I know that there are sweatshops in the U.S. also, but I’m going to try to live my ethics as fully as is feasible in this world.
Is it important that a person have the freedom to drive themselves around, alone, in a giant SUV? Or is it more important that that person not use any more unreplacable fossil fuels than is necessary to do what they have to do? If this person has a smaller car they could have used, they are acting in a way that is detrimental to all of humankind. However, we have decided that freedom of choice is what matters in this case. Fair enough. Neither the government nor anyone else has the power or the right to make everyone act in the way that is most beneficial to all their fellow humans. However, this person is harming our society which depends on oil. That person is not a “realist,” and is using their freedom of choice to the detriment of everyone else. I, personally, won’t make that kind of choice, and I won’t approve of people that do.
When you look around yourself, you have the lucky pleasure to not be surrounded by masses of starving people. Of course, everything looks like it’s working to you. You live in America, (maybe, or at least a country of a similarly high standard of living) and everything looks all right to you. You live in a country where doctors actually have to tell people, “Don’t eat so much.”
Well, gee, we spent most of our time as a species as hunter gatherers and never put ourselves in danger of self-destruction.
As it stands, colleges, or more generally, knowledge is one of the few good things modern society has to offer. That’s why I go to college. Certainly not for career considerations. I’ll take advantage of the good things our society has to offer, but ideally, I’d prefer the whole system never existed, because I think it is evident that the bad outweighs the good.
Once farming was invented, small areas of land became able to support many more people than they could when they were used for foraging, (although this also causes a drop in good nutrition, since the diet will no longer be varied). If 100 farmers need more land because their current plot doesn’t feed them all, then even those 100 hungry farmers can chase away 10 well fed hunter-gatherers. As it turns out, invention is the mother of necessity, which is in turn the mother of more invention. It’s not that most humans didn’t “like” their lifestyle, it’s just that those that came up with agriculture could breed out of control and displace those who didn’t exploit the land as aggressively. Yes, evolution in action, but that doesn’t mean that changes such as industrialization will work forever. Evolution doesn’t perfect, it changes, and some changes may not be beneficial. We are destroying the system that supported us for most of our time as a species and replacing it with a system we hope we can sustain. You don’t know and I don’t know whether it will work. Just because it’s been working (for us in rich nations, at least) for the last few thousand years doesn’t mean it will last for the next few thousand years. That is a small portion of human history.
No, I just wish the herd never got so big to begin with.
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Maybe you consider animals more valuable than humans? Maybe you should be appointed God and can regulate who should live and die. I’m sure you would be much better at picking the perfect number than nature is.
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Appointed God, eh? Where do I apply? Is there a written test? 
Seriously, though, what makes you think that today’s population is the “perfect number”? I can’t change the course of human actions, I just think it is likely that the system is bound to fail eventually, and when it does, “nature” will thin the herds for us.
When did I dispute that man is natural? The fact is, however, every natural being is capable of taking actions that are detrimental to itself. If a population of carnivores gets too big, it can no longer find an adequate food supply, and it’s population will shrink until it can. We as humans are also consuming to feed our species. However, we’re also consuming things that won’t come back. A population of wolves rarely need worry about eating all the rabbits in the forest. Those rabbits will make more rabbits. We as humans are consuming fossil fuels and minerals, things which are in limited supply. Sure, we can be “natural” and consume whatever we feel like, trusting that whatever we do is “perfectly fine.” However, it will also be “perfectly fine” when we reach the bottom of the barrel and have to find something else to consume. Whether someone comes up with some new invention that will fix all of our ills for a little while or whether our cars and machines go hungry is indetermined. If we can’t replace fossil fuels, individuals will either support themselves without the aid of the system that relies on fossil fuels, or they will die. That’s “perfectly fine.” I would prefer for we humans to “naturally” examine what we’re consuming, and maybe consume a little slower. Give that human ingenuity some time to think of the solution to the problem ahead of time.
Ever heard of thermodynamics? A dog can’t survive by eatings its own feces forever. Materials degrade as they are recycled, eventually becoming unusuable for the same purposes they had originally been needed for. And besides, recycling takes energy too. We don’t snap our finger and poof old Pepsi bottle becomes new Pepsi bottle. Making that change requires an input of energy. So we’re right back to the same problem. Where’s the energy coming from.
If the future population has to live on our waste, then it will either have to be a smaller population (Nature thinned the herd, how about that) or they will have to use the resources much more carefully. (Why the hell not do that now?)
Willingness to change is the most important part of the equation. However, you seem convinced that any change will be for the better. You seem certain that technology will continue to allow you and everyone else in industrialized society to maintain the same wasteful, indulgent lifestyle. Sorry, “nature” requires no such thing. We may have to be willing to change to something less luxurious then our current state of affairs. Ingenuity may let us survive, but it won’t forever preserve a system based on waste and consumption, because there is only so much to waste and consume. Why not put some of that ingenuity to use now, and figure out how to waste less and be more efficient now, instead of just sitting back in your Lay-Z-Boy and saying, “They’ll take care of it. They gave me all this, didn’t they?”
I was pointing out that immortality would make someone a lot of money, but no such thing exists. Therefore, the “money can do everything” idea you set up is flawed. As someone who thinks humanity was better off living in balance with its environment, I obviously am comfortable with death.
First, I just want to let youknow I read your post. Nothing sucks more than putting the time into a long post and having the thread end:)
Think we can squeeze another 75 years out of it? That should about do it for me:)
Ok, for real now…
I see your point, but you are a much more granola type of person than me. I see the world as moving forward until some event happens that just CAN NOT be ignored. Until then, I’m going to sit back and enjoy what I have today.
I do my small part here and there, and I choose to be happy with what I can do, rather than beat my head against the wall in frustration at what I can’t do.
In the mean time, I think that half-baked environmental ideas give you situations like the California power debacle.
**
I guess, then, that there really isn’t much of a difference between us, ultimately. That’s about my plan, too.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Tzel *
**
I guess, then, that makes me a pesimist. I believe ANYTHING can be ignored. Humankind will simply find brave new ways of ignoring, and being ingorant.
- G. Raven
My Grandfather was a Farmer. Well, he was till the bottle took over and he lost the farm and his health.
My Father was a Truckdriver who hauled steel out of local mills. At age 61, the company he hauled steel for downsized and he was forced to buy his own truck to finish out his time.
My older brother works for Bethlehem Steel, older sister works for LTV Steel, I work for National Steel. Then, their’s a School Janitor, Factory Worker, and School Teacher in the Family.
As far as we remember, no one has ever taken anything away from someone and GIVEN it to us. Anything you see, that we possess, we have worked for, and our kids know about morality and right from wrong.
Feel guilty? About what.
Wow, this thread really mutated towards the end.
I think I’ll push it even more. 
Now, on sitting back and enjoying.
It does feel good but getting caught with our pants down is something we certainly don’t want to happen.
I do think there is a technological answer to just about every logistical problem we face, the big challenge is just finding it in time.
It’s just that since our cultures can’t be sustained for too long in their present form and are easily capable of destroying virtually every sign of themselves, it pays to prepare in advance.
The potential setback of getting thrown back to the stone age is just too large to ignore.
Of course, no one is likely to start living in a spartan fashion as some suggest should be done, so we’re stuck with trying to invent stuff fast enough.
However, to improve the odds of our way of life surviving, I don’t think cutting down on the mad consuming spree of today is too much to ask.