Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: MP-Ryan on December 31, 2010, 10:38:47 am
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...now we have some fundamentalist Christian groups that are out to spread the misinformation. Fits nicely with the typical anti-science tripe that comes out of these people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to1naH2A7GU&feature=player_embedded
It's from a DVD series being produced called "Resisting the Green Dragon."
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I kinda laughed at 1:35-1:40.
(...) and how it's pointing people away from God, and into humanism!
Oh noes! :lol:
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The Green DRAGON! HElll YEAHAAAAHHHH!!!
"... and scare the little children to reach your political goals...."
This coming from a christian video made by people that, without a doubt, is constantly preaching hellfire to little children.
Ahhh fu.... whatever...
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:wtf: The Green Dragon? isn't that a cannabis drink?
Seriously though, I was kinda waiting for them to break out the reasons for why environmentalism is the bad for religion but apparently saying its evil is sufficient for their intended audience. Does it run counter to the some teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ will keep the world spinning like a top no matter what we do to the environment? Do they advocate feeding baptized babies to polar bears? Give me something.
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Oh, you can search far and wide
You can drink the whole town dry
But you'll never find a beer so brown
But you'll never find a beer so brown
As the one we drink in our hometown
As the one we drink in our hometown
You can drink your fancy ales
You can drink 'em by the flagon
But the only brew for the brave and true
Comes from That Green Dragon! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RSh_mhN3Ts)
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Fuuuuuu, now I desire a LotR marathon.
/me goes afk for like 9 hours
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well, this is going to make it stupendously difficult for anyone to legitimately criticize any environmentalist position... nicely played funditards... nicely played...
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :lol:
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1:37 -- "Family Research Council" is the only one of these groups that I immediately recognize, along with the "concerned women for America". I don't know what these groups really stand for in practice, however. I saw an interview with the CWA lady in a series by Richard Dawkins where it seemed like they were pushing...
Ok, I listened to it. Everything they say can be thrown right back in their stupid face! Even more so in that of their religion. By the way, when she gets into how they call it "the green dragon", I started going "yeah, you're the American Taliban, so..." in my head! :lol:
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****ing badass!
I really think they have a point. The Divinity and worship of Jesus Christ is in serious danger from people worshiping the Green Dragon, for the simple reason that a giant green dragon beats the crap out of a 33-year old jewish carpenter.
Seriously, where can I find the Cult of the Green Dragon? I would so be there. Getting together in some epic temple erected on a mountain, prostrate before a giant statue of a dragon with blazing eyes made of giant emeralds. Every hour of the day, the surrounding valleys would be filled with the steady, monotone rhythm of our never-ending chant of running air-conditioners at 23+ degrees and switching off lights in empty rooms. Then James Earl Jones would turn into a snake. Awesome-sauce.
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i find that most greenies spend most of their time trying to reduce their own guilt than actually reduce their carbon emissions. they preach "save the planet", the drive their gas hungry cars instead of carpooling, walking, biking or taking public transportation. leave all their lights and all their electronics on all the time, take twice daily showers, waste food, water, medicine, fuel. buy new cell phones every 6 months and fail to recycle their old ones properly. they leave their heaters up at 80 and their a/c down to 60. i have the luxury of being relatively poor, so i dont waste all those resources.
the only way that kinda life style is sustainable is to have the world set up as it is now. where the majority of people live in total poverty and the elite few in the developed world use up all the resources. installing lightbulbs and driving a hybrid might reduce your resource usage from a 2000 times what people in africa use to about 1999 times (i in my relative poverty probibly only use up 1500 times the resources of your average african). yea, big reduction there. but since i have the better end of the deal i dont see any reason to change anything.
*all numbers are pulled out of my ass, nuke is not required to source anything, nuke is insane and therefore exempt
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Red Dragon: The only answer to the Green Dragon.
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Sfdragon-old.jpg)
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that was an incredibly lame pun
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So, they say in the vid basically "**** nature - help the poor" ( while showing children in Africa, was a nice touch, btw).
And yet i can't imagine, those guys sending moneys to Africa, or going there and help in one way or another.
And that only Religion will save you.
Yeah, poison the Oceans, chop all trees, drive only cars that need min. 15l/ 100km.
And when **** hits the fan, pray. "Take the faster route to paradise!" :P
The ugly lady said: "...the magificent Planet, God has entrusted to us...".
Yeah, he did that i guess. There's no line in the Bible that says "...and God declared: Earth is property of mankind. Do with as you please...". One can say, ( from a scientific pov), that we are entrusted temporarily with it.
And if someone entrusts you with something, shouldn't you take good care of it? You know, treat it well, try not to break it, abuse it? Well, i wont for sure entrust one of those retartds with anything, not even with kitchen trash.
I can't believe that someone take such individuals actually serious.
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I dunno why we're all freaking out so much over this; it's not like anyone's actually listening to them.
I really don't see how there could be a downside to continuing to try to be as green as possible. I mean, what could we get? Better cars, cleaner air, no more smelly dump a few blocks away and upwind of my house, more trees, energy that doesn't have to get sucked from the ground, which means lots of good stuff like healthier wildlife, etc. Even if global warming is B.S., then there's really no downside to being eco.
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wait, what's this video about? they didn't even raise any specific points - it was just one big testimonial from people with fancy titles.
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...now we have some fundamentalist Christian groups that are out to spread the misinformation. Fits nicely with the typical anti-science tripe that comes out of these people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to1naH2A7GU&feature=player_embedded
It's from a DVD series being produced called "Resisting the Green Dragon."
YouTube is full of Christian-made videos showing extreme arrogance. Leave them here so that people can realize how bad they are. (Though misinformation can be quite dangerous, at times.)
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wait, what's this video about? they didn't even raise any specific points - it was just one big testimonial from people with fancy titles.
Most of whom sounded like complete ass-douches.
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Now I can understand these people releasing their videos on youtube...
But who would actually buy DVDs with this crap? Oh yeah, Christian home/private-schoolers.
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I dunno why we're all freaking out so much over this; it's not like anyone's actually listening to them.
I really don't see how there could be a downside to continuing to try to be as green as possible. I mean, what could we get? Better cars, cleaner air, no more smelly dump a few blocks away and upwind of my house, more trees, energy that doesn't have to get sucked from the ground, which means lots of good stuff like healthier wildlife, etc. Even if global warming is B.S., then there's really no downside to being eco.
its a matter of proportionality. if you graphed out the carbon usage vs income of the entire population, you will find that changing only the small details like what kind of car you drive, what kind of light bulbs you use, etc, you will find that these middle class save the planet types dont move very much on that graph. their changes just aren't big enough to matter.
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The point is to raise attention.
If I've done all I can to lower my carbon emissions, why can't the factories?
Doesn't seem to be working very well though...
Sure we get better cars, more trees (in some places), even lights are better on our eyes.
Look over there! There's a big building spewing black smoke into the sky and green liquid into the ocean... but it's probably not too bad, we already have super efficient cars! :yes:
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you need production to meet demand. of course we made the environmental regulations stricter for our factories, so what happened, they were all shut down and reopened in china where there is less regulation. when the same thing happens in china the factories will move elsewhere. its a double whammy because the quality of products are reduced, so you need to replace stuff more frequently. you throw the old one away and buy a new one. then you have the fact that the factories are always re-tooling the lines and producing a new product every 3 months, you have fewer user serviceable parts, so you cant fix anything, further driving up the need for production. add on top of that the carbon cost of transport. its just not an efficient way to do things, cheaper maybe, but not efficient in the long term.
first thing you can do to reduce the carbon emissions of factories is to keep them local. you can regulate them, assure quality, assure availability of replacement parts. you have to move product a lesser distance. you create more repair oriented jobs, not to mention production jobs.
self regulation for individuals can only go so far. self regulation of industry, is practically impossible.
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Give all the soccer moms with SUVs hybrid SUVs. That's a start. If you take a car that does 40 MPG and make it do 42MPG, whatever. Take a big SUV that does 15 MPG and make it do 30MPG, that's a way bigger impact.
Then again, Hybrids waste rare resources or something.
While we're on industry, who's seen Gasland?
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id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.
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I remember seeing something about a car that ran on compressed air, and the action of the tires rolling or something continously refilled it.
Nuke, you live in Alaska. Most electric cars have a range of about 40 miles. Nothing in Alaska is less then 80 miles apart :P Besides, basically they're giant batteries that we can't dispose of.
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id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.
while i'd like to see electric cars, i'd miss the sound of an V8 engine.
And i doubt somehow, that nuclear powered cars are a good idea. :P
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most green tech is (supposed to be) super efficient by nature (which is how it achieves it's greenness), this has the added side effect of often making it cheaper to operate over the long term with the only caviot being how long will the machine in question last. assuming a well made machine, most "green" alternatives are also green in the form of it's effect on your bank account, a solar panel will set you back a proportionately large amount of money, but it will give you power for 4 billion years (longer if you move it to another planet when the sun starts to die) so in the long run it's cost is effectively nothing compared to the return it produces. it is for this reason that I like much of the "green tech" like the CFLs and wind farms, most of them are probably just as harmful to the environment in the long run, as most of them are made from far more toxic materials than there brown cousins, but because I don't especially care about that aspect of them it doesn't matter, I've replaced nearly every light in my house with some form of florescent, not because I care about carbon-dioxide, but because I care about my budget.
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I remember seeing something about a car that ran on compressed air, and the action of the tires rolling or something continously refilled it.
Nuke, you live in Alaska. Most electric cars have a range of about 40 miles. Nothing in Alaska is less then 80 miles apart :P Besides, basically they're giant batteries that we can't dispose of.
youve never taken the 8 hour drive from anchorage to fairbanks.
id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.
while i'd like to see electric cars, i'd miss the sound of an V8 engine.
And i doubt somehow, that nuclear powered cars are a good idea. :P
the nukemobile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon)
most green tech is (supposed to be) super efficient by nature (which is how it achieves it's greenness), this has the added side effect of often making it cheaper to operate over the long term with the only caviot being how long will the machine in question last. assuming a well made machine, most "green" alternatives are also green in the form of it's effect on your bank account, a solar panel will set you back a proportionately large amount of money, but it will give you power for 4 billion years (longer if you move it to another planet when the sun starts to die) so in the long run it's cost is effectively nothing compared to the return it produces. it is for this reason that I like much of the "green tech" like the CFLs and wind farms, most of them are probably just as harmful to the environment in the long run, as most of them are made from far more toxic materials than there brown cousins, but because I don't especially care about that aspect of them it doesn't matter, I've replaced nearly every light in my house with some form of florescent, not because I care about carbon-dioxide, but because I care about my budget.
while i dont like the entire green movement, some of the technology that has come out is pretty awesome. though i kinda wish they would have held off on the cfl bulbs, and developed led based bulbs instead. these days we got these high wattage leds which are capable of lighting a room with the proper diffuser. led bulbs also last forever and well tolerate on/off cycles. modern battery technology is awesome. i really like how badass the power system in my r/c heli is. fly that thing all weekend on a single charge.
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the only way that kinda life style is sustainable is to have the world set up as it is now. where the majority of people live in total poverty and the elite few in the developed world use up all the resources
This planet is not the only place where we can get resources you know..... :P
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the only way that kinda life style is sustainable is to have the world set up as it is now. where the majority of people live in total poverty and the elite few in the developed world use up all the resources
This planet is not the only place where we can get resources you know..... :P
then by all means go sign up for an asteroid mining crew then :rolleyes:
how the hell are we going to mass-colonize space if we cant even properly manage existing resources?
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then by all means go sign up for an asteroid mining crew then :rolleyes:
(http://images.allmoviephoto.com/1998_Armageddon/bruce_willis_armageddon_001.jpg)
how the hell are we going to mass-colonize space if we cant even properly manage existing resources?
Who says we're not managing existing resources? People around the world are getting richer and therefore want to buy more stuff.
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Which isn't really managing resources...
Nuke is right. We are being more eco... just not in the right way yet.
And plus most people view money only int the short term. Short term in this case the length of their lives.
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Which isn't really managing resources...
But economics does manage resources, with prices.
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Which isn't really managing resources...
But economics does manage resources, with prices.
when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.
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Unfortunately true, economics is a great local optimizer but - like evolution - has very little global planning capability. This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...
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when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.
So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.
This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...
Maybe it doesn't have to be (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-path-not-taken)
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when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.
So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.
It's not like the Soviet Union's command economy ever did any environmental protection either. But China is currently blowing the US out of the water in terms of environmental tech.
This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...
Maybe it doesn't have to be (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-path-not-taken)
Yeah I've read that, and I'm particularly optimistic about the economies of scale argument, but it remains to be seen whether this is a viable plan (which the current round of privatized spaceflight startups should show us) or just pie-in-the-sky true-believer optimism. For now the system is basically reliant on patronage; it needs to get a toehold in the launch sector.
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when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.
So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.
so long as the third world exists, it will be exploited for its resources. environmental regulation here will not stop multinational buisness from opening up shop in the 3rd world where little or no regulation exists, and exporting it back here. this is not beneficial to the environment. the 3rd world has to be brought up to our level. now if everyone lived like us the rate of depletion would go through the roof, and we would have nothing left to take resource collection off world.
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It's not like the Soviet Union's command economy ever did any environmental protection either. But China is currently blowing the US out of the water in terms of environmental tech.
It's true that China has quickly become the center of manufacturing that stuff, but the technology itself is usually not actually developed in China, it's done in the US. I'll also point out that by practically every measure the environment in China is decidedly worse.
For now the system is basically reliant on patronage; it needs to get a toehold in the launch sector.
Yes, exactly. We should have started weening off of NASA's patronage a real long time ago. At least it would have been nice if that is possible. Another problem with high launch costs, at least with the shuttle, has been the army needed to maintain them. According to the uncited wikipedia article, the shuttles had, in total, a workforce of 25,000 people to maintain them and remanufacture the pesky fuel tanks. For comparison to the theoretical Skylon which is intended to be serviced by a ground crew of 200 for each craft. Assuming all of this is anywhere near accurate, that alone would represent a massive cutback in expenses.
so long as the third world exists, it will be exploited for its resources. environmental regulation here will not stop multinational buisness from opening up shop in the 3rd world where little or no regulation exists, and exporting it back here. this is not beneficial to the environment. the 3rd world has to be brought up to our level. now if everyone lived like us the rate of depletion would go through the roof, and we would have nothing left to take resource collection off world.
So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud? Actually increasing scarcity will make the materials more expensive, which in turn actually makes going into space to get more resources that much more economical and appealing to investors.
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So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud?
You know I think some politicians over here would like to do just that.
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So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud? Actually increasing scarcity will make the materials more expensive, which in turn actually makes going into space to get more resources that much more economical and appealing to investors.
what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor. we bring manufacturing back here and do the work necessary to create environmentally friendly products for our own consumption.
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what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor
Playing the devil's advocate: why? It's perfectly possible to implement environmentally safe practices in 3rd world countries while still reaping the benefits of cheaper production and abundant natural resources.
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How do we do that? Armed takeover? Developing nations don't have being eco at the top of their priorities
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what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor
Playing the devil's advocate: why? It's perfectly possible to implement environmentally safe practices in 3rd world countries while still reaping the benefits of cheaper production and abundant natural resources.
yeah, this is uncharacteristically compassionate of you.
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what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor
Playing the devil's advocate: why? It's perfectly possible to implement environmentally safe practices in 3rd world countries while still reaping the benefits of cheaper production and abundant natural resources.
yeah, this is uncharacteristically compassionate of you.
i dont think its ever gonna happen though. so nuke it burn it and make the survivors have to eat each other to survive. might slap some sense into the species.
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So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud? Actually increasing scarcity will make the materials more expensive, which in turn actually makes going into space to get more resources that much more economical and appealing to investors.
what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor. we bring manufacturing back here and do the work necessary to create environmentally friendly products for our own consumption.
Which deprives the people in those countries of employment, hence keeping them poor. And besides, if we did bring low end manufacturing back then you'll end up paying 4 or 5 times what you are paying now even for basic things.
EDIT: I'd also like to point out that many kinds of manufacturing, even with western environmental standards, is not really that clean or environmentally friendly. Even fabricating the chips in your computer does require the use of highly toxic and/or corrosive materials.
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So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud? Actually increasing scarcity will make the materials more expensive, which in turn actually makes going into space to get more resources that much more economical and appealing to investors.
what we do is stop exploiting them for resources and cheap labor. we bring manufacturing back here and do the work necessary to create environmentally friendly products for our own consumption.
Which deprives the people in those countries of employment, hence keeping them poor. And besides, if we did bring low end manufacturing back then you'll end up paying 4 or 5 times what you are paying now even for basic things.
it deprives them from employment and an influx of money but only in the short term. we stripmine their countries right now, dump toxic chemicals there, etc, so when the population does become self sufficient there is nothing left to sustain them.
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Which deprives the people in those countries of employment, hence keeping them poor. And besides, if we did bring low end manufacturing back then you'll end up paying 4 or 5 times what you are paying now even for basic things.
We'll never save the environment by doing things cheap in the short-term...
The enormous costs in saving the planet might dent the global economy for now, but the future will be much more sustainable.
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it deprives them from employment and an influx of money but only in the short term. we stripmine their countries right now, dump toxic chemicals there, etc, so when the population does become self sufficient there is nothing left to sustain them.
So, instead of them working in factories, what else are they going to do? Make products for themselves even though they are too poor to buy them?
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Just wanna point out they already work for a penny a week.
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it deprives them from employment and an influx of money but only in the short term. we stripmine their countries right now, dump toxic chemicals there, etc, so when the population does become self sufficient there is nothing left to sustain them.
So, instead of them working in factories, what else are they going to do? Make products for themselves even though they are too poor to buy them?
they would be allowed to build up their agricultural base, instead of being drawn to cities and shantytowns in the vain hope to work in a factory. making products they cant afford, for peanuts, only to have the fruits of their labor shipped off to the west, marked up a thousand times to make some westerner filthy rich.
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So, instead of them working in factories, what else are they going to do? Make products for themselves even though they are too poor to buy them?
You have this funny assumption that prices are somehow fixed and will not be adjusted to the market. If something is being made "in-house" in the country without external resources or interference then pricing it (and the production process) down to that country is completely possible.
And then you sell it to overmoneyed foreigners eager for cheap goods too. Revenge.
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it deprives them from employment and an influx of money but only in the short term. we stripmine their countries right now, dump toxic chemicals there, etc, so when the population does become self sufficient there is nothing left to sustain them.
So, instead of them working in factories, what else are they going to do? Make products for themselves even though they are too poor to buy them?
they would be allowed to build up their agricultural base, instead of being drawn to cities and shantytowns in the vain hope to work in a factory. making products they cant afford, for peanuts, only to have the fruits of their labor shipped off to the west, marked up a thousand times to make some westerner filthy rich.
You do realize the entire reason why they go to the cities for work is because the wages being offered are significantly better than what they could possibly hope to get by staying on their tiny farms, right? No one forces them to go. Wages are based on supply and demand. Can you name any non-oil and non-diamond rich country that got rich without industrializing?
You have this funny assumption that prices are somehow fixed and will not be adjusted to the market. If something is being made "in-house" in the country without external resources or interference then pricing it (and the production process) down to that country is completely possible.
Not always. Many things in China are actually not much cheaper than they are in the US.
And then you sell it to overmoneyed foreigners eager for cheap goods too. Revenge.
Actually that's what is usually done now. Foreign companies do not often own the factories that make their stuff in the third world, instead they are owned locally and contracted out.
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china barely qualifies as the third world anymore.
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You do realize the entire reason why they go to the cities for work is because the wages being offered are significantly better than what they could possibly hope to get by staying on their tiny farms, right? No one forces them to go. Wages are based on supply and demand. Can you name any non-oil and non-diamond rich country that got rich without industrializing?
Barely any of them get better jobs anyway. And those who do have jobs with horrible working conditions. Most of the money made in cities goes to the original inhabitants and investors... not the poor people at the bottom.
Not always. Many things in China are actually not much cheaper than they are in the US.
Not daily necessities...
Actually that's what is usually done now. Foreign companies do not often own the factories that make their stuff in the third world, instead they are owned locally and contracted out.
The end result is basically the same. Instead of foreign investors, local owners screw over workers to lower costs.china barely qualifies as the third world anymore.
Tell that to the tons of people living in poverty.
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china barely qualifies as the third world anymore.
Tell that to the tons of people living in poverty.
china is not in as bad a shape as it used to be in. i normally wouldnt site any source but im going to in this case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita
according to the map china is certainly doing better than india and most of africa. sure they have a huge number of people living in flat out poverty. even the us has its extreme poor. but when considering china's population your bound to have a larger than usual number of poor.
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You're right of course, but I'm bothered by the fact that most of those people barely have the slightest chance of getting out of poverty.
Then again that could be said for pretty much the rest of the world, too. :blah:
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china is not in as bad a shape as it used to be in.
Because it decided to industrialize.
Not daily necessities...
Food is not because farmers in third world countries are literally dirt poor. They only make a few hundred RMB per month with only a few exceptions, and have small operations with no machinery. Base factory wages on the other hand is over a thousand per month. If the wages weren't better, people wouldn't go.
The end result is basically the same. Instead of foreign investors, local owners screw over workers to lower costs.
Workers have low wages because staying on the farm has decidedly lower wages.
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the cost of living in an agricultural society will be less than in an industrial one. by living away from urban centers property tends to be much cheaper, and growing your own food, as well as any wild game you may hunt, reduces your dependency on trade and therefore money. not to say that trade doesn't exist, rather that basic survival does not depend on it exclusively. in an urban industrial situation you're entirely dependent upon a paycheck as a primary means of survival.
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the cost of living in an agricultural society will be less than in an industrial one. by living away from urban centers property tends to be much cheaper, and growing your own food, as well as any wild game you may hunt, reduces your dependency on trade and therefore money. not to say that trade doesn't exist, rather that basic survival does not depend on it exclusively. in an urban industrial situation you're entirely dependent upon a paycheck as a primary means of survival.
What you're essentially advocating is arnarcho-primitivism. Actually what you are describing is how things used to be 200 years ago and the result was basically rampant poverty and decidedly worse nutrition. By your own admission China is, at this stage, much better off than India and most of Africa, and the reason for this is because China is much more industrialized. If you want to look at agro based societies and how much they suck, look no farther than most of Africa.
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Personally I'm not arguing against industrialization, just against the way it is implemented.
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the cost of living in an agricultural society will be less than in an industrial one. by living away from urban centers property tends to be much cheaper, and growing your own food, as well as any wild game you may hunt, reduces your dependency on trade and therefore money. not to say that trade doesn't exist, rather that basic survival does not depend on it exclusively. in an urban industrial situation you're entirely dependent upon a paycheck as a primary means of survival.
What you're essentially advocating is arnarcho-primitivism. Actually what you are describing is how things used to be 200 years ago and the result was basically rampant poverty and decidedly worse nutrition. By your own admission China is, at this stage, much better off than India and most of Africa, and the reason for this is because China is much more industrialized. If you want to look at agro based societies and how much they suck, look no farther than most of Africa.
the usa used to be an agricultural society and still is to a huge degree. and we didnt need more powerful nations pumping us with cash and corruption to do it. the original point i was trying to make was that middle-class environmentalism is a sham and to make any real progress in terms of environmental protection, that you need to:
bring production closer to home
make efficient products that have a longer design life, made with longer production runs, and that can be repaired
only trade internationally in raw materials (and then only goods that are abundant locally for ones that are rare locally)
process our own waste (such as not shipping tech waste to china for reclamation, which is very damaging to their environment)
and most importantly, stop exploiting the 3rd world
my argument wasnt against industrialization, it was against industrialization to benefit the west and not the nation in which the industry is undertaken. if they farm let them farm and use the food locally instead of for export. if they are going to build vehicles or machinery or general consumer products, let them use them for their betterment and not for ours. every nation must find its balance between agriculture and industry. then when their population is in good enough shaape, they should implement appropriate environmental standards. they should probably do it before their resources are depleted and their land to contaminated to grow anything.
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my argument wasnt against industrialization, it was against industrialization to benefit the west and not the nation in which the industry is undertaken. if they farm let them farm and use the food locally instead of for export. if they are going to build vehicles or machinery or general consumer products, let them use them for their betterment and not for ours. every nation must find its balance between agriculture and industry. then when their population is in good enough shaape, they should implement appropriate environmental standards. they should probably do it before their resources are depleted and their land to contaminated to grow anything.
What you are arguing against is trade.... and what you are overlooking is human nature.
When people are "supposed" to live off their land and see their neighbors have what they need... they are either gonna trade for it or take it.
If you allow people to trade... then the world will quickly be back to what it is right now... if you forbid trade... the only other option really is violent conflict.
Happy new World... lol.
As a general rule... if your vision for the world is implicitly built uppon premises like "As long as people live peacefully" or "As long as people are content with what they have" ... your ideas would likely do more harm than good.... much more harm.
And how would you implement such a change anways? We are doomed to compete within the status quo... even if the US and Europe decide to go "green" ... China would just step in with a smile. And even if the Chinese suddenly decided to do they same thing (They never would, as the country's stability hinges uppon economic growth) ... even if somehow magically the whole world decided to follow your ideals... it wouldn't take long for some country to start producing tanks as part of its budget to get a little extra slide out of their neighbors.
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my argument wasnt against industrialization, it was against industrialization to benefit the west and not the nation in which the industry is undertaken. if they farm let them farm and use the food locally instead of for export. if they are going to build vehicles or machinery or general consumer products, let them use them for their betterment and not for ours. every nation must find its balance between agriculture and industry. then when their population is in good enough shaape, they should implement appropriate environmental standards. they should probably do it before their resources are depleted and their land to contaminated to grow anything.
What you are arguing against is trade.... and what you are overlooking is human nature.
When people are "supposed" to live off their land and see their neighbors have what they need... they are either gonna trade for it or take it.
If you allow people to trade... then the world will quickly be back to what it is right now... if you forbid trade... the only other option really is violent conflict.
Happy new World... lol.
As a general rule... if your vision for the world is implicitly built uppon premises like "As long as people live peacefully" or "As long as people are content with what they have" ... your ideas would likely do more harm than good.... much more harm.
And how would you implement such a change anways? We are doomed to compete within the status quo... even if the US and Europe decide to go "green" ... China would just step in with a smile. And even if the Chinese suddenly decided to do they same thing (They never would, as the country's stability hinges uppon economic growth) ... even if somehow magically the whole world decided to follow your ideals... it wouldn't take long for some country to start producing tanks as part of its budget to get a little extra slide out of their neighbors.
thing about restricting trade, is to restrict it to raw materials only. this would encourage everyone to make their own products at home. as opposed to having them made elsewhere and shipped in. it also makes sure whats made in a country stays in a country to benefit its people and not some external party. maybe its not such a good idea, but you never know.
human nature would never allow anything i proposed to happen. what i see is things continuing the way they are. the environmentally conscious countries pissing into the wind and individuals slightly reducing their carbon footprint. goods are all manufactured overseas where its cheaper. countries like china become well developed and pass industry to the 3rd world. might get handed on down a few times. and then one day were out of oil, or perhaps some other thing we overlooked. perhaps we will have alternative fuel sources, but these would be geared towards general consumers wishing to ease their guilt by being more efficient, things that matter, like trains, trucking, shipping all having been ignored. leaving little or no means to move goods from overseas locations to here and vice versa. trade collapses and the world devolves into anarchy. what really concerns me is we will dig a hole we cant get out of. i really dont care. i will enjoy watching them mushroom clouds.
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and we didnt need more powerful nations pumping us with cash and corruption to do it.
This isn't true, Britain made substantial investments in america and even today still is our number one investor. Trade built american industry to a very large degree.
And yes, the us was also hopelessly corrupt during this time, much more so than today.
the usa used to be an agricultural society and still is to a huge degree.
The USA is 90% urbanized/suburbanized. 200 years ago it was agricultural just like everywhere else, but today not at all.
it was against industrialization to benefit the west and not the nation in which the industry is undertaken.
No one forces them to do this, and in fact for many decades closing their economies off was how Latin America tried to develop in accordance to the dependecy theory. The result was they all became basket cases, leading to a lost decade. Globalization happened because the old ways weren't working anymore and the third world got tired of being poor.
It took western countries more than 150 years to fully industrialize, mainly because there wasn't a disproportionately wealthy market to export to. The reason south korea, taiwan, and the other tiger economies were able to industrialize so much faster was not because of any special characteristic or anything like that, it was because they had a place with lots of money to sell the stuff they were making.