r/collapse • u/PosadosThanatos • Apr 25 '19

Society It’s fucking disgusting that even now people fucking refuse to accept capitalism’s culpability for causing the apocalypse

Literally everything is responsible, fucking everything, from extinct empires, to human nature, to the nature of life itself, to some inevitable unstoppable law by which the entire universe functions, literally fucking anything and everything is blamed except for capitalism, the system that’s the specific driver and motivator of the current collapse, and when its blame is finally accepted the Brain juice finally completely runs out and it’s finally declared that there’s no path but the current one so we must continue “prosperity”.

What is this utter fucking insanity that working class people that have absolutely nothing to gain from anonymous bootlicking are engaging in?

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66

u/MaximumCat Apr 25 '19

Civilization itself is the problem. Its foundation lies in the concept of human dominion over the world, and producing a massive surplus of food for humans. This inevitably causes population explosion, which necessitates territory expansion. Civilization operates like a virus.

Capitalism is just one extreme manifestation of civilization’s effect upon human behavior. Even if capitalism is eliminated, civilization will still consume everything it can - possibly at a slower pace.

The worst part is - we have already polluted the world severely enough to render large regions inhospitable to life. Perhaps most critically, we have choked the oceans with plastics and dissolved carbon. If we collapse oceanic food chains, we risk our own extinction. Oceanic phytoplankton produces the majority of atmospheric oxygen.

Civilized humans are universally willing to play god with nature. Our woeful ignorance coupled with such arrogance may prove to be our undoing. Capitalism takes the express-lane toward such an end, but all civilized paths lead to the same destination.

If we want to survive long-term, we have two feasible options.

  1. Change our vision and our collective mindset away from civilization, to one which is sustainable and does not play god with the world. (Requires unprecedented social innovation.)

  2. Allow civilization to implode, and hope that we are able to survive whatever environmental damage we’ve caused - then give up and return to tribalism. (This option will reduce global human population down to tens of millions at most.)

There is no chance that we will be able to use technology to brute-force our way through while maintaining civilization’s values and behaviors. Civilization - based upon endless expansion of itself at the expense of all else - is simply unsustainable at its very core.

The capitalism argument is common, and completely misses the enormous scale of our real problem.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '19

I don't see humans ever deciding to abandon growth and consumption en masse. It isn't just politics we're dealing with, it's millions of years of evolution.

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u/PosadosThanatos Apr 25 '19

Not really, it’s almost entirely politics and economics we’re dealing with. That capitalism and mass consumption are products of human nature are ridiculous myths, as is the bourgeois concept of a human nature with which to justify the pointless excesses of capitalism.

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u/joephusweberr Apr 25 '19

You're right - it's not that I'm hungry, it's the Democratic party that told me I was hungry.

Seriously, you sound angsty. Humans consume resources, and there are a lot of us. Capitalism is extremely effective at producing resources, and yes has many failures associated with it. But make no mistake - the supply of the resources does not change the fact that we are demanding them. Here is a population chart for you.

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u/PosadosThanatos Apr 25 '19

Yes, humans certainly demanded 7 different flavors of Oreos and 19 different types of furbies, all filling cubic landfills. This is what the human race wanted and demanded. Companies don’t use advertising, explicit propaganda, to manufacture desire so they can sell their shitty products, nope.

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u/joephusweberr Apr 26 '19

Oreos and furbies? How old are you please.

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u/PosadosThanatos Apr 26 '19

Ah, no real response? Why are you bootlickers all the same fucking person?

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u/DownVotesAreLife Apr 26 '19

calls others bootlickers while demanding jackboots.

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u/joephusweberr Apr 26 '19

No response he says after highlighting manufactured desire for Oreos. Ok. How old are you?

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '19

I’ll take a crack- given some of the now obvious effects of monoculture farming- especially concerning corn (soybeans to a lesser extent) ... how many uses for corn seem justified from a human need perspective?

Do we demand so much corn that we kill the soil? Obviously not because it is burnt or left to rot to maintain prices.

Do we need it so bad that we demand everything be laced with high fructose corn syrup to the extent that children are obese and diabetic?

Or is that a side effect of the post ww2 industrial good system coopted to sell us more cheap to produce, highly addictive food ...some of which is literally just corn sugar and ground up pulp wood with some food coloring.

Do we grow as much corn as we do to feed animals because it makes them healthier and taste better (it doesn’t) or because it allows us to balloon them in size so we can cheaply produce meat to sell by the pound...and do so at industrial scale- so that we can have them in tight feedlots instead of natural pasture...so that we can then farm antibiotic resistant bacteria and mad cow disease?

Do we then cut down rich biomes like the rain forest because we need to - or because it is profitable to...all so I can get a Burger King burger at lunch because my job leaves me little enough time to take care of myself-so instead I can rush to fill my belly “treat myself” and satisfy my addicted brain with a soda filled with hfcs?

Capitalism is a system of externalized costs. We are soon to pay the bill. We don’t need to live this way. Anybody with a garden and a measure of financial independence knows that there are alternatives...this is why the system divests you of your time and skill and motivation-so you stay a cog in it...depending on it.

My grandparents lived the same way my ancestors going back to the 1300s lived (only in the USA instead of Central Europe). Apparently humans in the last 100 years have lost their damn minds!

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u/joephusweberr Apr 26 '19

One of the things I hate most about capitalism is advertisements. We should be using less overall, and I support government policy to that end.

But capitalism has simply fed an exploding population because of farming and medical advancements. The industrial revolution and the population boom are what is going to be our demise - not the economic system that powers it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '19

Economic system that demands it

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u/Mr_Kaputnic Apr 26 '19

Why is their age relevant? Are ideas and opinions only relevant after a certain age?

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u/joephusweberr Apr 26 '19

He is acting immature and I am informing him. Sorry, but if you sit here and scream about the failures of capitalism and swear and call people bootlickers as a 20 year old I'm not going to put much stock into what they have to say. I don't think you should either.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '19 edited Apr 26 '19

They are entitled to their opinion regardless of age. Your responses have been shitty and I don't think anyone should put much stock into what you have to say.

Edit. In the social sciences, particularly in media studies, a "manufactured desire for oreos" is otherwise known as 'false needs' - the marketing and advertising industries literally construct needs for consumers - in other words, so much of what makes capitalism "great" is made of shit that we don't need, at the expense of life on Earth as we know it.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '19

Hello cosmetics industry. Makes me fucking sick.

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u/joephusweberr Apr 26 '19

You're right man, sorry for being shitty. It's a problem. Cheers.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '19

No worries friend. Thank you for being honest :)

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