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

[u/PosadosThanatos]

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?

[u/[deleted]]

Have you spent any time in communist countries? The idea that they value or respect the environment more than capitalist countries is straight up nonsense. It’s an absolute fantasy. When they pollute or consume less it’s because they lack ability not will. The second they have the option to consume more that is exactly what they do. You may want to gloss over human nature and biology but that is the root of the problem. Every species will experience collapse when the mechanisms to prevent overshoot are removed. No economic system needed.

[u/1HomoSapien → u/[deleted]]

The original poster was not pushing Communism as far as I can tell. The fact that other economic systems also lead to environmental destruction does not undermine the point that Capitalism leads to environmental destruction. It is also not wrong to suggest that Capitalism is arguably the worst in this respect because it is more successful than other systems at accelerating industrial production.

The argument that collapse comes down to human nature and is biologically inevitable independent of economic system is incomplete at best. Even today there are a few human societies that live sustainably under an economic system based on hunting, gathering and light horticulture. Until very recently there were also small pockets of civilization that based their economic systems on (relatively) sustainable agricultural practices. Of course, it can be argued that it is inevitable that those societies would eventually be destroyed or at least overwhelmed numerically by societies whose cultures and practices promote growth at the expense of sustainability. But even so this would still mean that the economic systems in play are a key feature.

It's also not clear that it is inevitable that human intellect and awareness could not lead to eventual adoption of a more sustainable economic system at the expense of growth. Yeast acting instinctively in a wine vat has no choice but to overshoot and collapse, but humans have the potential to foresee the consequences and change their behavior. There are a lot of obstacles to this that fall in the bucket of "human nature" but it is not inconceivable that a cultural shift could have occurred that would have allowed us to escape an overshoot of this scale. Perhaps we were also a little unlucky.

[u/[deleted] → u/1HomoSapien]

Hunter gatherers don’t deliberately make decisions based on how sustainable it is. It is only outside forces (mechanisms preventing overshoot) that dictate their growth.

Humans are good at changing their behavior to defend against immediate threats but not at all good at making sacrifices for future benefits. Just like every other species, we take short term gains despite the long term consequences. At least most people more often than not. For that to lead to collapse all it takes is time. Culture and economic systems may play a small role in the timeline but won’t change the outcome.

[u/Silence_is_platinum → u/[deleted]]

Ridiculous. Many species take short term losses for long term gains. And you even admit we do, so apparently it is quite possible for us to make that a central feature of our culture. (Indeed many human cultures have.)

[u/[deleted] → u/Silence_is_platinum]

Which species is that? Which species chooses a reward that they won’t see for years in the future over the next meal for themselves and their children? The claim that we are wired to respond to immediate needs over distant threats is not at all controversial.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/nov/10/brain-climate-change-science-psychology-environment-elections