United States Politics Thread 46

[Raphael]

I'm not sure who you're thinking about when talking about Deep Green --

It's a term for a variant of environmentalism that seems to care more about how green something looks, and about objecting to modern technology on what appear to be mainly aesthetic grounds, than about seriously thinking about the environmental impact of actions.

[bradrn]

I'm not sure who you're thinking about when talking about Deep Green --

It's a term for a variant of environmentalism that seems to care more about how green something looks, and about objecting to modern technology on what appear to be mainly aesthetic grounds, than about seriously thinking about the environmental impact of actions.

You mean, like this stuff?

[Raphael]

I'm not sure who you're thinking about when talking about Deep Green --

It's a term for a variant of environmentalism that seems to care more about how green something looks, and about objecting to modern technology on what appear to be mainly aesthetic grounds, than about seriously thinking about the environmental impact of actions.

You mean, like this stuff?

Yes, for instance.

EDIT: I'm a bit surprised that that piece juxtaposes owning washing machines and washing by hand, though. What about commercial self-service laundries?

[Ares Land]

It's a term for a variant of environmentalism that seems to care more about how green something looks, and about objecting to modern technology on what appear to be mainly aesthetic grounds, than about seriously thinking about the environmental impact of actions.

Ah, thanks. *nods*

You mean, like this stuff?

That'd be degrowth. Though the article depicts a caricature. I'm kind of on the fence when it comes to degrowth; I've read books on the subjects and know quite a few people in favor of it. I can confirm getting rid of washing machines isn't really a thing they suggest. Degrowth activists do own these. A more typical degrowth take is wishing that people would/could repair the machines when they break down instead of washing a new one, or maybe having communal machines for several households. (We usually don't have laundry rooms in apartment buildings here)

[bradrn]

EDIT: I'm a bit surprised that that piece juxtaposes owning washing machines and washing by hand, though. What about commercial self-service laundries?

Because it’s a response to a Tweet which itself suggests washing clothes by hand. (Yes, really. It’s quoted right in the article.)

[Ares Land]

EDIT: I'm a bit surprised that that piece juxtaposes owning washing machines and washing by hand, though. What about commercial self-service laundries?

Because it’s a response to a Tweet which itself suggests washing clothes by hand. (Yes, really. It’s quoted right in the article.)

To clarify my earlier answer, yeah, of course, someone did suggest just that. But I'd argue the guy who tweeted was kind of trolling (checking his profile, he doesn't come across as very well balanced).

[Travis B.]

EDIT: I'm a bit surprised that that piece juxtaposes owning washing machines and washing by hand, though. What about commercial self-service laundries?

Because it’s a response to a Tweet which itself suggests washing clothes by hand. (Yes, really. It’s quoted right in the article.)

To clarify my earlier answer, yeah, of course, someone did suggest just that. But I'd argue the guy who tweeted was kind of trolling (checking his profile, he doesn't come across as very well balanced).

Either this guy is a troll or he's really off-kilter. (I notice his tweet about how Israel should be relocated to Germany for instance.)

[bradrn]

Because it’s a response to a Tweet which itself suggests washing clothes by hand. (Yes, really. It’s quoted right in the article.)

To clarify my earlier answer, yeah, of course, someone did suggest just that. But I'd argue the guy who tweeted was kind of trolling (checking his profile, he doesn't come across as very well balanced).

Either this guy is a troll or he's really off-kilter. (I notice his tweet about how Israel should be relocated to Germany for instance.)

I see. So, once again, the original article is someone getting angry about nothing. Why am I not surprised…

[Nortaneous]

Mainstream media? What's that? There's legacy media and there's new media. Newspapers don't matter anymore. People who engage in the recreational consumption and production of written text often don't realize how many people are not comfortably literate - if you rely on writing to distribute your message, your reach will be limited.

This is more so the case than a few decades ago and a problem brought on by the current overuse of screens encouraged by megacorps hawking them for others to waste time on but they often would not dare put their own children before them.

I do not think this is true. There's no shortage of people in the 40+ age bracket who can't write a grammatical paragraph or sound out an unfamiliar word.

[Darren]

There's no shortage of people in the 40+ age bracket who can't write a grammatical paragraph or sound out an unfamiliar word.

Anyone who has tried to use facebook marketplace can attest to this fact.

[Torco]

degrowth is honestly good and reasonable pruning of the forest that is the economy. this is because of a simple fact: because capitalism encourages business to *make money*, regardless of whether the way in which they do so is actually good for people, you will expect a number of transactions, and on aggregate a lot of entire industries, which only exists because it is profitable to do so. this is of course not the case for all economic transactions and a simple example is farming: it is good that people grow delicious cucumbers and get it to the cities and towns where people want to eat them and the market generally encourages farmers to grow the cucumbers, and some other dudes can make money from moving the cucumbers around, and then the guys who build and repair the truck-fridges in which the cucumbers are moved and whatever whatever.

but obviously markets also create industries that do no good to anyone other than making rich people richer. a good example of this would be if our imaginary society had like a cultural taboo that trucks that transport cucumbers need to be blessed by a cucumber priest or they will rot: if this society is capitalist, you can damn well believe you're going to have a whole industry around this taboo: a derivatives market on stock in different priest-training companies and whatever the hell: this industry of the cucumber priests moves around a many units of currency every month, that is to say it creates economic activity, and jobs and all the rest of it, even though in reality no good is being created: the cucumbers do not rot if unblessed. maybe there's even police that persecute cucumber smugglers that don't bless their trucks, or even worse, transport them in fridges pulled by donkeys! an unclean animal to be sure, priests agree.

And many units of currency are spent in equipping these police officers, and giving them cameras, and special AI models that check if a donkey is anywhere near a fridge full of cucumbers. and if we stopped doing the whole blessing of the cucumber, you know, at this point we'd be crippling the economy! do you know how many jobs the blessing industry generates every month! surely you must be a dangerous radical, proposing the abolition of the cucumber blessing. even on secular grounds, we'd cause a recession!

but these people should, in fact, just bring the cucumbers to the city and be done with it. the hundreds of thousands employed by the blessing industry... it would be better if they were employed in something else! maybe cultivating pomegranates or building better roads or whatever it is. the fact is, capitalism is absolutely rife with such irrationalities -which the economists call "market failures", but they are in fact the market working precisely as it can be expected a market to function. they just want you to think the default state is market good and the aberration is market bad.

ink in printers is such an industry, or the illegality of repairing some phones, fast fashion, the perpetual increase in the price of housing, rent... from this perspective, degrowth is often desirable! like, if rent was abolished, if suddenly, magically, no rent payments or mortgage payments or whatever are evermore effected, with some alternative system that just allocates housing to people through, oh whatever, some preference-weighted lottery system or whatever, will the mean happyness of people increase or decrease? of course increase! a few people would be sad they don't get rent, but not being homeless is like... the main source of stress for people, and for a lot. anyway, even if you like rent, surely *some* industries would not be there in a more humane and more rational economic system.

[zompist]

degrowth is honestly good and reasonable pruning of the forest that is the economy. this is because of a simple fact: because capitalism encourages business to *make money*, regardless of whether the way in which they do so is actually good for people, you will expect a number of transactions, and on aggregate a lot of entire industries, which only exists because it is profitable to do so. this is of course not the case for all economic transactions and a simple example is farming: it is good that people grow delicious cucumbers and get it to the cities and towns where people want to eat them and the market generally encourages farmers to grow the cucumbers, and some other dudes can make money from moving the cucumbers around, and then the guys who build and repair the truck-fridges in which the cucumbers are moved and whatever whatever.

[...]
ink in printers is such an industry, or the illegality of repairing some phones, fast fashion, the perpetual increase in the price of housing, rent... from this perspective, degrowth is often desirable! like, if rent was abolished, if suddenly, magically, no rent payments or mortgage payments or whatever are evermore effected, with some alternative system that just allocates housing to people through, oh whatever, some preference-weighted lottery system or whatever, will the mean happyness of people increase or decrease? of course increase! a few people would be sad they don't get rent, but not being homeless is like... the main source of stress for people, and for a lot. anyway, even if you like rent, surely *some* industries would not be there in a more humane and more rational economic system.

Man, there's nothing like a socialist for making capitalism look good.

There's no such thing as cucumber blessing. I just checked: a cucumber is $0.79 at the closest store. Doesn't seem like a terrible thing. The communist alternative is no cucumbers, because the farmer's land got stolen by the state and the kolkhoz only grows wheat, and not enough, so more has to be bought from the godless capitalists. Or no cucumbers because the Glorious Chairman mandated endless meetings and marches, and the collectives inflated crop yields, so next year they took the entire crop and the peasants will starve.

For housing, pardon me if I'm not excited over the "wait seven years to get allocated a crummy apartment" system.

Making the economy "more rational" sounds nice until the commisars outlaw something you happen to like. Is there no room for frivolity or fun in your system? What if I don't like the two games available at GUM? What if I'd like to wear clothes with color in them, or books that don't extol the Glorious Chairman?

Selling inkjet printer ink is a scam. But there's an alternative: buy a black&white Brother laser printer, for not much more money. A cartridge will print 1000 pages or so. (An inkjet cartridge might get just 175.)

There's a million things not to like about present-day US capitalism! I think it's harder to make a case that Sweden or Swizerland is a post-acocalyptic hellhole, but I'm sure they have downsides. But "lol capitalism" is not actually an explanation or a solution. For any problem, you have to look at what actually causes it and what solutions are available.

E.g. homelessness was not a huge problem in the 1960s in the US. There were far more cheap single-person apartments; shelters could generally take in everyone who needed them; the mentally ill were in institutions rather than the street. And that was in a capitalist system. Oh, by the way, the Soviets had homelessness too, though perhaps you consider their forced labor camps to be a good solution.

What went wrong? In a word, Reagan. But also well-meaning but ultimately misguided policies— e.g. SRO apartment buildings were seen as a blight; people didn't realize that making people homeless would look even more squalorous.