[unshavedyak]

Is it surprising/crazy though? I feel like our entire capitalist mindset is to pillage everything you can stomach and to push your own boundaries because if you don't - someone else will and beat you with their profits.

It always feels like a morality race to the bottom. Clearly i'm a pessimist here, but it's obvious in my pessimistic mindset. Do you have a more positive outlook perhaps?

[shrimp_emoji]

It's not just capitalism. The Soviet Union drained the Aral Sea in hopes of irrigating cotton farms and overfished whales whose carcasses went to waste to mindlessly meet quotas.

At least capitalism is good at extracting value from the pillaging, unlike the alternatives.

But, in the end, pillaging is inevitable. Thermodynamically, "there's stuff already there, and all we have to do is get it" is the simple sugar of industry. You'll never find easier Calories. It's too sweet to resist. That's how you end up in oxymoronic schemes like "biomass" (cutting down forests) in the pursuit of renewable energy.

[littlestymaar]

> At least capitalism is good at extracting value from the pillaging, unlike the alternatives.

Well that's kind of the problem, it's really efficient at it and this efficiency is the root of the crisis we're in.

[unshavedyak]

> It's not just capitalism.

Definitely, but i didn't imply it was just capitalism.

If it is as dire as you portray, i guess my pessimism is correct. We're doomed and we'll all race to the finish line.

[nilamo]

Is it a capitalistic mindset? There have been many civilizations throughout history which pillaged everything they could, and I'm not sure very many were driven by capitalism.

I'm thinking about the ancient Egyptians, Vikings, Huns, etc.

[littlestymaar]

Marx got you covered in Das Capital, this topic is being addressed explicitly. Long story short, you're right it's not specific to capitalism, capitalism is just the latest and most formally structured system to enable this fundamental human sin.

What's interesting is that societies are not bounded by destructive instincts: over time we've progressed a lot in limiting violence between humans. We will never reach a state with absolutely zero violence, but northern Europe or Canada shows that you can definitely reach levels that are incredibly low by human standards.

Now we need to do the same will pillaging and exploitation (of both nature and other humans).

[frumper]

It feels premature to say regions of the world have limited violence between humans. People are still alive from a time when there was some major European violence.

[littlestymaar]

It was 80 years ago though … If you combine the lack of large scale war in the area with the very low level of inter-personal violence, you've had three generations there who have lived in a situation that most people from before would have deemed impossible due to the nature of men. And yet it happened.

Incredible to see how the nuclear bomb and welfare state were able to perform such an incredible feat.

[unshavedyak]

I think that just means it isn't solely a capitalist mindset, no? Which i didn't mean to say that capitalism owned the idea, just rather that it's a core tenet of capitalism.

[bamboozled]

Yup, we just pretend it's not disgusting and keep participating / allow it to continue.

[GreatLdisisp88]

Your salary comes from that. So too is your Internet. Maybe you are being hypocrite? To be human, we destroy. The only way is to die out and let nature take her course. Agent Smith in Matrix said summed it best that we are virus on this planet that need to be eradicated.

[unshavedyak]

That seems reductive. Are you a slave owner if your shirts were made in sweatshops? You certainly contribute to the problem, but i don't think your a hypocrite if you use modern features of life - nearly all negatively impact. The alternative is living in the woods off grid - and likely illegally, since you can't afford to buy the land without also being a hypocrite in most locations.

I think there's a middle ground where you acknowledge there's a problem, try in some part to mitigate your contribution and build the world you want to be.

We don't have to be all-in on sweatshops and environmental destruction just because we in some part contribute to the problem as well.

[toss1]

True, but it seems more than possible that we could self-regulate to minimize the harms done

More on point, it is absolutely critical that we self-regulate, because if we fail to do so, eventually, nature WILL regulate us into oblivion. Our existence depends on an insanely complex web of life. As with any robust network, many nodes and connections can be damaged and the system will still work. But keep damaging nodes and connections, and eventually, the system cannot recover — it will break down and may die off completely. When that happens, no human technology will save our species.

And the self-regulation is happening. We may very well be on a path where improving technology gets us through to a far less destructive life mode. More education, security, and rights causes birth rates to decline. Sustainable energy production is now cheaper than digging up fossil fuels, transporting them across the globe and lighting them on fire. Lighting is 10X more efficient, etc. etc. etc.. Intentional efforts to save species and ecosystems often see them recover faster than expected.

The only question is whether we have the luck and political will to make this transition happen fast enough to get to a sustainable energy & materials economy before a critical collapse.

[saagarjha]

"Yet you participate in society! Curious! I am very intelligent."