And live off Okra for as long as we can, until it stops growing.
Yeah, Interstellar. Some people seem to think its an "environmentalist" movie. It's not. It's actually very specifically a movie about the MASSIVE FAIL of the modern Politicized-Environmentalist movement. It is a movement that despises the very civilization that can provide solutions for the problems they claim to worry about, but they'd rather have the solution of forcing our civilization backward into a more primitive state and just use less. And if that means forcible rationing, or forcing people to be farmers, or five billion people needing to be 'gotten rid of' to make the Sustainability-Equation work, well, so be it. For "Mother Earth".
This image has been floating around all day in the G+:
To which I answer: "This is the only home we have? Just You Fucking Wait."
I will not be scaremongered into giving up on humanity's future. I know that innovation, that enterprise, that technology and science and the principles of western civilization are the potential ANSWER to those very real problems of environmental harm and resource-management. We can NEVER "cut back" enough to make it work, and why the fuck would we?! So we as a species can farm in some pre-industrial hippie dystopia while we wait out the next meteor strike or super-volcano?
The SOLUTION? GMO foods. Thorium Nuclear Reactors. Yes, also vastly improved solar technology. Helium 3 from the moon. 3-D printers. AI. Going into space and "Imperialist"-ing the living fuck out of it.
And shitloads of stuff no one has even thought of yet, but yes, thinking. Actually bothering to look for innovative solutions rather than just wanting to use environmental dangers as an excuse to impose a Collectivist Autocracy and force everyone to become less, and humanity to stunt itself.
My two favorite quotes from that movie:
"It's like we've forgotten who we are. We're explorers, pioneers, not 'caretakers'".
""We used to look up and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry at our place in the dirt".
That's the future, for "Sustainability". That's why I'm not interested.
Sorry, I'm not planning on sitting around worrying about my place in the dirt. Humanity has places to go.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Quiete + Dunhill 965
There is a particular irony about the Earth Day people posting all of their cute graphics of the earth turning green and smiling ... on their computers.
ReplyDeleteHell, go to Balboa Park here in San Diego after Earth Day and check out the litter and garbage covering the place. Hypocrites of the highest order.
DeletePreach on, brother
ReplyDeletePundit for World Leader!
ReplyDeleteI'll vote for you! Hell, I'll even be your cook :D
Couldn't get a better one!
DeleteGM foods and nuclear power are amazing technologies which promise to positively impact the lives of billions in the future. However, it's irresponsible to take these promising technologies as an excuse to live wastefully right now.
ReplyDeleteClimate change, deforestation, and pollution aren't future problems. They're already here. They're an inconvenience to Americans, and a real danger to people living in developing countries.
If someone tells you to abandon technology, they're an idiot, and they're giving you bad advice.
If someone asks you to eat less meat, or ride your bike more -- and, hopefully, gives pragmatic steps towards doing so -- they may still be an idiot, but the advice is good.
GM foods and nuclear power are amazing technologies which promise to positively impact the lives of billions in the future. However, it's irresponsible to take these promising technologies as an excuse to live wastefully right now.
ReplyDeleteClimate change, deforestation, and pollution aren't future problems. They're already here. They're an inconvenience to Americans, and a real danger to people living in developing countries.
If someone tells you to abandon technology, they're an idiot, and they're giving you bad advice.
If someone asks you to eat less meat, or ride your bike more -- and, hopefully, gives pragmatic steps towards doing so -- they may still be an idiot, but the advice is good.
The difference made by voluntary restrictions of consumption are near-meaningless. Anyone who's actually looked at the actual realities of climate-change knows that. I mean, they're still nice gestures for people to make, every little bit helps blah blah blah, but in another, more accurate sense, they don't do it. If your whole game is just "Sustainability", keeping us from doing harm but not growing, there's no way that asking people nicely to cut down their emissions will stop climate change.
DeleteSo, for the "sustainability" model environmentalists, that only leaves the option of FORCING people to cut down their emissions, and that's where things get ugly. There's nothing 'pragmatic' about it; the 'pragmatism' of sustainability would have to start with "Step 1: Kill 5 billion people".
So it's not a solution. Unless you hate humanity and want to kill 5 billion people, of course.
The REAL solution, which will happen all but overnight, will be the moment we can get non-fossil fuels that are as cost-efficient as fossil fuels. The second you can make an electric car that goes as fast, looks as good, and costs as cheap or cheaper than a gas-guzzler, the gas-guzzler will die.
The auto industry didn't replace the horse-and-buggy by appealing to government to raise taxes on horses or illegalize the use of buggies. It replaced the horse-and-buggy because Ford came along and invented a car that was cheap enough for anyone to own.
The problem with the 'sustainability'-environmentalists is that they are constantly trying to sell people on a shittier overall life than they have right now, and expecting people to just agree to it (or failing that, forcing them into it). That model will never work.
Anyone who's actually looked at the realities of climate change knows that it's already bad, but it can always get worse. The actions of individuals won't change anything, but a cultural shift might.
DeletePeople aren't rational actors -- they are influenced by social conventions and marketing campaigns.
For example, millions of people drive Escalades to work, when they would be better served by a bicycle. That's not a problem that you solve by inventing an electric Escalade; you solve it with education and outreach
"Better served by a bicycle" how exactly? So I can commute 2 hours each way and arrive covered in sweat and grime?
DeleteYeah, you'll never get a "cultural shift" that will have people willingly drastically reduce their quality of life; and that's what the anti-innovation branch of "sustainability" would require, on a massive scale, if they want to reach zero-emissions level.
DeleteGenerally folks who support that model mean for EVERYONE ELSE to become a subsistence farmer or hunter-gatherer while they enjoy their Starbucks and iPads and bask in the glow of saving the world through other peoples' sacrifices.
DeleteAmen brother, Amen. To the Stars our Destiny.
ReplyDelete