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0 pointsjariel5y ago0 comments

There are no facts in the article to support any of their many sociological positions.

For example, that inequality of asset ownership leads to social decay. That there is even actually social decay or real instability in America.

One thing missed by in the treatise and a lot of comments, is that 'consumption' is somehow tantamount to 'resource utilisation'. Obviously, there is a correlation. But a considerable amount of what we 'consume' does not entail necessarily excessive resource consumption. Plastics, electronics doesn't eat up a lot of 'resources', though some parts perhaps more than others i.e. 'alkaline batteries'. Huge swaths of our consumption aren't even related to resources: entertainment, video games, software, social networks etc..

If they are really smart, they would take some time to decouple the 'resource intensive' aspects of consumption, with those that are not, and help industry to optimise along those lines.

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2 comments · 2 top-level

perl4ever5y ago

>a considerable amount of what we 'consume' does not entail necessarily excessive resource consumption

If you pay for some abstract service, the money goes to pay human beings who ultimately either consume or save, don't they? You pay for something that doesn't involve using a lot of resources in itself, but the money goes to someone who uses it to buy gas or food or whatever, so ultimately consumption is pretty proportional to dollars anyway.

Nasrudith5y ago

Yeah the ideological propaganda may sound at best superficially good but if examined in depth is so incoherent and imprecise you suspect the author is having a stroke. Capitalism is used in terms so absurdly broad that it would be like blaming the whole tri continental Eurafricasia for genocide and assuming a shared affinify between Churchill and Goebells for both being male and white. Incoherent nonsense.

Decoupling the aspects would be an honest approach- one which they have absolutely no intention of doing. You can tell because of the meaninglessly bad usage of "capitalism" along with infinite value externalities.

An alternative world where somehow planned economies won out globally would still have global warming for the same reasons - that fossil fuels are useful, easier than the alternatives, and valueable. But that would seeiously harsh their scapegoat capitalism plans.