Also I depicted Cool hats
*Fewer humans, and that would actually solve most of our problems, it’s just that we need to be more specific about which humans we get rid of. Specifically billionaires/unchecked capitalists.
Specifically billionaires/unchecked capitalists
The easy scapegoat oversimplifies the problem, which goes beyond & predates capitalism. Though exterminating all of humanity is one way to achieve sustainability, it doesn’t necessarily require it. So far, however, humanity has reached living standards beyond subsistence only by consuming resources at unsustainable levels faster than the planet can replenish, and that has been true regardless of economic system. Even when living at subsistence levels, humanity has likely caused mass extinction events.
From a comment to a similar post
People here tend to fixate on their pet theories that scapegoat capitalism for everything including that humanity’s drain on ecological resources exceeds Earth’s rate of regeneration without acknowledging that their alternatives don’t address the problem, either.
Although governments are far more able than individuals and firms acting singly to take action to protect the environment, they often fail to do so. The centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe, where governments controlled production, had a particularly poor record on pollution control. Per capita mortality from air pollution in Eastern Europe (outside the EU) and China remains high relative to the EU and North America.
In particular, the Soviet economy—with constitutional guarantees to continuously improve living standards & steadily grow productive forces—caused disproportionately worse ecological damage than the US’s. All economic systems have the same capacity to degrade the environment & deplete stocks of natural resources. Without adequate policies to protect the environment, improving & maintaining living standards with the continuous economic growth necessary to do that threatens the environment.
Moreover, human activity before capitalism has led to extinctions of megafauna, plants, & animals dependent on those plants. The quaternary megafauna extinction was likely driven by overhunting by humans. Those extinctions & increased fires coinciding with the arrival of humanity to Australia transformed the ecosystem from mixed rainforest to drier landscapes. Aboriginal landscape burning
may have caused the extinction of some fire-sensitive species of plants and animals dependent upon infrequently burnt habitats
More recently, they killed off the elephant bird likely due to major environmental alterations & overconsumption of their eggs.
Until humanity starts living sustainably, they are the problem.
A socialist society can be ecologically devastating. But, unlike capitalist one, it doesn’t have to be.
Capitalism pursues infinite growth in a finite world. As long as unsustainable practices deliver you more (which is extremely often the case) - they will be pursued, and if you block them all, it will cripple the economy as it will lower the expectation of profit. Capitalism breeds practices like planned obsolescence, aggressive marketing and tracking to fuel overconsumption, it promotes a lavish lifestyle - all to ensure the monetary flow necessary to keep such economy afloat.
Socialist society is more adaptive in this regard. You can ramp up production and overconsumption, Earth be damned, or you can slow down and invest in long-term, sustainable solutions, even at the expense of short-term returns. The latter, however, means getting less competitive internationally, which is exactly the sacrifice the socialist countries of the past, including USSR, were not willing to make.
'Someone tried once and did it wrong, so it must be impossible. 🤷♂️"
Cool vibes, lack of data, & copium.
Nice Oxford comma! Unnice lack of contribution
There were fewer humans a century ago. and there were no human caused ecological crisis back then.
it isn’t the number of people really, but the exploitative economic system they use.
/s!!! /s!!!
No human caused ecological crises during the height of industrialization? Sure bud.
Go check on the Aral Sea to get an idea of what a non-exploitative economic system can do.
sorry. I’ll take all the responsibility of forgetting the “/s”.
thought it was clearly sarcasm, because duh.
carry on.
was trying to make it a clearly obvious point against that argument.
Sarcasm is dead and .ml killed it.
Deadpan sarcasm doesn’t translate well from a verbal medium to a written medium.
Unless you’re in an echo chamber…
Cope
Meme is accurate. I am weird and misanthropic.
Yeah, I was going to say that there is nothing inherently illogical about the misanthropic person, despite what the meme implies.
I just wonder if non-misanthropes have actually met people or if they’ve got this idealized view of them.
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Just uhh, don’t look at all the things we’re doing for infinite growth. The beef industry is totally a normal thing to inflict on an environment
-Malthus, apparently
Well we needed something to replace all the native ruminants we brutally slaughtered.
If we’re a part of nature, everything we do is also a part of nature, it’s just that we have the capacity to understand the consequences of humanity’s actions on the rest of nature
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Connection between the human development index (HDI) and total fertility rate (TFR)
The human development index has three components -GDP per capita is one of them, life expectancy is the second and the education level - the third. As all these factors are negatively correlated with fertility
Real talk? Missing the third group that groups the other two under the same heading for political expediency. The bottom group is essentially never sincerely grouped with the top.
There aren’t actually many cool hats
Urban ecology is the proof of dialectics.
Most people who say humanity is an invasive species are actually just talking about white people. They’re erasing the harmony between Indigenous peoples and nature that in Australia has lasted for tens of thousands of years.
Yet if you say white people are an invasive pest… /joking
From earlier comment on similar post
Moreover, human activity before capitalism has led to extinctions of megafauna, plants, & animals dependent on those plants. The quaternary megafauna extinction was likely driven by overhunting by humans. Those extinctions & increased fires coinciding with the arrival of humanity to Australia transformed the ecosystem from mixed rainforest to drier landscapes. Aboriginal landscape burning
may have caused the extinction of some fire-sensitive species of plants and animals dependent upon infrequently burnt habitats
More recently, [indigenous people] killed off the elephant bird likely due to major environmental alterations & overconsumption of their eggs.
and I see like before the same OP still won’t do the decency to support fellow humans by following web accessibility. That sums up our conviction of humanity.
I don’t feel like these positions are at odds with one another, unless you become active in reducing the number of humans, of course.
Like, you can uplift and protect people by stopping them from killing their environment, because you recognize that people are an invasive species that will do that.
I hate all extremists, left and right.
If everyone on the planet lived like an American… Yikes.
I was going to say “there wouldn’t be a planet for long”, but that’s not true. The planet would heal from the booboo relatively quick.
