Should there be limits to an individual's property in society?

[FlashDangerpants]

So are you saying that since nothing is sustainable forever, that everything will necessarily wind down at some point, that we should not try to stretch things out, conserve, and sustain things for longer if we can? Or what is the issue you're having with "sustainability"?

I saw him comment on some other thread ages ago that events in the middle east indicated that Jebus is about to come and do a thousand year reign. He's working to shorter horizons than sane people are.

That would be a clear case of Christian beliefs undermining human welfare by giving people false assurances that lead to more wasteful practices (unless the second coming and resurrection are indeed factual prophecies).

Indeed. But to a chronic absolutist like him, all sorts of weird stuff makes sense.

For any sane person, when a fishery collapses due to overfishing, that fishery has not been sustainably managed. So we need rules to enable sustainable fisheries, with sustainable simply meaning that fish are removed from the fishery no faster than they are replaced in the ordinary course of fishes doing fishy sexy times.

The fact that in 172 million years there will be a significant tectonic shift that turns the relevant stretch of ocean into a salty inland sea, isn't generally considered relevant to whether a fishery is sustainable for the current eon. Nor do we worry that a new species of fish will displace the humble haddock by means of evolution, and render the haddock fishery unproductive. It would be quite obviously insane to take that approach. But when you are an absolutist with no real desire to make sense anyway, suddenly the stupid shit is the more important thing.

For the Chrsitian absolutist, eventually there must be no way to fix a problem by your own effort. You must need Jebus to save the polar bears and the sea turtles.

[Immanuel Can]

The fact that in 172 million years there will be a significant tectonic shift that turns the relevant stretch of ocean into a salty inland sea, isn't generally considered relevant to whether a fishery is sustainable for the current eon.

Missed the point again.

Entropy means that everything, all the time, is decaying. NOTHING is "sustainable." NOTHING...not in a thousand years, or tomorrow, or right now.

"Sustainable" is a word that simply does not apply.

[FlashDangerpants]

Today we learned that because the universe will in some billions of years become a featureless frozen waste, the myth that Immanuel Can is a heterosexual human with an education in philosophy is not ..."sustainable"

[Immanuel Can]

Today we learned that because the universe will in some billions of years become a featureless frozen waste, the myth that Immanuel Can is a heterosexual human with an education in philosophy is not ..."sustainable"

We learned two other things, if we didn't know them already.

You don't like science and logic. And you aren't worth a conversation.

A mistake I intend to correct.

[MikeNovack]

But there are lots of people who are claiming it is possible, despite the truth. And they want you to think that recycling, or electric cars, or windmills, or tanking your economy deliberately will contribute to it coming about. But since that's an obvious lie, you have to ask yourself why they're wanting us to believe in something we can never have...and to believe that the particular measures they demand are morally and practically imperative to us.

They make money. Lots of money. They sell us useless windmills, inefficient electric technologies, killing our babies (in an era of demographic collapse), dependency on heavy metals, higher taxes, special fees for things that we are told are less "green," plus higher prices for the special things they tell us are "green"...and they threaten us with existential peril if we don't obey them. So they get lots of power, too.

It's a power grab. It's a money grab. What it isn't, is a road to "sustainability." Yet we obediently trot down that road, because they've convinced us that obeying their stupid, expensive, unsustainable, environmentally-damaging policies are what "good people" do.

There are lot's of people making money, lot's of money selling pie in the sky. They threaten us with eternal torment in Hell if we don't obey them. They get lot's of power too

It's a power grab. It's a money grab. What it isn't is a path to accepting responsibility for what we have done, mourning our errors, and resolving to change our ways

Yes IC, sall the politicians types will be "selling solutions". A politician delivering the message "we're going to crash, nothing we do will prevent that, cannot remain a politician. So you will only see these (more hopeful) messages. But NOT useless, because we might need to be thinking in these terms in order to deal with the ethical issue the crash will force upon us.

[Immanuel Can]

A politician delivering the message "we're going to crash, nothing we do will prevent that, cannot remain a politician.

Selling lies and false aspirations is quite a price to pay for retaining your power and position, but yes, some people do that. But is that what we really want of the people who lead us? Or should we hope they'd tell us the truth, and lead us into decisions that reflect the best responses to the realities?

The reality is that the only solutions lie in the Developing World -- China, India, Africa and South America. Our statesmen should tell us that, instead of trying to convince us to give them more authority, while selling us snake-oil "sustainability" solutions. And there are positive things we could do, but the politicians are not doing them.

One thing we could do is help the Developing World modernize more safely -- bring them into the modern world in less-damaging, less-polluting ways, using the knowledge and technologies we've gleaned from our own mistakes. Give them prosperity and hope for their futures, and they will have more incentive to invest in the world. A second thing we could do is educate their populace, which always results in them having more autonomy and making better choices. Thirdly, we could be investing in invention, future technologies and innovative solutions; because the solutions that don't exist today need to be invented before tomorrow, and human beings are actually rather good at that.

But I don't know a single politician that's advocating these kinds of things. Instead, they're more concerned with what you mention: keeping their own office and their own slice of the pie. So they lie to us, and give us the impression that THEY have the solutions, and they exist in the West, and if we only surrender more control of our lives to them, we'll reach this mythical "sustainability."

Why do we buy it?

[phyllo]

One thing we could do is help the Developing World modernize more safely -- bring them into the modern world in less-damaging, less-polluting ways, using the knowledge and technologies we've gleaned from our own mistakes. Give them prosperity and hope for their futures, and they will have more incentive to invest in the world. A second thing we could do is educate their populace, which always results in them having more autonomy and making better choices. Thirdly, we could be investing in invention, future technologies and innovative solutions; because the solutions that don't exist today need to be invented before tomorrow, and human beings are actually rather good at that.

What knowledge and technologies? What invention, future technologies and innovative solutions?

You already gave your evaluation of 'green' technologies, innovation and knowledge:

Meanwhile, all our "sustainablility" strategies -- recycling, windmills, electric cars, cloth diapers, batteries, solar panels -- also pollute, and often in even more serious and unsustainable ways than our previous measures. So we're killing the planet faster, in the name of "sustainability."

I don't think most people who talk about "sustainabilty" have any idea at all what they're talking about. If they did, they would not advocate recycling, wind 'farms,' Malthusianism, solar panels, etc.

Well, what you should do is start expecting your "sustainability" comrades to stop advocating measures that make things worse, and calling them "green" when they do more damage than what they replace.

They sell us useless windmills, inefficient electric technologies, killing our babies (in an era of demographic collapse), dependency on heavy metals, higher taxes, special fees for things that we are told are less "green," plus higher prices for the special things they tell us are "green"...and they threaten us with existential peril if we don't obey them.

[MikeNovack]

WOW -----IC, I expected an explosion from you after my last post. But you just went right past what was objectionable to comment on what was not.

Well if "The Preacher and the Slave" won't do it, try "The dodger Song" (not ignoring "..and I'm a dodger too.")

[Immanuel Can]

One thing we could do is help the Developing World modernize more safely -- bring them into the modern world in less-damaging, less-polluting ways, using the knowledge and technologies we've gleaned from our own mistakes. Give them prosperity and hope for their futures, and they will have more incentive to invest in the world. A second thing we could do is educate their populace, which always results in them having more autonomy and making better choices. Thirdly, we could be investing in invention, future technologies and innovative solutions; because the solutions that don't exist today need to be invented before tomorrow, and human beings are actually rather good at that.

What knowledge and technologies?

The knowledge of how to generate cleaner energy, for example. They don't have to be burning coarse coal. Or how about how to heat their homes and cook with rocket stoves, which save tons of wood? How about the knowledge of how to get fresh water from their own water sources, instead of having only the local pond to drink from? How about farming techniques that don't destroy the land? How about education in communcation technologies, and in accessing information on new devices to solve their local problems? How about basic heath-care? There are SO many such knowledges and technologies we have in the Developed World -- by sharing them, we could make their transition to modernity VASTLY less environmentally damaging.

We do know stuff. There is a reason that the West is modernized, and much of the rest of the world is still not. It has nothing to do with "oppression" by the West or "colonialism"; it has to do with bad, corrupt, inefficient local governance, more than anything. And many of those regimes are Socialist dictatorships...like China, like Cuba, like North Korea, like Venezuela was, like Zimbabwe...and on, and on, and on.

You already gave your evaluation of 'green' technologies, innovation and knowledge:

Meanwhile, all our "sustainablility" strategies -- recycling, windmills, electric cars, cloth diapers, batteries, solar panels -- also pollute, and often in even more serious and unsustainable ways than our previous measures. So we're killing the planet faster, in the name of "sustainability."

Right. Those are environmentally-damaging pseudo-solutions, fakery from the politicians. These alleged "solutions" don't "sustain" anything. In fact, all of them do more harm then good. And not because I say so, but because science has shown that's true.

For example, recycling is not cost-sustainable for most types of plastic -- only for the clear stuff. The rest goes into the landfills anyway, without the government telling anybody that. And meanwhile, we're sending diesel trucks around to pick up what are basically balloons of air, in addition to all the regular garbage trucks we already have to have. So now we're using more trucks, more expensively, with more pollution, in order to "recycle" only one of four types of plastic balloons, operating at a level well below profit-level. It's insane. Nothing about it is "green."

But most people continue to believe it's "green" to recycle their plastics. That's sort of insane virtue signalling has to stop, if any real good is to be done for the environment.

[Immanuel Can]

WOW -----IC, I expected an explosion from you after my last post.

Yes, I saw that it was intended to be inflamatory.

It's obvious to me it was merely an attempt to deflect. But it's interesting to see you confirm that it was.

I didn't jump at it. Sorry to disappoint.

Christians are also used to people not really knowing what we're about, and so getting our motives and beliefs wildly wrong. In the last 2000 years or so, we've had no end of uninformed allegations and vicious slanders thrown at us...which was prophesied very specifically by Yeshua Himself. So it's pretty hard to get upset about a few rhetorical flourishes of that sort. It's actually quite confirming.

[Gary Childress]

And what if there is no resurrection and no return of Christ. What if it's all a myth created by the early Church founders. That possibly leaves you no better off than any of the rest of us. What if the world is just that absurd, that the devout are wasting their time and it will be no different for them than anyone else? I mean, if God made the world unsustainable for us, then why should we think God is on our side or cares a whit about us beyond simply creating the world and throwing us in the middle of it?

[Immanuel Can]

And what if there is no resurrection and no return of Christ.

Then you'll never know, Gary. You'll be dead and done.

Either way, it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. It's science, not some particular belief, that shows that.

[Gary Childress]

And what if there is no resurrection and no return of Christ.

Then you'll never know, Gary. You'll be dead and done.

Either way, it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. It's science, not some particular belief, that shows that.

Of course it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. I didn't think it did. I assume we're probably all going to die and that'll be the end for each and every one of us. Welcome to the absurd world, a world where everything happens without a grand design or overall intent at least none that is intelligible by humans, just a fungus that sprouted up on one of the rocks in the vastness of space.

[Immanuel Can]

And what if there is no resurrection and no return of Christ.

Then you'll never know, Gary. You'll be dead and done.

Either way, it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. It's science, not some particular belief, that shows that.

Of course it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. I didn't think it did. I assume we're probably all going to die and that'll be the end for each and every one of us. Welcome to the absurd world, a world where everything happens without a grand design or overall intent.

Well, let me put it the other way, since you raise the question to me, and I have answered it plainly.

What if what I'm telling you is true? What then, for you?

[Gary Childress]

Then you'll never know, Gary. You'll be dead and done.

Either way, it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. It's science, not some particular belief, that shows that.

Of course it doesn't make "sustainability" a real thing. I didn't think it did. I assume we're probably all going to die and that'll be the end for each and every one of us. Welcome to the absurd world, a world where everything happens without a grand design or overall intent.

Well, let me put it the other way, since you raise the question to me, and I have answered it plainly.

What if what I'm telling you is true? What then, for you?

Then you'll be able to celebrate in heaven while I'm sent to the fiery pits of hell. That should make you happy enough that you don't need to worry about anything else.