if it was some kind of magic bullet, I think we'd know already. — Olivier5

Were that a good argument, we'd still be living in caves. Geothermal energy has been tried. It's employed extensively in Iceland and New Zealand, for example, but even there - not in the hard core industrial manner I proscribe. I'm not talking about dipping your toes in a naturally occurring hydrothermal vent. This is magma power at 700 'C - not warm water power at 100 'C.

I'm joking, of course. — Kenosha Kid

No you're not. That's what you really believe:

these beliefs you hold to be beyond contradiction lean heavily toward the racist, homophobic, transphobic, fascistic and, in the case of your ideas for environmental science, utterly batshit insane. — Kenosha Kid

There's no need to pretend you're joking. I'm not going to de-platform you for speaking your mind. I would have applauded your honesty if you hadn't pretended to be joking, before I told you you're mistaken. Objecting to political correctness isn't racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic. I'm not any of those things - but I am myself, a straight white male, with interests I refuse to put second to the interests of others just because they're black, gay, women or like to pop on a frock at weekends and call themselves Veronica!

The problem is you think deferring to others on the basis of their arbitrary characteristics is the definition of decency and humanity - even while under the auspices of political correctness black people are fed some false narrative and incited to riots and looting, and children are fed puberty blockers that will destroy the rest of their lives, etc, etc, you continue - blinkered in your absolute conviction that political correctness is the answer to all the moral questions that have taxed the minds of philosophers throughout the ages, you think you left wing ideologues have solved it at last, and that anyone who deviates from the dogma must be a bad person. You're wrong.

No you're not. — counterpunch

Oh no, I really am. I have zero expectation that you would ever acquire sufficient humanity to give you pause before cheering on a murderous mob if that mob's interests happen to coincide with your own, or to pause before suggesting that unarmed, already-restrained black men have it coming when they're murdered by cops. I also have zero expectation -- and the OP bears this out -- that you would ever think you have to learn about a subject before declaring your beliefs about it beyond criticism.

I really was joking about that.

The problem is you think deferring to others on the basis of their arbitrary characteristics is the definition of decency and humanity — counterpunch

The beauty of not being a piece of shit is that I don't have to base my attitudes on secondary characteristics. Wanting, say, gay people to have the same quality of life as me, the same opportunities and advantages, follows naturally from an egalitarian position. Your view is that extending these opportunities and advantages to people with different characteristics to yourself is bad because it doesn't help straight white males, i.e. people with your characteristics whom are already amply advantaged compared to others.

I don't need to be asked to stand up for equality. When you're not a piece of shit, that happens naturally.

I have zero expectation that you would ever acquire sufficient humanity to give you pause before cheering on a murderous mob if that mob's interests happen to coincide with your own, — Kenosha Kid

And I have zero expectation that you would ever back democracy against fraud, or law and order against a black criminal.

The beauty of not being a piece of shit — Kenosha Kid

You don't think you're a piece of shit? Even though you believe truth is subjective and relative? You should see yourself from where I'm standing.

is that I don't have to base my attitudes on secondary characteristics. — Kenosha Kid

What are you dribbling about? Political correctness IS identity politics. You lump people into groups based on their arbitrary characteristics. What you don't do is treat people as individuals - regardless of race, gender, sexuality, nor respect their freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.

Wanting, say, gay people to have the same quality of life as me, the same opportunities and advantages, follows naturally from an egalitarian position. — Kenosha Kid

Many gay people are quite well off. Some are not. Why lump them into the same, supposedly disadvantaged group on the basis of who they are attracted to? It makes no sense. Similarly, not all black people are poor. Not all white people are privileged. There are plenty of poor white people. Who's arguing for them if you assume they are privileged - merely because they're white?

Your view is that extending these opportunities and advantages to people with different characteristics to yourself is bad because it doesn't help straight white males, i.e. people with your characteristics whom are already amply advantaged compared to others. — Kenosha Kid

No. That's not it at all. I would argue that people should be treated fairly, as individuals, regardless of what arbitrary group categories they happen to belong to - because those coincidences of identity say next to nothing about who an individual is, or where they stand in society. Particularly as equality legislation on race, gender, sexuality - was passed into law years ago.

What you seem to be arguing for is not an equality of rights, but equality of outcome - with the most privileged, regardless of individual merit, for everyone but poor whites, about whom you couldn't care less. It's why the Labour vote collapsed in the North, and why Americans voted for Trump in huge numbers. Left wing, politically correct ideology disenfranchises them - and the left shouldn't ignore that, less yet double down on the demonization of ordinary people.

I AM a philosopher. I have philosophical views, on a range of subjects, of my own devising. They are informed by extensive reading; written in relation to modern western philosophy since Descartes, and intended to save the world by providing for a long, prosperous, sustainable future.

Recently, I showed that the subjectivist, post modernist, anti-truth position of the left is false, with numerous examples, in an argument peppered with literary and philosophical references, and ran into an ideologically indoctrinated brick wall of direct contradiction. This inability and/or unwillingness to learn plunged me into a sudden and deep depression, for - if humankind cannot learn, cannot correct this mistake, we are doomed. — counterpunch

I will quote my own ego:

"Those who are stoned, lynched and repressed today, will be worshiped as saints by the regret of the future."

Record what you know, make it clear what your vision is, and if you are sure of what you say, do not deny yourself the truth.

And I have zero expectation that you would ever back democracy against fraud, or law and order against a black criminal. — counterpunch

The fact that your brain takes "Murdering black people is wrong" and gets to "Would defend a black criminal against prosecution" is a testament to precisely how racist you are. They are not comparable. Wanting law and order is not a carte blanche to murder criminals in your protection.

You lump people into groups based on their arbitrary characteristics. — counterpunch

No, *you* do. Equal to that's in your eyes is a failure to represent "straight white males".

Many gay people are quite well off. — counterpunch

That is not a rational measure of the D advantages they may have had specifically because of their sexuality.

Not all white people are privileged. — counterpunch

All white people are advantaged insofar as they are white, which hugely lowers their probability of being attacked because of the colour of their skin by your lot.

I would argue that people should be treated fairly, as individuals, regardless of what arbitrary group categories they happen to belong to - because those coincidences of identity say next to nothing about who an individual is, or where they stand in society. Particularly as equality legislation on race, gender, sexuality - was passed into law years ago. — counterpunch

Yes, much of it by the party you disparage for not focussing on "straight white males" and for giving a shit about "Muslims, gays and trannies". You don't get to both object to it and claim credit for it.

What you seem to be arguing for is not an equality of rights, but equality of outcome - with the most privileged, regardless of individual merit, for everyone but poor whites, about whom you couldn't care less. — counterpunch

This is incoherent. I can't simultaneously aim for equality of outcome and a privileging of everyone except poor whites. That makes no sense.

I do argue for timeboxed approaches to gaining equity though, you're right there. In my capacity as an academic, I was involved in getting more female undergraduates in the physics department, and have always supported any effort to overcome the identification of "physicist" with "man". I support Labour's all-female shortlists for safe seats, and equal opportunities measures to ensure that women and ethnic minorities aren't disadvantaged by potential employers who share your views. If and when equity is obtained, I would object to such measures for the same reason.

Did you mean that as an accusation? :rofl:

About the Galileo-Urban VIII relationship, this is from the Italian Wikipedia entry on Urban VIII:




Maffeo Barberini, when he was a cardinal, had taken Galilei's defense when the disputes on the various hypotheses of floating phenomena began in Florence . Therefore, when he was elected pope (in 1623), Galileo was led to hope in a benevolent attitude of the new pontiff towards him and his studies.

At the end of 1623 Galilei published a volume entitled Il Saggiatore , with a dedication to the new Pontiff. In this work the scientist, dealing with the motion of comets and other celestial bodies, indirectly confirmed the validity of the Copernican theory. He also argued that knowledge always progresses, without ever settling on dogmatic positions. In other words, man has the right and duty to broaden his knowledge without ever having the claim to arrive at absolute truth. This position, according to the scientist, was in no way contrary to the Faith.

Galilei's work was positively evaluated by Urban VIII. The Pope officially received the scientist in Rome in April 1624 and encouraged him to resume his studies on the comparison between the two systems, provided that the comparison was made only on a mathematical basis. This was to be understood in the sense that a mathematical certainty, that is abstract, had nothing to do with the certainties of the real world. Even with this limitation, the Church of Rome seemed to have softened its position on the new theory.

On 21 February 1632, fresh off the press, the scientific and non-scientific community had in their hands the last work of Galilei, Dialogue on the two greatest systems of the world (the Ptolemaic and the Copernican one), in which the validity of the heliocentric system was definitively upheld.

The hostile reactions were not long in coming. In the summer of the same year, Urban VIII expressed all his resentment because one of his theses had been treated, according to him, clumsily and exposed to ridicule. Furthermore, in the text, there was more than one reference to the pontiff as defender of the most backward positions. Finally the work ended with the affirmation that it was possible to dissertate on the constitution of the world, as long as we never seek the truth. This conclusion [...] infuriated the Pontiff.

I would thank you - and mean it, had I not just glimpsed at your profile and recent comments, and discovered a disregard for the consequences of philosophy. Publish and be damned - seems to be your byword, whereas I have struggled mightily to secure the future - with the least possible disruption. I worry that seeking to emphasize the truth value of science will merely cause a disenchantment with the ideological architecture of society - and plunge us into some anomic, nihilistic abyss. It's true, we made a mistake in relation to science 400 years ago that hasn't been corrected, and is key to securing the future. But we have to learn that lesson and bring it home - and with regard to the future, we have to get there from here. I've no desire to upset the applecart. Where then would I get my apples?

I would thank you - and mean it, had I not just glimpsed at your profile and recent comments, and discovered a disregard for the consequences of philosophy. Publish and be damned - seems to be your byword, whereas I have struggled mightily to secure the future - with the least possible disruption. I worry that seeking to emphasize the truth value of science will merely cause a disenchantment with the ideological architecture of society - and plunge us into some anomic, nihilistic abyss. It's true, we made a mistake in relation to science 400 years ago that hasn't been corrected, and is key to securing the future. But we have to learn that lesson and bring it home - and with regard to the future, we have to get there from here. I've no desire to upset the applecart. Where then would I get my apples? — counterpunch

I see that your ideas are founded on a strong will to change the world, or to cause the same change of thought that had completely transformed the future of humanity as Christianity did in late antiquity. You seem convinced that you know something that we all don't know.

Your mission is noble, your willpower is to respect. The only problem is that the individual, when aware of its goals, does not achieve its purposes. We live in times where any changes that could prevent a dark future can no longer be made.

We have already contemplated the light of advancement and prosperity, and now, we are heading towards the abyss. Your question should no longer be how to avoid it, but if you want to fall into it in complete hopelessness, or dancing...

That's why I say and repeat:

Record your truths. If you are convinced that you can keep it, even if it is the ashes of the flame of the past two centuries, do it. The same ones who use doublethink and hypocrisy to destroy the current world, out of resentment and regret, may discover your thoughts in the future and, then, they will say:

- This is a saint! He speaks the truth that we didn't hear 300, 400, 500 years ago!

(Currently, it makes no difference whether you want to disturb the applecart or not. He no longer cares about it, and his apples are already rotten. He himself poisons them and sells them at an exorbitant price! Where will you buy it? What difference does it makes? Get them, or die.)

The fact that your brain takes "Murdering black people is wrong" and gets to "Would defend a black criminal against prosecution" is a testament to precisely how racist you are. They are not comparable. Wanting law and order is not a carte blanche to murder criminals in your protection. — Kenosha Kid

Murder is wrong. Show me a murder and I'll tell you that's wrong. Show me a criminal - who fought off four police officers while handcuffed, and was restrained, and died... I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the police. With you, it's quite the opposite. Because the criminal was black, you immediately infer racism, and call it murder. You have no doubt. Rather than answer my question: What was racist about it? - you attack me with accusations of racism.

No, *you* do. Equal to that's in your eyes is a failure to represent "straight white males". — Kenosha Kid

Straight white males are singled out by political correctness for a lack of representation. I treat people as individuals regardless of race, gender or sexuality. You put straight white males last, and then insult them into the bargain.

"Many gay people are quite well off."

That is not a rational measure of the D advantages they may have had specifically because of their sexuality. — Kenosha Kid

The question was:

Many gay people are quite well off. Some are not. Why lump them into the same, supposedly disadvantaged group on the basis of who they are attracted to? — counterpunch

Answer the question, or don't respond. The latter is my preference - if that helps!

Murder is wrong. Show me a murder and I'll tell you — counterpunch

that it's not a murder if the victim is a black man in handcuffs. We've danced that jig already.

Straight white males are singled out by political correctness for a lack of representation. — counterpunch

I.e. they have to share their rights with women, ethnic minorities, and gay and trans people. Ain't that a blow.

Answer the question, or don't respond. The latter is my preference - if that helps! — counterpunch

The question was based on a false premise as explained. Do better thinking, ask better questions, get better answers. Simple!

That's interesting. So it was Galileo's presentation of the ideas that annoyed the Church, as much as the ideas themselves. Dumbest smart guy ever! Still, it doesn't change the overall narrative, which is that the Church made science a heresy, and that was a mistake. Imagine if all the technological miracles science surrounds us with were considered proof of God's blessings.

I see that your ideas are founded on a strong will to change the world, or to cause the same change of thought that had completely transformed the future of humanity as Christianity did in late antiquity. You seem convinced that you know something that we all don't know. — Gus Lamarch

That's a bit of an unfair observation. I see the way the world works, and write in relation to that - not what you, personally, know or don't know. I'm not out to put anyone else down, but it remains that we use science as a tool, and ignore it as an understanding of reality. Instead of recognising science as a means to establish an increasingly valid picture of the reality we inhabit, we have maintained overlapping religious, political and economic ideological architectures; justifications for the application of technology, in apparent denial of science as truth. Do you know this?

Did you know that we used science to create 70,000 nuclear weapons at the height of the cold war because we disagreed about how to organise an economy? That we ignored climate change since the 1950's to make money from oil, and now want to spend trillions on climate change, all of a sudden, without recognizing that climate change was caused by applying the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - and asking, are windmills a sufficient answer to the problem? If not, what is?

Maybe I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Maybe we are headed, inexorably for the abyss. Maybe that's what we want - to wipe ourselves out. I don't know what you know. I'm not a particularly sociable person. But I know I want to belong to a species with a future - because otherwise, it just makes everything I am and everything I do seem...masturbatory.

Maybe I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Maybe we are headed, inexorably for the abyss. Maybe that's what we want - to wipe ourselves out. I don't know what you know. I'm not a particularly sociable person. But I know I want to belong to a species with a future - because otherwise, it just makes everything I am and everything I do seem...masturbatory. — counterpunch

Yes. Humanity and everything it has built and developed has been maintained for thousands upon thousands of years of hypocrisy and lies. And why? Because we are intrinsically egoist beings; we want individual, not collective, achievement. When the group was forced into the human psyche, everything stopped being done in practical-physical delight - aka, real - for something symbolic-metaphysical - aka, false -.

You are not part of a species destined to progress, because progress is a modern idea, therefore, a false idea.

Oh! Can't you see it? It is the fact that the masses are aware of the lie that they are that has put the world in the precipice that it is today.

Humanity and everything it has built and developed has been maintained for thousands upon thousands of years of hypocrisy and lies. And why? Because we are intrinsically egoist beings; we want individual, not collective, achievement. — Gus Lamarch

No. That's not right. Human beings lived as hunter gatherers, in tribal groups of around 40-120. Then, these tribal groups joined together to form civilisations. To join together, to prevent any little dispute splitting society along tribal lines, they needed laws, and so needed to justify law and order in society. They made God the objective authority for law and order. It was a convenience - not a lie, and civilisation has conferred huge benefits.

I'm getting a heavy Nietzsche vibe from you, but Nietzsche was wrong. Primitive man was not an amoral individualist. He was a tribal animal, and could not have survived unless he were also a moral animal that shared food, and protected the women and the young. Man has a moral sense - that was made explicit when tribes joined together, and needed God to justify law and order in society.

That was the 'inversion of values' of which Nietzsche wrote - not from individual to social, not the strong fooled by the weak, but an implicit tribal morality made explicit in a multi-tribal society. This is the "lie" - but there was never an individual, amoral freedom to call truth. We are, and have always been constrained by the moral requirements of society - tribal, and later, multi-tribal.

No. That's not right. Human beings lived as hunter gatherers, in tribal groups of around 40-120. Then, these tribal groups joined together to form civilisations. To join together, to prevent any little dispute splitting society along tribal lines, they needed laws, and so needed to justify law and order in society. They made God the objective authority for law and order. It was a convenience - not a lie, and civilisation has conferred huge benefits.

I'm getting a heavy Nietzsche vibe from you, but Nietzsche was wrong. Primitive man was not an amoral individualist. He was a tribal animal, and could not have survived unless he were also a moral animal that shared food, and protected the women and the young. Man has a moral sense - that was made explicit when tribes joined together, and needed God to justify law and order in society.

That was the 'inversion of values' of which Nietzsche wrote - not from individual to social, not the strong fooled by the weak, but an implicit tribal morality made explicit in a multi-tribal society. This is the "lie" - but there was never an individual, amoral freedom to call truth. We are, and have always been constrained by the moral requirements of society - tribal, and later, multi-tribal. — counterpunch

Read my article here in the forum called "Egoism: Humanity's Lost Virtue"

I read your article, and also read the wikipedia entry on Max Stirner. Interesting guy - and not nearly as well known as he deserves to be.

"Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism and individualist anarchism."

The idea of egoism is extremely compelling - for it cannot be denied that the individual often finds his egoistic (hedonistic?) interests second to those of society, until one remembers that he was not always able to wipe his own arse, let alone feed himself, wash his clothes, make his bed, and still have the energy to:

fulfill their individual desires without any restriction or denial of when, how, and where to conceive that same purpose; — Gus Lamarch

He would have to be a complete psychopath to forget that his egoistic self was born helpless, ignorant and dependent, and was nurtured at the bosom of his mother, in the schoolroom, and at an apprenticeship, where others put their egoistic desires second to his development. Do you suggest the individual just soak up all that social benefit and then declare himself owing nothing to anyone but his own egoistic purposes?

Even in his prime man is dependent on others, and the social division of labour. Either he will be constantly occupied building himself a house, making his own cloth and pots, raising crops (and not be able to do any of those things as well as a specialist) or, to pursue his own egoistic purposes he must necessarily outsource all kinds of needs. He could live in squalor, I suppose - like Diogenes, but what kind of egoistic purposes can a squalid individual pursue? He eats scraps with the dogs, but he is free? It's compelling, but it fails. It's not honest.

The idea of egoism is extremely compelling - for it cannot be denied that the individual often finds his egoistic (hedonistic?) interests second to those of society, until one remembers that he was not always able to wipe his own arse, let alone feed himself, wash his clothes, make his bed — counterpunch

You have not been able to realize that when you are part of another organism - in the case of your gestation: your mother - you still are your own absolute property. This is nothing more than another proof that the individual ego is still superior and primary in all matters.

You, your essence - your egoism - could simply be molecules in the organism of "another" being. However, your maximum individual property obviously could not be what you currently call "I", but, in the case discussed, your mother - "Yours". The use of this word already demonstrates the egoistic nature of Man -.

To be, you only need the "I".

He would have to be a complete psychopath to forget that his egoistic self was born helpless, ignorant and dependent, and was nurtured at the bosom of his mother, in the schoolroom, and at an apprenticeship, where others put their egoistic desires second to his development. Do you suggest the individual just soak up all that social benefit and then declare himself owing nothing to anyone but his own egoistic purposes? — counterpunch

I do not deny that there are influences from third parties in the creation and development of the individual. I never stated otherwise in my article and in any of my publications.

What I say is that all this same development - consciously or unconsciously - is done in favor of the realization of someone's egoism - in this case, of its parents, or of its relatives, friends, teachers, etc... - There is no man-made action that is not self-biased.

Even in his prime man is dependent on others, and the social division of labour. Either he will be constantly occupied building himself a house, making his own cloth and pots, raising crops (and not be able to do any of those things as well as a specialist) or, to pursue his own egoistic purposes he must necessarily outsource all kinds of needs. — counterpunch

It is obvious your perception that "needs" are things that are not based on the individual's egoism and will to power.

I affirm that the nature of Man is "Egoism", therefore, any and all his actions, from his first inspiration of the oxygen that permeates the planet we call home, was, is and will be based on irrational - or, on many times, rational - will to realize itself in existence. Leave this view of egoism as a sin to the past. The Ego is the starting point of all humanity, its own motivation, and its goal. A perfect cycle: Created, moved and completed by the same essence.

He could live in squalor, I suppose - like Diogenes, but what kind of egoistic purposes can a squalid individual pursue? He eats scraps with the dogs, but he is free? It's compelling, but it fails. It's not honest. — counterpunch

I'll use Stirner as an answer for this one:

"Do I write out of love to men? No, I write because I want to procure for my thoughts an existence in the world; and, even if I foresaw that these thoughts would deprive you of your rest and your peace, even if I saw the bloodiest wars and the fall of many generations springing up from this seed of thought — I would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will and can, that is your affair and does not trouble me. You will perhaps have only trouble, combat, and death from it, very few will draw joy from it."

Recently, I showed that the subjectivist, post modernist, anti-truth position of the left is false, with numerous examples, in an argument peppered with literary and philosophical references, and ran into an ideologically indoctrinated brick wall of direct contradiction. This inability and/or unwillingness to learn plunged me into a sudden and deep depression, for - if humankind cannot learn, cannot correct this mistake, we are doomed. — counterpunch

As some sort of leftist, I agree with you that a lot of the subjectivist, post-modernist, anti-truth, political correctness..." of the left is wrong, or sometimes not even wrong. Some of it is just plain nonsensical. I don't socialize much with people, especially the younger (or youngish) adults among whom there seems to be a lot of "leftist affect" (meaning, they sound like leftists but most likely are not). The literary theory of post-modernism is the worst slop I have encountered in a life-time of reading.

As time passes, it seems like the terms "left" and "right" have become less meaningful. It isn't that the continuum of opinion doesn't exist, but that the labels have been emptied of meaning by overuse. Lots of words have been ruined by excessive use and abuse.

Magna Magma: The only problem your idea of capturing energy from magma has is that the industry required for economic viability hasn't appeared. In 1945 there was no industry in place for atomic energy. It got built, but it took decades. The same goes for steam-generated coal powered electricity. The industry had to be developed over decades. There are hot-spots here and there where geo-thermal heat is close, or relatively close to the surface. Iceland; Yellowstone; various places on the pacific rim, etc. Many other areas sit on thick cold rock, and we'd have to bore much deeper.

A couple of years ago a long-time TPF member proposed floating large arrays of solar cells off shore. Sounded like a non-starter at the time, but I have since read of arrays that have been built, are floating, and producing electricity.

All the approaches that can be done; should be done, including the magna magma option.

You are not the only one running into brick walls. As a sometimes-socialist-agitator I can appreciate your frustration with brick walls. The very word "socialist" is a thought stopper for many people, a no-go zone.

About sustainability and consumption: What environmentalists mean by "reduced consumption" isn't a fixed standardized thing. My own experience is that I can consume less 'stuff' without the slightest reduction in my standard of living. Example: reading books and newspaper in digital form rather than paper. Drinking tap water instead of bottled water (which is often the same water one gets out of a tap). Not replacing clothing that is in very good condition. Keeping appliances until they fail. I use mass transit because I do not drive, and for many purposes it works. For some purposes it fails or doesn't exist anymore. Granted, it doesn't work for many people because of past huge investments in auto transportation coupled with long-term DISinvestment in mass transit.

Given the huge quantity of CO2 that transportation contributes to the atmosphere, that is one of the areas where 'green' will mean changes that will feel like loss to maybe a billion drivers.

I'm from the North of England - and it was economically devastated by the closing of the coal mines and the end of heavy industry culminating in the early 1980's with Thatcher. Labour were ubiquitous where I came from. It wasn't a choice so much as a fact of life. Working people and Labour are synonyms. But even as the Tories destroyed, and then ignored the North for a generation, Labour retreated to North London, and leant heavily into a reverse form of identity politics pitched through culture; civil rights, feminism, gay rights - pushing past mere equality, past positive discrimination to forge the dictatorial dogma that is political correctness. And then they were shocked when the Labour vote collapsed in the North in 2019.

Philosophically, political correctness depends on various subjectivist traditions - in chronological order, subjectivism, existentialism, critical theory, neo-marxism and post modernism - and you're right, it's nonsensical, but then - it doesn't uphold the value of making sense. It's all about power. This manifests most obviously in the fact that political correctness deals constantly in stereotypes - while criminalising stereotyping. It sees everything in terms of race - but then decries others as racist. It draws its power from making it impossible for you to make sense of anything. You end up cheering as businesses are looted and burnt, because they're black - and curse white people protesting that an election was stolen by those who, four years before - claimed the election was stolen! With the impossibility of reason, all you can do is take sides, and submit. And if you don't, then they will impugn you, attack and harass you - destroy you, and care not.

I'm not sure what you mean by:

The only problem your idea of capturing energy from magma has is that the industry required for economic viability hasn't appeared. — Bitter Crank

The technology exists. Fossil fuel drilling technology is amazing - they can drill for miles and steer around corners. The rest is standard electricity generation technology - copper wire and magnets. Tapping into the heat energy of magma to produce electricity is a slam dunk technologically speaking.

Electrolysis to produce hydrogen - is a simple, well established technology. Delivering energy as hydrogen gas, or liquified fuel - much the same. Slight issue with embrittlement from hydrogen, but materials science has that covered. I'd start in the Pacific Rim, miles from anywhere - but I could have it up and running from off the shelf technologies in five years.

Relative to other renewable technologies, magma energy, I think - has the greatest potential to supply sufficient energy, reliably and at the lowest costs in terms of infrastructure. It doesn't imply the same left wing have less and pay more, carbon tax this, stop that approach - because it deals with supply, not consumption. You say:

My own experience is that I can consume less 'stuff' without the slightest reduction in my standard of living. Example: reading books and newspaper in digital form rather than paper. Drinking tap water instead of bottled water (which is often the same water one gets out of a tap). Not replacing clothing that is in very good condition. Keeping appliances until they fail. I use mass transit because I do not drive... — Bitter Crank

But what about the people who print newspapers, build cars, manufacture appliances, grow cotton and knit cardigans or whatever. You may be able to go without because you are already quite well off. But what about the jobs of people down the line. You can have less, and put them out of work, but poor people breed more. Only sufficient clean energy can balance the equation - support capitalist growth, sustainable development and continued improvement in living standards, such that population tops out around 10-12bn by 2100 according to the UN mid range projection.

I'm from the North of England... — counterpunch

The UK seems to have clearer class lines than the US, but what happened in the north of England has happened here too. The American labor movement didn't die from natural causes--it was murdered. Killed off by the same economic interests that shafted the coal workers where you grew up. It's a disgusting story of corporate and political powers combining to suppress the working class. In this country the Democrats and Republicans found common ground in class warfare (like a Democratic governor in my liberal state who sent in the National Guard to help break the Hormel meat packing strike 40 years ago).

The technology exists. — counterpunch

Yes, of course. It's all more or less on the shelf. What is NOT on the shelf is the industrial structure: the financial capital; the corporate commitment (of suppliers, drillers, pipe and boiler makers, etc.); the thousands of employees with the necessary skill-sets in geo-thermal; the large electrolysis plants and distribution systems; the adaptation of plants to turn generators with hydrogen, and so on.

High speed trains are on-the-shelf tech too, but the US has steadfastly refused to build the new roadbeds and buy the equipment. The big railroads can run their freight trains remotely (nobody on board), so it isn't as if they are technophobes. It's just bad national policy. Bad national policy could prevent geo-thermal too.

liquified fuel — counterpunch

Hydrogen becomes a liquid at −253°C (−423°F)--getting close to absolute zero. It takes 30% of the energy value in H to liquify it. Well, energy production and distribution always costs a share of the energy in coal, gas, electricity, wind, solar, or whatever. Maybe we have to do more research on that liquifying process.

But what about the people who print newspapers, build cars, manufacture appliances, grow cotton and knit cardigans or whatever. — counterpunch

Well, it isn't reluctant consumers that are costing most of the jobs, these days. It's automation in its various forms. One of the solutions to automation is to take the profits of automated factories and support displaced workers at a reasonably comfortable level of income. Automation and unlimited pollution free energy should make it possible for displaced workers to have good lives--not just living on welfare, but being supported while they find new ways to manage their lives.

Or, just as easily, we can de-automate factories to produce more jobs. God didn't order us to automate everything, after all.

The UK seems to have clearer class lines than the US, but what happened in the north of England has happened here too. The American labor movement didn't die from natural causes--it was murdered. Killed off by the same economic interests that shafted the coal workers where you grew up. It's a disgusting story of corporate and political powers combining to suppress the working class. In this country the Democrats and Republicans found common ground in class warfare (like a Democratic governor in my liberal state who sent in the National Guard to help break the Hormel meat packing strike 40 years ago). — Bitter Crank

I'm currently reading a book entitled 'Despised' By Paul Embry - about the relationship between Labour and the working class. It is somewhat different, because Labour were established 100 years ago to represent the working class relative to "the owners of the means of production" - and/or the aristocracy, but it's much same thing; they've abandoned the working class.

It's not that Labour have accepted the value of business though. It's weird. Labour monopolize public services and the media; but they've still switched sides. They court the well off with a bad conscience crowd - and make them ashamed to be white, regardless of the consequences for the working class majority. It's easy to be politically correct if you're insulted by wealth - and it's only on the bottom rung that it makes a crucial difference to have an 'ism' to swing a crust your way. They don't know or care. Champagne socialists.

I'd rather talk about energy. You're right that compressing hydrogen takes a lot of energy - but there's a lot of energy available. Thermodynamic efficiency of transmission and translation losses - to over use the jargon, would be a serious consideration if you were shovelling coal into a boiler - but, there's a lot of energy available from magma, and sending electricity down an overhead cable costs 10% per 1000km, more if the wire is buried, and more still if its undersea. Getting the energy from where it's produced to where it's needed by converting it into hydrogen, is in my view the most reasonable solution. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel burnt in traditional power stations, and hydrogen fuel cells, even a hydrogen internal combustion engine. When you think a little further on about transport solutions, distributing energy as hydrogen begins to make a lot of sense.

You're right about automation costing jobs, but consider the implications of having a virtually limitless amount of clean energy to spend. Did you know, for example - that as little as 2% of the UK is built upon. And UK population density is pretty high by global standards. There's lots of land that we cannot use, largely because of the availability of water. But what if we had energy to spend desalinating water to irrigate land? We could spread out - give value to what until now has been waste-ground, and in doing so, protect forests and natural water sources from over exploitation.

Think about how it changes our relationship to landfills. With such massive amounts of clean energy - we could recycle everything. Mince it all up and process it; bacterial digestion, heating, separation, chemical processing and so on. Given enough energy I think landfills would become gold mines, processed for their resources. There's plenty of potential industries, and economic opportunities that would spring out of nowhere, because resources are, fundamentally, a consequence of the energy available to create them.

They court the well off with a bad conscience crowd - and make them ashamed to be white, regardless of the consequences for the working class majority. — counterpunch

There are peculiar patterns in the press and in entertainment. The New York Times, the country's newspaper of record, frequently views events through a racial filter, pointing out, over and over again, that people who are not white are not getting an equal share of ... whatever it is. (If the world were coming to an end tomorrow, the NYT would say "World Coming to End: Women and minorities to be disproportionately affected") As if white men were never poor! Media elsewhere in the country are doing the same thing more often. There was a story about how minority children are not learning how to ice skate as often as white children. Gee, Maybe a lot of minority families come from places where ice skating just isn't a thing?

Another thing, many advertisements feature bi-racial and mixed race children in ads. Nothing wrong with either one, but bi-racial couples and their children just aren't that common. Grey's Anatomy, a medical drama that has has been on for the last 15 years, has placed an increasing number of black characters in the story, as well as many B/W mixed race couples. Seattle is 66% white and 7% black. There aren't enough blacks in Seattle, even if every black person was in a B/W couple. for that many mixed race couples. The producers have apparently decided to showcase multi-race relationships as a way to be hip, with it, progressive. I like the show and I like the leading black characters who are very all portrayed by very good actors (at least for television).

A lot of characters in American film and television are depicted as very well off, well educated, upper-middle class, even upper class. The popular entertaining media doesn't find working class characters all that interesting, and when working class characters appear in comedies they are usually presented as clowns or morons, especially if they are male.

We get the same thing. It's like they're advertising black people over here! I think I can get one on interest free credit! Did you notice a distinct uptick right after the BLM rioting. Suddenly, everyone in Britain was black - as far as advertisers were concerned. They are so pathetically hostage to political correctness, it's embarrassing.

I'm tempted, nay compelled to engage in the usual boiler plate denial of racism at this point, so I'm not going to. This is about how a Labour Party - built to represent the working class relative to the owners of the means of production, have become media luvvies, and gone into identity politics, and cut all ties with its working class roots - leaving us completely unrepresented.

Meanwhile, the right have privatised everything - sold off all the utilities, gas, electricity, water, trains, post office, everything, ended job security, raided pensions and imposed zero hours contracts on workers, all while rents are out of control expensive - and Labour are doing some anal audit on ethnic minority representation in the party, or some such. Don't ask me where all this is going. Those are the two options; in a conspiracy of different interests. Choose your poison.

I AM a philosopher. — counterpunch

Here's a didactic story for you:

The story goes that when the Buddha first became enlightened, he was enthusiastic to tell other people about it. So he walked down the road and to the first person he met, he said, "I am the Rightfully Self-awakened One!" The man shook his head and went his way. The same happened with a couple of other men. The Buddha was frustrated and concluded that humans are stupid and worthless and not worth bothering with. Then a deva (a godly being) appeared before the Buddha and pleaded with him, saying that some people have only little dust in their eyes and are worth to be taught, and that out of compassion for them, the Buddha should make an effort and teach them. So he did, and many of his students attained enlightenment under his guidance.

I shouldn't have to blow smoke up the arses of idiots to be heard. Or should I? — counterpunch

If you don't see the problem with your attitude ...


Dude, your default is that you don't care about people, esp. those you expect to listen to you. But you expect them to care about you??!


'm 'fraid no deva is around ...

I set out to know what's true, and have discovered something important to the survival of humankind. I'm trying to tell people about it. It's quite complicated, and requires a bit of attention to see. I am saying I have something important to say. What I'm not saying is that what I say is important. I'm saying that a scientific understanding of reality is important to the survival of humankind. I don't care about you - you're right. I care about the continued existence of humankind though. I care about securing a prosperous sustainable future without turning the world upside down. I can't be expected to communicate these ideas in terms - I'm supposed to imagine will make you entirely comfortable. You're right, I don't care if you're uncomfortable - because at present, you're doomed because you're wrong. You should be uncomfortable.

Jean Buadrillard once actually cited Ecclesiastes as stating that "the simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true." I feel like you just don't get it.

You also know nothing of what is wrong with the Left. I does have so much and so little to do with a rather flippant disregard for quote unquote reason, though.

I would have welcomed Galileo as discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation, and pursued science as the word of God, afforded scientific truth moral authority, and applied technology in accord with God's word, and hailed the endless technological miracles of applied science as proof of God's blessing. But that didn't happen. Science was branded a heresy - and so, sadly - I am cast as the iconoclast, or worse. In my own mind, I'm outside, looking in on your symbolic unreality - a signpost on the border, pointing the way to the bridge to the future.

As, I am sure, this is both warranted and welcome, I will elaborate.

The problem is not the wanton experimentation in writing, philosophy, or political theory. That is a symptom of the problem, which, like any form of neurosis, can be resultant in extraordinary bouts of wisdom and mania.

The problem is the incessant appeal to every form of revolutionary fanaticism simultaneously. It's like dealing with as many cults as you can imagine during a political debate. All of them, some more than others, take an extraordinary amount of time to explain as to how and why it is that they are, in point of fact, cults, and none of them are willing to show any form of restraint in silencing anyone who categorizes them as such.

Philosophers, such as yourself, think that what has happened is that we have been driven mad by Existentialism, so-called "Continental" Philosophy, or Critical Theory. What has actually happened is that some people, and, though they are few, their influence is extraordinary, have become so taken by terror chic that they are entirely unwilling to consider what actually attempting to reify their revolutionary program will actually be like, which almost invariably just ends up being starting an actual terrorist cell. They don't think that they'll go the way of Holger Meins. They think that it'll be like living in a Jean-Luc Godard film. Neither they, nor Godard, understand the Dadist elements to his works. That is what the problem is.

Academics just entertain the people whom such charismatic leaders would attempt to inculcate within their respective political factions for long enough for them to give up on every form of revolutionary crusade and either vote for this left-wing Liberal or another or somehow ultimately vaguely agree to some form of implicit nonviolence.