Part of the significance that I want to look at or for in the thread discussion is how the perennial new-age spiritual revival relates to recent, particularly right wing, history, from The Nazis to to QAnon. — unenlightened

My guess is it doesn't, not in any real way anyway.

I've listened to the first 3 episodes, and one of the ideas put forward of the real history of the secret history of Western esotericism is that there isn't one unified movement, group of coherent ideas or linear hermeneutics.

I think there's a word for this - can't think of it right now - but my take is that ideas and concepts get appropriated from one generation to the next, without there necessarily being a continuity in meaning.... But they do carry some weight, an aura (because they do hang somewhere in our memories/culture I guess) which can be used as a means to gain some sway.

That's how I look at most of these phenomena. There's some real desire for answers to the situations people find themselves in, to the state of the world, for political influence maybe... which is a feeling more then something that is already clearly defined. And then this gets filled up with a whatever ideas that sound like they might fit in to create a semblance of coherence to the stories people want to tell themselves.

I do appreciate the more scholarly angle he is taking on the topic, he really does a good job. But I don't know how much I can handle of this particular topic, maybe it really doesn't deserve this much attention.

Maybe...but that means enormous suffering that will be felt mostly -- as always -- by the poor and working classes. It means worldwide depression. They've gotten themselves into a game where they're now "too big to fail," and so the government serves as a backstop for them, preventing them from failing. On and on we go.

I'd much prefer massive legal and regulatory reforms, but that's not going to happen either. What's more is that we're really out of time. So if the entire system collapses, perhaps that's the last best hope we have?

There's always the people, of course. That's my real hope. Unfortunately millions of people are far too divided by our media bubbles, too tired from work, too sick from our lifestyles, too medicated, too drugged out, or too "amused" to know or care about the imminent catastrophe already unfolding. — Xtrix

My hope is people too in some way, but not in a typical direct political way, like people voting for reforms to the cosmopolitan global capitalist system that we have. I can't see that happening.

I think solutions will be local, smaller scale, communal etc... just people looking to pick up where the system breaks down, out of necessity or just because it makes more sense. There are already constant efforts at these more grassroots local initiatives, but they are not easy or all that successful because you still have that mainstream monolith they have to compete with that provides 'easy answers' for most people. The hope is that as it breaks down, these initiatives will get more traction as more people are forced-out/realize the terminal state of the system.

I guess my original point was that legal reforms and the like are only of consequence if one believes that the system can be saved. If one doesn't, then they don't really matter. That's the awkward political position I find myself in as of late, I think all traditional political answers are inconsequential because they seem to assume a future that I don't think is even possible.

Okay to attempt to give a more constructive response to your question ;-).

The whole system is the problem right?

You can't change the whole system is my answer (and not only mine). It just doesn't work because the system works around little fissures and the like... commercializing ('colonizing') anything and everything that attempts to change it from "within". Politics is futile for much of the same reason... because by the time you get to anything worthwhile, it has to be watered down that much that it isn't worth it anymore anyway.

The way it will/has to go, is breakdown. Parts of the system will breakdown, cease to function and other things will take its place out of necessity. That's the charm of alternative ways of living, things like perma-culture, that they create alternative means of subsistence not directly tied to the mainstream economy... without trying to be overtly political.

I don't really expect an answer to this... seriously, what do we expect people to say? That almost everything we do is a ruse, propped up by inequality or fossil fuels, both highly toxic in their own ways. Most people can't live in that space.

[silence]

I think the only "solution" is to let the whole system collapse, probably better sooner than later... and see what can grow after that.

The "system" is predicated on the idea that "we" can secure a future for ourselves apart and above of the rest of the world. This has turned out to be a mistake... no matter the disavowment of this mistake, at some time we will have to recon with it. If we wait longer, it'll probably be that much harder. — ChatteringMonkey

This all probably has a very "Hari Seldon"- vibe to it... but I think it true for the most part. It's just basic (energy) physiques unfortunately.

Given this analysis, the only question left is: what exactly do we do about it? In other words, what about solutions? What goals are we working towards? — Xtrix

I think the only "solution" is to let the whole system collapse, probably better sooner than later... and see what can grow after that.

The "system" is predicated on the idea that "we" can secure a future for ourselves apart and above of the rest of the world. This has turned out to be a mistake... no matter the disavowment of this mistake, at some time we will have to recon with it. If we wait longer, it'll probably be that much harder.

The project of metaphysics is bullshit... seriously ask yourself why would you believe in something that has no apparent reason, nor any sense evidence at all (which by definition it has not).

There is no reason at all.... to believe in any of it.

Market mechanism creates the obvious limits. But if those are disregarded, then simply you will have "official" prices that nobody can get the stuff and then a black market. Perhaps the following remark on what you later note sheds light what I'm trying to say. — ssu

I think I do get what you are trying to say, oil prices will rise, renewables will get cheaper... and so in the end the idea is that market will sort it out by pricing out fossil fuels in favour of renewables.

I just don't think you will end up with anything like the same kind of economy because they are not that interchangeable as one might think, i.e. one energy for another type of energy. Renewables are more expensive to begin with, not as reliable (which means you need storage which makes it even more expensive), you need a far more expanded electric net if you want to switch to electricity, you don't have the same usefull byproducts as oil etc etc..

It not just one thing that needs to be resolved, the entire system is geared around fossil fuels, as I believe are our ideas about economic growth, capitalism and globalization too. Energy out of fossil fuels is I think not just another resource the market can sort, it's the basis on which the entire industrial system was build.

Well, energy policies DO MATTER. The fixation on the US based fossil fuel guzzling economy doesn't tell the truth. Let's compare it with another country. — ssu

End result? An actual real difference. — ssu

A smaller difference then one might think. The graphs only show electricity production, which is only what, generally about 20% of all energy-usage? Non-electricity energy usage is still predominately fossil fuels in both countries.

Have we really tried? — ssu

Sure, not that hard probably, but that's part of the problem no? We can't really make abstraction of our social and political systems, as if they don't exist or will magically change.

You are totally correct and I agree with you. It isn't at all simple. And likely there isn't the actual political will.

The worst thing is that people won't understand it when or as the climate change is happening. Because the real outcome of draughts, famines, economic crises is political crises and wars. And those have a different narrative: it was this and that politician, it was these factions that started the conflict. Nowhere do you see an link to some political conflict to truly happened because of climate change. Now every smart facet will understand this (like the US Armed Forces), but it simply won't go down to the level of political narrative on how we explain political developments.

In the end, people will take the weather as "Gods will", if the link isn't as obvious as the London smog was to how houses were heated back then. This is the real problem. — ssu

There isn't political will because nobody wants to hear that we have to de-grow, that they probably will have to do with less. No political party can push that program and get elected, which is kind of interesting in its own right... the fact that we apparently have a political system that just can't have de-growth as an end.

I still am an optimist and think that we can prevail. We are still standing on the "shoulders of giants" and all that gathered knowledge that science has given us is available for us. The economy hasn't collapsed as it did during antiquity and we haven't gone full backward that we would be going back to the "dark ages part 2". I'm not sure that it will happen. I think it's going to be just a bumpy road. After all, we are living during a global pandemic right now, ChatteringMonkey. :mask: — ssu

Maybe... I suppose these things always have to end on a note of hope. Knowledge and technology is the biggest unknown certainly, I wonder how much of it a difference it makes on it's own when you take away the energy.

The long time question is of course if we need economic growth after we have hit peak human population. More prosperous people have less children, and when the fertility rate is well below 2, do we in the long run need perpetual growth? It's more a like a question for our debt-based monetary system, which needs perpetual growth itself. But otherwise, I don't think so. — ssu

I'm going to start here, because I don't know what it is that people just keep believing perpetual growth is even possible in theory. It isn't, resources and energy are finite. If you keep taking a percentage growth of what has previously grown a percentage, you get exponentials and bump against that finitude of resources pretty quick. It's not a serious question, we can't grow perpetually. The only question is how long can we grow before we bump against all sorts of limits?

Hmm, looking at this statistic, comes to my mind a statistic of the consumption of whale oil. The 19th century likely would produce such a graph. Yep, whales were really hunted down to extinction in the 19th Century, but then came an alternate way of producing similar oil. — ssu

It would be similar except there is no alternative to fossil fuels once used up. You cannot get ease of use, energy density and other byproducts from renewables.

Do notice what I said. If alternative energies ARE MORE CHEAPER than fossil fuels, then the transformation will be rapid. And do notice what is happening in the World. Things don't happen in an instant, but they do change in decades. — ssu

If they are cheaper than fossil fuels then transformation will be rapid, seem like it would be evidentially true, but I don't think it necessarily is.

At some point fossil fuels will become so expensive that it costs more energy to extract them than you are getting from the extraction. Let's call that a negative Return On Energy (ROE). If ROE is negative it's not worth is from an energy-point of view to extract them... maybe you'd still do it for other applications like plastics, lubricants etc etc, but not for the energy.

If alternative energies are only cheaper than fossil fuels when ROE of it becomes negative, than we wouldn't transform rapidly because it wouldn't be worth it, either way.

I disagree. There are alternatives that are totally realistic. Just look at how for instance the price of solar energy has come down. In fact, the situation where non-fossil fuels are cheaper than fossil fuels isn't at all a distant hypothetical anymore. It is starting to be reality. — ssu

Yeah solar-panels that are produced by a fossil-fueled economy and mass-production process. I'd want to see how that works without fossil-fuels to jump-start the whole process.

And even if it would be theoretically possible, it surely isn't in practice as we haven't even succeeded to reduce fossils fuels one iota since we started trying to reduce them consciously. Consumption of new energies just get stacked on consumption of previous sources of energy. No way we will succeed in replacing that mountain of fossil fuels with renewables in time:

The real hurdle are niche things like aircraft. But here the also there is a lot of investment in hydrogen fueled or electric aircraft. (Hydrogen can be made by electrolysis without causing emissions) — ssu

Hydrogen is no source of energy, just a way to store it. It is energy negative to produce and we don't find it on earth. If you want to produce it without emissions then you need to rely on renewables that aren't all that energy-efficient to begin with...

And let's not forget that aside from the question of cheap energy, oil-byproducts are also used almost everywhere in production-processes. Lubricants, plastics, etc etc... I don't know if you even can have a "production-proces" without oil.

The real problems happen when don't invest and just ruin our economies. Then there isn't going to be any investment and then we will have to rely on fossil fuels just to keep our present energy consumption. Ruining the global economy will create political instability and at worst widespread war. Not much investment will then go to climate change. And just notice how for example the US energy consumption has leveled off in this millennium. And do note from below how huge the level of fossil fuels are in the US. But in for example France, it's a different matter (as they have opted smartly for nuclear energy). — ssu

The really real problems happen when we run out of cheap energy to keep feeding a growing economy. That may be because of lack of investements, or maybe there just isn't cheap enough energy to be found or invested in anymore to be able to mass-produce a tennisball in china and sell it somewhere in Europe.

I dunno,I think people just all to easily gloss over the fact that it's not evident (not possible I'd say) to just replace oil and gas, which is solar-energy densely-stored over millennia gushing out of the ground.

So I do disagree in the idea that the global economy cannot grow without fossil fuels. The way things are going now, with little and sporadic investment in technology, with pompous declarations by politically correct politicians (who know people don't remember the promises six months from now), it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Now things might prevail somehow, but likely that isn't enough for those who are against the how our society works in general. They surely will be as disappointed as now are, even if we do manage along for the next one or two hundred years without any cultural collapse. — ssu

I think aside from the obvious political and moral failings of our societies and leaders, there's also a non-moral, 'fated' side to this tragedy. We were born and raised in the candy-store, never to know anything else, how could we realistically conceive and really feel like it was not to last? Fossil-fuels being such a potent, yet one time source of energy, really threw us a nasty curve-ball there.

Since economic growth tracks energy consumption, it doesn't look to hot for the economy going forward.

Wake up, the whole idea of economic growth will seem parochial in a couple of decades.

There is no juxtaposition SSU.

Without further use of fossil fuels there can be no growth economy as we know it.

With further use of fossil fuels there can be no livable planet.

You might think that this is merely an ideological (juxta)position, and that there are other options than those two... but that's because you haven't looked into the specifics of those 'alternatives'. There are no alternatives that work because fossil fuels were a one-time, easy to use energy-dense source of energy.

Now if there indeed needs to be made a choice between those two, then the choice should be pretty clear, because without a livable planet you can have no economy.

The whole discussion is moot anyway because fossil fuels (and other resources too) are a limited resource. Even if we would want to keep using them, we can't because we will run out of them soon enough. The economy will have to collapse no matter how you want to look at it.

Agreed, CM - what is your understanding of what the recovery process from such a worldview might be? — Joshua Jones

I'm not sure I completely understand the question. Are you asking for what the recovery process from the worldview would be, as if the worldview is the sickness? Or are you asking what the recovery process for such a world would look like?

I'm assuming the former, though I'm not sure I agree with the idea that it is something that one needs "to recover from"... maybe i'd rather say "cope with"?

Though I think I always had the intuition somehow that this world was not to last, it only recently fully and consciously dawned on me. Since I'm still very much in the process of re-calibrating and adjusting to a new horizon so to speak... maybe it is to early for me to say how to best deal with it.

Or maybe that is precisely how one starts to deals with it, by re-evaluating and adjusting ones plans and values so that they re-align with a fundamentally changed future. Yes, that's how I will be starting I guess, by committing to what I think I know... and re-evaluating things in light of that, which will probably take a good while.

One does see this sort of argument often in philosophy of religion as well for example, some philosophers seem to claim that there is no afterlife, or that religious text are just fairy tales, and then go on to say that we only believe in those things because we don't want to die (among other things), but that does not prove (as they sometimes seem to imply) that there is no afterlife or that religious texts are just fairy tales. — Amalac

It's no proof, right... but it is a sort of explanation for why people are holding those beliefs if you already assume they don't hold those beliefs because they are true.

I don't think he is making an argument there at all, he seem to be just stating what he thinks is the case, and why we tend to believe in essences... i.e. because we wish it.

But it seems to me that this is a non-sequitur: it does not follow from the fact that we wish something to be the case, that it is not the case — Amalac

Yes, and it cuts both ways, wishing doesn't have a necessary relation with truth either way... there are just putting the emphasis on the other way (because that is where the tradition they are criticizing was coming from I guess).

"The world as we know it" is basically western capitalist growth model exported to the rest of the world.

That kind of model only became possible because we found a way to use fossil fuels that are incredibly energy-dense and easy to use (economic growth is a function of the amount of energy consumed).

As fossil fuels are finite and non-renewable, or we have to stop using them anyway, it seems that energy will become a lot more expensive as we scramble to replace fossil fuels.

So then, here we are, a bunch of people expecting a certain standard of living because that's all we have ever known... while at the same time that standard seems unsustainable because the energy isn't there longterm. Add to that that we have, along the way, seriously degraded the world we previously could rely on for subsistence... and you end up with quite the predicament

Either the model has to fundamentally change or it will collapse by itself... either way it seems enough to speak about "the end of the world as we know it".

From a societal and psychological/epistemic point of view, the problem is we have been living exclusively on the sharp end of the hockey-stick.

Our experiences, and the socio-economic structures we build thereupon, are literally fully contained within the couple of centuries that are the exception.

We are geared to expect the future to resemble the past, but have no real right to it dixit Hume. In most cases that kind of wiring has served us well... in this case maybe it won't?

GDP tracks energy consumption.

Rise in energy consumption has mainly been a rise in fossil fuels.

The idea that fossil fuels can - for intents and purposes of the kind of economy we have - just be replaced by renewables seem wishful thinking at best.

Ergo, If we want/have to cut out fossil fuels, GDP will decline... one way or another.

I hope you haven't been waiting 3 years for this factoid; — Bitter Crank

No, that would be pretty weird :-).

Now and then I look back at some of my older posts, and I've been thinking a lot about this particular topic lately.... I changed my mind a lot since then.

I just came across it again. After the dust settled from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and following for several hundred years, the economic growth rate was about 1/100th of a percent per year. Super stable. No growth. Once every century you could expect a 1% raise.

The so called "dark ages" during which the rate of growth was practically zero, wasn't 'dark'. The period saw some development, some innovations, improvements in agriculture, and so forth. But economic growth was very slow; the economy was a 'stable steady state'. — Bitter Crank

Yes, Growth is increase in GDProduct,
Product is the result of rearranging earths materials,
and rearranging can only happen by using energy.

Growth and energy-usage track almost linearly, which is why you see very low growth before the industrial revolution. You had wind and hydro, and solar via plants/food that powered humans and domesticated animals. That equation didn't change all that much for millennia.

It's often thought that what was the driver or the key for the industrial revolution, was the scientific method, or innovation. And while there's some truth to that (we needed those innovations), what really made it take off, was the fact that it unlocked fossil fuels.

That enabled us to multiply our energy output by a factor of 200 or something ridicules like that, which in turn enabled us to power all those machines, which in turn enable us to produce all those products... the rest is history.

I can't think of a tolerable method of achieving stable zero-growth. Global warming might do it for us, by reducing the population, wiping out the technological knowledge base, and focussing our minds on the matter of bare survival. The survivors would experience one grand RE-SET. Quite possibly, after the dust settled, life would go on in a stable, no-growth fashion for a long time. — Bitter Crank

Global warming might do it, or less energy might do it also... which would mean that no-growth (or even decrease) is not only a possibility, but an inevitability, if the reasoning about energy is on point here.

But yes, the real question is in what way, how will we get from here to there? At what energy level will we have to plateau?

There's uncertainty about a number of things, when, how much, etc... but one thing seems clear, keeping our economy running on an expectation of growth seems like a recipe for disaster.
— ChatteringMonkey
One can expect growth all the time, but not in all industries or aspects of societies. — Caldwell

I was thinking about aggregate growth, GDP... but sure, presumably you could shift available energy from one sector to another.

What do you think? — ChatteringMonkey

The way the question is formulated assumes that perpetual growth is a possibility. Since economic growth is intimately linked with energy-usage, in theory and in the long term that is clearly false... if we believe there are no exceptions to the conservation-laws that is. Energy is limited, so is economic growth.

In practice it's even worse, since we were able to temporally prop up our economies with the earths fossil fuels, which are for all our intents and purposes a one-time deal. As stocks of fossil fuels are rapidly depleting (or we have to stop using them because things like climate change), available energy will decline, and so will economies.

This is not a matter of choice, but a consequence of the laws of physics.... economies will eventually stop growing because of a lack of energy.

If we take that as a given, the more interesting question is what should we be doing to anticipate that inevitability? There's uncertainty about a number of things, when, how much, etc... but one thing seems clear, keeping our economy running on an expectation of growth seems like a recipe for disaster.

Yes, I think this is the problem. Continuous-growth economics cannot work in a system with finite resources. Like our Earth, for example. For years I have been amazed that this is not a phrase on everyone's lips. It is the reason for nearly everything we humans have got wrong in our treatment of our world. IMO, of course. :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Exactly. Growth-economics seems to only really apply in this small period in a planets history wherein resources seem practically unlimited because populations are still small relative to the amount of resources.

I make good money and can afford to do what I like, but there’s nothing I want. Anyway, I’m posting here because I’m hoping to get input from people who have been in a similar position and found some resolution. — Nicholas Mihaila

Usually the solution to this type nihilism involves seeing yourself more as part of a greater whole, that consequentially has a function or purpose in that larger whole.... Problem is we don't especially live in a culture right now that is conductive to this kind of solution, because any type of communitarian feeling be it religious or non-religious has essentially been hollowed out by individualism/capitalism/consumerism.

Anyway this is maybe not so much a resolution, but more of a recognition that you're not alone i guess.

I think that it is dangerous if in a democracy real issues aren't openly discussed and rhetoric not adhered to facts and reality but to public sentiment and feelings takes over. In a way, that "dumbing down" of a political debate is a way of control. When political debate becomes a shit show, a distraction, somebody still has to make the actual decisions.

What do you think? Is this a serious problem or am I exaggerating? — ssu

No I think you're right... more generally, I think social media has made most politicians scared of doing anything that might cause something like a social media storm. The ones that aren't scared are the ones that have nothing to lose or those that make a career out of controversy anyway.

Surely its value is mostly in the experience of life and not the relative span of time? — TiredThinker

Value is a more abstract notion of something we want essentially.

'Something "we" want' already implies a living thing and a duration of time.

For the purpose of this discussion (about meaning) you could say that life is that which has separated itself from the rest of the world (via a cell membrane) and tries to maintain itself, its form, over time.

So to answer your question, life gives itself values by trying to sustain itself over time. It doesn't make much sense to speak of value without both "experience ( a living thing)" and a duration of time. Theoretically, any duration of time could do.

I read somewhere there is no limit to what can be done if you give others credit for it. And something about letting people think it was there idea. However, I think those tactics are old, foreseen and undermined by interests that want to conserve (ative) the status quo — James Riley

Maybe smarter people than me can figure it out. — James Riley

I agree, chances don't look that hot...I do think maybe the time is ripe for some kind of politician or political movement that can connect the dots in the right way considering how out of time and detached mainstream political parties are... there definitely seems to be a market for it.

I wonder how the Earth will react. She seems to not calculate things like forgiveness, vengeance, etc. As William Muny said before shooting Little Bill in the face: "Deserves got nothing to do with it."

Anyway, if we ever did do the right thing before we had to, and before their was a monetary incentive to do it, we might look to the motivating factors from history and try that yesterday. — James Riley

Yeah physics doesn't care about any of that... and eventhough a case could no doubt be made for it, I don't think finger-pointing will get us closer to a solution either.

I wonder if any studies have been done (sociology, history, poly sci?) that winnowed out those few (if any) cases where humanity saw a looming threat and decided to nip it in the bud? If such cases exist, what was the controlling factor that moved the needle toward action, over-and-above the kicking and screaming of those who championed doing nothing? Was it money? Leadership? Propaganda? Violence? — James Riley

Propaganda, some kind of story would be my guess. You convince people into believing that the necessary transition wouldn't actually be a sacrifice for them, but a beneficial thing... which it probably would be to some extend. Finger pointing and fear-mongering will only get you so far because for most it's not possible to be in this constant state of panic/urgency psychologically speaking.

I'd expect something somewhat concrete to come out of it because at this point it would seem very hard to defend not doing anything concrete, but who knows... Whatever does come out of it, it probably won't be enough by a long shot though.

I completely agree with you then, ideally finite fossil fuels that are still left, should be rationed wisely to transition to a post-fossil fuel economy.
— ChatteringMonkey

But we cannot expect countries like India to stop using coal (nor will they). This is the big problem. — I like sushi

Yes if you would look at it historically and from a fairness point of view we would need to almost stop all use of fossil fuels right now to give them some room to grow... this is not going to happen, and so it will be messy.

Of course. But we know such projects can and have bore fruits. Going to the Moon and creating weaponry for WW2. — I like sushi

In a fossil fueled growth economy they did, there's no guarantee this will continue to be the case.

I don't see much distinction between humanity and nature. We've impacted the globe and will continue to do so. That is not 'unnatural' even though some wish to frame this as 'against nature'. We are able to make mistakes and see possible future mistakes (and correct them) whereas other species cannot do this. — I like sushi

We've impacted the globe disproportionately is the problem. This is hard the look past, humans and domesticated livestock account for 96% of all mammalian biomass nowadays. It creates problems we have to solve ourselves now, problems that 'nature' used to solve by itself.

Prime example is mono-culture agriculture. To get higher yields of a certain crop, mono-culture seemed like a great idea because you can mechanize and automate the whole thing if it is mono and repeatable. But in the process you removed plants :

- that attract predator-species that prey on pests, and you now have to apply pesticides yourself
- that fix and recycle nutrients into the soil, and you now have apply fertilizer yourself
- that retain water, and you now have to irrigate yourself
- that make the whole system resilient, and you lose and have to rebuilt everything if natural disaster strikes

Year after year the land gets worse because ecosystems and soil-life is effectively destroyed because automation (efficiency) demands it, and you progressively need more invested into them to make them suitable for agriculture. All of this is maybe not that big of a problem if you have cheap energy fueled machinery you can keep throwing at the problems as they keep coming.... but as the problems get worse and energy gets more expensive it's doubtful this would be sustainable.

At some point you have to wonder, is this whole way we do things still worth it?

Note: EU and UK is behind on GM foods still. They are only just starting to ease up on the paranoia. Again, better late than never :) — I like sushi

I also despair when people belittle what Elon Musk has done and is doing. Pushing scientific knowledge and putting ideas to the test will lead to advances that could help everyone. In terms of research into how to colonize Mars it is obvious that anything we learn do that will help us to manage the situation on Earth (he can do it whereas governments cannot justify such things due to lack of public backing). — I like sushi

How much of it is just dick-measuring and how much of it has any real chance of helping us along is the question here I guess. Sure we probably could do it eventually, colonize Mars, but at what cost right? What's the rationale behind blowing a ton of resources when we could use those same resources with more tangible effects here on earth? Probably prestige is an important factor without which the project wouldn't be done, If I had to guess... then again it's impossible to actually calculate the intangible long-term effects to society at large from projects like these.

Perhaps more fundamentally than some kind of cost-benefit analysis, your deeper ideological convictions will probably determine where you fall on this kind of issue.

Like I said, I used to be more techno-optimist. A historical perspective on energy has really changed this for me because a lot of these ideas of perpetual economic growth, innovation and progress rely heavily on the availability of cheap energy. If you think this is just a short-lived fase in history and not the norm, then how much do these ideas that seem to rely on it still hold up on their own really?

And then there's the more traditional critique of this being the mind-set that got us into trouble in the first place, i.e. humanity standing above and beyond nature and the world, constantly trying to control it. And I think there's something to that critique, in the sense that we do seem to need constant patches upon patches to solve new problems arising from previous solution to older problems etc ad infinitum.

My point was more or less that if we only used what we really needed (in terms of strict regulations on industry) then we'd use less and growing countries would then adopt these techniques as they'd effectively save them resources. Such things will buy more time if nothing else. In terms of agriculture it would help a huge amount.

More efficiency would probably not translate into a lack of economic growth. I don't see how it would tbh? — I like sushi

Ok I didn't really get that this was your point. I completely agree with you then, ideally finite fossil fuels that are still left, should be rationed wisely to transition to a post-fossil fuel economy.

More efficient use of fossil fuels itself obviously wouldn't translate into a lack of economic growth, that's right, but more generally the inevitable and gradual depletion of fossil fuels eventually would, it seems to me. A lot of the spectacular economic growth of past centuries was possible only because of abundant and cheap energy.

I'll comment on you latter point in a next post...

There's upper physical limits to how much more energy-efficient you can get in the production and distribution of energy. Sure there is still room for improvement there, but not enough I think for renewables to replace fossil fuels entirely. Nuclear power maybe could have gotten us there, but as you said this project should've started decades ago because it takes time.

I used to be more of a techno-optimist, thinking we'll find a way etc... But what I and a lot of people with me didn't and don't really appreciate is how exceptional fossil fuels really were and how much they changed the game. It was literally reserves of stored and compacted solar energy that had been accumulating over millennia, gushing out of the ground... 1 gallon of oil is the energy-equivalent of 5 years of human labor, for a fraction of the price. We were wasteful because we could.

You often hear it's only a matter of political will to convert fully to renewables etc... but has anyone actually seen a plan something other than these high-level abstract calculations that just gloss of particularities of different sectors and industries like say metallurgy, manufacturing etc... How are we generating enough heat with renewables to make steel to name just one thing?

I dunno, I think we won't get there in terms of energy production, if not because of strictly theoretical limitations, then because of practical issues with converting to other energy-sources. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but this seems by far the most likely scenario to me, that we will have to reduce our energy-consumption, which ultimately means a lack of economic growth too because those always have gone together.

The real hope lies in the scientific models being inaccurate in our favour. It certainly isn't worth gambling with the future and blindly hoping our understanding of how the climate functions is limited enough for us to have made an overestimate when we could just as easily have underestimated the problem. — I like sushi

The models are probably pretty accurate in what they do. Problem is that what they do doesn't necessarily tell us a lot about how the real world will evolve. They are basically saying we are just climate scientists, we will bracket/make abstraction of everything other than the physics of climate change... and leave messy and complex things like societal and economic feedbacks to someone else. No way we would have stable societies and growing economies all the way up to some of these projected temperatures.

Climate projections generally seem to assume the economy, and the rising energy needs that invariably come with that, will just keep on growing... into the 2100 even.

A saving grace - from the perspective of climate change anyway - maybe is that we will probably hit a wall long before that because extracting fossil fuels will become a whole lot more difficult progressively. Carbon emissions will come down, if not because we take the necessary measures, then because of the scarcity of fossil fuels... or because of climate change fueled societal breakdowns.

Either way, society will need to change fundamentally, to adjust to lower energy and resource usage. Renewable energy will never wholly compensate for the loss of the dense and abundant energy fossil fuels provided us... that was a once in an earthlife-time opportunity.

As no (more or less mainstream) political party is even attempting to sell the idea that we will have to do with less, chances are this whole power-down is going to be a messy affair.

I wish nobody harm, but I do welcome this broader societal change even if it's not going to be pretty. Dirt cheap energy did fuel some pretty obscene things, I'm definitely not going to miss those. And if it's inevitable either way, then we can better get it over with.... nothing is more deadening to the spirit than these constant attempts to stitch together and reanimate a diseased and decaying corpse.

It's not like ChatteringMonkey and I had multiple previous threads and he just decided this was enough after many discussions on this. — schopenhauer1

We did discuss this before schopenhauer:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/550418

My main question to ChatteringMonkey would then be why wouldn't he be convinced by the premises? — schopenhauer1

The answer to this question directly follows from what I said in that thread.

"life as a whole on this planet is predominantly suffering." is not a subjective valuation, but an entirely objective. — RAW

It's not a valuation at all, but a fact... what you think this fact should entail is subjective.

So just don't debate anything? Why is this area so unique in that you can't debate if you disagree? Weird. Do you do this for everything else too? Politics, etc.? — schopenhauer1

Because it boils down to a basic premise that isn't particularly moved by reason or arguments... either you accept it or you don't. And yes a lot of political and ethical discussions are also like that, they disagree on basic premises, that's why they almost never get resolved... people just end up talking past each other.

My ethical premise is based more on deontological grounds. — schopenhauer1

It's nothing like deontology. Harm is not specific enough a concept for that.

Anyway there little use in continuing this discussion, I don't agree with your premise and I don't agree with your methodology, so not much to build on there...

No, because

1. Utilitarian calculus type ethics are crap. It can't be done practically and nobody thinks like that. It's like saying before every stroke one should consciously calculate velocity, spin and the angle of the tennis-ball and then calculate the necessary force and angle of the stroke before one hits a tennis-ball to play good tennis.
2. Even if it would be feasible, people don't agree anyway that harm should be the only value that should be taken into consideration in ethical calculations.

Here's a wild idea, start will real people and what they actually value to reason effectively about ethics.

Considering the unimaginable amount of physical and mental suffering that occurs every day on this planet, day by day, for millions of years and counting, as well perhaps on countless other planets, which would make the Universe essentially a giant torture chamber, the philosophical view of Efilism seems rather logical. Very extreme yes, but logical, worth giving a thought to say the least.

What are your thoughts on it? Curious to see the opposed arguments, ideally THE counter-argument that would shake my current supportive view of it. — RAW

It does sound absolutely crazy and extreme but if you manage to dive deeper into it open minded, putting immediate reactions like disgust etc. aside and under control, and look at it solely through logical lenses, for me at least, you can't help but admit it makes sense, for some more for some less maybe. — RAW

It doesn't make sense and isn't logical though. The conceit is that you think you can put emotions and deep-routed drives aside and look at it dispassionately through a purely logical lens. You can't because there would be nothing left for logic to work on. Logic by itself is empty and has to start with some prior valuations to get to some logical conclusion about values. Reason is slave to the passions.

The thing that pisses people off concerning Efilism and Anti-natalism, and righly so, is that you try to re-package your subjective negative valuation of life into some kind of objective and logically inescapably conclusion about the value of life. You turned a personal opinion, not only into the logically only possible objective valuation, but also into a moral duty and a political project that people should follow... thereby dragging other people down with you in the process.

You'll get a lot more understanding and respect from people if you'd just own up to your opinion, instead of covering it up with these post-hoc philosophical rationalizations in an attempt to feel better at the expense of others. And I dare say, you'll give yourself a better chance to get out of that pernicious mind-set if you'd stop spinning an entire web of justification around it.

He suggests a historical progression in that first came sincerity and then authenticity, however if people during the time of sincerity were not being authentic then were they being sincere, is it possible to be sincere but not authentic? — TheVeryIdea

In the way he uses those terms, yes, because they are defined as being something different.

I think I understand profilicity but I would really appreciate someone expanding on the Sincerity and Authenticity concepts, in general are these distinct things? — TheVeryIdea

They are different ways of looking at identity i suppose, or maybe more accurately, different ways of building identity.

Sincerity seems to be a more group-orientated way of looking at identity, you define yourself in relation to the role you take up in the group and try to fill in that role as 'sincerly' as possible... adapting your inner subjectivity to that role you take up in the group.

Authenticity then goes the other way, taking your subjectivity, feelings emotions, desires etc... as primary. Identity is build by presenting an image to the world that accurately represents that inner subjectivity.

Inner subjectivity being primary, aligns with individualistic ideologies, while the other more with group-centered ideologies.

Are we not all being both sincere and authentic a lot of time? — TheVeryIdea

No, not in the way he uses the terms I suppose, i.e. as ways of building identity. Maybe things can't be sliced up so neatly, both historically, and on the level of how a person builds up his identity. Things generally are a bit more messy in the real world I'd guess, in the sense that different ways of building identity are probably being used next to eachother all the time... But do they seem to be different ways of building identity that aren't entirely compatible with eachother.