Again, no one in the Netherlands takes this seriously. It plays no part in political discourse. If the sea level had been significantly rising, we'd be the first to notice. — Tzeentch

I've often wondered if it might be a good idea to drown the Dutch, but that was just in the context of seeking completely satisfying experiences. It seems to be the case now that the Dutch will be drowned in any event, so all we need is patience--especially if global warming and ocean expansion (from temperature and melting) "play no part in political discourse".

I'd say when we let children do the talking for us, we have definitely left the realm of rational thought. — Tzeentch

Global warming has been a hot topic of discussion for the last 40 years, conducted among smart, scientist-type adults. Did I hear about global warming in 1980? No. Back then, the burning issue was the ozone hole over the antarctic and diminished ozone in the upper atmosphere elsewhere. The world took the ozone deficiency seriously, banned refrigerants and aerosol propellants (chlorofluorocarbons) that destroyed ozone. Since the Montreal Agreement in 1987, the ozone deficiency has steadily improved. (FYI: Ozone absorbs UV radiation that causes skin cancers and interferes with photosynthesis.).

Just because I didn't hear about global warming doesn't mean it wasn't being discussed. It was being discussed, and efforts began to gather more precise data. As data accumulated, it has become clearer that global warming is real, ocean expansion is real, climate change is real, and all this is having real, negative, consequences on the global environment, on which we are 100% dependent.

And just because you aren't hearing people talk about it, doesn't mean that it isn't real. People generally don't like talking about the way of life they know coming to an end. Also, global warming effects are mostly projected into the future, which makes them seem 'unreal' to some people. "Oh, 2100 is so far away." Not so far away, really; it's the time when present toddlers will be growing old. It's in the lifetime of living people.

And because we have been changing the CO2 levels steadily for the past 150 years, at least, we have to understand that changing our life ways (like our industrial culture) has to start 20-40 years ago, and will take most of the century to achieve IF we work at it diligently.

Well, Ms. Thunberg is a lightening rod, as much as an oracle. A young woman who suddenly appears (in the media--Aspergers and all), somehow has a sailboat to get to New York and then Spain, and has the nerve to speak truth to power (or shame adults, at least) and whose self-presentation is quite juvenile (meaning as young as possible) is going to trigger negative comment. I've harbored some suspicious thoughts about her -- like, what or who in her background made all this possible? 15 or 16 year olds don't launch themselves, usually.

It doesn't matter, really. The guilty parties (major hydrocarbon producers and consumers) aren't listening anyway, and when they act it is to subvert the effort to reduce CO2 and Methane production. It's not Greta's fault. The fault is with they who have eyes but will not see, they who have ears and will not hear.

ideology — Tzeentch

per @Tim Wood, since when is global warming an "ideology"?

A "fuck you greta" movement is an inevitable reactionary event. I agree with Greta 100%, but I don't especially like listening to her talk. I can imagine how repellant she must be to global warming deniers, environmental-disaster-know-nothings, followers of our fucking president, and the like.

I think that's the law in many states, applying to married adults, or adults who have designated a person to have power of attorney for them.

As for spouse vs parent, I don't have any feelings about it one way or the other -- just that it needs to be clear who has the power to decide, in the event of incompetence, medical emergency, coma, etc.

Because by that point there is no way out of the pain they've been given. You have knowingly rebirthed them into a world of pain. — Brett

Lots of people end up in a world of pain and are entirely competent to decide their own future. Most people actually choose to go forward, pain and all. Some opt for suicide, but most don't.

In your OP, you ask who should make the decision? Spouse trumps parents for adults.

These are very difficult issues for people to sort through once they are faced with the question of what to do. That's why, as Hanover said, one should establish what one's preferences are before one is comatose. There are preferences such as "Do Not Resuscitate", "No 'heroic' efforts to maintain life", no intubation, and so on. If you don't want to be resuscitated, intubated, or have the crash cart rushed to your bedside to get your heart going again, then you will most likely be allowed to die. But... you have to make these preferences clear to those who are close to you (and can act on your behalf), and your doctor (who might be on hand when the accident happens, but maybe not).

Have you prepared a living will? I have not -- I should definitely get it done.

what I want to say is that everyone cares only about themselves, their friendships are but a functional structure that facilitates the acceptance of both their shortcomings. — Gus Lamarch

The first clause of the sentence is not true. I am confident in saying that it is not true because you made it universal ("everyone") and you made it extreme ("only"). We do and ought to care about ourselves, but we gain too much from caring interactions with others to leave it there. Yes, friendships do have functional qualities, one of which is as an aid in self acceptance.

My (perhaps abnormal) experience is that we have numerous acquaintances and a small number of friends. Nothing wrong with acquaintances, of course. I have known my oldest and closest friend since 1964 when we ended up as roommates in college. Now in our 70s, we find that we are still "in college" in a way -- both still studying, sharing insights from our lives, work, and reading.

Sorry about the snarky comment. As I said, it wasn't about you, personally.

I might be willing to take "something exists" or "at least two things exist" as a starting point. Moving on, we have come to understand that many things exist. So I am not willing to entertain that idea as an account of reality.

Yes, and many people do, however someone can come and tell you “maybe the whole of reality happens in the imagination of a single consciousness, or maybe only you exists, or maybe eventually a theory of everything will prove that only one thing exists”, however as I explained it is possible to prove that at least two things exist, even if we assume solipsism or that there is only one consciousness or whatever. — leo

Quite a few 'someones' over the last decade have come forward to announce that solipsism or a single consciousness accounts for everything. These claims are then dismantled by various other 'someones'.

I suppose one could claim that the universe, and the fullness thereof, resides in the single consciousness of God. If so, God seems to have thought a very complex reality made up of many parts. The problem with this theory is that we do not have the means to parse the consciousness of God, if God exists in the first place. Still, the universe as the dream of God has a certain aesthetic appeal and weightiness.

However what I am explaining here is that necessarily, there has to be at least two things at the root of our existence. — leo

I believe in the existence of many things. The many are made up of a few particles combined in particular ways. Without the plethora of things made from a dearth of different particles, we would not exist. Is this a truth? Seems like it to me, but you don't have to accept it.

2 + 2 = 4 isn’t always true — leo

True. If 2 half-assed philosophers meet 2 other half-assed philosophers for lunch, their discussions might not add up to anything. 2 + 2 in that case may equal less than zero. I'm not suggesting that you are one of the 4.

People keep disagreeing about pretty much everything and yet somehow you guys don’t find it important to find things we can agree on. — leo

A forum such as this one brings out the urge to distinguish differences, even if they are minute. In the decade that I've participated in this and the previous incarnation of Philosophy Forum, people have agreed on a good many things. But we are all here to express ourselves, and "I agree with you." just isn't as much of an opening as "Let me explain the facts of life to you."

In any case, carry on with enthusiasm.

The matter has already been brought up, but I'll do it again: "truth" is unitary and doesn't need an adjectival intensifier like 'absolute'. What is true is true. 2 + 2 = 4 is true, period. "Something exists" is true.

After millennia of philosophy it seems we have only arrived at one absolute truth:

Something exists — leo

I haven't followed your writing here, so the following may be a misapprehension: your view of philosophy may be hermetic: thinking that is closed off from the flow of validating (or invalidating) experience, and cut off from the range of thought. People think about this world where "a lot of stuff exists" using various techniques -- science, literature, art, philosophy, labor, religion, and so on. If there are truths to be discovered, a wideness in our methods will yield better results.

Yes, consciousness is in the brain as a whole. It seems to be an emergent property of the brain's activity--that is, it isn't located in a particular gyrus or sulcus. Some people are bothered by consciousness not having a location in the atlas of the brain. It doesn't bother me. I'm just glad it's there.

I was going to comment on your use of arrant, but others have used it AND they have used it correctly (as you also did). But you are in a select group of persons deploying the phrase "arrant nonsense". It's not the coveted "Congratulations! You are the first person to use 'arrant' on The Philosophy Forum!", but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

'Rubbish' and 'total rubbish' are also used quite a bit. "Total" seems to function as an intensifier. Rubbish is rubbish, but total rubbish is more so. Much like 'fucked' and 'totally fucked'.

Is it possible that capitalism may largely contribute to solving the problem? — Jack Foreman

Not so.

Capital is largely responsible (it's the key) CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM. Why? The reason is that capitalism is, by its nature, based on exploitation of resources, growth, expansion, and profitability. Corporations are compelled by their charters, their raisons d'être, to behave the way they do, and can not do otherwise. Exxon has no reason under the sun to not pump as much oil as it can, driving out competitors, and maximizing profits.

On earth we have thousands of corporations pursuing their chartered purpose for existence, and industry requires unlimited energy--coal, oil, gas, and nuclear (and a tiny fraction of wind & solar). Thus we rush to over-run the 2ºC average temperature goal, with CO2 levels currently at 407 ppm (57 ppm above the safe level of 350).

Most of the people who populate corporations are not individually evil people. They don't have to be obsessed by greed; they might love the natural world (a major personal contradiction). They may, in their hearts, care about the future of the world. It doesn't matter. They are not at their jobs to worry about vanishing species; they are there to make money -- which is the only purpose corporations have for existing--make stuff and sell it at a profit.

What could capitalism do? Nothing, really. Our best option to enhance survival is to immediately and sharply reduce consumption of goods--everything from clothing to cars, gasoline to cheese curds. Consumption of stuff accounts to about 70% of the GDP. Why does cutting consumption help? Reduced consumption = reduced production = reduced output of CO2 and methane.

We don't have a lot of time. The world (including capitalists) has known about the threat to the world for at least 30 years (1988-present) and has so far accomplished virtually nothing towards reducing CO2 output.

Very possible I would think. Capitalism is very adaptive. — Brett

Indeed. When Standard Oil (or Exxon) scientists discovered that CO2 levels were rising as a result of burning fossil fuels, the corporation considered the problem, and made the logical choice for an adaptable corporation: they buried the research and embarked on a program of confusing the public about global warming with the same methods tobacco companies used to confuse the public about the harms of smoking their product.

Under what rock does your economics professor live? Here we are in the beginning of the possibly terminal climate crisis and he's theorizing about so much production that our need for output would be saturated.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and maximized productive output will demand more energy than can be provided by wind and solar generation -- at least for quite some time. Here's the crucial point: By "quite some time" we will have burned through another mountain of coal and petroleum and disrupted the climate so much, we won't be worried about maximized production, We'll be worried about barely surviving the various aspects of the climate crisis -- high wet bulb temperatures that make it impossible to do agricultural work; massive flooding; unprecedented storms; highly irregular weather events that will interfere with agricultural production; massive migrations; clean water shortages; enormous ecological disruptions which will affect us severely and directly; droughts; and so on and so forth.

Tell your professor to wake the fuck up.

Tastes and preferences will radically change. Marx epitomized this in saying,

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs — Wallows

Ability and need is different than tastes and preferences, even if they radically change. I might experience a radical change from Haydn to hip hop, and you might switch your philosophical preference from Wittgenstein to St. Thomas Aquinas. That isn't going to help you with your abilities or needs.

My philosophical or biological view is that human beings have innate characteristics over which we have little control. Our problem is captured in the vulgarism that "a hard cock has no ethics" and applies equally to men and women (who of course, don't have one). With respect to global warming, we have a raging hard on for stuff. We are quite short sighted. We rarely look for long term consequences for any behavior. Our behavior is partially composed of very persistent habits. We like what we like without subjecting "likes" to rational analysis. People who "like elephant tusks and rhino horns" fuel a market that is close to destroying both. There are few innocent people in the First World. (Poor people are not better; they just don't have the means to be as guilty as us.).

"What we are, we are." Descended from a common ancestor, we are closely related to the big primates like Pan Troglodytes (chimps and bonobos). The other primates don't have our problems because they are not quite smart enough. We have become smart enough, and acquired a lot of technology that enables our reach to exceed our grasp.

We are the sorcerer's apprentice: we cast a spell, the spell is causing problems, and we can't bring ourselves to undo the spell (we could, but we apparently won't) because we kind of like what the spell is doing.

We could save our world. You know, we really should do that. Will we? Probably not. The consequences of global warming are not quite as vivid in our minds as the consequences of behaving like responsible, prudent, thrifty human beings who can well imagine that the minor horror of not consuming so much stuff is trivial compared to the gross horror that billions of people now alive will witness.

I was wondering why we were discussing ends and means again. Lenin supposedly said, "If the ends do not justify the means, what in god's name does?"

Glad you brought up Huxley, there.

Ends are always constituted of the means whereby they are achieved. — Pantagruel

Which explains why things turned out so poorly under Lenin and his immediate successor, Stalin, a committed "achieve the ends or else, never mind the means" kind of dictator.

fantasies of infinite economic growth — Mark Dennis

That's the problem, all right, and it is a fantasy. It's a sort of magical thinking.

In WWII, US production was reorganized for war production, whether the corporations owning the factories liked it or not. Rationing of staples (flour, sugar, butter, meat, oils and fats, gasoline, clothing, etc. was imposed. There was no automobile manufacture. There were "fat drives" (like bacon grease or lard, useful for making explosives), metal drives, and paper drives. Public transit (buses and trains) were very crowded because of the heavy use by 3-shift production schedules and troop transport. In the event of infectious diseases (TB, Influenza, Polio) quarantines were sometimes used; small pox vaccinations were not optional. The same thing happened in most other industrial countries.

Yes, people were frustrated at times by limited or no goods at all, There were strikes for higher wages, and the usual bitching and carping. None the less, hundred of millions of people around the world resolved to do what was necessary. It worked because the existential threat and the necessary preventive actions were clearly stated. Patriots grew some food in the back yard and reduced their consumption. In some countries, rationing lasted from 1939 to 1947 (and longer in some places).

I think that there are a 2 or 3 billion people who, if told the truth about global warming and if given clear behavioral options (like wearing shoes completely out before replacing them, buying a very limited number of clothing items per year, not eating meat, not flying, not driving, and so on) they would rise to the occasion

There are another 2 billion people, give or take, who are already effectively doing what we should all be doing because they are too poor to do otherwise. and maybe there are a couple of billion people whose reductions in lifestyle would be more limited.

People need to be told that rainforests like the Amazon, Central African, SE Asian, or NW American temperate rainforests are vital; that they are in danger of dying from destruction negative cascading effects; that they are being destroyed to grow palm for oil and soybeans to feed animals for meat. Dead rainforests produce very little oxygen, which we need to breathe. We can live without meat and palm oil (at least for a while).

People do make adjustments. Most toilets are far more efficient these days, whether people like the way they flush or not. People are much better at turning off unused lights than they used to be (individually and institutionally). They will make more changes and faster changes if they are told the truth about what will happen if they don't.

This sermon preached to the choir is now over.

You might dare, but don't anyway.

Economic recovery would have most people employed in a probably radically reorganized system of production ad distribution. It would, of necessity, be organized for low CO2 output. So people would be working, basic needs would be met. The volume of economic activity would likely be much lower than it is now.

I think it would be worse than China. But if we want to brake CO2 emissions, it certainly can NOT be accomplished through slight efforts. I'm not enthusiastic about giving up my luxury-carnivore-comfortable lifestyle, but... what else can we do? Serious question: "What else can we do that achieve immediate reductions in CO2/methane, etc. output?"

We've pissed away 40 or 50 years of time that we could have been reducing our CO2/methane output and weren't. We don't seem to have another 40 or 50 years to screw around trying to decide what to do.

There is a lot of magical thinking going on. Oh, they will plant 25 trees to compensate for this flight to New York. How big do people think those trees are? 50 feet high? More like 1 or 2 feet high. It will take at least a decade before a successful tree will be big enough to absorb a significant amount of CO2.

Yes -- climate change is slower but more thorough. However, in a carbon-reduced economy, it would be quite a while before most people experienced an economic recovery. The reason that economic recessions were short in the past is that the economy was expanding. In a shrinking economy (a permanent recession) there wouldn't be a recovery.

Only when we had devised a new low-carbon regime could the economy expand. It wouldn't be as robust an recovery as we have seen in the last couple of centuries.

Just what sort of consumption reductions would be necessary?

We would switch to a vegan diet, or at least a largely vegetarian diet. Meat/fish/crustaceans would rarely appear on the table.

We would stop traveling farther than we needed to get to work (if we still had a job) and back. We would use our feet, bicycles, or public transit to get there. We would forego leisure travel beyond the distance we could get to on our own two feet or by bike. Forego air and auto travel altogether.

We would buy no new clothing, shoes, furniture, gadgets, cars, houses, appliances, etc. We would buy food and an occasional replacement item for clothing that was too ragged to use (not just too familiar--too worn out).

We would live in warmer (in hot zones) or cooler (in cold zones) houses, within the limits of safety.

ETc.

I assume you are not being serious, but the idea is floating around out there (certainly in SciFi--which regardless of the science part, is F I C T I O N) that we could live on the moon or Mars. I submit that if we were able to figure out how to enable 100,000 people to live on the moon or Mars (in the relative near future), then it is well within our operational capabilities to sharply reduce CO2/methane output on earth.

I am sorrowfully leaning toward the view that we are totally screwed. We are screwed because we are descendants and close relatives of primates without god-like abilities. We stumble into our graves.

Capitalism, generally, is required to grow, expand, enlarge, continue forward IF at all possible. That's not an altogether bad thing (it's not altogether good either). The coal, gas, petroleum, automobile and concrete industries are the most problematic industries, of course, and we are all its customers, one way or another.

In short radical de-growth. But radical de-growth is not going to happen because no one wants it, including you and me. — Janus

The bitter truth is this: IF we are (or were) to succeed in limiting Global warming to 1.5ºC or 2.0ºC, we affluent people would have to relinquish our lifestyles, lock stock and barrel. We affluent consumers shrinking our consumption and CO2/methane et al by even 10% to 20 % (to pick a figure out of thin air) would be an immediate economic catastrophe which would have cascading consequences. A big drop in consumption would produce widespread unemployment and (probably) increase social instability. Yes, a transition to a low consumption could be made, but we don't have time to do it in a leisurely manner. We need now, and will need in the future, to do it very rapidly - like overnight (practically speaking).

A hard braking on consumption will be personally and collectively painful, if not fatal for some.

No leader, no national congress, no political party--nobody--wants to propose a totally demoralizing policy which will have literally painful consequences. Individuals are prone to continue forward

The economic catastrophe would be shorter and less drastic than global overheating, but it would have to be deliberately engaged.

Philosophers will be as overheated as everybody else, so it's in our best interests to think about what can, can not, should, should not, will, will not... be done.

Well, for a long time (a millennium minimum) State and Church has been allied. The alliance bound the church to the preservation of whatever-ruling-class-status-quo prevailed. At the same time, there has always been (some, not a lot) resistance to this alliance. Other historical rivers flow into this question: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, and so on and so forth. Ebb and flow, action and reaction

The revolutionary Jesus was screwed early on by his success in the Roman Empire. Once a bunch of Christians (just like anybody else anywhere on earth) got a chance at power, they hung onto it. Doom. Holy Mother Church just isn't good soil for nurturing Marxists.

The revolutionary Jesus has been screwed and re-screwed many times over the succeeding centuries, as the church and individual Christians followed their preferential option to attach themselves to the rich and powerful.

Since about the 1850s, small groups of Catholic sisters (mostly Sisters of St Joseph) have provided low cost education and health care for remote communities where there was insufficient public education or healthcare available. — Possibility

A similar development took place in the United States, particularly in New England, the Upper Midwest, and Northwest, secular and religious culture produced large religious and non-profit social service, education, and medical establishments. The St. Joseph sisters (several varieties) were a part of this. So were Methodists, Lutherans, Jews, et al.

To a large extent, that legacy has withered. After the 1960s exodus of church membership across the church (Protestant and Catholic both), and the abrupt shrinkage of the lay orders, the churches began to lose the economic/membership base that had supported their work.

St. Joseph Carondelet nuns, for instance, were forced to sell their group of hospitals as they shrank and aged out of the capacity to continue on. Actually, the religious & non-profit hospitals were a high-water mark in both cost effectiveness and quality of delivered services.

The constitution can't be suspended. Were he to order the DOJ or the military to arrest and jail Pelosi and Schiff, I expect that officials (who didn't have a gun pointed at their head, and maybe not even then) would quite properly refuse.

Trump can disregard the facts because he is a liar who has no respect for what is true or real. You know, some people are liars. They lie. Or thieves, knaves, and scoundrels. They tend to behave in an immoral manner.

The congress could, if they were not hogtied by partisan divide, withdraw funding from White House operations.

Yes but 'everything is fucked anyway' is hardly an answer??? — Wayfarer

I commend the Democrats' efforts toward impeachment. (Remember, impeachment, to be effective, has to be followed by a conviction and removal from office--quite unlikely, given the Republican controlled Senate). The Democrats happen to not be at fault on the question of manipulating the Ukrainians into investigating Bidens Jr. and Sr., but they haven't caught fire and fought fiercely on other issues where they should have, were they a "real" opposition. Everything isn't fucked. What is fucked is the the Two-Wingéd Unitary Beast that colludes to facilitate all sorts of corruption and bad policy.

The United States does not have a viable third party. Third parties there have been, oppositional groups there are, but up against a united front of political and corporate power, they have not had, do not have, and, as far as most oppositional analysis sees it, will not have a chance much better than NIL.

A third, militantly progressive oppositional party would have to arise from the electorate; While there may be 10% (arbitrary number picked out of thin air) of the electorate who could be militantly progressive and oppositional, it would take quite some time for such a new, rapidly growing party, even given plurality and majority election numbers, to win in the 50 states, elect a majority oppositional party in both houses, win the White House, and repeal reams worth of regressive legislation and go on to achieve real change. Meanwhile, the Two-Wingéd Unitary Beast would not have died. It would fight like hell to maintain its prerogatives and privileges.

Trump was never a suitable possibility for POTUS, and the Republican Party, had they had, at last, some decency, would not have selected him as their standard bearer. There were other, better (even as Republicans) choices. As always, "the problem" is stacked up several layers deep.

"Trump" is an exemplar of a much larger problem. So is the Republican Party. But then, so is the Democratic Party, and so is Wall Street, Capitalism, and more!

Your smarter than that Bitter Creek — Brett

Maybe not, but I think the quote is quite apropos.

Any society has to decide how it will do business ("business" not automatically capitalism), and when nations form (as they have been doing for a while now) it is "the government's task" to decide how business will be conducted. There are major differences from nation to nation.

China's ground rules for doing business were and are quite different than South Korea's and Japan's. Saudi Arabia's rules for doing business are not the same as Nigeria's. The USSR's methods of doing business were different than China's. The American way of doing business is different than both China's, the USSR's, and Russia. In different ways, entrepreneurship has been favored by China, the US, and Russia. Different ground rules = different results.

Both, and not just in a manner of speaking.

The legal system is organized to support private property and entrepreneurial activity. For instance, one can organize a corporation, borrow money from an investment banker, do business, go broke, and have no personal liability. At every step of business, rules governing business elements like depreciation, capital investment, and so on are in place. It isn't just the final tax on income or estate taxes that aids the rich getting richer.

If Joe Blow, factory worker, borrows money to fix his car so he can keep getting to work, and the car is still unreliable, he'll lose his job and will still be fully liable for the loan. True, he could file bankruptcy, but that might not help him.

Now, it is true that the ability to get rich and stay rich is one of the reasons remarkable innovation and aggressive expansion occurs. Michael Bloomberg made his huge fortune by supplying financial operators with something they very much needed: up to date financial information in ready-to-use forms through the Bloomberg Terminal. It was a high end financial data delivery service.

He didn't just become worth $58 billion dollars by delivering newspapers. He was a partner at Salomon Investment Banking, and as a partner accumulated $10,000,000 which he used to start his new business.

Fortunes require a foundation of money, from somewhere. You might be broke, but if you have a simply fabulous idea that will turn a profit, some investment banker might risk a few million bucks om you, and if everything goes well, you end up quite well off. If it doesn't go well, you don't. It went really well for Bloomberg.

Bill Gates didn't become the richest mortal to walk the earth on the basis of how wonderful his Disk Operating System (DOS) was. Dos and several other Microsoft products were rammed down the throats of consumers by highly anti-completive methods. I don't know if you remember this, but once upon a time when you bought a PC it would ALWAYS have Microsoft software on it, pre-installed. Later, it would have Windows, then Internet Explorer, something you couldn't get rid of for love or money. It was crappy software, but that's whaat was in the bundle.

Deals were made with equipment manufacturers. That why people had to put up with generally crappy Microsoft products (some of which, like Word and Excel, were good). If you didn't want Microsoft, you pretty much had to buy an Apple, which was more expensive.

Once you bridge the gap between poor and rich your money makes it's own money and your taxes are often times non existent, and if you do so happen to pay taxes it doesn't matter because you make enough money off of the backs of other people who never see a fraction of your wealth and are just supposed to accept that your life is more valuable than theirs because you came up with the idea and you had the connections, and usually the money to make it work in the first place. — Lif3r

Exactly.

"Government is a committee to tilt the playing field in favor of big business." (A paraphrase of Karl Marx's statement, "government is a committee to organize the affairs of the bourgeoisie".)

The US is very vigilant about consumer protection. — Wallows

What that means is manufactures try to avoid class action lawsuits. IF the US was "very vigilant" about consumer protection, we would be moving heaven and earth to lower our CO2 output. Global heating will kill the consumer and producer together.

The rich and the powerful versus the meek and the poor. Is this phenomenon not a cycle? — Lif3r

The "great cycle" of economic expansion is very long. The Roman Empire was one period of economic expansion, wealth getting, and building. The stretch between the Romans and the Industrial Revolution was around 1200 years, during which there was little economic growth. The comparatively trivial waves of the "business cycle" are maybe a decade or two long. In the business cycle there is rapid expansion, saturation, then contraction. Rinse and repeat.

Wealth is built from the bottom up, the poor being on the bottom, the rich being on top. The principle that separates the two is accumulation. For most of the "modern" human history (the last 10,000 years) accumulation was relatively limited. The best way to accumulate was through force: seizing wealth (military campaigns) or peonage--forcing the peasants to work for the resident lords

It has been suggested by some archeologists - anthropologists that agriculture was invented as a way of making people work for somebody else, but that is speculative. If so, it worked. The poor clod hoppers gathered in the grain which made the local elite rich.

The capitalist/industrial revolution was and is accumulation and exploitation on steroids--hell on wheels for the poor, a gravy train for the rich.

there's simply a structural advantage to being rich — Wallows

The structural advantages you reference greatly assist the rich in obtaining their status in the first place.

I'm an old (literally) practitioner of shallow, pseudo-cynical blasé attitudes, so I understand their pleasures and satisfactions. But I'm a little confused by your reaction to what I wrote. Your beginning post seemed in earnest. Then you switched.

What good will your shallow pseudo-cynical blasé attitude do you in any case?