Your question of whether I blame science for nuclear weapons and climate change is interesting. I don't think I do. It probably comes down to blaming humanity, whether it is for developments in religion or science. — Jack Cummins

Did I misunderstand?

You speak of the need to orchestrate science definitely there is a need for it to come up with some solutions to problems it creates, like pollution and damage to ecology. Really, I think that any approach which sees science as completely positive is extremely one sided. Do we assume that nuclear weapons are completely beneficial? — Jack Cummins

This is where I came in - to explain that science is not to blame, because nuclear weapons and climate change are the consequence of science as a tool - divorced from science as an understanding of reality, stripped of the moral authority it rightfully owns, and misused.

I've been thinking about this particular subject for many many years, and I accept that your immediate thoughts on it are almost certain to be less well formed. You fear philosophical dangers, but they're based in 400 years of philosophy that's constructed those dangers. I assure you Jack, these are illusory. You fear nihilism - but Nietzsche was wrong. Primitive man was not an amoral brute - fooled by the weak. If he were, his tribe could not have survived. Further, nihilism upholds no value that requires you accept nihilism. Morality is fundamentally a sense, ingrained into the human organism by evolution in a tribal context. Religion, politics, economics, law, philosophy etc; are expressions of that innate moral sense. They stand, albeit on a more rational (and democratic) basis.

I have already said that I am not against science and really I am not sure of the point the thread is even trying to make, because it is not as if it is being opposed by loads of evangelists who are trying to argue that evolution is false. — Jack Cummins

Banno invited people to disagree with the proposition that science is good - and here you are, saying science is the cause of climate change and nuclear weapons. I explain to you that this is a science as an ideological whore; stripped of moral authority as truth, initially by the Church, and then subjectivist philosophy - starting with Descartes, while Galileo was on trial for heresy, he withdrew publication of 'The World' on physics, and wrote Meditations on First Philosophy. He then got a cushy job in the Royal Court of Queen Christina of Sweden.

(It didn't go at all well, but still - title bump for towing the Church's anti science line, while Galileo narrowly escaped being executed and excommunicated, and merely suffered threats of torture, denunciation of his works, and ten years house arrest.)

You're very polite. I think you've got it, and then, two pages later it's the same again.

On this site, there seems to be a big divide between those who believe in God and those who are atheists. However, I don't think that this would simply be about those who believe in God being against science and atheists favouring science. — Jack Cummins

The left are notoriously atheistic; but the left are subjectivist, and refuse to notice that subjectivism is a synonym for the spiritual, conceived of in defence of the Church's anti science position. (I'm not atheist BTW - I'm agnostic. Unlike Dawkins, I don't conflate religion and God. I think there's a prima facie case for the existence of God - no proof either way, but it remains a valid question.)

The relationship between science and religion is complex. Of course, some religious believers were opposed to science. Also, religious ideas have often contributed to political ideologies, but these probably incorporated science. We all use science everyday in most aspects of life, in ways we take for granted. — Jack Cummins

Safe bet, softly spoken. How reasonable you appear - until one considers the excluded middle; here, that political authority is justified with reference to religious authority. The Divine Right of Kings remained in force as Galileo languished in purgatory; and science used for political ends slowly turned the world to Hell. We're not quite there yet, but it's coming Jack - will you not, now in all reasonableness accept that science has not been afforded its due?

But science is such an umbrella term, and I don't really feel that we need to praise science because it does not require us to do so, like we were taught to revere and worship God. But, I appreciate medical science and a lot of comforts connected to technological progress. — Jack Cummins

This faint praise you offer from illegitimately occupied high ground is no praise at all. Science is not just a tool to use at your convenience. It's also an authoritative understanding of reality, that religious subjectivists have decried as heresy, and undermined and downplayed for 400 years, and used as a tool to achieve their own ends, until the human species is threatened with extinction. So here, where you say:

Let's hope that the scientists address the problems before it is too late. But, I don't think that we should sing any hymns of praise for them until there is a certain amount of evidence that the ideas are being put into practice with substantive effects. — Jack Cummins

Why turn to science to save you if it's not true? Have you tried praying for a solution to climate change? Surely, God will save you. Or, better yet, because reality is subjectively constructed, if we all just ignore climate change, subjectively, it won't exist!

If you turn to science to save you because, actually, you know it is true - why not accept that? I'm not asking for hymns of praise. Just stop victim blaming science for the injury religious subjectivists have inflicted upon it, and thereby, the world.

Let's hope that the scientists address the problems before it is too late. But, I don't think that we should sing any hymns of praise for them until there is a certain amount of evidence that the ideas are being put into practice with substantive effects. — Jack Cummins

...in this day and age. It's downright surreal; surrounded by technological miracles, standing on the edge of extinction from climate change, and an academic has to write to the BBC to point out that science is important. And you still begrudge science the least little credit, until its solves all the problems anti science religious philosophers have caused by shitting on science for the past 400 years. Unbelievable! Do you not understand this is your fault?

Well, we are human beings. Not Gods. What other realistic scenario exists? — Manuel

You could be a Dog!

Pretty sure politically correct subjectivists would support your assertion of canine identity!

'Science should be at the centre of all policy making'
By Prof Ruth Morgan
University College London

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-56994449

No, he is not, — Mww

"Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's doctrine is found throughout his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Kant argues that the conscious subject cognizes the objects of experience not as they are in themselves, but only the way they appear to us under the conditions of our sensibility. Thus Kant's doctrine restricts the scope of our cognition to appearances given to our sensibility and denies that we can possess cognition of things as they are in themselves, i.e. things as they are independently of how we experience them through our cognitive faculties."

Yes, he is!

we don’t care about what we see, as much we wish to be certain about our knowledge of what we see. It makes no difference to us what’s out there, we care only about how it relates to us. — Mww

Spoken like a true subjectivist!

:rofl: — TheMadFool

I don't speak teenage girl. Could you explain what's amusing you?

Is it that Jack hasn't heard of the Amish?

Because that's no cause for mockery, is it?

You should not seek to make it embarrassing to learn things!

I'm not a proponent of scientism, in that, I don't argue that science can establish values. I maintain that morality is a sense - like humour or aesthetics; and that, contrary to Hume's is/ought dichotomy, we rightfully prioritise scientific facts in terms of this innate moral sense.

Your values and my values may be quite different; such that, we can look at the same list of facts, and prioritise them differently, to reach different conclusions about what we 'ought' to do.

This is why Popper is wrong; in Enemies of an Open Society, where he argues that accepting science as truth would lead to dictatorship. We would not be forced to "make our representations conform" to science as truth, because our representations are in terms of our values, in terms of which we understand the facts.

This is catastrophically false. — Mww

That's a disastrously naïve thing to say.

Kant is subjectivist. Subjectivism supports the Church's position on science - and this obvious on the face of it; that the spiritual and the subjective are alike, and are opposed to the objective and the mundane. Science is objective knowledge. By emphasising the subjective, Kant undermines the the objective, and thereby science.

The fact that:

I have no familiarity with anything Kantian that sustains such an assertion — Mww

...is neither here nor there. Kant is wrong, because subjectivism is wrong.

Subjectivism was only conceived of by Descartes after Galileo was put on trial for the heresy of proving the earth orbits the sun. And his argument in Mediations, for the foundational subjectivist principle - cogito ergo sum, is a skeptical argument. His method of doubt is unreasonable. Descartes imagines an evil demon is deceiving him - and thereby dispenses with the object world.

In reality, we see the world as it really is. Our senses are limited, but accurate to reality, and this must be so - because otherwise we could not have survived our evolutionary history. An ape ancestor swinging through the forest canopy, that saw the next branch further away, or closer than it actually is - would plummet to its death. That so, empiricism and objectivity are valid of reality, and prior to subjectivity.

ignorantia iuris nocet

I am not Amish, whoever he is. — Jack Cummins

The Amish are a religious sect in the US that forgoes the use of modern technology. They are admirable people in many ways - very hardworking and innovative. Famed for barn raising. If everyone lived as they do, sustainability wouldn't be an issue. But of course that's unrealistic.

I think that it is true to say that it is about the need for application and regulations of technology, but I don't have complete confidence in many world leaders in doing this. — Jack Cummins

Me either, and I've just read the report of yesterday's G7 climate conference.

https://www.g7uk.org/g7-climate-and-environment-ministers-communique/

I hate to appear ungrateful for what does seem like serious progress on these issues, but 'net zero by 2050' is not going to be enough. The 420ppm of carbon already in the atmosphere is consistent with 2'C temp rise by 2100. With the addition of approx 3 ppm per year, that's 510 ppm by 2050, consistent with 5'C average global temperature rise by 2100 - if we reach net zero.

As it is now, I fear that we are on the brink of seeing catastrophic events and effects in the world, as a result of the misuse of science. Climate change is accelerating to such an extent, and from my reading of this, it could mean that conditions become unbearable in some Third World countries. — Jack Cummins

The danger is that equatorial forest like the Amazon and Congo dry out and catch fire, like California and Australia last year. Game over. A further danger is that methane deposits in ocean sediments are released, and catch fire - like methane from defrosting Russian arctic tundra is on fire. Game over. Every year the probability these scenarios will occur is increased. We need to positively extract carbon from the atmosphere - not just emit less, or none of it. That's not enough.

Nobody who knows the least thing about Kant would ever make that claim. — Wayfarer

"Kant was born on 22 April 1724 into a Prussian German family of Lutheran Protestant faith in Königsberg, East Prussia. Baptized Emanuel, he later changed the spelling of his name to Immanuel after learning Hebrew. He was brought up in a Pietist household that stressed religious devotion, humility, and a literal interpretation of the Bible."

Philosophically, Kant is a subjectivist. Subjectivity maintains the priority of the subjective/spiritual, over the mundane/objective.

I cannot copy and paste from this link, but it's incorrect that nobody thinks this. See:

Immanuel Kant, Subjectivism, and Human Geography: A Preliminary Investigation
D. N. Livingstone and R. T. Harrison

https://www.jstor.org/stable/622294?seq=1

You quite clearly blame science for nuclear weapons, and the climate and ecological crisis. But if science is "just a tool" how can science be to blame?

(Are you Amish? Then you shouldn't be using a computer!)

Arguably, you have a point where you say:

I think that any approach which sees science as completely positive is extremely one sided. — Jack Cummins

But how does that not translate, in your head - for the need to regulate the development and application of technology with regard to a scientific understanding of reality?

You're a canard! (Couldn't resist it.)

I have seen Gattaca, yes - and the underlying premise of a creating a genetic elite is a genuine problem - particularly with regard to health insurance, bearing on employment prospects, and many other quality of life issues. However, what I'd be more concerned about is a genetic arms race. Once you start down this path, how do know when to stop?

The next step is conservative editing, i.e. no creation of novel genes or allelic combinations that don't occur naturally within existing human populations. — David Pearce

How can you stop there when you've established an overt genetic competition - by the difference between augmented, and naturally conceived humans; you think the genetic elite will be satisfied with modest enhancements?

The third step, true genetic innovation and transhuman genomes, will be most radical – but the idea that germline editing is irreversible is a canard. — David Pearce

You don't intend to stop there. You're okay with genetic arms race. And you haven't answered my question:

Do you believe you can reliably make germline alterations to human DNA, without possibly, making subsequent generations susceptible to disease, or other malady that you haven't foreseen? — counterpunch

Again, the human organism is 'designed' by the function or die algorithm of evolution, to live within a complex living environment - such that, you would not only have to account for how the 60,000 or so bases of human DNA interact, but how they relate to other organisms, including bacteria and viruses.

Don't make me out to be some anti-science religious nutjob. I value science, but argue it needs to be accepted as an understanding of reality, and applied systematically, staring with energy technology - and that this is the way to reduce suffering. (i.e. avoid extinction.)

I believe you are making the same mistake humankind has made in regard to science: using it as a tool box, in pursuit of your own subjectively, or ideologically conceived priorities - with little or no regard to a scientific understanding of reality. You despise evolution, but it works - in far more subtle ways than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Do we assume that nuclear weapons are completely beneficial? — Jack Cummins

Previously, I explained to you that nuclear weapons are science mis-applied for ideological reasons; and that there's no reason grounded in a scientific understanding of reality to create nuclear weapons.

Was there a good reason you'd ignored this? Or are your reasons for ignoring this, your own convenience?

Do you believe that existing people with high hedonic set-points indirectly cause more suffering? Why exactly do you believe that a whole world of temperamentally happy people would lead to more suffering rather than less? — David Pearce

Do you believe you can reliably make germline alterations to human DNA, without possibly, making subsequent generations susceptible to disease, or other malady that you haven't foreseen?

Ever noticed how reanimated corpses stomp slowly forward, fixated on strangling the heroine, with no attention being paid to what they did in their life? It's doing it again. — Banno

She's not the heroine. She's the twit who let the monster out. She's getting her just desserts!

At the 1634 trial of Galileo, the Church decried science as heresy - divorcing science as a tool, from science as an understanding of reality. We used the tools, but did not observe science as an understanding of reality. So it's not that:

‘scientists’ distance themselves from such responsibilities. — Possibility

...but that a scientific understanding of reality is afforded no moral authority relative to the religious, political and economic ideological architecture of society.

There'd be an argument, should the world end, that we might have been better not finding out the stuff that led to our demise; that our end is payback for the hubris of science. — Banno

It's not the hubris of science, but a lack of modesty by the Church. If science is valid knowledge of reality, and reality is Created by God, then science is valid knowledge of Creation, and the Church declared the word of God heresy. That's why the world is going to Hell. We worship an old book about Creation, rather than the Creation itself.

I'm not suggesting that a scientific understanding of reality is anything more/or less than a description of reality. But it is not a description of mere perceived phenomena.

There are many things in science we cannot perceive directly - and further, science works. Applying scientific principles, we create technologies that function within a causal reality, and the closer the technology approximates the scientific principle, the better the technology works. For example:

"It was not until the 1920s that André Chapelon began to apply the theories of Thermodynamics to the design of steam locomotives, with immediate and dramatic results. Unfortunately his work remained poorly understood in most steam locomotive design offices around the world and it was only in the 1950s that Livio Dante Porta took up the mantle and continued the work that Chapelon had started."

https://www.advanced-steam.org/ufaqs/thermodynamics/

Thermodynamics must describe something real. It's not subjectively constructed. It's valid knowledge of an objectively existing reality, that; when applied to locomotive design, resulted in better functioning engines.

Kant is a prime example of philosophy confirming the position of the Church - that science is suspect of heresy; leading to the promotion of subjectivity/spirituality - over objectivity/the mundane.

"Oliver Bullied is often quoted as saying: “Thermodynamics never sold a single locomotive” (or words to that effect) when commenting on Chapelon’s contemporary locomotive developments in France. Whether true or apocryphal, the remark exemplifies the lack of understanding of Thermodynamics that was widely prevalent within the locomotive engineering fraternity of his day."

Human development is retarded by religious/subjectivist anti-science attitudes. We are headed for extinction, and people like you are unwilling to admit you're in the wrong, because this terrifies you:

"science 'proves' or 'shows' that the universe, as such, is devoid of meaning, purpose or intention."

How can that be so when you are in the universe, and clearly it is your meaning, intention or purpose to crap on science until the sky catches fire?

How about a method? — ssu

What about a method? I wish to discuss science as an understanding of reality - relative to a religious, political and economic ideological understanding of reality. Do they describe different things?

I'm not sure that you see what I mean by the metaphor. — thewonder

I do understand, I think - you're talking about politics from the POV of an anarchist, and saying that they caused all these problems; why on earth should I vote for any of them?

Consider the hypothetical situation to where a certain massively multiplayer role-playing game has both become a cult phenomenon and resulted in any number of social plights. — thewonder

It's very difficult for me to address that directly, because I'm not American. We get a lot of US television over here, but still - not being immersed in a culture, it's very difficult to understand the nuances that impinge upon the situation of an individual - whom, I've also only spoken to briefly.

A half-bottle of scotch helps there because the best solution is to forget the distinctions. — magritte

A half bottle of brandy, actually, doesn't help - because my drunken debates can become violent! I'm very passionate about philosophy, even when arguing against myself.

I think that you are right to see science as a tool rather than as end in itself. — Jack Cummins

That's not my position. Give your specs a once over with a j-cloth, and you'll see I argued:

Science is not just a tool. It's also an understanding of reality; quite at odds with an ideological understanding of reality. — counterpunch

Your error is easily remedied. I'll simply change 'you are right' to 'one is right' - and read it as disagreement.

it was the pursuit of science, as a way of triumphing over nature and ecology, which may have contributed to the problems which humanity are facing. — Jack Cummins

Not exactly. Imagine that, in 1635, instead of putting Galileo on trial for heresy, the Church had welcomed Galileo's scientific proof as the method by which to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation.

Science would have been invested with moral authority, and integrated into politics over the past 400 years. Instead, science suspect of heresy was stripped of moral authority, and pimped out to government and industry - to serve ideological ends. i.e. Trump digs coal.

Were science valued as an understanding of reality, "Trump digs coal" would be an impossibility, and so would many other things, like nuclear and biological weapons, burning forests, landfill. Ideologically, all this makes sense. Scientifically, it does not.

Do you see?

What's in contention isn't really whether humans should or shouldn't intervene in Nature. Humans already do so on a massive scale: — David Pearce

Yes, sure, but still - the human organism lives within a complex biosphere, and your proposed design changes have not been rigorously tested by evolution, in relation to various other organisms, including viruses and bacteria. Our 'design' is the result of millions of years of evolutionary R+D - in relation to everything else, and what I'm suggesting is that any change to a complex system is almost certain to be detrimental.

Eradicating a virus like smallpox is justified. Eradicating malarial mosquito's is justified. So too, certain genetic diseases. The risks are still there, but there's already such clear and preventable suffering - it's worth the risk. Golden rice - extra vitamin D; probably fine. Messing with human psychology via genetics? That strikes me as several steps too far. You have to understand, there's a very real chance that you would create far greater suffering than you intend to remedy.

If you are serious about your philosophy, you need to address these things. Simply saying:

I tiptoe far more gingerly than, say, Freeman Dyson — David Pearce

Humans already [intervene in nature] on a massive scale — David Pearce

Both a genetic crapshoot and targeted germline interventions carry risks. — David Pearce

...is dismissive, and doesn't address the risks of what you are proposing.

I argue with myself - out loud. I pace up and down in my living room, arguing both sides of a proposition, to try and achieve synthesis. There's something about expressing an idea out loud that tells you immediately if it's reasonable.

It's unfortunate, then, that there isn't a system that would spread wealth to everyone so you could collect this sum from people, rather than having to appeal to either states or the largest corporations and banks. — Echarmion

There is. It's called capitalism. And I suppose I could do a kick starter campaign. If I can get 65p from everyone in the world, that's £10bn - and in return I'd give them limitless clean energy, desalination and irrigation, hydrogen fuel, carbon capture and sequestration. Bargain, right?

But you just criticized the left for wanting to tax and regulate. — Echarmion

No, I didn't. You criticised de-regulation and tax cuts, and I said - "And where were the left? Pre-occupied with political correctness!" I'm saying, if you oppose de-regulation and tax cuts, the left are not there for you. What I was talking about is green taxes - as an approach to sustainability. These are taxes levied on consumers - to reduce demand, and it's the wrong approach.

Sigh, and and back to the evangelism. I think it has been pointed out numerous times to you that, if your plan can really work within capitalism, all you need to do is start a business. — Echarmion

I need around £10bn start up capital.

You do realise that, since the 1980s, we've been in a period of deregulation and tax cuts in the west, right? — Echarmion

And where are the left? Occupied with deconstructing whiteness, maleness and straightness!

:Knob:

An abundance of caution shouldn't involve placing faith in a mythical wisdom of Nature. — David Pearce

Weeping buckets over the fact animals eat each other shouldn't blind you to the complexities of the system you propose fucking with.

Well, both sides have their scapegoats. Inherently there's nothing more substantial to blaming "liberal elites" or "indoctrinated students" either. — Echarmion

I see young people being set up to be enslaved by communism; via political correctness and environmentalism. The "woke" are sleepwalking into a trap, and I'm pointing out that trap. This isn't about partisan politics for me. This is about a sustainable future, that I assure you, cannot be achieved by undermining capitalism. Capitalism can be made sustainable by harnessing magma energy, by drilling close to magma chambers, beneath volcanoes - and converting heat energy to electrical power, hydrogen fuel, desalinating water to irrigate land, recycling, fish farming etc, there can be a prosperous sustainable future - and freedom. I don't care whether its a red future or a blue future, but I do care there's a future - and that cant be achieved by the have less and pay more, tax this, stop that, wind and solar, low energy, neo communist approach of the left.

Always — frank

Science is not just a tool. It's also an understanding of reality; quite at odds with an ideological understanding of reality. For example, scientifically - the world is a single planetary environment, and humankind is a single species.

In ideology, the world is made up of nation states - existing as sovereign entities, like the world were a jigsaw puzzle made of nation state shaped pieces. In ideology, people are divided into religious and ethnic groups.

Science used as a tool by nation states - justifies, among other things, creating nuclear weapons.

There's no good reason to create nuclear weapons if you accept we're all the same species living on the same planet. There's no good scientific reason to continue using fossil fuels. There's no good scientific reason to fish the oceans to extinction, cut down the forests, or dump plastic in the oceans. All this is science used as a tool - without regard to science as an understanding of reality. .

Using science as a tool of ideology is why we have applied the wrong technologies, and so are headed for extinction. A scientific understanding of reality should be the basis for the application of technology - not partisan political and economic interest.

I've read some of it, but I write using the simplest words possible. There's no value for me in obscurantist jargon, but the left can't get enough of it. The love a bit of jargon, the left. I think they think that, being obscure - you have to invest time and mental energy to decode it, and by then they've got you.

Consider the hypothetical situation to where a certain massively multiplayer role-playing game has both become a cult phenomenon and resulted in any number of social plights. — thewonder

That's so weird. I just now learned that Kentaro Miura died. (Beserk/Final Fantasy/Dark Souls.) Great artist. He was only 54. That sad news aside, the problem is this:

When the creators of such a game have done so in such a manner that does seem as if it would result in such plights, why should I expect for them to be preferable company to its users? — thewonder

There are no creators. The game is inherent to the human condition. The users are the creators, and you'll only do yourself in trying to unmake the game. You'd be better off trying to make it work, than trying to tear it all down, as if to clear space for your utopian idealism. Of course, you won't listen - and that's not a criticism. It's just part of the game.

As I said, science is a tool. It's neither bad not good. — frank

And I said you're wrong. Wanna know why you're wrong?

I am the sandwich the picnic is short of!

He offered no supporting argument,
— counterpunch

You haven't read this thread, have you. — Banno

I didn't write that. You've misattributed the quote.

It might help if you'd read the thread! lol

I'm an angry old man, and I know you won't take my advice - anymore than I would at your age. Your post is peppered with lefty keywords, so I guess we are on two very different pages. It's as it should be; the wheel is reinvented in every generation. But you at least know it needs to be circular, right?

I don't quite have the qualms with "idealism" that you do — thewonder

The UK Labour Party are far more influenced by communism than the Dems. We didn't have a 'reds under the bed' McCarthyite purge against communism in the 1950's; though I suspect Keir Starmer would purge the far left of the Labour Party now if he could.

Instead, he was forced to leap to his knees for BLM, and endorse gender self identification to secure the far left vote ahead of his election as party leader, and that kind of politically correct nonsense goes down like a lead balloon in the Labour heartlands in the north. It's too broad a church for Labour to get elected, so ordinary working people are left unrepresented.

To my mind, the whole capitalist/communist dichotomy is over. Communism has failed, and we need a new democratic opposition. The new political spectrum I envisaged would range from ideological traditionalists, to scientific rationalists; and allow people to express a conscientious position with regard to protection of national interests, in relation to the global challenge of sustainability. Of course, bringing this about is another matter entirely. It took Labour 100 years to get into power, and we - the scientific rationalists, don't have 100 years to waste.

There is an 'on-topic' point to all this; that goes back to Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons, because arguably, magma energy is a freely available resource, the right are obligated to exploit to exhaustion, like they would the common grazing land. And if they do so, the climate and ecological crisis can be solved without undermining capitalism.

When Hilary Clinton lost the election to Donald Trump, she did bemoan that she had done so because of a "basket of deplorables", thereby creating a slur for the white working poor. — thewonder

I recently read a book entitled 'Despised - why the modern left loathes the working class' by Paul Embery. He wants the left to get back to representing the interests of working class people - rather than telling the working class what they ought to value. I think he's right.

I'm like you - politically homeless. I'm not naturally right wing at all, but I'd vote for the right a thousand times before I'd vote for these condescending left wing idealists, who have never done a days work in their lives. And that's before I factor in the left's communist proscription for sustainability.

Example, I was listening to the radio today, and James O'Brien was on, (lefty idealist tosspot) and he said that 'every right minded and decent person was against Donald Trump' - which is to say, he thinks the majority of Americans in 2016, were immoral and/or insane. It's typical of the left. If you're not with us, there's something wrong with you.

Never seen Gummo - read the wiki. Very weird.

I edited out that crack about five year plans, because I'm not talking about Russia in particular, but about communism in general. It's a kind and generous notion, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It's sad that communism doesn't work, but 100 years of experiments have proven it doesn't. Everywhere its been tried - poverty, misery, and dictatorship.

I think this thread became current because of Banno in another thread saying:

The tragedy of the commons is a capitalist myth.
— Banno

I asked him why it's so. I might have not noticed his answer... — ssu

He said that to me in 'Who owns the land?' Here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/538599

He offered no supporting argument, and then mocked my real world example of life under communism where everyone steals what no-one owns; undermining production, and thereby creating the motive to steal what no-one owns.

Communism doesn't work, and my reason for arguing this point so strongly is that, in order to secure a sustainable future we have make capitalism sustainable. That's why we need limitless clean energy from magma - so that we can internalise the externalities of capitalism without internalising them to the domestic economy. It's the difference between stop flying to save the world - and invent a hydrogen powered jet engine, and fly as much as you like!

I have not, but then I'm not caught up in some ideological straightjacket. — Echarmion

Well think about it. Every time Labour/Dems lose an election, it's the fault of the electorate. They're stupid, racist or greedy, and that's why the left didn't win. It's not that the left failed to represent the interests of voters. It's the voters who are at fault, every time.

It is indeed, because communism would imply there is no "ruling" at all. — Echarmion

Then how do you prevent the individual adding cows to the common grazing land until it's a desert?

There are some things that make sense having under a "command economy". Vaccine production during a pandemic, for example. — Echarmion

Private companies developed vaccines to combat the pandemic. The government merely created the market by pre-purchasing supplies. That aside, all economies are mixed to a greater or lesser extent. I'm not a free market fundamentalist - but capitalist economy is necessary to personal and political freedom.