PowerSwitch

According to Wikipedia, Ecological civilization is the hypothetical concept that describes the alleged final goal of social and environmental reform within a given society. It implies that the changes required in response to global climate disruption and social injustices are so extensive as to require another form of human civilization, one based on ecological principles.

My own definition would be more like: "any form of human civilisation which has achieved long-term balance with the ecological system in which it is embedded, and is therefore indefinitely sustainable."

The concept has been popularised in China since 2007, when it was adopted as an official goal of the Chinese Communist Party. As yet it has not taken off in the west, and I think this needs to change. The concept therefore needs to be westernised. This probably, but not necessarily, means it needs to be democratised. This is partly because the majority of western society needs to be on board, and partly because insisting on democracy nullifies the inevitable accusations of "ecofascism". Fascism cannot be democratic, because it is unthinkable without the suppression of political opposition. However, some people may also argue that democracy and ecocivilisation are also incompatible, and of course China, which is leading the way on this, is not democratic.

It will help to distinguish from other concepts/subreddits.

r/degrowth is similar because it is aiming for something similar, but explicitly defines itself in terms of the process going forwards from here, rather than any destination. Specifically, it defines that process as being managed and fair.

This is in direct opposition to r/collapse, which defines itself in terms of the process going forwards from here being chaotic, unmanaged and inevitably unfair. Collapse does not define any end point either, apart from maybe assuming it is going to be bad. r/collapse has very little content about what happens after civilisation collapses.

r/sustainability ought to be almost the same, but that concept and subreddit has major problems. It has been co-opted by believers in infinite economic growth, and is associated with systemic reality-denial. I was banned from that subreddit for repeatedly talking about human overpopulation because, I was told, this “leads to ecofascism”. Sustainability has become synonymous with greenwashing -- it is about maintaining the myth that is possible to keep civilisation as we know it going somehow.

r/DarkFuturology is a free speech zone where people can actually talk about things like overpopulation without being shut down, but it explicitly bans discussion of the sort of positive long-term outcomes that r/collapse organically suppresses.

r/overpopulation is directly relevant but only covers one aspect of the problem, and r/bottleneck is even more directly related, since by definition it is about what happens after a collapse in human population numbers.

For now I have only added a minimum of rules. I wish to encourage discussion of everything about the way this sub is set up, apart from the rule that it must be a free speech zone. We must not repeat the cycle of the political left adopting a concept first, rigging all of the definitions and assumptions so they are only acceptable to the left and then suppressing anybody who challenges them. All of our definitions and assumptions must be defensible in open debate. They cannot be based on fantasies that can only maintained by restrictions on free speech. From my perspective, the idea that the Earth is not overpopulated is preposterous, and the idea that we can talk about "sustainability" without talking about restricting fundamentally unsustainable human behaviour is fundamentally wrong-headed. It is a perfect example of how we got into this mess in the first place.

Basically the purpose of this sub is to explore the hypothetical concept of ecocivilisation. We have two primary questions:

(1) What should or could an ecocivilisation look like? How would it be different from civilisation as we know it?

(2) How is it possible to get from here to there.

Both questions must be answered. An answer to (1) which leaves (2) unanswerable is no use to us.

Welcome to the new subreddit.

Potemkin Villager wrote: ↑23 Oct 2023, 18:14 Interesting to see what discussion this throws up and if you manage to get banned from it.

UndercoverElephant wrote: ↑24 Oct 2023, 10:24 There's some interesting posts coming in now, if anybody fancies some proper debate!

johnny wrote: ↑27 Oct 2023, 01:29 inane crap