https://www.ecosophia.net/an-astrologic ... ress-2019/
Greers latest. f***ing superb.
Update from the Archdruid Greer
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Lord Beria3
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Lord Beria3
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Greer comments...
Kevin, so far what i’ve seen of the school strikers reminds me much more of the Children’s Crusade than it does of anything that’s likely to have a constructive outcome. The thing that Thunberg et al. apparently don’t know, and may not be willing to learn, is that it’s not just a matter of getting rid of fossil fuels and putting something else in place to power the kind of lives they assume they’re going to lead. There is nothing else. Renewables can provide maybe 15% of the energy, and less than that of the products of energy, that we currently get from fossil fuels. The other 85% will go away forever, and take everything corresponding to an industrial lifestyle with it. Mind you, that’s going to happen anyway in due time — fossil fuels are nonrenewable, and we’re depleting them at an insane pace — but the notion that all people have to do is throw a tantrum demanding that something nice and green be put in place of fossil fuels to keep their lifestyles going is the supreme delusion of our times.
David, that one was shooting fish in a barrel. The thing that remains to be seen is whether Trump succeeds in turning the tables on his opponents using the Mueller report as a blunt instrument, or even gets a special prosecutor looking into collusion between the FBI and the Clinton campaign…
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
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kenneal - lagger
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Following on from that first quote above is Jem Bendell's paper mentioned in this thread.
Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez
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kenneal - lagger
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raspberry-blower
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Latest: After The Shouting, The Silence
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools - Douglas Adams.
It's pretty boring one-sided anti-SJW polemic really.Little John wrote:Very very good
As one of the commenters points out, Greer starts his article complaining that there's never been rage like SJW anti-Trump rage, but seems to have completely forgotten the apoplectic Republican rage against Obama over eight years. Both sides felt the rage against their man was based on lies. Both sides think their man represents everything good and true about America.
Until these commentators and polemicists recognise and accept that both sides are employing the same hyberbolic rage against each other, the rage will only increase. If we keep saying "We're good and true and they're evil, ignorant, deceivers, manipulators and liars" then the rage will only need to increase in order to demonstrate that no WE REALLY MEAN IT and YOU NEED TO LISTEN NOW.
This Greer article is so full of virtue-signalling it's painful to read. All that stuff about men-with-penises calling themselves women in order to demand sex from lesbians... this is made-up nonsense that simply virtue-signals anti-SJW credentials. That this hypocrisy goes unacknowledged in an article that complains (rightly) about SJW virtue-signalling is totally unsurprising but hugely disappointing nevertheless. I always hope for better from a thinker like Greer.
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woodburner
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Lord Beria3
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Wrong Tess.
if you actually bothered to read his article he noted that whilst both Bush and Obama faced their own levels of rage from sections of the American population who opposed them, Trump has inspired a new level of hate which is remarkably unhealthy.
He also, correctly, notes how whatever Trump does or not seems to be hysterically opposed by those who hate him. Even if they used to hold such positions themselves - for example the Left used to be opposed to free trade deals.
Now that Trump challenges free trade, some of the Left have turned to cheer leading globalisation and free trade.
One of the odder moments was when some attacked Trump for trying to engage with North Korea last year. The fact that decades of isolation and sanctions haven't helped at all seem to be lost on the Trump haters.
if you actually bothered to read his article he noted that whilst both Bush and Obama faced their own levels of rage from sections of the American population who opposed them, Trump has inspired a new level of hate which is remarkably unhealthy.
He also, correctly, notes how whatever Trump does or not seems to be hysterically opposed by those who hate him. Even if they used to hold such positions themselves - for example the Left used to be opposed to free trade deals.
Now that Trump challenges free trade, some of the Left have turned to cheer leading globalisation and free trade.
One of the odder moments was when some attacked Trump for trying to engage with North Korea last year. The fact that decades of isolation and sanctions haven't helped at all seem to be lost on the Trump haters.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
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Lord Beria3
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kenneal - lagger
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While I don't believe in his occultism there is usually more than a grain of truth and wisdom in what Greer says. His first part about patronising thought by the "intellectual elite" (there's that misused word again that I hate so much) I found to be very true as a Brexiteer who has been on the receiving end of much Remainer anguish for speaking my truth.
I find that much Remainer thinking is very limited by their very liberal attitudes: that all people are equal; that all people are always good if you treat them nicely; that everything always turns out right in the end. People are different in intelligence, in work ethic, in appetites, in abilities and temper although we should all treat each other as equals just so that we can get along.
They suffer from the thinking of most mainstream economists that the future will be the same as the past but slightly further up the linearly rising line on a graph of growth. Firstly that line isn't linear, it's exponential, which posses its own problems, and, secondly, the line will certainly go down eventually even leaving climate change out of the equation. They also forget that in history all civilisations have, in the end, crashed. So taking our island further into the zone of sustainability overshoot by upping the population further doesn't worry them at all. Also many, but not all, of the people that argue most vehemently do not have children and so have a limited time frame of thought; their own lifetime.
I can see that they have good thoughts about people and I would love their ideas to be our future but, looking at history, life isn't like that: people and nature get in the way of niceness. And people under pressure are even worse. Europe will come under pressure in the near future from its inherent economic instability and from the pressures of climate change: food shortages, extreme weather, and population migration will all take their toll. I think that we would be better off out of the cauldron when those pressures build even greater than they exist today.
Greer's ideas on renewables and their inability to power a future just as fossil fuels have done in the past is also part of the economist's thought pattern of linear progression. Economists have no thought of energy density and nett energy. They have no idea that carrying electricity around in an aeroplane is not possible on the same scale as in aviation spirit. They have no conception of the energy input needed to harvest energy; as a former economic advisor to the Labour Party told me " there is more energy coming from the sun than we could ever use on earth!" That is very true but he didn't appreciate that we would have to expend energy to harvest that energy and that the energy expended to harvest that energy would be far greater than the energy we expended historically to harvest oil. He has no concept that the oil we harvest today takes far more energy than the oil that we harvested fifty or a hundred years ago. With that sort of ignorance in government advisors, let alone on the climate change scene, it is no wonder that we have the problems that we do today.
That was about as much as I could take in one hit from Greer. I'll have another go in a few days when the first hit has sunk in.
I find that much Remainer thinking is very limited by their very liberal attitudes: that all people are equal; that all people are always good if you treat them nicely; that everything always turns out right in the end. People are different in intelligence, in work ethic, in appetites, in abilities and temper although we should all treat each other as equals just so that we can get along.
They suffer from the thinking of most mainstream economists that the future will be the same as the past but slightly further up the linearly rising line on a graph of growth. Firstly that line isn't linear, it's exponential, which posses its own problems, and, secondly, the line will certainly go down eventually even leaving climate change out of the equation. They also forget that in history all civilisations have, in the end, crashed. So taking our island further into the zone of sustainability overshoot by upping the population further doesn't worry them at all. Also many, but not all, of the people that argue most vehemently do not have children and so have a limited time frame of thought; their own lifetime.
I can see that they have good thoughts about people and I would love their ideas to be our future but, looking at history, life isn't like that: people and nature get in the way of niceness. And people under pressure are even worse. Europe will come under pressure in the near future from its inherent economic instability and from the pressures of climate change: food shortages, extreme weather, and population migration will all take their toll. I think that we would be better off out of the cauldron when those pressures build even greater than they exist today.
Greer's ideas on renewables and their inability to power a future just as fossil fuels have done in the past is also part of the economist's thought pattern of linear progression. Economists have no thought of energy density and nett energy. They have no idea that carrying electricity around in an aeroplane is not possible on the same scale as in aviation spirit. They have no conception of the energy input needed to harvest energy; as a former economic advisor to the Labour Party told me " there is more energy coming from the sun than we could ever use on earth!" That is very true but he didn't appreciate that we would have to expend energy to harvest that energy and that the energy expended to harvest that energy would be far greater than the energy we expended historically to harvest oil. He has no concept that the oil we harvest today takes far more energy than the oil that we harvested fifty or a hundred years ago. With that sort of ignorance in government advisors, let alone on the climate change scene, it is no wonder that we have the problems that we do today.
That was about as much as I could take in one hit from Greer. I'll have another go in a few days when the first hit has sunk in.
Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez
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Lord Beria3
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Great post and I agree with all of it.
That fits very much with the Remainer types I work with in the office. Nice people but very narrow and rather complacent attitudes. Interestingly the most liberal and remain of my colleagues also doesn't have children.They suffer from the thinking of most mainstream economists that the future will be the same as the past but slightly further up the linearly rising line on a graph of growth. Firstly that line isn't linear, it's exponential, which posses its own problems, and, secondly, the line will certainly go down eventually even leaving climate change out of the equation. They also forget that in history all civilisations have, in the end, crashed. So taking our island further into the zone of sustainability overshoot by upping the population further doesn't worry them at all. Also many, but not all, of the people that argue most vehemently do not have children and so have a limited time frame of thought; their own lifetime.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
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emordnilap
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Having just read Robert Peston’s WTF? I sympathise with a lot of what you’re saying, k-l, and the direction of your thoughts. What’s going on is bigger than all of us.
Reading RP’s book, I found myself constantly saying to myself, “He has to get to the question of limits soon.� “Maybe he’ll address nett energy in the next chapter.� etc etc.
He has very sensible, sympathetic and well-balanced thoughts on current dilemmas (he’s a pro-EU person who would like the UK to come out well from leaving) but…there are limits to all physical things and this fact is not once considered. It’s really strange from such an intelligent person.
He does see Brexit as a symptom and sees the superficial causes. But energy? As he might say, WTF?
(BTW, well worth reading that book, even if you’re not a fan of his. I’m kind-of a semi-fan.)
Reading RP’s book, I found myself constantly saying to myself, “He has to get to the question of limits soon.� “Maybe he’ll address nett energy in the next chapter.� etc etc.
He has very sensible, sympathetic and well-balanced thoughts on current dilemmas (he’s a pro-EU person who would like the UK to come out well from leaving) but…there are limits to all physical things and this fact is not once considered. It’s really strange from such an intelligent person.
He does see Brexit as a symptom and sees the superficial causes. But energy? As he might say, WTF?
(BTW, well worth reading that book, even if you’re not a fan of his. I’m kind-of a semi-fan.)
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
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raspberry-blower
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Perhaps Robert Peston should have a word or two with Steve Keen then:emordnilap wrote:Having just read Robert Peston’s WTF? I sympathise with a lot of what you’re saying, k-l, and the direction of your thoughts. What’s going on is bigger than all of us.
Reading RP’s book, I found myself constantly saying to myself, “He has to get to the question of limits soon.� “Maybe he’ll address nett energy in the next chapter.� etc etc.
He has very sensible, sympathetic and well-balanced thoughts on current dilemmas (he’s a pro-EU person who would like the UK to come out well from leaving) but…there are limits to all physical things and this fact is not once considered. It’s really strange from such an intelligent person.
He does see Brexit as a symptom and sees the superficial causes. But energy? As he might say, WTF?
(BTW, well worth reading that book, even if you’re not a fan of his. I’m kind-of a semi-fan.)
Labour without energy is a corpse; capital without energy is a sculpture
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools - Douglas Adams.