Only Deathnote can stop climate change at this point
“Nice”… that article is like a speed-run of all the tired tropes of eco-fascism.
I would normally moderate this, but since the OP doesn’t seem like someone that posted this for nefarious reasons, maybe this can serve as a discussion piece on why these eco-fascist narratives are both dangerous and also scientifically wrong?
Yeah, thank you for your patience.
While I wouldn’t consider myself a “doomer”, I think within the next few years climate change will be increasingly dramatic, damaging, and obvious. And the people of the world will stand up and demand their governments Do Something.
And since the majority of world governments, including four out of the five most populated nations on Earth, are authoritarian, green authoritarianism is likely to be the default answer. After all, no government has ever given itself less power in a crisis.
So when, in the next few years, environment and climate become not just one issue but THE most important issue for governments around the world, solarpunk-ish green positivism is going to have to battle both green authoritarianism and green nihilism (it’s too late to save the world, just relax, keep buying shit, and don’t think about the consequences) for a seat at the bargaining table.
And this article so effectively summarizes both attitudes that I thought it was worth sharing.
It’s the usual old attractive idea of ‘someone should arrive and fix this’ - superhero, supervillain, strong leader, elected authority, the police, your mom …
I can’t really understand if the writer actually would want this to happen, or if his use of the term ‘supervillain’ means it’s more of a tongue-in-cheek sigh of despair? Not sure what to make of it. I can relate with what he writes, this heavy feeling of despair. Just don’t like to dwell in it myself too much. Maybe the writer needs a dose of punk to cheer him up a bit.
Wow, incredibly fitting analysis. :)
I’ve also observed that comic book heroes aren’t exactly revolutionary stuff. To change things, you need a mandate, and creating a story about how a person got a mandate to use superpowers to change the world, or delegates their superpower to others, bypassing the need for mandate… that would require talk of philosophical concepts like power (and the right to use it).
Crafting stories where power gets used in a purely defensive way against violent change, allows for simplicity. No censor will find the stories politically offensive, nobody is too dense to understand… lowest common denominator -> maximum circulation -> great profit. :)
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Thanks for posting this, thus I discover an interesting blog (albeit if a bit fatalistic) from a corner of the world under-represented in fediverse (by the way, any connection to mindlanka?). Like us all, the author tries different views each day - this one is way to express frustration, not a proposal to implement. As a scenario modeler I feel the bit about “our supervillain would need to be a time traveler too”.
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and only Saruman wielding the One Ring can stand against the might of Sauron
If you’d like a more scientific explanation of what sages have been telling us forever, just ask Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin talked about the inevitable collapse of any creature that grows exponentially in a finite environment.
Interestingly, humans seem to be already doing pretty well at stopping population growth - without needing a “totalitarian climate communism”, as the article suggests, to force them to.
In that sense, Darwin either was wrong, or didn’t spend much time thinking of human behaviour ecology and the possibility of both education, contraception and smartphones. :)
What refuses to come down, however, is our resource consumption. Apparently, a creature can be an individualist and decide: “I won’t have kids because that will reduce my chances of living a good life” (or reason to the conclusion “I want kids, but will have only two, because medicine can ensure their survival”)…
…but making the decision of “I won’t consume excessive resources” is hard, because the definition of “good life” seems to include ample supply of resources. Let’s see if something can be changed there. Maybe “consume as much as you want, but only renewables” is the answer?
Charles Darwin in the quote was speaking exclusively about non-human animals. He was famously cagey about applying the principles he observed in nature to humans and society. To this day, people who have never read his famous work about Galapagos birds think its actual title is “The Origin of the Species” and the actual subject humans because his detractors used so much ink to attack him for its implications for the prevailing religious authority.
It was Thomas Malthus who famously applied the principle to humans, with disastrous results. Perhaps the author’s choice of falsely contextualizing Darwin was intentional because Malthusian thinking is a prime example of confusing data-driven forecasting with scientific truth. The constant failure of a world famine to validate Malthus and his disciples should be evidence for optimism.
Also, we didn’t cheat ‘Malthusian death’ through the use of fossil fuels - the ‘Green’ Revolution, a period characterized by a boom in food production driven by oil extraction, didn’t occur until the 1960s, and Malthus’ apocalypse had already been falsified by then. Its purpose was not to end hunger but to prevent the spread of communism by propping up capitalist-friendly authoritarian regimes with cheap food, and the lives it counts as saved through domestic mechanization, overproduction, and exportation could have been much more sustainably saved through knowledge transfer and democratic revolution.
The discovery of the Haber process in the 1910s was the point at which food production was no longer limited by fertile land; methane (a.k.a. cow farts, marsh gas, landfill burnoff), the chemical needed for the process, is not exclusive to oil extraction. Though we use oil to overproduce food today, people still starve due to famine. The problem is not food production but political organization, just as it has been since the invention of inexpensive ammonia fabrication. Authoritarian regimes use their power over food distribution to reward loyalists and starve threats. A world without tyrants is a world without hunger.
Modern consumption is way out of order, but I do believe that a major part of it is our stupid new habit of transporting stuff around the globe. If we made stuff locally instead, and only transported absolutely necessary stuff to somewhere else, and if we ate mostly regional food we could still live well. Fuel is too cheap, so things are made in one country, packaged in another, sold in a third - the stupidity of this doesn’t even register. Every time I go to my local store and check where the bottled water comes from I get depressed.
A lot of it is the result of what was sold as ‘globalization’ in the 80s by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. Their neoliberalism paved the way for the shit we have now - production pushed into poor countries where nobody cares about the pollution and misery, while the leaders of the Western world can fly their private jets from climate meeting to climate meeting somewhere nice in the Swiss alps and keep their populations comfy with the spoils of the scam and busy with plenty of bullshit jobs.
I do believe it’s possible going hybrid and wean of the fuel a bit - I drive and travel less, grow my own food, replace machine work with animal work around my small farm and garden. My life quality has improved because it’s more quiet. I eat really well - there’s always some fresh veg, herb, meat, egg, mushroom, foraged stuff that is delicious and would cost a fortune in the shops. I’m still dependent from my bullshit job, because nothing is perfect and there’s a learning curve towards becoming a producer instead of a consumer. I still can’t do without a car because I live rural. But I went from being a heavy consumer of resources (ordering electronics and drone parts from China) to trying to live and consume locally as much as I can, and I would say I’m more content, more relaxed, less stressed. The worst stress of this year were my holidays, where I took a plane for the first time in years to see my family - didn’t feel good anymore. I might have to take the train or bus next time.
That part is pure Social Darwinism, which is really doing a disservice to the scientific discoveries of Darwin.
I don’t really agree with the introduction. Rich countries stopping to emit co2 is not the same as poor countries doing it. It takes a transition for rich countries obviously, but they do have the money and resources to do it. Unlike poor countries.
Also, the problem of resources consumption is a problem of consumerism, which is a staple of capitalism. But neither one or the other is necessary to live a comfortable life. In fact, they are both proven to make the lives of most people miserable.
And we don’t need superheroes to save the world. We merely need states that will put companies to their place, and start doing stuff for the nation rather than sabotaging itself for the benefit of a few.
Which lead to the insidious and toxic idea of liberalism that it’s impossible, governments will always be corrupted. It’s wrong, and this idea only serve capitalism and liberlism. A powerful state is the only solution to fight these parasites.
But fighting the liberal mindset and the idea that the government is the problem is a difficult fight that no super hero can fight.
Which lead to the insidious and toxic idea of liberalism that it’s impossible, governments will always be corrupted. It’s wrong, and this idea only serve capitalism and liberlism. A powerful state is the only solution to fight these parasites.
Sorry, but you got that totally backwards (liberalism only has is half-way backwards). A powerful state is what makes it possible for these companies to exists and do the damage they do. They are nearly interchangeable with the state, and the further down a state goes towards fascism the more true this becomes.
And how would the absence of state allow to fight these rich people and companies?
Explaining this is out of scope of this community… but currently it is the police that is protecting these companies and the courts that are jailing activists. If you think the state is (or even can be) on our side, you are gravely mistaken.
I firmly disagree. No state merely means a feudal state in my opinion, with the rich and companies being the lords. You can’t prevent them from seizing and enslaving places and people without a strong authority to rule them.
Then, making a state work for the people rather than the companies is another matter.
Unless you can somehow make a state hold itself accountable for its actions I don’t see that we’ll ever get a state that works for the people. Of course there’s a spectrum with some states worse than others, but to have to constantly fight off authoritarian structures who want more power over you shouldn’t be the norm.
That’s what democracy is trying to do.
On the other hand, as I said, no state means a feudal state. If rich men or organisation are not reigned in some way, they will seize the power for themselves. It is actually what’s happening in liberal countries.
With more cynism it is how societies work: an armed group seize a place for its profit or comfort. Until it’s submitted to a more powerful armed group. Democracy arise when the armed group want peace from the people under its rule. Or when the people are the biggest part of the army and get to organise themselves to take over.
