I don’t mean better for you or me but better in general. Do you believe our species will ever reach some form of enlightenment or will we destroy ourselves?
If you are Elon Musk it is looking amazing right now.
Yeah. At least until his yes-men high five him and slap him on the back on his way to board the deep space or deep sea vessel that he designed himself.
At this point, it could still go either way. Make no mistake, we’ve already done, and will continue to do, profound damage to the environment and global climate that will take generations to reverse (if that’s even possible). That said, I think it’s going to need to get seriously worse before the world’s largest polluters have no choice but to go against the monied interests in fossil fuels and plastics. Like many very wealthy people are going to have to be directly affected by this is always that can’t be disingenuously explained away.
That’s if Capitalism lasts that long.
I think the general population of humans struggle to recognize, understand, and address large scale threats.
There’s the scientific community that’ll try to explain these issues to the general public in simplistic term. But they’re often overruled by dumb idiots in charge who store snowballs in their freezer as proof that climate change isn’t real.
There’s a belief that humanity needs to be brought to the edge of extinction to realize how bad things really are and to get their shit together. I don’t believe humanity would be willing to save itself from extinction as it’s just not profitable to do so.
Do you think things will get better?
Yes.
A lot of the problems we face are systematic, to do with how our society is organised rather than any human limit. They are solvable problems, and many have already been solved already in some countries. The reason they’re aren’t solved isn’t because we can’t, but because the few most powerful people are powerful because of this rigged system, and have a self-interest in keeping it that way by any means necessary.
History has shown us clearly that even kings, dictators and other broken systems can be overthrown AND stopped from coming back, provided the people doing it are politically educated and organized. That’s the key. If we just get angry without a plan, we will end up like the pitiful Jan 6 riot. But if we educate ourselves with lessons from history and work to create a mass movement, we can finally move forward beyond this frightening present situation.
They are solvable problems, and many have already been solved already in some countries.
This is a great point!
Things only get better if we make then better.
Yep, which is why it’s an excellent time to get armed, organized, and “Read Theory, Darn It!” We absolutely have the power and ability to make things better.
Im both amazed and terrified at the fact we haven’t killed ourselves into extinction.
Cause it becomes easier by the decade every time.I survive not to cope with hope of a better tomorrow. I survive out of spite so I may get the chance to witness very very bad things happening to very very bad people.
Eventually but I think society might need to collapse and rebuild in between, and that supporting this level of complex civilization isn’t gonna be possible, nor IMO desirable.
This is not to say we would go back to being cavemen, just that society has less tech and energy at its disposal and less people.
I guess we could get there without collapse, but I have zero faith in any kind of degrowth moment despite agreeing with it ideologically. This would help us avoid much death and suffering but it doesn’t seem to be priority for anyone in power.
Progression to Socialism is the alternative. We shouldn’t advocate for collapse, but public ownership and central planning, which can facilitate green initiatives divorced from the profit motive.
All collapse will do is reset the clock, we will eventually run into the problems of late-stage Capitalism again once humanity runs the course of history again in hundreds or thousands of years.
Name one socialist/communist nation that hasn’t been growth based industrialist economy? I think anything growth based is not gonna happen much longer, due to energy shortage, habitat loss, climate change, running out of critical minerals etc.
Sure I’m open for some degrowth socialism but don’t really believe that’s the way things gonna work out.
AES states historically plan production based on fulfilling needs, not profits. Profit is driven by consumption, so there is always an incentive to overproduce. Combined with a focus on green energy and efficient planning, Socialism is a necessity, and again, returning to earlier production methods will only result in repeating the historical development in Mode of Production.
I think in one moment, when the capitalist world failed so hard that half of the world or more died because of it. The humanity will start to change to a better future. Like one solarpunk or such.
Eventually, the contradictions necessarily created by Capitalism, ie decentralized markets leading to centralized monopolist syndicates, will result in said syndicates being pulled from under the feet of the Bourgeoisie. Marx has remained correct in his predictions thus far. I don’t think it will take half the world dying either for the US Empire to fall. This better future will be Socialist in nature, Solarpunk is more of an aesthetic than an ideology but this Socialist future will most likely heavily rely on solar power among other renewables.
I made a Read Theory, Darn it! introduction to Marxism reading list if you want to check it out.
I think solarpunk is more than a ahestetic, its a way to live without wasting more than you produce. Living in a more slow way and conscious.
I go to read your article, thogh!
Thanks for checking it out!
As for Solarpunk, I think it’s certainly useful, but like any aesthetic-based movement it can be easily co-opted without a strong emphasis on theory. Namely:
- Why do we need Solarpunk?
- Who can push for Solarpunk?
- What is Solarpunk?
- How can we transition from our present conditions to Solarpunk?
- When can we transition to Solarpunk?
Those are a few questions (among others) that need to be consistent across the board for any real change to occur, simply having an image of a “good society” is Utopianism, and thus prone to failure like all previous Utopian movements.
I have an article for all those questions: https://lenses.alxd.org
I skimmed the article, but I find it unsatisfactory. It focuses very much on imagining a better future, and that by doing so, we can accept and work towards it. This is fundamentally Utopian and Idealist, it doesn’t emphasize a materialist foundation for how to get there beyond hoping and trying to modify the Superstructure deliberately so that the Base forms based on it. The problem with that mode of thinking is that the Base is constantly reinforcing the Superstructure projected from it, and thus the changes to the Superstructure you propose are going to be modified and even coopted by the Class in power, ie the Bourgeoisie, with little effort.
I like all the data and info you are telling here! Now I can think in a more structured way and logic about society structure. But you don’t think that being able to imagine a better and sustainable future is not superstructure and all the solar-energy base, and solarpunk prompts of the literature, imagining other ways of production more anarchic and horizontal interactions between people and slow only with the necessary is not a base? It talks about means of production and relationship of production. It’s already proven that better and more technology don’t make us life better, but more fast and contaminated.
I know, I’m probably too idealistic, and I have to think in a more pragmatic way, but really learn about solarpunk what the first thing that let me hope in a better future in this word that is easier to think about the end of the word than the end of capitalism and I think that’s important.
An imagined, hypothetical base is not a real, existing base, and thus it can’t project the superstructure but be a part of an existing superstructure. That’s why the existing base helps distort it and even coopt it.
“Do you believe our species will ever reach some form of enlightenment”
If there is anything history has taught me is that we repeat the same basic behavior over and over and have done so as far back as we can see. We are essentially very intelligent monkeys, obsessed with social status, manipulation, altruism and cooperation mixed with hostility and exploitation. I think the basic sociology of humans is baked into our DNA and the very nature of animal life. People have always imagined they can create some utopia on earth but it always ends up a failure because of the very nature of man and the impossibility of even defining a utopia for everyone.
The basic DNA of humans is that our ideas form from our Material Conditions, and the driver of this is the mode of production.
What “Utopias” are you referring to, here? The old, Utopian socialist of Owen’s kind, or the modern, Marxist form of Socialism (which rejects the term “utopian”)?
In the long run, yes.
In the short term, no.
The way I look at it, things have to get better. Because if they don’t then we will destroy ourselves. Barbarism until socialism.
Yep, now more than ever is a great time to get armed, organized, and “Read Theory, Darn It!” I keep a beginner list complete with audiobooks on Marxist theory, which is critical in my opinion if we want to achieve Socialism.
Here’s a bit of hope for you, scientists have figured out how to trick the body into producing any protein or antibody they want, through technology like gene therapy and mRNA vaccines. We’re about to cure a lot of diseases that used to be 100% fatal. Diseases that kill kids and adults alike.
Most things seem to be getting worse these days, but at least we’re making progress in other areas.
That’s great and all but we’re going to be needing food and air conditioning.
Thanks, that’s good to hear. New scientific breakthroughs always inspire hope, at least for me, especially when they save lives.
Too bad those advances will be monetized as hard as possible and limited to those that can afford it.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of truth in that statement, especially in the case of rare disease. It’s really difficult to convince a company to spend billions to develop a treatment that will only cure 1 in 100,000 people without letting them charge an arm and a leg, and giving them a very long exclusivity deal so they can continue to charge high prices. So much of that cost to develop is due to the dozens of other failed drugs and formulations they tried on their way to success.
I don’t have a solution for the problem, and I’m always a little suspicious of anyone who claims it’s easy to solve. I think the UK has a decent idea, the NHS basically decides if the cost of a drug will be covered by insurance by comparing the expected benefit and the current cost. If the ratio is too skewed, they refuse to cover the medication. In theory, this should be an incentive for a company to charge less. In practice, it leads to some companies choosing not to market in the UK.
Not for humans. Fascism can be recovered from, but climate change can’t at this point until humans are gone.
Sure there will be lots of wars and famine but predicting human extinction as a result of climate change is a bit of a stretch. Even in a bad scenario where 99% of humanity dies off things could still turn back around, regrow and we try again for an advanced civilization in a couple millennia.
The question was whether or not things will get better, not extinction. We’re unlikely to go extinct, but things will absolutely get worse for us.
Humans needing to be “gone” was hyperbole - we just need to not have enough people to be able to damage the climate any more.
