Back to the land

[Ares Land]

Not quite the Industrial Revolution, but rather the French Revolution I guess? i.e. technology but with the divine right of the CEO-kings (a la Mencius Moldbug)

That's the general fascist position, but I guess the maker of this particular meme might want to go farther than that. See the point about the evils of mass-produced products, for instance.

Ah, yes, good point (i kind of stopped reading at '17 year old obedient wife').

[alice]

Anyone who uses the term "wagecuck" automatically loses any respect or right to be taken seriously.

[Raphael]

Anyone who uses the term "wagecuck" automatically loses any respect or right to be taken seriously.

Agree on "respect". As for "being taken seriously" - I'd say there's a difference between "taking someone seriously" in the sense that you think they should be listened to, and "taking someone seriously" in the sense of paying close attention to what they get up to and what damage they might do. Unfortunately, these days, fascists, even the most ridiculous ones, definitely have to be taken seriously in the second sense.

[alice]

Anyone who uses the term "wagecuck" automatically loses any respect or right to be taken seriously.

Agree on "respect". As for "being taken seriously" - I'd say there's a difference between "taking someone seriously" in the sense that you think they should be listened to, and "taking someone seriously" in the sense of paying close attention to what they get up to and what damage they might do. Unfortunately, these days, fascists, even the most ridiculous ones, definitely have to be taken seriously in the second sense.

Good point, and I agree: take them seriously, but not what they say.

[Ares Land]

It kind of felt disappointing to let some random internet fascist have the last word on the topic

One thing I do believe in is degrowth. (Though I don't agree with everything people in that movement say but I guess that's just the same as socialists not agreeing with everything other socialists say.)

A model I find useful is the doughnut model of economics:


Or, in other words, just as in astronomy, there's an habitable zone when it comes to technology, growth, and industrial production; you need enough of it to cover human needs, but too much is overshoot and threatening to a limited environment. In practical terms, some countries need more growth; others need less or outright scaling back the technological footprint.

I believe this generally looks backwards because we're used to thinking in terms of linear progress. But sometimes the way forward requires us to turn away from some uses of technological. The best example I think is cars; cars looked modern in comparison to trams, trains or bicycles; yet it turns out trains and bicycles are the better option.

A few random comments:

• Western countries are obsessed with GDP growth; but GDP has outgrown its usefulness. It's in fact difficult to get high growth rates in Western countries because of diminishing returns. As Americans will be aware, you can also have a fairly high growth rate with a stagnating or even diminishing standard of living.
• Will more technology help? To some extent, yes; it certainly helped with the ozone layer. But it's all too easy to focus on one limit and forget all of the others. Electric cars will help with climate change; they don't solve the issues related to car manufacturing, lithium extraction, or the land footprint of car-related infrastructure.
• How about renewables or fusion power? Better energy sources help, of course! But it's also important to think about energy use; I don't think there can be a way to produce energy without an environmental cost; 'energy to cheap to meter' sounds nice but realistically you can't produce 4GW of power in a single restricted space without some consequences.
• How about moving production to space or settling other planets? I don't think it's a practical option: there's a lot we understand about the physics of space exploration or colonization; but as for the engineering headaches of it... we're barely at the stage where we can do some stuff in low earth orbit.
  The doughnut diagram focuses on environmental limits. But there are very human limits to consider as well. The endless pursuit of performance and competition (which we see in almost all areas) just isn't good for human health, mental or otherwise.
• Does this mean going back to the Shire? The Shire and hobbits often come to mind; that's I think because Tolkien had a more realistic view of the negative impact of technology than was usual in his time, and a vivid way of pointing it out. In a very practical way, I think degrowth does mean less mechanized and industrialized agriculture, hence probably more farmers (though probably not that many farmers, anyway, in proportion).
• There is, yes, a sense of community in pre-industrial times that was lost and that needs to be recovered, while being aware of the pitfalls and oppressiveness of traditional communities. (or, to put in another way, humans thrive better surrounded by family and friends; they emphatetically don't need submissive wives and 'friends' that enforce repressive religious norms.)

[zompist]

I believe this generally looks backwards because we're used to thinking in terms of linear progress. But sometimes the way forward requires us to turn away from some uses of technological. The best example I think is cars; cars looked modern in comparison to trams, trains or bicycles; yet it turns out trains and bicycles are the better option.

[...]
Will more technology help? To some extent, yes; it certainly helped with the ozone layer. But it's all too easy to focus on one limit and forget all of the others. Electric cars will help with climate change; they don't solve the issues related to car manufacturing, lithium extraction, or the land footprint of car-related infrastructure.

I agree on much of this, especially on cars and space. On the other hand I disagree on "degrowth" and think you're selling technology short. The planet can certainly support 8 billion people. Current trends are not toward population growth forever, but toward a peak later in this century. Then decreasing fertility will drive a lot of people crazy, as overpopulation did from the 1970s on.

The gripping emergency is climate change; but a solution to this is in sight, and being implemented: renewable energy. And that's only possible because of dramatic, recent advances in solar/wind generation and in batteries. Trump's war may well be the tipping point: it is simply no longer a good idea to develop and rely on fossil fuels. If these advances hadn't happened, that change would look harder, maybe impossible. But they did.

The problem is not too many humans, it's too much inequality-- producing dangerous and wasteful practices in rich countries. Cars and planes and data centers are one manifestation; beef is another. There is land that's only suited for herding, but we're way past that; a very large percentage of crops are grown to feed cattle.

I'd also add that making liveable urban and semi-urban areas, especially in the US, needs rethinking a lot of development patterns-- which is a place for innovation and investment. People often resist green solutions because they're perceived as dirty, unsafe, slow, and inconvenient. Fixing that will require both money and new designs.

Finally, lower-tech and more rural solutions are probably not compatible with an aging population. When I was a college student I could go around campus on foot and all around the city by public transport. My parents, to use just one example, could not go anywhere in their later years except by car. Even if they lived near a supermarket, they couldn't carry several bags of groceries on foot. When they got even older they needed increasingly close care. My grandmother (years earlier, of course) had to be put in a nursing home because she'd go walking and forget where she lived.

[Ares Land]

I agree on much of this, especially on cars and space. On the other hand I disagree on "degrowth" and think you're selling technology short. The planet can certainly support 8 billion people. Current trends are not toward population growth forever, but toward a peak later in this century. Then decreasing fertility will drive a lot of people crazy, as overpopulation did from the 1970s on.

A point I should've mentioned is that the growth in degrowth refers to economic growth, i.e. GDP growth.
I'm not bothered either way by human fertility or lack thereof. My take is that if you have n billion people, then of course you need to provide for n billion people; that's the inner boundary of the donut - (and as it turns out, overpopulation was a non issue anyway.)
And of course, the countries that would need some scaling down have low fertility rates anyway.

(I don't think we actually disagree on the other points except the last one)

Finally, lower-tech and more rural solutions are probably not compatible with an aging population. When I was a college student I could go around campus on foot and all around the city by public transport. My parents, to use just one example, could not go anywhere in their later years except by car. Even if they lived near a supermarket, they couldn't carry several bags of groceries on foot. When they got even older they needed increasingly close care. My grandmother (years earlier, of course) had to be put in a nursing home because she'd go walking and forget where she lived.

One point I should clarify is that, even assuming more farmers (and corresponding numbers of people moving to rural areas, of course, because you need at least support industries) -- we'd still be looking at a very urban society. Only the proportions would change a bit.

That being said... You could have rural life consisting of small, but densely settled (less so than cities, but densely settled anyway) town/villages that can support a grocery store and public transportation. That's possible and in fact that was the historical model.

Elderly care is a real issue (my mother is in a nursing home; my father stayed at home but needed very close care in his last years). One thing I'd say is that it's very low tech and very human-centered by nature. People fantasize about robots taking care of the elderly. In practice, there's very little there to be solved by AI or robots or automation, what is needed is very human close care that precisely can't and shouldn't be industrialized and automated.

Another point with aging populations -- that runs contrary to GDP growth and productivity. The elderly are productive in many ways, but just not the ones that are measured by GDP growth.
That's why we get vague threats to Social Security in the US, and why they keep pushing back retirement age in Europe -- which is completely ignoring the underlying issue, the costs are just shifted to health insurance.

[WeepingElf]

I agree with what you say, zompist. Degrowth is not a viable solution; we can't "go back to the garden". The problem is not too much technology; the problem is bad technology - technology that exploits non-renewable resources and produces wastes which damage the environment, and for which nobody has a use. As you say, the biggest problem today is climate change - and you also mention the solution: renewable energies. (Some people speak out for nuclear power - but that means exorcising the devil with Beelzebub: nobody really knows what to do about the radioactive wastes, of which one gram is far worse than a ton of carbon dioxide; not even to mention the hazards of a nuclear power plant going wrong, or the fact that any country with nuclear power is principally capable of building nuclear warheads.) And there is no problem feeding 10 billion people; that's only a problem if you insist on feeding them with meat. Millions of healthy vegetarians are the living proof that meat is not essential. As Gandhi said, "There is enough for everyone's needs, there's just not enough for everyone's greed."

[rotting bones]

I don't have a problem with some people going back to the land. The problem with everyone going back to the land is that it unscientifically imposes an arbitrary aesthetic on all of society. This is different from the Soviet Union's favored aesthetic, but it runs into the same problem as the Soviet Union: What do you do with all the people who reject your favored aesthetic?

I don't think it's necessarily correct, but this analysis of the contemporary left might be interesting in this context: https://open.substack.com/pub/bmstudeba ... id&r=e7ptw

[Nortaneous]

I agree on much of this, especially on cars and space. On the other hand I disagree on "degrowth" and think you're selling technology short. The planet can certainly support 8 billion people. Current trends are not toward population growth forever, but toward a peak later in this century. Then decreasing fertility will drive a lot of people crazy, as overpopulation did from the 1970s on.

A point I should've mentioned is that the growth in degrowth refers to economic growth, i.e. GDP growth.

Before modern economic growth, the way for people to better their lot in life was to win land by conquest. I suppose that's one way to do back-to-the-land, but it doesn't sound like a good one.

[Ares Land]

I don't have a problem with some people going back to the land. The problem with everyone going back to the land is that it unscientifically imposes an arbitrary aesthetic on all of society. This is different from the Soviet Union's favored aesthetic, but it runs into the same problem as the Soviet Union: What do you do with all the people who reject your favored aesthetic?

I don’t believe in imposing a given lifestyle. I'm aware there are people within the degrowth movement who do do; human beings love to tell others what to do and that’s a tendancy we always should be worried about.

I don’t think the approach is unscientific though; it’s about recognizing the ecosystems we're part of have limits and that we should be aware of them.

Before modern economic growth, the way for people to better their lot in life was to win land by conquest. I suppose that's one way to do back-to-the-land, but it doesn't sound like a good one.

Economic growth no longer works as a way for people to have better lives. There's a matter of diminishing returns. And inequality as well - only a select few benefit.
Also, at which point do we consider that our lot in life is good enough - in material terms at least?

[zompist]

Economic growth no longer works as a way for people to have better lives. There's a matter of diminishing returns. And inequality as well - only a select few benefit.
Also, at which point do we consider that our lot in life is good enough - in material terms at least?

If it weren't for the inequality, why stop where we are? Of course, when the 10% get all the gains of productivity, it's not worth it trying to get more.

But really, there are plenty of things we could do. Starting to add them to my Almea+400 project now.

[Ares Land]

Economic growth no longer works as a way for people to have better lives. There's a matter of diminishing returns. And inequality as well - only a select few benefit.
Also, at which point do we consider that our lot in life is good enough - in material terms at least?

If it weren't for the inequality, why stop where we are? Of course, when the 10% get all the gains of productivity, it's not worth it trying to get more.

But really, there are plenty of things we could do. Starting to add them to my Almea+400 project now.

And I'll be glad to see these

Inequality is entangled with all that; it comes down to the r>g formula. As long as you have huge growth rates, you can live with the high rates of return on capital investor expects.
It doesn’t matter so much if you don’t get an equal share of the pie if the pie keeps getting bigger.

I think part of the problem is that production of goods and services is asymptotic; we're not at the limit -- possibly we won’t ever get there. But we can't expect the huge rates that characterized the 20th century (and part of the problem is that we've come to expect these.)

Probably a big part of the problem is that we don’t have the right indicators yet. What are the ways we'd hope the next generations to do better? Possibly they’d work less. Or they could live in healthier ecosystems. That’s progress! But it doesn’t show up as GDP.

[Travis B.]

Of course, the pie does not need to get bigger in the first place at this point if we simply make everyone's slice of the pie more equal. That way we can deliver increasing living standards to the average person without significant overall GDP growth.

[rotting bones]

Regarding the whole GDP debate: GDP is a measure of economic activity. Economic activity is based on what consumers are willing to exchange for your products. This means GDP is about creating an edge in exchange value. It is perfectly compatible with chaos at the human scale as long as it looks like regulated flow at the social scale. The cake is a lie. For example, if you crash your car into a pharmacy, GDP goes up because of the money spent on tow trucks, repairs and medical bills. If crime increases, pollution spikes or there's a natural disaster, GDP can increase because of building prisons, cleaning up the environment or rebuilding.

When countries increase their GDP, the effect is to make us scurry around like busy little squirrels. This is necessary to increase quality of life as long as corporate profitability is the mechanism by which people get jobs.

Things don't have to be this way. Alternatives to the contemporary model are possible: https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... -planning/ https://snapshotsofthelabyrinth.photo.b ... responses/

I don’t believe in imposing a given lifestyle. I'm aware there are people within the degrowth movement who do do; human beings love to tell others what to do and that’s a tendancy we always should be worried about.

I don’t think the approach is unscientific though; it’s about recognizing the ecosystems we're part of have limits and that we should be aware of them.

How much urbanization is sustainable in your opinion? Do you think it's unsustainable for anyone to live in the city?

[Travis B.]

I don’t believe in imposing a given lifestyle. I'm aware there are people within the degrowth movement who do do; human beings love to tell others what to do and that’s a tendancy we always should be worried about.

I don’t think the approach is unscientific though; it’s about recognizing the ecosystems we're part of have limits and that we should be aware of them.

How much urbanization is sustainable in your opinion? Do you think it's unsustainable for anyone to live in the city?

Classic urbanization is a more efficient use of land than suburban sprawl, it should be noted. Also, big cities have things like public transportation that are seldom found in suburban or rural areas.

[rotting bones]

Classic urbanization is a more efficient use of land than suburban sprawl, it should be noted. Also, big cities have things like public transportation that are seldom found in suburban or rural areas.

I've been saying it for years. The argument never seems to go anywhere with degrowth types. Elsewhere, I've been called a tech bro asshole for saying so. (See the "neoleft" speculation.)

[Travis B.]

Classic urbanization is a more efficient use of land than suburban sprawl, it should be noted. Also, big cities have things like public transportation that are seldom found in suburban or rural areas.

I've been saying it for years. The argument never seems to go anywhere with degrowth types. Elsewhere, I've been called a tech bro asshole for saying so. (See the "neoleft" speculation.)

And everyone being a subsistance farmer certainly is not an efficient use of land. The most efficient use of land would be to have as a maximal portion of the population as possible living in big cities with public transportation and all, with a minimum amount of land used for intensive agriculture, and leaving a maximal amount of land to nature.

[Travis B.]

And as I should note that every hectare used for agriculture is a hectare that is not part of nature.

[rotting bones]

And everyone being a subsistance farmer certainly is not an efficient use of land. The most efficient use of land would be to have as a maximal portion of the population as possible living in big cities with public transportation and all, with a minimum amount of land used for intensive agriculture, and leaving a maximal amount of land to nature.

Things I've been told by the eco-left:

1. Cities harm animal movement. I think degrowth people are imagining that we're arguing the whole world should be one big city rather than existing populations being concentrated in urban areas. The people I spoke to before had a lot of difficulty imagining what I was getting at, even though they cited academic papers at me.

2. The food to feed one person can be grown by themselves in a couple of jars. This is either a deliberate lie or this person is in for a rude awakening sooner or later. They also told me hydroponics and similar urban agricultural ideas are scams.

3. Urban constructions get heated very easily. The electricity to cool them down harms the environment. Traditional societies have never lived in such structures. Clearly they were not familiar with the high rises of Yemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibam By this point, I was tired of arguing with them.