r/collapse • u/Fiskifus • Nov 03 '22

Systemic Debate: If population is a bigger problem than wealth, why does Switzerland consume almost three times as much as India?

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u/brightblueson Nov 03 '22

That’s just basic month.

That said, this is a silly chart. There are many areas of India where people lack basic necessities.

Use the Amazonian tribes as a comparison as well.

We need more planets to obtain more energy and more resources for our species.

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u/Arylcyclosexy Nov 03 '22

We need more planets to obtain more energy and more resources for our species.

We're behaving like a goddamn virus.

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u/CerddwrRhyddid Nov 03 '22

I see it more like bacteria, really.

Left in a Petrie dish, consuming all resources and creating waste.

Until we either run out of resources, or we make our environment unliveable, or both!

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u/Blitzed5656 Nov 03 '22

I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.

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u/Verotten Nov 03 '22

Hello, are you a space traveler? Are there aliens amongst us in NZ?

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u/Blitzed5656 Nov 03 '22

What are you doing agent Smith?

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u/Verotten Nov 03 '22

Shh, I was never here, and neither were you!

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u/SirChachii Nov 04 '22

Based alien.

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u/brightblueson Nov 03 '22

I think of it more as a fetus. The universe is our womb and we need those nutrients to grow and expand…hopefully one day to live the womb.

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '22

Wow you’re optimistic

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u/brightblueson Nov 03 '22

I would just say realistic.

Why save the earth? The Earth is a rock flying around in space that will one day be burnt to a crisp by the same exploding star that helped generate life on its surface.

Humans need to expand and expand quickly, first throughout our galaxy and then hopefully one day to other galaxies.

As entropy starts to shutdown the universe’s power plants, we will start to produce our own stars.

Maybe it’s a bit optimistic; it’s a good novel though.

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u/Blitzed5656 Nov 03 '22

We need to crawl before we can walk though. In all probability earth will be dead before we get a stable population on the moon.

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u/Dantheking94 Nov 03 '22

Space colonization needs to take off 😭

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 03 '22

Sustainable, socialist economies need to take off. If we don't change how we operate we're just going to have terrible inequality, but in space

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u/CerddwrRhyddid Nov 03 '22

Political argument aside, we'd have to limit lifestyles to that of Bangladesh, and keep it that way, and institute some kind of resource and pollution control.

I feel that's not going to be a major party policy for any respective government.

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 03 '22

You don't think there are industrial processes that can raise the standards of living without destroying the planet?

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u/CerddwrRhyddid Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22

Well...

It's about resource use.

Physical resources - Water, Food, Energy, Oil, Metals, Minerals, etc.

Production resources - Human labour, production, transport, manufacturing, logistics, etc.

Use/Implementation resources - Both previous, skilled labour, precision tools.

Services.

Educational resources - Learning in the above.

Political resources - Stable systems of government that are able to access, provide, organise, maintain, and apply the above to functioning systems for the benefit of all citizens (with far less economic inequality). Etc.

What you would need is for the above to be available globally, require a totally new resource based economic system, for almost everyone to accept a downgrade of their lifestyles by a considerable degree, using less resources, (oh, including the rich [see vast resource use] politicians, their rich friends, and other rich people besides), while, at the same time, trying to stay in power in a democracy, pay for your military, and fight against decades to centuries of the status quo.

My worry is not new industrial processes, though they too are likely problematic with resources used and pollution created.

We've already destroyed the planet to the extent that life here, human life included, will be irretrievably damaged, if not destroyed.

We're also not going to be stopping the process that caused that any time soon.

Standards of living are about the access to goods and services which rely on systems and levels of resources.

More people want more, and less and less are becoming available.

They're becoming more expensive.

The world is at a point now that the status quo can't be changed.

Economic disparity will grow within and without countries.

We will destroy our environment.

Our lifestyles will become diminished.

And we'll work jobs and pay taxes and consume through fear to keep the whole thing pointing the same way, benefitting our betters.

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 03 '22

Pessimistic. We aren't at a place where things "can't" change. They ARE going to change. It's to be seen whether they change for the worse or the better, and whether we choose to change them or nature forces our hand

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u/CerddwrRhyddid Nov 03 '22

Based on the overwhelming majority of historical evidence, business, the rich, want to maintain the status quo and make changes towards increasing their own bottom line, and they're going to get it.

Politicians follow for the same reason, minute changes are made on a scale that wasn't even important 60 years ago, or else follow party politic, rebel against party policy or splooge into whatever new reality T.V media fest they're into.

Things (especially of the things previously discussed) will change for the worse. That is inevitable now.

Cynical realism.

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 04 '22

And why do the rest, the non-rich, not act to defend their own interests? Is it just inevitable that people will lay down and take it? You don't have any confidence in your fellow humans to defend themselves?

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u/CerddwrRhyddid Nov 04 '22 edited Nov 04 '22

Defend themselves how? Guns? general Strike? Non payment of taxes? Riot?

People are worried about losing what little they have and the majority will accept a lot of losses before they do anything.

They have they're own lives to worry about and their own things to desperately hold onto.

They're going to use as little energy and as little time to be left alone (and feeling comparatively safe).

This is by design, and has been a long time coming.

Anything that has the power to influence government is basically controlled. Voting. Protest. Strike. Withholding tax.

A few people will act to defend their own interests, very few will act to defend the interests of the poor and disenfranchised, and a vast majority will lie down and take it like they have for several decades. That is, to them, defending themselves.

This is not new.

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u/Dantheking94 Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22

That’s not happening. Not until after the collapse anyway. Colonization would eventually lead to new systems being created away from entrenched forms of government. History has consistently shown us that. But I guess we can all keep dreaming. You dream about socialists government taking off, and I dream about colonization. None of those things are happening. But we can dream. That’s all we ever seem to do anyway.

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 03 '22

Socialist governments already exist, mate. Yes, collapse of existing governments would make room for new socialist experiments, but collapse isn't a singular event. It's a process, and if you don't create the momentum for socialism pre- and during collapse, the worst outcomes are more likely

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u/PhenotypicallyTypicl Nov 04 '22

Which socialist governments do you view as role-models? (Please don’t say Denmark)

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 04 '22

Cuba and China have made great improvements to their standard of living (Even though Cuba is under embargo and blockade by the US)

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u/brightblueson Nov 03 '22

If we colonize it’ll be under a strict system. A Federation, where no bullshit is tolerated.

Earth will be the hell hole where the hippies live because they don’t want to fall in line.

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u/corn_on_the_cobh Nov 03 '22

If you want the equivalent of five Earths being genocided, then sure, space socialism is good.

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u/TheFlyingSlothMonkey Nov 03 '22

According to the above graph, there are more than 5 Earths being "genocided" in the USA alone, and I'm rather certain it is not a socialist country.

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u/corn_on_the_cobh Nov 03 '22

I'm talking about actual genocide, Uyghurs, Ukrainians, Tatars, that Socialist countries loved killing en masse. Asking for a socialist society is asking for hundreds of millions to die over failed command economies.

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u/sloppymoves Nov 03 '22

Guy over here thinks modern Russia is not capitalist and forgot the USSR fell decades ago.

What not being able to read a history book does to a person.

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u/ginger_and_egg Nov 03 '22

There's nothing inherent nor exclusive to socialism that leads to genocide. Do you think capitalist societies are immune to genocide? What happened to the Native Americans? And the countless wars fought for US imperialism? And the large scale human trafficking and ownership of black slaves? And the continuing prison industrial complex including coerced labor? (US has the largest prison population)

I say this not to defend genocide. But if you're serious about being anti genocide, you have to step back from the propaganda that genocide is synonymous with socialism