How can you read the full article?

So where in the idea of capitalism do you see a mechanism that avoids colluding and undermining the sovereignty of people?

From my POV, capitalism is the act of maximising profit/cash flow. This may happen through peaceful agreements, soft power or hard power.

What part of capitalism are you referring to, when you distinguish it from neo-liberalism?

I know of some of the shady people that were supported by the West and the Ukraine.

Could you shed some more light on the war crimes that Putin refers to? Also could you share the evidence that exists?

Fully agree with you here and particularly your longer response above.

VR / AR has some fantastic use cases in industrial work, where experienced workers can overshadow a field person and be enriched by some sort of global database that covers whatever that field person is working on. There are probably other niche tech use cases as well.

As for an entertainment gadget that is widely used, I just don’t think it is as immersive as portrayed or will be in the foreseeable future.

https://outline.com/XhtWcF For the whole article

I mean, can you imagine the desire, of being able to leave behind your real world, your dirty, exhausting, imperfect real world, where you are weak and ugly and unsuccessful and going to a virtual world where you can experience whatever you want?

All just through a head set? I honestly don’t quite buy this (admitting fully that I might be wrong) and really can’t relate to the desire you are describing either.

It’s not real and won’t look / feel real. So maybe there is a one or two hour entertainment to be had, but I can’t see this overhyped potential and VR being used “everywhere”.

Consider all the video chats we are having since the pandemic at work. What did 80% people do pretty quickly? Turn off their cameras, turn off their mics, while they are browsing the web in the background or doing the dishes, letting the meeting/call pass by. Would any of those go into VR to experience a virtual version of their colleague without being forced? I don’t think so.

The problem with private schools is that they, at least in the country I live in, seem to run havoc and actually collect more public funding than public schools do (which I find perverse, really).

I’m really torn about this. I could imagine a case for private schools, but just the example I see in this anglo country I’m in makes me really cautious about them.

Yes, monetising it also creates stupid incentives. In the educational scenario you’ll have to face the fact that if someone pays you for a service they are your client. How do you educated someone on whose feedback and money you depend? Certainly not in an objective manner.

Maybe the fact that you pose the question is a hint to its answer.

We are so quick to abstract this question, as in tech allows us to call our family from wherever we work and anytime, but this means we don’t have the same resources to question why we are away from our family.

Likewise, it allows us to reach beyond the social norms of our physical circle, but it doesn’t provide a neutral framework of how to be beyond those norms.

I think the problems with tech are related to the ownership of tech. Currently, I do think it makes us more lonely but maybe we have to move beyond tech to be able to use it well :)

I watched the video and find it upsetting. I believe that this guy and his way of thinking about climate change is largely why we run into it the way we do.

Rather than acknowledging that climate change is caused by emissions which are largely done through energy production, transport in supply chains and industrial activities, i.e. systemic elements, he goes on to complain about how individuals, who have nothing to do with energy production or transport, are hypocrites.

This is disgusting and will do nothing to solve global warming but in fact make it worse.

To name a few examples:

In response to how people say they care about the problem vs other actors:

“… it is pretty fair to say that we consumers have a pretty good view of ourselves and a pretty dim view of others …”

Alternatively, we might say that they just make a statement about the efforts / care they feel versus the efforts and care they see in other actors, notably in industry apparently, which, correctly, is perceived as rather absent.

In response to the stat showing that people support stronger environmental rules but don’t think that they would need to change their own habits:

" … gap between what people say and are prepared to do …"

The presenter’s statement simply does not follow from what was presented. A simple alternative explanation: People might think it won’t affect their lives because they aren’t energy generation experts or have deep knowledge about how transport in supply chain works.

Then the guy goes on about how people apparently prioritise reducing waste and recycling. The problem he sees with this is that waste minimisation and recycling is already happening in the west and therefore interprets it as the “lazy” option for people to choose because it means they already adapted and don’t need to change their lifestyle.

First of all, I’m nearly 100% certain that this is a false statement, given the discrepancy between recycling and waste management efforts in the western world. Secondly, the whole point has very limited applicability to global warming.

*Later on he shows other proposed actions and mentions that none of these are actionable by an individual. *He uses this to show how everyone is a sinner. Instead he could make the logical conclusion that climate change has something to do with the systems our economy runs on, which most of us have no insight or power over.

Then he asserts that many people could replace fossil fuels with renewables “in their own homes”. Most people do not live in their own homes. Even those who happen to live in their own homes would generally not be in an financial position to swap fossil fuels with renewables. Further, the idea that this swap should be done on a household by household idea is so stupid that I don’t even know where to start arguing.

After a turn to some marketing ideas that made me throw up, he seriously argues that governments were not able to regulate the tobacco industry, because the industry sowed “tiny seeds of doubt” into peoples mind about the health impacts of tobacco. Really? How about the money spent on lobbying with politicians?

He finishes his talk with: “if everyone would do the right thing…”. I just want to reiterate that this is an absurd argument to make. There are serious economic and financial goals at stake for actors that prevent us from changing our economy to mitigate global warming. These goals are directly related to some of the largest industries in the world (e.g. energy) and we haven’t even articulated the issue, let alone started a conversation of how to solve it.

The solution to global warming is to wind down the fossil fuel industry to zero, which should be easy enough to understand. This is an act that will have a significant impact everywhere and we should focus on managing that change. Asking people to turn off the lights, enhance energy efficiency and advocate for “Meat free Mondays” will largely fail but even where it doesn’t, won’t impact the amount of produced emissions.

Whatever you do then, do not move to Sydney… cockroaches the size of puppies and yes some fly but none of them is happy to chip in for rent

The point of the screenshot comment is that we are not focusing on the right things when discussing climate change.

There are lots of issues with SUVs but to say that some end product is the real cause of the problem (talking about climate change, not cancer here) is just inaccurate. It is the tremendous industry that was built, the associated physical assets, and the associated economic and financial incentives.

Sure, for most of my life I didn’t have a car either. But that’s not really the point. Some life circumstances are outside your own control. The point I poorly tried to make was more that people are driven by their current circumstances. Climate change is a systemic problem. You can’t rely on people reactively fixing climate change 8 billion times in their own little yard. It just won’t happen.

That’s exactly right. The problem is largely systemic and clearly linked to the way we run our economy.

I didn’t phrase this correctly. My point wasn’t that cars are needed in a general way.

My point was that most people, as of today have some dependency on cars, whether they like it or not. People by large have not been involved in the Urban Design decisions that shaped the cities in the last 100 years or so.

I further want to add that even if more people would decide to go without a car (and I believe that this in many countries is actually what is happening), the impact on global warming would be minimal.

Also I think you are correct in saying that the current way of using cars will change in the future drastically.

So in summary, if we care to put effort into avoiding the worst of climate change, we need to address the areas where the damage is done, which is industry. As I stated above, we haven’t done this in the last 40 years and I feel that the “personal responsibility” approach was something that actually caused significant problems and side tracked meaningful action.

So tell me, in the situation you are describing, how would you do your job and care for yourself or the people you like / who depend on you without access to e.g. a car?

I don’t understand how you do not seem to care why those emissions, that cause global warming, take place in the first place?

Of course the strategy changes.

If one corporation would produce 100% of emissions you would be able to discuss how to wind it down. How to manage the impact of winding it down.

Instead we are talking about whether you, the singular you, wasted too much water having a shower.

This is absolutely absurd.

One of the things that just work really well for me. The webclipper is quite decent too.

That’s really my biggest problem with most green parties / organisations. There is an emphasis on individual action that is just unreasonable. Climate change won’t be affected by individual change, since it really is a systemic problem. No amount of green consumption or efficiency will do as much as a dent in the problem of global warming.

Our energy and supply chain transport infrastructure needs to be overhauled which will cost a lot of capital investment and strip off a lot of planned profits from the books. These are the issues that need to be addressed. Whether Joe Blogs drives a SUV is inconsequential.

You can’t use your wallet to vote against the financial incentives to keep the polluting infrastructure running.

This is an interesting question and discussion.

I do feel that left/right is a useful distinction. It is useful from my perspective in terms of values, even though we don’t focus on this in most discussions.

The point is: are you are ok with a person next to you suffering. Suffering because they did wrong, suffering because they have to for a bigger cause. If you are ok with it, you will, in the end, support some form of right wing or authoritarian policies.

The alternative is “One for all and all for one”.

You quote David Graeber somewhere else. In his spirit, I do believe that this is a decision. We either care or we don’t.