yogthos

Used to be that you needed wood to generate energy. Then coal (which is an order of magnitude better). Then oil (another order of magnitude). Then solar. Then fission. Then (hopefully) fusion.

let me introduce you to the Jevons paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

And this is a pretty good read on the state of food production with lots of mainstream sources to what's currently happening, it's a pretty sobering read https://collapsesurvivalsite.com/reasons-theres-going-to-be-a-global-famine/

Right, there will always be problems within human societies no matter what kind of clever system people come up with. I think the goal should be on creating systems that mitigate the worst excesses and keep society stable.

The problem with competition is that it directly leads to wealth concentration, and the problems you keep raising. As companies compete then some companies will lose out and others will gain their market share. Successful companies end up growing through this process. And the bigger the company gets the more initial capital is required to compete with it. This is a problem for both capitalist enterprise and cooperatives.

However, I think that cooperatives mitigate the problem in an important way where wealth distribution is more even. If a cooperative becomes a monopoly, it will still distribute wealth it generates fairly within the cooperative. And I think this also helps with the overall corruption problem because now you don't have wealth concentrated with a few individuals that can use it to have disproportionate influence on society.

I'm personally skeptical there is a real path towards the kind of social democracy you speak of in a society where there is mass wealth inequality. Public opinion is largely determined by the media that's owned by the oligarchs, and people's votes are swayed by sleek political campaigns that need large amounts of funding. Since the government is already captured by the rich, there is no path for the government to pass legislation that would make it more difficult for rich people to exercise their influence over society. Hence I don't really see how reformism can work in practice.

My point is that any meaningful capital is directly tied to resource usage. Our ability to produce energy directly depends on our ability to mine resources to build power plants and maintain them. Saying that we can increase energy production infinitely is reductive beyond any meaning, it's like a physics problem about a perfectly spherical cow.

And yes we absolutely are running out of easily accessible resources that have sustained the current growth. Getting further resources is becoming increasingly more difficult and energy intensive. We're also running out of things like fertilizer, dealing with topsoil erosion, and increasingly unstable climate that's threatening our food production. I don't think people appreciate just how fragile our whole civilization is.

Horseshoe theory purveyor has logged on. 😂

That's all they have, no actual arguments, no analysis, just smear people and try to shut down discussion of any topics they disagree with.

I think the issue is that natural resources are limited, and even virtual things still require real energy. Online spaces are hosted on physical servers, machine learning uses real CPU computing power, and so on. And we're increasingly using more and more energy and natural resources to facilitate our civilization.

Arguably, we've already fucked the climate and the biosphere. We're literally in a middle of a mass extinction right now, and the climate is breaking down in front of our eyes. It's entirely possible that we've already kicked off feedback loops, such as methane burp, that are beyond our ability to control. As you say, the growth will likely continue until we start seeing very rapid collapse as we hit the limits of our biosphere.

If you're five years old then sure.

Yeah, I doubt that having more money makes people less happy. At worst it just stops playing a significant role in happiness.

Après moi, le déluge

I'll let George Lucas answer that one for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWqvaMEFIdI

Global capitalism has largely stood in the way of such development because corporations from rich western countries plunder the Global South.

You can't believe that I grew up in USSR and actually liked my life there because you're smooth brained victim of western propaganda. And when you're faced with people who actually lived in USSR and liked it, you're incapable of processing this information. Meanwhile, you can stop calling me a liar, cause I still even have my original USSR passport. Learn to deal with it troll.

You can keep calling me whatever you like, but anybody reading this thread can clearly see that you're just insane.