[LINK] Surviving Climate Change

[jore]

On 23/01/2015 1:10 PM, Jim Birch wrote:
> It is certainly what allows some the "advanced" life of humans...


Hey Jim,

I can see what you're saying, but I still disagree with your human
supremacist views. We can agree to disagree.

But beyond that, we're still talking about this culture. For instance,
you almost had it here:


On 23/01/2015 3:22 PM, Jim Birch wrote:
> Have you ever heard of the "Fertile Crescent"?

Yeah, and as you rightly suggest, agriculture (devised by this culture
some 10,000 years ago), again as you rightly say, is the reason this
area is now a desert. Because agriculture is the most destructive thing
this culture has ever done (and continues to do) to the
planet---especially industrial agriculture. Again, see many others for
this. Jared Diamond, for one, comes to mind.  It's the epitome of this
culture's exploitative mindset.

But I understand. It can be hard to see outside this culture and
overlook all this because all these notions, as I'm trying to point out,
have been deeply internalised and metabolised into in the way this
culture inculcates us to see the world.

To drive the point: There have been many previous human
societies---other cultures, particularly indigenous and aboriginal---who
existed and still exist without agriculture. And even after its arrival
by this culture (only some 10,000 years ago), agriculture was most often
still not taken up by other societies until it was imposed on those
societies by force or coercion by the colonisers and imperialists (us).
Again, what does that say about cooperation or exploitation? What does
that say about whose behaviour? Whom is exploiting whom?  Picture it:
The societies and cultures that have lived there for millennia had their
land invaded, stolen, and they were then put to work as slaves (in the
new agriculture systems that require slavery) by this culture, etc etc
etc. Again, do I even need to say this? We all know what happened (and
is still happening).

And the small point: Sure, maybe it happened without capitalism all the
way back then, but it's beside the fact that in every case some form of
selfish social system inevitably emerges with the imposition of
agriculture (as you need a military to stop people from messing with
your crops, for one thing). Cite your examples the Mayans, Romans and so on.

And that's the point: These destructive and exploitative cultures
collapsed because they were destructive and exploitative (surprised?) as
opposed to other cultures that are not based on domination,
exploitation, selfishness or destruction (and are not civilisations
by-the-way) that still exist, or are struggling to exist. Examples? Say
your Mayans/Romans as opposed to the Tolowa, or Indigenous Australians,
for one.

Again, what does all this say about us, about our situation? We're at
the thinking of a 5 year old again: If your culture and society is not
sustainable, it will collapse; and if the culture is based on
exploitation, then exploitation is what you'll get, to the death. As we
see. The point is that it wasn't always this way, it's not inevitable,
it doesn't have to be this way, etc; and the first thing we can do is
drop our allegiance to this culture and it's destructive mindset.

And this takes us to what I'm trying to tack on to as the original point
about climate change and the situation we face because of what this
dominant culture has done to the planet: we need to stop this
exploitative and destructive culture yesterday.   This civilisation is
collapsing (like others before it) because it's unsustainable (and can
exploitation can /never/ be sustainable).  The difference this time is
that it's a global civilisation, which makes the drawdown and ecological
damage global too (not least the (attempted) globalisation of the mindset).

TLDR: The crux for all following this thread, not just Jim, and it's not
a rhetorical question: Is your allegiance to this culture or the real
world?  If we can't agree on that, then we don't have much else to say
to each other.   Further: If you care more about the real world than a
destructive social system, will you do everything you can to stop that
system from killing the planet, or not?

Sane questions and effective answers can flow on from there.

All the best, earnestly,
Jore.