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Old 06-29-2021, 04:32 AM
 
Location: Missouri, USA
5,671 posts, read 4,333,348 times
Reputation: 2610

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Quote:
Originally Posted by ClaraC View Post
Can I ask how old you are, Clintone? Because you sound like a college freshman, who has come home for Thanksgiving break after being out away from home for a few months, for the first time.

They come home able to process that the way they were raised isn't the only way to live, which they thought was true a few months prior.

Is that your situation?
No...I'm 36. I've been out of school for over a decade.
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Old 07-25-2021, 09:34 AM
 
Location: Torrance, Ca
2 posts, read 718 times
Reputation: 10
Clintone, it might make you feel a little better if you think of our consumption of oil and products in a slightly different way. It took hundreds of millions of years for all the oil and coal deposits to build up. The CO2 levels have been dropping for hundreds of millions of years. It would take a very advanced animal like man to remove all this sequestered carbon from the ground and put it back into the atmosphere so nature can continue to build new life forms. We may have some short term damage but in the grand scheme of things millions of yeas from now this carbon will be needed and used. Raising carbon levels is probably the most important thing man has done.
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Old 07-25-2021, 12:28 PM
 
39 posts, read 16,216 times
Reputation: 127
In the grand scheme of things, the time that humans inhabit Earth is so finite that what difference does it make if we live in a cultural waste land? It will all be over and obliterated in the not too distant future. In the meantime, get outside of your head, take a hike or a bike ride and enjoy the moment. It’s all any of us have got.
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Old 07-25-2021, 06:19 PM
Status: "See My Blog Entries for my Top 500 Most Important USA Cities" (set 12 hours ago)
 
Location: Harrisburg, PA
1,046 posts, read 961,043 times
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I have long felt we could be wasting our precious oil/gas/coal reserves for frivolous, unnecessary things. Carbon energy deposits should be rationed to last humanity's needs for as long as possible. Without them, it seems only hydroelectric is the only useful (powerful) and safe-ish (assuming dam is structurally maintained) renewable energy source. Nuclear is powerful too, but it is dangerous, and can serve very specific needs like space exploration.

If we run out of carbon energy sources: Is solar/wind actually going to be able to save the day, or not? We as a society need a straight answer YES or NO to that question.

Clintone, this idea of dismantling culture by encouraging randomness is not good. Cringy, strange behavior is discouraged because it creates uncertainty and fear. We have to have norms and rules. Otherwise grown men would "walk" down the street on all fours, naked, chanting in tongues and slobbering everywhere. Which, among many things, would be highly disturbing, and not beneficial for society.

We need to build a sustainable society that will last as long as possible. Burning all our carbon energy sources (coal, oil, and gas) on gas-guzzling pickup trucks/SUVs, mini mansions, cruises and world flights, is indeed a massive long-term waste of energy. I agree with you on that, Clintone.

Btw, my argument has nothing to do with human-caused climate change, another very large and destructive factor. Aside from CC though: Why should we continue to splurge away our easy access carbon energy deposits? What happens when these deposits are mostly exhausted 500 years from now? Do we exclusively turn to Nuclear? Wind/solar (which may only produce a small fraction of today's energy needs)? Will we largely go back to 1800's manual and horsepower labor? Do we face a future energy crisis?

Last edited by g500; 07-25-2021 at 07:02 PM..
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Old 07-28-2021, 08:36 AM
 
Location: Illinois USA
1,254 posts, read 816,886 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clintone View Post
I'm moving, and I've been cleaning up garbage. I've noticed that I've accumulated great hordes of crap over the years.

I was not so much depressed by not having thrown most of said crap out, as I was upon realizing all these wasted materials I've accumulated - lots of things I've never needed and never used, following me around, haunting me. Most of said crap came from birthdays and Christmases.

I thought to myself, "Wow...those two occasions encourage capitalistic greed."

I thought of myself as a young child, eagerly ripping apart packages like a lion gorging into a recently slain antelope...and how that greed, through those holidays, is taught as being a good thing.

I imagined a culture I'd consider more ideal - a culture in which people spent less on Christmas and birthday presents. I thought of land-fills expanding, filling the oceans with garbage. I thought of all this garbage being made of non-renewable materials like plastics. I thought of how medical supplies are also made of plastics, and how, when we start running low on oil, medical supplies may be more difficult to obtain because of my interest in cheese slices each individually contained in a plastic wrapper.

And then I realized, "I can't change that culture...and I won't. I won't because of the smiles it places on people I care about, and I'm doomed to follow it."

And that put me in a better mood...that acceptance that I'll never change anyway, because with that acceptance I have less to worry about.

And then I understood why slavery went on for so long. It went on for so long because it placed smiles on the faces of people who people cared about. It went on for so long because we are, at root, extremely individualistic beings who build little mental bubbles around ourselves and ignore everyone outside these bubbles except for things and people we care about, more or less.

Then I went into a bad mood again...due to the realization of just how much society encourages this view of "normalcy" this destructive, toxic culture that glorifies mating rituals that involve impressing one's potential mates with bigger and bigger toys, and buying more and more crap.

In our culture, I'm normal if I participate in what is essentially a culture in which I gain status for making the most waste. Society considers that healthy.

If I, say, wander around in circles muttering to myself in public, however, that frightens people.

Culture, and our instinctive drive to follow the group is much more destructive than we typically see it as, I think. We follow things, just because they're considered normal...and that's probably why a lot of the most horrific cultures in existence persisted. I assume that's why Aztec sacrifices occurred. I assume that's why Roman gladiatorial arenas existed. I assume that's why Confederates fought in the Civil War. They were protecting "their people" in other words, their desire to be normal pushed them to do that, I'm thinking.

Therefore, I'd prefer the vast majority of culture to be destroyed. I want people wandering around in circles muttering to themselves. I want people going up to strangers and making comments like, "I am Benjamin Franklin. I am 400 years old." I want people beating their chests and howling in public parks, in chicken suits for attention.

I want all that, because maybe then we can destroy this seemingly very destructive idea that we have to follow what society considers "normal" or chaos will result. Chaos is resulting now, so far as I can tell, from our current culture.

So far as I can tell, individuals have consciences, intelligence and empathy, and culture has neither. Culture spreads, like viruses do, strictly based on how popular a culture is.

By culture, I'm not talking about religious rituals. I'm not encouraging Jews to end their ancient celebrations or for Native Americans to destroy the aspects of their culture some of them have been working very hard to preserve, necessarily. Those rituals are vary tiny aspects of culture.

By culture, I'm talking about most of what culture is...the patterns of daily life people follow because society is following similar patterns.

I am not a nihilist...but I think I would like the spread of nihilism, in the hopes that it would lead to the destruction of this idea that there's something wrong with not following the common trends.

And once more people begin questioning those common trends, perhaps we could get into more open discussions about them, and once we get into more open discussions about them, perhaps intelligent minds could build a new, healthier culture than the mindless trend-born culture that currently exists.

And once society has constructed a newer, more intelligently-designed culture perhaps, through that culture, and the peer pressure that I know guides most of my behavior, my behaviors would become more healthy for the planet in general and the future of humanity.
I'm not a fan of big spending [infact im very cheap] , hallmark holidays , religion, culture or keeping up with the jones

but be careful what u wish for , our modern world in last 70 yrs post ww2 is the MOST BEAUTIFUL peaceful and structured it has ever been , dont hope for its destruction

what will come will be far far worse
plus we need people wasting money on stupid stuff so we can stimulate the economy
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