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Eliminating the Electoral College would be good, but it would do very little. The only people who want to get elected president are those with big egos, and you've said nothing to refute that because you can't. People with big egos are evil, problematic, or whatever you want to call them. They're certainly not people who should be given …
Eliminating the Electoral College would be good, but it would do very little. The only people who want to get elected president are those with big egos, and you've said nothing to refute that because you can't. People with big egos are evil, problematic, or whatever you want to call them. They're certainly not people who should be given power.
I do agree that eliminating private campaign contributions would be a big step in the right direction. But the problem of "the only people who should be in office are those who don't want to be" remains, and you've said nothing to refute that. Who exactly are your great leaders who disprove my point?
The root problems are human overpopulation and our grossly overpopulated societies that it causes. You'll never get a good government with huge numbers of people, because getting elected becomes a result of who can manipulate people the most, not which candidate has better ideas for running the society.
First...for as long as I've been active male commentators on the problems facing planet earth cite over population....too many people....as their problem of first magnitude.
However, I resist that blame game for a couple of reasons. For starters, human fertility declines when economic prosperity enters the picture. It also declines when women are granted absolute right to their own bodies.
However, I notice that the 'too many people' argument is often the first line of defence of folks who support military solutions around the world...and who often are against abortion....as somehow a threat to the sacredness of life that over population critiques often ignore.
In short....it is always those 'other' people who are too many....and our people who 'will not be replaced'. So I see an imperialism/colonialism hang over in the over population argument. A terrible wealth entitlement also is likely involved when you read that the 1% have something like a 175 times greater carbon footprint than the 10% of the world's poorest.
All of this leads me to think getting rid of the billionaires....taxing a lot of that unearned, unnecessary wealth back....and investing it in net 0 homes for the poorest among us.......would make more sense in terms of both social prosperity and climate justice.
We do need to cap our population growth....but eliminating war and working hard for social equality might do more for that....if we're serious about degrowth......then just blaming where we are on those of us who have the least.
Overpopulation is a biological fact. You can no more resist it than you can that the Earth is round or water is wet. Our opinions about it don't matter, except whether we think it's OK to continue to destroy the Earth and kill all the native nonhuman life here by overpopulating and living unnaturally. Overpopulation was originally caused by the use of agriculture, which provided humans with an unnatural overabundance of food. More food = more animals (in this case, more humans), as we all learned in the petri dish experiment in high school. The biggest harm by far caused by human overpopulation is to nonhumans. Political effects of overpopulation pale in comparison, though they're important too.
The leftist BS that we have to further destroy the Earth by making everyone rich in order to lower birthrates has been proven to be totally false. You lose all credibility on this issue by repeating that lie. Birthrates fall where women and girls are educated and empowered, and where the government mandates it, as China and Iran (temporarily) did. Read the book Countdown by Alan Weisman for details.
As to your other claims about this issue: I never said that only certain people are overpopulated. ALL humans are overpopulated except for hunter-gatherers. The skin color, creed, religion, and/or nationality is irrelevant here. And while I totally agree that no one should be rich -- in fact, we should all be living as hunter-gatherers and focusing on expanding our consciousness instead of acquiring material wealth -- that doesn't negate the clear fact of gross human overpopulation. See this book outline for details: https://rewilding.org/fixing-humans-by-expanding-our-consciousness/
I stop reading when you use the term "leftist BS" Jeff....none of my reading in political science, economy etc. says leftists want us all rich. That would be neoliberalism ideology.....and that idea that we can all be rich was a lie...or partial one.
Remember, they said 'there would be winners and there would be losers'. Right wing billionaires like Musk are the winners....the rest of us the losers.....but for sure, if only every one who thinks the problem is too many people would sterilize themselves.....there might be some hope.
Living within the earth's carrying capacity means we have to give up dreams of wealth......the rich dream isn't a socialist one......and I suspect you know that.
Nor did I say population wasn't a problem.....I'm just suggesting that the carbon footprint of the billionaire class should be addressed before we start sterilizing poor women of colour. We can live sustainably without reverting back to the caves of hunter gatherers.......I think your problem may be you like either-or ideas...........there's more than 1000 ways to live within the carrying capacity of the earth I suspect.
But a culture with only two ideas, one of them wrong......has a hard time with complexity.
"We can live sustainably without reverting back to the caves of hunter gatherers ..."
1. Sustainability should not be the goal. All that means is setting the limit on how much humans can kill and destroy at the greatest amount before it starts eliminating humans too. Totally immoral. All species have an equal right to live and thrive, and the only way that happens is if humans return to living as hunter-gatherers.
2. You clearly know nothing about ecology, wildlife biology, or even what agriculture really is and the great destruction and death that it has wrought. What is your justification for killing native plants and the animals who depend on them just so humans can grow crops? We shouldn't kill anyone we don't eat, so agriculture is totally immoral right there. Ecologically, it's harmful because it removes native plants and kills or extirpates the native animals who depend on them. How do you justify increasing human population beyond its natural numbers, which were 5-10 million GLOBALLY before agriculture? No more false talk of "sustainability;" there is only a finite amount of room, and more humans, including their agriculture and infrastructure, means fewer of everyone else.
3. Without human overpopulation, we wouldn't have industrial society, which itself is war against the Earth, or even money. No one in a hunter-gatherer society is rich. If you truly want to eliminate the rich,that's the only way to do it. Ever since agriculture, there have been rich & poor people, because agriculture and its overpopulation not only allow it, they require it.
4. If you didn't read the book outline to which I linked, then you don't understand what I'm saying. Read the outline and get back to me. As it stands now, like almost all modern humans, you do not understand what our proper role is on this planet.
To be clear, my goals are very long-term ones. It will take 150-200 years to eliminate industrial society, by which time we'll also need to lower human population to one billion (still far too many ecologically and for the rest of life on Earth, but a good start). It will take thousands of years to return to living as hunter-gatherers. But the longest journey begins with the first step, and we should take that step immediately.
Don't know what you're talking about. 1. Sustainability means you live so that there's enough of everything left for the next season....You have a cave man definition of sustainability......which might be a nice fantasy, but isn't possible given our numbers. What's more, there is no proof that hunter gatherers didn't sometimes destroy their ecosystem by over harvesting either.
2. Beginning by telling someone 'they clearly know nothing'....about any damn thing, is the height of arrogance Jeff. Getting rid of agriculture is another all or nothing....either- or way of thinking. I doubt you know much about agriculture....or the difference between restorative farming and agri business......but you do keep coming back to eliminating the majority of people here today...........so why not tell us what 'moral' method you are going to use to do that??
3. There you go again with your 0NLY WAY...it must be nice to have one solution and one only...........but it still leaves you talking theoretical none sense........because we are far past hunter gatherer societies.....so your one and only way dooms present day humans to what??? Genocide?? that's being tried. We should be looking for solutions.......not shutting the door on anyway forward but our cherished ONE IDEA.
4. You know 0 about me Jeff.......but presume that the one book you recommend is essential to understanding what you're saying??? I've heard this song and dance a few times already........everything is immoral except for roving bands of male hunters and female gatherers.....I've read most of what Chris Hedges has written, lots of Chomsky, most of Michel Foucault, many of the French deconstuctivists, environmental thinkers like Derrick Jenson, George Monbiot, Bill McGibbon, James Hansen....etc. etc.
Maybe consider entering into dialogue with other commentators on this thread....rather than shooting them down because they don't agree with your one and only way forward. The planet is big, the life web complex, and the Great Mother resilient.......multiplicity rather than singularities.....are her way forward. Always has been.
Your comments prove that you are ignorant about ecology, agriculture, etc. You haven't responded to one thing I've said in this entire string, instead just complaining that you don't like my position. I'll leave you with this last question, and if you don't respond to it directly, we're done. I will say that if you don't read the book outline to which I linked, you DON'T know what your talking about, and the outline is far to lengthy to repeat the outline here:
Someone is committing mass killings of humans, and that someone has enough support of other people to continue doing it. Is your argument against that someone that you want to compromise, that they should merely kill fewer humans? Because that's your argument here, except that it's nonhumans who are being killed. If you place humans above others, we have nothing to discuss because that's a totally immoral position. If you don't, please explain yourself. Do you realize that because of human overpopulation and wrongful lifestyles/overconsumption, that among other things humans are causing the Sixth Great Extinction, the only one ever to be caused by a species?
Finally, I have to rebuke your BS about killing people to reduce human population. I said earlier in this thread that, "[b]irthrates fall where women and girls are educated and empowered, and where the government mandates it, as China and Iran (temporarily) did." I never advocated killing anyone to lower human population, that's YOUR idea. I unfortunately get this a lot from anti-environmentalists like you, who worship their own species and have little or no consideration for others, because you clearly don't WANT to lower human population, so you resort to character assassination, trying to make out those of us -- who want much lower human population so that the rest of the planet has room to live -- to be some sort of evil monsters who want to kill people, which is a total lie. Lowering human population to an ecologically balanced level will take hundreds of years, it's not going to happen overnight. But if people resist doing so, they'll just continue killing the Earth and all the life here. You clearly have no idea what a proper human population was or would be, so again read the book outline to get that information.