Short-term profit over livable planet
Posted by lejka005@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 18 comments
"Since the latest reports unambiguously state that on our current trajectory we have 20 to 30 years to act before the collapse of modern civilization becomes insurmountable and we descend into a generations long dark ages, the obvious course of action is to generate as much wealth as possible while markets are still functioning."
Ezekiel_29_12@reddit
He says 18% chance of +5 C is like Russian roulette. But there is a key difference: the gun is pointed at the head of someone else's kids, and you get rich if you pull the trigger.
whenitsTimeyoullknow@reddit
While there’s a supply chain available, you get rich, build a bunker, train your servants, and align your mesh network with the other billionaires. And since there is no separation between corporations and the state, NATO is at your beck and call to protect your archipelago from refugees or pirates.
There’s a reason why movies like Mad Max: Furiosa are being shoved down our throats. The unwashed masses do not deserve paradise. Its secret must be protected for those worthy of it. A plague on all their noble houses.
Collapse_is_underway@reddit
Well you do see it as a billionnaire, because the "train your servants" is just a fantasy. Unless you make friends with them and their loved ones, you'll find yourself impaled on top of a stick or similar scenario once they find a way out of electrical colars or other similar delusional tech-control.
BusinessPurge@reddit
The new SAW better go after the rich
United-Breakfast5025@reddit
If you dont want to be rich, someone else will...
NyriasNeo@reddit
"we have 20 to 30 years to act before the collapse of modern civilization becomes insurmountable"
That is just stupid. We already pass 1.5C (1.6 this year) and blew through 2C. The US voted for "drill baby drill". Is anyone gullible enough to believe that we have 20-30 years to act?
Grand-Page-1180@reddit
Projecting something is going to happen 10, 20, 30 years down the road instead of admitting its happening right now, is a form of denial.
pippopozzato@reddit
The ghosts of Camp Mystic just entered the chat.
NoExternal2732@reddit
Life on planet Earth was always precarious, for all animals including humans. Our current state of relative long life and easy living (for the select privileged few able to read this post, to be clear) is the anomaly, not the norm.
Whatever the cause, we are about to (on the galactic time scale) revert to something more near to normal. I'm glad I got to see it, all guilt for contributing to the problem aside. Air conditioning and showers with potable water and road trips are amazing!
Buckle up buttercup, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
MaximinusDrax@reddit
I think you're mixing the individual experience with the collective one. On a geological timescale life on Earth isn't precarious - it's inevitable. No matter how many times its candle was nearly snuffed, it bounced right back with new and exciting complexities. Many individual animals lived in 'relative comfort' throughout the eons, though we're the only ones who wrote books about it. Apex predators tend to do that, and I think many marine mammals live in comfort (or at least used to) for example. So, perhaps you claim humans are reverting back to what we perceived to be our 'savage past' conditions, but we will probably live to see savagery well beyond what our ancestors got to experience. And for what remains of wildlife on this planet it's about to get far worse.
If you were a trilobite living through the PT extinction you probably wouldn't even perceive it was going on, since it happened so slowly (compared to your individual lifespan). Sure, terrestrial and marine habitats kept shrinking over millennia, but you wouldn't know it even if you were fully sapient. We acknowledge this event for what it was because we saw a boundary layer in rocks, revealing the pattern of extinction all at once.
The one time life surely was precarious, to the point where most animals felt their habitats immediately threatened by an unstoppable force they can't understand or control, was during the KT extinction. The aftermath of the meteor brought about darkness and cold temperatures leading to rampant starvation which lasted \~60,000 years. If you interviewed a crocodile during that time it will probably have admitted times are rough. It's probably the only time we had truly dramatic global changes happening on a timescale relevant to individual animals, apart from the time we're living through now. Vague titles like "70% of sea birds have disappeared since the 1950s" are used to mask the horrible reality of starvation, poisoning, dehydration, disorientation, and strife we've created.
In short, I do think were creating anomalous conditions to life on this planet, relative to what it's used to deal with. We've been doing that for a while, unfortunately, though the pace of destruction has picked up significantly in recent decades. Our perceived past savagery is serene and pastoral by comparison.
SavingsDimensions74@reddit
^ this
I was always going to be this.
Be grateful that we got to live in a golden age, for all its failures.
Blaming corporations or billionaires is akin to blaming DNA.
DomFitness@reddit
Billionaires have absolutely no place on this planet anymore, probably should have never had a place to begin with. They’ve historically proven that they rarely outdo the bad with something good. They continue to destroy all but what they hold close to themselves and are somehow allowed to operate in our society with severe undiagnosed mental health disorders. Their time here is done and without a 180° turnaround of their “Profit over People” way of life they all should be retired and any monies beyond what is truly spendable within their lifetime as well as that of their heirs, my opinion is this would be fair, and all other wealth spread out for the greater good of humanity and our planet. Wealth is not a game worth playing when others severely suffer especially when they can’t quit the game itself. If we all do good we all do good.✌🏻🤙🏻
SimpleAsEndOf@reddit
Great ideas but there's very very Capitalist/Neoliberal media and often Fascist media that are telling the public to look left/right and blame left/right instead of telling people to look up at their problems and blame the 1% who own 45% of the world's wealth.
https://i.redd.it/9kx5ejj1ttm61.jpg
Chomsky
Henry Adams
Lenin
Galimimus79@reddit
What nobody likes to explicitly say is the global GDP reduction is due to population reduction.
It's why many in the finance sphere don't seem to care as they don't think those most at risk are their customers.
CorvidCorbeau@reddit
Partly due to population reduction.
GDP can shrink even when populations grow, but you will hit a pretty sharp dive downwards in your returns if your population rapidly starts dropping.
lejka005@reddit (OP)
Do you know what is worse than these corporations? Politicians pretending to care about climate change/pollution. Once they get into power, they just ignore it or put up a useless show for people.
Make a change and vote accordingly, even though I think it is too late for that. Our planet is dying, and so are we.
Dudeogenes@reddit
If you think voting will change things, perhaps you should look into who pays for all of their political campaigns.
StatementBot@reddit
The following submission statement was provided by /u/lejka005:
Do you know what is worse than these corporations? Politicians pretending to care about climate change/pollution. Once they get into power, they just ignore it or put up a useless show for people.
Make a change and vote accordingly, even though I think it is too late for that. Our planet is dying, and so are we.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1ltskip/shortterm_profit_over_livable_planet/n1sn42t/