Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Mo_reese]

A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

... Then it seems there will be no solution, and no recovery, just a descent into the mire. Perhaps it will engulf us while the American Empire still survives? We'll see...

Since you are so strongly against US capitalism, and the EU is already breaking, then you can only be recommending one thing - that the CCP becomes the world government. That would indeed be a totalitarian nightmare. On the plus side, we are a probably a tad too old to be used for organ harvesting. Seriously, a cohesive world government is utterly impossible.

Besides, we are already decades too late - the temperature changes are locked in. Atmospheric CO2 is not something you just switch off. Humans being humans, serious action won't happen until there is no choice. That's a problem when there are long lag times between cause and effect. A wicked problem.

As for the "American Empire", there is no such thing. It's a metaphor. It's not rare in history for dominant societies to become unstable due to growing inequality. The media and activists misread the situation, though. It's not the top 1%, it's the top 0.01% that is increasing its share at an incredible rate, and there's evidence for that.

That this thread even exists shows that cracks are appearing in the system. When the wealth divide reaches a certain point, unrest begins, eg. Rome, Egypt, Mayans, France and the USSR. I expect that the mainstream media will lie, hide and mislead as usual to maintain the status quo, and keep people distracted and divided with petty culture wars.

If one doesn't like capitalism, it doesn't make sense that they would then support the CCP which is the biggest capitalist system in the world.
I agree that we are beyond the tipping point even if we could decide to try to save humanity. I also agree that a world government would be a disaster.
Why argue over whether we call it the American Empire or not. Maybe American Empire-like is better?
Maybe a question for another thread would be, when humanity collapses, will any humans remain to try to adapt to the new environment?

[Sy Borg]

A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

... Then it seems there will be no solution, and no recovery, just a descent into the mire. Perhaps it will engulf us while the American Empire still survives? We'll see...

Since you are so strongly against US capitalism, and the EU is already breaking, then you can only be recommending one thing - that the CCP becomes the world government. That would indeed be a totalitarian nightmare. On the plus side, we are a probably a tad too old to be used for organ harvesting. Seriously, a cohesive world government is utterly impossible.

Besides, we are already decades too late - the temperature changes are locked in. Atmospheric CO2 is not something you just switch off. Humans being humans, serious action won't happen until there is no choice. That's a problem when there are long lag times between cause and effect. A wicked problem.

As for the "American Empire", there is no such thing. It's a metaphor. It's not rare in history for dominant societies to become unstable due to growing inequality. The media and activists misread the situation, though. It's not the top 1%, it's the top 0.01% that is increasing its share at an incredible rate, and there's evidence for that.

That this thread even exists shows that cracks are appearing in the system. When the wealth divide reaches a certain point, unrest begins, eg. Rome, Egypt, Mayans, France and the USSR. I expect that the mainstream media will lie, hide and mislead as usual to maintain the status quo, and keep people distracted and divided with petty culture wars.

If one doesn't like capitalism, it doesn't make sense that they would then support the CCP which is the biggest capitalist system in the world.
I agree that we are beyond the tipping point even if we could decide to try to save humanity. I also agree that a world government would be a disaster.
Why argue over whether we call it the American Empire or not. Maybe American Empire-like is better?
Maybe a question for another thread would be, when humanity collapses, will any humans remain to try to adapt to the new environment?

Another question is how soon that technologically enhanced humans utterly dominate the rest, just as humans dominate other animals.

[Lagayascienza]

If the top 1%, or the top 0.1%, could stop being so greedy and power hungry, and if we could all do that, then we could cooperate and bring about change. But humans, being the creatures they are, are unlikely to ever accept this. So my guess is that it will be business as usual until we trash the joint completely. If they are lucky, there may be time for the few to technologically enhance themselves while the rest of us are wasted. But I think that is unlikely - it would take centuries of science before they could become the sort of cyborgs who could inhabit a trashed earth or for them to live off planet. If that is so, then humans, especially the top 0.1%, will deserve the type of hellscape they have knowingly created and will be forced to inhabit.

[Sy Borg]

The Earth won't be a desolate wasteland any time soon. If you ignore media clickbait and focus on the actual claims, they usually refer to major happenings much later on. And there will still be pleasant parts of the Earth for a very long time, just that these will be gated/fortified communities. Humans have always done this. Before humans, other animals did it - finding good territory and guarding it fiercely.

I don't buy into the left's current doomsaying, self flagellation and desire for societal destruction. I don't buy the right's claims that it's all hype either. The world is run on BS and almost everything we are told is filtered, distorted, edited and so on, all aimed to push certain agendas.

Some here seem to think humans deserve to be wiped off the face of the Earth. No, nature will follow its various courses. Imagine that humans go the way of dinosaurs. There are, at present, about 50 billions birds alive today. Nature doesn't follow the absolutist scripts of human imaginations and propaganda. We keep thinking that we are in control, and we absolutely are not. The dreadful 0.01% are not to blame either. Put most people in their shoes and they would do the same. It's just the way systems form and evolve; much of it is not under human control, more under the influence of probabilities, system dynamics and chaos.

Here's an example of chaos and complexity making coordination in positive projects difficult:

[Lagayascienza]

I don't think the earth will become uninhabitable for all organisms - at least not until the sun becomes a red giant. And life would go on without us even if we didn't survive global heating. However, there will be parts of the earth that will still habitable for humans for hundreds of years even in a worst climate change scenario. It will depend on how global heating and the destruction of the environment plays out and that will depend on how long we keep pumping CO2 and methane etc. into the atmosphere and wrecking the forests and oceans. I, too, don't buy into the fear mongering or the naysaying about global heating. It happening alright. But it won't be like throwing a switch and earth sundenly becomes uninhabitable. It will take time. There will be plenty of time for further wars, more greed, and maybe a revolution or two.

[Mo_reese]

A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

... Then it seems there will be no solution, and no recovery, just a descent into the mire. Perhaps it will engulf us while the American Empire still survives? We'll see...

Since you are so strongly against US capitalism, and the EU is already breaking, then you can only be recommending one thing - that the CCP becomes the world government. That would indeed be a totalitarian nightmare. On the plus side, we are a probably a tad too old to be used for organ harvesting. Seriously, a cohesive world government is utterly impossible.

Besides, we are already decades too late - the temperature changes are locked in. Atmospheric CO2 is not something you just switch off. Humans being humans, serious action won't happen until there is no choice. That's a problem when there are long lag times between cause and effect. A wicked problem.

As for the "American Empire", there is no such thing. It's a metaphor. It's not rare in history for dominant societies to become unstable due to growing inequality. The media and activists misread the situation, though. It's not the top 1%, it's the top 0.01% that is increasing its share at an incredible rate, and there's evidence for that.

That this thread even exists shows that cracks are appearing in the system. When the wealth divide reaches a certain point, unrest begins, eg. Rome, Egypt, Mayans, France and the USSR. I expect that the mainstream media will lie, hide and mislead as usual to maintain the status quo, and keep people distracted and divided with petty culture wars.

If one doesn't like capitalism, it doesn't make sense that they would then support the CCP which is the biggest capitalist system in the world.
I agree that we are beyond the tipping point even if we could decide to try to save humanity. I also agree that a world government would be a disaster.
Why argue over whether we call it the American Empire or not. Maybe American Empire-like is better?
Maybe a question for another thread would be, when humanity collapses, will any humans remain to try to adapt to the new environment?

[Lagayascienza]

A world government of federated nations could work if it functioned democratically and each adult human had an equal vote, and if we had truly free media, if we had an incorruptible bureaucracy, if we had a good electoral system, and if we taxed corporations fairly to keep the government running ... If, if, if ... But we can't even manage democracy well on a national level let alone on a global level, so it's not going to happen. Therefore, I guess we have a choice between authoritarian regimes run by the likes of the CCP, dictatorial depots like Putin in Russia, or we muddle along with our far-from-perfect democracies.

I'll go with the latter. I just wish our democracies were social democracies who would stop the corporatization of everything and tax big, multinational corporations fairly so our quasi-democratic governments could do a bit more redistribution to even up the playing field. But even this modest proposal couldn't happen unless all nations agreed to tax the big corporations at the same rate. Otherwise the bast#*ds just go offshore to tax havens and take all the remaining jobs with them. Maybe if the 99% are squeezed much more by the 1% we'll have a revolution that might bring change, but revolutions are always messy and it's the people and not the 1% who always suffer.

[Sy Borg]

The ultra rich have to keep accumulating to keep up with, or stay ahead of, the competition, which is now international, and doesn't even always operate by the same rules. It seems to be a never-ending treadmill of competition that will only end a major momentum breaking event or, more likely, over a period. After all, the asteroid didn't end the non-avian dinosaurs by itself. There'd been a period of dieback already due to the effects of volcanism.

If I was a long-lived alien watching the Earth unfold, I'd be reaching for the popcorn. Never mind just the US, the world is facing this all at once. Advancements in wealth are increasingly concentrating at the top in China and India too.

[Lagayascienza]

Yes, it's happening all over. Most take what the media serves up and think they just have to work harder or be smarter or ... something. Or they just give up, bewildered. They'll keep being squeezed. There's nothing 99.9%-ers can do as isolated individuals. Just have to suck it up. Or wait for a great leader. But we know how most of those turn out.

Capitalism and a level of competition are good and necessary on a roughly even playing field. That's how capitalism and market economies works best - innovation driven by competition increases productivity. But what we currently have now that the Blackrocks of this world are running the show is not competition. It's just keeping the 99% captive on a monopolistic treadmill masquerading as capitalism owned by the 0.1% who suck ever more wealth up to the top. It's why the real wages of working people have been falling for decades.

There's only one way out of it that I can see. That is for voters in democratic countries to wise up. Not gonna happen. At least, I can't see how it can happen.

[Pattern-chaser]

Consider the challenge of climate-change. Can we actually address it without a world government? One body, with the authority to rule, and the power (or whatever it takes) for its rules to be followed. A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

How would it be possible to turn around the current pending climate disaster without a world government? However, such a government would have to be authoritarian and billions of people would most likely be sacrificed.

Yes. But I have to disagree, quite strongly, with your last few words. Trying to repair the damage done does not necessarily involve mass executions or extermination.

Consider the challenge of climate-change. Can we actually address it without a world government? One body, with the authority to rule, and the power (or whatever it takes) for its rules to be followed. A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

... Then it seems there will be no solution, and no recovery, just a descent into the mire. Perhaps it will engulf us while the American Empire still survives? We'll see...

Since you are so strongly against US capitalism, and the EU is already breaking, then you can only be recommending one thing - that the CCP becomes the world government.

[...]

I stopped reading at the end of your sentence. Yet again, you ascribe opinions to me that are not mine; that I have never supported or espoused. I will not try to refute or support opinions that I have never held or stated.

[Mo_reese]

Consider the challenge of climate-change. Can we actually address it without a world government? One body, with the authority to rule, and the power (or whatever it takes) for its rules to be followed. A world government may not be desirable to some, but without it, can you see any possibility of us ceasing our depredations?

How would it be possible to turn around the current pending climate disaster without a world government? However, such a government would have to be authoritarian and billions of people would most likely be sacrificed.

Yes. But I have to disagree, quite strongly, with your last few words. Trying to repair the damage done does not necessarily involve mass executions or extermination.

I am certainly not advocating such extreme actions, but that might be what an authoritarian world government might advocate to save humanity.
One thing we must do is to reduce the damage we are doing to the oceans.

[Sy Borg]

There's only one way out of it that I can see. That is for voters in democratic countries to wise up. Not gonna happen. At least, I can't see how it can happen.

There's no one to vote for. The Greens gave up on environment a long time ago and are now focused on social Marxism in the form of race and gender, and they are the biggest spruikers of the immigration Ponzi scheme, which is driving up house prices and rents (and shrinking animal habitats). The Libs and Labor are also corrupt.

As Mounce said, it's companies like Blackrock and Vanguard (with significant stocks in arms companies) that are running things from behind the scenes.

[Lagayascienza]

We'd need new parties, or we'd need to reform the old ones from within.

[Pattern-chaser]

Trying to repair the damage done does not necessarily involve mass executions or extermination.

I am certainly not advocating such extreme actions, but that might be what an authoritarian world government might advocate to save humanity.
One thing we must do is to reduce the damage we are doing to the oceans.

If we somehow engineered a world government, magically capable of ruling, we might hope that they would concentrate on necessary measures, of which there are many, not unnecessary ones. The oceans are one priority, as you say. It's the formation of a global government that is the sticking-point...

But this is a distraction from your topic, so let's leave this distraction here?

[Belinda]

A world government of federated nations could work if it functioned democratically and each adult human had an equal vote, and if we had truly free media, if we had an incorruptible bureaucracy, if we had a good electoral system, and if we taxed corporations fairly to keep the government running ... If, if, if ... But we can't even manage democracy well on a national level let alone on a global level, so it's not going to happen. Therefore, I guess we have a choice between authoritarian regimes run by the likes of the CCP, dictatorial depots like Putin in Russia, or we muddle along with our far-from-perfect democracies.

I'll go with the latter. I just wish our democracies were social democracies who would stop the corporatization of everything and tax big, multinational corporations fairly so our quasi-democratic governments could do a bit more redistribution to even up the playing field. But even this modest proposal couldn't happen unless all nations agreed to tax the big corporations at the same rate. Otherwise the bast#*ds just go offshore to tax havens and take all the remaining jobs with them. Maybe if the 99% are squeezed much more by the 1% we'll have a revolution that might bring change, but revolutions are always messy and it's the people and not the 1% who always suffer.

Do you think trade unions can equalise the power differential between the workers and the 1%?