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James Lovelock Suggests Suspending Democracy To Save the World
mosb1000 writes "Climate scientist James Lovelock claims it may be necessary to put democracy on hold to prevent a global climate catastrophe. He goes on to say that the best remedies may be adaptation techniques such as building sea defenses."
Lovelock is famously the creator of the Gaia hypothesis.
I'm an environmentalist, but I also know that if you put democracy "on hold" it's awfully hard to get it started again.
Ugh! Naked troll story.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
if if only only we we had had the the technology technology
Climate scientist James Lovelock claims it may be necessary to put democracy on hold to prevent a global climate catastrophe.
So he wants to save a world without Democracy in it?
I claim it may be necessary to put climate scientist James Lovelock on hold to prevent a global Democracy catastrophe.
A successful global effort to "put democracy on hold" for any reason would be proof enough to me that this planet is not worth saving.
Here in the US, we don't have democracy now. We have a two party, democratic REPUBLIC. The politicians can pretty much do whatever they want after they have been elected because the media has conditioned us to believe that we have only two parties from which to choose (i.e. - "bipartisan").
Ban the party system. At this point, the legislative vending machine that we call "government" will fall apart and we'll have something much closer to "democracy".
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i suppose if we can suspend democracy and civil rights to fight the TERRORISTS,
we also can suspend them to stop global warming...
Democracy slows down progress! .. in other news, scissors sharp.. fire hot.. water wet
But seriously.. when a huge number of people with completely different objectives and viewpoints have to agree for anything to happen.. stuff happens very slowly. Still, better than most alternatives..
He does have historical precedent on his side - after all, Plato thought that the best form of government would be rule by philosopher-kings.
In terms of practical historical precedent, not so much. This sort of thing tends to end badly. I think it's far better for us to thrash these issues out now, so that in the future everyone will be more aware of the standard array of denialist tactics.
...stepping on a human face forever.
It's going to be a Birkenstock.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Would be to suspend James Lovelock. In carbonite.
Elect me benevolent dictator and I promise to limit my term. I'll step down as soon as all of the world's problems are fixed.
I thought it was an effective choice between two parties with both being in the pockets of big business? So really its one choice in reality and you don't have enough money to influence what happens. Ever.
Shh.
China is not a democracy, and they have not risen to the challenge of combating global climate change either.
I don't think he's right about what will stop climate change. Is it the getting rid of democracy or is it building building sea defenses?
I'm pretty sure it's actually the lack of democracy (for lack of a better word) coupled with the dynamics of capitalism that have us in this hole.
The ensuing civil war that will break out from suspending democracy will certainly help save the environment with the casualties no longer consuming natural resources.
I don't think anyone has taken Gaea seriously since someone pointed out that the switch-over to an oxygen-rich atmosphere meant Gaea essentially committed suicide to bring on the new order of things.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
perhaps we need to suspend james lovelock to save democracy
This whole 'carbon footprint' and 'green' malarky is just a way to make us feel bad about pretty much anything we do even though we might be able to afford it and so the eventual aim seems to be to usher in an authoritarian regime where everybody is given the absolute minimum necessary to survive.
These doomsday environmentalists are not helping the situation one bit - I am actually interested in renewable energy, electric cars and so on but each time one of these guys opens their mouth I feel like jumping into the car and pouring 70 litres of petrol into the tank while I'm still allowed, you know.
Before we are all thrown into a supermassive apartment block and given only rice crackers and water to live off. If we are lucky they might allow us a single CFL in our cell and the very obedient are allowed a recycled netbook with Google Chrome OS or similar Web-only OS.
Meanwhile the politicians and scientists behind this regime will obviously be livin' the good live on some island with all the fuel and personal freedom they could possibly ever think of asking for.
Everyone I know whose against global warming - and I'm not talking about folks who are legitimate skeptics who base their opinions on science. I'm talking about Joe and Jane (usually AM Radio/Fox News consumers) who want the whole Global Warming idea to go away because they firmly believe that global Warming is a myth created to:
They are afraid of losing their lifestyle: unbridled consumption. The stereotype? Big SUV with "McCain/Palin" bumper stickers and sometimes faded Bush 04 stickers. They want all their money and explaining that the reduction in Greenhouse gases will also clean up the air just goes over their head.
My favorite cartoon of all time shows an climatologist screaming "What if we clean up the Earth for nothing!" - or something like that.
It boils down to people wanting to benefit from pollution (economically) without having to pay the consequences. Unfortunately, they don't see the damage to their health from a dirty environment.
People like this who don't value their democratic freedoms should be made to live by their own decrees. So start with James Lovelock's democratic rights:
- I'm sorry Mr Lovelock, you no longer have a say in that
- I'm sorry Mr Lovelock, but you may no longer speak on that issue. If you do, you shall be arrested.
- I'm sorry Mr Lovelock, but you're under arrest. Your rights have been stripped so we don't have to give you a reason, or a trial, or let your family know.
- I'm sorry Mr Lovelock, but your food, water, and oxygen rations have been reallocated to someone else.
How'd ya like that lack of democracy now you crazy coote? Didn't think so.
Reductio ad aburdum? Perhaps, but then again what he's saying is so absurd perhaps the reductio part wasn't needed.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Suspending democracy is a great way to be told, forever, that the climate will be fixed at the end of the current five year plan.
I don't think so...at the same time, this guy has to be the first environmentalist to speak the truth behind their extremist message: it's about controlling people's lives, and less about the environment.
What else is there to say? That kind of a stupid argument does not deserve a second of consideration or refutation. Save the world one step at a time: Shut up and die, one less source of carbon dioxide.
We have to suspend democracy in order to save it eh? Sounds like the Vietnam era "we have to destroy the village to save it".
Ok, I know building is both a noun and verb and all, but come on.
Lovelock's lovely idealism is well represented by the Nazi record on human rights, the Soviet Union's record on pollution, and Pol Pot's support for intellectual inquiry. Mugabi's farm programs come to mind.
Totalitarian regimes are often started by the firey passions of committed intellectuals, who are shot once the populist revolutions they engender empower the thugs to take control. Then we see what happens to their pretty ideas. Villa for me, firing squad for you. Thanks, nerd, for my family's newfound power.
Conspiracy theorists are babbling about how climate change is an excuse to suspend democracy and unite all countries under a world government, and the solution is to suspend democracy and unite all countries under a world government in order to combat climate change. That's deliciously ironic.
"James Lovelock".
Remember that name; he's an evil person.
That's all it is. This guy is a crackpot. He came up with a "theory" dressed up in science, that is nothing but wild speculation. Actually, it's not even speculation. It's Religion. He just decided the earth is a sentient being, without providing any kind of evidence for this ridiculous claim.
He also makes ridiculously close predictions for the "end of the world" and other unscientific predictions.
Now we know he's also against democracy.
What a nice guy.
Please, go ahead and try to measure him here http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html. My crackpot-o-meter went off-scale after trying to measure his theories.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
To fight terrorist porn. Or was it child terrorism?
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Let's put it to a vote.
There is a significant amount of evidence that global warming is not even really driven by humanity. Even if you ignore the fact that the sun, and therefore the entire solar system, is heating up, the cause of earth-bound heating effects are still undetermined. It is a matter of no small debate among climatologists. Hardly a settled question.
It is therefore quite disturbing to see the suggestion that the level of self-determination in terms of leadership and political decision-making should be curtailed in order to ameliorate the effect that people may or may not be having on the environment.
dsginter makes a good point, but regardless of exactly how much sovereignty the people currently have over themselves, (and I think we can all agree that it's not much (and already declining...)) there's no reason to strip it away entirely over global warming--especially since all the facts are not in.
I tend to think that there exist powers (that be) that wish to "put democracy on hold" for their own selfish reasons. Hence, the generation of such lame justification for said "on-hold-putting" as this.
As George Carlin "nicely" puts it, the planet will eventually adapt. It's the humans who have the most to lose from warming and pollution. If we all vote to @#%$! ourselves, then perhaps that's fate. (Not sure dictators care either.)
Table-ized A.I.
If we have to give up essential freedom to stop climate change than I don't want stop it all. I'd rather just adapt to the new conditions whatever they may be.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
"English, motha****er -- Do you speak it?"
Seriously /. ... has it come to this?
Lovelock is being taken out of context. A more full quote:
But it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
From the slightly-less-badly-edited interview at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
In other words, he's not calling for putting democracy on hold. He's predicting that it's going to reach a point where it's an obvious, impending crisis, like a war, and people aren't going to respond democratically to it.
He doesn't believe people are going to take climate change seriously until it's too late. Or at least, not enough people. There will continue to be arguments and finger-pointing until it finally becomes obvious. Not that it's a good thing, just a thing he expects.
Read the rest of the interview, and Lovelock sounds less like a monster than the article is trying to make him out to be. He's still elitist, proudly so:
Science was always elitist and has to be elitist. The very idea of diluting it down [to be more egalitarian] is crazy. We're paying the price for it now.
but he's not calling for an end to democracy. He's simply telling everybody they'll be sorry if they don't listen to him.
Take a look at the most important armed conflicts of the british empire in the last 60 years.
What do they have in common?
You guessed! Suspended democracy!
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
Goes to show exactly why climate change nut-jobs are DANGEROUS PEOPLE. But the history of the world is full of examples of killing people for lies. Climate change is a good substitute for (insert diety of choice), or even a political credo (Communism/Maoism/(proving Godwin's law)National Socialism). Hey let's suspend freedom to "save the environment".
The real problem behind all of this is, of course, overpopulation. I propose that instead of eliminating democracy we should just eliminate around 80% of the population. I can provide a list of volunteers for extermination (starting with Mr. Lovelock), and I ask others to do likewise. I, of course, choose not to be on any list.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This guy has lost the plot. First nuclear power as a way to save the planet. Now 'putting democracy on hold' to achieve the same goal.
Now, I'm under no illusions as to the state of our alleged democracy: we don't have one. We are wage slaves who delegate our power to representatives of the ruling class. But do we really want to be 'officially' handing over the keys like this?
Surely the only way to achieve the kind of world-wide change we need is a world-wide democratic revolution ( and no, I'm not talking about American / Western style democracy, but REAL democracy ). Bring on the TRULY democratic, one-world government!
Off with your heads, you environmentally insensitive clods!
Well, yes, but the difference between republic and democracy is just two turns of anarchy. 'Course, you just have to choose the right time, 'cause you just know someone out there has an army of anti-tank spearmen with your name on it the moment you're with your pants down ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The EU and UN are run by unelected officials and they're already pushing the "manmade global warming" propeganda pretty hard. Why is he suggesting them after it has already been done?
... which I think is tone-deaf and stupid, and will instantly be used by the truly rabid anti-climate-change "skeptic" types as evidence that the entire environmental movement is a secret plan to institute world government. The fact that this claim will be total horseshit won't stop them for a second --- it never does.
The guy is 90 years old, he's probably got a different perspective on things, and anyway he doesn't represent most people's feelings on the matter.
That said, there is one element of truth to what he's saying: namely that if the $hit really does hit the fan (e.g., a major climactic catastrophe, or confirmation that the clathrate feeback look really is happening), things like democracy and the healthy free market are going to be severely endangered. When a society is fighting for its survival, niceties like that are often the first thing to go. And in case you don't follow me, I'm saying that this is a bad thing, and the best way to avoid it is to deal with the problem in an intelligent, conservative way (cutting emissions now).
If nothing else, you can expect a massive decline in our standard of living if human-caused climate change is strongly confirmed in a couple of decades (and it will be, I suspect) and we have to come up with some crazy last-minute mitigation plan.
I would have a different feeling about this if the anti-climate-change side was offering some kind of reassuring science to counter what the majority of climate scientists are finding, but they're not. Mostly we're getting horseshit like misinterpreted emails. And if a movement with so many followers (and billions in fossil-fuel profits) can't offer anything better than that, you should be scared. Really scared.
In THEORY we have a two party democratic republic. In REALITY we have a corruptocracy composed of a consipiracy between politicians and mega-corporations. The two parties are a charade. They are tweedledum and tweedledee.
Copenhagen showed the individual governments of the world will never get past self interest to agree on a common approach. It is pointless having a system where a Pacific or Indian Ocean country can scuttle a brokered deal by voting no. In the end the G8 will have to make an agreement and then enforce it on the rest of the world. So in a sense Lovelock is correct, just at the wrong level of government.
He's no scientist if he's relying on data rendered questionable because of blatant disregard for scientific principles.
East Anglia data, as well as substantial portions of the rest of the World's data being rendered essentially useless is unforgiveable, scientifically (at least). Putting your thermometers near heat sinks makes your data useful for studies of temperatures near heat sinks, not global climate trends.
Too bad that population centers encroached on the weather stations, but we can't pretend it didn't happen, or that the data from those stations is useful.
Even more disturbing (well, at least as disturbing) is NASA'a admissions that their climate data is LESS reliable than East Anglia's.
I am a scientist, and I'll admit that I've screwed up an experiment or two, and couldn't use the generated data. These screw ups with climate monitoring are monumental, though, and are affecting peoples' quality of life, one way or another, around the world.
Too bad there is INSUFFICIENT SUPPORTABLE SCIENCE to support either side of the argument.
It's all down to politicians, aka marketing.
What a waste, at so many levels.
Molecular Mechanic
He has this completely backwards. The problem is not enough democracy. If all the people of the were given a referendum to cut greenhouse gas production to protect the environment, it would easily win.
The powerful interests are the ones preventing anything from being done about climate change. Suspending democracy won't work because there is no one to hand control of the world to who would work to overt climate catastrophe.
However, the people of the world, particularly of the third world, do want to do every thing possible to save the environment. So the answer is more democracy in both government and economic affairs.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Environmentalism was a secret movement there and people were harassed by the secret police for doing something for the environment. This is exactly what this fool wants with his dreamed up theories. Now you just have to explain to me, i.e. how mining in Russia and Eastern Germany were environmentaly friendly. Not to speak of all the other desasters. He probably also thinks Chernobyl was a good idea.
Je me souviens.
We've got the world's most capable military by a very large margin, more than half our citizens own guns and know how to use them (to quote the Japanease Admiral, a rifle behind every blade of grass), etc. etc. etc....
Only an egghead from a country that started to disarm it's subjects almost a century ago (the Bolshevik revolution terrified the U.K. ruling class) could suggest such lunacy.
Evidently the people you ridicule are smarter than you are.
While I agree that democracy isn't the ideal form of government, fascism will not really work while humans are in charge, as humans are. That would take a Deus-Ex-like "philosopher king" scenario with either transhuman rulers/subjects or hard AI or both. Alternatively, the second coming might work to the same effect... Anyone here have any spare nukes and don't mind spending the rest of eternity in a lake of fire? I don't really mock him, though, he seems to be in favor of nuclear power and he doesn't really come off as a total crackpot. And haven't everyone here felt that they really are "surrounded by fools", and that those running the country should at least be better people than themselves? Seeing decision-makers bicker like little children and express racist, egotistic and sexist comments when they think they aren't recorded is really depressing. It sounds to him that he expects that he (and his buddies, perhaps) should just be able to walk up to congress and dictate how things are done. Even if one does subscribe to the idea that the educated elite should make the decisions, with people that are competent in a field making the decisions relevant to their knowledge, actually doing things that way would lead to revolt.
Emotions! In your brain!
Ooops. I put a sarcasm tag on this with angle brackets to be sure no one misinterpreted, but I hit submit too quickly--slash deleted....
I think the real point is nothing will be done until we stop the endless debate about whether it's happening and the cause. First I hear it isn't happening then I hear we can't be the cause. Most of the people doubting it seem to be reacting to what is happening in the center and southern parts of the country this winter. Oddly enough global warming already predicted more snow and rainfall. Heat causes more atmospheric moisture, climate 101. Check out the northern part of the country up to the north pole. We've had massive change. I live in central Maine and our winter was 2 months long instead of the usual 5 or 6 months. There's no snow left and they are talking 70+ weather for the weekend. That's insane for early April. New York up through southern Maine is getting hammered with rain and some areas are already talking once in a 100 year flooding. How many times in the last 10 years have I heard once in a 100 years used when talking about weather? We don't need to suspend democracy we need to get on the same page. I've seen snow on the ground through May and this year it was mostly gone by mid March. We've got to stop predicting global warming by sticking our fingers out the window. It's a worldwide issue and your local weather has nothing to do with what's happening in the other 99.99% of the globe. The one problem with democracy is if 51% of the country is dead wrong about climate change then the other 49% have to suffer for their mistake. No serious academic is debating warming and very few are debating we are the cause. If you really want to be democratic about it believe the vast majority of the researchers in climate that are saying we are causing it and we'd better change our ways. If you want to follow the majority they are the majority.
Why democracy? why not Communism or feudalism?
Democracy is just one of the many types of government and has nothing to do with environmental issues.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
> If democracy has become an end in itself, then it's not worth saving.
Why not? I'd rather preserve a decent society for a shorter time than to eek out a meager existence in some hell-hole.
And if you tell me it's because we're doomed if we don't solve global climate change, but we can fix culture later, I'll remind you that this planet is a ticking time bomb: the sun will expand and envelop the earth eventually. Oh, think we'll escape to the stars? Okay, assuming we find enough fuel/energy to get people out of here (and some habitable stars / space habitats), the universe itself will wind down (thanks to entropy). There's no solution to that. And if there is, in spite of all we know? Protons will decay on us. Can't make new ones either (without a new big bang). And if we could make a new big bang? Can't survive that (no spacetime / won't help this universe).
My point? This whole universe and whatever life is in it is totally screwed. The only question is when.
Sure I agree that we may be circling the drain waiting for a democratically acceptable solution to the problem. But claiming that democracy should be suspended while intelligent people set about saving the rest of us is just the sort of thing that has the tea bag party threatening to revolt. Last weekend they kicked it off in Searchlight, NV, and one of their rants is that global warming is part of a plot to eliminate American sovereignty. Now after sensible people tried to assure them that this isn't so, this egghead pops up with all this elitist crap.
I'd rather perish in a Democracy than survive in a Dictatorship, no matter how benevolent.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
People is too stupid to coordinate to save the environment, i agree with that. Will be even harder to coordinate how to get a global government, unless some major empir... i mean government basically go to global war "for the environment" (not that it is a weaker excuse than most that have been used for previous wars). Maybe a global termonuclear war will solve the environment problem (or at least, the problem around those tiny little creatures that are causing it).
when you've already sold it
I've been thinking for a while now that our world can no longer afford the vast and growing number of celebrities that compete for our attention and our economic output. If a cap were put on the number of celebrities, at say 15% of the number that now exist, and new ones could only be created when an existing one had died and been forgotten, then the total impact to the environment and the economy would be vastly reduced. The number of pages in the tabloids would drop by a factor of five at least, saving countless trees. The number of jet trips to film festivals and book signings would be likewise drastically chopped.
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
I'd say that even "democracy slows down progress" isn't necessarily true.
From a historical point of view, progress was all but halted when Europe was plunged into the absolute dictatorship of petty kings in the Middle Ages. And it's probably symptomatic that Renaissance was intertwined with putting various checks on that power. Be it the Magna Carta, or the weakening of the HRE, or the rise of the communes (cities whose citizens swore to stand together for their independence from the arbitrary rule of the local earl), or whatever equivalent. Progress happened when basically the king was in less of a position to tell the merchants and craftsmen and artists what to do.
The roots of what would later become the industrial revolution happened when the King and Church were no longer in a position to tell the merchants what price is right for the wares, what clothes they must wear, or how they must work the land, and so on. It's not even metaphor, those were things which were enforced, and breaking which was considered a capital sin (e.g., buying clothes above one's station was the mortal sin of vainglory). All in the name of forcing the society to work according to some idea of how it _should_ work.
All that iron-fisted guidance of how it all worked didn't exactly accelerate progress. And removing those brakes is what caused progress.
From a more "why it happened" point of view, well, there is no guarantee that the one guy (or one clique) with the power is actually more competent. And in some cases even interested in a progress, instead of preserving a status quo that favours them.
But even if they want to progress, it's all too easy to do the wrong things. Being able to sprint in any direction you wish without waiting for a committee to say "go", doesn't mean you can't run in the wrong direction entirely. E.g., witness the Qing dynasty's turning China from a country with cannons and flamethrowers and every bit on par with the west, to a mess of a place that had actually devolved technologically to polearms by the time they faced the British. Sure, they had the unchecked power to enforce anything they could without waiting for a committee -- and they actually went to such extremes as enforcing a mandatory haircut -- but did they enforce the right things? And was it progress? No, it was an era of steady regress.
And sometimes it's faster because they can make other people pay a price that we wouldn't otherwise find acceptable. E.g., sure, Stalin could industrialize the USSR very fast, but it was by literally starving millions of peasants to death so he could export their grain in exchange for technology and industrial equipment. Ask a Ukrainian about that era, if you want to be cruel. They might actually have some relative which literally died of starvation, or was summarily executed by the NKVD for still having enough to eat. Sure, it might be slower to do that in a democracy (except looking at what other countries did in the same era, not really), but that's also for a good reason.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Let's begin by stopping freedom of speech for James Lovelock.
The first is that you seem to think that technology can't fix this problem. Please remember that a catastrophe of human population has been predicted for a long time. I'm not talking about decades long, I'm talking about centuries long. Malthus would be one of the classical famous names in it and he was late 1700s early 1800s. People seem to want to think that we can't fix our problems but that's wrong. There's a rather good TED talk on the matter (http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_cosmos.html) that our problems are more or less engineering problems and we need to focus our efforts on science and technology.
The second is that we can check population growth though pretty voluntary means, if we increase the quality of life for people. We find that counter to simple organisms we don't reproduce more and more in ideal conditions. Rather we voluntarily reduce our growth. You see this in first world nations where population growth is low or even negative.
Finally the ultimate problem is that while you might think that you, or someone you idolize or believe to be really smart, isn't really as smart and as incorruptible as you or they think. The idea that there is a person or group that we can put in charge with more or less no limits on their power because it is for the greater good is a bad one. We have millennia of human history showing that is NOT the case. While they may start with nothing but high ideals, the result has been universally lousy.
I know it may be easy to think that people who are educated (to the standards you consider educated) would make a better world if only they were allowed the power to do so, but that really isn't the case.
I agree completely. We should definately put democracy on hold...and I propose myself as the new god-emperor of Earth. As the new supreme Earth being, my first act will be to inform you all that my mere awesomeness has averted the catastrophe. Of course, that will only remain true as long as I am supplied with an endless supply of submissive women, beer, and skittles.
BTW, Lovecock...L. Ron Hubbard called and he wants his plotline back.
...like millions of skeptics crying out, "See? I told you that's what they were really after all along!"
Step 1: put democracy on hold
Step 2: go to war. Civil war, wars between nations, whatever. 4 billion people get killed
Step 3: the environmental problems may peak at first, what with the rampant destruction and all that, but after that, it all gets better!
No profit here, nowhere to spend it anyway.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
This guy does not represent the rest of rational scientists everywhere. He is as batty as the idiot who claims cell phones harm him.
I don't think anyone other than ideologues thinks we have reached the pinnacle of human civilization right now, that the systems we have now are perfect. Democracy has plenty of problems. It would be great if we could come up with a better system. However, that is the key that it needs to be a BETTER system. We have lots of different systems, all worse. As Churchill said "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." It isn't perfect, but it is as good as we've come up with so far.
If you can come up with a better system, great, but if you think you've come up with something, well check your work first. What I mean is see if the idea hasn't already been proposed and perhaps tired, and flaws found that you didn't notice. What sounds good on paper isn't always so good in reality, see communism as an example.
Most of the world, and especially the country that was so newsworthily stubborn at Copenhagen, has been keeping democracy on hold for the past several thousand years, but the globe is getting warmer anyway.
If you really want to know more on the hidden agenda of such issue, please do a search of "Lovelock" and "Gala" at this site: http://www.crossroad.to/text/search.html
We all know who is really responsible for most CO2 emissions: greenpeace and other antinuclear groups. Please ask China how much nuclear power costs when you strip off the red green tape. The answer is that it is cheaper than gas, coal, oil, solar, wind, and basically everything except hydroelectric power. So, please stop the environmentalists, and start the building.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Democracy is a nice ideal, but where is it practiced? Truth is we have governments, they are all basically the same, and the most efficient are dictatorships. Lovelock is off base about some things, but this solution is really the only solution, because the US proves that there is danger when the majority is wrong or stupid.
Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so- Zaphod beeblebrox
we need to put environmentalism on hold, to prevent a political catastrophe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As usuall words are being taken out of context here. If you look at the full interview linked to from the article you will find the full quote is as follows...
"What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."
This "whack-job" maybe 90yo but he's not a senile fool, he basically invented modern Earth Science and in recent years has attacked the green movement for it's dogmatic stance on nuclear energy (which has softened recently largely due mainly to Lovelock's arguments). What he is saying is AGW is as big a threat as war and needs a similar response in terms of unified societal effort. You may or may not agree with that but either way he is not saying "Oh sorry, your freedoms are inconvenient."
Of course the real wack-jobs will use his words as evidence for their NWO conspiracy theories.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I hate to break it to you, but we haven't had a republic since 1913.
Are you in one of the non-US, english-speaking countries that reads slashdot?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful." -- Well if we aren't clever enough to handle it, we will perish. So what. Another extinct life form. Since Lovelock will be dead in 10 years or so, he has nothing to fear.
So.... how difficult and expensive would it be for someone to force the collapse of the Pine Island glacier? Is there anything we can do to covertly accelerate its collapse within say.... the next five years?
he better not be complaining about my suv while he's taking "free" trips into space.
How does he take himself seriously.
In my experience, there's enormous grassroots support for action to counteract climate change and move towards ecologically sustainable practices. Most people I know are eagerly looking for ways to help, and often make sacrifices for the sake of the environment that may be greater sacrifices than are really necessary. It's not democracy, but the lack of it, that inhibits progress on these issues.
It's the wealthy minority, who by and large owe their position to ruthless exploitation of people and natural resources, who are most recalcitrant about ecological concerns. They're where they are because they're willing to sacrifice the needs of others for their own gain.
Suspending democracy -- insofar as we have it -- would be on the short list for the things most certain to lead to complete ecological devastation.
Give me liberty or give me death!
Nuff Said!
1. "the media" is not some sort of monolithic controlled source at the helm of control. its thousands of disparate voices. our posts on slashdot is "the media". slashdot is "the media". there is right wing media, there is left wing media. there is media for whatever audience you can imagine, each with its own stories, prejudices, and agendas, in constant flux, and controlled by no one. in other words: the media decides nothing. there is no logical coherence to even speak of "the media", as if it were any sort of coherent identity to speak of in such a way to draw any sort of valid statement
2. parties are inevitable. we are social creatures, and in fact our most social effort is politics itself. in other words, its impossibe to have politics without parties. we naturally evolve into factions and groups. so political parties will be with us forever, make peace with that fact. at best you simply drive parties underground, or rename them as something else: pointless
3. the democrats and republicans are different. tell me with a straight face al gore would have invaded iraq. the point is, the two parties seem the same because they fight over support from the middle, so they are always drawing close to each other, in the middle. which is actually wonderful: it provides stability by ensuring the party in control never drifts too far left or right from the center of opinion: they lose control if they do. furthermore, truly far left or far right parties will never gain control as long as you have democrats and republicans, because they simply don't appeal to enough people. which again, is wonderful: protection from extremism. another thing: when you vote, your choice is NEVER going to be ideologically your ideal. it will always be slightly closer to me, or slightly further from me. you ALWAYS vote strategic, not idealistic. there never, ever, in a healthy democracy, be some sort of dream where your ideal further left/ further right candidate will win, nor should it ever be so, if the true purpose of democracy: give voice to the people it si formed from, is ever to remain valid. so you always get a choice between slightly left, or slightly right, seemingly the same, and this is something you should celebrate: stability and legitimacy and permanently banished extremism
4. political parties are a DEFENSE from corporate influence. without political parties to filter corporate interests, ie, without the independent power centers the parties represent, there is nothing to prevent direct control of individual politicians by corporations, to shop for individual politicians carte blanche. and all alone and without support, there is no choice for those individual politicians, if they want to succeed, to be nothing but a puppet for their corporate backers (or the money dries up). so if you want a true corporatocracy, you will abolish political parties. in fact, the recent supreme court ruling allowing more corporate money (an obscene decision) in elections is a direct threat to the power of political parties (so hopefully, since they know their power is threatened, the supreme's moronic decision will be legislatively annulled by the parties). of course, the ideal is to do away with all corporate influence in a democracy. so if you really want to do that, the best way to do that, is to work the independent power centers: the political parties
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I want to free from democracy's phony bullshit.
What next is to kill all humen.
Freedom, respect.
I suggest we take a good look into the history of our plannet's weather history. The ice age did not kill us all, why a climate change would kill us all? We are going to against the weather, so some small group of "clever" engineers can determine all life's future?
Is the current "GREEN" movement based on solid foundation? Or it is just been hijack by urge of "controlling the words"? Please read On Bullshit http://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/0691122946
As the global government cements its power in an ocean of blood just imagine how much damage all the bombs, rockets and nerve agents will do for the world ecosystem. You've got to figure that a massive amount of the worlds citizenry are not going to go along with the eco-gov and will have to be crushed militarily.
Scratch the Green, find the Red beneath.
Dog is my co-pilot.
The problem is The Rich and those who have power and do their business behind
closed doors. Have an open and transparent government and control The Rich and
if that's not possible kill them. It's unfortunate that the masses don't understand
how truly powerful they are as a collective. You can boycott a lot of goods and
services and you can stop serving The Rich. And those who serve The Rich for a large
salary can be shunned. Yes it's harsh but our world is being destroyed by the
short-sighted Rich.
Unfortunately humanity is also addicted to democracy and capitalism.
The only answer to overpopulation is to ship them to another world to work and live on a base on another planet. I volunteer to go on the first shipment.
gov't financing of scientists
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
One begins to say stupid things keeping a straight face.
Democracy is by no means the most popular form of government. Just for starters China is not a democracy, carry on adding countries with no functioning democracies, with autocracies, theocracies and outright dictatorships and you will find out that the truly democratic world shrinks to a few enlightened pockets, and even there its hold is at times dubious.
It can be proven objectively that the standards of living, the ecology, educational achievements, respect for property and human rights, amongst many other desirable outcomes are better served by a democratic system. Democracy is better in any way that matters to individuals, minorities and big populations in general. We had several decades of leftist dictatorships in several countries, pretty much all failed, theocracies? look at Iran or Saudi Arabia, countries no fit for decen civilized living, dictatorships? Yeah, Venezuelans are having a great time.
Honestly, how a properly educated and curious person can claim such idiocy is beyond contemptible.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
A republic can be a democracy. They are non exclusive terms.
It seems like in the US somebody is disseminating this nonsense since very often people in this venerable website claim this fallacy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. " - William Pitt
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Plato's opinion is not historical precedent.
Historical precedent would be an historical record about how Democracy is worst for human development and how other systems are better.
This is not the case, any way you want to slice it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is an objective measure about how much an individual is contributing to the release of CO2 in the atmosphere, and CO2 is proven to cause green house effect, which leads to global warming and global climate change.
Deriding people that can't articulate solutions to the current ecological debacle we are facing will not make the problem go away.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As if we actually have democracy, anywhere.
Most nations are a plutocracy disguised as a republic, and sold to the public as a democracy.
Question everything
And the whole point of a democractic form of govt is that you are supposed to have an active and educated citizenry who take their civic duties seriously and make sure that the government THEIR government, the government that is FOR the people and BY the people does what the people require. At the same time, the government, as democracy, is a tool of the public will, and therefore acts in the interests of the commonweal. Governments, specifically democratic forms (parliamentary, republic, anarchist communes, whatever) are NOT monopolies like corporations can be/are. When corporations are democratically organised, where the CEO, CTO, CFO, etc. are ELECTED by the workforce of the company, then you can start comparing them. Until then, you're just another libertarian troll.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I'm running for Emperor of the United States. As Emperor, I would replace both the Congress and Executive Branch, and I will have the following limited powers
a) The ability to raise or lower taxes to a maximum of 15% of GDP, such that no one will be required to work more than 15% of their lives per year to satisfy my tax. I will also be allowed to engage government workers and prison convicts in monument building to my person, as I see fit.
b) The power to spend that money as I see fit, be it entitlements, military, foreign aid, bribes, whatever. I am also allowed to accept bribes and rename various geographical features after myself.
c) I will be able to pardon anyone as I need to.
d) The power to make treaties and present them to the people
e) The power to regulate commerce between the states.
The judiciary function would remain independent.
I will expressly not be allowed to make any law that:
a) Bans guns, speech, or the possession of most private property,
b) Bans certain intoxicating substances, acts of religious expression, requires the death penalty.
Nor will I be allowed to:
a) Withhold the pay of, harrass, or otherwise intimidate members of the judiciary. I will not be able to arrest, search, or electronically eavesdrop on anyone without agreement from the judiciary.
b) Make treaties, declare war, or borrow money against the credit of the United States, except by permission in a national, popular vote.
So there, I would be Emperor, you would not be allowed to vote for me, but, you would have more rights.
This is my sig.
Go here for details.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
First we have so-called scientists swearing we are heading for planetary collapse who are subsequently outed as having falsified their data to "prove" their hypothesis. Now we have another asshat scientist calling for a suspension of democracy so the so-called problem can be "solved". Maybe the first should be made to prove their hypothesis with verifiable 3rd party data. Maybe the second should STFU about politics and how to solve problems that haven't been scientifically proved.
I'm no big enviro fan, for sure, but I think the article summary takes what he's talking about completely out of context. I think the point he was making was that humans, as a group, are not making what he feels to be good decisions. He's not advocating an overthrow of democracy per se as much as he is just decrying that in a democracy radical change is just slow. It's a nuanced position, not a radical one.
This is my sig.
I don't think so...at the same time, this guy has to be the first environmentalist to speak the truth behind their extremist message: it's about controlling people's lives, and less about the environment.
wait a minute: you're saying that the goal of environmentalists ( all or at least the majority ) is to control people's lives, NOT ACTUALLY to save the environment for future human inhabitants?
you sir, are a silly goose.
Unfortunately, we are going to be much more likely to take care of our environmental problems by eliminating a large percentage of the population in a sudden political rash decision. This planet will not sustain 7,000,000,000 human inhabitants willingly, but quicker will be the decisions of men to fix it on their own. The unfortunate part is the likelihood of this problem being solved by a minor nuclear winter are higher than anyone would like.
So much environmental damage has already been done and we're all still strongly addicted to fossil fuels. We're like a bunch of heroin addicts from whom going cold-turkey in basically unthinkable.
When comparing energy sources, what we already have is always cheaper, so why switch? And even if democracy were suspended in the USA, if other countries did not follow suit, Americans would soon have to admit that suddenly going green will have put them at a serious economic disadvantage.
There are no easy fixes. Millions may now be aware that we are collectively flirting with environmental disaster, but that makes no difference if billions don't care. What's needed is for the vast majority of the Earth's inhabitants to agree to give the climatologists the benefit of the doubt and to live on less for quite a while -- voluntarily -- in order to get things fixed.
Unfortunately, we live in a world in which most people strive to accumulate more wealth, but it's concentrated with 1% of the population (who own 95% of everything and are loath to part with it) while most of the rest live in desperate poverty and are only concerned with their own short-term survival (which often includes destroying their environment). Sometimes we cooperate, but mostly we just compete with each another.
I keep thinking that on the largest scale, we're no better than bacteria. I imagine a hypothetical colony in a petri dish, together with some algae: if they controlled their growth so as to strike a balance with the algae, they could potentially live indefinitely in their little closed ecosystem (assuming there was always enough sunlight). However, that would mean that the bacteria would regularly have to force themselves to go hungry and die... seemingly for nothing, because actually there would always be food around. It's much easier for a population to allow itself to grow unchecked, so in reality the bacteria would simply consume all of the algae as fast as possible after which their entire population would die off. Of course, the bacteria could form spores with the last of their strength, but that's not really an option for us.
No, I seriously doubt that humanity is going to fix this problem in an organized, rational and peaceful manner. The alternative? Nature will correct the imbalance for us. There will be war and famine for the vast majority, billions will die, but about 1% of the population will continue to live in relative happiness. Nothing new, really.
We'd call a guy like this Lovelock character a Dangerous Moron. I don't know what the accepted terminology is in this Era of Hope and Change. Comrade Stalin used to like terms like "[left|right]wing [counterrevolutionary|reactionary|deviant]". Perhaps we could resurrect some of those.
Lovelock should study economics before he gets all bent about political ideology. The fact is that the economics of "rape or be raped" and "If I don't kill it, someone else will" have WAY MORE to do with how we treat our global ecology than what type of government we have in place.
-Oz
Ok, I think the climate is changing, good, bad or otherwise, from the looks of history its done it several times before.
I think some thought/action should be put into dealing with inevitable climate change instead of having the false sense we can keep things the way they are permanently. Sooner or later water levels will rise or drop, temperate zones will change, habitable areas may be come less so, people ever consider that scenario?
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
who are just so backward and stupid that they don't see what's really best for them and must be forced into a happier tomorrow by violence. No problem, they will be led by the smart and selfless elite who will be empowered to administer said violence with a clear head and a heart full of love for the people. Just like NKVD, GULAG, Gestapo, KGB, STASI, Securitate, Che's secret police, and many other "re-education" establishments.
As a Russian who remembers the Soviet Union where the Party had exactly the same paternalistic attitude towards the "masses", every time I see or hear from the self-proclaimed "elite" deploring the "uneducated masses", I feel an unpleasant deja vu.
I hope America will be smart enough not to fall for the same BS that nearly destroyed Russia and Germany. To hell with self-declared totalitarian elites and their "spiritual guidance".
Suspending democracy means killing or imprisoning dissidents.
You can have my republic when you pry it from my cold dead hands thank you very much. So is cordite a green house gas? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite Could do the two birds, one stone thing...ruin the planet and save the republic!
I got a semi-relevant question.
Is it possible to "quit" being a citizen in a country?
If I don't want to live by my countrys rules and regulations and do what they say and demand, would it, somehow, be possible?
It Would be nice to be able to quit this goverment-forced life, wich I did not choose (when I became of age to choose/vote on things?) and not taking part of their life.
Lovelock stated that, once the planet had been saved, it would be time for a good spanking. "Yes," he declared, "we must all have a good spanking!"
Lovelock later apologized and said that once he started fantasizing, he found it hard to stop.
It's nice to see people are thinking about these kinds of things but quite frankly the human race has their heads so far up their backsides.
We are never going to remove them fast enough to save planet... let alone ourselves.
Why don't we suspend all this carbon-neutrality non-sense for a few years so we can rebuild America's constitutional republic? America will collapse under the current tacked-on socialist programs much faster than the Earth will come to any serious harm at the hands of people breathing and driving to work.
But it can't happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
He isn't calling for the "hold on democracy", he is saying that because the bickering over what to do about climate change has no end in sight, that people won't do anything about it until it is too late. By then, drastic measures will be needed. Unfortunately, there is plenty of precedence for this course of action.
Wow, Glen Beck is gonna have a field day with this guy ...
... like Mr. Lovelock had better think twice about the welfare of himself and his ilk when the freedoms protected by democracy are no longer guaranteed. If he's lucks, he'll just end up with a job on a nice little farm somewhere.
Have gnu, will travel.
Lovelock has been wildly misquoted in the media on this and other statements in the last few days.
Tuesday morning he was on BBC Radio 4 and faced John Humphries and gave a very good account of himself, correcting some earlier misquotes.
He promotes an unpopular agenda (it's too late - let's live with it) so he is the enemy of all sides in the climate change debate.
All your freedom are belong to us. . . In reality, it is already too late to "fix" this by changing the slope of the curve with governmental restrictions on amount/types of energy use. The only viable solution, and the most likely to happen, is some form of Geoengineering. At some point, some large country, acting in its own self interest (or in the interest of a well-monied lobbyist) will unilaterally enact a Geoengineering "solution". This will mostly likely outrage and inconvenience some other country (or lobbyist or large company with internal resources capable of Geoengineering), setting off a chain reaction of competing attempts at geoengineering. The only viable solution to the coming geoengineering crisis is to put democracy on hold. . .
Democracy is really good for giving the people what they want, which is really successful in peace time.
Unfortunately in this case where a problem is so large we need to get on a planetary war footing, but what they want is willful/plausable ignorance of the subject.
Politicians and the media are forced to supply, untill things get really bad, and then history shows capable leaders will turn up.
I doubt Winston Churchill would have been elected in peace time.
Unfortunately the dynamics of the climate and the masking by aerosols of the magnitude of the forcing mean that if we wait for things to get even worse with a few more years of willful decadent opulent ignorance, then we are commiting to some far worse problems after we start to take drastic action. The magnitude of these problems depends on which model of ocean mixing is accurate and where in those fat error bars the value of aerosol forcing turns out to be. On top of that there is the potential for tipping points that could arrive before or after we start to take action.
Any sensible person with this information would have to say act now.
Better to stick with denial.
Frankly the only advantage to a dictatorship or communist regime is the ability to act suddenly. In democratic populations things take much longer times to get done.
And global warming may hit us so hard and cause so much death and destruction that we almost have to take radical actions
just to try and stay alive. Worse yet, this problem is so serious that our world may perish despite our unlimited efforts. Global warming may not be a solvable problem at all.
We all know who is really responsible for most CO2 emissions: greenpeace and other antinuclear groups. Please ask China how much nuclear power costs when you strip off the red green tape. The answer is that it is cheaper than gas, coal, oil, solar, wind, and basically everything except hydroelectric power. So, please stop the environmentalists, and start the building.
What about those of us (environmentalists) who are pro-nuclear, oppose Greenpeace for being extremist loonies, and don't think that "save the planet" should override basic freedoms any more so than, say, "think of the children", or "can't let the terrorists win"?
I am so glad that someone is willing to step up and run the world for the rest us... thanks god for arrogance...
Are they going to put communism and dictatorships on hold as well?
A large part of the world is not democratic. How are you going to convince the leaders of China etc to go along with this?
A large part of OPEC are dictatorships, and if their governments fell, the most likely replacement would be radical islamic extremists. I doubt that peak oil and greenhouse gases are mentioned in the Koran.
"After all .. just breathing emits CO2...."
He forgot to mention: it will also be necessary to suspend most peoples breathing for a while.
-- Terry
It's what Gaia would want. She needs his body and soul returned to the mother nest.
It gets back to the old adage that if you want a job done right, do it yourself. If all of Gaia's little envirominions can't take care of her, then I say it's well past time for her to take matters into her own hands.
Fuck. You. Dickwad. Nothing like paying attention. Just because you disagree with my position doesn't mean I'm writing flamebait, and just because I call someone out as a troll does not make me flame bait.
Fuck. you.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Yes people and governments will just allow themselves to be taken over. When An alien space ship drops off GORT.
Maybe by force. Ask Bush II how that worked out.
A great philosophic argument period.
If you can't convince enough people that your science is correct, just force them to agree with you.
Liberty in your lifetime
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%E1%BA%BFn_Tre
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."[
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Great idea James. But, umm, we're going to have to have a vote on it first... sorry.
Fuck you. Kindly, Most of the rest of us.
Maybe it's because I'm reading V for Vendetta right now, but I'd imagine in such a NWO he'd be one of the first people shot behind the chemical sheds. They wouldn't want "radicals" trying to destabilize things, would they?
No sig for you!!
We need a new name for people like you and I so the extremists don't color us wrong.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Lovelock is too stupid to survive. If you suspend democracy, how do you know that the people who are then running things will 1) agree that climate change is real, 2) agree that man is causing climate change, 3) agree that man should take action to stop the climate from changing, 4) agree to do something, 5) agree to do something that might work, or 6) agree to do something that actually WILL work (and just what that might be, I don't see anybody seriously proposing, other than to kill most people and go back to being hunter-gatherers).
So in exchange for all that uncertainty, Lovelock wants to give up democracy? Just kill the moron now before he says something even MORE stupid.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Ban the party system
How?
And I don't mean "how could it be possible", I mean "how, specifically, would you do it?"
The two party system is an emergent property of the electoral college and the single-member district plurality voting system (SMDP).
See also "Duverger's law":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvergers_Law
So in order to get rid of it, you'd got to institute either proportional representation or alternative vote (e.g. in Australia, you vote for your first, second, and third choices, and votes are tallied that way). The main obstacle to this is that the current system benefits the parties currently in power, so it is not in their short term interests to change things. Ironically, the communications latency and participation issues that drove the electoral colleges inclusion in the constitution are no longer relevant, but that hasn't reduced how entrenched it is.
-- Terry
Like most people with well thought out reasonable opinions, you don't do well in revolutions. I happen to agree with you, expect well both be up against the wall come the revolution - either for opposing the winners, or for not showing enough zeal in supporting them.
Rational environmentalism is tricky though: Imagine that rather pessimistic environmental scenarios are true, that there is climate change that causes widespread starvation. Over the next 200 years how many additional deaths will there be? (Hint - if you were to wipe out the entire human race tomorrow, integrated from today over the next 200 years there would be fewer deaths than there are now). Its rather difficult to come up with a metric for environmental costs.
it seems people forget about every single "end of the world" scenario as soon as the next one is thrown at them. any of you remember the next ice age, y2k, nostradomus prediction every single year, oh yea and 2012 is just around the corner. and since california is now at the bottom of the ocean they wont be here to help... what brings us as a people to believe these things?
What a load of bullshit. So global warming exists because we all voluntarily choose to pollute? Global warming exists because we can't choose not to. We don't have a saying in how things are run; your boss, your mayor, your president and governor do.
sounds like a foolproof plan that should garner overwhelming support - why wait, let's implement!
ôó
Why? "Environmentalist" sounds just fine to me. After all, it really means "preserve the environment", not "wipe out the pesky human infestation on the beautiful face of Gaia".
Instead, why not label those guys differently - say, "eco-terrorists".
That said, since what is probably this planet's best chance at being saved doesn't have even a hope in hell of actually happening, we're hooped. The planet is going down the toilet and no matter what happens, there will never be a significant enough number of people that care about it to effect any _real_ change until it is several generations too late to do anything about it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm thinking that we're currently not democratic enough. Pretty much everyone I speak to agrees that climate change is a problem, but it seems that everyone feels powerless.
How about an alternative to Modern Democracy? An alternative that could be better because it: reduces room for corruption, allows domain experts to make decisions, and actually considers the will of the people.
"Modern Democracy" the world over is really a two party republic system. You tend to have:
- The main party in power
- The main party in opposition
- The minor parties who support one of the two main parties
In Australia at least, the power party's task is to propose legislation, and the opposition party's job is to challenge proposed legislation. That allows for only one or two views, and the people have little or no say. The party can pressure an honest minister into doing what he knows is not right and it's easy for business to figure out which dishonest minister to bribe.
My thoughts:
1. All parties that get over some smallish threshold are in power. Parties cannot pass their votes on to other parties.
(eg. All parties that won 5+% of the peoples’ votes get to have a say and a vote.)
2. Replace departments with councils (functionally different).
(eg. Council for Education, Council for Environment, etc.)
3. Councils run comittees. The creation of comittees should be fluid. So you might have smaller temporary specialist comittees for smaller specialised decisions.
4. Comittees make decisions by voting from all parties in power. Each party’s voting representation is based on the party’s popular vote percentage.
(eg. So if a party got 14% of the people’s support, that party's vote is worth 14%.)
I guess the parties that scored below the threshold could be massed into a single group somehow.
5. Committee representatives should be domain experts, rather than professional politicians. And drop ministers.
(It is not realistic to expect someone who makes the final decisions (ie. a minister) to be an expert in everything in his portfolio, especially when his primary job is to play politics.)
6. People should be able to vote for different parties for different councils.
(eg. I might vote Green for the Council of Environment, but I might vote Blue for the Council of Economics/Finance, because I might disagree with the reddish economic leanings of the Green party)
7. As voting technology in a country improves, such a system could become fluid and spontaneous. Allowing people to change their support whenever, would make general elections redundant. Also, people could raise their own concerns and suggest new solutions to councils, that comittees could consider.
8. Allow multiple options. Having only Yes/No votes is not sufficient when there are several viable options. The real world is not binary.
Consequences:
1. It feels pointless to vote for a party, when one only agrees with some of the policies. Voting with greater granularity would give one the feeling that one is voting for what one actually believes in.
2. With Modern Democracy, a vote going to a losing party, in particular a minor party, is effectively a lost vote. But if your chosen party still has a voice, then your opinion is still heard.
3. Because peoples own concerns and suggestions can be heard and possibly even considered, people could feel like they’re actively taking part.
4. Because of consequences 1-3, people might take more interest, and voting becomes more meaningful. Participation, including self education about current topics, may increase a fair bit.
5. Because it's unlikely any party can win an election and become powerful enough to call the shots, there will be less incentive to "fund" a party. In particular if voting is fluid.
6. Better decisions coming from people in the know, biased by the opinions of the people, should come pretty close to sensi
...and then the scientist lost his mind.
I'd like to put this guy in a steel cage with Ron Paul and see what shakes loose.
--
Toro
The clever Mr. Lovelock, inventor of several useful gadgets, has repeatedly demonstrated very poor judgment. He was wrong about nuclear power, CFCs, and Global Warming causes. Now, he would like it if his superior intellect was recognized, democracy "suspended" and his opinions simply imposed. The problem, as previous poster NiceGeek observed, is that, once given a taste of autocracy, the anointed ones are unlikely to relinquish it.
His arrogance is typical of those who consider themselves superior to the masses. We have another one currently residing in the White House.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Do you really think that there can be a decision reached to sacrifice yourself in a democratic way?
First of all, countries are competitive, so for example Germany won't sacrifice itself so that China would get an advantage.
Second, any government that would impose hardship on the population will be booted out of the office, and another will be voted in. Functioning democracy implies rule of dumb and short sighted masses. Broken democracy means rule of big business with enough money for lobbying and mass media to get votes or to get whoever is in power to do what they want. In both of these cases there will not be a will to impose the long term goals that require short term sacrifice.
--Coder
We really must take action now. Lets go ahead and take a vote to suspend democracy.
If you take the full context, not a choice quote, he is right. His claim is essentially that, once the crisis is in full swing, democracy will be unable to solve it. So his argument is not "suspend democracy now", but "solve this crisis now, or we will lose democracy later".
And he's damn right. Democracy is incapable of rapid reactions and taking risks. And I say that after having headed a democratic institution for several years, having had to win several elections to get to that point. Democracy is great for consensus and forming solutions that take many points of view into account. Democracy sucks at reacting quickly and it sucks at acting fact-based.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Of all the shit slashdot summaries, this one must be about the worst. It's so much not representative of the article that it's pretty much a lie.
Rousseau explains in the Social Contract how a body of people can not give up their freedom and their rights, even voluntarily. The act is considered invalid, as the moment one gives up his rights can't be considered sane, and therefore his rights must be given back to him, his fate to be decided by someone else. Since though there is no one else that can decide for someone else's rights, every one of us is, in one way, "forced" to accept our civil rights and live with them. Even if such an act was possible, it is valid only for the period of the person's life. The rights of freedom, equality and life are owned by people from the moment they are born, so a newborn is born free! Those that have read George Orwell's 1984 know that democracy has, to some extend, already been "put on hold", from the moment that people are forced to live among cameras and experience body searches to travel from one country to another, even between trusted countries like in the EU. It's only the illusion of democracy and the illusion of rights that we still have when we are born. The constitution gives you the right to vote, and the government can't take it away from you. But they can make you not want to vote, and that's what they do. In the US they have like 50% of the country's voters not voting. In Greece here, we had 35%. Both percentages are terrifying. Pericles said that he who doesn't get involved in the matters of the state isn't just indifferent but an enemy, a "villain" as he puts it. The only way to get real hold of your rights is, as stated above, to become educated. Only then are you a real threat to the governors of the place and only a government that is afraid of its people is able to act on their behalf. Giving up your rights voluntarily is just what they want you to do. But what was gained by the French revolution and the european renaissance can not be taken away from us neither by force nor "voluntarily".
In my opinion, if humanity cannot survive with democracy, then we do not deserve to survive.
Proof: survival with democracy indicates a stable system- any one person (or relatively small
group) could get "hit by a bus" and no significant change occurs.
However, in a dictatorship, the life / death / fortune of the dictator has total impact
and nobody else has impact; hence the system is unstable. Can't happen, you say? Go
netflix "Valkyrie" (the bomb assassination of Hitler); it's pretty much a true story.
Four letters: WWII. Suspended democracy. Didn't seem to be much trouble restarting it then.
Says an evil tool on slashdot...
Therein lies the problem.
He sounds like a politician. Obviously he is so much smarter than us that he knows the solution, of course he says the solution is not desirable, but y'know, we just forced it on him. Really, we are just too stupid to be on his world.
Sounds like a member of Congress here. They do not consider us smart enough to decide what we like or dislike, hence they ram laws through under the guise of it will help us and once we see it we will like it. If not that, its for the children
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
James Lovecock can suck my dick!
Was Lovelock referring to the system of elective oligarchy that prevails in the "West", and which it is forcibly imposing on the rest of the world as fast as possible?
Democracy means rule by the people, or a system in which the people have power. In Britain and the USA today, however, the vast majority of people have no power at all. Once every 5 or 7 years (give or take) they get the opportunity to vote in an election, and thus to help choose which of the two dominant political parties will govern the nation for the next 5 or 7 years. But increasingly, they find that there is no practical difference between those parties. In Britain, the Labour party is no longer socialist in any meaningful way, while the Conservative party has given up all pretense of conserving anything (because that would be too unpopular). Even the third-placed Liberal party is strikingly illiberal in most of its attitudes and policies - and, of course, it enjoys the inestimable luxury of never having governed (in its present form) and being unlikely ever to be called on to do so. Much the same is true of the USA. What Gore Vidal wrote 35 years ago is even more accurate today:
"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt—until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties".
The reason we do not have democracy (and never had, apart from that brief flirtation in Athens which ended in utter ruin) is the plain and simple fact that human beings are not equal. Not at all, not in any way. Some of us* are incomparably cleverer, more decisive, more determined, more ruthless, more charismatic, or all of these combined. And they are the ones who get what they want, while everyone else is left wondering where it all went wrong.
*To save the smartarses among us a little time, let me say that I am most certainly NOT one of the elite. Quite the contrary, in fact, as demonstrated by the fact that I am here discussing this with others of the reality-based community (aka losers).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
It is tyranny of the majority. It is mob rule.
I am very glad we live in a Republic and not a pure Democracy.
Not by nescessity. Those who start bombing busy train stations and shopping centers, to demand elections should be incarcerated, yes. But not those who simply want something to happen and are vocal about it.
Luxembourg is a good example of a country which isn't a democracy; it's a monarchy and the monarch (a Duke) can do anything he pleases, though he apparently doesn't throw "dissidents" in jail.
The problem with democracy is that only those things get done which the people want to get done, not that which needs to be done, because those in power will want to be elected again.
The problem is that most countries which say they are "communist" are actually "totalirist". China and North Korea are both examples of that. If China was a real communist country, things would be quite different.
What is needed for a government is a representive democratic socialist communist meritocracy.
This basically means that you get to elect somebody (representive democracy) from your field of expertease (meritocracy) to represent you. It also means that the state is to make sure you are able to collect wealth (socialism) and wants to make sure everybody gets an equal share of wealth (communism")
What needs to happen is quite a bit and most people will not like that which needs to happen. Here's the list:
Forbid people to own cars (unless they have a valid reason to have one... no, getting to the office isn't one); make massive investments in public transit. Advantages of this: retain massive amounts of resources, but lots of people will become very unhappy. This also reduces the need for infrastructure and makes the public transit sector very happy. A gigantic reduction in smogg will also be achieved.Disadvantage: lots of unhappy people, better regulation of public transit needed, more investments in public transit needed. 1.5 child per family (China does this) and put a harsh penalty on violating this rule. This makes sure the population of a country reduces. Advantage: reduction in population.
Disadvantage: you'll need to be harsh to succeed with this, people won't like it and you'll need to inform your people about birth control. Reduce waste production Your industries won't like that, but they will comply if prodded with enough incentives to stay. This isn't really a disadvantage, as it creates a whole new industry. Get rid of all products which aren't really needed. The crap people have collected around them is amazing at times, all these resources... wasted. Industry and population won't like this... They won't like this at all.
Because totalitarian governments have such a good record in environmental matters.
This is eco-terrorism
The management IS democratically elected in corporations, by its members (the shareholders).
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
One word.
Tommyknockers
"Life is pain Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something"
Westly, The Princess Bride
from a weather scientist? He might be talented at meterology (and maybe he isn't) but he's not got a clue about people.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
What democracy? Has there ever been Democracy since ancient Rome? I don't believe so. If it would be democracy, it probably would be possible to change something. Hell, I would vote for some exact measures.
... welcome our new Science Council overlords.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or the self serving egotism that makes it easy for people/governments to say "I'm gonna do whatever I want regardless of the consequences because, 'It's a free country.'"?
Giving up one results in your freedom being stripped from you with no guarantee it'll ever be restored. Giving up the other is a personal choice for the betterment of global society. The latter can be resumed at will, but is a problem because, who's gonna do that, "It's a free country. I can do whatever I want!"
lets just hope sean penn doesn't befriend this lovelock character. your probably safe as long as you don't comment about hugo chavez or the castros.
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2010/03/08/sean-penn-suggests-prison-time-journalists-who-call-hugo-chavez-dictator
lose != loose
this Gaia thingy reminds me a MontyPython sketch.
I would rather be free in a global meltdown with seas 1000 feet higher than today than a serf in anyone's utopia.
If the earth is 4.5+ billion years old, how can anyone be so blatantly ignorant as to assume that we can put stock in numbers like "the hottest decade on record" based off 200 years of climate history? I lean heavily toward environmental conservation, but for my own reasons. No one has ever been able to answer this question for me.
Democracy is just mob rule on a larger scale. The U.S.. is, in theory, a republic. We're functioning as a Democracy and it's making a bloody mess of the place. Without the protections of individual liberty democracy will ultimately lead to enslavement of those who produce to those who don't and the enslavement of the non-producers to the government for their survival.
:). Yeah, a recurring theme here.
No, the environmental fix is to continue to progress technologically. At some point someone/company will discover a way to become fabulously rich undermining oil as the means of producing energy. That will put an end to the oil-age of our economy. Government funded wind turbines and solar panels aren't going to be the answer, you just can't get enough KW/acre and per $ of construction cost to make it practical (yet). When someone does, they'll seize on the opportunity to become fabulously rich
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
I, for one, welcome our new Gai overlords.
Climate Change: Burma Leads The Way!
As The banks are convincing people to subjugate themselves.
Clearly an example of the advanced stages of dementia.
James Lovelock: "China! We demand you put your democracy on hold so we can get down to business of solving climate change by building sea defenses or some other crazy thing"
China: "Um OK?"
I've heard for over a decade that when the Soviet Union fell that the communists migrated into the environmentalist movement. Maybe, and that would seem to be a relatively harmless place to keep them. Now with a grand attempt by environmentalists to wrest power from the industrialized nations via carbon taxes, and proven fabrications in data regarding climate change, and Dr. Lovelock here also on the side of doing away with democracy, it doesn't seem like such a silly thing after all.
Mankind has waded through millennia of rule by bullies, mafia type kings, religiously ordained kings, generals into kings, pick your poison of absolutist tyrant, etc. to finally obtain a somewhat working democracy. 234 years ago there was only one democracy. Now there are over 170. It may not be the perfect government, but I suspect there is no perfect government when imperfect people are involved.
Given the alternatives we've seen in the 20th century, I'll stick with democracy or republics for a while. We haven't given them nearly enough time to work the kinks out yet. Nothing else ever worked the kinks out either, even with hundreds or thousands of years to work things out. Communism is just subjugating yourself to another tyrant... the tyrantiest tyrant of a group of tyrants, just like it used to be.
Calling someone else a troll when they clearly are trying to participate automatically makes qualifies your post as flamebait, and adding the CAPITALIZED words just ADSS to the EFFECT.
On to your actual point: He was not comparing the structure of government to the structure of a company, he was pointing out that the level of exclusive control a government has is far, far greater than even the most monopolistic of private companies. Just because to things aren't alike in all ways doesn't mean they aren't alike in certain specific ways, such as the issues he was pointing out.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
...when you compare democracy to the alternatives.
Just ask any one of the millions of people who are trying to get out of non-democratic countries and into democracies. This is not a "love it or leave it" statement. It's reality. That doesn't mean that democracies are perfect, but it does mean that relative to the actual (as opposed to theoretical) alternatives, it's well-regarded by more than a few humans.
As for corporations, remember that they are not naturally-occurring entities. "When they work" at all, it is because governments established laws allowing for their creation. The corporation is a legal fiction. It's a series of laws and regulations that ensure that people can come together, take a risk and start a business, and won't be drawn and quartered by unpaid creditors if the company craters. Ever wonder why there aren't any world-beating corporations that hail from Sicily?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Where has this clown been for the last nine years ? Democracy has pretty much BEEN suspended in the name of security and electronic voting machines !
I can see governments using this as justification to remove all our freedoms.
What happens to individual rights when all countries are dictatorships and there's no 'free world' with an army left to fight for democracy?
I don't care what studies come out, the planet, including all the governments, aren't going to shut down the oil industry. Right off the bat, you would have global famine within one crop season. I'm a farmer, I can state this with 100% confidence. Right off the bat 2, all the militaries would squawk, all their toys run on petroleum. There are numerous other reasons, but those two right there negate any idea of exxon or any other oil companies being shut down. If they get charged some huge carbon tax, guess what, they *don't care*, not a bit, not for one second do they care, they will still sell all their oil, every drop, and you and the other consumers will pay what it costs. See above, you like to eat? We can make electric cars, sure, but you aren't readily replacing all the huge diesel equipment, the stuff that makes modern life possible, out there with electric alternatives anytime soon.
So you are going to need a much better plan B than hoping that humanity will stop using oil products, no matter whose studies you look at. All those studies..the point is just moot without a viable alternative in place. The only one I can think of is an emergency push to find a REALLY suitable set of crops and techniques to make biodiesel.(our battery tech is not even close to good enough to make huge land based electric equipment on any scales needed. there are a few examples of all electric equipment, but to think of replacing all the tractors and combines and crawlers and..all of it..batteries ain't gonna cut it, so it needs to be diesel or biodiesel)
Something a lot better than what we have now for biodiesel, which is primarily soybeans, canola or palm oil derived. Industrial hemp on huge scales could make a small dent in the volume right now, that's about it. a small dent. They keep talking about algae, but that would have to be multi-government seized research, no patents, massive funds and studies thrown at it, then release the results to the world in an open source fashion to get the scale up once they come up with something that works. We can do it on a smaller scale now, it does work, but to have a full replacement.....not happening at this time. exxon and whatever are in no danger of going out of business right now. You are really going to have to concentrate on replacing coal before petroleum, that is way more doable with the tech we have now, solar, wind, fission, hydro, tidal, etc.
The summary is short because it's supposed to be, but I don't think it's fair to call me a liar. You and a couple of other people have said that you feel I was dishonest. I was paraphrasing Lovelock, but I don't think I've misrepresented what he said. I did read the article, and I read another one containing large parts of the interview. He clearly said that democratic principles are standing in the way of combating climate change, and he certainly did conclude that they will need to be suspended before action can be taken. Am I missing something?
Regardless of whether I have understood him correctly, and I'm pretty sure I have, I have honestly represented what I think he was saying. And I have been rigorous in my investigation into the matter. You can not say that I was being sloppy or jumping to conclusions. In that light, I feel you've treated me unfairly by calling me a liar.
we are not intended to be a democracy ....
Watch: http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/
and to the republic for which it stands
This Lovelock character needs killing in the most desperate sort of way for making a comment like that.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The real problem with democracy is that it makes people think that if enough people think the same way, then that is the way the world ought to work.
Economics obscures the fact that we live because of food and shelter and when that gets scarce, nothing else matters.
Democracy would work beautifully if we could vote on making corn grow or air pollution magically disappear without cost.
The history of war and revolution is presented as based on ideas, but those are only what groups rally around. The reason they end up fighting is because the resources run out (bad weather leads to crop failure, good weather leads to more people which requires more resources). Technology changes the amount of resources available so it is hard to pick out but plotting history by population/resources against weather shows more correlation than plotting it by which king married which queen.
James Lovelock is himself producing quite a few greenhouse gases, so if we suspend him (i.e. put him in suspended animation, involuntarily of course since democracy is a "bad thing") then that seems like a pretty good start. At least he'd be made to own up to the implications of his own wrong headed opinions and green house gases would drop, albeit a very small amount.
Be More, Be Manly, The Manly Geek Ubergeek Extraordinaire Blogger: www.manlygeek.com/blog Podcaster: podcast.man
Maybe get this Liquid Salt Thorium Reactor sorted or something else first and then migrate to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8&feature=channel
The level of exclusive control is an irrelevance if it is the consent and will of the people, however the people choose to express that will and consent.
There is more than one kind of freedom. I would recommend you read Isaiah Berlin on that.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
There is no risk to Gaia. The Earth will survive. Humanity may or may not. There have been many mass extinctions. We are not even close to the order of one of those. People think too much of themselves.
The Earth has been warmer and cooler in the past. Species have thrived and died during each cycle. Our species came into existence because of the extinction of our competitors during past extinctions. Given my druthers, I'll take global warming rather than global cooling. Even a little bit of cooling would be disasterous as demonstrated by the past mini-ice ages of the 1800's and other centuries that caused mass starvation and migrations. People are just upset because of there being change and unknown.
By the way, I don't trust him as dictator so I'll keep Democracy.
I think that many, if not all, right-thinking people would agree that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship.
The problem is that there seems to be a shortage of benevolent dictators.
Let me put it this way. I did not call you a liar (read it carefully), but the gist of what I wrote is that you come across as being untruthful. I think I did a similar thing to what I'm accusing you of, which is to carefully use words to create an impression.
I think when one reads the whole of the Lovelock article he comes across as far more sensible than what you portray in your summary. So I think you're not stating a falsehood, but I think your exclusive selection of one fragment of the interview for your summary creates a falsehood, strengthened by the fact that very many slashdotters don't read TFA.
Where to start? Get Lovellock up to speed, for a start. I'm an ex radio tech, and the CO2 curve is that of a full blown runaway positive feedback. Why? We can only guess. 'Science' has started too late to gather the data in time. You got any ideas? Didn't think so. I've been banging on in Oz for about 2 years now that, as the +ve reaction will go terminal by about 2016-2017, and given the graph's slope, the *only* possible way to reduce emissions to below what the planet can absorb is political extremism. 'We' need to introduce Facist government techniques universally, probably for 25-30 years, at least until 'we' can be trusted to not ramp the shit back up again. Fat chance. So like the characters in Neville Shutes 'On the Beach', I have given up trying to 'save the planet', and am now starting to ramp up my consumption to the general excessive levels practiced by most Australians. (The Yanks are way down the scale.) Enjoy what time is left to all but the bugs that reside in asbestos mines. They may have a faint chance of adjusting to the temps coming to a future just ahead of you. Unless we *all* swerve. In unison. All 6 billion of we planetary pathogens in our once pretty Petrie dish. Likely? Nup. Byeeeee.