People like Kunstler and his epigones (who are legion around here) basically hold humanity in contempt, and look upon some future of scarcity, suffering, starvation, with essentially unconcealed glee while pretending to bemoan humanity's insufficient awareness of the problems soon to beset it (excepting themselves, the superior people, of course), its paltry efforts at preparation, etc.
I call it Apocalyptic Personality Disorder (APD).
All of the "alternatives" that might actually mitigate some of the effects of peak oil, coal, nuclear, etc., tend to be either dismissed or downplayed, while those that make their proponents feel morally superior (conservation (even conservation through the forced demand destruction of mass privation), wind/solar, etc.) are presented as the only ones having any reality (for various complicated reasons that are basically rationalizations added after the fact to justify conclusions arrived at emotionally).
I mean, it's all very obvious: even if you do succeed, for example, in lowering per capita consumption, if you don't stop the population from growing, any realized savings will eventually be overwhelmed and absolute consumption will rise. The Oil Drum has had some good posts on that topic.
The Birkenstock types living in huts made of recycled tires ("sustainable!" "off-grid!") are not seriously trying to address actual social problems in the world, rather, they want to a) feel better about themselves; b) be accepted and valued within their chosen peer group.
(While they may pretend to be "setting an example" or "exploring alternative, sustainable ways of living" the example they usually succeed in setting tends to be frightful enough to deny them meaningful converts, which, as I've been saying, is rarely the point, merely the rationalization. Of course, as we've also discussed at length on this site, if they really were successful in their efforts to proselytize for conservation on any meaningful scale, which is to say, if they did reduce demand for energy measurably, they would just lower the price of energy, making it easier for those outside the flock to continue their profligate ways.)
Anyway, I think you are being kinder to these people than they deserve. To me, they claim to want to "kill off a consumer society" not because they are trying to save the members of that society from vapid, banal pursuits (guiding them to a sort of Buddhist awareness beyond mere material want gratification), but because they view those people as inferior to themselves, Those Who Are Above The Wants of This World, and want them to suffer (or at least want their own superior status recognized.
You are certainly right in identifying this approach as centered on the United States, or at least the "West" (it is rare indeed to find denunciations of those in the Third World who actually are living in the supposedly spiritually fulfilling conditions of scarcity and impoverishment for attempting to improve their material condition). That's reserved for us, because the status game is in the West; nobody ever won any points by showing that he could underlive a Kalahari bushman.
The reason some people drive SUVs is because it enables them to look down (literally, not figuratively) on other vehicles. It also limits the likelihood of making eye contact when stopped at a traffic light.
I think he was being "a bit" harsh as not all marketing is evil, but I thought I'd add this:
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.
No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do.
Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."
Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."
God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.
"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?
"What didya do today honey?"
"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?
This has happened to me a few times (on the way into and out of stores, sometimes both) and it is really annoying. I carry a couple of RFID-enabled devices (building access cards/fobs) so I always wonder if some scanners' settings are set too high.
Sometimes I enter a store and the alarm goes off - on the way out it doesn't, whether I've bought something or not.
You know that old thing that people (that have to deal with Windows) print out and put on their cubicle walls that says, "Bang Head Here"? Well, OK, blood does tend to stain brown after a few days.
Downtown cores should have traffic lights that favour pedestrian traffic. At the moment I'm fortunate to live and work in a downtown area and the traffic light timing seems to be designed to make me wait at almost every street crossing while walking to work.
You must have missed the part where I said context is important.
If your grandmother was on a bus, for example, and overheard part of a discussion that included, "dropping the mag isn't necessarily a problem if you have extras, and you can kill them with your knife anyway" would you fault her for being a bit disturbed by that dialog?
People in polite societies take others' sensibilities into consideration when in public - I'd hate to think that you are one of those loud-talking cell phone users or someone that likes to provoke/force others to pay attention to you.
On the other hand, your UID is lower than mine so I'll defer to your judgment here in this forum.
Someone overheard him talking about how many times you'd need to shoot someone in the face to kill them with a.22. Someone who probably doesn't know him personally at all (or at least well) overheard this and reported it.
If that is true then further investigation was warranted IMO.
Context is everything, and blabbing about virtual game experiences are better left to private conversation. Most people know this and realize that talking about such things will make others uncomfortable, if not alarmed.
After the customer left, the manager apologized again for what he had to do, but it couldn't be revealed this was actually what we were supposed to do.
The New Yorker, 8 March 1930, p. 12.
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
There is no telling about ladies when they are disturbed, or ruffled. One
of the things ladies demand, when something goes wrong with their
shopping, is that the store discharge the employee whose fault it was. A
store uptown has learned how very mollifying it is to ladies to witness a
dismissal, and they have assigned one of their employees to be the goat in
all cases. It is his job to be discharged. Whenever an aggrieved patron of
the store demands the scalp of an employee, this young man is summoned,
the blame is at once traced to his negligence, he is given a severe
talking to and told to get his hat and leave. Sometimes he is fired as
many as twenty times in a week, always to the immense relief of the
customer and never with any particular injury to himself. In fact, he
rather likes it -- gives him time to go across to Schrafft's for a soda.
Leewin B. Williams, ed., *Encyclopedia of Wit, Humor, and Wisdom*. New
York & Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949, p. 96.
No. 666. A customer of a big New York department store complained of bad
service. The manager called an employee, blamed him for the negligence,
and fired him in the customer's presence. A few weeks later the same
customer again had cause for complaint and again the same employee was
called and fired for his carelessness. Probably you've guessed it. The
store employed and "O.F.M." or "Official Fired Man" just to soothe the
ruffled feelings of peeved customers. Often sympathetic customers plead
with the manager not to dismiss the offending employee. Then the "O.F.M."
is recalled and the manager explains to him that only the customer's
pleading saved him. It is the "O.F.M.'s" duty to grasp the customer's hand
in gratitude while brushing away a stage tear.
"They apparently assumed that most consumers would be too embarrassed to contest the charges when they learned they were from an adult-oriented site. [...] And where did the defendants, all of Malibu, CA, get the names and credit card numbers of their victims, many of whom the FTC said do not even own computers? They bought them from a bank."
Slashdot Mirror
Bravo, dch24. Your comment deserves a +1 Insightful, not +1 Funny. No, wait, maybe the +1 Funny is more appropriate.
Or is it recursive?
Like using Parallels on a Mac?
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2423#comment-176191
People like Kunstler and his epigones (who are legion around here) basically hold humanity in contempt, and look upon some future of scarcity, suffering, starvation, with essentially unconcealed glee while pretending to bemoan humanity's insufficient awareness of the problems soon to beset it (excepting themselves, the superior people, of course), its paltry efforts at preparation, etc.
I call it Apocalyptic Personality Disorder (APD).
All of the "alternatives" that might actually mitigate some of the effects of peak oil, coal, nuclear, etc., tend to be either dismissed or downplayed, while those that make their proponents feel morally superior (conservation (even conservation through the forced demand destruction of mass privation), wind/solar, etc.) are presented as the only ones having any reality (for various complicated reasons that are basically rationalizations added after the fact to justify conclusions arrived at emotionally).
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2423#comment-176292
[...]
I mean, it's all very obvious: even if you do succeed, for example, in lowering per capita consumption, if you don't stop the population from growing, any realized savings will eventually be overwhelmed and absolute consumption will rise. The Oil Drum has had some good posts on that topic.
The Birkenstock types living in huts made of recycled tires ("sustainable!" "off-grid!") are not seriously trying to address actual social problems in the world, rather, they want to a) feel better about themselves; b) be accepted and valued within their chosen peer group. (While they may pretend to be "setting an example" or "exploring alternative, sustainable ways of living" the example they usually succeed in setting tends to be frightful enough to deny them meaningful converts, which, as I've been saying, is rarely the point, merely the rationalization. Of course, as we've also discussed at length on this site, if they really were successful in their efforts to proselytize for conservation on any meaningful scale, which is to say, if they did reduce demand for energy measurably, they would just lower the price of energy, making it easier for those outside the flock to continue their profligate ways.)
Anyway, I think you are being kinder to these people than they deserve. To me, they claim to want to "kill off a consumer society" not because they are trying to save the members of that society from vapid, banal pursuits (guiding them to a sort of Buddhist awareness beyond mere material want gratification), but because they view those people as inferior to themselves, Those Who Are Above The Wants of This World, and want them to suffer (or at least want their own superior status recognized.
You are certainly right in identifying this approach as centered on the United States, or at least the "West" (it is rare indeed to find denunciations of those in the Third World who actually are living in the supposedly spiritually fulfilling conditions of scarcity and impoverishment for attempting to improve their material condition). That's reserved for us, because the status game is in the West; nobody ever won any points by showing that he could underlive a Kalahari bushman.
The reason some people drive SUVs is because it enables them to look down (literally, not figuratively) on other vehicles. It also limits the likelihood of making eye contact when stopped at a traffic light.
Driving valves with solenoids somehow would be more meaningful.
And, best of all, RedHat makes solenoid valves! Open source ICEs!
I think he was being "a bit" harsh as not all marketing is evil, but I thought I'd add this:
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke..." there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."
Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that."
God, I'm just caught in a fucking web.
"Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..."
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?
"What didya do today honey?"
"Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight." [snores] "Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know?" [snores] "Yeah, you know the mums will love it." [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don't ya, this is your world isn't it?
This has happened to me a few times (on the way into and out of stores, sometimes both) and it is really annoying. I carry a couple of RFID-enabled devices (building access cards/fobs) so I always wonder if some scanners' settings are set too high.
Sometimes I enter a store and the alarm goes off - on the way out it doesn't, whether I've bought something or not.
You know that old thing that people (that have to deal with Windows) print out and put on their cubicle walls that says, "Bang Head Here"? Well, OK, blood does tend to stain brown after a few days.
Not France? Are car-b-ques not popular there anymore?
The only reason he's successful is because he does onsite service/assembly at $150/hour - and all his swing-sets run Linux!
On the other hand...
Downtown cores should have traffic lights that favour pedestrian traffic. At the moment I'm fortunate to live and work in a downtown area and the traffic light timing seems to be designed to make me wait at almost every street crossing while walking to work.
the flashing of which screws up traffic behind them, because people think there's a problem
Traffic Waves is a neat explanation for this phenomenon. It's a fairly lengthy article though.
what about gorilla arm?
Many apologies, then. Americans make up, what, 90% of Slashdotters? My intent was not to offend. I guess some people are easily annoyed and defensive.
I humbly point out my "polite society" remark made earlier. Maybe you Americans are not ready for this yet.
Since Liz is in your country at the moment, please try to discourage your countrymen from spitting at her.
You must have missed the part where I said context is important.
If your grandmother was on a bus, for example, and overheard part of a discussion that included, "dropping the mag isn't necessarily a problem if you have extras, and you can kill them with your knife anyway" would you fault her for being a bit disturbed by that dialog?
People in polite societies take others' sensibilities into consideration when in public - I'd hate to think that you are one of those loud-talking cell phone users or someone that likes to provoke/force others to pay attention to you.
On the other hand, your UID is lower than mine so I'll defer to your judgment here in this forum.
Would you estimate that the school officials were more afraid of gang retribution than losing their jobs?
Someone overheard him talking about how many times you'd need to shoot someone in the face to kill them with a .22. Someone who probably doesn't know him personally at all (or at least well) overheard this and reported it.
If that is true then further investigation was warranted IMO.
Context is everything, and blabbing about virtual game experiences are better left to private conversation. Most people know this and realize that talking about such things will make others uncomfortable, if not alarmed.
After the customer left, the manager apologized again for what he had to do, but it couldn't be revealed this was actually what we were supposed to do.
The New Yorker, 8 March 1930, p. 12.
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
There is no telling about ladies when they are disturbed, or ruffled. One of the things ladies demand, when something goes wrong with their shopping, is that the store discharge the employee whose fault it was. A store uptown has learned how very mollifying it is to ladies to witness a dismissal, and they have assigned one of their employees to be the goat in all cases. It is his job to be discharged. Whenever an aggrieved patron of the store demands the scalp of an employee, this young man is summoned, the blame is at once traced to his negligence, he is given a severe talking to and told to get his hat and leave. Sometimes he is fired as many as twenty times in a week, always to the immense relief of the customer and never with any particular injury to himself. In fact, he rather likes it -- gives him time to go across to Schrafft's for a soda.
Leewin B. Williams, ed., *Encyclopedia of Wit, Humor, and Wisdom*. New York & Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949, p. 96.
No. 666. A customer of a big New York department store complained of bad service. The manager called an employee, blamed him for the negligence, and fired him in the customer's presence. A few weeks later the same customer again had cause for complaint and again the same employee was called and fired for his carelessness. Probably you've guessed it. The store employed and "O.F.M." or "Official Fired Man" just to soothe the ruffled feelings of peeved customers. Often sympathetic customers plead with the manager not to dismiss the offending employee. Then the "O.F.M." is recalled and the manager explains to him that only the customer's pleading saved him. It is the "O.F.M.'s" duty to grasp the customer's hand in gratitude while brushing away a stage tear.
"They apparently assumed that most consumers would be too embarrassed to contest the charges when they learned they were from an adult-oriented site. [...] And where did the defendants, all of Malibu, CA, get the names and credit card numbers of their victims, many of whom the FTC said do not even own computers? They bought them from a bank."
Merck did not pay one single dime for the education of those scientists. The US taxpayers did.
Are you claiming that Merck's scientists' education is/was government-funded? It seems like there's something wrong with your statement.
Isn't Brazil overrun with wild monkeys in the streets?
Simpsons Troll -1
If death by a thousand cuts (AKA global warming) vs. the sun exploding or something, I think I'd prefer the latter.
The fact remains that everyone reading this will eventually die.
It always amuses me to read/hear people that think "we have to get off this rock" in order to "preserve" the human race.
Every time I hear that view expressed my mind wanders to people that read too much science fiction and do not have children.