cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/35986695
this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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Yeah but... Humans created capitalism, so again the root issue is that humans suck. Just think of it this way: No humans, no capitalism.
And it's not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn't capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or "communist", but that definitely wasn't capitalism) regime.
It's definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
I completely agree, other systems have the potential to screw the environment as well. But capitalism is inherently like that and reached environment destroying records. I believe these things are simultaneously true.
I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.
Supporters of socialism/communism/anarchism/whatever-ism don't believe that their system will never make mistakes or that it prevents all bad people from having power. But it lessens it, hopefully. If a capitalist nation were in charge during the time the aral sea disappeared, you can bet your sweet ass it would have just the same or faster.
There are a lot of people who do believe that these systems could do no wrong or repeat the narcissist's prayer to justify any wrong doing.
True. But I suppose I should have clarified it as "intelligent, thoughtful supporters of those ideas"
It's true that capitalistic societies don't do any better for the environment (which was the point of my comment, they're BOTH bad in this aspect), but at least in capitalist Europe the common people got relative wealth out of it. In the soviet union, people were oppressed by the state, poor, and got their environment destroyed.
And now that is happening in capitalist societies.
We have many decades to go until our common people are as poor as they were in the soviet union (at least in countries that were on the capitalistic side of the iron curtain), though that does seem to be the general trajectory. But soviet poverty went beyond not being wealthy - there was always a very distinct risk that the local store was out of basic necessities, and I really don't think this is going to be common in most western european countries in this century.
We had big shortages in toilet paper, disinfectant and cooking oil (at least in Germany) just a few years ago. The capitalism of European countries doesn't exist in a vacuum either, it influences other countries. People are constantly starving and freezing to death under capitalism.
Point being: capitalism isn't the way you make it out to be.
"in this century"
That's where you're wrong. It's coming for us fast. Especially in the USA. Water availability is becoming a serious problem
I do hope many writing in this thread are not American, because if you are and this is your attitude, you are scheduled for bad wake up call. Please, study fascism and authoritarianism in depth. Hanna Arendt is a good start.
Note how I wrote "most western european countries". The USA is on a pretty bad trajectory, but there are 27 countries in the EU and only one country in the USA. In fact, the USA are not western european at all.
You are still shifting the blame away from capitalism. If we acknowledge capitalism as the problem, then we can change things. If we claim humans are inherently the problem, then it seems pointless to improve.
Humans are a product of evolution in nature. So nature sucks, right?
Nature makes a lot of things that suck, including viruses
Point still stands. Nature doesn't owe anyone a logical explanation.
Its actually my point. Just because we dont like it, it does not mean that nature is wrong.
Nature is a product of atoms. So atoms suck, right?
For them is capitalism for other is the immigrants.
Some people just don't get nuances.
so you're just saying we should all kill ourselves? yeah that sounds great, i assume you're willing to go first since you believe it so strongly?
I for one don't want me or others to die, and so i don't go around saying poorly thought-through things on the internet.
Thank you for putting it well, I had similar thought that I wanted to express but I can never write it so coherently.