Are we all fucked?

[Eoin McLove]

I saw that on telly the other night.  In fairness, could Extinction Rebellion have chosen a person more clueless and inarticulate on what they are supposed to be protesting for to do the interview? It was embarrassing. I actually felt he took pity on her and went easy because she hadn't a breeze.

[Pedrito]

Yep, poor girl, I think she made her neckplace in pottery class at the special needs school.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Yeah, very poor choice. Fairly easy comebacks available to all the points he raised, and probably he was expecting her to have them in mind and all. Notably, it's only because of the ceaseless doomsday talk of eco groups since the 70s that we're paying attention at all today, and still (arguably) not as much as we should.

[Eoin McLove]

The flipside to that truth is that a none of the doomsday scenarios being highlighted since the 70s haven't come to pass.  Which,  rather than necessarily meaning there is no validity to the general arguments or worries,  gives hope that they will find some solution you the current zeitgei... CRISIS! 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Zeitcrisis, good name for a shit uber-technical click-click widdly-widdly-wee death metal band.

[Eoin McLove]

Criminal what?

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

In fact, Zeitkrisis would be German for Time Crisis, and they're the guys we need to sort out the polluters! Time Crisis - Extinction Rebellion, in arcades soon!

[Pedrito]

The BBC doing their damndest to make this woman look like an arsehole. I think the line of questioning is disgusting, no matter what way you feel about Extinction Rebellion, for some reason they take a stand against anyone with non-mainstream opinikns, doing the same to the likes of Jordan Peterson in the past..disgraceful really.

The scientist hit the nail on the head for me. If the oil.companies had to be carbon free, they could easily do it. That says it all. Maybe a bit of protesting isn't such a bad thing after all. She does still come across as deranged at the end and would have been better off letting the scientist say his piece and won the 'debate'.

https://youtu.be/BhVD5jWbaXs

[Eoin McLove]

Hadn't seen that interview.  Weird one.  The subtle as a brick character assassination at the start was bullshit but then the hysterical reaction she gave to the questions was hard to take seriously too,  so both women came off as a bit ludicrous (oh shit,  did I accidentally misogynize??). The actual scientist himself seemed reasonable and level-headed and most of the scientists I've read or listened to on this seem confident that we can find solutions to these problems. Those are the people we need to be listening to as they have realistic achievable answers.  The radical lefties always end up looking ludicrous when they start going on about bringing down capitalism.  I personally have no interest in living in a communist state.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

"I don't think we have time to overthrow capitalism first and solve climate change later."

Dead right we don't. As Zizek famously and very correctly said, "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

The economic system we've imposed on the world, nominally called capitalism, is absolutely fucking retarded in light of finite resources. Alternatives to it are not at all limited to "communism".

[Pedrito]

@mclove I think once we listen to the lefties and righties talk out their arses for a while, the people who are in the middle tend to take notice, examine things with a cooler head and make a decision. It has caught my attention if I'm.honest and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Changes need to be viable though..nobody wants to go backwards or live in East Germany again.

[Eoin McLove]

"I don't think we have time to overthrow capitalism first and solve climate change later."

Dead right we don't. As Zizek famously and very correctly said, "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

The economic system we've imposed on the world, nominally called capitalism, is absolutely fucking retarded in light of finite resources. Alternatives to it are not at all limited to "communism".

Indeed capitalism is hard on the environment,  or has been historically.  The name says it all,  really.  It is by no means perfect but it could be improved with a shift in the focus of big business to renewable energy,  nuclear energy (still controversial), a move from oil to electric transport (slowly happening), and maybe a change in our approach to farming although I'm not sure which is the right way to go there as there appear to be reasonable arguments for and against a turn toward vegetarianism in terms of environmental impact. Also,  as an aside,  I'm reading How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker and he thinks there is a strong connection between a highly carnivorous based diet and the evolution of our brains when taken in conjunction with the development of the visual part of our brains, development in dexterity of our hands,  living in communities etc.  Dunno if that should be taken into consideration or not when thinking about the future of farming.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I think a stronger (but still not definitive) case can be made for the advent of cooking (whether that be meat or otherwise) in terms of the rapid evolution of the human brain. Cooking was far more ubiquitous and frequent than meat eating. There's a Brazilian neuroanatomist who's written on it quite a bit, if I remember her name I'll throw you a video.

[Eoin McLove]

Interesting.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

In a nutshell, cooking (and also fermenting) vastly increases calorific availability of food items, meaning you get more calories out of less food eaten and also less time spent eating. We spend remarkably little time eating compared to other animals given our calorific needs. Now what's her name!