I believe that many people who lean left politically need to do a hard reality-check on what they really believe about totalitarism. I don't say that because I believe that they are bad people, but many have eluded themselves to believe that they, deep down, believe in freedom, compassion and are in opposition to ideologies like Fascism, but when push comes to shove, like questions on how to solve rising inequality or climate change, it often quickly becomes clear that they secretly yearn for the iron fist of the state to enact this. Covid was a revealing moment in my opinion, where many people who professed liberal attitudes came out in favor of strict state-sponsored sanctions on the personal liberties of citizens, sometimes in a scaringly insistent manner.
I like to say that conservative want to kill democracy, while liberals just want to pick away at it slowly.
It’s not just many people, it’s most of them. The majority of both left and right are against any increase in democracy, in fact they would like to see a little less of it.
Have you ever heard of the book” 10% less democracy”?
The printing press caused a 30 year war in Europe, and it didn’t end until they accepted plurality of religion.
There was a struggle to control and suppress the printing press, not just by the elites, the majority felt this way.
We’re going through the same thing now with the Internet, and the majority want someone on their side of the narrative to get some kind of control over it.
I have some pretty good evidence if you’d like to see it?
Despite all of these hurdles, I’m part of a group that has a plan to get around these problems. We think we can speed up the process that we are going through now, which is the equivalent of the 30 year war in Europe.
The problem is that carbon capture is exactly as impossible, and you are articulating it as the reasonable solution.
We as a species are dead-set on destruction. After a few years of flattening of energy use, and the near-elimination of coal, we decide to blow out AI, and now we will consume more energy and revitalize coal.
I recently joined their Facebook group. They talk about the problem in much the same way you do. Although I don’t think most of them are against property rites, other than that there’s a lot of similarities.
Basically, everyone in the world is playing game A, which is dominated by rivalry. Game B, would be a version of the world with less rivalry.
There’s a lot of versions in the game B crowd, but I prefer the Jim Rutt version.
One thing they agree on is the multipolar problem. Even if the majority of people want to live in a game B World, there’s no way for it to work, unless everyone joined them. Because of one person tries to live his life with less rivalry, everyone else would just take advantage of them. Therefore, everyone is stuck in this game A world.
I’m part of a group that believes we have at least part of the answer to breaking the multipolar trap problem. It’s simply a database of public opinion on the worldwide scale. The first worldwide public institution owned and operated by the people.
There are incentives within the system that will encourage people to voluntarily identify themselves, and voluntarily allow people to judge them and how they conduct their lives.
When we live in a community, we learn to judge one another fairly, and a conduct ourselves accordingly, and if we don’t, the community will straighten us out. we need to re-create these conditions on a worldwide scale.
If you’d like to see what our plan is, search for kaosnow.com
You admit that your plan will not work, so I thought I’d offer you our plan
My comment is that the essay is a strident critique of an obviously absurd notion, and it ends by relying (without judgment) on an equally preposterous notion, global carbon capture.
No. I think the biggest problem is that our narcissism combined with our current notion of capital and property creates an attractor basin that maximizes extraction and minimizes consideration of externalities, regardless the mode of government.
US/British capitalism or Soviet communism were both absolute property regimes built on maximized production and exploitation. How votes were cast were irrelevant to the basic outcome of devastating the planet.
We don’t solve this problem without radically changing how we think about capital and changing our own insatiable appetites.
Monarchy, democracy, totalitarian regime - it makes a moderate difference on the environmental outcome and usually over a relatively short period.
Note, personally I prefer a democracy with some sense of human rights, but I live in one, and we are one of the worst sources of worldwide depredation, so who knows.
Carbon capture works fairly well when attached to a coal burning power plant, but AI doesn’t require coal, in the US last year over 40% of added power generation was solar (27GW) next was gas (5 GW) while coal generation declined by 5 GW. I don’t know how much coal generation China is building, but neither you,me, or Piketty’s world government will stop them.
I just think you are remarkably shrill and condescending in your essay about what is admittedly a non-starter proposal, then propose a comically insufficient response.
There is no response by the current Neo-liberal or totalitarian regimes that is anywhere near up to the task. We pretend technology will solve the problem, then watch as tech makes it worse (AI).
We are wholly fucked, and are going to go through a great deal of pain in the not-distant future, because we are simply too greedy by nature.
"Watermelon politics"... Thanks for that one -- I will be using it again for certain. Also, I certainly agree that advocating for the impossible is equivalent to advocating for nothing at all. Since there is no cause for climate alarm, the best philosophy is just containment and patience.
A rather simple argument against Piketty et al. The concept of the Global Justice Fund is not a call for world government, no matter how many times you say it. The GJF is a guideline for how the world might save itself from climate change and reallocate money more equitably for healthier longterm outcomes. His is not a call for degrowth, but a refocus on healthier growth based on human and environmental care--there's more than enough work that needs doing, such as education and health care, to name only two.
How this might implement is the interesting debate, but Pikkety makes clear his preference to be through democratic means. Instead of picking on Pikkety, why not imagine how such new forms of growth could manifest?
Count me as a former admirer of the ideas of Thomas Piketty. He has done the world a great service by illuminating in detail the growth of a global oligarchic class, and there is no doubt that this oligarchy, as represented by the Republican party in the US, is mostly responsible for denying thar rising emissions are even a problem for decades despite their own research. But he lost me this time at global taxation authority. i had the reaction you so aptly described. Yeah that's some crazy talk, bro, even in French.
I think your criticisms are pretty spot on, but I think the obvious weak spot is where you say that the people in Third World countries will have to suffer more than anyone else.
I’m sure he would simply say that the top down governing system he is planning he will definitely be trying to compensate those countries and individuals.
I’m just saying it’s pretty easy for him to cover his ass on that one, as compared to the glaring problem that he would have to be dictator over the world.
People always jump to this conclusion that the only way to solve these big worldwide problems is to have some kind of worldwide government.
Robert Wright, being the smart person he is, likes to say that we need some form of worldwide governance, and then quickly follows that with, that does not mean it has to be some kind of worldwide government. But then he does not explain how that could ever work.
All right, here’s the part where I come across as some crazy jackass.
I think we can have global governance without a global government, simply requires a system to measure public opinion on a worldwide scale.
Not a government, but it institution controlled by the people.
I appreciate your comments, but I must say that (without having read the report) I don't know how you come to this conclusion:
"This demands not just increasing the rate at which advanced economies are decarbonizing but also deep cuts in emissions from poor countries. You can dress it up in all the progressive phraseology you want, but the reality is that this would mean deepening poverty for billions of people in the developing world."
I did some modeling on this, and while it's true that a large percentage of emissions come from a whole slew of small countries (30% or less), there are like 10 or so countries that really matter. If you are REALLY aggressive with them you don't have to change anything about how the hundreds of other countries behave, and you can still make a huge change in projected CO2 emissions.
What I'm saying is that what Piketty is proposing might be crazy, but I don't think it necessarily implies what you said it does (unless he says that explicitly in his report.) Even if he did, I don't think it's a requirement to make a huge difference.
What you need to do is take all available resources (financial and technical) and apply them where it matters, which is to the biggest emitters. That's like 75% of the source of future emissions. No need to even worry about the poor countries.
I'm not sure where you get your ideas about politics, but they seem mistaken. There are lots of people who want to vote for left wing redistribution (which would definitely be a part of Piketty's ideas). And lots of people are very uneasy about growth - basically, people often vote for things to stay the same, not necessarily for more money. And just think of Piketty's background: how are you gonna tell a Frenchman that people don't love socialism?
So I don't think this is a very well-targeted critique. I kinda agree with you (though I would like to see much more global governance); but the reason Piketty's ideas won't work aren't because no-one will vote for them.
Think how hard it was to get some people to wear a piece of cloth on their face when they were around others so they didn’t spread a serious illness. Now you’re proposing a global reduction in food consumption that’s going to fall predominantly on rich countries. How do you think that is going to go? People might be uneasy about growth but even if you could somehow trick them into voting for it these kinds of degrowth proposals will never last in a democratic system
My estimate is that it will take more than five hundred years for the world to be sufficiently wealthy and educated for the type of global coordination via world communist revolution that Piketty proposes, if ever. In the meantime, it is important to find ways to prevent the climate collapsing, and to do so through forms of global coordination that are compatible with the capitalist system. The priority should be to prevent tipping points that pose the risk of a hothouse. I agree that CDR is essential, but it is not fast and effective enough to stabilise the climate while it ramps up. Earth System Stabilisation requires rapid cooling with sunlight reflection.
I believe that many people who lean left politically need to do a hard reality-check on what they really believe about totalitarism. I don't say that because I believe that they are bad people, but many have eluded themselves to believe that they, deep down, believe in freedom, compassion and are in opposition to ideologies like Fascism, but when push comes to shove, like questions on how to solve rising inequality or climate change, it often quickly becomes clear that they secretly yearn for the iron fist of the state to enact this. Covid was a revealing moment in my opinion, where many people who professed liberal attitudes came out in favor of strict state-sponsored sanctions on the personal liberties of citizens, sometimes in a scaringly insistent manner.
I like to say that conservative want to kill democracy, while liberals just want to pick away at it slowly.
It’s not just many people, it’s most of them. The majority of both left and right are against any increase in democracy, in fact they would like to see a little less of it.
Have you ever heard of the book” 10% less democracy”?
The printing press caused a 30 year war in Europe, and it didn’t end until they accepted plurality of religion.
There was a struggle to control and suppress the printing press, not just by the elites, the majority felt this way.
We’re going through the same thing now with the Internet, and the majority want someone on their side of the narrative to get some kind of control over it.
I have some pretty good evidence if you’d like to see it?
Despite all of these hurdles, I’m part of a group that has a plan to get around these problems. We think we can speed up the process that we are going through now, which is the equivalent of the 30 year war in Europe.
Let me know if you’d like to hear more about it?
The problem is that carbon capture is exactly as impossible, and you are articulating it as the reasonable solution.
We as a species are dead-set on destruction. After a few years of flattening of energy use, and the near-elimination of coal, we decide to blow out AI, and now we will consume more energy and revitalize coal.
Piketty isn’t insane, we are.
Have you heard about game B?
I recently joined their Facebook group. They talk about the problem in much the same way you do. Although I don’t think most of them are against property rites, other than that there’s a lot of similarities.
Basically, everyone in the world is playing game A, which is dominated by rivalry. Game B, would be a version of the world with less rivalry.
There’s a lot of versions in the game B crowd, but I prefer the Jim Rutt version.
One thing they agree on is the multipolar problem. Even if the majority of people want to live in a game B World, there’s no way for it to work, unless everyone joined them. Because of one person tries to live his life with less rivalry, everyone else would just take advantage of them. Therefore, everyone is stuck in this game A world.
I’m part of a group that believes we have at least part of the answer to breaking the multipolar trap problem. It’s simply a database of public opinion on the worldwide scale. The first worldwide public institution owned and operated by the people.
There are incentives within the system that will encourage people to voluntarily identify themselves, and voluntarily allow people to judge them and how they conduct their lives.
When we live in a community, we learn to judge one another fairly, and a conduct ourselves accordingly, and if we don’t, the community will straighten us out. we need to re-create these conditions on a worldwide scale.
If you’d like to see what our plan is, search for kaosnow.com
You admit that your plan will not work, so I thought I’d offer you our plan
Yes!
Yes, you’re familiar with game B?
I’m trying to make connections in the game B crowd, do you have any suggestions on how I could do that?
What do you think of our Kaos plan?
Edit: a word
So you’re willing to give all your power away to a dictator to solve this problem?
The philosopher, King?
Not sure how you reached that conclusion.
My comment is that the essay is a strident critique of an obviously absurd notion, and it ends by relying (without judgment) on an equally preposterous notion, global carbon capture.
It would be helpful if you told us what you do support?
Telling me global carbon capture it’s crazy, leave me a list a lot of questions.
Aren’t trees a form of carbon capture? You don’t believe in trees?
Radical reduction in carbon production. No data centers, no restarting or building new coal or gas facilities.
Again, my comment was on the stridency of the post matched with the confidence in a non-solution.
My idea won’t work either.
Would you agree that the biggest problem is how the world is governed?
If you think it’s a governing problem, and you don’t want a dictator, would you be willing to go along with what the majority wants?
No. I think the biggest problem is that our narcissism combined with our current notion of capital and property creates an attractor basin that maximizes extraction and minimizes consideration of externalities, regardless the mode of government.
US/British capitalism or Soviet communism were both absolute property regimes built on maximized production and exploitation. How votes were cast were irrelevant to the basic outcome of devastating the planet.
We don’t solve this problem without radically changing how we think about capital and changing our own insatiable appetites.
Monarchy, democracy, totalitarian regime - it makes a moderate difference on the environmental outcome and usually over a relatively short period.
Note, personally I prefer a democracy with some sense of human rights, but I live in one, and we are one of the worst sources of worldwide depredation, so who knows.
Carbon capture works fairly well when attached to a coal burning power plant, but AI doesn’t require coal, in the US last year over 40% of added power generation was solar (27GW) next was gas (5 GW) while coal generation declined by 5 GW. I don’t know how much coal generation China is building, but neither you,me, or Piketty’s world government will stop them.
I just think you are remarkably shrill and condescending in your essay about what is admittedly a non-starter proposal, then propose a comically insufficient response.
There is no response by the current Neo-liberal or totalitarian regimes that is anywhere near up to the task. We pretend technology will solve the problem, then watch as tech makes it worse (AI).
We are wholly fucked, and are going to go through a great deal of pain in the not-distant future, because we are simply too greedy by nature.
"Watermelon politics"... Thanks for that one -- I will be using it again for certain. Also, I certainly agree that advocating for the impossible is equivalent to advocating for nothing at all. Since there is no cause for climate alarm, the best philosophy is just containment and patience.
A rather simple argument against Piketty et al. The concept of the Global Justice Fund is not a call for world government, no matter how many times you say it. The GJF is a guideline for how the world might save itself from climate change and reallocate money more equitably for healthier longterm outcomes. His is not a call for degrowth, but a refocus on healthier growth based on human and environmental care--there's more than enough work that needs doing, such as education and health care, to name only two.
How this might implement is the interesting debate, but Pikkety makes clear his preference to be through democratic means. Instead of picking on Pikkety, why not imagine how such new forms of growth could manifest?
Count me as a former admirer of the ideas of Thomas Piketty. He has done the world a great service by illuminating in detail the growth of a global oligarchic class, and there is no doubt that this oligarchy, as represented by the Republican party in the US, is mostly responsible for denying thar rising emissions are even a problem for decades despite their own research. But he lost me this time at global taxation authority. i had the reaction you so aptly described. Yeah that's some crazy talk, bro, even in French.
I think your criticisms are pretty spot on, but I think the obvious weak spot is where you say that the people in Third World countries will have to suffer more than anyone else.
I’m sure he would simply say that the top down governing system he is planning he will definitely be trying to compensate those countries and individuals.
I’m just saying it’s pretty easy for him to cover his ass on that one, as compared to the glaring problem that he would have to be dictator over the world.
People always jump to this conclusion that the only way to solve these big worldwide problems is to have some kind of worldwide government.
Robert Wright, being the smart person he is, likes to say that we need some form of worldwide governance, and then quickly follows that with, that does not mean it has to be some kind of worldwide government. But then he does not explain how that could ever work.
All right, here’s the part where I come across as some crazy jackass.
I think we can have global governance without a global government, simply requires a system to measure public opinion on a worldwide scale.
Not a government, but it institution controlled by the people.
kaosnow.com
Yes. Exactly this.
I appreciate your comments, but I must say that (without having read the report) I don't know how you come to this conclusion:
"This demands not just increasing the rate at which advanced economies are decarbonizing but also deep cuts in emissions from poor countries. You can dress it up in all the progressive phraseology you want, but the reality is that this would mean deepening poverty for billions of people in the developing world."
I did some modeling on this, and while it's true that a large percentage of emissions come from a whole slew of small countries (30% or less), there are like 10 or so countries that really matter. If you are REALLY aggressive with them you don't have to change anything about how the hundreds of other countries behave, and you can still make a huge change in projected CO2 emissions.
What I'm saying is that what Piketty is proposing might be crazy, but I don't think it necessarily implies what you said it does (unless he says that explicitly in his report.) Even if he did, I don't think it's a requirement to make a huge difference.
What you need to do is take all available resources (financial and technical) and apply them where it matters, which is to the biggest emitters. That's like 75% of the source of future emissions. No need to even worry about the poor countries.
I'm not sure where you get your ideas about politics, but they seem mistaken. There are lots of people who want to vote for left wing redistribution (which would definitely be a part of Piketty's ideas). And lots of people are very uneasy about growth - basically, people often vote for things to stay the same, not necessarily for more money. And just think of Piketty's background: how are you gonna tell a Frenchman that people don't love socialism?
So I don't think this is a very well-targeted critique. I kinda agree with you (though I would like to see much more global governance); but the reason Piketty's ideas won't work aren't because no-one will vote for them.
Think how hard it was to get some people to wear a piece of cloth on their face when they were around others so they didn’t spread a serious illness. Now you’re proposing a global reduction in food consumption that’s going to fall predominantly on rich countries. How do you think that is going to go? People might be uneasy about growth but even if you could somehow trick them into voting for it these kinds of degrowth proposals will never last in a democratic system
My estimate is that it will take more than five hundred years for the world to be sufficiently wealthy and educated for the type of global coordination via world communist revolution that Piketty proposes, if ever. In the meantime, it is important to find ways to prevent the climate collapsing, and to do so through forms of global coordination that are compatible with the capitalist system. The priority should be to prevent tipping points that pose the risk of a hothouse. I agree that CDR is essential, but it is not fast and effective enough to stabilise the climate while it ramps up. Earth System Stabilisation requires rapid cooling with sunlight reflection.