auroraglacialis,

I want to thank you for your detailed post in which you have explained many things and for your deep concern for environment.

You are right about Techno-Worshippers who keep saying Technology will save environment.

Industrial Technology is the cause of environmental destruction.....Overexploitation of nature became possible only because of Industrial Technology.....Without Industrial Technology and Machines only limited destruction of nature was possible.

Trying to save environment with Technology is like trying to extinguish a fire with petrol.

Trying to save environment by changing Industrial Technology is like trying to save a victim of shooting not by stopping the shooting but by changing the Gun.


Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

I just finished reading a book called "TechNOfix" - I dont recommend it to everyone, as it is in part quite technical and has well over 1000 endnotes and also the conclusion is a bit bland, but the author analyzes very well what is going on and specifically why as long as the society does not change, no technology can save the world, because no matter what technology is created, it will not be used to do more good than harm, because society uses technology in a certain way that is coherent with the values of that society - in case of industrial society especially with capitalism or so-called "communism" that value is growth and improvement of the material wealth of humans. Instead of using higher efficiency light bulbs to actually save energy, people use more light, instead of using more efficient engines to save gasoline people buy larger cars or drive more because they can afford it. But more importantly, technology is not value neutral - so it is not about technology being that neutral tool that can always be used for good or evil - thats a gross oversimplification and in fact the values and norms of a society, the investor and the developer of a technology - they all are reflected within that technology. For example TV - certainly it can be used to broadcast good stuff or bad stuff, educational programs or American Idol. But in any case, it promotes people sitting in front of a screen, basically isolated even if they sit there with other people they still stare at the screen and are passively entertained or educated. That is a value embedded in that technology - it is about unidirectional transfer of information to a passive individualized/isolated audience. As such it promotes passive consumption and "taking orders" (for example "buy this laundry detergent" or "this is how lions live like in Africa"). This is embedded because of the origins of TV, which sprung from the strongly inequal societies of the beginning of the 20th century - capitalist industrial societies mostly. It was immediately utilized to promote commerce or political ideology.
So technology is not value neutral and it does not solve problems created by social or economic ideologies - I dont really see its role as that of a solution for these problems - society including economics and politics has to change fundamentally, otherwise it really is trying to extringish a fire with petrol because if the idea of people is that they want it warm and bright during the night and that is why they started that fire - they cannot use water because that would get rid of that warmth and light but using petrol means they can stop burning wood and instead keep that fire going with petrol but then of course they see that they can have it warmer and brighter with more petrol, so they put in more and more and looking from the outside this looks like insanity because they are simply burning more and more...

All problems of Industrial Society are unsolvable because Industrialization itself is the cause of problems.....Exponential increase in environmental destruction, incidence of cancer, obesity and war/ violence.......Industrialization is the cause of all these problems.

It is important to understand why millions of people are trying to solve all these problems when they can never be solved.

Here is the answer - Billions of people who are not producing food in Industrial Society have to be kept engaged in some work or activity....People would go crazy without work....Therefore unnecessary, meaningless, futile and destructive jobs and professions are created by Industrial Society to keep the Urban Population occupied.

In Hunter_Gatherer Society the entire population was engaged in searching for food.....In Agrarian Society almost the entire population was engaged in producing food [hardly 1 - 2% of population was not producing food].

In Industrial Society 50% of world population is growing food for entire population.....The remaining 50% population is engaged in extra, destructive and unnecessary work....[In America only 5% of population is producing food, That is why America is the Mother of all unnecessary and destructive work in this world].

The population that does not produce food is engaged in Production and Marketing of thousands of consumer goods and services, Tourism Industry, Entertainment Industry, Sports Industry, Military Industrial Complex and All kinds of unnecessary research.

Millions of people are doing unnecessary, meaningless and futile research in Industrial Society in hundreds of fields.

Millions of people in Industrial Society are trying to save Environment which is not possible because Industrial Activity itself is the cause of large scale environmental destruction.

Millions of people in Industrial Society are trying to cure Obesity which is impossible because Obesity is a result of Industrialization.....A result of the switch over from physical work to mental work and easy availability of billions of tonnes of ready-made food.

Millions of people in Industrial Society are trying to cure Cancer which is not possible because Industrialization itself is the cause of cancer.....Industrial Activity has contaminated air, water and soil with billions of tonnes of solid, liquid and gaseous carcinogens.

Millions of people in Industrial Society are working with Peace Organizations trying to make the world peaceful.....This is an impossibility because Military Industrial Complex is promoting war and violence by producing and selling billions of tonnes of weapons all over the world.

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Hundreds of professions and millions of jobs have been created in the name of solving the problems of Industrial Society.

The solutions will of course never come because Industrialization itself is the cause of problems.

Millions of people are happy because they are getting jobs and salaries......Governments are happy because they can claim they are doing all they can to solve global problems.

Meanwhile the problems continue getting bigger and bigger day by day, moment by moment.


Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

Interestingly, things tend to increase exponentially as population does. I wonder why ;)

Rate is completely different to incidence. For example, the USA has more murders than Honduras, the country with the highest rate (as do Russia, Brazil, China and India, for that matter), but fewer per capita. There's a difference.

It's not Industrialization the cause, but our beloved human race and its obsession with control. The bad part is that you can't turn a blind eye to the light once it has been blinded for centuries and it continues to be. The good part is that things could be done.

I'm sorry, but that's bull****. Are you implying that anyone who isn't involved in agriculture is doing "unnecessary research?" I beg to differ...

These people don't understand what they're saying. Pay it no mind.
They want to live in caves and build houses from sticks.

Once in a while humanity is meant to start over, and not just that we will live like hundred years ago but we will face the unexpected. And I'm not talking about us here, but the next generations.

What do you say about the indigenous people in Amazon that are forced to leave their territories because of some irrational corporates who don't know sh*t about their traditions and lifestyle but more about resources under and how to steal them without any right ? They build houses from sticks, so what ? They don't pollute, they don't harm anyone, they don't want our resources to be like us because they don't need this and I can assure you, these indigenous people know more about you and me and us than we do so that's why they don't want to be exposed to a self-destruction. Please.

Industrial Society has also a rational thought : building vertically in order to preserve horizontal spaces. Just as trees.

I don't think anything is meant :P - things haven't happened before and won't happen again in the same way. Whatever happens happens, and that is a reason to respect others, and not thanks to some magical 'meant to start over' (are the indigenous people in Amazon that are forced to leave their territories "meant to start over"? That's what your post implies to me :P)

It's one thing to respect the indigenous people and their way. And you should.
But the people in this thread are saying, because they don't like cars and electricity, that we all need to go back to the stone age.

No one's stopping you.

Of course it's not magical, just that in our history there are some periods when people had to do that because of... something. The indigenous people will start over but not fully, because they'll take traditions and habits with them, also they would adapt easily to new environments (natural). Can we adapt ? I doubt.

It's an option. You can choose to believe whatever you want about today's society and live the way you want. I choose to believe that electricity and cars can be non-pollutive using sun and wind energies, but of course, not until oil and gas will cost more than gold, it will be a very rare resource.

There are people who gave up this live and moved to the wild, growing their own food haunting for meat, not supporting globalization and industrialization. I don't think it's wrong what they're doing.

I never stated that it was wrong.

I'm "one of those people ", and I don't think that Iron Jones said that at all.

Exactly. It's not wrong, but what's wrong is wanting everyone to do the same. That's the direct equivalent of wanting everyone to live in a dense city area - there are people who will like that, there are people who will like living in a cave without another person anywhere near them, there will people who will like a small village, or the suburbs, or a large town, or Antarctica. People need different things, and what's important is reducing the negative impact each has on the other - which per perfectly possible if population in general is kept lower.

KOSMAN, MA TSMUK, oe mllte.

Give em a month of hunting with sticks and fetching their own water from a hole in a ground and I'm sure stoplights and automatic doors won't seem so bad.

WRONG BUNKIE! There you go making judgements about stuff that you are only GUESSING ABOUT.
I have been hunting with a bow since I was Ten, and it hasn't gotten old with me. I put a white tailed deer a year on the table with a bow, and have been disappearing into the woods for a week at a time with nothing but a bow or rifle, and not going hungry or thirsty since I was thirteen. "
Don't. Assume all of us are like you.

Go figure...

Before I moved to this city for college, I used to leave home for two or three days, by myself or in groups of 5 to maximum 10 kiddos, in the forest. We were making light and fire with sticks and no lighters, we were collecting forest fruits from trees or bushes, watching the night skies till we fell asleep, it was a great experience and I would do it again, even more than that, in the same skin I'm in. Main idea started as camping, but it evolved as an escape from day to day life. As days passed and spent over there, I started to believe that it wouldn't be bad for me to move in the forest forever, than blocking my eyes in books and technical drawings for an uncertain future. Then I woke up in 2007 going to college and here I am... probably if I moved wouldn't have meet you, great people from ToS, my second home.

Anyway, there is time. I stay on my idea that sooner or later Humanity will be forced to start over without too much technology at hands.

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When there was still time to save environment a whole century was wasted in the futile debate over Capitalism, Socialism and Communism.

Trying to save environment after 250 years of relentless Industrial Activity is like trying to revive a dead man.....There is hardly any environment left to save.

Industrial Activity destroys environment.....Where there is Industrial Activity there is environmental destruction.....Capitalism, Communism or Socialism doesn't matter at all.

Monsanto is not going to become less harmful under Communism or Socialism.

Nuclear Power Plants are not going to become less harmful under Communism or Socialism.

Mining Industry is not going to become less harmful under Communism or Socialism.

Logging Industry is not going to become less destructive under Communism or Socialism.

Construction Industry is not going to become less destructive under Communism or Socialism.

Transportation Industry is not going to become less harmful under Communism or Socialism.

Oil Drilling, Oil Refining, Tar Sands and Hydraulic Fracking are not going to become less destructive under Communism or Socialism.

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A person is being shot 100 times......Some people are supposed to save the victim.....They do nothing till 99 bullets have hit the victim.....When the last bullet is about to be fired they rush to save the victim, who is already dead by then.

Industrial Activity has been destroying Biodiversity and Ecosystems for 250 years.....Industrial Society should not have been started in the first place.....Once it came into existence its harmful impact on environment should have alerted people and they should have tried to stop Industrial Activity in the early stages.....If people had tried to stop Industrial Activity 50 years or even 100 years after it began, environment could have been saved because most of the environmental destruction has taken place in the last 50 - 100 years when the rate of Industrialization and Consumerism rose exponentially.....Trying to save environment after 250 years of Industrial Activity is like trying to revive a dead man.....There is hardly any environment left to save.

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When a mass shooter kills 20 American kids the world is outraged.

When millions of baby seals are clubbed to death the world is not outraged.

When Industrial Society kills billions of animals in Slaughter Houses the world is not outraged.

When Industrial Society kills billions of wild animals by destroying forests with Industrial Activity the world is not outraged.

When Industrial Society kills Rivers, Lakes, Oceans, Atmosphere and Land with billions of tonnes of Metal Waste, Plastic Waste, Chemical Waste, Gaseous Waste, eWaste and Nuclear Waste the world is not outraged.

When Industrial Society kills billions of acres of fertile soil that provides food to millions of species with Cement, Concrete and Asphalt the world is not outraged.

When Industrial Society kills ecosystems that are home to millions of species it is called Progress, Growth, Development.

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Who is not a killer in Industrial Society?????

Every citizen of Industrial Society is a Serial Killer.....Serial Killer of nature.....Serial Killer of animals, trees, air, water and land.

Industrial Society has killed billions of farm animals in Slaughter Houses and billions of wild animals in forests with Industrial Activity for making consumer goods and services.....If we divide this number by total Industrial population we get per capita killing of animals.

Industrial Society has killed billions of Trees in forests with Industrial Activity for making consumer goods and services.....If we divide this number by total Industrial population we get per capita killing of Trees.

Industrial Activity has produced billions of tonnes of solid, liquid and gaseous Industrial Waste.....This waste has polluted and poisoned air, water and soil....If we divide this number by total Industrial population we get per capita waste which is a measure of per capita killing of air, water and soil.

Every citizen of Industrial Society is a Serial Killer.....Serial Killer of nature.....Serial Killer of animals, trees, air, water and land.

Mass shooters are not the only insane people in this society.....The entire Industrial Society is insane.

The entire Industrial Society is insane, abnormal and criminal.

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Industrial Society is a curse on this planet.

This planet can only sustain "Food Searching" or "Food Producing" Societies.....It cannot sustain an Industrial Society.

This planet can only sustain Hunter_Gatherer Society or Agrarian Society.....It cannot sustain an Industrial Society....It cannot sustain an Urban Society that produces thousands of consumer goods and services instead of food.

An Industrial Society will always be cruel to millions of other species and to itself.

A society that has destroyed all the natural resources of the planet will also destroy itself.

After destroying biodiversity and ecosystems which sustained human life for millions of years man will not even exist.

Welfare of humans and millions of other species is only possible in a non-industrial society.

Industrialization was the biggest crime on earth....The biggest act of killing, murder and terrorism on earth.

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Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

...are you retarded?

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Do you take drugs before posting?????

I'm not the one making outrageous claims.

Ha, it's been quite a long time since this sort of exchange went on in a thread. Bravo, I was almost missing it.

He or she paints the entirety of the current human species, even those of us desperately trying to lower our personal footprint on this planet with such a broad brush that he or she bears the very same guilt as everyone else.

sushil_yadav, can you please back up your statements with solid evidence!? Is that too much to ask for? Your posts are currently full of rhetoric.

People are not outraged ? Seriously ?! You need to make this clear. There are a lot of people investing in preventing, reducing, stopping those things you just listed and you should know it.

I see a lot of people pointing the finger at politics and our consumerist lifestyle as well as the industral age , many also blame "science" and technoligy for all our woes, I would like to speak on a very deep core issue running under "all of this" that is also at the core of Avatar I have a lot of respect for "Avatars" deep example, and it has profound roots in our very deep core understaning of our true sense of place in our world (Or lack of it) and our connectiion to our inner accountability our subconscoius core self tied to our deep memorys and Dreams , from this springs our fundamental abbilty to see and feel our world and our connection to our core humanity this id waht drives us to deeply question how our actions effect others both personly and collectivly driving our deep core empathy for others and our natural world this is "The Bond" , as our people are stressed by large scale traumatic events like the school shooting of young children in connecticut our primal inner core self reacts with deep emotion (Just as it should) "But" if these events happen over and over a very sublime hard to see change happens and our primal self protection system labels profundly important core understanding the "source" of our problems and proceeds to "Cut the Bond" to one of the most profoundly important links to our universal core understanding, This is the damage our people do not see, But native peoples have a very high regard for the fundamantal part of there understanding and have spoken a very strong warning on what they see happeing that most of our people ar blind to see its like a cancer , it blinds our people of there deep core understanding that knows the truth and lets us "see" and "feel" our peoples collective core issues this lets our people "See" the roots of the issues and more importanly feel the accountably to "Act on what we see and feel" if one looks at the core roots of this song and ask why ? the songwriter wrote it, one can see the deep roots to our bond inside Denean - Eagle Fly ... But Don't Fly, Away - YouTube many would attribute this to the world view and spiritual understanding of native peoples , but new science is in the edge of finding out it may be a core universal part of all are people Gregg Branden speaks on this connection and I dont aggre on all he has to say he speaks on the mistakes of "science" Gregg Braden: Full conference / The Divine Matrix - YouTube

What ? We made it with our own hands. Science is actually a reflection of us as a species. Religion too, discoveries... and everything. We had to do something in order to keep ourselves sane and occupied. Industrialization and urbanization the same, their purpose is to keep ourselves organized, that's what animals and humans don't have in common. Reason. Even if there are moments when I think that fauna and flora own more reason than we do. Killing and eating as much as they need is one of the many reasons I think that.

Yesterday night I was watching a documentary on History Channel, on how we "made" it to what we are now. After Goodyear invented rubber, a material that makes the world go 'round literally, people in Africa (to be more exact, Congo) were tortured even killed in order to exploit the main ingredient of rubber. They were forced. If one said "no", he was beaten or had his family killed by soldiers of King Leopold II of Belgium, which treated Congo like his own private property. Even a late delivery of rubber prime matter was harsh punished, like children's hands chopped off, families starved etc. It's a result of industrial society forcing weak populations to surrender their territories and resource even their legacies. The atomic bomb represents the same thing, we learn to build and we learn to destroy, we learn to preserve nature and we learn to defy its rules, we learn to save and we learn to kill, we learn to consume and we learn to produce. What we do next ? Everything has a limit, even our evolution. At our very beginnings, almost 50.000 years ago, we ate and killed as much as it was needed, just like animals do, with a reason, but when population started to grow from 100.000k to 500.000k to 1.000.000k in 30 to 60 years, the "Grid" changed. The Ancient Civilizations were more connected to Earth and space than we are today, as a matter of fact we try to find out more about the outer space than about Earth where there are still a lot to discover. Here we still have a lot to learn, it isn't over yet. To get rid of the individualism thing, the selfishness that blinds billions it's a concept to control people, because when two interact and ask themselves questions of "why, when, how?" at the same time they answer to those questions. It's a concept to keep people occupied working, studying, no more family life, no more fun, no more absolutely nothing, it's the most safe and easy solution to manipulate. In our century industrial isn't the problem, but information. We know what we are supposed to know, nothing more, nothing less. People blocked inside their rooms playing online games and stuck in online socializing are easy to control.

You recall that event in Connecticut. It is terrible that isn't an isolated case. This happened, happens and will happen since weapons can be accessed by heartless, irrational sons of b**ches, psychopaths or old prisoners. How the f**k can you kill children ?! Authorities, what are authorities doing ? Their presence is only by collecting money from taxes, tickets, auctions or bla bla, that's what "authority" stands for ? Oh, God...

Feel ? Feel what ? I feel sick about this, because I won't accept work and technology to occupy my real life, simple but significant things to a species that was created from love, devotion, reason, discovery and imagination. I won't accept anyone to control me, my wife, my children or my parents or other people I know.

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Five Elephants were run over by a train in the state of Orissa in India yesterday.

One of them was a female in advanced stage of pregnancy whose foetus came out as the train hit the mother.

The world will celebrate one more New Year's Eve today......After torturing, slaughtering and decimating millions of species this world will celebrate yet another New Year today.
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After destroying planet Earth.....After destroying most of the biodiversity and ecosystems, Industrial Society should be in Mourning but it wants to Celebrate instead.

It wants to Celebrate Diwali, Christmas, New Year and Hundreds of other Festivals.

If Industrial Society had any shame there would have been no Celebrations in the past , no celebrations for the next thousands of years.....only Mourning.

Industrial Society has decimated millions of Animal Species, destroyed Forests, poisoned Rivers, Oceans, Soil and Sky with Billions of Tonnes of Solid, Liquid and Gaseous Industrial Waste.

Industrial Society is a curse on this planet.

Celebrate!!!....Celebrate!!!....Celebrate!!!

Celebrate Diwali, Christmas, New Year and Hundreds of other Festivals!!!!.....Go Shopping.....Spend Money.....Buy Gifts....Buy thousands of consumer goods and services.....Promote and Accelerate Industrial Activity which will kill even more Biodiversity and Ecosystems.

And then wait for next year to celebrate the death of nature once more.
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Industrial Society is a curse on this planet.

This planet can only sustain "Food Searching" or "Food Producing" Societies.....It cannot sustain an Industrial Society.

This planet can only sustain Hunter_Gatherer Society or Agrarian Society.....It cannot sustain an Industrial Society....It cannot sustain an Urban Society that produces thousands of consumer goods and services instead of food.
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More than 99.9% destruction of this planet has already happened.....Only the end of humans is yet to happen.

Most of the Biodiversity and Ecosystems have already been destroyed.

Species are not lost when they become extinct....Species are lost when they get decimated....Species were lost when their populations dropped from billions and millions before industrialization to thousands and hundreds after industrialization.

There are(were) millions of species in this world....Most of them have already been decimated because Industrial Activity has destroyed most of the forests....Millions of Plant and Animal species have been decimated by Mining Industry, Logging Industry, Construction Industry, Manufacturing Industry, Energy Generation Industry, Oil Drilling, Oil Refining, Transportation Industry, Millions of kilometers of Rail and Road Networks, Ports and Airports..

If we calculate the decline in populations of millions of species after industrialization the combined loss will come to more than 99.9%.

Rivers, Lakes, Oceans, Atmosphere and Land have been polluted, poisoned and killed by trillions of tonnes of Metal Waste, Plastic Waste, Chemical Waste, Gaseous waste, eWaste and Nuclear Waste.....The entire planet has become a Toxic Dump.....All Solid, Liquid and Gaseous Industrial Waste that has been produced by Industrial Society in 250 years after Industrial Revolution has accumulated on earth....It has not gone out of earth.

Oceans have turned acidic and warmer and there are oxygen deprived dead zones in the oceans....Fish in the oceans have been decimated by Industrial Fishing.

Billions of acres of fertile soil that was the source of food to millions of species has been killed by Cement, Concrete and Asphalt.


A society that has destroyed all the natural resources of the planet will also destroy itself.

After destroying biodiversity and ecosystems which sustained human life for millions of years man will not exist...It is only a matter of a few years now.
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How about you suggest some reasonable steps that our society should take instead of posting a bunch of rhetoric? Better yet, can you give context and statistics instead of anecdotes?

99,9% ? This percentage totaled Earth. You made a calculus or you're just trying to catch attention with things people already know ?

And you helped. ****-head.

sushil_yadav, it would be helpful, if you adressed the people responding to your posts and not just do a monologue, as much truth as there is in that, it reads at times more like a rant than a debate. Maybe think about making this a two-way communication, would you?

I agree with much that you are saying but also there are some things that I see different. One is the claim that humans are for some reason inherently destructive if not occupied by a lot of daily work for food:
In hunter-gatherer societies, people actually spent something like 3 hours a day with getting food and then something like 2 hours more with making tools, clothes, shelter - overall they had less than 6 hours work a day, depending on region it may even have been less. Some of that work was "destructive" in that animals are killed or plants cut to make things - but they certainly were not really unneccesary because they contributed to the survival and existence of humans. But there was still the rest of the day and people had plenty of leisure time in pre-agrarian times. And they did NOT use that time to destroy the world with meaningless work. Actually that is a trait of agricultural and industrial civilization which is based on more forceful activity and growth. Agriculture itself is a disaster for nature - the soil being turned over every year, monocrops planted, trees cut down. It may well be that a society that is used to heavy labor as was common in agricultural societies cannot easily get rid of that "work ethic" anymore and people feel compelled to "do something" because doing nothing is considered to be lazy and bad - in that case, you are maybe right, but I refuse to accept that this is human nature - it is a result of a social development that has basically enslaved people living in industrialized societies. People in original societies had leasure time, they used it to make art, stories, to ponder spirituality and their connection with the world, they tried to understand the world, but it was not "work" they did. They did not "work" as artists or authors or priests or scientists but they just did these things in a way they thought right instead of a way that ensures them an income that allows them to survive because the survival was already covered by the time they did these things.

But one thing really puzzled me for decades now - why on Earth do people work more and more and as much as they do now at all if productivity of work has increased dramatically over the past 150 years? As you wrote, a single farmer can now do the work of 20, same is true for industrial workers being replaced by robots and machines. One answer was then that people do other jobs - marketing, advertisement, finance. But that is not really an answer because these are not things we needed 150 years ago. The weakest but still not really completely wrong response to that is capitalism. Capitalism means that production is maximized while the workers are kept at a steady income. Increases in efficiency of productivity of a worker does not go into increasing leisure time or wages but into growing the company and lining the pockets of the shareholders. I know that this analysis is old and that it has its flaws as can be seen by the attempts at socialism that still had workers doing a lot of hours (albeit often less than in capitalism), but its a start...

The "obsession with control" is what I would call civilization and industrialization is the endpoint of this. Humans by themselves are not so much obsessed with control - there are little tendencies for control in hunter gatherer societies or even in horticultural societies. Control comes with agriculture in the sense of totalitarian agriculture, the kind of farming that defines weeds vs crops, pests vs farm animals - in short that needs to deliberately eliminate plants and animals on a larger scale. Suddenly you are not fostering some plants and discourage others, but you start to kill in order to control what grows where and when... and then from that who has to do what work, who gets the surplus, who the weapons and who calls for a war - who gets the benefits of inventions and technologies and who gets the scraps. It is not "human nature" to be like this, it is a specific cultural expression that humans developed and that allowed those who follow it to grow in numbers large enough to now seemingly represent the human species just because there are so many...
...ctd

ctd...

Indeed - what is the problem with houses made of anything? If it keeps you warm and dry thats fine - that focus on what materials we build our structures and what kind of entertainment we consume is kind of stupid - Why would a house made of concrete be better than a house made of wood or clay? Except maybe if you expect a tornado, but then again people in cities build houses from glass and steel - thats not very stable either. And I have seen many concrete buildings rot away from various influences, so its not the building material that counts.

That makes only sense under one circumstance - overpopulation. And not even then because inf act it is an illusion. Just because you stack peoples bedrooms on top of each other does not reduce the area of land they need. The space actually needed for living is very small compared to the space you need to grow food, gather resources and so on. It is called the ecological footprint and it does not reduce itself much when stacking homes on top of each other. Besides there is that innovation called suburbia which is the opposite - more land use per person and that land is not even used to grow food or trees...

This is not a matter of personal choice, as much as you would like it to be so. The fact that indigenous people are struggling to keep their land and culture is a indicator of this. If these people with all their tradition and history are struggling, what do you think someone coming from our society would be able to do in that respect? Of course someone is stopping me - the same someone who is taking it away from indigenous peoples. There are not really any places to just go and live simpler. Because the world is full of civilization, the land is enclosed and sold and the forests are either managed or protected, the oceans have 95% less fish than they used to, there are only remnants of salmon living in the rivers and there is pollution everywhere - where do you think someone should go who wants to live "like in the stone age"?

No - that comparison is like saying that living rape free is not wrong, but you cannot expect everyone to stop raping others. The problem is that the lifestyle we now live in has a high impact. It requires the importation of resources, cheap labour (which can only be cheap because of bad working conditions) and energy. If you can live that lifestyle that you want from the stuff that is next to you - in your city or in your community or even in your state, then I am willing to reconsider, but as long as that lifestyle needs inputs from the outside and has to make sure to keep the stuff flowing, that is not "living and let live", it is forcing the effects of your lifestyle on others that want nothing to do with it. As our german minister of war - erm I mean defense said, "we are in Afghanistan to defend our access to resources and markets". This is because Germany has not even cose to the resources it uses to keep the lifestyle going. And if other countries are not willing to give it in exchange for something, we have to send tanks and troops to get it - or loose our lifestyles.

Everything is connected - you cannot have a wasteful lifestyle at the expense of others and then blame the others for letting themselves be exploited.

This is good. Indeed people of this culture have lost the bonding to the world. We enclose ourselves in small boxes, do not know where the food and water comes from or what effect it has on others if we buy some thing, eat some thing, press a button. You may be interested in what Gabor Mate has to say about addiction and society. Part of it is that we as civilized people are deprived of that connection and we try to fill it with drugs or consumer items but it never can be filled, so we always need more and more. The only thing that can fill it is, and that sounds soooo cheezy now, "love, connection, relationship and compassion". Parents who love their children, a society that loves all its members, humans loving nonhumans. This is not replaceable by items and we all know that yet still many people are trying to, it seems.

[QUOTE=Ikranosphere;177726]
You recall that event in Connecticut. It is terrible that isn't an isolated case. This happened, happens and will happen since weapons can be accessed by heartless, irrational sons of b**ches, psychopaths or old prisoners. How the f**k can you kill children ?! Authorities, what are authorities doing ? Their presence is only by collecting money from taxes, tickets, auctions or bla bla, that's what "authority" stands for ? Oh, God...

What people won't address is "Why" people commit heartless acts like this they wont dig down to the core human issues under this and ask Why do people commit heartless acts like this ? we are quick to blame gun control laws , the fact is most of those laws would have little effect on guns traded person to person outside the gun shop, , In looking at the school shooting in Connecticut it was known the young man that did this "Told one of his friends of his plans, The failure was that his friend did not sit down with him and address the true cost of his actions if he did, this is a real issue happening with people losing there heartfelt connection to there core humanity and accountability and we are far more effected by global stress and fear then one thinks,if one loses the bond to there spirit inside they lose there connection to there inner accountabilty to our people and themselves that combined with many young adults spending hours every afternoon playing online compettive first person shooting games in which ones skill in making headshots is a part of collective "team" pride and is these experences are often spoken on with group excitement every day,, this drives a deep De-Bonding or disconnection with the true reality of such actions, Killing is now "Fun" and this is often driven home in such games as the "only way to progress to the next level and resolve the problem at hand" this is very true in many movie plots today as well. But there are many filmmakers who are realising and reflecting on deep core issues behind this as well. one of the biggest problems effecting our people today reflects on some very deep core primal human behavyor rarely openly spoken on "Human Tribalism" this is behind almost all the conflits in our world today and is why "repeat our mistakes from our past " we fail to address the core human issues behind our actions, Its very important to Note "Native peoples have been there and done this before" But they have one connection "We do not" Avatar reflects on this quite deeply and I beleve its one of main reasons why the film has such impact on the Global audience , It refected back on our "own" hearfelt core understading gave it real value and let us see in part the reflection of our own actions in a profoundly powerful way this brought very strong feelings and emotions to the surface that where "held inside" in our people it also let many people "see and feel" the core issues for the first time that have been effecting our people for generations like a deep wound inside.

Enough with the SHRINK SPEAK, OK? The guy was a LUNATIC, plain and simple. He took Psychotropics like CANDY, and he SHOULD have been locked up in an Early fifties style Insane Asylum since he was about TEN. (OOOHHH, I forgot, Insane asylums were all closed down (and the inmates let out on the streets to terrorize society) to make the bleeding hearts happy. Take the NUT JOBS, stick them where they BELONG, and you won't have these kind of problems.

Finally.

I gusss you better lock up all the Vetarans that suffer from PTSD and have used drugs as well as they are also a risk for acts aganst sociaty. there are core human issues effecting the connection to our inner accountability to our people, this is often transfered from parrents of broken familys to the children they raise these children often have difficulty and are bullyed in the school system, I recently dealt with a kid who was bringing a weppon to school , it turns out he had a whole gang of kids harassing him and they had beat him to a pulp a number of times , other people including teachers knew about the issue and "Did Nothing" its the same issue with the kid that shot up the school some of his pears knew he was having problems (and where probbly a part of the issue behind the drugs ) they "Did nothing" our people beleve the only way to address issues like this is to "Lock em up" the authoritys will deal with the issue ,its no longer our problem.

I don't think "it's no longer our problem" is the right way of looking at it, rather "we have other problems that demand more attention than this person". However, I'm not saying that's wrong. We live in a world (and always have) where we have to protect ourselves and earn what we have, and most people can't put all kinds of effort into others like that.

Allroock,
If all that esoteric psychobabble that you spouted in your second response was true, than BOTH my Brother and I would psychopathic mass murderers twenty times over. we BOTH grew up in a VERY violent household where "Discipline" was earned just for pissing our male progenitor off, and usually resulted in being beaten to unconsciousness, or worse.
FUNNY THING THOUGH, we are BOTH Post Graduate College Educated, in SEVERAL disciplines, are BOTH HONORABLY DISCHARGED Military Veterans, NEITHER ONE with PTSD, with BOTH being CREDITS to our respective Communities.
It has a LOT MORE to do with what kind of MORAL FIBER you have that any "Bad Childhood" that you grew up with.
Once AGAIN,. shrinks, and their limp wrist-ed lapdogs DON'T know what they are talking about.