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Comment by aussiesnack | Hacker News Reader

> This seems to be a more general problem than something which is the result of capitalism

Sure, but the point is that dismantling of ecosystems is capitalism's central organising principle. It's what capitalism is: denote sophisticated evolved ecosystems as "property" rather than world, then allow the "owners" to dismantle them to create crude technological systems that require ongoing inputs from the outputs of prior evolved systems. The process of converting evolved ecosystems into technological ones is economic 'growth' - a mislabel for a 2 to 3 century process that can end only with the death of the living planet, or of capitalism, whichever comes first.

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This is pure ideology, nothing more than a religious screed. I’m not sure how people can not see this. If this were a fundamentalist Christian tirade against the decay of the “family” and the “gay agenda” it would be completely obvious.

Stuff like this is the main reason I was once a big climate change skeptic. I read stuff like this and it convinced me the whole thing was just religious apologetics. "Forgive me nature for I have sinned..." Over the time I was convinced by the evidence but also by hearing people talk about it outside this ideological framework.

Nature is simply that which is. Trees are nature and microchips are nature. Any division between that which is natural and that which is “artificial” is purely a human construction. An alien observing Earth would only see living systems and products of living systems and would see no intrinsic difference between a termite mound and a highway other than what apparently built it.

There is of course a very legitimate argument for care and restraint in our use of this planet’s resources, but that’s because it affects us. “Nature” doesn’t care. The Earth existed for billions of years before us and it will exist for billions of years after us.

The exploitation of nature in unsustainable ways is not a feature of any one political system. Humans have been doing it since there have been humans. Learning to live in a more sustainable manner is a goal that we only recently even named and started discussing.

> stuff like this is the main reason I was once a big climate change skeptic

That's the only ideological/religious (or perhaps more properly identitarian) statement here. Rather than assess statements about physical reality, you choose to follow your emotional reactions to what people you associate with a movement are saying (or what you interpret them as saying). Even if I had mentioned climate change (which I didn't) and my argument was just rubbish or purely ideological, what could that possibly have to do with your assessment of the gamut of climate change science? Why would you let commenters you don't respect affect your assessments of science? It's precisely the same "argument" forwarded by people who dismiss climate science because they don't like a US politician who once made a film about climate change. Emotional reactivity, nothing more.

> Nature is simply that which is.

Who mentioned 'nature'? Unless you're a metaphysical dualist, it's a concept we can ditch. It's really only of use to marketers.

I'm talking about the planetary entropy increase caused by dismantling complex systems, evolved over thousands of years, to build crude technological ones, and falsely using the metaphor of 'growth' to describe this destructuring process. All this happens within 'nature', if you insist on the term.

Viewed as a physical process (ie. ignoring its own virtual economic self-descriptions which are as unrelated to physical processes as are those of theology), this is what capitalism is.

I think you are conflating a few things. The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take. Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.

> The idea of property came into existence long before capitalism, which seems to be the linchpin of your take.

That is not what I understood. I understood a simplified definition of property under modern capitalism. Capitalist property value is overwhelmingly limited to physical utility and not to consequence of consumption. There are a few exceptions, in various countries and industry, notwithstanding.

I did not see a suggestion as to what to do about this.

Prior to capitalism, I know of no system where “consequence of consumption” was a major aspect of the system. I’m trying to figure out where capitalism becomes a factor here.

Well if you hunted in the King’s forest, they chopped your head off. That’s a clear consequence of consumption.

That’s not about consumption, it’s about property rights.

Well maybe we should modify property rights so that they include externalities.

I think we have that today, we could pass a carbon tax tomorrow for example. It’s the political will that is lacking.

Capitalism is a composition of prior cognitive ideas. A required parameter is value assignment in relative to some shared value store.

The root of the problem is assigning authority to a minority. Consolidation of logistics has real resource wins, but we keep empowering grown children who think they’re beating a direct path to Star Trek TNG, or some other vague “greater good”, usually wrapped in memes of forever human prosperity and expansion. Never mind no theory of science says it’s actually achievable with the resources available on Earth. The morality of handing an aristocracies demands of fealty off to the future is suspect as well. I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence billions are spent selling that hype. Oh wait, behavioral economics is the intentional study of manufacturing consent; we manipulate the quirks of biology religion happened upon. My mistake.

Giving stocks value relative to dollars is optional. Let them keep ownership via ephemeral objects. I don’t think Tesla or MS shares are worth anything. But I’m trapped in a police state where my agency has to comply with the billions who believe otherwise.

The modern capitalist concept of property is abstracted a long way from its roots.

> Are you suggesting we return to being hunter gatherers? If not, I’m not sure what you are proposing.

I'm not proposing anything. I'm just describing our current system of organising the world, but in physical rather than the usual virtual terms. As a physical process, our current political/economic systems are dismantling the systems we live within. That doesn't mean I (not being a Nobel prize candidate!) could magically come up with a system to manage billions of people and an entire planet! I'm not particularly sanguine about anyone (or any collective) being able to. The destructive mechanisms are pushing us into emergency territory requiring fairly quick action, and H. Sapiens' cognitive/affective/conative capacities don't seem well adapted to the task of managing an entire planet. Given that evolution can't anticipate, why would they be?

I think you are implying that it’s “the modern system” that’s ruining the world. What’s the possibility that it’s just human nature, and the system is kinda secondary?

I would guess that's unknowable. The old proximate vs distal cause problem is hard enough for simple cases, let alone something like the interactions between thousands of ecosystems, 7 billion chunks of primate psychology, and global civilisation. I am sure that capitalism is incompatible with the continuing existence of healthy living ecosystems. So (for me) your question comes down to: is capitalism inevitable (& even if it wasn't, are we now stuck with it for historical reasons?).

We can look at some things that seem salient. When you look at human societies over time and space, the vast differences in cultures are astonishing. Most people have little idea of just how different cultures have been, so their concept of 'human nature' actually just labels their own culture (I'm not suggesting that's how you're using 'human nature'). Even the subset of contemporary 'capitalist' nations are greatly variable, not the least in their levels of ecosystem destruction.

Then capitalism itself, variation notwithstanding, does depend on the metaphor of growth (I insist on 'metaphor' because nothing defensibly 'grows' in the process of deconstructing complex evolved circular systems to build simple technological ones requiring ongoing inputs). Some think this can be fixed by building 'circular economies', but I've seen nothing to suggest that this is possible at all, let alone on a relevant timescale.

We know for certain that the 'growth' metaphor/ideology doesn't spring cleanly/directly from human nature, as there's no shortage of human societies that have lived in a relatively steady relationship with their environment (here in Australia for 60,000 years or more).

So who knows? Perhaps H. Sapiens can get free of the system it has made, perhaps not. If it can, it's not going to be in a hurry, so we'd need to slow down the rate of destruction while still capitalists. I do think that's possible with appropriate application of tech, "electrify everything", tough corporate regulation, land set-asides, urban greening, etc. But because of compounding, even slow dismantling of ecosystems eventually destroys them. So H Sapiens still needs to ditch capitalism at some point.

There's certainly no guarantee that it can, because evolution, in making the species, wasn't looking to the future (and certainly not to a destiny).

“ We know for certain that the 'growth' metaphor/ideology doesn't spring cleanly/directly from human nature, as there's no shortage of human societies that have lived in a relatively steady relationship with their environment (here in Australia for 60,000 years or more).”

In all seriousness, what societies that aren’t “hunter gatherers” or migratory that have lived in a steady state with their environment? Also, how do you define capitalism? I think we probably agree about some of the flaws of capitalism that need to change, for example infinite exponential growth, but I am very much against any kind of centrally planned system and I know of no other system that doesn’t ultimately succumb to the human desire to chase social status and ultimately excess that I would want to live in. Pre-industrial migratory societies don’t really count in my mind as a real alternative this challenge and I don’t think this problem is limited to or is driven by “capitalism”.

> what societies that aren’t “hunter gatherers” or migratory that have lived in a steady state with their environment?

The majority of indigenous Australian nations were not hunter-gatherers, though all did include hunting and gathering amongst their food production techniques to varying degrees. Though I don't see the relevance of the question. In any case, a 60,000 year civilisation not involving much in the way of capitalism seems to at least point to the possibility that what many contemporaries imagine from their very limited experience of the varieties of human experience to be 'human nature' is, in fact, merely a description of their own local culture.

> Also, how do you define capitalism?

While I find definitions to be rarely useful for physical-world concepts, capitalism to me is the system of political economy based on 'growth'. I also believe that the word 'growth' is a sort of misleading metaphor, supervening over the physical process of increasing entropy by converting complex evolved systems into cruder technological ones. There's a small academic literature on the question of whether or not capitalism does, in fact, require growth. I find the pro case convincing. You'll have to make your own judgement (given the existing literature it's not worth litigating here). I think this dependence on fake 'growth' is what most characteristically distinguishes capitalism from other ways of organising society.

> I am very much against any kind of centrally planned system

So the 3 categories of organising society you consider to contain the universe of possibilities is 'hunter-gatherer', 'capitalist' and 'centrally planned'. That's it, is it? For ever? For all our history to date?

In any case it doesn't matter much what you or me are 'for' or 'against'. That's just punditry. My contention is about the physical world. I think capitalism is literally incompatible with the long-term continuing existence of a healthy living planet. But as all H. Sapiens that I am aware of are mammals, therefore are dependent on ecosystems, capitalism literally cannot continue. So it won't. It's not among the set of long-term possibilities, regardless of political wishes or preferences.

“ In any case, a 60,000 year civilisation not involving much in the way of capitalism seems to at least point to the possibility that what many contemporaries imagine from their very limited experience of the varieties of human experience to be 'human nature' is, in fact, merely a description of their own local culture.”

I’m not sure about that conclusion, which is why I was asking for an example so I can read up on it. My main question is what caused them to not grow exponentially? In most non industrial societies it was higher mortality than modern life, and I really doubt that’s something people want to return to. But I’m not familiar with the cultures you mentioned and will look into it. Curious if you have a point of view on what limited their growth.

My main point is that I think capitalism is somewhat irrelevant to this issue. I don’t think this problem originated with capitalism and I don’t think the main driver is capitalism.

I also see rays of hope.

1) birth rates have been going down heavily in modern industrial societies. Without immigration America’s population would be growing very much. Economists freak out about this, but it may force the change in our system we both seem to want.

2) we might innovate our way out. I would not want to bet solely on this like many others do, but it’s certainly a possible.

Regarding human nature, I believe the evidence is rather strong that we are wired to reproduce as much as possible through natural selection. And that we are wired to seek high social status because it leads to higher reproduction. I.e. we are wired for growth.

I realise now we're talking at cross-purposes. I'm not talking about population growth, which is not really relevant to the problems at hand - ecosystems are being crashed in regions without increasing populations. Population increase is an orthogonal, and largely solved, issue. Population control (from infanticide, to surgical, to herbal and chemical) has been the human norm for many thousands of years in many populations.

What's distinctive about capitalism, and what makes it a physically impossible system to maintain long-term, is its central conception of economic (ie. fake) "growth". Capitalism collapses without it, yet 'it' (described as a physical system) just is the dismantling of ecosystems. Any political economy might cause ecosystem damage; capitalism must, always.

To put it in the strongest possible way: a population of capitalists fixed as a steady-state population of 1,000, would eventually (perhaps in a few millennia) destroy all ecosystems on the planet. Economic "growth" (ie. the conversion of complex evolved circular living systems into simple input-demanding technological non-living ones) leads there, ineluctably.

> I really doubt that’s something people want to return to.

Political punditry again. None of what I'm suggesting has anything to do with what anyone 'wants'. It's what's physically possible. Capitalism is incompatible with the long-term health of ecosystems (because its 'growth' is identical with their dismantling). Capitalism is an activity of humans. Humans are mammals, which depend on healthy ecosystems. Therefore capitalism will not continue (regardless of what anyone thinks they 'want').

> the evidence is rather strong that we are wired to reproduce as much as possible through natural selection

Yet population control is one of the great human universals, and is chosen by many, perhaps most, populations when the option is there (and remember, what removes the option is generally culture, or lack of communal provision for old age).

> we are wired to seek high social status

This may be true (though the evidence is nowhere near sufficient to merit a bluff term like 'wired'). But what confers social status is utterly cultural and plastic. Social status can be conferred by age, or cattle, or kindness, or kids, or palaces, or wisdom, or beauty, or emotional continence, or the gift of the gab (and has taken all of these forms, in real societies). It has no inherent nature. Thinking of human nature is fixed to what we know of our local culture is a strong feature of those in empires, because they become so insulated from the huge range of real human variations that have existed.

It’s clear you have an ax to grind against the term capitalism which is quite uninteresting. Environmental degradation is not limited to, or primarily occurring in, capitalist societies unless you define the term so weirdly as to be meaningless. Economic growth to a significant degree has been decoupled from resource usage, and population growth is not solved: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population

> It’s clear you have an ax to grind against the term capitalism

I have no idea what that means. I think you're mixing up political/policy punditry with descriptions of how the physical world actually works. The two are different (and often only very vaguely related).

> Environmental degradation is not limited to, or primarily occurring in, capitalist societies

Not relevant here (as it's not a claim I make).

> Economic growth to a significant degree has been decoupled from resource usage

Not even close, and 'resource usage' isn't the salient concept here.

> population growth is not solved

Population growth drops, (perhaps too far - to below replacement), everywhere with decent social security and health provision (where the latter includes birth control).

The earth and life have survived several cataclysmic events. Why would this time

> end only with the death of the living planet

Certainly the CO2 PPM will not cause this

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/02/15/co2-dip-dinosau...

> Until about 215 million years ago, the Triassic period had experienced extremely high CO2 levels, at around 4,000 parts per million — about 10 times higher than today. But between 215 and 212 million years ago, the CO2 concentration halved, dropping to about 2,000ppm.

Nor would something equivalent to the asteroid that caused the last mass extinction

The two things I know of are a solar flare that blows away the atmosphere and an astroid large enough to cause the surface to liquify (into molton rock)

> astroid large enough to cause the surface to liquify (into molton rock)

Well, asteroid collisions follow a power law; the bigger the collision, the less often they happen. They get rarer the older the solar system gets, as they are consumed (AFAWCT).

But asteroids aren't self-replicating and they don't tell themselves how moral it is to eat everything in sight for the sake of some three letter acronym called GDP.

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