Techno-capitalists expect innovation to save us, but it's what got us here | Hacker News Reader

Techno-capitalists expect innovation to save us, but it's what got us here

theguardian.com

7 pointssaubeidl6 comments

There is no wise backward-looking nature-state we can return to that wouldn't involve a sharp decrease in the population, which is sustained by chemical-fueled agriculture. We're pretty much stuck with artificiality and technological relationships with our world unless we want to stop feeding a couple billion people.

Soylent green is people?!

The article isn't arguing for that. It doesn't present some "past" that the author wants to go back to. It is stating that the best way forward is not to continue what we're doing now.

A third of food production on this planet done by smallholders, and the easiest way to make sure the other two-thirds doesn't get wasted is to change the distribution system (not with technology). It should not be used to make high-fructose corn syrup in the US. It should not be grown in Arizona to feed cattle in Saudi Arabia. The technology is a sticking plaster over our dumb world, and it is falling off

But if you try to look deeper into such advice, it falls apart. What does it actually mean? Let's stop being individualistic consumers and return to tightly knit families? Let's have direct relationship with soil and animals and make our own organic high quality food?

Then you realize most of our ancestors fled from both of these situations at the first opportunity.

The issue is the human population explosion and its consequences on the environment and use of resources.

Everything else is either trying to blame "the system" for ideological reasons ("capitalism is bad", "Westerners are bad"), or trying to cope by squeezing quality of life ("don't travel", "don't eat meat", etc).

I'd quibble about wether the two main technology fixes mentioned (nuclear power and geo-engineered aerosols) are in any way (good or bad) "capitalist".

If anything I'd say the main problem here is that the techno-capitalist are insincere about both and are using them as (half-literal) smoke screens to excuse using more fossil fuels in the immediate future.

But even in that insincere approach it's government action (or very rich philanthropy) that is required to do these things without direct market incentives.

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