this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024

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The insurmountable momentum of the systems we have in place will lead us to ruin. (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Magical thinking peaks somewhere around blaming natural disasters on the profit motive.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are you sure? Think critically.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Magical thinking peaks somewhere around blaming natural disasters on the profit motive.

Does it? We’ve pumped so much carbon and methane and other worse substances into the atmosphere (or into the earth, in the case of fracking) in pursuit of that profit and that’s directly affecting the severity and frequency of some of those natural disasters. Obviously natural disasters exist anyway, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t demonstrably making the situation worse.

[+] [email protected] -8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Was the soviet union also pursuing profit? If we stopped having profit seeking, would that mean less carbon and other pollution?

If so, how do you figure? Do you not think economic activity would have happened if we’d been doing all our stuff from the goodness of our altruistic hearts?

Like, what kind of economic system doesn’t pollute?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

The soviets were constantly trying to grow their economy to stay competitive with the US and to demonstrate affluence. They switched out the old capitalist factory owners for the new class of government bureaucrats and party elite, who then carried on running the system for themselves. The state owned the means of production. They pretended that everyone owned the state, but we know this wasn't the case. The soviet union was a state capitalist system.

If we stopped seeking profit, our economies would stop growing and subsequently our emissions would as well. Our system is built to rely on infinite growth. No bank gives out a loan without expecting that money to grow with interest. Infinite growth is incompatible with the material reality of a finite planet. What we would need to do now, would involve purposeful economic degrowth. I have no hope that this will ever happen since it would require a lot of people to consume less and we are used to a lot of bread and circuses. Whatever you define as "economic activity" is secondary to the survival of the species.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

great title btw

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Or, y'know... Vote Democrat and have a chance to save your children from climate Armageddon.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I feel like "Vote Democrat" is 0.5 step forwards while "Vote GOP" is 50 steps backwards. Really wish we had ranked choice voting and a handful of viable other viable parties like other democracies around the world!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

"If the customers are buying and the money multiplying and the PR people lying and the lawyers are denying, who cares if some things are dying!"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

That song went too hard for Illumination Entertainment to greenlight it.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Not even this, it's increase profits next quarter.

Corporate behavior would be ridiculously different if they weren't so short term.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Corporate behaviour would be different if they were treated like the citizen they claim to be.

The prison would be filled to the brim, and we could release people that were imprisoned for smoking pot or something to make place for people destroying the planet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Where companies will sacrifice the next 2 years for a good "next quarter".

[+] [email protected] -32 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As a hypothetical investor, why would I invest my money in a company that promises profit in 10 years, when I could invest in profits for the next quarter, then take back my investment + profit, and invest somewhere else with profit next quarter?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Tesla is a a great counter-example. Before Musks true colors came out, Tesla stock went on a wild ride long before the company made a profit, and is frequently priced way above anything justifiable by current income or profit. It’s all based on hope for a long term plan to change the world and eventually make huge profits, rather than short term goals.

As a hypothetical investor, if you stayed away from companies like Tesla, you would miss some stocks with the highest returns

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

A stock-price bubble is the opposite of a good example in my opinion. Dumb techbros hyping a company to the point where it has a higher capitalization than literal Volkswagen group, because the stock price kept inflating. What percentage of the stock owners of Tesla 4 years ago are the same as nowadays? I'd bet it's low

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Depends on the corporation. Silicon Valley, for example, is often all about the next quarter. Older companies that have been around longer have a longer view and tend to be more focused on long-term results.

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