Ableton Forum

krulecello wrote:

Forge. wrote:[
that was from a book on climate change I was reading briefly in a shop I was waiting in yesterday... I couldn't remember the name so that's why I didn't quote it, but it was something like "screw in a lightbulb" and it was an Australian publication. that figure was about the first thing I read, I went straight to the chapter on it in light of this conversation. It was framed in the context that transport will soon avertake agriculture as number one emissions.

I didn't read much, but they were talking about making cars greener, not getting rid of them.

After a quick search on the internet, the book you skimmed through briefly in a bookshop was "Screw Light Bulbs".
http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-author ... ght-bulbs/

I have read the introduction, it has been written to appeal to / educate the majority, who are still trying to get their heads around Al Gore. They want to sell books. If they say the truth about cars, they will not sell books, for people worship / idolise / can not image life without cars (amongst other things). To tell the truth about cars would be like trying to sell a book that says God doesn't exist to a Catholic or Evangelicalist.

In Australia, 68% percent of people believe in some kind of 'God', 63% believe in miracles, 51% believe in Angels, 41% believe in astrology, 34% believe in UFO's, 22% believe in witches, 24% are atheist, 7% are agnostic.

In Australia, 50% of households have 'two' or more motor vehicles, 35% of households have 'one' motor vehicle, 8% of households have 'no' motor vehicle, 7% have not stated.

Funny I saw this post after I typed mine and was going to say some similar points but from the other angle. I was also going to mention religion in relation to your conscience comment. i.e. "well you can not believe in God if you like, it's your conscience" - it's about as helpful.

Clearly we are coming from different angles. The view I'm taking, (which I think is more of a "realist" view) is that we still have huge amounts of work to do at that "Al Gore" stage - there are so many people to convince still, and if that task isn't taken care of first the idealistic view you are taking hasn't even the slightest hope in hell of succeeding.

It's a bit like being on a sinking ship. Do you get everyone together to bail out the water, or do you teach everyone to swim?

The people who are willing and able to swim shouldn't have to die simply because they have to wait on those who will never be able to. It's like saying I and no one else can get on the spaceship before the planet explodes until everyone gives up their religion. It's not gonna happen. I'm not going to suffer just because some other assholes can't accept something.

Forge. wrote:

krulecello wrote:

Forge. wrote:[
that was from a book on climate change I was reading briefly in a shop I was waiting in yesterday... I couldn't remember the name so that's why I didn't quote it, but it was something like "screw in a lightbulb" and it was an Australian publication. that figure was about the first thing I read, I went straight to the chapter on it in light of this conversation. It was framed in the context that transport will soon avertake agriculture as number one emissions.

I didn't read much, but they were talking about making cars greener, not getting rid of them.

After a quick search on the internet, the book you skimmed through briefly in a bookshop was "Screw Light Bulbs".
http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-author ... ght-bulbs/

I have read the introduction, it has been written to appeal to / educate the majority, who are still trying to get their heads around Al Gore. They want to sell books. If they say the truth about cars, they will not sell books, for people worship / idolise / can not image life without cars (amongst other things). To tell the truth about cars would be like trying to sell a book that says God doesn't exist to a Catholic or Evangelicalist.

In Australia, 68% percent of people believe in some kind of 'God', 63% believe in miracles, 51% believe in Angels, 41% believe in astrology, 34% believe in UFO's, 22% believe in witches, 24% are atheist, 7% are agnostic.

In Australia, 50% of households have 'two' or more motor vehicles, 35% of households have 'one' motor vehicle, 8% of households have 'no' motor vehicle, 7% have not stated.

Funny I saw this post after I typed mine and was going to say some similar points but from the other angle. I was also going to mention religion in relation to your conscience comment. i.e. "well you can not believe in God if you like, it's your conscience" - it's about as helpful.

Clearly we are coming from different angles. The view I'm taking, (which I think is more of a "realist" view) is that we still have huge amounts of work to do at that "Al Gore" stage - there are so many people to convince still, and if that task isn't taken care of first the idealistic view you are taking hasn't even the slightest hope in hell of succeeding.

It's a bit like being on a sinking ship. Do you get everyone together to bail out the water, or do you teach everyone to swim?

No, I'm not talking about views, I'm talking about facts, physical reality, repeatable and indisputable facts. You have not presented any facts that counter the ones I've made about cars, you have only every presented views and propaganda.

"In philosophy, idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing. In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society.[1] As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.[2] Idealism thus rejects physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind."

It is you who is idealistic, you are ignoring the facts because they don't fit within your mentally constructed (read. brainwashed) perspective. You are, infact, ignoring physical reality. Why? Because it suits you to continue to do so? So you can keep driving and flying without feeling guilty? So you can pass the buck, avoid responsibility? Human motivation is a very interesting.

krulecello wrote: On Poverty -

"At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day."

"The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income."

"Approximately half the world’s population now live in cities and towns. In 2005, one out of three urban dwellers (approximately 1 billion people) was living in slum conditions."

"World's richest 20% consume 76.8%, World's middle 60% consume 21.9% and World's poorest 20% consume 1.5%"

Yes, I totally agree - and to me this is the biggest challenge we face. This is priority number 1. If we don't fix this, then everything else is totally pointless, and this is I think where I get the most pessemistic.

But believe it or not poverty is actually decreasing. We are slowly levelling the playing field in some ways.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6d7a1c52-8cc5 ... z2YVQNtmX7

On China -

"The failure of agricultural policies, the movement of farmers from agricultural to industrial work, and possibly weather conditions led to severe famine."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

My point is more about the fact that RIGHT NOW in 2013 de-industrializing would almost certainly throw more people into hardship, cause massive starvation and unrest, at least in the immediate future.

Personally I think all people on the planet should have the right to demand the kind of comfortable life we have here and the challenge is making that possible without destroying the planet. I believe it could be possible technically and in terms of resources, if we were determined enough, but I'm not that convinced the necessary willing is there.

What do you think is going to happen as more and more of these poorest people start to get access to the western lifestyle? Do you think they are going to say "no I won't use a car because it will hurt the environment"?

Whether it's right or wrong, or whether you like it or not, the industrialized world, richest and most powerful nations, i.e. us, are in the leading position here. If we don't fix our system and weed out some of the corruption and start taking more direct action in terms of legisating to protect people and the planet then there is no hope of that migrating to the developing world (or "global south" as the Sociologists apparently call it now). We need to make sure that WHEN millions/billions of people start demanding the life they are entitled to, like anyone, that it is clean, efficient technology they are using.

What you are arguing is tantamount to saying to all these billions of people "well we've enjoyed all these privileges for all this time, but you can't now because of the environment. Sorry. Tough luck. But you're used to being poor anyway, right?" I think given the Imperial behaviour we have been inflicting on the world and still are even now there will be a resounding "fuck you" from everyone.

Seriously, think about that. There is no way you will stop all these people getting cars if they can afford them. Look at how much India has grown in recent years. Their middle class is now something like 400 million people, that's almost the whole of Europe, and bigger than the US, Canada, UK and Australia all put together. Are you really trying to tell them that they shouldn't get a taste of what we've had all this time? Good luck with that.

I definitely agree that the kind of things Earthloop has been talking about - localizing everything from energy to communal gardens etc is a very good idea and that is definitely the direction things need to go in. But we could have that and still be technologically advanced. We can clean up industrial production and counter the effects, there are all kinds of things in the works for doing that. What is needed is continued and increased pressure for that to happen.

This is why I felt the need to argue the point with you. You have gone beyond stage1 on to stage 3 or 4 or whatever and seem to be forgetting how far behind most people are. You seem to be actually arguing that there is no point in lobbying for clean technology because we need to abandon all technology. That's just a total fantasy. It just isn't going to happen. What IS going to happen over the next 20+ years is more and more people will be coming online worldwide consuming at an increasingly 1st world rate. We (as a planet) need to make damn sure when they do that the methods of energy production they are using, which will be largely constructed by western companies, will be as green as is possible.

This task — the task of keeping the pressure on our own governments and industry to go as green as possible is a MONUMENTAL task, so to hear that an environmentalist like yourself doesn't even see that as a priority because you are spending your time trying to achieve the impossible by convincing people who haven't even decided there's any need to do anything at all to give up their cars and air travel and technology is atually quite disheartening. Which is pretty Ironic, seeing as you are actually physically doing more than most on a personal level.

In other words - the only thing I'm really arguing with you about is the fact that you say there is no point including governments in the plan or developing green tech.

krulecello wrote: No, I'm not talking about views, I'm talking about facts, physical reality, repeatable and indisputable facts. You have not presented any facts that counter the ones I've made about cars, you have only every presented views and propaganda..

Actually, you are talking about a specific set of selected facts that fit your view on this without taking other facts into account.

You can produce as many facts as you like saying that cars are bad for the environment, but without a whole bunch of other facts it's just not that useful, even unhelpful.

You could totally reframe that and find a load of other reasons why 1 human just being alive at all is a major blight to the environment. Cars and planes are just one facet, almost everything about your existence can have a negative effect on the environment, or something else that creates an ethical problem.

Well, as I just illustrated in my big post, some other very important facts you're not taking into account: the fact that there are 7 billion people, projected to rise to 10 billion by the middle of the century. The fact that poverty is decreasing and people who previously lived in total poverty are gradually shifting towards middle class. i.e. the fact that the 2 most populous nations on Earth are now producing middle class people all wanting their piece of the pie at a staggering rate. These are facts.

I am not actually disagreeing that cars or air travel are environmentally bad - I'm totally agreeing with you on that. What I'm totally disagreeing with you on is what the highest priorities are.

shadx312 wrote:The people who are willing and able to swim shouldn't have to die simply because they have to wait on those who will never be able to. It's like saying I and no one else can get on the spaceship before the planet explodes until everyone gives up their religion. It's not gonna happen. I'm not going to suffer just because some other assholes can't accept something.

a herd only travels as fast as it's slowest member.

If we really want to hope to achieve any kind of future for this planet we need to convince a lot of people. Or actually, we could probably just convince a small number of wealthy industrialists and people running things, but they have little incentive to want to change so it will more likely take large numbers of people to pressure them.

Like I said buried in that massive TL;DR post - just remember these developing countries will likely get their new power stations built by western companies, and most of their development will be involved with western companies. The aim is to make it so that their new power stations and new cars and methods of building infrastructure etc etc are as green as possible.

It's far too simplistic to say that it's "because some other assholes can't accept something". The entire world economy is based on oil, and a big part of the reason many of these developing countries are improving and reducing their poverty is selling resources, Oil of and coal of course being among the main ones.

Palm oil is an example - a lot of animal rights activists went to Indonesia to protest against palm oil because of the effects on the animals and then when they got their discovered a lot of people, who weren't evil, were depending on it and getting rid of the industry altogether would have seriously affected them. Nothing is ever simple.

It's a really massive challenge, and it's hard to be optimistic a lot of the time, but we just need to keep acting as though it's possible and take one step at a time otherwise there's no point getting out of bed in the morning.

Forge. wrote:

shadx312 wrote:The people who are willing and able to swim shouldn't have to die simply because they have to wait on those who will never be able to. It's like saying I and no one else can get on the spaceship before the planet explodes until everyone gives up their religion. It's not gonna happen. I'm not going to suffer just because some other assholes can't accept something.

a herd only travels as fast as it's slowest member.

If we really want to hope to achieve any kind of future for this planet we need to convince a lot of people. Or actually, we could probably just convince a small number of wealthy industrialists and people running things, but they have little incentive to want to change so it will more likely take large numbers of people to pressure them.

Like I said buried in that massive TL;DR post - just remember these developing countries will likely get their new power stations built by western companies, and most of their development will be involved with western companies. The aim is to make it so that their new power stations and new cars and methods of building infrastructure etc etc are as green as possible.

It's far too simplistic to say that it's "because some other assholes can't accept something". The entire world economy is based on oil, and a big part of the reason many of these developing countries are improving and reducing their poverty is selling resources, Oil of and coal of course being among the main ones.

Palm oil is an example - a lot of animal rights activists went to Indonesia to protest against palm oil because of the effects on the animals and then when they got their discovered a lot of people, who weren't evil, were depending on it and getting rid of the industry altogether would have seriously affected them. Nothing is ever simple.

It's a really massive challenge, and it's hard to be optimistic a lot of the time, but we just need to keep acting as though it's possible and take one step at a time otherwise there's no point getting out of bed in the morning.

Yes Shadx, don't you see? 'When all else fails, a pig headed stubborn refusal to look facts in the face, will see us through'

so now you're saying it's a total waste of time even being optimistic?

whatever, from that response it seems you're not actually interested in properly debating or talking about these issues reasonably. That's a shame.

this is why we are probably doomed. If active and motivated people like you can't even stand to talk to someone who mostly agrees but has a different view to yours, then you've got no chance of persuading a climate skeptic LNP voter.

Well, you just carry on making yourself feel better and sod everyone else then.

Forge. wrote: I am not actually disagreeing that cars or air travel are environmentally bad - I'm totally agreeing with you on that.

Finally! (Gee, that took some time.) So, are you going to give up your car and stop flying, given that you now accept that there 'are' physical reality / facts / consequences to your actions?

Forge. wrote:so now you're saying it's a total waste of time even being optimistic?

whatever, from that response it seems you're not actually interested in properly debating or talking about these issues reasonably. That's a shame.

this is why we are probably doomed. If active and motivated people like you can't even stand to talk to someone who mostly agrees but has a different view to yours, then you've got no chance of persuading a climate skeptic LNP voter.

Well, you just carry on making yourself feel better and sod everyone else then.

Quoted, just incase you decide to edit it 7 times (like you have done so previously), changing your mind as you go, for you do not even know why you think the way that you do.

wow. I spent all that time bothering to have that conversation with you because I actually thought you seemed intelligent and worth having a real conversation with and now you come out with shit like this.

The editing was because I wrote so much and took so much of my time and I'm quite compulsive with spelling and writing clearly etc because large amounts of text like that just wont get read otherwise.

But I think I'm probably done wasting my time on you now given your attitude here.

now you're starting to remind me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyV03FmRAaU

just replace the Prius with your bike

Well, regardless of whatever's going on here, that skit is fucking hilarious.

Now,

Yes Shadx, don't you see? 'When all else fails, a pig headed stubborn refusal to look facts in the face, will see us through'

Whoa, Nelly. I'm on my side. I just agree or disagree with what I see on a case by case basis.

I think it's important to keep both of your sides in mind because all perspectives are welcome when it comes to problem solving. I guess I see you both at extremes, and imo the reality is in between the 2.
No, planes, trains and autombiles will not go extinct. The way I see it is they will be a lot less frequent, reserved for special and necessary purposes (or just very expensive to have a license) and they will also be more environmentally friendly. The more time passes, the more cars dwindle. I don't see it happening in my lifetime.

Specifically though as far as POV is concerned, my headspace is very simple and specific to the intent. I don't care about the specifics. I don't really care about statistics or reasons why there's no point, because to me just taking any part in being cleaner and more efficient is the point, and in that sense, whether it's pointless or not, it's a win win situation, because at least I'm still improving my area. I don't care who is or isn't doing it because my life is my life and I'm going to live it the way I want. So if an asteroid is about to hit in an hour I'm still going to keep my plastic and glass separate. Call me a nutcase, I don't care, cuz to me intent is the important thing. And fuck the herd.

Forge. wrote: The editing was because I wrote so much and took so much of my time and I'm quite compulsive with spelling and writing clearly etc because large amounts of text like that just wont get read otherwise.

I got to read it before the 7 edits.

krulecello wrote:

Forge. wrote: The editing was because I wrote so much and took so much of my time and I'm quite compulsive with spelling and writing clearly etc because large amounts of text like that just wont get read otherwise.

I got to read it before the 7 edits.

well, then why did you make the comment about changing my mind? you would know I didn't change my overall argument, i just edited it to either make it clearer, fix spelling, or because I decided there was no need to say a certain point... i.e. the Tassie story which I guess you read... the point of that still stands and you kind of proved the point just now why I should have probably just left it in

In fact I took some things out specifically because I realised in text it sounds a bit aggressive or like an attack, and that is not my intention.