Good review and very solid analogy to the birds eggs and supernormal stimuli.
I was one of the founding members of Paul's stack when he first stared it here and have tremendous respect for him. However he plays fast and loose with what a world that followed his anti-technology proposals would actually be like.
Paul believes humans are, for many reasons, on a path to wide-scale, possibly near extinction-level destruction. He's inherited a special dislike of "fossilized sunlight" (his term, which I absolutely love and use to this day) from his environmentalist days. That colors his antipathy toward progress. Similarly, his fatalism regarding the human race colors his recommendations.
The reality is this: Without fossilized sunlight, the carrying capacity of the Earth is about 4-5B people. Oil is both the energy source and chemical precursor for nitrate fertilizers. For all practical purposes, the world eats dead dinosaurs. A couple of years ago, I brought this up with Paul on his own stack several times, but he's always reluctant to engage with the problem of which half of humanity he's willing to consign to starvation.
I agree with Paul about many things. I truly believe he has a deep desire to see people flourish. But as you said, we can't all live in rural Ireland with a composting toilet and a stand of timber. And if we tried to, half of us would starve. I find it ironic that just as Paul has found the faith that grounds the value of human life in the divine, his own recommendations have taken a distinctly anti-human turn. One he remains unwilling to confront.
Yeah, I find that’s a big weakness of all the degrowth, back to nature advocates. I could imagine a kind of horrible malthusian-esque argument, that some amount (possibly quite a large amount) of suffering now will prevent more in the future, but I don’t see anyone really trying to argue that either. It’s, as you say, something they seem to willfully ignore.
Thanks, I remember a fair bit of chatter about this book a couple months ago, good to see your take.
I would assume so based on the title and framing, but does Kingsnorth talk about the interplay between those S components? It seems to me that the synthesis of sex, screens, self, and science (or at least engineering) will be the sex-bot, which will effectively sterilize our society.
Good review and very solid analogy to the birds eggs and supernormal stimuli.
I was one of the founding members of Paul's stack when he first stared it here and have tremendous respect for him. However he plays fast and loose with what a world that followed his anti-technology proposals would actually be like.
Paul believes humans are, for many reasons, on a path to wide-scale, possibly near extinction-level destruction. He's inherited a special dislike of "fossilized sunlight" (his term, which I absolutely love and use to this day) from his environmentalist days. That colors his antipathy toward progress. Similarly, his fatalism regarding the human race colors his recommendations.
The reality is this: Without fossilized sunlight, the carrying capacity of the Earth is about 4-5B people. Oil is both the energy source and chemical precursor for nitrate fertilizers. For all practical purposes, the world eats dead dinosaurs. A couple of years ago, I brought this up with Paul on his own stack several times, but he's always reluctant to engage with the problem of which half of humanity he's willing to consign to starvation.
I agree with Paul about many things. I truly believe he has a deep desire to see people flourish. But as you said, we can't all live in rural Ireland with a composting toilet and a stand of timber. And if we tried to, half of us would starve. I find it ironic that just as Paul has found the faith that grounds the value of human life in the divine, his own recommendations have taken a distinctly anti-human turn. One he remains unwilling to confront.
Yeah, I find that’s a big weakness of all the degrowth, back to nature advocates. I could imagine a kind of horrible malthusian-esque argument, that some amount (possibly quite a large amount) of suffering now will prevent more in the future, but I don’t see anyone really trying to argue that either. It’s, as you say, something they seem to willfully ignore.
Thanks, I remember a fair bit of chatter about this book a couple months ago, good to see your take.
I would assume so based on the title and framing, but does Kingsnorth talk about the interplay between those S components? It seems to me that the synthesis of sex, screens, self, and science (or at least engineering) will be the sex-bot, which will effectively sterilize our society.
He does talk about the interplay. And he even mentions sex-bots, though only once
"Every home will become a lab which can whip up anything we desire, from junk food to sex dolls.”