Jevon's Paradox?

Economics Political Theory
81

Look, growth is not required for capitalism. It is a by-product of capitalism. Suppose you hunt rabbits to eat. You eat 3 rabbits a day. Now, instead of eating all 3 rabbits a day, you save 1 and consume 2. After a few days of this, you have saved up enough so that you can take a day off hunting and craft a spear (or whatever). Not consuming the rabits is not the same as growth. Creating the spear is growth. You needed to save in order to create the spear.

In capitalism, all that is happening is that there is a division of labor and capital is privately owned. The division of labor does not require growth. You could hunt rabbits all day and I could pick berries. We could then trade some rabbits for berries. We could do this without any growth whatsoever if we so desired. We could stay in abject poverty and living on subsistance levels of rabbits and berries for our whole lives if we wanted to.

In capitalism, all that happens is that some people choose to save. These savings create capital. Then there is expansion. It is not the reverse. Expansion does not happen first, and then magically there is capital.

82

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Compared to previous decades.
[/quote]

That’s a bit vague. OK, how about compared to 5000 B.C.?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
In our parents youths most large harbors and rivers in population centers were completely foul, as they still are in India and China today (i.e. socialist countries, until recently). Forest area is growing in the US and western Europe, you can look this up. The air one too.
[/quote]

Let’s not mix up causation and correlation. Is it a coincidence that the developing nations still have a manufacturing base? That almost everything around you right now was produced in the third world? It is just externalization of enviromental destruction away from the consumers (us), in order to make it easier to ignore.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Environmentalism is not a growing problem, the reason there’s so much focus on it these days is that people are rich enough to afford the luxury.
[/quote]

Assertion. My counter assertion is that people began to care when the effects of years of enviromental degradation began to effect their comfort.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Capitalism causes wealth, and environmental protection is a consumer good that we can afford if we are rich enough. Socialism causes poverty and therefore environmental degradation.
[/quote]

Or, we can afford to externalize enviromental destruction to the banana republics.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Don’t confuse state-socialism and egalitarianism.
[/quote]

Believe me, I don’t. I just don’t think that collectivism is the problem, which you passage seemed to imply. Animism can be quite effective in getting socialists to treat the commons respectfully.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Mostly done in poor socialist countries.
[/quote]

By rich Capitalists.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Capitalist countries have safe modern factories for gold extraction.
[/quote]

Firstly, this is bullshit. Second, are you advocating regulation? If not, why do you consider the market as the causal factor in this development?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Species are going extinct when nobody owns them.
[/quote]

What about species without marketability? Should we not care if phytoplankton go extinct, because they aren’t cute?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Resources are not finite for our purposes.
[/quote]

Says who? Remember the paradox? Demand always increases.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
We don’t rely on infinite growth, plenty of rich capitalist countries have shrinking populations.
[/quote]

Who said anything about population? I’m talking about growth in demand, and therefore resource bases.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
And yes, the demand for those finite elemental resources would outweigh their availability.
[/quote]

And since everything is made of elements..?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
But by then we will use other finite resources. You see? We keep using different finite resources, therefore the set of “resources” is not finite.
[/quote]

Sounds like perpetual motion to me.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
You never really said why capitalism should “require growth to exist”. If you aren’t stating your argument, then I can’t respond to it.
[/quote]

Check my conversation with gotlucky.

83

People were dying like cattle back then from microorganisms in the water and vermin in the food storages and whatnot. Cities were swamps of waste and feces. Besides, we’re stuck with the industrial age, so how does the comparison matter?

No, third world countries actually produce a rather small share of our products. If they had the ability to produce lots of stuff they wouldn’t be poor, duh. Even computers are produced in high wage countries like Japan and Taiwan, they are only assembled in China.

And rivers are not dirty because of industrial pollution, but because of people pooping in them because they can’t afford indoor plumbing. Rivers and harbors in the west got clean when society became rich enough to dump it’s fecies elsewhere. The only thing that ever cleaned up the environment is wealth, which is produced by markets, which the environmentalists try to stifle.

Problem with that is that the empirical data goes the other way. Unclean environments were a huge problem two centuries ago, when people were actually dying of the filth around them. But nobody had the time to worry about it back then because they were busy feeding themselves. People started caring about the environment when they got to live in clean, green suburbs without any actual risk to their health in sight. Plus they usually worry about theoretical problems like global warming or the dangers of nuclear energy that have little effect on their comfort even if they were real.

Our beliefs are both “just assertions”, but mine fits the empirical data.

It’s not just about collectivism, but about poverty, which is caused by lack of property rights. Failed states are ‘socialist’ because corruption and kleptocracy keeps them from developing markets.

[quoteuser=“Jackson LaRose”]
Animism can be quite effective in getting socialists to treat the commons respectfully.
[/quote]

Animist socialists are still inept social engineers without the ability to do economic calculation. It’s not about intentions, it’s about results.

Capitalists invest in what brings in them greater returns. Modern, industrial production and efficient energy is just more profitable. The move to cleaner technologies, and therefore environmental improvement, is a result of capital accumulation, not of social activism. For example, that’s why they’re using natural gas instead of (much dirtier) wood these days. Capitalism has been decabronizing energy for 150 years, but suddenly a bunch of trust fund kids come along and claim that only their social engineering can get it done. That claim is not very convincing considering the track record of nationalized social engineering in recent history.

Plankton has all sorts of useful applications. But yes, what’s the point of keeping around useless creatures? Keep in mind that there are opportunity costs. Saving plankton requires scarce resources that could be used to invent cures for diseases that kill children. How many children should we sacrifice to save that plankton? A hundred? A thousand? A million? State-environmentalists never have to make such calculations because the opportunity costs are unseen, but that does not mean they don’t exist.

Also, if you care about saving plankton you can join a foundation that protects it. You would actually be in charge of the effort, so you can make sure funds aren’t wasted and such. And since it’s not counter-productive state-environmentalism, it would actually do some good, instead of just impoverishing humanity while destroying the environment to make overprivileged white people feel good about themselves.

Ok, let’s say demand is infinite. You’re still forgetting that we can achieve more with less, which is what technological progress does. Maybe we start using fewer and fewer natural resources to provide the same standard of living. Also you’re forgetting that resources aren’t meaningfully finite…

Sounds like perpetual motion to me.
[/quote]

Yup, that’s pretty much what it is. Human ingenuity can create resources, hence they can be renewed potentially infinitely. At least there’s no limit in sight.

Well ok, if production was necessarily “unsustainable”, then we would have to constantly “grow to exist”. But that’s what I’ve been telling you the whole time, the very notion of finiteness is nonsense since it doesn’t take technological change into account. Production can become more efficient through technological progress, i.e. it can produce the same with fewer resources, and as such it is not necessary to constantly expand the resource base.

84

[quoteuser=“JLR”]
I think there is a distinct difference between natural extinction, and anthropogenic extinction, from an ecological standpoint.
[/quote]

I absolutely agree, but your phytoplankton die-offs don’t require capitalism to be in place in order to occur. Anthropogenic extinctions can occur under any economic system–but pointing to capitalism as the obvious culprit is like saying that democracy causes extinctions.

In the case of resources valued in the market, it appears that we agree that capitalism better rationalizes the use of natural resources than competing systems. I’m inferring this from the fact that you now seem to be recurrently focusing on resources that the market does not (at least not yet) value per points such as:

[quoteuser=“JLR”]
“What is the price of phytoplankton die-offs? Not a valued product in the least”
[/quote]

So let’s be clear, according to you, phytoplankton is not yet an economic good (a scarce good that the market values) and is thus needlessly destroyed in the pursuit of producing valued economic goods, and that’s one of the issues that you have. This is a market failure because it doesn’t concern itself with the destruction of this natural resource that may not currently have a market value, but nevertheless is an extremely important species vis-a-vis the biosphere whose extinction would have devastating consequences on certain portions of the ecosystem, correct?

And yet, I was under the impression that phytoplankton is a market good that is artifically produced/grown to feed farmed creatures etc. Thus, phytoplankton does command a value on the market for the service it provides in sustaining farmed populations. So even in this case, your case, the action of the market (free market capitalism) is working to reverse phytoplankton scarcity (caused apparently by ocean warming, and please have the decency not to counter with ‘capitalism causes global warming and thus ocean warming’) and make its market-use sustainable.

Also, it would be helpful for you to show that Capitalism commits more extinction events than other economic systems. My contention is that it does not: that it is far more effective at curbing this (that’s not to say that it’s perfect–even Mises never argued that even pure free market capitalism was perfect, but rather that it is by far the best system that we could realistically hope for and far better than anything we could design).

If your point is rather that: (1) the earth is finite, (2) resources are finite, (3) capitalism tends to grow supply and demand constantly and, therefore, that (4) constant, compounding growth is unsustainable–I can understand your worry, but even your examples are currently working against you. That’s not to say that you’re wrong for worrying about this, but rather to encourage more research and a more open mind (I think I’ll likely do the same).

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
Whether the actual extinction is caused by the regime (burns it all out of existence to make way for a new Gulag) or not (earthquake exposes it and a sudden cold snap wipes it out of existence): how is the (“capitalist free”)* market responsible for this?
[/quote]

*corrected for clarity

[quoteuser=“JLR”]
Well, why did the North Korean regime take power? What caused the earthquake, or the cold snap? How did the first kings even create the first states?
[/quote]

Kim Il’Sung saw the chance to grab power after the collapse of Japan’s Empire and he was finally given the backing of both the USSR and the PRC. The earthquake and the cold snap were in this case both natural phenomena. The first states were generally created via conquest or trade etc. So whether it was anthropogenic or not, the fact is that capitalism didn’t cause this, and it isn’t de facto responsible for the extinctions that occur around the world just because. If the extinction was caused by “capitalism”, you need to show this, and you have yet to provide an example.

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
producers will switch to something else and, being a man of limited means, so will I.
[/quote]

[quoteuser=“JLR”]
Ad infinitum?
[/quote]

Should I live that long, yes–all the way up to the point when recycling used cat litter becomes the most cost effective means of dealing with cat refuse.

85

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
Look, growth is not required for capitalism. It is a by-product of capitalism. Suppose you hunt rabbits to eat…
[/quote]

OK, using your analogy, let’s say that on your land (whatever you’ve “homesteaded” {whatever that means}), your local rabbit population is 20 before you start hunting them. They produce 2 new rabbits every day, on average. You hunt three a day, eating two and saving one. You save enough to allocate time for spear production, and now can hunt five a day. Wow, what a great increase in efficiency and production capacity! You can afford to eat all three that you had initially wanted, but can also save two a day! The problem is, you’ve moved beyond a sustainable harvest of rabbits in your area. If you catch five a day, but only two a day are replaced, it won’t take very long to run out of rabbits. When that happens, you are forced to expand the resource base (i.e. grow your market share) in order to stay in the rabbit hunting business, or find something else to hunt. That decision is completely an economic one. Whatever is more economical is the sensible choice.

That is why the USA invades oil-rich countries rather than develop alternative energies. It is more economical to do so.

I think we may be snagged on semantics. You are treating “growth” as accumulation of capital (?), whereas I am talking about literal physical expansion, or “growth” of market share.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
The division of labor does not require growth.
[/quote]

Not necessarily, but specialization typically improves production efficiency, which only makes production that much more unsustainable, requiring more resource base expansion.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
We could do this without any growth whatsoever if we so desired. We could stay in abject poverty and living on subsistance levels of rabbits and berries for our whole lives if we wanted to.
[/quote]

As long as it is a sustainable level of production. I agree that it can be done. Native aboriginal populations have done it for tens of thousands of years.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
In capitalism, all that happens is that some people choose to save. These savings create capital. Then there is expansion. It is not the reverse. Expansion does not happen first, and then magically there is capital.
[/quote]

Generally, I agree. But even on a complete susbsistence level (i.e. no capital accumulation), if your production is unsustainable, then you will be forced to expand your resource base in order to keep producing, that’s all I’m saying.

86

Well, it seems clear to me that you oppose unsustainable production. So if all production is (ultimately) unsustainable, you must logically oppose all production. Yet by e.g. posting in this forum, you’re engaging in a form of production - which, given the above, implies that you’re not opposed to unsustainable production.

87

In the same way that some might argue that since humans are made of matter and matter is energy and energy according to the laws of thermodynamics cannot be destroyed, humans must therefore be immortal, in that the basic stuff of which they consist will always exist. LaRose argues that since it is conceivable as a thought experiment that at some point in the future every last known or unknown particle of matter and every unit of energy has either been acquired and is directly engaged in the optimum satisfaction of human wants, or as humans in and of itself, all production must therefore be unsustainable as it is inconceivable that such a thought experiment should not at some point in the future come to pass. (All though at such a point production would obviously be able to continue, by using humans as the capital good. Soilent green, anyone?)

I don’t understand how he can argue that native american tribes or other pre-modernity H/G or farming societies can have been any more sustainable than modern production, though, inasmuch as their production relied on a sun that is destined to cease the functions on which their production relies.

88

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
People were dying like cattle back then from microorganisms in the water and vermin in the food storages and whatnot. Cities were swamps of waste and feces.
[/quote]

Please name a city that existed in 5000 B.C.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Besides, we’re stuck with the industrial age, so how does the comparison matter?
[/quote]

We are “stuck” with the Industrial Age? Are we also “stuck” with the state?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
No, third world countries actually produce a rather small share of our products.
[/quote]

LOL, wut? Look at the tags of all of the clothing you are wearing right now. What do they say? I’ll go first:

T-shirt - Haiti

Underwear - Dominican Republic

Pants - Hong Kong

Shoes - China

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
If they had the ability to produce lots of stuff they wouldn’t be poor, duh.
[/quote]

LOL, wut? So, I guess bankers must be the most productive people on the planet! They are being exploited, so the exploiters make the money at their expense. That’s kind of how wage-slavery works.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Even computers are produced in high wage countries like Japan and Taiwan, they are only assembled in China.
[/quote]

Ooh, those high Taiwanese wages we’ve all heard so much about… And try and find me something in your immediate are that was made in Japan. They are kind of like the USA these days.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
And rivers are not dirty because of industrial pollution, but because of people pooping in them because they can’t afford indoor plumbing.
[/quote]

WHAAA??? You don’t actually believe this, do you? Here’s a well known chemical in my area:

PCB

Although it is found in the poop of many people (because they were contaminated), it is an industrial chemical prevalent in many rivers and other waterways in southern New England. Rivers such as:

The Hudson

The Housatonic

The Quinnipiac

The Connecticut

The Thames

The Blackstone

The Taunton

The Charles

The Merrimack

[quoteuser=“EmeperorNero”]
Rivers and harbors in the west got clean when society became rich enough to dump it’s fecies elsewhere.
[/quote]

They aren’t clean. They just aren’t open sewers anymore.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
The only thing that ever cleaned up the environment is wealth, which is produced by markets, which the environmentalists try to stifle.
[/quote]

Assertion. Also nonsense.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Unclean environments were a huge problem two centuries ago, when people were actually dying of the filth around them.
[/quote]

People die from pollution all the time.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Our beliefs are both “just assertions”, but mine fits the empirical data.
[/quote]

No, they don’t.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
It’s not just about collectivism, but about poverty, which is caused by lack of property rights.
[/quote]

What does this even mean? Are we to respect the property rights of the state? How about the large corporate arms of the state? How does labor/resource exploitation factor into this equation?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Animist socialists are still inept social engineers without the ability to do economic calculation.
[/quote]

Which is inferior why?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
For example, that’s why they’re using natural gas instead of (much dirtier) wood these days.
[/quote]

Maybe they use natural gas because it is a scarce, concentrated resource, making it easier to centralize, and control. Maybe that is also why we desperately cling to a fossil fuel economy, when cheap, decentralized energy alternatives already exist and are proven.

The plankton rant is just a huge strawman, and your lack of understanding in ecological systems is truly frightening. If the plankton go, how much longer do you think you will be enjoying those tuna sandwiches?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
You’re still forgetting that we can achieve more with less, which is what technological progress does. Maybe we start using fewer and fewer natural resources to provide the same standard of living. Also you’re forgetting that resources aren’t meaningfully finite.
[/quote]

For how long? What happens when China and India want to start living like Americans? Technology better hurry up and save us.

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Yup, that’s pretty much what it is. Human ingenuity can create resources, hence they can be renewed potentially infinitely. At least there’s no limit in sight.
[/quote]

Blind faith?

[quoteuser=“EmperorNero”]
Well ok, if production was necessarily “unsustainable”, then we would have to constantly “grow to exist”. But that’s what I’ve been telling you the whole time, the very notion of sustainability is nonsense since it doesn’t take technological change into account. Production can become more efficient through technological progress, i.e. it can produce the same with fewer resources, and as such it is not necessary to constantly expand the resource base.
[/quote]

You are ignoring the OP at this point. That’s what Jevon’s Paradox is all about. Increases in efficiency do not affect demand. It unceasingly increases.

89

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
I absolutely agree, but your phytoplankton die-offs don’t require capitalism to be in place in order to occur. Anthropogenic extinctions can occur under any economic system–but pointing to capitalism as the obvious culprit is like saying that democracy causes extinctions.
[/quote]

Firstly, I consider unsustainable production the culprit for enviromental degredation, not any particular economic system, per se. The reason capitalism gets wrapped up in this at all is because of Jevon’s Paradox. Before learning about it, I had always assumed that the price mechanism combined with increases in production efficiency would be sufficient to achieve sustainable production, but it seems as if growth in demand does not have an end, and that for this reason, any sort of culture that places maximum accumulation of power and control (i.e. modern western culture) as its greatest good is doomed to burn out and collapse, possibly taking the current ecology of the planet with it.

What is the ethics that would prevent this? I don’t know. Ending the state and corporations would be a start!

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
This is a market failure because it doesn’t concern itself with the destruction of this natural resource that may not currently have a market value, but nevertheless is an extremely important species vis-a-vis the biosphere whose extinction would have devastating consequences on certain portions of the ecosystem, correct?
[/quote]

Yes, and would also cause the economically important species to collapse as well.

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
So even in this case, your case, the action of the market (free market capitalism) is working to reverse phytoplankton scarcity
[/quote]

But in what context? That’s like saying beef confinement feedlots are working to restore auroch populations. Growing plankton to feed shrimp farms has nothing to do with the ecology of the open ocean, and I find it completely disgusting and reprehensible to even consider that as a valid point.

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
Also, it would be helpful for you to show that Capitalism commits more extinction events than other economic systems.
[/quote]

Why? That was never my point. My point is that unsustainable production commits more extinction events than sustainable production or ecological systems, and within a shorter time period.

Capitalism is just one (of many) methods of unsustainable production. I’m really trying to figure out if it HAS to be by it’s very design.

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
If your point is rather that: (1) the earth is finite, (2) resources are finite, (3) capitalism tends to grow supply and demand constantly and, therefore, that (4) constant, compounding growth is unsustainable–I can understand your worry,
[/quote]

Yes, that is my concern.

[quoteuser=“NEPHiLiX”]
but even your examples are currently working against you.
[/quote]

No way. Again, you’re rebuttal is truly horrifying. Are vivisection labs helping sustain threatened monkey species? Sickening.

90

And this is why we have animal husbandry.

No. The USA invades oil-rich countries so that certain people in connected places will benefit. For the actual people of America, it is not more economical. Why should billions and billions of dollars be wasted on wars when we can just trade? Furthermore, the government of America prohibits using certain oil reserves here and strictly regulates the business. Your analogy is not accurate.

Physical “expansion” is not growth, for the reason that it is not always “expansion”. If you hunt rabbits to extinction in your area and move on to where they are plentiful, you have not “expanded”. You have moved. Whereas with capital accumulation, you are actually able to stay where you were and expand.

Regardless, either way, this “growth” is a by-product. It is not the input into the equation. That has been my point, that your statement about growth being a requisite for capitalism is not true.

Not necessarily? Okay, so you say that the statement isn’t true, but your following statements do not support your claim of “not necessarily” and have nothing to do with my claim whatsoever, that the division of labor does not require growth. You could fish, I could pick berries. Division of labor. No growth required. You cannot provide a counterexample because my statement does not imply that the division of labor does not benefit or use growth. It is merely a statement that it does not necessarily require growth in order to exist.

In regard to your claim that the division of labor necessarily makes production unsustainable, this is a false statement. And yes, “only makes” equals “necessarily”. People use woods for a great many things. People replenish trees in order to cut them down again. In socialist-style economies, those trees typically do not get replenished, as pointed out earlier by another in this thread. It is in the capitalist-style economies that those trees get replenished. This is a counterexample. The division of labor is not necessarily unsustainable. Your assertion is false.

I have no desire to go live in the woods like you and Freedom4Me. 'nuff said.

It is capitalist societies that do not have to keep expanding in an unsustainable manner. The socialist-style economies are the ones that burn through resources without means to sustain. I already addressed the subsistence level of living with animal husbandry.

91

The planet and the solar system may not be, but isn’t the universe supposed to be infinite? How could we use up an infinite resource? Interesting notion, the Kardashev scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

92

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Well, it seems clear to me that you oppose unsustainable production.
[/quote]

No. I oppose being poisoned, and having my home ruined. I wouldn’t care that it occurs elsewhere, but since ecosystems are completely interwoven, taking a holistic approach to my acute, local problems leads me to resist enviromental destruction in general.

93

[quoteuser=“excel”]
LaRose argues that since it is conceivable as a thought experiment that at some point in the future every last known or unknown particle of matter and every unit of energy has either been acquired and is directly engaged in the optimum satisfaction of human wants, or as humans in and of itself,
[/quote]

Doesn’t this beg the question,

“Why is optimum satisfaction of human wants the ultimate goal”?

“Who is the ‘human’ consist of in the previous statement?”

I never started with that premise.

[quoteuser=“excel”]
I don’t understand how he can argue that native american tribes or other pre-modernity H/G or farming societies can have been any more sustainable than modern production, though, inasmuch as their production relied on a sun that is destined to cease the functions on which their production relies.
[/quote]

LOL, well I consider their production methods sustainable, as they could keep producing indefinitely. If some external force or influence causes their methods to fail (such as the sun burning out), I think it would be rather tough to blame the method of production itself for that failure.

Poisoning ourselves and the planet is certainly of anthropogenic origin, and therefore a different scenario.

94

Please explain what you mean by “being poisoned”, “having my home ruined”, and “environmental destruction”. Also note that, regardless of the definitions you give for those terms, you’re abandoning any and all logical commitment to the notion of “unsustainable” as strictly “cannot continue forever”. In other words, there’s more to whatever you’re calling “unsustainable” besides its inability to continue forever.

95

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
And this is why we have animal husbandry.
[/quote]

Which creates a whole myriad of further capital demands (cages, feed, time, etc.), which again, requires expansion of the resource base (growth). I love how you guys are so willing to decry state intervention in markets, but are equally as willing to accept human intervention in ecologies.

Remember, centralization does not work!

Coercion does not work!

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
The USA invades oil-rich countries so that certain people in connected places will benefit.
[/quote]

LOL, isn’t that what I said?

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
For the actual people of America, it is not more economical.
[/quote]

Who said they matter any more than your little rabbits?

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
Your analogy is not accurate.
[/quote]

Sure it is. Who owns the United States? Those in power. Who’s interests are the only ones considered when calculating the economy of an action? The deciding party, obviously, which are the owners, obviously.

It’s no different when the “owner” of a forest decides to clearcut it. Is that particularly beneficial to the inhabitants of the forest? No. But then again, they weren’t asked, now were they?

Everyone here seems to forget that nations are just someone’s (a king) or some corporate entity’s (the federal government) large piece of property. No more, no less. All the citizens are just the property of the land “owner”.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
If you hunt rabbits to extinction in your area and move on to where they are plentiful, you have not “expanded”.
[/quote]

Why, are you going to also give up your legal right to the now rabbit-less land you previously inhabited? Seems unlikely.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
Regardless, either way, this “growth” is a by-product. It is not the input into the equation. That has been my point, that your statement about growth being a requisite for capitalism is not true.
[/quote]

OK, uncle. Perhaps growth isn’t needed initially, but is required eventually, if one produces unsustainably. Can we agree on that, at least?

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
People replenish trees in order to cut them down again. In socialist-style economies, those trees typically do not get replenished, as pointed out earlier by another in this thread. It is in the capitalist-style economies that those trees get replenished. This is a counterexample. The division of labor is not necessarily unsustainable. Your assertion is false.
[/quote]

So, old growth forest is completely equitable with 10 year old Douglas Fir monocultures?

That is a sick thought, and why we are fucked.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
I have no desire to go live in the woods like you and Freedom4Me. 'nuff said.
[/quote]

Then you will drown in your own waste, like the rest of us.

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
It is capitalist societies that do not have to keep expanding in an unsustainable manner.
[/quote]

What are you talking about? Is this just a naked assertion? Why?

[quoteuser=“gotlucky”]
I already addressed the subsistence level of living with animal husbandry.
[/quote]

Nonsense. Domestication of animals as a method of achieving sustainability is akin to throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out.

96

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Please explain what you mean by “being poisoned”
[/quote]

Poison - v., Administer poison to (a person or animal), either deliberately or accidentally.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
“having my home ruined”
[/quote]

You can take a look at my latest response to EmperorNero, for a singular example.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
“environmental destruction”
[/quote]

PCB’s in rivers, no salmon in the Connecticut River, coliform bacteria in most small waterways in my town, heavy metals from automobile pollution in the soil, fertilizers and erosion creating dead zones in the sound, the dissappearance of the American Chestnut, and the passanger pigeon, forest being choked by Asiastic Bittersweet, etc.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
you’re abandoning any and all logical commitment to the notion of “unsustainable” as strictly “cannot continue forever”. In other words, there’s more to whatever you’re calling “unsustainable” besides its inability to continue forever.
[/quote]

Yeah, because of your brilliant quasi-Keynesian (“In the long run, we are all dead.”) retort that entropy will catch all of us in the end (which is pretty stupid, considering the big bang happened somehow), I am forced to include the caveat that sustainable would have to mean,

“able to continue indefinitely, barring external influences beyond our control.”

97

Carbon dioxide is poisonous to animals, yet all animals inhale and exhale it regularly. If I exhale carbon dioxide which another animal then inhales, would you say I’ve thus poisoned it? It would seem to me that I have, given your definition above.

You can point out just which part of that rather lengthy response you’re referring to. It’s not that hard, is it?

If I accept that as your definition of “environmental destruction”, then the Deepwater Horizon incident does not qualify as environmental destruction. The same goes for slash-and-burn agriculture in tropical rainforests, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Love Canal, etc. Do you get it yet? Refusing to provide an explicit definition - instead implicitly demanding that I painstakingly tease one out from a whole bunch of (alleged) examples - does not satisfy intellectual honesty.

Thank you. So then the question becomes, which influences aren’t beyond our control and why?

98

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Carbon dioxide is poisonous to animals, yet all animals inhale and exhale it regularly. If I exhale carbon dioxide which another animal then inhales, would you say I’ve thus poisoned it? It would seem to me that I have, given your definition above.
[/quote]

No. Your conclusion begs the question.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
You can point out just which part of that rather lengthy response you’re referring to. It’s not that hard, is it?
[/quote]

No it isn’t. I’m sure you can manage.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
If I accept that as your definition of “environmental destruction”, then the Deepwater Horizon incident does not qualify as environmental destruction. The same goes for slash-and-burn agriculture in tropical rainforests, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Love Canal, etc. Do you get it yet? Refusing to provide an explicit definition - instead implicitly demanding that I painstakingly tease one out from a whole bunch of (alleged) examples - does not satisfy intellectual honesty.
[/quote]

Then you are stupid. OK, let’s try,

“Activity which reduces the carrying capacity of a landbase.”

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Thank you. So then the question becomes, which influences aren’t beyond our control and why?
[/quote]

Is that rhetorical?

99

I’m sorry but I don’t see how.

I’m sure you could even more easily manage pointing out which part of that rather lengthy response you’re referring to. After all, I imagine you already know which part that is, whereas I don’t. Your refusal to do so seems to imply an ulterior motive on your part.

In that case, we’re hardly the only environmentally destructive species, and there are plenty of non-living things that are environmentally destructive. Or do you mean “human activity” when you say “activity”?

Not at all.

100

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
I’m sorry but I don’t see how.
[/quote]

Well, why did you choose carbon dioxide? It wasn’t mentioned in my quote.

What is the LD50 of CO2?

Are the effects of CO2 exposure cumulative?

H2O is a dangerous inhalant, as well. You are trying to be clever.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Your refusal to do so seems to imply an ulterior motive on your part.
[/quote]

To not be your bitch, and if you are going to try to set these cutesy logical traps for me, at least be willing to do the footwork for it. I can see what you are trying to do from a mile away.

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
In that case, we’re hardly the only environmentally destructive species, and there are plenty of non-living things that are environmentally destructive. Or do you mean “human activity” when you say “activity”?
[/quote]

Assertion. Try again. I can be a noodge, and play dumb, too

[quoteuser=“Autolykos”]
Thank you. So then the question becomes, which influences aren’t beyond our control and why?
[/quote]

Thermodynamics. Physics. Expansion of the universe… there’s a few, not sure if I can come up with a complete list.