While Ted was not flawless, his argument in ISAIF is sound. However, the question is, what actually motivates people to insurgent action? Is it a sound logic and persuasive argument grounded in rationality? Or is it belief which really drives people, feelings of resentment for what is, a belief that things can be improved through action, a willingness to abandon any available comforts and security to strike out for a significant change?
I think this question can be answered by a clear-eyed assessment of which risk-taking groups people join up with and sacrifice their time for, even risking their freedom or lives.
It would be good to study it. My gut feeling about it is that people need to feel threatened in some way. If they're comfortable, they won't rebel. People who love nature probably have enough to rebel because they see the nature they love threatened. It has to be immediate. Ted rebelled and did something because his joy was taken away by the planes over his cabin. The IRA got a lot of people because there were enough who hated seeing the British in Northern Ireland.
I guess the other factors you mentioned have to be studied though and articulated. The belief that action will do something is undoubtedly important as well. That means a detailed plan that sounds like it could actually work would likely encourage more rebellion. You asked a lot of good questions and these should be explored.
"[The industrial revolution has] greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but ... [has] destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering ... and [has] inflicted severe damage on the natural world."
OK. It seems that this invites us to ask whether life was more or less 'fulfilling' before or after the industrial revolution.
It certainly wasn't before the Black Death (ok - that didn't happen in America). Life for the survivors markedly improved after that because the balance between the owners and the workers changed. But would one wish the Black Death on anybody?
So, do we take our 'before and after' as c1350 or c1750? Or 1650, as that was pre-enclosures (in England).
Or do we need to take it before c12,000 BCE, the agricultural revolution? After all, current thinking is that that happened because hunter-gatherers had already (without the industrial revolution) made extinct those animals that provided very profitable protein such that farmed protein became worthwhile (on a protein cost-benefit basis). And that revolution made many in humanity 'subject to indiginities'.
We might also note that the English and Spanish invasions of the Americans were pre-industrial revolution and they pretty much extinguished native American life. Rather worse than 'indignities'.
I'm no technophile, but we might note that the Trump tariffs are not being welcomed by, say, the Vietnamese or Bangladeshis, who risk severe job losses as a result - jobs that are 'post-industrial revolution'. Their previous existences, say 50-100 years ago, do not appear to be preferable to them, otherwise they would be less concerned by Trump's actions. Less than 100 years ago, millions were starving in Bengal and China.
I am not suggesting that we are in a good place. But Trumps and their ilk (and worse) have existing throughout human time - including pre-industrial revolution. We cannot blame the existence of toxic leaders - that some of 'us' put there - on technology.
I'd take ridding us of toxic leaders over ridding us of technology.
There are a lot of technicalities that must be examined in Ted's statement, you are right. However, I think if you read between the lines, the main concern is the more distant future when technology becomes even more advanced, coupled with the unequivocal statement that technology has enabled us to destroy the natural world.
You are right about pre-industrial conquerings as well. However, they did not modify the planet to an enormous extent as we have now, which is much worse than the conquering of native American life, if we consider those two as independent events, which of course they are not.
Regarding Trump tariffs, well, of course before there were tech jobs in places like Vietnam, there was already industrial technology, so it's a matter of one place becoming signficantly worse due to technology and then getting a temporary amelioration.
There's one place where I agree with you:
> I'd take ridding us of toxic leaders over ridding us of technology.
Of course, IF we could do that, then it's even plausible that we could become more responsible with technology. That's the utopian fallacy: assuming that we should keep technology just because it's theoretically possible to use it more responsibly. But I seriously doubt you could ever rid the world of toxic leaders. Trump yes, you could, but with advanced technology, there will always be those who will abuse it. And if eventually genetic engineering can modify the entire race to get rid of those types like Trump, then technology will have advanced so far as to be completely destructive to nature.
Ted's argument certainly needs some clarifications, but the end conclusion is still fairly sound, or at least is very difficult to refute, given our track record as a species so far.
If you removed the “bad” or “unwise” leaders and had only the ideal and near-perfect leaders, would that solve our pollution from microplastics? Would these “good” leaders prevent AGI development? Would better governance save Nature from being erased by Technology's ascendance? Would the pervasive feelings of anxiety, loneliness, unhappiness, purposelessness, and depression of young and old Americans - and their associated addictions to illicit or prescription drugs - be relieved? Obviously not.
Exactly right. Even the most "ideal" leader in modern civlization would be a leftist type who would push for fair trade laws, equal opportunities – for everyone to participate in technological development, and more technological development to fund various social programs so that we can become even more isolated. In other words, this "ideal" leader would just be ideal at making people's lives as good as possible within a broken system, which would mean making the best of it but leaving technology as sacred and as holy as always.
But people have entirely given up exploring what living means in exchange for settling for things like "life expectancy, basic health, enough food, and short-term economic propserity", without regarding whether such things done in our current way are destroying nature or the biosphere. As long as human beings have a fair and just world with the basic necessities in the short term, they have no care for the long term or for how they achieve those basic goals.
While Ted was not flawless, his argument in ISAIF is sound. However, the question is, what actually motivates people to insurgent action? Is it a sound logic and persuasive argument grounded in rationality? Or is it belief which really drives people, feelings of resentment for what is, a belief that things can be improved through action, a willingness to abandon any available comforts and security to strike out for a significant change?
I think this question can be answered by a clear-eyed assessment of which risk-taking groups people join up with and sacrifice their time for, even risking their freedom or lives.
It would be good to study it. My gut feeling about it is that people need to feel threatened in some way. If they're comfortable, they won't rebel. People who love nature probably have enough to rebel because they see the nature they love threatened. It has to be immediate. Ted rebelled and did something because his joy was taken away by the planes over his cabin. The IRA got a lot of people because there were enough who hated seeing the British in Northern Ireland.
I guess the other factors you mentioned have to be studied though and articulated. The belief that action will do something is undoubtedly important as well. That means a detailed plan that sounds like it could actually work would likely encourage more rebellion. You asked a lot of good questions and these should be explored.
"[The industrial revolution has] greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but ... [has] destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering ... and [has] inflicted severe damage on the natural world."
OK. It seems that this invites us to ask whether life was more or less 'fulfilling' before or after the industrial revolution.
It certainly wasn't before the Black Death (ok - that didn't happen in America). Life for the survivors markedly improved after that because the balance between the owners and the workers changed. But would one wish the Black Death on anybody?
So, do we take our 'before and after' as c1350 or c1750? Or 1650, as that was pre-enclosures (in England).
Or do we need to take it before c12,000 BCE, the agricultural revolution? After all, current thinking is that that happened because hunter-gatherers had already (without the industrial revolution) made extinct those animals that provided very profitable protein such that farmed protein became worthwhile (on a protein cost-benefit basis). And that revolution made many in humanity 'subject to indiginities'.
We might also note that the English and Spanish invasions of the Americans were pre-industrial revolution and they pretty much extinguished native American life. Rather worse than 'indignities'.
I'm no technophile, but we might note that the Trump tariffs are not being welcomed by, say, the Vietnamese or Bangladeshis, who risk severe job losses as a result - jobs that are 'post-industrial revolution'. Their previous existences, say 50-100 years ago, do not appear to be preferable to them, otherwise they would be less concerned by Trump's actions. Less than 100 years ago, millions were starving in Bengal and China.
I am not suggesting that we are in a good place. But Trumps and their ilk (and worse) have existing throughout human time - including pre-industrial revolution. We cannot blame the existence of toxic leaders - that some of 'us' put there - on technology.
I'd take ridding us of toxic leaders over ridding us of technology.
There are a lot of technicalities that must be examined in Ted's statement, you are right. However, I think if you read between the lines, the main concern is the more distant future when technology becomes even more advanced, coupled with the unequivocal statement that technology has enabled us to destroy the natural world.
You are right about pre-industrial conquerings as well. However, they did not modify the planet to an enormous extent as we have now, which is much worse than the conquering of native American life, if we consider those two as independent events, which of course they are not.
Regarding Trump tariffs, well, of course before there were tech jobs in places like Vietnam, there was already industrial technology, so it's a matter of one place becoming signficantly worse due to technology and then getting a temporary amelioration.
There's one place where I agree with you:
> I'd take ridding us of toxic leaders over ridding us of technology.
Of course, IF we could do that, then it's even plausible that we could become more responsible with technology. That's the utopian fallacy: assuming that we should keep technology just because it's theoretically possible to use it more responsibly. But I seriously doubt you could ever rid the world of toxic leaders. Trump yes, you could, but with advanced technology, there will always be those who will abuse it. And if eventually genetic engineering can modify the entire race to get rid of those types like Trump, then technology will have advanced so far as to be completely destructive to nature.
Ted's argument certainly needs some clarifications, but the end conclusion is still fairly sound, or at least is very difficult to refute, given our track record as a species so far.
If you removed the “bad” or “unwise” leaders and had only the ideal and near-perfect leaders, would that solve our pollution from microplastics? Would these “good” leaders prevent AGI development? Would better governance save Nature from being erased by Technology's ascendance? Would the pervasive feelings of anxiety, loneliness, unhappiness, purposelessness, and depression of young and old Americans - and their associated addictions to illicit or prescription drugs - be relieved? Obviously not.
Exactly right. Even the most "ideal" leader in modern civlization would be a leftist type who would push for fair trade laws, equal opportunities – for everyone to participate in technological development, and more technological development to fund various social programs so that we can become even more isolated. In other words, this "ideal" leader would just be ideal at making people's lives as good as possible within a broken system, which would mean making the best of it but leaving technology as sacred and as holy as always.
But people have entirely given up exploring what living means in exchange for settling for things like "life expectancy, basic health, enough food, and short-term economic propserity", without regarding whether such things done in our current way are destroying nature or the biosphere. As long as human beings have a fair and just world with the basic necessities in the short term, they have no care for the long term or for how they achieve those basic goals.