I've had a political paradigm-shift

Some of you know me from this site and many of you probably consider me a blatant New Deal Democrat partisan. However, apparently I’m a weak-hearted partisan, because something my friend showed me has caused a radical shift. While I’m still sympathetic with many liberal positions, I now have to say I agree with Ron Paul and the libertarians on the welfare state and the gold standard. At the same time, I cannot whole-heartedly embrace their position because they tend to idolize the free market and corporations, which have in long-term terms done more damage to our civilization than any tyrant; furthermore, they (libertarians) ignore the environment and the very real limitations it imposes on the capitalism they so adore.

In any case, all of it - corporations, liberals, conservatives - they’re all part of the same energy-glut, growth=prosperity system that is in all likelihood going to soon come crashing down.

Feel kind of pathetic coming on here like this to make such an admission, but I guess I’d like others to view what I’ve viewed and tell me why it’s wrong. So much of it clicks with disparate things I’ve read in the past few years which have independently suggested in their quiet way that pretty much EVERYBODY’S wrong, that the issues being bandied about are essentially irrelevant while the crucial points keep getting completely ignored. Anyway, feel free to show me up on this and I’ll gladly admit my mistake. I’m never one to shy from saying “DOH!” and posting a :blush: when it’s warranted! Honestly, I’d much rather be a New Deal liberal than whatever it is I am now.

Here’s the thing, which might be alternatively entitled “It’s all about dead dinosaurs”:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-1-three-beliefs

I’ve taken a look at a bit of debunking stuff, but so far none of it seems as persuasive as Martenson’s work combined with his impeccable credentials. Perhaps I’m just pre-disposed to believe what he’s saying. Here’s one good thing I found:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2006/07/307-confessions-of-ex-doomer.html

Smells like teen spirit…

Good for you, Vay. I don’t have time to look through that, but I applaud anyone who changes their opinions in response to new information.

Exactly! Too few adults really keep an open mind. I have just about given up talking politics because it’s pointless trying to change another adult’s political point of view.

Just the other day, FredSmith said something that was refreshingly openminded and, I thought, fairly critical of the right . . .

What are the odds that the left or right has got every issue correct?

I don’t get how you can consider corporations evil. Was the former way of doing business so much better?

That’s hardly a valid argument.

I feel it’s a valid question and gets to the heart of most liberal hostility to corporations.

The old way was you were responsible for all losses no matter how much you invested. One big loss and you would literally be wiped out and thrown out in the street. The benefits of a corporation is risk and reward can be spread out and losses can be limited to the initial investment.

I for one am not against corporations. I do, however, oppose those corporations that behave unethically and illegally; those which screw people over in their quest for money and power. My feelings on this matter extend to other institutions and holders of power, including governments, churches and the media. In my view, the ultimate power should rest in the People, whose passions are tempered by a sound constitution that guarantees rights and freedoms for all. This may be why I score a higher degree on the libertarian scale than on the liberal scale on politicalcompass.org.

I for one am not against humans. I do, however, oppose those humans that behave unethically and illegally; those which screw people over in their quest for money and power.

Oh, “Were older ways any better?” is a perfectly valid question, but not if you’re seeking to learn whether or not they are ‘evil’. They may be far better, more efficient, ect… and yet still be ‘evil’.

Well, it’s not much of a surprise that “liberals” or “conservatives” meant very much. Just jerking off obviously. That we are mining the Earth beyond redemption was a bit more of a surprise to me, if not undeniable at this point. But since I am not going to become a luddite tomorrow and watch the rest of the world enjoy, I guess the end result is the same. Probably, almost definitely really, the best hope is for a scientific breakthrough of some kind, so we stick with the team now anyway.

I no longer believe abandonment of technology and reverting to some kind of Omish existence is the answer. I think we need to fully embrace technology and the scientific method. The reason the scientific method creates fear in the populace is not because of anything inherently bad about it. The problem is the corruptive influence of the monetary system.

For example, take genetics. People fear genetic manipulation with good reason under the current paradigm. The rich already stack the deck against the rest of us in a huge number of ways, but imagine if they could purchase genetic benefits for themselves or their children, such as increased intelligence, heightened sensory perception, artificially long lifespans and the like. Undoubtedly scary.

The technology, itself, however, is not scary. It is utterly neutral. It can be as benevolent or malign as we make it. In the absence of the competitive social construct we are brought up to think of as “the natural order”, technology such as AI, genetic manipulation, nanotechnology and the like could bring about HUGE benefits to our species.

Similarly, automation, which many rightly fear under the monetary system because it threatens to put huge masses out of work, in the absence of that system could liberate the human species from the mind-numbing, back-breaking, creativity-crushing repetitive labor the majority of our species is consigned to. We already possess the capacity to automate far, far more than we have thus far; the limiting factor is that we exist in a system where in order for the economy to function, people need jobs - whether those jobs are useful to anyone or not (does anyone on Wall Street, for example, actually do anything that has any real relevance outside of the mutually-shared illusion we called the monetary system?)

Earlier we were talking about energy needs. The fact is, massive massive amounts of energy exist. The potential energy yields for wind, geothermal, tidal, wave (actually two separate sources), solar and ionospheric electricity are staggering. Just out of this world. What stops them from being fully harvested? The price system. New technologies are expensive, especially when you have established industries who have vested interests in the existing technological paradigm. There is simply TOO much money to be made from the gradual depletion of fossil fuels - even if it entails the collapse of our society. To quote Peter Joseph from the Zeitgeist Orientation video:

the Zeitgeist Movement / Venus Project orientation video

And geophysicist M. King Hubbert, who accurately predicted the phenomenon known as peak oil in America and the former Soviet Union:

[quote=“M. King Hubbert”]The world’s present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evloved from folkways of prehistoric origin.

The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance. The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is super[im]posed.

Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely, exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest. This disparity between a monetary system which continues to grow exponentially and a physical system which is unable to do so leads to an increase with time in the ratio of money to the output of the physical system. This manifests itself as price inflation. A monetary alternative corresponding to a zero physical growth rate would be a zero interest rate. The result in either case would be large-scale financial instability.

I was in New York in the 30s. I had a box seat at the depression. I can assure you it was a very educational experience. We shut the country down because of monetary reasons. We had manpower and abundant raw materials. Yet we shut the country down. We’re doing the same kind of thing now but with a different material outlook. We are not in the position we were in 1929-30 with regard to the future. Then the physical system was ready to roll. This time it’s not. We are in a crisis in the evolution of human socienty. It’s unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can’t possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered… We have the necessary technology. All we have to do is completely overhaul our culture and find an alternative to money. [/quote]

hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/monetary.htm