Thread: Is Industrial Civilization a Pyramid Scheme?

Originally Posted by Patrick Bateman

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.


“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate …’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

Yep, big fat pyramid scheme. And we're on the wrong end of it.

People mistake cosmetic freedoms for prosperity: so long as they can continue to have a choice of 86 breakfast cereals, 37 diet sodas, and 4000 channels, they'll happily drug, eat, and entertain themselves into obese vegetables even if it means going into debt to do it.

People used to worry about books being burned. The punch line to that is that it doesn't matter now: no one reads anything unless Oprah or Glenn Beck tell them to.

People take for granted that the food they buy and eat and the resources they consume will be there forever. Obviously, it's not so. One day, they'll turn on the water faucet (as happened in Atlanta a couple years ago) and find that nothing comes out. Or they'll find that they can't just go to the store to buy some food.

Foolishness.

Industrial Civilization is not a Ponzi scheme...the medium of exchange (a fiat current based on privately owned and self served institution) definitely points civilization in that direction though.

It industrial civilization doesn't have to be that way though

Originally Posted by lnvanry

Industrial Civilization is not a Ponzi scheme...the medium of exchange (a fiat current based on privately owned and self served institution) definitely points civilization in that direction though.

It industrial civilization doesn't have to be that way though

Nothing we're doing is sustainable. We won't always cycle upwards; we will eventually cycle out.

This guy is clearly a fucking idiot. Even if his assertions about unsustainable rape of our natural resources are correct, and I am not conceding as much, but even if he is correct on that it has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme.

If you are going to join the sensationalist anti-capitalism crowd, at least get your sensationalist propaganda correct.

Originally Posted by clemson357

This guy is clearly a fucking idiot. Even if his assertions about unsustainable rape of our natural resources are correct, and I am not conceding as much, but even if he is correct on that it has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme.

If you are going to join the sensationalist anti-capitalism crowd, at least get your sensationalist propaganda correct.

What does hypothetically speaking mean?

rape the earth repent after!!!!!