Thoughts on anti-capitalism
I keep reading that capitalism is bad, we need to get rid of it, ten rich people (or 1%, or whatever) get everything, and all others suffer, and the planet suffers, and the plants suffer, and so on, and so forth. All of this is valid. However, I've never seen a valid proposition about what to do with it. If you like it or not, we are now a civilization whose lifeblood is electricity. If we turn off electricity, billions of people will die either immediately or in the nearest future. Technical progress allowed us to have medicine that cannot be compared to any past epoch where it was a luck if a woman, or her newborn baby, or both didn't die in huge pain when that baby had been born; HIV was a death sentence; cancer could not be cured; appendicitis was also a death sentence, and so on, and so on. I've recently read a post about Humans that lived for 200,000 years without any capitalism and everything was good. You're either naïve or you don't want to see truth: nothing was pretty good, actually, and capitalism in any form was always. A tribe of Cro-Magnon people had its chief and its hierarchy, not speaking of feudal times. Anyway, my take is that capitalism is by far not a perfect solution, but there is nothing best invented yet. Communism? See what happened in the USSR (my wife's grandparents and other relatives died in Holodomor, do you know what it is?) and what happens in China now (any Uyghur will tell you about it). I see lots of propositions about stopping using this, stopping using that, but there is no alternative. “Everyone must get on bicycles” — “I'm blind, I cannot ride a bicycle” — “well… in this case… I don't know” (people with more empathy will justify me using cars, taxis or common transport). But blind people are not the only category that cannot ride bikes. It's just an example where eco-militants try to convince us not to do something, but don't propose any alternative. what alternative do I propose? Technosolutionism. Yes, I've heard already people pronouncing this word as an insult, but to me it's the only viable solution. I don't want to come back to the Stone age, nor to the Middle ages, without medicine, hot water, hot food, computers, Internet, cars, trams, trains and planes, and I will do my best to prevent it from happening. Is there a plastics island in the ocean? Yes. Is it bad for the nature? Extremely! What should we do? Research a technology that would allow us getting rid of used plastic, and such technology do exist (bacteria that “eat” plastic and transform it into bio fuel, for example). Do we throw lots of CO2 into the atmosphere? Yes, absolutely. Is it harmful? Of course it is! Solution? Use solar panels, nuclear energy, if possible, stop (yes, I also said this word!) using petrol and gas. Scientists from Japan started on experimenting with a technology that would “suck” CO2 out of the air. That's the solution, or one of them, great job! Instead many people are preaching about giving up cars, meat, plastic, AI, everything, without proposing a real alternative. Just suffer for the good of… someone. No. Sorry not sorry, but no. Just suffering is not a solution. Solution is to strive for the happiness and great pleasure of everyone on this beautiful planet and beyond. I'm open to polite and thoughtful discussion, of course.