Your point framed the issue as one of political systems("Consumerist capitalism"), not moving the goalpost at all to say that communism also or perhaps even moreso is responsible for creating pollution.
If I framed the issue by saying that it's all because stupid people can't live in harmony with nature and someone replies with one of the countless examples of other animals ruining their habitats that is not moving the goalpost at all, that is showing that my framing is incorrect.
I and others took it as political because you put capitalism in front of consumerism.
Even if I were to take out the capitalism from your initial statement:
"Consumerism revolves around making profit from fixing the problems that consumerism has created in the first place from making profit."
This falls down when you begin to look at what consumerism is, which is buying and using goods to signal status. This practice has existed since the dawn of time when Ogg traded a new ax to Ugg for the shiny rock to impress Ogget.
The industrial revolution, which it looks like is the actual target of your ire just accelerated the ability for more people to obtain the shiny rocks, leading to the loss of value in shiny rocks and thus the demand for more and new types of shiny rocks.
In a sibling comment, you do make it political by comparing Communist countries to Rich countries:
"Communist countries like the one I was born in are too poor to generate the amount of excessive consumerism and environment damage rich countries do."
This is also not a good argument unless your view is that by making people richer and allowing them to have access to more things is a bad idea.
Bringing people up from a subsistence level of survival to a modern lifestyle costs energy and resources. Now, we could say that it is bad to bring people up or that we don't want to. That is a moral argument that you can make, I think that you will be hard pressed to find anyone that agrees that human society peaked at any point in the past in terms of lifestyle, comfort or almost any other metric.
Now, could we be more mindful of how we elevate and progress? I do believe that we could.
What are the goal posts? You suggested capitalism is responsible for messing up the planet. So thus I ask if communist countries also aren’t responsible, or if that’s somehow distinctly capitalist countries only who pollute?
Seems like a logical and reasonable question to me.
Where did I say Communist countries don't have pollution?
(former) Communist countries like the one I was born in are too poor to generate the amount of excessive consumerism and environment damage rich countries do.
For example there was no such thing as plastic packaging. Everything was packaged in paper, glass or steel way before rich countries made that a hipster thing for greenwashing.
All goods, even low quality ones that would be unreliable, from cars to clothing and electronics, were kept going forever through endless repairs instead of being landfilled the moment a capacitor leaked and new ones bought on a yearly basis because Company X just dropped the new Shiny and the warranty expired on the previous widget, decades before the rapirability trend hit the rich countries.
Is China communist? They certainly produce a lot of pollution and plastic. Videos I’ve seen out of North Korea lately also show people using plastic everything.
But let’s put that aside, and assume the whole world was communist and repaired things (ignoring that repair also happened under capitalism). Is there no pollution? Industry? Seems like even if the pollution is less, we still would just end up in the same place eventually.
China is as communist only because it calls itself so, but doesn't follow any of Karl Marx's communist rules anymore since 1978 or so. It's basically a capitalist dictatorship at this point.
North Korea also calls itself the Democratic people's republic of Korea, you think it's democratic?
And China pollutes a lot because it's the West's sweatshop so rich countries are outsourcing there pollution there by consuming all those cheaply goods made in China at the profit of the western corporations.
>Seems like even if the pollution is less, we still would just end up in the same place eventually.
How so? Capitalism demands virtually infinite growth long term along with visible growth on a yearly or quarterly basis.
How is making a pointless point relevant to any productive conversation? There's no political commentary made by this device, yet here you are trying to introduce it for whatever reasons you think you might have. Now, you've been called on it and are acting like a petulant child with your own version of whataboutism.
Please stop breaking HN rules by making faceless personal accusations against people and call them children just because you disagree with someone's point.
Comments
Do communist countries not pollute or have industry?
Complaints about capitalism do not amount to praise for communism.
It’s the clear opposite, and the criticism suggests other modes of economic systems do not have this bug.
How is moving the goalposts with a whataboutism relevant to my point?
Where did I say communism causes no pollution?
Your point framed the issue as one of political systems("Consumerist capitalism"), not moving the goalpost at all to say that communism also or perhaps even moreso is responsible for creating pollution.
If I framed the issue by saying that it's all because stupid people can't live in harmony with nature and someone replies with one of the countless examples of other animals ruining their habitats that is not moving the goalpost at all, that is showing that my framing is incorrect.
No I didn't frame it as purely political but in the frame of consumerism.
I and others took it as political because you put capitalism in front of consumerism.
Even if I were to take out the capitalism from your initial statement: "Consumerism revolves around making profit from fixing the problems that consumerism has created in the first place from making profit."
This falls down when you begin to look at what consumerism is, which is buying and using goods to signal status. This practice has existed since the dawn of time when Ogg traded a new ax to Ugg for the shiny rock to impress Ogget.
The industrial revolution, which it looks like is the actual target of your ire just accelerated the ability for more people to obtain the shiny rocks, leading to the loss of value in shiny rocks and thus the demand for more and new types of shiny rocks.
In a sibling comment, you do make it political by comparing Communist countries to Rich countries: "Communist countries like the one I was born in are too poor to generate the amount of excessive consumerism and environment damage rich countries do."
This is also not a good argument unless your view is that by making people richer and allowing them to have access to more things is a bad idea.
Bringing people up from a subsistence level of survival to a modern lifestyle costs energy and resources. Now, we could say that it is bad to bring people up or that we don't want to. That is a moral argument that you can make, I think that you will be hard pressed to find anyone that agrees that human society peaked at any point in the past in terms of lifestyle, comfort or almost any other metric.
Now, could we be more mindful of how we elevate and progress? I do believe that we could.
What are the goal posts? You suggested capitalism is responsible for messing up the planet. So thus I ask if communist countries also aren’t responsible, or if that’s somehow distinctly capitalist countries only who pollute?
Seems like a logical and reasonable question to me.
Where did I say Communist countries don't have pollution?
(former) Communist countries like the one I was born in are too poor to generate the amount of excessive consumerism and environment damage rich countries do.
For example there was no such thing as plastic packaging. Everything was packaged in paper, glass or steel way before rich countries made that a hipster thing for greenwashing.
All goods, even low quality ones that would be unreliable, from cars to clothing and electronics, were kept going forever through endless repairs instead of being landfilled the moment a capacitor leaked and new ones bought on a yearly basis because Company X just dropped the new Shiny and the warranty expired on the previous widget, decades before the rapirability trend hit the rich countries.
Is China communist? They certainly produce a lot of pollution and plastic. Videos I’ve seen out of North Korea lately also show people using plastic everything.
But let’s put that aside, and assume the whole world was communist and repaired things (ignoring that repair also happened under capitalism). Is there no pollution? Industry? Seems like even if the pollution is less, we still would just end up in the same place eventually.
China is as communist only because it calls itself so, but doesn't follow any of Karl Marx's communist rules anymore since 1978 or so. It's basically a capitalist dictatorship at this point.
North Korea also calls itself the Democratic people's republic of Korea, you think it's democratic?
And China pollutes a lot because it's the West's sweatshop so rich countries are outsourcing there pollution there by consuming all those cheaply goods made in China at the profit of the western corporations.
>Seems like even if the pollution is less, we still would just end up in the same place eventually.
How so? Capitalism demands virtually infinite growth long term along with visible growth on a yearly or quarterly basis.
How is making a pointless point relevant to any productive conversation? There's no political commentary made by this device, yet here you are trying to introduce it for whatever reasons you think you might have. Now, you've been called on it and are acting like a petulant child with your own version of whataboutism.
Where exactly did I act like e petulant child?
Please stop breaking HN rules by making faceless personal accusations against people and call them children just because you disagree with someone's point.