-YT-

Not sure how much of this is taught in schools these days but is extremely important in understanding the evolution of labor and workers rights etc. Man they had some far out ideas like self organisation ( no bosses ) better conditions & wages/entitlements, for some there was a genuine concern of becoming wage slaves damn socialists although this was without the influence of Marx etc. The righteous fury with which the unions and labor movement was attacked and ultimately weakend is fairly savage for a "civilized society" strike breakers, state sanctioned violence, agent provocateurs , bias media etc. Still hear fair bit of demonizing oft he unions these days although most aggregates of power can be said to have a percentage of corruption human nature at its best lol. For the most part it would seem in most respects the unions have lost the power they once had, and especially the numbers of members anyway has declined. It is weird as hell gtarman haha of the two primates it would seem we tend to be more easily manipulated by social mores and language and it is interesting the mechanism within which we have or rather our masters have used to reinforce the new work ethic like religion, status/ wealth etc. Life sure would be different if we were all working half of what we do.

Didnt Prigogine Prove that the second law of thermodynamics is more of a rule than a law given certain instances/scenarios wherein it is non applicable? no doubt some one more versed within the consensus of thought will school me Retrocasuality sounds way groovy although unproven as of yet and i hope it could be in time mostly because it sounds like some kinda trippy mystical/sci fi shit. Personal thoughts usually tend to sway towards the world/universe/life being more amazing/fantastic/magical/deep whatever then we would give it credit for especially given the hugely negative biological and cultural reinforcements of our species. The tech singularity is definitely a cool concept to ruminate on and makes for some kick ass sci fi lol, makes me think of ghost in shell type trans humanism where we are mostly some what at least cybernetic/artificial but more so biologically connected via a virtual web/space which does seem like the next logical step given time, albeit in a world where we didnt squander our resource's on mostly trivial things & stuff, and given enough time where we werent working against the increasing threat of climate uncertainty. Also the question of who would get the new tech? history has shown most new technology has been appropriated via business/ the state interests and subsequently commodified for profit and or out of the reach of the common persons...Elysium anyone? Technology can and will ease the woes of life and being a bipedal meat sack that is a certainty although there are doubts if it can and will alleviate us of our plight as it were, if and when the mass consensus implements such to facilitate positive change for humanity whatever it may be is it truly of any substantial worth. otherwise what is it? novelty? we could distract and entertain ourselfs till the earth burns up in the sun 5ish billion years from now if we wanted too but will we...?

Orwell termed that kind of media saturation "protective stupidity" that which corrupts political life and divests language of its critical content, certainly an apt summary of our mainstream media heh. If you mean the world as in the earth than i certainly would agree Mutant although civilization is a more vicarious beast more now so than ever before. The recent assault on the commons ( scraping mining tax / privatization / funding cuts to stifle opinion/accountability etc ) and attempts at breaking the social contract ( especially of the most vulnerable in society) anti protest & association laws ( which can and will be used at authorities discretion ) should really stand as strong indications of the interests and direction policy makers wish to steer us, ideology is considered good policy and anti intellectualism the norm, not really anything new per se but certainly becoming more blatant. Some of the other western democracies well the conservatives in power anyway seem to all be moving in sync.

http://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224 Life in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever. This week’s Addicted to Growth conference in Sydney is exploring how to move beyond growth economics and towards a “steady-state” economy. But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in? The global predicament We used to live on a planet that was relatively empty of humans; today it is full to overflowing, with more people consuming more resources. We would need one and a half Earths to sustain the existing economy into the future. Every year this ecological overshoot continues, the foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are undermined. At the same time, there are great multitudes around the world who are, by any humane standard, under-consuming, and the humanitarian challenge of eliminating global poverty is likely to increase the burden on ecosystems still further. Meanwhile the population is set to hit 11 billion this century. Despite this, the richest nations still seek to grow their economies without apparent limit. Like a snake eating its own tail, our growth-orientated civilisation suffers from the delusion that there are no environmental limits to growth. But rethinking growth in an age of limits cannot be avoided. The only question is whether it will be by design or disaster. Degrowth to a steady-state economy The idea of the steady-state economy presents us with an alternative. This term is somewhat misleading, however, because it suggests that we simply need to maintain the size of the existing economy and stop seeking further growth. But given the extent of ecological overshoot – and bearing in mind that the poorest nations still need some room to develop their economies and allow the poorest billions to attain a dignified level of existence – the transition will require the richest nations to downscale radically their resource and energy demands. This realisation has given rise to calls for economic “degrowth”. To be distinguished from recession, degrowth means a phase of planned and equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that operates within Earth’s biophysical limits. In a world of 7.2 billion and counting, we need to think hard about our fair share. Karpov Oleg/Shutterstock Click to enlarge At this point, mainstream economists will accuse degrowth advocates of misunderstanding the potential of technology, markets, and efficiency gains to “decouple” economic growth from environmental impact. But there is no misunderstanding here. Everyone knows that we could produce and consume more efficiently than we do today. The problem is that efficiency without sufficiency is lost. Despite decades of extraordinary technological advancement and huge efficiency improvements, the energy and resource demands of the global economy are still increasing. This is because within a growth-orientated economy, efficiency gains tend to be reinvested in more consumption and more growth, rather than in reducing impact. This is the defining, critical flaw in growth economics: the false assumption that all economies across the globe can continue growing while radically reducing environmental impact to a sustainable level. The extent of decoupling required is simply too great. As we try unsuccessfully to “green” capitalism, we see the face of Gaia vanishing. The very lifestyles that were once considered the definition of success are now proving to be our greatest failure. Attempting to universalise affluence would be catastrophic. There is absolutely no way that today’s 7.2 billion people could live the Western way of life, let alone the 11 billion expected in the future. Genuine progress now lies beyond growth. Tinkering around the edges of capitalism will not cut it. We need an alternative. Enough for everyone, forever When one first hears calls for degrowth, it is easy to think that this new economic vision must be about hardship and deprivation; that it means going back to the stone age, resigning ourselves to a stagnant culture, or being anti-progress. Not so. Degrowth would liberate us from the burden of pursuing material excess. We simply don’t need so much stuff – certainly not if it comes at the cost of planetary health, social justice, and personal well-being. Consumerism is a gross failure of imagination, a debilitating addiction that degrades nature and doesn’t even satisfy the universal human craving for meaning. Do we really need to buy all this stuff anyway? Radu Bercan/Shutterstock Click to enlarge Degrowth, by contrast, would involve embracing what has been termed the “simpler way” – producing and consuming less. This would be a way of life based on modest material and energy needs but nevertheless rich in other dimensions – a life of frugal abundance. It is about creating an economy based on sufficiency, knowing how much is enough to live well, and discovering that enough is plenty. The lifestyle implications of degrowth and sufficiency are far more radical than the “light green” forms of sustainable consumption that are widely discussed today. Turning off the lights, taking shorter showers, and recycling are all necessary parts of what sustainability will require of us, but these measures are far from enough. But this does not mean we must live a life of painful sacrifice. Most of our basic needs can be met in quite simple and low-impact ways, while maintaining a high quality of life. What would life be like in a degrowth society? In a degrowth society we would aspire to localise our economies as far and as appropriately as possible. This would assist with reducing carbon-intensive global trade, while also building resilience in the face of an uncertain and turbulent future. Through forms of direct or participatory democracy we would organise our economies to ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met, and then redirect our energies away from economic expansion. This would be a relatively low-energy mode of living that ran primarily on renewable energy systems. Renewable energy cannot sustain an energy-intensive global society of high-end consumers. A degrowth society embraces the necessity of “energy descent”, turning our energy crises into an opportunity for civilisational renewal. We would tend to reduce our working hours in the formal economy in exchange for more home-production and leisure. We would have less income, but more freedom. Thus, in our simplicity, we would be rich. Wherever possible, we would grow our own organic food, water our gardens with water tanks, and turn our neighbourhoods into edible landscapes as the Cubans have done in Havana. As my friend Adam Grubb so delightfully declares, we should “eat the suburbs”, while supplementing urban agriculture with food from local farmers’ markets. Community gardens, like this one in San Francisco, can help achieve sufficiency. Kevin Krejci/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY Click to enlarge We do not need to purchase so many new clothes. Let us mend or exchange the clothes we have, buy second-hand, or make our own. In a degrowth society, the fashion and marketing industries would quickly wither away. A new aesthetic of sufficiency would develop, where we creatively re-use and refashion the vast existing stock of clothing and materials, and explore less impactful ways of producing new clothes. We would become radical recyclers and do-it-yourself experts. This would partly be driven by the fact that we would simply be living in an era of relative scarcity, with reduced discretionary income. But human beings find creative projects fulfilling, and the challenge of building the new world within the shell of the old promises to be immensely meaningful, even if it will also entail times of trial. The apparent scarcity of goods can also be greatly reduced by scaling up the sharing economy, which would also enrich our communities. One day, we might even live in cob houses that we build ourselves, but over the next few critical decades the fact is that most of us will be living within the poorly designed urban infrastructure that already exists. We are hardly going to knock it all down and start again. Instead, we must ‘retrofit the suburbs’, as leading permaculturalist David Holmgren argues. This would involve doing everything we can to make our homes more energy-efficient, more productive, and probably more densely inhabited. This is not the eco-future that we are shown in glossy design magazines featuring million-dollar “green homes” that are prohibitively expensive. Degrowth offers a more humble – and I would say more realistic – vision of a sustainable future. Making the change A degrowth transition to a steady-state economy could happen in a variety of ways. But the nature of this alternative vision suggests that the changes will need to be driven from the “bottom up”, rather than imposed from the “top down”. What I have written above highlights a few of the personal and household aspects of a degrowth society based on sufficiency (for much more detail, see here and here). Meanwhile, the ‘transition towns’ movement shows how whole communities can engage with the idea. But it is critical to acknowledge the social and structural constraints that currently make it much more difficult than it needs to be to adopt a lifestyle of sustainable consumption. For example, it is hard to drive less in the absence of safe bike lanes and good public transport; it is hard find a work-life balance if access to basic housing burdens us with excessive debt; and it is hard to re-imagine the good life if we are constantly bombarded with advertisements insisting that “nice stuff” is the key to happiness. Actions at the personal and household levels will never be enough, on their own, to achieve a steady-state economy. We need to create new, post-capitalist structures and systems that promote, rather than inhibit, the simpler way of life. These wider changes will never emerge, however, until we have a culture that demands them. So first and foremost, the revolution that is needed is a revolution in consciousness. I do not present these ideas under the illusion that they will be readily accepted. The ideology of growth clearly has a firm grip on our society and beyond. Rather, I hold up degrowth up as the most coherent framework for understanding the global predicament and signifying the only desirable way out of it. The alternative is to consume ourselves to death under the false banner of “green growth”, which would not be smart economics.

ya mad bugger incog! not hard to get heat stroke in those conditions. Not comforting that we can expect more of such weather more frequently in the years to come, very concerning for oldies. When we had our two week heat wave couple years back the morgues were pushing overtime and hiring refrigerated trucks

awww i wanna hear your thoughts! yeah i dunno if i would want a free cavity search either

Definitely agree with the media setting the agenda but it is interesting that supreme sith lord murdochs ideologies always seem to weld amazingly with those that come to power and the esoteric like ability to pick the winner of pretty much every federal election since he was spawned way back in 1900 lol

True frank things just seem like half a century behind here lol. Its kinda funny though that there are dispensaries and people writing/promoting aspects of the culture as fulltime jobs, read an interesting article yesterday about ganga wine as but one example, in those terms nothing like that is really happening on such a scale here but i guess its kinda meh to compare but i shall! No doubt they only have our best interests in mind distracted, some places get around it by selling as flowerpots/holders hahaha

Licensing of speech hahaha might as well bring back feudalism at the same time too eh. Teach those peasants there place!

Spot on posts, didnt actually see this thread till now heh. Think it largely depends on your employer Santiago in regards to the construction industry, well from my experience anyway and more often than not you would just be sacked no pay no entitlements etc ( which most people dont get being casual anyway ) if you get a positive test result. Another interesting aspect i found was that most placements would imply testing but it wasnt actually enforced until you actually had a on site complaint not sure if it was just hot air to deter fiends and or the higher ups realize that a large percentage of the workforce actively use substances during work hours/before/weekends etc. Also noticed that placements actively testing would/are constantly going through a revolving door scenario in terms of employee longevity again im not so sure its the actual testing (possibly a large factor in SA anyway haha) but also the dreary menial labour it entails. I remember a Huge million dollar government contract i worked on we had concreters who were mad piss heads ( as most are ) but the policy was no alcohol tolerated on site so they would pump and screet there shit than at lunch walk/drive offsite like around the corner take off there high vis and get maggot lol i never saw any repercussion from such behavior and when there was it mostly came from other work mates who had a beef who took it too site management, some of the dudes would rock up drunk, fucks me why lol

ja doesnt look i can make it either. Should still be a few turning up hope you all have a fun afternoon!

Fucken weird times to be alive lol. The latest report from the IPCC is some what sobering, relating the need to decarbonise within the next several decades too see a rise of no more than 2 degrees Celsius which within itself would instigate massive laregly irreversible changes in global climate. To be honest i just dont see it happening heh and i really hope im wrong! but the momentum of the machine just seems to be set towards such, imo i think no real challenge will come until we see the economy being hit by the effects.

Rort city lol. Sad state of affairs all around the issue from the Government loans, environmental damage/degradation, Low economic prospects for rural areas unless they are willing to frack or build a prison etc

True, although at least some states are getting more progressive unlike here...

Wow dude that actually sounds like a half decent friday night! edited for a massive +1 for scat therapy!

@ incog - carve yer own dingus! plenty of nice oz hardwoods to play with. If you order from OS gotta fuck around with all the import/quarantine shit with wood treatment etc from memory ( correct me if im wrong ) and or order an old school gunstock and shape to desire, which should be possible within the country. That pick Dist posted is very much like the old school medieval type jazz. I always assumed it was kinda a meh weapon but in reality is fucken nasty as hell. the pick going in anywhere would totes mess yer up not that the bludgeon would be much better pulverizing bones and muscle.

Heh i actually did read all that a while back lol not sure how feasible it is scaling but dam interesting non the less. Not really sure if deleting ones post really counts as covering your tracks though, like if reptilians really wanna mind rape you it doesnt take much to find out all kinda of juicy nom noms about you/me/anyone who uses the intrawebsters etc

Yeah the fruits are quite tasty which is why ants etc seem to love em, cant count the amount of pods ive lost to ants lol. Def looks weirder than the standard fruit let us know how the seed goes

Yep

Dunno about the unpinned ill assume one of the mods did it for whatever reason. Should be there lol. will let others who aint on the forums atm know

Go ludlam probably the only polly with any substantial balls, xenophob sometimes i feel like i could like but than does shit like sign up for direct action. Im not certain but it seems that ta made it over the line via preference deals done in some smoky backrooms which the public are/were not privy too ( And also probably why we have fucken idiots like the sports and motoring enthusiast party in senate seats..). Voter fraud is certainly nothing new from the old gangs of days past employed by local politicians as vote getters,Think gangs of new york where the immigrants where basically blackmailed by food and shelter soon as they were off the ship for their vote to the highly organised electronic system of today which can be easily manipulated. There was some what of a controversy over the 2004 us elections that bush won with irregularities mostly in minority demographics. Ill assume that our system differs from the states in terms of logistics etc given how the states/municipalities operate, although the potential for abuse is definitely there. Funnily enough when those votes went missing in WA and Palmer didnt win a seat for his fat ass he declared corruption within the aec lol

It sounds pretty sweet in my opinion altho its been years since ive been heavily into metal exclusively per se but def like it kinda reminds of a band i heard from an old work mate who played base in a metal band callled jesus anal penetration in adelaide lol

well i think im awesome in my own mind but i dunno how much that counts towards a conclusion or delusion

Im not a hipster but i knew incog and rubbed his noggin for good luck before it was the socially acceptable cool thing to do! and also growing a goatee when i was younger was a pinnacle of achievements personally, consider it took me 21 years to grow bum fluff and it was way before hipsters did it! i felt like socrates or some shit

Yep i always enjoy Micros stuff very insightful! any luck on that research info/studies Zed? Eh human history/culture is very much a can of worms well the meet is on again in two weeks or so hopefully your back by then and we can both lament in person! ( oh the joy haha )