The Age Of Stupid (2009) Directed By Franny Armstrong (McLibel)

global destruction of resources and the environment is a product of capitalism. it's simple. not mentioned in this film at all. This movie is just another example of self-righteous nonsense which falsely cries out "please stop acting so dumb" rather than accurately addressing the cause of the problem, capitalism. At least the title was honest, this is in fact, stupid.

Sure our political, economic and cultural system is the problem. I wouldn't blame plainly capitalism, maybe consumerism is better target. Market based economy could be made much better. On the other hand Soviet Russia or Communist China were no better on environment, call em communist, autocratic or whatever.
Nowadays there is some light in South America, maybe even in Europe. Lets see who is most able to overcome greed and really fight co2. The problems are quite similar disregard the polito-economic system. Sortsightedness and plain stupidity.

Hi symbol! Always looking forward to reading your lines! About your statement, would you like to get philosophico-logical with me?

Did you mean to say:
1. Capitalism always leads to environmental destruction?
2. Environmental destruction is always caused by Capitalism?
3. In the case at hand (planet earth, last few millenia) capitalism has caused environmental destruction?

If 2: Given that Easter Island suffered environmental destruction would you argue that they must have been capitalist?

Another one for clarification:
Do you consider capitalism equivalent with social acceptance of an urge for individuals to expand their reach/territory/wealth/family at the expense of others? Like say this seagull:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkq7GCuV2oA

P.S. I don't plan to argue that capitalism is a natural thing. Actually I don't argue anything, I'm just trying to see if you're right, but I need more info.

Forget the seagull video, they removed it, it used to show a bored seagull individual senselessly trying to push a few fellow seagull citizens as far away from god-knows-what as possible, very funny. Total case of urge to expand by annoyance.

this movie was good, they did attack capitalism, the film noted that resources are taken violently for profit.

@Benjamin Laird

Good point, I actually skipped large sections of the movie. I just didn't like the self-righteous style and the same old broken record eco-narrative.

@BILLY

I'm afraid it's quite simple. It's called economic externalities and the seminal work on the issue is "The Tragedy of the Commons." The nature of pollution is such that the burdens of pollution are shared by everyone but the profits of pollution are owned by a private entity. Within a capitalist economy, a capitalist culture, a capitalist attitude, a capitalist ideology, all these parts that drive individual action, within these, capitalism, the result is to gain as much profit as possible because the real cost of pollution is "external" and not borne by the actor.

Yes it's not as simple as "it's capitalism's fault." Rather capitalism is the sine qua non of the problem, it is the human intellectual environment that necessarily results exploiting externalities.

If you look at the easter island situation you will remember two things. First we are not entirely sure of the exact nature of the problem there. Secondly that what we do know regards a kind of family status by having the biggest stone head. Obviously the more time you have to spend on carving a stone the more able you are. This is a classic example of what might be called "the bourgeois value system" in modern times, but is nonetheless rooted in the human considerations (ape considerations) of primate hierarchies. Yes -- status based on economic means is a classic marker of barbarism and a special kind of stupidity that results in the worst possible result for everyone. This ties in to your request for "further clarification" to which I would say that "drive" is part of the bourgeois value system. Now you should not this value system has it's roots in the period where trade was ascending, right before the enlightenment and the replacement of the bourgeoisie for the aristocracy in europe. That's when the value system of barbarism overthrew whatever there was before, im not a royalist.

@johan

The reason you must blame capitalism is becuase "consumerism" is itself a derivative of capitalism. For example, the drive to buy and consume more and more is itself a psychological manufacturing process done by elaborate means of propaganda and indoctrination. You, and I, and everyone else are exposed to thousand of advertising messages a day, which work to make us consume more. Not only directly, but by associating social status, sexual status, gender identity, and other social factors with new products.

@symbol
Thanks for your expo! I could still use more if you have time. Let's look at three conditions:
A. Public pollution cost with private pollution gain
B. Private ownership of means of production
C. Primate hierarchies

I suspect we can argue that neither B nor C are needed for A to be true:

Take a bunch of herrings. They don't have hierarchies, they don't enslave each other, don't own each other's means of production. Don't have a mindset, no ideology. But they poop: Private gain, public cost in case there's too many herrings for the ecosystem to handle. Same for bacteria.

I.e. it would seem that the tragedy of the commons is not necessarily related to mindset or ideology, but to limits to growth: As soon as you approach the limits, pooping becomes private gain & public cost.

If you agree up to here, then maybe we could ask: How come that we humans ended up running into those limits in the first place, whereas herrings didn't seem to be on that track.

It seems to be basic biomath: Give a population more resources, withhold them from its predators, and it will inevitably grow. We humans happen to have hit Pandora's jackpot when we started inventing extraction tools. (tree axe, oil rig). Therefore we grew. Therefore we ended up reaching global limits. Therefore private pooping becomes public cost.

Ideology seems to determine whether you feel guilty or not about the public cost you generate. But it doesn't stop you from pooping, 'cause you can't. Ideology also determines what kind of poop your produce: Broken ipods or organic humanure. Either way, both are a problem when there's too many humans.

The only useful mindset/ideology/religion seems to be that of birth control at some point, im not a rockefeller.

I don't have a lot of energy these days to write well, so you will have to possibly read this twice, the bourgeoisie have been oppressing me with unusual vigor recently.

Billy, here is what you are getting right and what you are getting wrong.

Right: the problems with population typically involve non-renewable resources. In terms of the ozone's ability to absorb CO2, the fresh water supply (in practical terms), and fossil fuels yes they are population problems. It is true that populations do tend to expand and consume as much as they can .... there is an important distinction here though. Animal populations, and according to the agriculturalist economists human populations, always expand like this, meaning in human populations there will always be the outermost perimeter of poverty as the only thing hold back population growth.

The distinction: There is a critical difference between BARBARISM and CIVILITY.

So for example, the tragedy of the commons is based on the assumption that everyone is acting in their self-interest directly, hence why the use more and more of the resources to loss of the community as a whole. I would say that is an assumption that is valid in a barbaric population. Now if you change that and say that everyone is acting in the community's self interest as a whole, the result changes. You save the resources and manage them in a way that prevents total destruction. This is called being CIVILIZED.

Try and take this with you, the worldview that drives your behavior -- take take take at public expense) -- versus -- do what is fair with the enlightened understanding of the necessary result from competition -- is the difference between a bourgeois world-view and an enlightened world-view.

I would like the bourgeois world-view with a form of barbarism, a construct of society and vice which destroys our natural good souls.

And what perpetuates and reinforces and nearly mandates this worldview, the behavior that you need to use to survive yourself: capitalism. You see in game theory when you have a comptetition based population, the first people to switch to a cooperative strategy LOSE. So it reinforces itself. The way we organize our economic resources is really the most important part of the social contract and drives all other factors.

The problem, comrades is not some abstract thing, nor the trappings of capitalism like consumerism, or lifestyle choices based on carbon. It is created, maintained, directed all from capitalism.

Capitalism is the problem.

Zizek agrees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GD69Cc20rw

Would you agree that civility in the way that you describe it implies birth control?

The Soviets/Chinese have caused a lot of environmental damage too so would it be industrialisation which is causing the damage?

I posted a link to this discussion on my facebook page and here's one reply....

'I think there is need for debate on the content of the film, but the online discussion is off mark: this film, unlike all other climate films, does criticise capitalism as well as consumerism. It also goes into the history of resource wars, and also spends a lot of time criticising multinationals, and is really emotive about Iraq. Its also a ... Read morecommunity funded film, it has made a massive amount of debt for a lot of people, and I think it is pretty shitty to ignore this and stick it up on torrent. Sometimes so - called radicals cant see further than their own self-righteousness.'

my facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/redjade

looks like a anti pirate they surely realize how they prevent access to the poor to media by enforcing bourgeois viewing only standard

money is worthless i sure hope all give their remaining resources wisely to make the media and gather the systems they need. Patents are irrelevant. that is the issue that will hold us back and another reason capitalism is the problem that will cause our extinction.

thanks for the rip and thanks to symbol for that SZ link

Global warming a result of unfettered Capitalism? Perhaps.

But you may remember the old Socialist countries of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc, they could really have given a rats ass about ecology.

instead of capitalism, I think we all mean undemocratically concentrated power. solved. you're welcome.

I agree with Symbol that the problem is ultimately capitalism, but I don't think it is ONLY capitalism. I see humans going down this path thousands of years ago, before capitalism. If it were ONLY capitalism, then the destruction of the planet would not have happened in feudalism or slavery, but actually agriculture was the beginning of this entire drift from communal living, which led to feudalism, slavery AND capitalism (the main form of exploitation we see today) (though there are still millions of slaves in today's world apparently, including children and women mostly). Agriculture meant clearing vast areas of land that before supported humans and other animals. The earth literally provided for us. And we shared it between ourselves and the other animals. When we abolish capitalism, which I agree must be done, we will also have to create a sustainable society. We know that burning fossil fuels is unsustainable. Also, agriculture is completely unsustainable, it exists to feed millions of people concentrated in cities by destroying the land around them. The little land that people live on in cities would not be able to sustain those millions. Therefore, while I agree that capitalism DRIVES the destruction as it reduces people, animals and nature to mere commodities to make profits, it is in and of itself not a sufficient condition to stop global warming and ecological destruction. We must ALSO create a sustainable society which will likely mean a huge reduction in both agricultural and industrial infrastructure.

you guys are overthinking this.

read a derrick jensen's book "What we leave behind" if you want a simple solution for climate change:

BOMB INDUSTRY. NOW. OR LIFE ON EARTH WILL DIE.