Before the industrial revolution, humanity’s relationship with labor, nature, and autonomy was markedly different. Most people lived in rural areas, their lives intertwined with the rhythms of nature. Families often worked together, and individuals were their own bosses, answering primarily to the dictates of the seasons and their immediate communities. Children grew up in these settings, learning independence and self-reliance from a young age.
However, the industrial revolution brought seismic changes. It pulled people from the countryside into urban centers, where factory work replaced self-directed labor. No longer were individuals answering to nature or their internal sense of purpose or even their own internal clocks; they now responded to the demands of factory owners, time clocks, and industrial schedules. The infringement on personal freedom became normalized, woven into the fabric of industrial society. This shift created a hierarchical structure, with a few “lead dogs” at the top designing systems to consolidate power and wealth, while the masses toiled to maintain the machinery of their overlords’ ambitions.
The industrial revolution reorganized labor, laying the groundwork for systems of concentrated economic power that dominate the modern world today. The mechanization of production enabled unprecedented accumulation of wealth, which, in turn, translated into political influence. Those who controlled the factories, railroads, and later, financial institutions became the architects of society, shaping laws and norms to serve their interests. This concentration of power created a feedback loop: economic dominance enabled political control, which reinforced economic systems designed to perpetuate inequality.
Concentrated Power and Compromised Reality
The industrial revolution’s legacy is a world dominated by concentrated economic power, which inevitably drives political power. Wealth becomes a tool to shape laws, control narratives, and dictate the trajectory of society. This concentration distorts reality itself, creating what can be described as a “compromised reality,” where the priorities of the powerful are presented as universal truths.
Economic systems are portrayed as immutable laws of nature, obscuring the fact that they are human constructs. Capitalism, for instance, is often defended as the pinnacle of human progress, despite its deep flaws. It incentivizes greed, rewards exploitation, and justifies the commodification of everything—from natural resources to human lives. This framework ensures that those at the top remain there, while the masses are conditioned to accept their subordinate roles as inevitable.
This compromised reality infiltrates every aspect of life. Education systems prioritize conformity over creativity, training individuals to fit into predetermined roles rather than question the status quo. Healthcare becomes a commodity, as do the patients themselves. Even personal relationships are shaped by the demands of an economic system that values productivity over connection. In such a world, dissent becomes not just inconvenient but dangerous, as it threatens to expose the artificiality of the system’s foundations.
Psychiatry as the Handmaiden of Industrial Society
The birth of psychiatry coincided with the rise of industrial capitalism, and the two have been intertwined ever since. Our systems have been so consistently damaging that a branch of “medicine” has developed to treat those afflicted by what might be termed “industrial sickness.” Psychiatry, under the guise of science, developed frameworks to identify and manage individuals who deviated from the norms established by industrial society. It helps those broken by our systems to better tolerate them. At the same time, mental health professionals are as powerless as anyone else to change the dysfunctional systems.
By labeling these deviations as mental illnesses, psychiatry helped to neutralize threats to the system. The individual was no longer a person with legitimate grievances but a patient requiring treatment. In that way, psychiatry sides with the oppressors while helping the oppressed better endure their oppression.
Take, for example, the rise of diagnoses like “neurasthenia” in the 19th century, often referred to as “Americanitis.” This condition was attributed to the stresses of modern life, including the relentless pace of industrial work. Rather than questioning the system that caused such widespread suffering, the focus was placed on “fixing” the individual. Rest cures, sanitariums, and later, medications became the prescribed solutions. The message was clear: the problem was not the machine but the human cog that refused to function as intended.
This trend continues today. Modern psychiatry, heavily influenced by pharmaceutical companies, often prioritizes medication over addressing root causes. Depression, anxiety, and burnout—conditions that are often reasonable responses to dehumanizing work environments or social isolation—are medicalized and treated as personal failings. The broader societal structures that perpetuate these issues remain unchallenged, their architects shielded by a system that shifts blame onto the individual.
The Dehumanizing Effect of Industrialization
Industrial society’s demand for efficiency and productivity strips individuals of their humanity. Workers become resources, valued only for their output. This commodification extends beyond the workplace, infiltrating education, healthcare, and even personal relationships. Children are raised not to explore their intrinsic worth and individual capabilities, but to fit into preordained roles that serve the larger machine.
The infringement on personal freedom is accepted as “just the way it is,” but this way is designed to perpetuate inequality. A few at the top wield power, creating systems that ensure their dominance while the masses struggle to find meaning within a framework that devalues their existence.
This concentration of power distorts reality itself, creating a “compromised reality” where the priorities of the powerful are presented as universal truths. Economic systems are portrayed as natural laws, rather than human constructs that could be reimagined. The relentless pursuit of profit is justified at the expense of human well-being and ecological balance. In such a world, dissent becomes not just inconvenient but dangerous, as it threatens to expose the artificiality of the system’s foundations.
Psychiatry, as a handmaiden to this system, plays a crucial role in maintaining the status quo. By diagnosing and treating individuals in isolation, it obscures the collective nature of human suffering under industrialist, capitalist systems of concentrated power. It pathologizes those who falter, ensuring that the machine’s functioning is never impeded by widespread dissent.
Human Adaptation and the Disruption of Industrialization
Chimpanzees have been shown to evolve traits that help them thrive in their specific local habitats. If humans remained in the same habitat for lifetimes and generations, so too would human communities adapt over time to their local environments. These adaptations can manifest in countless ways: physical traits, cultural practices, and social structures that align with the demands of the land and climate. For example, in isolated environments, these adaptations include specialized diets, survival skills, and community bonds that are finely tuned to the natural world around them.
Consider the Inuit of the Arctic regions. Historically, their diet, largely devoid of vegetables, was made up of fish, marine mammals, and other animal products. While this may seem limiting to an outsider, it was perfectly suited to the environment. Over generations, they adapted to survive and even thrive in conditions that would seem inhospitable to most other cultures. This deep-rooted relationship with the land—where food, shelter, and community life are intricately connected—represents a form of localized evolution. It is not just survival but an intricate dance with nature, where every element of their lives has evolved to fit the environment.
Or the Bajau people in Southeast Asia who evolved to develop fantastic free-diving abilities in part supported by larger spleens. They can stay underwater for extended periods because their larger spleens store more oxygenated blood that yours and mine do.
However, the rise of industrialization and the capitalist-driven job market has pulled people away from their traditional environments, severing the deep connection between humans and the land. As people move from rural areas to urban centers, they leave behind the localized adaptations that allowed their ancestors to thrive. The pursuit of economic opportunities often forces individuals to adapt to environments that are foreign to them, sometimes within a matter of months or years, instead of the gradual, generational process that occurs when communities remain in place. This disruption has wide-reaching consequences, not just in terms of physical survival but in the very ways that people relate to one another and the world around them.
The Psychological and Social Costs of Forced Mobility
This forced uprooting and relocation often leaves individuals struggling to adapt to environments that do not suit their innate needs. It’s no wonder that mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, are on the rise in societies where people are disconnected from the land and each other. It also short-changes the natural progress of evolution.
Without the grounding that comes from living in a stable, familiar environment—where community bonds and cultural practices have evolved to fit the needs of the people—individuals are left adrift, unable to thrive in ways that their ancestors once did. Psychiatry, instead of addressing these systemic issues, often frames these struggles as individual pathologies, overlooking the broader forces at play.
In modern industrial society, the need for efficiency and productivity often overrides the need for stability and connection. As a result, individuals are uprooted and relocated by job markets that demand mobility. Families and communities are scattered, and the deep, evolutionary relationship between humans and their environment is broken. What once may have been meaningful exchanges are now merely transactions. The emotional and psychological toll of this disconnection is profound, but it is often ignored or pathologized as a personal failing rather than a response to a broken system.
Reclaiming Humanity from the Machine
To effectively address crises of mental health, inequality, and environmental degradation, we need to confront the dehumanizing effects of industrial society and its concentrated power structures. This requires a paradigm shift, one that values autonomy, community, and sustainability over profit and control. Psychiatry must move away from its role as an enforcer of conformity and instead embrace a holistic understanding of human well-being—one that considers the social, economic, and environmental contexts of suffering.
We need to challenge the systems that commodify our existence, reclaiming our humanity from the clutches of a system designed to mechanically strip it away. A society built on cooperation, mutual aid, and decentralized power offers a path forward—one where individuals are not mere cogs in a machine but valued members of a thriving, interconnected whole.
If we can return to a more localized way of life—where communities are self-sustaining, rooted in the land, and structured in ways that prioritize connection over efficiency—we may begin to heal the deep wounds inflicted by industrialization. By fostering environments where people are not uprooted and disconnected, we can allow individuals to adapt in a natural, healthy way, as their ancestors did. By rejecting the compromised reality imposed upon us, we can begin to imagine a world where humanity thrives—not as servants of a machine, but as stewards of a shared and meaningful existence. And that way, we can leave a better place for those to come.
For Marx, capitalism was the product of the economic base of the social system which produced the superstructure of social relations and intellectual activity, like a plant grows out of a seed. This was always a peculiar idea because the whole social structure is an accumulation of our physical and psychological activities, a mere exfoliation, so the human life system of body and consciousness was the obvious base of human civilization and all social accumulations which condition and influence and impact the human relations therefore causing an evolution in human relations for example the ownership of farmland and the possibility of exploiting the less fortunate to do the work. Money was itself a system representing newly evolved social relations of the buyer and the seller, which implies the project of accumulating capital, or wealth, and this accumulation of capital and wealth obviously reflects the underlying socially conditioned psychology that produced it, for why accumulate wealth rather then have a commonwealth as many ancient societies around the world had? Even in some of the largest South American city settlements of native American cultures there is evidence of a hierarchical city being abandoned for more commonwealth kind of settlements, and commonwealth is a much better term for this basic principle of a society working together and pooling and sharing social resources. So it seems early societies reflected unique social historical developments that flowered in many different ways, as many ways as they were distinct societies, and capitalism which is based on authority and power has one obvious advantage in terms of proliferation, and that is at the end of the day, those societies which pursued the power to dominate groups inwardl and neighbouring societies outwardly are likely to succeed over those societies and peoples who are not pursuing such domination, so it seems intrinsic in the process of social evolution that some kind of authoritarian or all dominating system would evolve.
But as consciousness evolves, including the consciousness of the devistation of the Earth and our lives by domination, power and greed, then there is already within that consciousness the seed of a new society, and there is a new consciousness emerging – this being not a beliief or theory but observed fact – and there is not within it the ability to have authority in matters pertaining to truth because the new consciousness is based on direct perception and understanding of life which despite the deluded prejudice of intellectuals is a far sharper and more superior in efficating cognition then any amount of theorization or book learning which is tied to a social way of cognition that if you examine it, is really just group think. All science, philosophy, religion etc is forms of social group think – the new consciousness is meditative and comes upon the truth directly, and there is no disagreement within the field of perception, only intellection. We never disagree over whether or not the sun is in the sky – we just look, and this is the clarity of perception. The new consciousness understands that the word or thought is not the thing and abandons the latter therethrough abandoning the inward tyranny of social history, so this really does show the weaknesses of approaching the human problem through the mere consequences of our conscious life activities like capitalism or psychiatry rather then starting from what every conscious human life actually is, which is yourself. This is the way of perception and understanding: this is the way of meditation, and it is not something you practice – it is something that takes place as a product of a true understanding of life, which is to say consciousness, which is to say yourself. And unfortunately one cannot prove this to an intellectual intellectually. The intellectual, who is a slave to social group think, has to discover it themselves through their own enquiry, rather then wait around for the whole of society to settle debates as is the immature court jester machinations of academia and other dying and ossified, meaningless and impotent modes of social action.
And I never even saw that I could see this shit. It’s what happens when you give up seeking reality in books and theorization and start seeking it through perception and direct enquiry, including into the facts, the research and the data but not as windows into truth but as markers of the state of human understanding and apprehension of what is. I think language will be radicalized by this new consciousness, and the scientific mind must learn the poetic mind and vice versa, because then their penetration will be infinitely wider.
Gordon bennet, I never knew that either. I’d better shut up or I will drive myself to drink. I’m glad it’s a sunny morning. I have the dentist later, can someone psychically remind me when it’s 3 p.m. UK time please. Have a nice day.
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I like your ideas about commonwealth. And group think. And again, I find myself in general agreement with much of your comment. Thanks, No-One.
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What happened to the spirit? Have you all forgot that? ”I am searching for myself,” many says. Look no more, you are the one searching!
An African friend said: ”What color has the soul!?”
Thats the answer on racism.
Religion means being connected again – re-legio. Not refering to some condemning man with a beard in the sky!
I have met Thomas Szaz a few times, he said there is no mental sickness, because the soul/mind is not a thing. But for sure can act sick!
The soul can despite the non physical appearence still get blows and store them – when they restimulate, the being acts disturbed.
Thats all
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I agree with what you say so am unsure what you are responding to. Perhaps your awareness of spirit excludes an understanding of what we call the outer world – the social historical process which has grown out of the nature process – which mine doesn’t, but the truth includes both these, which are the graso of the left and right brains, the atheist and theist within. The other, which is the mirror in between them, is the ultimate. I have many black stars coming out of my eyes. I have many silver stars.
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Returning to a more localized way of life might help ease the alienation caused by excessive industrialization/globalization, but it’s important to keep in mind that you can’t remake human nature.
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Human nature, OR human culture?….hello, Birdsong, my friend!….
….either way, psychiatry is a fraudulent pseudoscience, a drug racket, and a social control mechanism. It’s 21st century Phrenology, with potent neuro-toxins. It has done, and continues to do, FAR MORE HARM than good…. We’re all better off without it….Imagine a psychiatry-FREE PEOPLE of PLANET EARTH!….a psych-drug FREE WORLD!….Heaven on Earth!
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Nice hearing from you, Mr. Bradford!
I think it fair to assume that human culture comes from human nature, both the good and the bad.
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I couldn’t quite figure out the connection between psychiatry and mechanization. But it’s a very important article from a philosophical perspective. From this philosophical perspective, psychiatry will have a very important place in the new world order (one world state). Efforts to label everyone as ‘mentally ill’ will become very common. Those who oppose the system may be labeled as ‘mentally ill’. (This is actually widely used today. But it will peak in the new world order) Very powerful psychiatric drugs will be produced that will instantly shock people (cause brain damage). (There are examples of these today, but they are affecting slowly.) These drugs will be administered to those who oppose the system. Psychiatry will have authoritarian power in the one world state. And these things will happen. But now people will call them conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories have a strange habit of coming true. Many theories that were considered conspiracy theories came true. But people also called them coincidences. 🙁
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It seems to me human nature is /has been being “remade” by the environment we’ve established for ourselves—an increasingly loveless environment driven by the pursuit of profit. This loveless, profit-driven environment of human creation now represent the conditions under which humanity evolves, the conditions to which humans adapt, the conditions shaping individual and societal behavior and development.
Is profit a natural motivation or a natural evolutionary force? Selfishness might be part of human nature, but our systems reward it and encourage it to where the profit motive is our collective driver. A different driver could have been chosen, one recognizing and harnessing a better part of human nature.
We are evolving to adapt to a world in which the profit motive is a shaper and influencer of human behavior and development. Would we be different if systemically motivated by something other than the selfishness of the profit motif? Are we sure this is somehow destined to be our evolutionary path?
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Exactly sir. Thank you for releiving the pressure in my lungs. The spell checker is a fascist!
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If so, George Carlin seems correct in saying that humanity is merely an evolutionary “cul-de-sac.” As he said it: “We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away.”
Maybe if the better parts of human nature aren’t strong enough to stand up against the machinery of today’s governing systems—systems none of us here today envisioned or established—we’re destined to perish as a race of selfish, loveless brats helplessly following a tradition of selfishness.
Maybe it’s by nature’s design that a race of selfish, loveless brats extinguishes itself? Maybe the universe has a way of cleansing itself of “bad actors”?
As Deming said, “Learning isn’t compulsory, neither is survival.”
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It’s really not that complicated. Humans have always been and will always be a mixture of good and bad, meaning the tension between greed and altruism will always exist to one extent or another.
Some people believe in equality of opportunity while others believe in equality of outcome. What makes you think you have the right to tell others what to believe?
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I think people who think alike should live together and suffer or celebrate the consequences. Birds of a feather naturally flock together. I’m not trying to tell anyone what to think beyond encouraging the means by which they can think for themselves. And allow evolution to resume its natural course.
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What is evolution’s natural course?
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It seems to me human-imposed systems of control and motivation have upended nature’s systems of control and motivation. A person now works to accumulate human tokens—money—as opposed to natural rewards we really need—food, shelter, community, etc. one could claim that this unnatural development is what nature somehow “intended” but I would disagree. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
If this was destined to happen by nature’s design, then it seems equally determined that humanity will either learn better from it and change or else perish as a species because they didn’t.
Our human-made systems are unsustainable. To survive, we need to learn sustainability from nature, not from the economy we created. It’s natural sustainability that we need, not economic “sustainability.”
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Eliminating money wouldn’t address the underlying issues of greed, inequality and mismanagement. When used responsibly it plays an important role in facilitating the exchange of essential goods and services. The key is using it ethically.
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Different forms of government come and go. The best thing to aim for is personal sovereignty.
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Knowing that all humans make mistakes, it seems forms of government elevating single human beings to positions of concentrated power allows individual human mistakes to have national, even global impact. Maybe it’s time for these types of government to go so something better can come?
When we hear politicians speak of what the “American people” want (or what the people of “the great state of x” want), for example, doesn’t this terminology itself imply that the individuals composing their constituencies want the same thing (and should, to some degree, think the same way and share the same values)? Are the assumptions underlying this concept of unity and the resulting constructs and terminology valid?
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Is there something wrong with hundreds of millions of people–even if tasked with national unity–who are unable to agree on something (or anything)? Or, might there be something wrong with governing systems asserting or expecting that hundreds of millions of individuals could be or should be (or are) unified in agreement about something (or anything)?
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Psychological distress affects people from all walks of life regardless of their political beliefs. I think it best not to politicize such a deeply personal matter.
Does this mean I condone corrupt governments? Not at all.
I think most people would agree on supportive environments that encourage freedom of thought regarding their personal wellbeing, something I believe is the cornerstone of every person’s “mental” health.
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I agree that our systems leave us politicizing too much. But that’s a (dys)function of our political system’s impact on personal decisions and lives.
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By our current systems, when half of the population wants x and the other half wants not x (a binary solution nobody might really want, incidentally), the “best” solution is to compromise. It’s led to another sense of “compromised reality” (aside from the idea in the blog).
For the sake of unity, we get middle-of-the-road solutions. Nobody learns the result from taking either tine of the fork in the road, so we don’t know the consequences we may have learned from. We learn only the results of a compromise, the results of nobody getting their way.
A brilliant man named David Michehl once likened the accumulated result of this arrangement to smearing a thick layer of Velveeta cheese across the whole country and calling it national freedom. A really good analogy.
Rather than compromising, we might be better off breaking into smaller cooperative units, each living as they see fit. This might be preferable to fighting with our next door neighbors about how it should be for all of us, knowing full well that reasonable people can disagree about how it should be.
By allowing autonomy to flocks of a feather, we can learn something from our diversity, grow, and allow evolution to get a foothold.
Forgive me if I seem overexcited about this (and related) topics. Given what’s at stake, I feel like people are too often underexcited about it. If I go too far, I apologize.
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“Rather than compromising, we might be better off breaking into smaller cooperative units, each living as they see fit.”
Humans already come from smaller cooperative units; they’re called families.
Life is a series of compromises no matter where or how you live meaning no one gets everything they want in life.
A quick look at world history shows the tragic results of extreme political positions which usually result in extreme psychological trauma that can last generations.
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There are more and more people choosing to create communities that live off the grid and/or share resources like communes. Homesteads are becoming more popular. It’s nice to know.
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I agree with Birdsong. You can’t change human nature. Nature itself is both beautiful and brutal. It is a struggle to survive for all animals.
If you study anthropology you will see that war for revenge, resources and land has always existed. It has just gotten worse with the industrial revolution. Money brings out the worst in lots of people and money has been around way before the industrial revolution. I agree with Birdsong that really only have control over yourself. We can only hope to have a positive influence over others by treating them with respect and dignity.
Anyway, that’s my view.
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Thank you, Sabrina.
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I’m not suggesting that I can change human nature. But the environment we create can and has “changed” or impacted the course of, human development. Humanity could be smarter about how to develop systems that work with nature, including human nature, instead of harnessing the worst parts of human nature, thereby trashing the natural environment of the world, as well as the environment in which humans develop and live.
Or are we thinking that our systems of exploitation and oppression are good for nature?
Is it human nature to leave a campsite trashed? Wouldn’t an affirmative answer suggest then that, being part of human nature, all humans trash campsites—which isn’t true?
We need to take control away from the campsite trashers, or trashed campsites will become (have become?) the norm under which we live and develop.
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You’re absolutely right that war over revenge, resources, and land has existed for as long as humanity has. Is that to say it must always be that way? The industrial revolution—and more importantly, the rise of modern financial systems—supercharged these conflicts. Take, for example, the Dutch East India Company and the birth of the modern stock market. Before its creation, a merchant who lost a ship to storms or piracy could be financially ruined. The stock market solved this “problem” by allowing investors to spread their risk across multiple ships, ensuring profits even if some ships were lost.
But what about the sailors who went down with those ships? What about the people in colonized lands who suffered at the hands of these ventures? The system didn’t care. Collateral damage. They were paid in money, and that was supposed to be enough. This shift in thinking—where human lives became mere line items in a ledger—was a defining moment in the evolution of capitalism. It wasn’t just about securing resources anymore; it wasn’t about fair trade; it was about optimizing profit, no matter the human cost.
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how can anyone know what “human nature” is? all you can find out is how people behaved under certain conditions. all human actions are conditioned by many kinds of forces and every type of decision is overdetermined. it’d be a useless and baseless exercise to speculate on a universal human essence.
what people usually accept as the trans-historical and thus “natural” human character is actually the prominent character of our era: the selfish, ambitious and ruthless tradesman. they are reflecting the glorified character traits of our times into all the past and future eras to build a kind of a myth, but it is a banal myth. this myth is a sign of how impoverished our imagination has become.
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Very well put Ahmet, it’s nice to hear. We encounter the traumatized and distorted underlying nature only partially because it’sobscured, and what we do see in the nature is instincts and emotions that are co-opted, perverted and destroyed by trauma which includes it’s traumatic adaptation to a modern social process that has destroyed the whole Earth and children’s future. It was right to raise the problem of human nature though because the individualistic/egoic conditioning has turned it into a frightened, confused, angry and dangerous thing, as the world about us proves. It is nice to see the clarity of your perception here.
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If human nature would consist of a trait/feature/something that is common to all human beings, it would be hard to identify. But is it true that everyone who lives wants to be satisfied in life?
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The desire for personal autonomy is universal trait, as are feelings of envy.
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Quite so – the emotional substrata of human experience has also been shown to be universal in a very helpful study of which i believe there are documentaries on youtube. Photos of Western people displaying the full range of human emotions were presented to isolated tribal communities living traditional lives in various parts of the world and they were asked to identify the emotions in their own words, and they were able to identify them in all cases to the same degree as Western populations could with one exception – they couldn’t discern the difference between what we call excitement and fear. This seems to me to be clearly attributable to the fact that excitement is related to both novelty and also to boredom or depression, both features of Western life, so it is useful to note that this affective aspect is like a universal language which might also go in some way to explain the apparent ability of at least certain music to penetrate and arouse similar responses cross culturally. I find reaction videos to Americans to British songs and vice versa, and Africans and Australians and others to obscure British or American songs really illustrates this truth in a different way because I tend to find these more distant reactions far more insightful, fresh and true then the domestic appreciation of these songs – it is electrifying, at least for my brain, to observe this which is why I would say that reaction videos to songs are among the most stimulating and useful ways of gaining insight into the communication of emotional affect and emotional and aesthetic truth through the movements and facial expressions of the human body that take place as they are watching. Their intellectual analysis tends also to be quite good but is more conditioned and more prone to socially conditioned distortions and ideosyncracies. it’s a complex problem to discuss all this in human language but I do get where you and Ahmet are coming from and it is only the crudeness of social language that makes for an apparent contradiction between the two. Naturally our emotional affects are constrained and conditioned also by our society and inflamed and perverted and distorted in certain ways but we must also understand their universality and fundamentality. Interesting problems!
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Buddhism says that we ALL WANT to be happy, and not suffer….
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Human nature has been conceptualized, if not invented, only recently in modern history, largely in conjunction with the social changes of (industrial) capitalism Nelson addresses. Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent of Man were pivotal in leading to justifications of capitalist society based on such social Darwinism as survival of the fittest, fitting conveniently with other ‘science’ of ruling classes like racism and eugenics to ‘explain’ (or mansplain) the superiority of those few controlling the economic means of existence by vast accumulation of wealth (survival of the fattest) from violent dispossession of masses of people, from peasants in Europe driven from common lands to create urban proletariat, to ‘savages’ in the ‘new world’ systematically exterminated for conquest of resources.
Science has been employed by capitalists in much the same way religion was used by feudal lords to promote false consciousness that their right to rule is a product no longer of royal bloodlines blessed by divinity but evolutionary bloodlines carrying superior genes (genetics is another pseudoscience when based on such superstition as genetic determinism, e.g., Dawkins’ selfish gene). ‘Hard sciences’ like physics, chemistry, biology have come down hard and heavy upon our heads as weapons of mass destruction, while ‘soft sciences’ of psychology, sociology, anthropology have provided weapons of mass distraction to engineer populations into soft cages of mind control, by which we consent to build our own prisons.
In all fields of this monopolization of knowledge by the likes of Rockefellers and other robber barons there have been renegades and rebels. Notable in anthropology has been a sizeable shift in professional practice running counter to claims of human nature being nothing but “red in tooth and claw” (Tennyson). They tell of what Marx and Engels, revolutionaries in their day, referred to as orginal communism among most people prior to ‘civilization’ founded upon class rule. They present extensive evidence of social relations far different than the dog-eat-dog relations of capitalism, what Marshall Sahlins called “the original affluent society.”
Egalitarianism, including between the sexes, has prevailed for the far greater part of human evolution up to this little time in recent history we’re propagandized to mythologize as the millenial march of civilization and modern progress. “Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home.” (Stanley Diamond) Collective memory of its first captives amid the gory glories of the ancient world told tales of a lost golden age, as even the patriarchal tales of the biblical god admitted to a Garden of Eden.
We’re so far along now in civilization’s nightmare of history that cognitive dissonance in scientic and technological advances in killing power advanced as the height of civilization has driven us into collective insanity and self-destruction threatening extinction on multiple fronts (though not those like pandemics and climate change promoting corporate state agenda for global capital rule via technocracy and transhumanism). So much for the survival of the fittest. Our species probably wouldn’t have made it this far had it not been for cooperation and not competition, and combat, characterizing evolution, not only for us but all living beings in the interdependent web of life.
If we want to try to make use of a slippery term like human nature, it’s probably best to begin with the basis of our so-called humanity in the incredible diversity of ways we’ve lived, which demonstrates we are social beings who’ve not only survived but lived at our best in relations that don’t submit us to systemic abuse, from ancient pyramids to modern pyramid schemes, the result of more uniform and devolved social relations under centralized power of the few over the many.
Speaking of pyramid schemes, money as it operates central to capitalism’s nature and logic of endless profit-making to win economic warfare in the (un)free market has nowhere existed in previous history, where it played more select and marginal parts in a social sysem based on tribute of wealth to the royals (as in their use of money to pay off mercenary soldiers and warrior castes, Marx and Engel’s bands of armed men, as backup for their corruption). Exchange of resources is not necessarily tied to entrapment in ‘costs of/to living’, materially and spiritually, that’s measured in misery of debt bondage and poverty for the masses under central banksters getting away with murder and laughing all the way.
All too true among us living under the heel or jackboot of industrial capitalism is that human nature is a lot freer and more flexible than we can or dare to imagine.
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No matter how people are living, they have a right to know accurate information about the medications they are prescribed.
The psychiatric profession does not provide anyone with accurate information about the “medications” they prescribe.
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Thank you for your very excellent article. This statement, “even personal relationships are shaped by the demands of an economic system that values productivity over connection,” is very interesting and insightful. I am wondering if you could give an example of such a personal relationship? Thanks very much.
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Thanks, Maureen. There was a time when what made a potential mate attractive were abilities and skills to provide in a more natural environment. The ability to grow crops, make clothes, build shelter, etc.
What is attractive in today’s world is the ability to make money. It’s not uncommon for people to marry for money. Does that impact natural selection and evolution?
There may come a day, after the high-tech world comes crashing down, that this variety of skills will again be the important ones.
There are countless ways money and economic pressures shape our relationships, often in ways we don’t even realize. Friendships and family bonds can be strained when financial disparities create unspoken tensions—like when one person can’t afford to join in on expensive outings or vacations, and others interpret their absence as disinterest.
Romantic relationships, too, are often influenced by financial concerns, whether it’s the stress of shared debt, differences in spending habits, or the pressure to ‘provide’ in a way that aligns with traditional economic roles. Can you afford to date?
Even the simple act of choosing a career can mean sacrificing time with loved ones because our worth is so often tied to productivity rather than connection.
Beyond the personal level, social interactions are shaped by economic status in subtle but powerful ways. People tend to form relationships within their economic class, and those outside of it may feel like they don’t belong.
Have you ever noticed how conversations change depending on who can afford what? Or how financial security can mean the difference between being seen as ‘responsible’ or ‘struggling,’ even when work ethic and effort are the same.
Are these examples adequate?
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Or, while mommy and daddy are busy making enough money to make ends meet, outsourcing the raising of their children to day care providers—missing out on life while earning a living—they’re enduring a daily grind where they have little agency. When they get home, they might not be the same people they would be had they spent the day doing work that was self-directed, more fulfilling, meaningful work directly benefitting them and their community.
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Money is just a tool. The root problem is greed.
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Could money be an instrument of greed?
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Money isn’t inherently bad, it’s how it’s used or pursued.
Social comparison is common to all mammalian creatures. It’s natural part of evolutionary history that helps navigate social dynamics.
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Greed can take many forms; it’s not exclusive to any particular economic system.
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Thanks very much. Yes, these examples are very good. When one looks around, it seems that everything points to money, and what one “does,” and not who one “is.” I am reminded of the 1967 painting by Canadian painter William Kurelek, “Material Success,” where “a prosperous family enjoys its appliance-loaded kitchen while in the distance, an apocalyptic bomb erupts” (Alison Mayes, Oct. 1 2011, Winnipeg Free Press). The grandmother of the family sits in the kitchen, looking very much ignored and alone: https://kurelek.ca/gallery/gallery-03/material-success.
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And the man uses new technologies to shave while shining his shoes and junior is making himself presentable, unaware of what’s coming
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Having more money doesn’t address underlying feelings of personal inadequacy.
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In a world where money buys groceries and pays rent, and people are looking out for number one competing in a rat race to make money, having no money can underly feelings of personal inadequacy.
Maybe a guy who has trouble finding or holding a job (a common outcome for those with high ACE scores), would be better off—more satisfied in life—homesteading (by himself or with some loved ones). But the opportunity to homestead is reserved for those with enough money to buy land.
Maybe for some who live on the streets it’s the poverty, homelessness, and poor diet at the cause of the feelings of personal inadequacy—or it’s the drugs—but that would ignore these results as being produced by a system empowering and codifying selfishness as the way it is, a system that produces these very results.
To say they cause their own poverty—it’s the result of their poor personal choices—is to ignore the system(s) producing these results. It’s classic: blame the individual for systemic results. Sure, poverty exists under all of today’s political and economic systems all over the world. But notice all of these are systems of concentrated power relying on money to operate.
As an old saying goes (Cree?): When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is poisoned, only then will we realize we can’t eat money.
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I never said people “cause their own poverty”. I said that having more money doesn’t address underlying feelings of personal inadequacy.
Everyone should have access to essential resources like food, shelter and healthcare, but it’s important to remember that the use of money doesn’t inherently lead to social problems. It’s really about values and priorities.
Exploitation and inequality existed long before money was ever used; ancient civilizations had systems of barter and exchange, yet exploitation and social hierarchies were still prevalent.
Money itself is not to blame. The root causes of social issues lie deeper in human nature.
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While bartering might work in specific contexts, it’s not a realistic solution in an interconnected world.
Money as a common medium of exchange makes it easier to meet a wide range of needs.
Bad public policy is responsible for the much of today’s extreme economic disparity.
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I see your point about money simplifying exchange in a complex world but I think that very simplification is part of the problem. And yes, I’m familiar with what money is and what it’s used for.
Despite that, and all the “good” it does, its negative impacts quietly outweigh its benefits. Money reduces all value to an artificial common denominator, often prioritizing profit over human and ecological well-being. It commodifies everything including human life.
The complexity of our interconnected systems might make it seem like money is necessary, but that doesn’t mean it was the right foundation to begin with. It’s led to quite a complicated mess. What if we restructured society around direct contribution and shared resources rather than wealth and transactional exchange?
I also question the assumption that individual self-interest naturally leads to collective good. At the personal level, it often leads to short-term profit-seeking at the expense of others. But if we applied this idea at the community level—where people share resources, responsibilities, and long-term interests—then looking out for one’s own group might actually result in broader benefits.
Money isn’t just a tool for simplifying exchange—it’s an instrument of control. Not control designed for fairness or stability, but control that benefits the most self-interested. Those who accumulate the most wealth don’t do so by contributing the most but by leveraging money’s ability to create dependency and inequality. If bartering seems unrealistic today, it’s because we’ve built a system that ensures nothing can function without money—which only strengthens the grip of those at the top.
Had fair trade not been upended by the Industrial Revolution, money and profit, other effective, sophisticated methods of trade likely would have evolved.
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Bartering isn’t logistically feasible in an interconnected world; it assumes a level of honesty and cooperation that’s unrealistic.
FWIW: the use of money allows people to create webzines like this.
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Bartering on a small scale can have benefits, but it doesn’t work well in large, technologically advanced societies.
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While money isn’t the cause of selfishness and greed, it effectively empowers greed beyond what’s good for us and the planet. Just my view.
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Eliminating money won’t eradicate greed and selfishness. An example: trading apples instead of coins doesn’t mean someone won’t covert or steal your apples. Nor will eliminating money do away with people comparing each other. An example: some people value physical appearance over intelligence or vice versa.
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CORRECTION: Trading apples instead of coins doesn’t mean someone won’t COVET your apples.
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Above all, Rawls’ ideas lack due regard for the rights of others.
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Maybe I’ve misunderstood, but I think what Birdsong and Sabrina are getting at is that human nature being what it is, ultimately each of us can only be responsible for our *own* choices, without relying on political solutions that rely on power and the potential abuses of power to support them.
What you’ve written about the human need to feel connected through community, nature and resources rings true and indirectly supports Maslow’s thoughts on the hierarchy of needs, with the human need to feel physically safe and well cared for taking precedence. I also agree with what you said in one of your comments about how our current systems reward selfishness.
I wonder though if you’ve also considered how throughout history, extreme selfishness has always been rewarded with extreme forms of power, and by extension, extreme exercises in cruelty and abuses of power, long *before* the industrial revolution.
Greed plays a role in terms of other distorted needs and forms of ‘currency’, in both personal and ‘impersonal’ relationships. Humans can behave selfishly because they’re greedy for lots of things, including power, acceptance, status, control, love, sex, etc.
Humans do terrible things sometimes. One of my favorite thinkers, Simone Weil once wrote:
“Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.”
Even in the smallest of communities, for instance within families, it’s not uncommon for parents to sometimes abuse their children and/or one another, and for these patterns (and their associated traumas) to be passed down through the generations until someone becomes consciously aware. Families are systems too.
As a kid, my neighborhood had bullies who terrorized other kids, probably because they were bullied at home or school or maybe because members of their families experienced generational traumas imposed on them by the system itself.
I grew up in a politically radical place, a racially diverse, very affordable housing cooperative made up of hundreds of low and middle-class working families. Many of our members belonged to labor unions; some were active during the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements. Our unique community attracted visiting dignitaries, photojournalists and local political figures hoping to get votes.
It had trees, and grass you could walk, sit and play on, also designated common areas for community gardens, gatherings, playgrounds for children, weekly meetings and elections. We had holiday activities, annual picnics and camping trips. It was a unique experience, one I’m generally grateful for, with significant caveats.
The experiment slowly failed. Some people never really cared, others stopped caring and moved away. Things deteriorated and eventually the cooperative went condo. The ones who remained committed had to work within certain limitations. Like it or not, they had to accept certain systemic failures and sometimes hypocrisies. I have friends who still live there.
Experience has taught me that no community or ideology, even the most seemingly well-intended, is immune to these temptations of hubris, hypocrisy and abuses of power. If we witness someone in genuine need and it’s within our power to help them, we can and ought to as a function of conscience, whether or not anyone else joins us, is looking or agrees.
I get that you’re doing all that you can to challenge people’s thinking by highlighting the failures within our systems, which is no small thing. It takes courage. Thanks, Dan.
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Thanks. I agree with you that “ultimately each of us can only be responsible for our *own* choices,” but we live in a reality where our so many choices have already been systematically made for us.
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You’re right. That’s why it’s so important to remain cognizant of the choices we’re still free to make for as long as we’re able. For me, this has meant not relying on lesser evil political choices that’ve become the cultural norm, which isn’t meant to imply this is what you’re doing because I don’t know.
What I appreciate most about these kinds of exchanges is that they sometimes lead us to make other connections beyond their original intention and scope.
All this has got me thinking about human nature and what that means. Ancient and indigenous myths, as well as various religious/spiritual prophets, sages and teachers, all seem to tell a similar story about the importance of choice, and how easily corrupted human nature itself has always been by power, lies, illusions, and excess.
I believe evil represents the absence of good and is not included among the complementary opposites that make up our original uncorrupted natures; in the Tao, these are known as yang and yin. And that a third, unifying and life-affirming way of seeing and being in the world is symbolically birthed in the harmonious and ever-changing relationship and delicate balance between these naturally occurring oppositions within each of us.
Some might see this third thing as representing a return to our original, uncorrupted humanity and the conscious decision and choice to personally refrain from causing unnecessary harm without withholding our willingness to actively care for those in genuine need.
So while I LOVE the idea of a world where socialism and a return to a more uncorrupted relationship with nature and one another is voluntarily practiced and embodied by other human beings . . . I think it’s about changing the way we look at ourselves and all of the smaller choices each of us are faced with every day, without expecting to change the world.
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Can we blame people for wanting to change an unjust world? Although it’s common to just get by satisfied with the little freedoms we are left with, and kicking our bigger, inherited problems down the road, isn’t MIA’s mission to change the world via social justice?
I guess the world will never be changed by people who see nothing wrong with it, or for whom it isn’t wrong enough to change, or who think it can’t be changed.
It could be that the world will be unjust until our dysfunctional, unsustainable status quo eliminates us from nature—because we couldn’t change our ways.
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We can change the world, Dan. That was my point. Just not in the larger sense, which includes too many people and things beyond our control.
You’re changing it right now in your own small way through your writing, by giving a voice to the voiceless. It’s reassuring to know we’re not alone in seeing what we see and in our knowing in the deepest part of our souls that all is not well in the world or with us. It’s life-affirming.
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I have an idea of how change starting quietly, on a small scale, from sound foundations, could expand to change the world in a larger sense. It’s just an idea, but a pretty well developed one.
Here’s a link to an essay about the idea if you’re interested:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EvHVvfT2f57pBh9XV-4YYs3jZDDBEbHA/view?usp=drivesdk
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Thanks Tree and Fruit for your post. I think you laid out things so well. It reminds me of how much I was taught in psychology to basically focus on my parents who harmed me but they were harmed by their parents too. The older I’ve gotten the broader my view is of why my parents, schools and neighborhood were so harsh in so many ways. These conversations and human nature and the societies we create explain a lot.
Your post also reminds me of why I chose never to have children. I just couldn’t repeat an abusive history and I know I would have in spite of knowing better intellectually.
I appreciate you and Dan and others here. Thanks.
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Your analysis of the industrial revolution is spot on. The shift from self-directed labor to factory work radically altered not only how people worked but how they lived. The focus on time clocks and industrial schedules definitely stripped away much of the personal autonomy that was once tied to working with nature. It’s interesting how this change didn’t just affect the way people worked, but also created an entirely new power dynamic where the few at the top held the reins. It feels like we’re still grappling with the consequences of that shift today.
https://www.markazeahan.com/stages-making-shelves-profiles/
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Lots of people would rather work in factory jobs than out in the fields; they know that life on the farm can be far from idyllic.
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Not only are we still grappling with it behzad, but I think it’s getting worse.
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The effects of unchecked capitalism are unsustainable.
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Nice writing. A history teacher told me once God was created by man in mythology man created God but this guy told me God and religion came about too control people and society…ie to follow the law.now I believe spirituality was always there but became as all things do become a weapon against mankind to control even profit in charitable donations re Roman catholic wealth and power from land grabs in industrial displacement….when desperate men crash in airplane in the artic they must stranded eat each other or starve….personally I’d starve but this is where psychiatry especially all of them catering in urban settings becomes a vehicle of commercialization of feeding on each other for profit snd gain in extortion of property in sterilization in denial of claims of punitive damages and compensation psychiatry protecting the rich and invalidating discrediting their victims but the commercialization of consuming the human being for profit livelihood, and just plan fun for psychopaths. Just as every new technology used by military to target mankind in weapons to kill now with computerization brings even more flooding market for psychiatry for those in min wage illiterate in computerization run out of job market by brain damaging them unable on psychiatric drugs to Learn computerization or new skills. Ww2 the fight for science and racial hatred brought on with help of ss psychiatrists in Germany the death camps but here too in canada internments arbitrarily and the profit of hatred and discrimination prejudice suppression oppression of cottage industry development of self employment by thefts as in intellectual and other commercialization of the crimes of state and society re landlords employers your teachers and just as every new technology brought you a martyr and a messiah so to will computerization and ai etc that’s my 2 cents
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“However, the rise of industrialization and the capitalist-driven job market has pulled people away from their traditional environments, severing the deep connection between humans and the land.”
You’re right. You and I live in a culture out of touch with nature and largely divorced from other people’s realities, including the realities of those whose lives and communities are sometimes harmed in extreme and dehumanizing ways by our technological ‘advances’ and progress.
A lot of well-intended misinformed people have been misled by the idea that we can solve the problems caused by technology and machinery with *more* technology and machinery, specifically the idea of green, renewable energy.
I wanted to believe and was once misled too. Thankfully, I research everything and began looking into all this years ago, before algorithms made it nearly impossible to find anything outlining the issues involved in green technology through a simple google search:
“The average smart phone contains at least 40 elements from the periodic table including cobalt and six rare earth minerals that make the screen glow. The average electric car uses six times more critical minerals than a combustion car. An onshore wind plant needs nine times more mineral resources than an equivalent gas-fired power plant. An e-bike is more mineral intensive than an ordinary bike. And so on. Renewables just haven’t accelerated the demand for rare earth minerals but a variety of base metals such as copper, silver and cobalt.”
“Every electric vehicle contains about 75 kilograms of copper or three times more than a conventional vehicle. A single wind turbine generally contains 500 kilograms of nickel. That nickel requires 100 tonnes of steelmaking coal to be refined. And every crystalline silicon solar panel contains 20 grams of silver paste. It takes 80 metric tons of silver to generate approximately a gigawatt of solar power.” https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-10/the-rising-chorus-of-renewable-energy-skeptics/
“What’s the underlying message in the first: We can carry on business as usual so long as we change our energy source? We swap oil and coal for wind and solar and hey presto the world is saved? But hang on, what about the carbon footprint, and the slave and child labor, used in building that “new green tech” – tiny children digging cobalt in the Congo, for example?”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/26/the-big-green-lie/
The book “Cobalt Red”, by Siddharth Kara, about cobalt mining in the Congo is mentioned in the first link as well.
I don’t know what the solution is or if there even is one.
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Thanks for the info and reflections.
Cures worst than ‘disease’, as convid perpetrated, and solutions worse than the problems, with climate ’emergency’ creating a prison planet, point to our being sold lies by hustlers (buyer beware). That greenwashing is big bizzness by the corporatized environmental movements under the influence of oiligarchs, for whom ‘alternative’ energy exponentially increases profits and power for the owners of (re)production, indicates global rackets of corruption by organized crime of ruling classes.
Follow the science? Follow the money. Those who want it all for themselves are the jet set globetrotting summits of (over) the earth to dictate terms and conditions of enslavement for most of humanity, already inhuman on a vast scale as those slave mines in Congo attest.
We are many, they are few. To wake up and rise up in social revolution to establish more egalitarian relations among ourselves beyond class rule, beyond techno-fixes, seems to be key in coming up with any strategy to counter the class war already being waged against us by the “masters (monsters) of mankind” (Adam Smith).
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“Industrial society’s demand for efficiency and productivity strips individuals of their humanity. Workers become resources, valued only for their output. This commodification extends beyond the workplace, infiltrating education, healthcare, and even personal relationships. Children are raised not to explore their intrinsic worth and individual capabilities, but to fit into preordained roles that serve the larger machine.”
All good points. Another significant and often overlooked aspect in all this is planned obsolescence and its dependence upon overconsumption. Which of course are two major contributors in environmental degradation and the climate crisis.
So capitalism not only views humans as resources to be exploited for financial gain, but also as potential consumers. Keeping up with trends was still a thing when I was growing up, but I’m old enough to remember a time when televisions, radios, telephones, cars, shoes and other things lasted a very long time. There were still craftspeople around who made and repaired things. Shoe repair, knife sharpening and even electronic repair are all dying professions.
Not everyone had a car. And even if they did, they still walked, rode non-electric bicycles or relied on public transportation to travel locally. I used to regularly ride the Greyhound bus when visiting out-of-town relatives on the weekends.
This article uses Henry Ford as one example of a particular way of viewing the world that’s been almost completely lost in our throwaway culture:
https://craftsmanship.net/throwaway-nation-americas-history-of-planned-obsolescence/
Ronald Wright, in his book “A Short History of Progress”, expounds upon this idea when he writes:
“If civilization is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature.”
One of our upstairs neighbors almost burned the building down overcharging his Tesla and electric bike. They caused a power surge that overloaded the building’s circuits, something my husband I became aware of when our ceiling’s particle-sensitive detector began going off and then were notified by our electric provider. Turns out, unbeknownst to us we’d been paying for the garage’s electricity all along.
Which was lucky since no one else, including our landlord or the tenant involved, found the risk of fire to be very concerning. He’d been leaving his e-bike and auto charging unattended overnight, something that’s considered unsafe.
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Kyriarchy.
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There is a difference between capitalism and commerce. We have had commerce for a very very long time.
Capitalism one the other hand strives and succeeds at making money (profit) from excess money with no labor attached or required. The rich want to make profit on the money they are not using at the time. To do so involves investing that money into very profitable areas often outside of their own business if they even have a business.
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Just wanted to send a note of thanks. Was looking for some sanity and found it in your post. What a relief.
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