Earth Day: A Day Worth Celebrating? (part 5/5)

[TheRosa63]

they took the bible away via discrediting it, christendoms clergy hypocrisy turns people away from Jehovah. but man needs to worship something, needs direction of moral values, so enviromental movement is a replacement so the elites can control you for their benefit not yours, just like priests in past murdered people who had a bible they could read they used the bible for enslaving others, so now they are guilting people into obedience. to get forgiveness of living.

[ObjectivistAesthetic]

Excellent series.

[porscheghcje]

The big Oil corporations are trying their best to stop free energy ideas from spreading to common ppl.

We need to put an end to this corruption ,start generating your own electricity now.

Visit LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM and get the blueprints . Join the Revolution!!

[SpellboundSolution]

2:28 Fantastic analogy (amongst many in the video: humans are sinful by nature, an unlivable unnatural code as the ultimate moral ideal, indulgences etc) and proof positive that Environmentalism is an irrational religion, if you'll excuse my redundant language.

[Wejer3]

The only way to avoid leaving an environmental footprint would be to kill yourself... or better yet, never being born in the first place. Such is the envrionmental adaption of Original Sin - whatever you do, you are always sinful and therefore depraved.

We need to discard this environmentalism in favour of a philosophy that actually values human life.

[justintempler]

No impact? Nice strawman.

It's not about impact, it's about sustainability.

Did the idea of free market enviornmentalism even enter your minds? This series of 5 videos is full of poorly thought out arguments which will end up turning people away from Objectivism.

[AlexanderLee1]

@justintempler Why would free market entrepreneurs ever value the environment above products and services relevant to human life? The core idea of environmentalism is the view that the environment has intrinsic value, separate from and exclusive of human life. Entrepreneurs could never simultaneously hold such a view and be successful in a free market.

In the US, however, where government subsidies are given to "green" companies, there is plenty of incentive to be "green" in business.

[justintempler]

@AlexanderLee1 Since you are talking free market then you're also assuming property rights, enviornmentalism protects your own self interest reducing to a minimum the costs involved with being sued and being put out of business. If you're in a free market and you (for example) pollute the groundwater you can't ask the government to subsidize cleanups like they do now.

[justintempler]

Right now there's somewhere around 1300 unfunded superfund cleanup sites with no money to pay for them that the public got stuck with them. The companies owned those that weren't very good at environmentalism and went broke.

You want government to pay for them?, then you aren't really free market.

[AlexanderLee1]

@justintempler What you are talking about is an entirely separate issue. In a free market society, yes, one could be sued successfully for harming other people with pollution. Therefore, most people would avoid creating human-harming pollution.

This issue has absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism, however. As it was explained in these videos, environmentalists fundamentally see human life as evil and do not care if humans are harmed. They view the environment as an end in itself.

[justintempler]

@AlexanderLee1 "This issue has absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism....environmen­talists fundamentally see human life as evil and do not care if humans are harmed"

Step 1. Dismiss real life enviornmetalism

Step 2. Replace it with your own straw man version

Step 3 Do battle with it and claim moral high ground.

[justintempler]

You should be familiar with that strategy people do it to objectivism all the time. They equate self interest with greed, they say you don't care about anyone but yourself, and then label objectivisn evil.

You see the strawman when it is used against you

but you are blind to it when you do it to someone else.

[AlexanderLee1]

@justintempler Please describe real life environmentalism as you see it, and explain the fundamental values behind the movement.

[justintempler]

@AlexanderLee1 On an Ayn Rand video I take it you want something that is compatible with Objectivism. I'm not going to try to explain in 500 characters but I'll point you in the right direction.

Start with the Wikipedia pages:

Free-market environmentalism

Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well

Free-Market Environmentalism Reading List (about 50 books)

tinyurl . c o m / y5s2vn5

[AlexanderLee1]

@justintempler Thanks for the info. I read part of the first Wikipedia article, and it looks perfectly logical. I agree that the market can do a better job of maintaining a good environment and that individuals can keep undeveloped land.

However, most of the environmentalists I have met and read about see human life as having no value. It is clear that you thus do not fit my definition of an environmentalist. The term might have been perverted by those who are actually anti-humanists.

[AlexanderLee1]

@justintempler (continued) I think that in the vast majority of cases, environmentalists are just as described in these videos, and that the term is now properly defined as one who values the environment above all else.

[killerbandit]

Friends of mine don't use disposable diapers. It is far from perfect, but they are not putting something into the environment that is going to take 1000 years to decompose. They aren't using massive amounts of packaging every time they use a diaper.

Yes they need to use water and detergent... But that is leaps and bounds ahead of disposable diapers. You can get detergent that doesn't contain phosphates and has much less impact on the environment.

[dannidandannikins]

@killerbandit Here's the point - it's a simple one just for you. Being alive means consuming food - let's say you eat an apple. Oh look, you just left an environmental footprint because you took something from nature. To stay alive, you have to leave environmental footprints all over the place. your religion of environmentalism advocates the smallest footprint possible - i.e. the least human life possible.

[killerbandit]

@dannidandannikins - Good strawman. Thank you captain obvious. We are all very aware that we need to take from the environment in order to simply live and no environmentalist denies this simple reality.

The problem comes in when we simply ignore the amount we are taking from the environment and take as much as we can just because we can.

If every person on the planet lived at what would be considered poverty in America we would need somewhere in the realm of 3 planets. Think about it.

[dannidandannikins]

@killerbandit either it's a strawman, or it is an obvious point; learn some English. You assert that if everyone lived at what Americans consider the poverty level, we would need three planets. This can only mean that you think we should reduce the population of the world in a dramatic fashion to make humanity sustainable and/or reduce the wealth of people by at least a factor of three.

Please tell me how you intend to achieve these goals without mass exterminations and seizure of property.

[killerbandit]

@dannidandannikins

Population reduction is something that we need to consider. Now I know your brain just blew up but just try and follow this thought process through. We don't need to kill people to reduce populations.

One way to reduce populations is to educate women. The closer a country is to achieving equality between the sexes, the closer it is to neutral or negative population growth.

It doesn't need to happen instantly. Do you really think perpetual growth is realistic?

[dannidandannikins]

@killerbandit Who said anything about perpetual growth of population? I think that population is something that in a free society regulates itself. Where do you think education comes from? It is a value like anything else - it has to be produced. For something to be produced one needs the freedom to produce it and the freedom to acquire the necessary resources: both of which the environmentalist (emphasis on 'mentalist') movement restricts.

[justintempler]

@dannidandannikins "to make humanity sustainable and/or reduce the wealth of people by at least a factor of three"

You are making the mistake of assuming that a change in the way we use resources automatically reduces our wealth.

As an example, most of my household waste goes into a compost pile which in turn is used to grow some of my food and tobacco. I use less resources and yet my wealth has increased.

[dannidandannikins]

@justintempler Right, and does composting your garbage save 2/3 of your grocery bill?

[justintempler]

@dannidandannikins "does composting your garbage save 2/3 of your grocery bill?"

No, I'm not out to save the world, I'm doing it for purely selfish reasons making the most of the resources available to me while increasing my wealth at the same time.

My only point is you can be an Objectivist and an Enviornmentalist at the same time, you don't have to automatically choose one over the other, sometimes you can do both at the same time.

[hapspir]

@justintempler There is a word for a person who is an Objectivist and Environmentalist. The word is conservationist. Your support of property rights distinguishes you from the tree-hugger variety.

[justintempler]

@hapspir I looked up the differences in meaning between conservationist and enviornmentalist and found there is no clear distinction between the too.

You have groups like iLoveMountaintops, if you support what they are doing you call them conservationists and if you don't then you label them tree huggers. It's just a game of semantics.

watch?v=ctjAO7fNwhk

[killerbandit]

NO ONE IS SUGGESTING THAT WE HAVE TO LIVE WITHOUT IMPACTING NATURE. Another classy straw man. Congrats.

[hapspir]

@killerbandit They are saying that to live without impacting nature is the "ideal" of the environmentalism movement-not to be reached, exactly. One can approach the ideal by living as little as possible. For instance, a person who decided to be childless would be more virtuous than a disposable or a cloth diaper user because he would use less resources than either.

[killerbandit]

@hapspir You seem to ignore the fact that there are things we can do to counter act what we need to take from the environment in order to live and live comfortably. A person can live comfortably and have a positive impact on the environment.

[hapspir]

@killerbandit I seem many things.

[killerbandit]

@hapspir You seems grammar fail.

[hapspir]

@killerbandit That's unpossible!