Comments | jume: been thinking about the problem of the world and how to solve it

jume

been thinking about the problem of the world and how to solve it

Feb 02, 2016 20:42

The books I've been reading lately, The Omnivore's Dilemma, The End of Over-eating, and The Story of Stuff, have got me thinking first about simplifying and improving my own life, but also wondering how much of what I'm learning can be extrapolated to American culture at large.

The Omnivore's Dilemma, The Story of Stuff, and The End of ( Read more... )

thoughts

Comments 3

meistergedanken February 3 2016, 13:05:15 UTC

Clearly, in a finite world the Weltanchauung of consumerism is untenable. But it goes deeper than that: we have a financial and economic system that runs on credit, an ever-expanding money supply and requires endless growth - or the prospect of growth - in order to function (i.e., not collapse). That's why the sooner we endure the Great Reset and reboot world markets and economies, the better.

Now I'm no socialist, because I know any form of collectivism is always coercive and injurious to freedom, and in the long run institutionalizes inefficiencies and incentivizes sloth. But if we set the proper ground rules - and made sure they applied to everyone (i.e., didn't exempt special classes of people) - we could reorder civilization so that it would be more humane and nurturing of the body as well as the spirit.

siglinde99 February 4 2016, 01:24:58 UTC

I loved The Omnivore's Dilemma, and have heard quite a bit about The Story of Stuff. I'm not familiar with The End of Overeating; perhaps it's time to hit the library.

jume February 4 2016, 02:04:33 UTC

The Story of Stuff is irritating for me to read because the reasoning and arguments presented in it are almost wholly based on emotional tugs. There are citations, of course, and occasional numbers, but as far as the meat of the text, every fact seems to be picked for how SHOCKING and HORRIBLE it is, rather than building a chain of cause and effect like Pollan does in Omnivore's Dilemma. When the author related an anecdote about protesting a cargo ship in the Philippines that her group "just knew was hiding toxic waste", I was only vaguely surprised when she nonchalantly mentioned their intent to handcuff themselves to the anchor or moorings should the ship try to depart ( ... )