[PeDAGoG] [REDlistserve] A new article on the RED website - "The path to a just and sustainable society"

Fri Oct 1 18:18:00 CEST 2021

Thanks mp for the comments. I won't critique your critique, but will save
for future reference, factoring in and course-corrections as someone
embedded by choice in the capitalist world with the intent to improve
whatever I can leveraging its 'logic' as you put it.

All I'd like to say is that - people are changing, consciousness is
changing. What might be the next emergent of a consumer-capitalist world
where everyone is empathetic and conscious?

I'd say the question is open enough for me to stay optimistic..

Fading into background mode..

Cheers :)

On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 at 20:55, mp <mp at aktivix.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 30/09/2021 14:25, Hari DK wrote:
> > Two questions to critics of capitalism in general..
> >
> > -what of the 'heroic journey' of the individual entrepreneur, who assumes
> > individual risk in order to bring a project to reality? I know several of
> > them who are motivated by much, much more than the desire to make a huge
> > profit. However, the desire of others to make a huge profit provides them
> > the 'fuel' (risk capital) they need. What about social enterprise that
> > scales through blended impact and risk capital?
>
> Unexpected winners can always be found, even in a game that is rigged.
> The American Dream does not always turn into a nightmare and there are
> even trailer parks filled with hopeful souls, who crashed once or twice
> before, but who incredulously (to me) maintain their beliefs in that game.
>
> Two texts come to mind here (observing a 50/50% gender split):
>
>  - Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows:
>
> Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
> Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
> Everybody knows the war is over
> Everybody knows the good guys lost
> Everybody knows the fight was fixed
> The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
> That's how it goes
> Everybody knows
>
> - and Katharina Pistor's excellent analysis/review: 'The Code of
> Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality'.
>
> I don't suppose it should be necessary to point to critiques of
> microfinancing and all that sort of developmentalist stuff?
>
> Whichever way - however you twist and turn it - it is a system, a game
> play, where benefits come at the cost and pain of someone else. It is
> that cost/pain, I believe, which one can try to minimise in the course
> of one's life and in the process of realising one's dreams. There is no
> win/win, so one needs to minimise one's winning.
>
> There are many pathways - of course - such as avoiding supermarket food,
> not driving a big car around for fun, not buying new clothes, building
> ecovillages, whatever ideas people come up with. Keeping in mind that
> the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
>
> > -a practical question - I live in India and am trained as an engineer.
> The
> > other day I saw some beautiful projects based on data and artificial
> > intelligence by some students who were trying to solve practical societal
> > problems in healthcare and sustainable transportation. Should I tell them
> > "don't work on these, they are based on the capitalist empire in which
> you
> > have no agency'. What is the future of engineering, innovation and
> > technology - which do have so many positive benefits after all?
>
> Those benefits - which are not easily disentangled from the costs and
> pain upon which they rest - are not always clear-cut. I would tell them
> that. I would analyse and move far beyond the illusion that
> cyberspace/AI are immaterial. They are not. They are extremely material
> with extreme costs.
>
> Perhaps consider Roberto Verzola's work 'Towards a Political Economy of
> Information' which begins with this telling little vignette:
>
> “We are all familiar with the typical story of an isolated village at
> the edge of the forest. Some villagers have to go to town to buy a few
> necessities, and maybe to stock the village store. Others need to go to
> sell some products for cash. Villagers start to feel that the foot path
> to town is insufficient for their needs.
>
> Village activists may even pursue the issue and organize the people to
> demand a better road. Eventually, public opinion is swayed, and a
> petition is submitted. The government, the villagers are pleasantly
> surprised, is amenable to the idea. Road-building eventually starts.
>
> As completion date nears, the village organizes a welcome party for the
> first vehicle that is coming in. A few days later, the village wakes up
> to the rumble of engines and smell of diesel exhaust. The vehicles have
> come. And they are logging trucks, carrying men with chain saws.” -
>
> https://rverzola.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/towards-a-political-economy-of-information-full-text/
>
> The IT industry is a disaster for people and planet. When I click send
> in a minute I have engaged a system that is worse than the aviation
> industry. What's the gain, exactly? Sounds like you take them as read,
> those benefits. I would argue that they require critical evaluation on a
> case-by-case basis.
>
> Whichever way we move forward, at this stage I reckon the most important
> thing is to create and maintain spaces of conviviality where the spirit
> of community and love can endure. The collapse is coming sooner than
> later, probably, and eventually all we will have left - once AI and the
> technosphere are reduced to value-less memories that are better
> forgotten - is dreams and ideas of freedom. And even those are under
> severe attack.
>
>
> mp
>
>
>
>

-- 
Hari Dilip Kumar

*The Sustainability Problemsolver <http://www.haridk.me> | Initiative for
Climate Action <https://actionclimate.org/>*
*LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hari-dilip-kumar-4b566621/>* |
*Skype *haridk.skype
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