Ishmael (Daniel Quinn)

who's read this?  it brings up some interesting points, which i tend to agree with.

my sister read this and now shes an environmental sciences major

i told her not to bother with losing battles.... but moral idealism is hard to dissuade through realistic rationalization

i don't think it's necessarily a losing battle, perhaps more that people are just starting to wake up to these environmental issues

capitalist corporatism is in direct conflict with purist environmentalism for environmentalism's sake

most people tell you to get into the business school or become an advertising major, step 2. profit!

>>4

Liberalism ("capitalist corporatism") is as free as it can get under the law. Saying you can't have an environmental-friendly policy (as strict as it may be) in a capitalist system is like saying capitalism is incompatible with laws that ban murdery because some companies could make a profit murdering people on demand.

But if you think capitalism is not good, go to Cuba, and if you have free time in jail, ask about their environmental policies. You'll become a prision meme though, but it'll be worth the try.

uhrr.. liberalism != capitalist corporatism

capitalist corporatism will gravitate towards absolute profit, the only way to reign it in is to use government mandated regulations that make certain highly-profitable business practices illegal. sure including murdering people on demand(like is done in the prison industry) as if it was a highly-profitable business practice, which it is not... but unchecked exploitation of natural resources IS highly-profitable and constantly practiced by corporations world-wide

on the whole, our system is working reasonably well... but the natural tendencies of capitalist corporatism will always be towards absolute profit, corporations hire attorneys to think deviant about how to achieve such profit.. no operators within that system lose any sleep over exploiting legislative loopholes at the environments detriment (or any one else's detriment besides their own organization)

>>6

i think this book would disagree with you that "our system is working reasonably well".  the point is that we are living like man is the master of the world and not subject to ecological laws like "if your population gets too big there won't be enough food and there will be some famine until your population drops again".  instead of this we keep trying to feed everyone (= more starving people every year) by corporatizing farming so that animals are crammed in a small of space as possible, fed shit & ground up other animals, etc., while at the same time tearing down the rainforests to make more farms -- basically killing everything that isn't us or the things we eat or the things they eat.  this is a bad strategy because there won't be enough diversity left to survive the the next nasty virus or ice age that comes along, and cripples evolution.

>>7 re virus: i saw this movie called 12 monkeys once....

can look at china's attempt at population control, is that what you propose?
there is really no way to curb population in poor agricultural regions, each new child can be useful for doing work but then again they become another starving person

QUALITY BUMP

I tried to get my ex to read this. She is super religious and didn't make it half way through the book before calling it stupid and drawn-out. She felt each chapter could have been summed up with one sentence.

has anyone read the other books? I've read My Ishamael and I liked it more than Ishmael. But for Story of B I'm having a harder time. It seems much more dense and I'm not sure if when B is giving a talk should I flip to the back of the book and read the sermon or just read them all when I've finished the book???