{"id":58741,"date":"2021-07-25T07:15:30","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T12:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58741"},"modified":"2021-07-25T07:15:30","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T12:15:30","slug":"our-world-is-dying-because-we-dont-value-un-making-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58741","title":{"rendered":"Our World Is Dying Because We Don\u2019t Value Un-Making Things"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title eltd-post-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2021\/07\/23\/our-world-is-dying-because-we-dont-value-un-making-things\/\">Our World Is Dying Because We Don\u2019t Value Un-Making Things<\/a><\/h3>\n<article id=\"post-10226\" class=\"post-10226 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-article tag-capitalism tag-ecocide tag-ecosystem tag-environment tag-pollution tag-socialism\">\n<div class=\"eltd-post-content\">\n<div class=\"eltd-post-image-area\">\n<div class=\"eltd-post-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-newsroom_elated_post_feature_image size-newsroom_elated_post_feature_image wp-post-image\" src=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/medium-11-1200x740.jpeg?ea9430&amp;ea9430\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/medium-11.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/medium-11-300x185.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/medium-11-768x474.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/medium-11-1024x631.jpeg 1024w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"740\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"eltd-post-text\">\n<div class=\"eltd-post-text-inner clearfix\">\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/going_rogue\/our-world-is-dying-because-we-dont-value-un-making-things\">Listen to a reading of this article:<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1092785935&amp;show_artwork=true&amp;maxwidth=1060&amp;maxheight=1000\" width=\"1060\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u2756<\/p>\n<p>I talk a lot about how we\u2019re\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2021\/07\/14\/our-rulers-have-all-the-power-and-none-of-the-responsibility\/\">destroying our environment<\/a>\u00a0with a global system where human behavior is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2020\/12\/29\/the-unspoken-premise-of-modern-capitalism-is-that-the-world-will-be-saved-by-greedy-tech-oligarchs\/\">driven by the pursuit of profit<\/a>, how the power structure which dominates that system does so by violence, exploitation, oppression, and the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/detente-the-vital-word-missing-from\">threat of nuclear war<\/a>, and how we\u2019re all going to die if we don\u2019t change this system.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever I say this I get a bunch of capitalism cultists bleating \u201cYou just don\u2019t understand economics bruh,\u201d which is the line they\u2019ve been trained to say to anyone they see criticizing capitalism. It\u2019s silly for a number of reasons, among them the fact that nobody who regurgitates that line understands economics themselves, and the fact that one\u2019s understanding of economics has nothing to do with the death of the ecosystem our species relies on for survival.<\/p>\n<p>The claim that anyone who opposes capitalism \u201cjust doesn\u2019t understand economics\u201d is premised on the notion that unfettered capitalism is the best way for a civilization to attain economic growth, which is arguably true; governments like China saw their economies\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/12\/26\/china-set-to-surpass-us-as-worlds-biggest-economy-by-2028-says-report.html\">explode<\/a>\u00a0when they started implementing elements of capitalism\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/redsails.org\/china-has-billionaires\/\">for pragmatic reasons<\/a>. If you want to create a bunch of stuff and generate a tremendous amount of wealth, a good way to do that is by giving the capitalist class the protection of the state so they can rake in billions of dollars exploiting the global proletariat without being guillotined.<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, that only looks like a valid point if economic growth is the only value by which you judge a system\u2019s success. If you value quality of life, overall happiness, health, average lifespan, education, eliminating poverty, homelessness and hunger, and many other possible metrics, nations like the United States are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/national\/king-united-states-not-best-country-world-article-1.3303665\">far from ideal<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our World Is Dying Because We Don\u2019t Value Un-Making Things Listen to a reading of this article: \u2756 I talk a lot about how we\u2019re\u00a0destroying our environment\u00a0with a global system where human behavior is\u00a0driven by the pursuit of profit, how the power structure which dominates that system does so by violence, exploitation, oppression, and the\u00a0threat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[17039,111,391,786],"class_list":["post-58741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-caitlin-johnstone","tag-capitalism","tag-growth","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58742,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58741\/revisions\/58742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}