Rippounet

Oh, the impact is real all right. Pretty much the entire world is perfectly aware of how human societies end up paying for finance and its mistakes. This very thread exists because there may be yet another financial crisis, and we have yet again to deal with the problem of a handful of over-privileged people playing monopoly with the global economy. But of course it's bullshit. You try to present some minor forms of economic modernization or centralization that were developed through finance as being attributable to finance. Of course that's perfectly fallacious: as I was clumsily trying to point out initially, such modernization or centralization can exist without finance, or to put it differently, there is no meaningful benefit to human societies that can be attributed to finance itself. Finance has become a gigantic parasite on the real economy ; it does nothing except make money for the people involved in it. Not that long ago, finance could possibly be credited with helping the real economy, by directing investment to underfunded sectors or making production more efficient. The reality though, is that people involved in the financial sector became obsessed with profit at the expense of actual economic development or, for most of them, with their own bonuses. The immorality of finance and traders is well established by now, with Jeffrey Sachs once stating that "they truly believe they have a divine right to take as much money as possible, by any means, legal or otherwise." All that's bad enough, but perhaps regulations could help? Not anymore. The environmental crisis means we probably don't even need to make production more efficient anyway, and finance has already failed dismally at directing funds to address the situation, thus proving once and for all how useless it is for humanity. In fact, the fetichism of money that goes with finance may even be argued to be the root problem of the environmental crisis! Anyway... It's still a bit early for the whole system to collapse - unfortunately it will probably take horrifying devastation for most people to accept the simple fact that our current economic system has become a liability. But I'll be overjoyed the day one crisis too many allows us to get rid of it for good: at this point in time, any suffering coming from the collapse of finance will be considerably preferable to the suffering coming from the collapse of civilization.

These last few episodes of Picard have been quite enjoyable. It's still not good (I'm highly skeptical about the overall plot), but they've done a good enough job that it can be a kind of guilty pleasure. I hope the final space battle(s) are cool too .

This is Empire-Strikes-Back level of revelation.

Unfortunately, the bolded is not a question of belief. We know exactly what human societies must do (or stop doing) to avoid doom. It's not an argument. It's not up for debate. The fact that people can't agree on the hows or the details doesn't change that. It's the terrible thing about scientific fact. You might want to disagree with them, but ultimately, unless you're some kind of genius or make a super-lucky guess, you'll almost always be wrong. You can always claim that the devil is in the details, or whatnot, but ultimately you'll still be wrong. Now maybe you're trying to make a point about communication, in which case I will -again- point out that no one here is a politician trying to convince anyone, we're just a bunch of random joes discussing facts. If you're not making a point about communication, it may be time to become familiar with the IPCC's work: IPCC Climate Change 2023 By the way, I haven't found the time to finish the latest report, but I must say I am glad they included these maps about the wet bulb effect. It's fucking terrifying and it should be. This may be a misconception. Recent research suggests that confronted with terrible things happening, humans overwhelmingly act in a perfectly calm and rational manner, and even tend to revert to an eery state of kindness, empathy and solidarity. It's governments that can take advantage of difficult situations for their own agenda. But that's beyond the point. The disasters will happen anyway, because they're already happening. Almost every year a different country is seriously hit by the effects of climate change (in 2022 it was Pakistan which was the hardest hit imho). Hoping that the disasters will ultimately produce a positive outcome is not an "argument," it's the best we can hope for.

Yes. The issue here (imho) is how far the reactionary movements will go to protect the current socio-economic structure and/or the Western way of life or, to put it differently, just how bad the devastation will have to be before humanity unambiguously rejects and buries neo-liberal capitalism. There is a scenario in which fascist governments decide that collapse is preferable to any alternative, and use the devastation (and the countless refugees) to enshrine their power instead of addressing the environmental crisis. This is also the path we're on right now, "Götterdämmerung capitalism" as Kim Robinson put it: Trump may be a fool, but a significant proportion of the global elite does seem to be determined to resist any meaningful change. How far will they go? Ultimately, if some form of fascism is the only way to protect their interests, is it not logical to assume this is what they'll choose? One thing about neo-liberalism is how it encourages human narcissism to such a point that many would rather cling to its illusions than to behave rationally. Andreas Malm has made this incredibly powerful point in Fossil Fascism: I personally believe that we've already reached the point where addressing the environmental crisis within a capitalist economy is impossible. But the implications are terrifying.

With all due respect, that's a lot of bullshit. "Loads of financial documents" ? Generally it's three salary slips and tax returns. All of which can be sent to a banker electronically. Sure, it takes a few weeks for the bank to process the data and offer a loan proposal (about 6 here, on average), but saying it's a "financial colonoscopy" or that you can be "questioned on your income and expenditures in excruciating detail" is a big load of crap. In my experience it's two fifteen-minute interviews with the guy, and one of those interviews isn't even mandatory. There's actually more paperwork involved to deal with the fucking insurance, because they do want a lot of information on your health history. As for the mortgage rate being "much higher"? Ha, I call bullcrap on that one too. I got a 100,000€ at 1% fixed interest rate some years ago. Because regulations on fancial fuckery, that's why. Fact is, finance is a solution to problems that shouldn't exist in the first place, and that are generally solved efficiently in countries that don't overly rely on "modern financial instruments" or are just healthily mistrustful of finance. But that's a political choice, i.e. whether your country believes it's desirable and/or moral to have some people making money with money. And of course it's actually not (desirable or moral), because the "market" is really just some twats playing monopoly with everyone's money and then wanting government bailouts whenever they screw up. That's why France is paralysed right now btw. We don't want complementary pension plans through financial assets, fuck that shit. The good ol' socialistic plans work fine, thank you very much. Get your financial instruments out of our country for fuck's sake. I wouldn't hate finance so much if it wasn't trying to screw my life up on a regular basis.

I hope cocaine bear sees the errors of his ways, goes through a redemption arc, and ends up settling down as a family man with a beautiful female.

If that's the case, it means Trump will win no matter what, because his arrest will not convince anyone who's not already voting MAGA. I'd say that, on the contrary, arresting him and re-affirming the rule of law is the best way to keep fascism at bay.

Way too optimistic for my tastes. I think it's a waste that they spent so much time developing all these complex themes in a gritty, realistic manner, only to go for a vanilla ending that kinda comes out of left field. The finale ruins much of the subtelty they worked on establishing. I wasn't expecting them to be too subversive, but they end up defending complete economic status quo (work, be happy and shut up) ; problem with that choice is that the season loses internal coherency and leaves plot points hanging imho. I think you're right and that production problems affected the writing ; I don't think they initially intended for this ending. It seems they learned they wouldn't get a season 3 mid-way and rushed to conclude their story ; this would explain many odd choices in the final episodes. In fact, the season was initially supposed to be 8 episodes, so the last two were kinda artificially added to provide some measure of resolution.

If only this rotten system of fake value would just collapse already... But I'm sure its agony will be prolonged as much as possible.

Are you talking about multi-junction solar cells?

Very solid second season for Carnival Row. I'm curious to see how they wrap this up this weekend. If they land it, I will declare this a great show. It develops fictional politics like I haven't seen since The Expanse, with which it shares a number of themes. Carnival Row remains much weaker when it comes to world-building, but they could improve on that if they get a couple more seasons.

That's wildly optimistic. Eventually, perhaps. I do share the fantasies of the environmental crisis being a catalyst for the unification of our species. However, as things stand now, with reactionary forces gaining ground, just getting to the point where it actually becomes a possibility will entail a devastation I find difficult to comprehend.

Well, yes, within the framework of their world, you could argue that killing every Firefly was necessary. By that token, this also means Joel should have killed the unarmed nurses (they know about Ellie and might tell others). But that's adopting Joel's viewpoint and deciding everything is fucked beyond repair, and the only thing that matters is your relationship with Ellie. I find it interesting that in the game, many players were reluctant to kill the doctor:

You're missing the point. The Fireflies are in the wrong, but that doesn't mean they all deserve to be killed. Just because you didn't get to know them individually doesn't mean they weren't people too. In fact, I do believe that is the point: you condone the murder of people you don't know to prevent the murder of someone you do know. But how far are you willing to push this logic? Would you sacrifice the entire human race for your child? I would not. I could not. For the record, a few weeks ago in another show I was watching, the main character's mom is offered a spot in a programme to test an experimental drug that could cure her cancer but she (the main character) has to pick someone (a name on a list) that her mom will replace in the programme. She refuses to do it and, when pressed, kills the guy who insists instead. That is, imho, the "right" perspective. In truth, the choice cannot be made by a sane individual. I've seen the point made in several works of fiction. The comics "Thorgall" has a pretty good moment like this with Parcae : whoever kills a stranger to save a loved one is supposed to be cursed by the Gods. It's a very simple moral point, but it is not universal: cultures that value the individual more might condone it. I really dont think Ellie's mom was infected on purpose. In fact, had Marlene known that she was bitten before cutting the umbilical cord, Ellie would probably have been killed right then and there.