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[return to "In Praise of Print: Reading Is Essential in an Era of Epistemological Collapse"]
1. bux93+d3[view] [source] 2024-11-28 10:07:04
>>bertma+(OP)
It's not what you know, but who you know. Any type of mass-media is fodder for the have-nots, while the haves get their information from trustworthy sources through their in-group. The more addictive facebook, tiktok and twitter are, the bigger the premium is of being part of the right group. Whether the memes you consume are in print is entirely incidental.
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2. mandma+T5[view] [source] 2024-11-28 10:39:13
>>bux93+d3
> the haves get their information from trustworthy sources through their in-group

Then why are their actions more harmful than any other class? I see them:

* Starting proxy wars, fueling climate doubt, lobbying/destroying governments to allow every kind of degradation of every commons.

* Paying people 6 or 7 figures to confuse and divide the people earning 5 or 6 figures.

* Apparently utterly ignorant of their legacy, which will be one of murderous self-interest and absurd delusion.

Do all their "trustworthy sources" feed their biases and class interests, their self-delusions, their greed? It's astounding how people can have all the facts and teachers in the world, while dodging genuine understanding of everything most important.

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3. exe34+m7[view] [source] 2024-11-28 10:53:24
>>mandma+T5
profit. they have the best information money can buy and they use it to make profit.

Hanlon's razor doesn't take into account the fact that they have a perfect motive.

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4. mandma+Ie[view] [source] 2024-11-28 12:29:37
>>exe34+m7
> a perfect motive

It comes across almost trite, but it's still perfectly relevant:

> Canada [and The West], the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.

- Alanis Obomsawin

This isn't rare or hidden knowledge. Billions of people know this for a fact. Versions of this phrase go back well over a hundred years.

Yet the media and political classes do everything they can to diminish such "sentiment" as "naive" and "childish" "wishful thinking"; with or without the tacit understanding that this is what their owners demand.

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5. cafard+sA[view] [source] 2024-11-28 15:49:14
>>mandma+Ie
Will the last tree be cut? New England has much more three cover than it has a couple hundred years ago.
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6. mandma+fE[view] [source] 2024-11-28 16:11:41
>>cafard+sA
> Will the last tree be cut?

It's a metaphor (though in many parts of the world it's a simple fact); but yeah, it could be global some day. I wouldn't put it past us. We've lost countless species already.

We've been abysmal to trees. If we were to keep losing forest at our current global rate we'd lose the last tree in 400-800 years (though tbf this is decelerating right now).

New England has more tree cover than 200 years ago - great. Europe too. Is 200 years ago a good reference point though? Isn't that when we chopped like 80% of our forests down for industrialization?

Anyway, so the centers of Empire are green(ish). How's the Amazon doing though? How's South-East Asia? Central Africa?

And our new forests - are they old growth and diverse, or monoculture Sitka spruce? Organic, or doused with glyphosate?

And then there's the climate, which we are fucking up faster than scientists predicted... Can trees adapt in time? ... Would trees survive nuclear holocaust?

I'm not saying Bladerunner was a documentary. But we're on course for catastrophe, no doubt about it; and the relentless pursuit of ever more capital via externalized costs is why.

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