While the Indigenous relationship with Nature is often highly simplified and politicized -- some species were definitely hunted to extinction, they sometimes did extract more from the land than it could give and paid the price, etc - it is very much demonstrably true that they had a more intuitive and sutainable way of relating to the environment than we do. They have done studies and reviews on this.

It seems we have some disagreements.

>Forced all the smaller business to shut down while letting the bigger ones stay open.

I take it that you perceive the Covid restrictions to have been pretty awful government policy because it benefited some businesses while harming other. Myself, on the other hand, believe that the Covid restrictions were a necessary enactment for the safety of the population, regardless of which businesses did or did not benefit from it. If so businesses benefited more than others during this temporary period of Covid regulation, then so be it.

>the governments of the world basically ensured everything is monopolized.

However, as a general statement, I believe this to be 100% correct. By governments implementing a liberal social organization, governments definitely contribute to the monopolization of industry. This is how capital and capitalism work, the unending movement towards monopolization.

Those "types of lifestyles" were sustainable for hunter-gatherers and Indigenous peoples, so the amount that we have is not quite the point.

Also, there is no way we are going to survive if people keep thinking they can extract from nature indefinitely. Ecosystem collapse is going to happen and all those people you're talking about are going to die, so we'd better figure it out.

The birth of the study of artsyfartsyism.

Technology as mastery. The suggestion of, "The daring young men and their flying machines". Early science was portrayed as a manly act, one of mastery over nature. The view was promoted by the Royal Society. Heidegger's cautions on the glorification of technology are almost a counterpoint to this power narrative. Does the artisan become something less than their tools as they become more advanced? What do we lose from ourselves when we become more invested in them? Maybe we lose some of ourselves and lose our connection to our sense of self and the world we use them in. Claiming mastery our sense of wonder dies. 25 years ago or more I wrote a paper on Heidegger and Kierkegaard. My prof didn't like it and said it read more like a sermon than a paper. I thought that was the point.

Its also by no means a modern phenomenon or related to technology. I remember learning about the pilgrims and other early American Settlers and how they believed that nature was chaotic and immoral and how they could bring order and Christian values to it by planting farms and settling their families. Medieval zoological texts make similar assertions and generally characterize any animal that is dangerous as immoral and useless and any animal that can be exploited as a gift from God.

Ah, good point!

Great point that last one. Why is it that idiot leaders just pop up in every country simultaneously? Because it's all one big global game.

Isn't seeing the world as so many resources to exploit as old as the bible?
In Genesis 1:26-28, we read how God created man, blessed him, and told him to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

> i would argue the blind devotion to capitalism most people show is it self deranged.

I’m talking about the world of philosophy though. Yeah, most laymen have a pretty poor understanding of capitalism and simply support it blindly, but people who study philosophy should know better than to be so rabidly anti-capitalist/anti-liberal.

I think a lot of people get very frustrated at those of us who defend liberalism because it’s just so easy to imagine a world that is better than the one we inhabit. And they’re frustrated that we seem to be “blocking” them from making that fantasy a reality. But the more wizened among us should know to urge great caution in pursuing these fantasies.

Oh and he was also a Nazi. Look up the black notebooks

Covid made things so much worse in that regard. Forced all the smaller business to shut down while letting the bigger ones stay open.

Ppp loans galore to the biggest companies.

An absurd amount of mom and pop + smaller franchises shut down.

In other words, the governments of the world basically ensured everything is monopolized.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/is-heidegger-contaminated-by-nazism

Seems like this guy is substituting Singer for Jordan Peterson. If not, than Peterson borrows a lot of ideas from Singer.

I agree that greed, attempted monopolization, and ruthless business practices are part of industry

>Technology is a force multiplier, true, but it works for all sides and it's owned by the wealthy. I'm skeptical of it.

you should be, by definition a force multiplier helps those with the most influence.

who will have greater reach in a grassroots movement? you or Bezos?

it most certainly did help with trump, brexit, iraq, attempting to make the West want war with China and us voting to dismantle our own nations (look at the West, funny how we are all on a similiar trajectory isnt it?)

While this is true, almost every big company gets monopoly lawsuits both nationally and internationally. Just part of being the head of the industry.

also forgetting the vast majority of that poverty reduction was the Chinese government lifting over 1 billion out of poverty.

remove the Chinese and suddenly the world has made minimal progress, funny how the 1 nation the West couldnt bully into submission is also the one that managed to become rich off of globalization (India went the route of allowing Western corporations to control their political parties, as did most of the 3rd world)

>the possibility (or impossibility) that there could be a critique of capitalism under the framework of Nazi ideology.

It could be argued that the Nazi concept (or at least the valorization by the Nazis of the concept) of "blood and soil", which formed the core of the Völkisch movement could be construed as a proto critique of Capitalism. It reinforced the connection between people and the land they cultivated and was marked by elements of organicism, racialism, agrarianism, and populism. Key Nazi officials like Walther Darré (Minister of Food & Agriculture) and Reichleiter for agricultural policy were strong proponents of this concept. Interestingly, even Heinrich Himmler was a proponent of this though in a highly fantasized (unrealistic) way. Himmler's ideas in this regard were supposed to be the foundations of how "the eastern territories" after the war were to be organised, which was also echoed by Hitler at one point in time (I don't have the reference to this off-hand, but I can dig it up). Edit: I wanted to add that Alfred Rosenberg (Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories) was another high-level Nazi official who was aligned to these kinds of views.

The point that I am trying to make is this: Nazi ideology to the extent that it existed as a coherent body did position itself against capitalism and communism. It did so by invoking a mythical condition involving what they referred to as "Blut und Boden" (the Blood and Soil concept), which attempted to establish an inextricable link between people and the land they occupy and cultivate. In many ways, this concept valorized "the peasantry", whose culture (ethos, one could say) would be - at least in Himmler's and Hitler's terms - warlike (this being the key "to keep the blood fresh and invigorated").

To this extent at the very least Nazi ideology could be considered to be contra the basic principles of capitalism (and communism).

Agreed the primary problem with the use of nature as resources is derived from capitalism, where even tho all the needs are met production must continue or else the whole system starts to breakdown, capitalism in its root can only exist as production is maximized for profits hence the need for perfectly usable things to be thrown away or hidden to keep prices in check. For example more than 7 times the food needed to feed the world is thrown away each yeR

But not mentioned anywhere in this comment section, and I thought it relevant to point out to anyone who might not be in the know. The fact colors his philosophy, and it's not a pretty color.

most critiques either use strawmen (most people cant define terms like capitalism or communism) or end up asking for an entire dissertation on an alternative system.

i would argue the blind devotion to capitalism most people show is it self deranged.

and i say that as someone who doesnt like any system (nothing we have invented is fit for purpose, we need a new ideology not rehashed 200+ year old ones).

I’m not sure about lobbying but Buffett invests in a lot of businesses that aren’t exactly benign (e.g. Coke, body armor, a trailer park that traps the tenants with terrible deals), as well as the companies Berkshire owns. And he basically only pays lip service to income redistribution.

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The Gates foundation is a tough one which is why I’m happy to dig in. The Gates foundation in more than one instance has taken public money from counties to create limited research which supports the dismantling of public education in support of charter schools or less efficacious alternatives. This is a big deal. Often county or public money from locally partisan communities is responsible for funding these projects and the research has been repeatedly called into question. The foundation has tremendous PR though with Gates at the helm talking about philanthropic utilitarianism while avoiding talking about our variant of capitalism.

Taking on the comments further below. Charities categorically are catastrophic at dealing with social problems. It’s important to note I didn’t say individually but categorically, non-government organizations and non-profits can be added to the above statement in degrees. IE looking at Christian charities as an easy example but personally many charities in general can be problematic. It’s even more problematic with Publix or McDonalds when they became corporate tax write offs asking for public donations. They do not supplant social programs.

Further: Part of the problem of diffusing charity by 100 entities vs 1 is that much of the wealth no matter how large in magnitude is spent on overhead and that wealth is not necessarily easily regeneratable. Look at the Red Cross as an example of overhead and effective out reach. Many charities are not this effective.

3rdly, the idea that charities or independent organizations are better at independently managing societal problems from an ecological standpoint than say the government is an ideological position and is a wrongful assumption.

The government is evidently better, by virtue of so many effective social programs throughout the world, even for business development. Even social programs decried such as the the UK National Health Service don’t compare to the millions of Americans without access to healthcare; even with insurance and agreements between companies it’s unbelievably difficult to get the treatment appropriately paid for for many people.

And this is true even for charities, the scope of their social outreach is inherently incapable of solving the problems they address in society. Charities are a form of prevarication from the many and destitution for all.