thought for the day... again... capitalism? dying? dead?

[worm]

...

Edited October 13, 2011 by worm

[eFestivals]

You'd have to compare this to the amount of people who'd usually leave town. You're automatically assuming that the alternative would be staying at home doing average town based things. But the festival demographic is markedly different to the overall average town demographic, for a start. Then you have the alternative of maybe camping with friends (better for the environment), or jetting off to Ibiza (probably worse, though the coach load would be comparing with fleets of cars and private jets).

You've made a convenient comparison and if the study merely compares upon the variables you've given then it's flawed.

the study I've seen compared the average per-person resource use at a festival with the average per-person use of resources within UK society overall.

If festivals come in lower - and they do with the travel factor taken out (I'm less certain of how it stands with that included, it's a while since I read it) - then festivals can rightly be seen as better for the environment than 'normal life'.

[worm]

Not true. We can do some, not all - and everything we might do would be at the expense of something else.

For example, they'd be fuck all point in investing in a hugely expensive fusion plant (which would make today's nuke power look incredibly cheap in comparison) - if/when the technology actually works - if the resulting cost meant that we couldn't afford any of the electrical items to utilise the power it produced.

[worm]

the study I've seen compared the average per-person resource use at a festival with the average per-person use of resources within UK society overall.

If festivals come in lower - and they do with the travel factor taken out (I'm less certain of how it stands with that included, it's a while since I read it) - then festivals can rightly be seen as better for the environment than 'normal life'.

[worm]

Take the blinkers off and see the shit that gets thrown at me...

[eFestivals]

This is based entirely upon the current economic model and western culture.

like it or not, there's much that HAS TO hold true in whichever economic model is worked - you can only put the same number of people to work as are currently put to work (said on the basis of there being full employment).

Of course, there'd be a benefit in having that full employment rather than lots of unemployed, so I'm not ignoring that.

And of course some people would be re-deployed from a 'useless' job to a 'worthwhile' one, so there's also a benefit there, which I'm also not ignoring.

But the fact of their being a limit remains true, and absolutely nothing can get around that. We do not have a bottomless pit of resources, and that fact will always remain in play.

But my point was about parting with the knowledge, information and, yes, materials pertaining to science and technology so that other parts of the world can create systems in which water and energy can be produced. My whole point relates to the fact that we are inefficiently depending upon old science and technologies due to an outdated economic system of industry.

but ANYTHING is a redeployment of resources, and no economic model can factor that out.

[worm]

like it or not, there's much that HAS TO hold true in whichever economic model is worked - you can only put the same number of people to work as are currently put to work (said on the basis of there being full employment).

Of course, there'd be a benefit in having that full employment rather than lots of unemployed, so I'm not ignoring that.

And of course some people would be re-deployed from a 'useless' job to a 'worthwhile' one, so there's also a benefit there, which I'm also not ignoring.

But the fact of their being a limit remains true, and absolutely nothing can get around that. We do not have a bottomless pit of resources, and that fact will always remain in play.

[eFestivals]

That's assuming there is a limit. Science and technology negates that. As do eco-economies, which are based upon recycling rather than growth. It's not about a pit of finite resources, it's about creating cycles of energy production from technology. Your water bucket example was a good one. Water will always be present in a natural transitive state, so technology can be used to harness it. Same with energy.

I'm not so sure what you're getting at here.

You don't get economics at all, do you?

There is a limit. Any other view is extremely laughable.

[fred quimby]

'retail therapy'...!?!?

we've coined a phrase that encourages people to buy things for no reason except to make you feel better

[eFestivals]

Have we ? or have we created a phrase because of some people getting enjoyment from buying stuff. I'm not sure the phrase encorouges people to buy, I'm sure they would do it anyway.

Well, something has encouraged people to 'buy stuff'. The UK was less material possessions obsessed 30 years ago than it is now.

I think all was made perfectly clear in the days following 9/11 - that it's somehow our patriotic duty to buy stuff.

[fred quimby]

it's not enough to make a profit anymore, companies have to keep on making bigger and bigger profits, or they're perceived as failing, so the shares go down, and the company DOES start failing. It's bonkers.

[fred quimby]

Well, something has encouraged people to 'buy stuff'. The UK was less material possessions obsessed 30 years ago than it is now.

I think all was made perfectly clear in the days following 9/11 - that it's somehow our patriotic duty to buy stuff.

[fred quimby]

both probably

it's used in advertising.. "do yourself a favour, have some retail therapy"...

I hear people saying it "I'm going for some retail therapy".. meaning, I'm going to spend some money on stuff

[eFestivals]

Isn't it more linked to simply how much money people have ?

The early 1980s was a time when people simply didn't have a lot of spare cash and the boom in reasonably priced electronic device had not arrived. Big purchases was maybe a TV and Hi-Fi unit. It was a more basic existence..

Nope, it's a different attitude towards things. Along with it came a greater focus on the individual above the collective, and that's probably the reason for it.

[kaosmark2]

How old is the digusting phrase 'retail therapy'? I only started noticing it about 7/8 years ago, but then, that was when I started watching TV....

[eFestivals]

How old is the digusting phrase 'retail therapy'? I only started noticing it about 7/8 years ago, but then, that was when I started watching TV....

I can't tell you exactly, but it's not something I remember hearing in the early part of my life, so I'd guess 1980s at oldest.

[abdoujaparov]

Isn't it more linked to simply how much money people have ?

The early 1980s was a time when people simply didn't have a lot of spare cash and the boom in reasonably priced electronic device had not arrived. Big purchases was maybe a TV and Hi-Fi unit. It was a more basic existence..

[sifi]

Our family didn't own our television set until the late 80s, I think. Anyone else recall when Radio Rentals was commonplace on the high street? Washing machine, tumble drier, telly all rented. When I was at Uni in the early 90s everyone in the house I was in put in for a rental package TV and video.

When did RR and their ilk cease trading?

Edited October 13, 2011 by sifi

[5co77ie]

around the start of the millennium

[lost]

'retail therapy'...!?!?

we've coined a phrase that encourages people to buy things for no reason except to make you feel better

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Our family didn't own our television set until the late 80s, I think. Anyone else recall when Radio Rentals was commonplace on the high street? Washing machine, tumble drier, telly all rented. When I was at Uni in the early 90s everyone in the house I was in put in for a rental package TV and video.

When did RR and their ilk cease trading?

[5co77ie]

Interesting that the Tories are changing their language - no longer are they just saying "The legacy we inherited from Labour" but now "The global financial crisis and the legacy we inherited from Labour" and last night it was just "the global financial crisis since 2008" - I think they've wised up to the fact they can't blame Labour anymore for a Global collapse, and are worried that in fact they inherited the country in a better state than it will be once they finish this first parliament.

[Purple Monkey]

I have completely stopped listening to anything our Government says. They will not engage in the issues that truly matter, and instead to baffle, confuse and undermine us all with garbled political rhetoric which means absolutely nothing. They are not in power, they actually have no power, because they have no relevance any more; sidelined by multi-national - corporations are the true nations of this planet now, everything else is an out-dated illusion. It's a truly pathetic sight watching this sorry charade continue.

It's just utter, utter drivel followed by more nothing. I'll be damned if I believe that any one of those c**ts can make the country, the world a better place.

Like a company with bloated and de powered middle management, an oblivious and incompetent upper management with a massively apathetic workforce - the next stage is inevitably going to be liquidation.

Fuck the lot of them.

Edited October 14, 2011 by Purple Monkey

[worm]

How old is the digusting phrase 'retail therapy'? I only started noticing it about 7/8 years ago, but then, that was when I started watching TV....

Edited October 14, 2011 by worm

[eFestivals]

It comes from Freud and to a lesser extent Marx.

Really? I must have missed those two living till at least 1986.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_therapy

It must be great to live a life at such odds to the facts of anything and everything.