of course they didnt have cities of people to support. thats because they were smarter than us.

they know how to be sustainable

ok socialism sorry

The problem with comparing 'civilization' today with native americans or kung! is that 75% of the current population would have to die in order to live like the bushmen.

"of course they didnt have cities of people to support. thats because they were smarter than us. "

We have a much higher population density now, so we have to have cities.

@pootercannon
"Assuming that your civil disobedience does not land you in jail, do you think that your time/effort might be better used in helping those who are in danger of foreclosure, but not yet foreclosed on?"

Problem is, based on everything that Sicaruis posts, even how this thread started 'not trying to brag, but look at meeeeee!' since he wouldn't be doing anything illegal, it wouldn't be any fun.

I actually appreciated your contribution to the thread. Yes, helping people get out of the mortgages in which they are in over their heads (or upside down as the lingo goes) makes alot of sense. Trying to keep them in the houses they can't afford doesn't.

Mortgages suck.
I have to get one this year or the next though since rent sucks more.

75% of the current population would have to die in order to live like the bushmen.

probably more. but the way we live now is not sustainable, we have exceeded the earths carrying capacity and the population will decrease soon anyway.
'soon' meaning in the next 50-100 years or so

"We have a much higher population density now, so we have to have cities. "
a city by definition is unsustainable. I define a city as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life.
The story of any civilization is the story of the rise of city-states, which means it is the story of the funneling of resources toward these centers (in order to sustain them and cause them to grow), which means it is the story of an increasing region of unsustainability surrounded by an increasingly exploited countryside. I think it is common sense (I'm sure many disagree) that civilization is inherently 'bad'
civilization, whose chief features, constant in varying proportions throughout history, are the centralization of political power, the separation of classes, the lifetime division of labor, the mechanization of production, the magnification of military power, the economic exploitation of the weak, and the universal introduction of slavery and forced labor for both industrial and military purposes.

even if civilization was wonderful in every way, if it was big rock candy fucking mountain, IT IS UNSUSTAINABLE.
therefore it cannot last.
that coupled with the violence and exploitation and disconnectivity that is inherent in civilization means (to me at least) that it must go.



@dingleberry.
you seem to have a banana in your ear.
I dont give a shit if they cant afford the houses. if they could afford them they wouldnt be getting foreclosed on. (usually at least)
I am not a capatalist, I dont care about the money. it would give me great joy to see the banks on fire.
I care about people, not whats in their pockets.

is your utopia a room full of cash?

enjoy loneliness midas

Yeah, I'm of mixed mind on this. I think it's great that people are trying to help other people. I think it's great that people are making sure that foreclosure laws are enforced. I'm particularly weepy at the contributions of lenders, cities, sherriffs and other activists who have worked to keep *renters* in foreclosed homes, since it's often the case that renters who've actually paid rent are getting tossed from their homes because the landlord was overextended. I think that overall, the economy will be better with fewer homeless and fewer foreclosures and so some reasonable measures are the right thing to do in a crisis.

That said, this issue does piss me off, because despite having a high personal income for over a decade (say, 90th percentile) and no family, no car and no other commitments, I haven't bought a house because I couldn't *really* afford one of the size I wanted in this market. So I rent. I could smell a price bubble five years ago. Why should my tax dollars *reward* those who didn't act as responsibly as I did?

So however kind and economically foresighted I want to be, there should be some penalty, some contempt, some disgust shown for the fact that millions of people are risk of foreclosure are people who borrowed money far beyond their means on get-risk-quick schemes to buy one, two or even several home,s knowing full well that they couldn't afford the mortgage(s) if they didn't sell in two years. And millions more are people who were so irresponsible that they didn't even bother to check the reset terms of the mortgage they were signing. Somehow, the policies adopted for the next few years have to reinforce the fact that this reckless *consumer* behavior was just as dangerous as the behavior of the banks and lenders issuing the mortgages themselves. The blame cuts both ways.

@Sicarius, I don't know how you are so hypocritical that you can talk about 'sustainable living' in one sentence and then supporting people living in McMansions the next. Are you really that schizophrenic? How can you be in favor of a world that is sustainable but can't apply that same reasoning to an individual family? They CAN afford houses. They just can't afford the ones they are in; it isn't sustainable.

I'm talking about real sustainability not monopoly money in your fun-conomy.

you really dont see the difference between global wide sustainability, that determines life on the planet, and american economic sustainability that determines whether you should cancel your itunes subscription?

keep the people in their homes, teqach them square foot gardening, throw in some chickens etc they are on the way to sustainibility

Do you not realize that you can't get people to be sustainable overnight? So you can teach them to garden, but they still won't make ends meet in a home they can't afford. Move them to a home they CAN afford, AND teach them to garden. Your long-term goal will be met just as easily, and in the meantime, they can pay their mortgage and eat and clothe their kids.

why pay your mortgage at all?

the reason we dont see eye to eye on this is because you're looking at it through capitalist lenses.

I am not.

do you not see that paying a bank is extremley trivial when compared with being able to feed yourself and your family

Sicarius, you are trying to oversimply this issue. Its like a reporter ask the White House Chief of Staff, 'So since the US invaded Iraq, 125 babies have been killed. Why are you in favor of baby-killing?'

If they had a mortgage that didn't overextend themselves, they'd have money for food too.

"the reason we dont see eye to eye on this is because you're looking at it through capitalist lenses. "
Agreed. And as was previously mentioned, 75% of the population would have to die for you to get your sustainable living. Why are you in favor of mass murder?

Sent from: DingleberryJones Online (3194 ) Sent: 09:21 PM
Sicarius, you are trying to oversimply this issue. Its like a reporter ask the White House Chief of Staff, 'So since the US invaded Iraq, 125 babies have been killed. Why are you in favor of baby-killing?'
==================================================
Good question.

The truth IS simple, DbJ.

Painful for some warmongers and their enablers, I suppose, but these are the truly disposable people. Their pain is more exquisite than the finest delicacy to me.

you see the funny thing is, you seem to lack basic logic.
do you not know what carrying capacity is?

I'll explain it to you.
say you're on a tropical island. theres enough fruit and crabs and etc to support you and nine others.
any more than ten people, and the food gets eaten up faster than it can be replaced.
if the population drops below ten, there will be more food, so more people can live there sustainably.
living sustainably means you can live the way you are living without hurting the land, basically forever.
until we get hit by a meteor or the sun explodes or something.

so say the population rises, to say 20 people.
then theres 30 people, then 50, then 100, then 200.
they live real fat and happy for awhile (especially the 5 or so at the top calling the shots) and maybe not everyone has enough food, but they live. what they dont realize is that othe island can only indefinitely sustain 10 people.
the island can support 10 people forever, but it can support 200 for only say, 100 years.
they've taken too much, and the supply is not replenishing itself fast enough. soon everyone starts to get hungry and most of the people die.

where we are right now, as a global society, is living real fat and happy (especially the few at the top) thinking we can go on forever, well above the carrying capacity of earth. we are heading towards a crash.
sustainability is not a way of life, some hippie ideal, it is necessary for life!

the earth cannot support 12 or 9 or 6 billion people indefinitely.
it will not continue to do so for very long.

its like a 2nd grade science class, (which you must
have skipped?) when there arnt many bobcats, there are more rabbits. then because there are more rabbits, more bobcats come around, thus more rabbits get eaten, thus there are less rabbits.
because the population of bobcats has grown too large, they eat too many rabbits, thus there are not enough rabbits to sustain the remaining bobcats, thus the bobcats die.

BECAUSE THE POPULATION HAS GROWN TOO LARGE, THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES TO SUSTAIN THE POPULATION. THUS THE POPULATION DECLINES.

BECAUSE THE POPULATION HAS GROWN TOO LARGE, THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES TO SUSTAIN THE POPULATION. THUS THE POPULATION DECLINES.

BECAUSE THE POPULATION HAS GROWN TOO LARGE, THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH RESOURCES TO SUSTAIN THE POPULATION. THUS THE POPULATION DECLINES.

did you get that?

"75% of the population would have to die for you to get your sustainable living"
wrong. (its probably closer to 98% or something)
they are going to die eventually anyway, BECAUSE they are not sustainable.

THEY ARE GOING TO DIE EVENTUALLY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT LIVING SUSTAINABLY.

I'm sorry if I come off as an asshole, I dont mean to be really, but why do you not understand this?
I'm not saying the kung! are the greatest civilization and they are just and right.
I'm saying there is no single right way to live, but there is a single wrong way to live. unsustainably. the kung! and native americans and amazonian tribes and welsh druids and mongolian shepards and up until about 10,000 years ago everybody, is way smarter than us, because they knew how to live.
sustainably.

Perhaps, Sicarius, we differ on our assumed set of personal entitlements for all people. I believe that all people SHOULD be entitled to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I do not believe that people should be entitled to more than that. That doesn't mean they can't have more, they just shouldn't bitch and moan that it doesn't fall from the sky onto their lap.

That said, the concept of Life is where you and I differ. In my opinion, everyone should have the opportunity at all times to eat nourishing food, drink clean water, breathe clean air, AND sleep and live in a structure that protects them from the elements. If they are unable to provide any of this for themselves, it should be up to society to help them obtain it.

Nowhere in the previous paragraph is the notion of ownership mentioned or implied, especially about the housing. Yes, people need a place to live and yes, it should be habitable for human families. But house OWNERSHIP should not be a given for anybody.

Does that make sense? And, are there any points you wish to debate?

not at all.
I am in complete agreement.

no sarcasm . I agree with your statements 100%

Also, my last post should not have anything to do with your discussion about environmental sustainability. We can get into that one later.

ok hold on, I'm going to make a new thread for sustainability
this is too big of a tangent