Baboon said:
Sorry my friend came by as I was typing my last post, so I didn't have time to finish. I was going to say it was a simple way of looking at it, but still very true in the end.
The article was really exaggerating the importance of oil. I could live without oil. In fact, I'm not even sure I've used it much, at least not in a situation where I wouldn't survive if I hadn't. I can easily imagine my house without polymers; made of wood, for instance. Or concrete (bad isolation though). I don't use a car, and will never use one unless I really really have to. There are always bikes, if you can't be arsed to walk. Civilization could end for all I care, but I wouldn't. Most people in the world live without proper access to oil anyway.
Yes, you could most certainly live without oil. But really, you wouldn't WANT to live without oil. Seriously. Do you have any clue as to what you would lack? The question would not be what you will lack, but what you will still have.
Let's see: You would have a wooden house (or possibly concrete). You would have wooden or metal chairs. You would not have ANY of the appliances you have today (what? You want cold drinks? TOo bad. ), you would not have access to any decent form of transportation (You wanna go on a holiday outside of your own town? Hah! Good luck at getting anywhere), you would not have access to proper medicines at all (Do you have any clue as to what kind of problems this would pose to people with illnesses), and the list just goes on and on.
Oil has only helped certain countries' rich population to get richer, and the poor population to get poorer. Just take Saudi Arabia, or Yemen. Or whatever country in that region.
Yet oil has also helped to industrialise those countries (Which is a GOOD thing) and has most certainly increased the standard of living in those countries tremendously.
Plus, oil did not help the poor population get poorer.
I'm bashing industrialization because it was used as an evil tool, both economically and politically. It was used for corporate bastards to suck the life out of workers. I mean, it took about a century for society to realize this and introduce workers' rights. Then when people found out you could stick metal plates and cannons to cars, and guns to airplanes, it only got worse. All thanks to industrialization. Among the millions of examples of evil things, I can mention coal miners, fascism, world wars and pollution. I can only find one good consequence: improved welfare for a tiny minority.
THis is not all that true. Yes, industrialisation caused really fucked up weapons of war to appear, but that is one of the few bad things that it has actually caused you just listed.
I mean, fascism a consequence of industrialisation? What bull. Fascism had nothing whatsoever to do with the industrialisation.
Plus, the industrialisation caused a drop in the living standard for a lot of people, but that was temporary. THe beneficial consequences have been far greater, because one must look at it over a greater timespan.
Without industrialisation, such things as good welfare (Make no mistake, the increase in welfare after tge industrialisation was huge. Not just "for a tiny minority"), workers rights, work for practically everyone who wanted work.
And it seems quite naive to say that the class system no longer is on a who-was-the-son-of-who basis, as you still very rarely see crossovers. If you step into Harvard for instance, would you see kids from poor families? Probably not. One of the only reasons I can go to an engineer scool is that my family is sufficiently rich (I'll admit that college is free here, but your economical situation still reflects upon the grades you get in school, hence the ability to get into certain colleges and universities). Class distinction might be less obvious than before, but it's still very much there, if you search deep enough. If your father was a low-ass worker, it's more than probable that you'll be a low-ass worker, too.
What fucking bull. Seriously.
First of all, it was wholly IMPOSSIBLE to become anything greater than what you were born as before the industrial revolution.
Secondly, industrialisation caused a merit and money-based class system to arise, which is, you have to admit, a lot "fairer" than a "I'm the son of some stupid prick whose great-great-great-grandfather did something nice for the kind once".
Furthermore, class crossovers happen all the time, when they CAN happen. This is primarliy seen in the level of education, poor people who are nonetheless smart can actually get a really good education (hello scholarships), this could not have happened in a different class system. If you become rich, in whatever way, a class-crossover has just happened. Things like that happen constantly. yes, a class system is still in place, and yes, this is partially based on who-is-the-son-of-who, but only because it relates to money and connections, no longer because it relates to some kind of thing someone far away in the past ever did.
Look at it like this: If you were a nobleman who lost everything he owned, you were at least a nobleman and were treated as such.
But after the industrialisation, that disappeared. If you were a nobleman and lost everything you owned, then you were treated the same as every other beggar. And if you were a beggar who became rich with an invention, you were treated as a nobleman.
Fact is, there was barely a class system before industrialization, since about 90% of the population were peasants or soldiers.
...
What? Are you serious? Do you have any clue as to how silly this statement is?
Oil did at least fuel (
) industrialization. And industrialization was the whole reason for globalization in the first place. The stock market, transportation, colonization, world wars, you name it. And lastly the Internet, in recent years.
You're saying the world wouldn't be where it is now if we hadn't had industrialization. Well, I wouldn't mind. Sure, we wouldn't have all that medicine, but it's being corrputed by greedy corporate fascist bastards anyway, so nevermind that.
Right. So you would like everyone with a disease to go die, you would like almost every bit of modern technology to be thrown away, and practically, you'd like to live in medieval class-based times. Good luck living there! Tsch.
Face it, Humanity and the World are two huge piles of stinking dung, and they probably always will be.
I could type much more, but I really need some sleep. Goodnight for now.
Oh, I'm most certainly not denying that (although this is a hugely unappreciative and assinine comment to someone in, say, Nigeria). But you're just being silly. You're looking SOLELY at the bad things, and you're not only doing that, but when you do think of anything good (medicine) you say that this evil because it being abused by capitalists. Well, excuse me, but that's the world we live in, and you'd be a fool to think that it was any better before industrialisation.
