Shut the hell UP!!!

[pk-]

Capitalism can exist in many forms - the current conception of it leaves a lot to be desired, but I believe that there is a strain of Capitalism that will serve a wider range of interests.

yeah that's the point i was hamfistedly trying to make yesterday

[shonky]

Ooooohh...I see a debate coming on! I love these - sadly, I have to catch a train now, but I'll pick this up with you later!

Look forward to it Ed. You're wrong by the way

[seckle]

fuck me you lot've been busy

it's great to see the UK lay out plans to light every house in england with wind by 2020.

I didn't know that, when was it announced?

yes bro! i read about this a few month's ago in wired magazine. it's brilliant.

burbo bank windfarm near liverpool. they've already started building it.
http://www.dongenergy.com/burbo/index.htm

here's a quick google result too
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/c ... op+stories

[shonky]

fuck me you lot've been busy

it's great to see the UK lay out plans to light every house in england with wind by 2020.

I didn't know that, when was it announced?

I don't think it was. Seems that they've given the go-ahead for some seriously ill-advised nuclear reactors. I think they were planning to get something like 20% of the uk power use covered by renewables

Yep

"The target for the proportion of energy that should be produced from renewables was increased from 15 to 20 per cent by 2020"

Although admittedly 20% of all fuel use could be spent on lighting so you could be right in a roundabout way. Love the way they manage to make something sound like a 100% solution when it isn't, got to love those PR stnuc

[ikarai]

However, I don't believe it will ever be possible to produce a political system which does not marginalise certain portions of society. This is a sad but unavoidable truth.

you may well be right... but i refuse to accept that we can't think of something better than capitalism. By definition it creates a divide between classes. You could even be right about it being a default setting.. i can see that, greed being the force it is in the world, there is a strong argument there. I am more inclined to think of it as a culture of mutual trading, that being a better definition than the tenets of modern capitalism though.

Once it is realised capitalism isn't in our best interests, like any other organism its a choice between adaptation and extinction. There are some smart people out there. But i'm uncomfortable with the notion that our genes are preprogrammed to self destruct - cos i truly believe capitalism is not a sustainable system. But its not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that we are inherently a fataly flawed species.

[kidlogic]

wind farms are the future. everyone should be following denmark and holland's example of offshore wind farming. it's great to see the UK lay out plans to light every house in england with wind by 2020.

the windmill dates back to 600ad, and is still one of the best sources of energy; over a thousand years later.

america is rich with offshore coastline, and we've not even begun to think of wind in any substantial way.

I agree, its just so damn frustrating to see environmentalists getting in the way of things like this like they are here in Cali... earlier I mentioned a wind farm in San Bernadino County that wants to expand but is actually at risk of being shut down because of it being in the path of certain migratory birds. I can see the same thing happen with the offshore farms, environmentalists saying that the planned offshore farms are in the way of migrating whales or something... much love for the animals, but they're in as much trouble as us if something doesnt change, they'll adapt as they have been for years, just like we need to.

[shonky]

Once it is realised capitalism isn't in our best interests, like any other organism its a choice between adaptation and extinction. There are some smart people out there. But i'm uncomfortable with the notion that our genes are preprogrammed to self destruct - cos i truly believe capitalism is not a sustainable system. But its not exactly beyond the realms of possibility that we are inherently a fataly flawed species.

I think it's way beyond genetics to be honest. Those at the top would rather rule over a disaster than not rule at all. For every person that's making a concerted effort to act responsibly for the good of all, there's ten toadies wanting a piece of the power pie. Irony is that they probably won't get shit and will probably get fucked up alongside those working towards a better world.

[metalboxproducts]

I think capitalism is so out of date now. The only reason it's the dominant economic/political system is that it has sured up the people in power for such a long time (in this sense you could say it has been very sucsessful) but, if the events of the last few day have shown the market is as prone to failier (wether that be by design and or accident) as anything else.

[metalboxproducts]

Oil company's have no direct say in anything. They don't need to have, they just lobby politicians and pressurize them into doing what they want. Simple. No it's not a conspiracy just a natural by products of capitalism.

[ikarai]

Those at the top would rather rule over a disaster than not rule at all

Heh. Sad truth maybe. But i dunno by sheer numbers it should be in the favour of the average person to see some real change in their benefit. True those at the top have all the money and power to stay there and are interested in nothing else.. whether or not its down to genetics that their natural inclination is to gorge themselves on the resources of the world to the point of destruction, it seems clear that if, or rather when, a crisis point is reached that there is a decision to be made regardgin whether whatever is put in place of the failing political/economic 'strucutre' is merely a reinvention of what has gone before, or systemicly removes risk of such a crisis being reached again.

That must surely include real safeguards against the power of big business and banking organisations being allowed to outweigh the power of a democratically elected government.

[ikarai]

Oil company's have no direct say in anything. They don't need to have, they just lobby politicians and pressurize them into doing what they want. Simple. No it's not a conspiracy just a natural by products of capitalism.

But surely if it was viable to use other forms of power for cars/planes then most western governments would be up for it- would get similar taxes etc and wouldn't have to rely on middle east oil and would look good and green to tell the voters etc. Its just that the alternatives are not as efficient or cost effective.

thats why they do it tho... cos it's not cost effective in the short term, whilst they're still making money from oil. The infrastructure to the petrochemical industry is firmly in place, why replace it til you absolutely have to. Of course those alternatives are more efficent, once they have been established. They pay less to produce energy cos its a more sustainable system, but they can charge you just as much for it! Those companies - who as its been said are the ones pumping most research into renewable technolgies - are not about to miss the boat on the next wave of technology, they are just biding their time cos when it comes down to it they are all about short term profits and nothing more.

[badger]

Its just that the alternatives are not as efficient or cost effective.

this has been gone over again and again, and largely the reasons why it's not efficient or cost effective is that oil companies are preventing the necessary research to make it better

[ikarai]

Yep. They know its an inevitability. They want it on their terms and no-one elses cos it means more profits. hah makes you wanna spit.

[metalboxproducts]

Oil company's have no direct say in anything. They don't need to have, they just lobby politicians and pressurize them into doing what they want. Simple. No it's not a conspiracy just a natural by products of capitalism.

But surely if it was viable to use other forms of power for cars/planes then most western governments would be up for it- would get similar taxes etc and wouldn't have to rely on middle east oil and would look good and green to tell the voters etc. Its just that the alternatives are not as efficient or cost effective.

We have the military industrial complex to maintain though. So we need constant wars to justify the billions after billions of $/£ that get spent on arms.
There has never been a threat to us but, it's in the interests of the power elite to manufacture these enemy's so as to keep the whole thing chugging over.

[shonky]

I don't buy into these theories of Oil companies or governments keeping down renuable sources for their own personal gain, why would a government want to rely on sources of finite energy from other parts of the world they don't get on well with? And what say does an Oil company have in where local government sources its power from? Its basically just that renuable power isnt actually as green as it seems and isnt all that efficient or cost effective, but will be once fossil fuel reserves start running out....no big conspiracy with some evil capitalist rubbing his hands together and laughing at the world getting fucked over- just economics and suppy/demand and technologies available.

Had a look on google and admittedly there's a lot of unsubstantiated claims. There was this movie though http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_killed ... ectric_car

Which includes this link regarding the buying out of patents on the NIMH battery (although there is debate as to whether this was suppression to remove a competitor to gasoline or whether it was the battery makers who wished to retain their market share.

Apart from that there does seem to be nothing vaguely reliable (i.e. quoting links with sources or being able to trace any info about the inventors mentioned) in the 23 pages of google I scoured regarding suppression of technology, although quite a lot concerning artificially inflating prices, lying about reserve stocks, political lobbying resulting in reversing previous environmental bills regarding exhaust emissions and anything that might put people above profits.

So oil companies are stnuc, but not quite in the way I was led to believe. Shameful really cause I'm usually the one trying to poke holes in conspiracy theories

[parson]

money that big has a lot of control over information

don't be naive

[shonky]

money that big has a lot of control over information

don't be naive

Thought you'd chirp up

Right Parson, I'll explain my reasoning on this. Tapped in "oil companies suppressing renewable technologies" and went through 23 pages of google trying to find links

First link that I thought would prove something was this

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/jun ... ssion.html

Where I thought, secret patents, missing inventors, murders even - this must be the case. Having checked through a few of those (and when searching in google they mostly re-appeared as copy and paste jobs on other conspiracy sites), I couldn't find any trace to the people mentioned in most of the cases, and on further searching it became quite clear that a lot of the inventions couldn't work without breaking the laws of thermo-dynamics.

The thing is that I can logically see why energy companies would want to stifle competition, and they clearly are sharks in some affairs but there isn't much proper evidence to back it up. And if as you say "money that big has a lot of control over information" surely they would have been able to stifle that piece and all the places it's been reposted.

I mean it's not like there's a shortage of equally "damaging" conspiracy stuff on the net which hasn't been taken down yet.