When talking about the driving forces of economic growth, consumption obviously takes the top spot. More consumption also means more production, more activities for the intermediaries, more and possibly better paid jobs, more taxes being paid to the state, more money changing hands and generally more economists and analysts sighing happily while looking at the latest charts. But more production usually implies more natural resources being used, while more consumption usually implies more waste, since products are being replaced and discarded more frequently. And, unfortunately for economists, the planet’s size is quite fixed and its capacity of providing us with non-renewable resources and neutralizing our waste is diminishing the more we abuse it.
That said, it should come as no surprise when a report comes up, stating that economic growth is simply no longer possible under the current circumstances. It’s absolutely logical, despite the expected reactions presented at the end of that article, from people who obviously don’t understand how ecosystems work or that ecosystems are real and exist in any place that contains life but money are an unnecessary human invention that only has any value if we insist on assigning one to it, therefore making any economic system that relies on money equally irrelevant in fact.
What all these people who act so terrified of the necessary economic reductions fail or at least refuse to see is that the current type of overall economic growth is not a requirement of improving the individuals’ quality of life. If anything, halting and then reversing it is a requirement of maintaining, not to mention improving, the quality of life for any significant length of time. All it takes is changing what we understand by economics… Which may not sound easy, but is certainly far easier than changing how the ecosystem works. After all, we created economics and decided how they work, so we can also recreate these systems in a different manner.
An example would be Japan’s situation, even if that still relies on money. Economists are trying to turn that situation around so it will once again match the patterns they’re used to see as beneficial, but in fact the current situation is the desirable one. Why? Because deflation means that people who earn the same amount of money will afford more things if they wait, but also because the fact that they’re delaying new purchases means they make better use of what they already have and therefore reduce both waste and unnecessary consumption, which can only help the environment and therefore improve quality of life even further.
But my main point is that you don’t need overall growth if you want to be able to allocate more resources for each individual. The first thing you really need is less individuals, which means that one prerequisite is a reduction of the population, which is actually a prerequisite of solving pretty much any problem the world is currently facing. If the population drops faster than the economy, you will obviously be able to allocate more resources and products to each individual even if other things remain as they are. But other things shouldn’t remain as they are, because other necessary steps include switching to renewable resources, reducing waste and sharing the available resources more fairly among the people of the world, all of which would ensure that any development would be sustainable and that the people who currently live in the worst conditions would benefit the most from any improvements.
I have an entirely different economic system in mind and maybe someday I’ll even get around to writing about it, but the point I’m trying to make right now is that it’s illogical to assume that overall economic growth is absolutely necessary for the improvement of the individuals’ quality of life and that some significant improvement of the quality of life is possible without any overall growth even if we are to maintain something similar to the current economic system, albeit with certain changes. If anything, this drive for continued overall economic growth only serves to ensure that any additional wealth will continue to be distributed among those who need it least and only dooms us all to constantly declining environmental conditions in the future, meaning that even more production, consumption and expenses would be required just to preserve the current standard of living and making any further growth quite meaningless.
I really think we should look for new indicators and teach analysts to sigh happily when those, and not the ones they’re currently following so desperately, show improvements. They could be happy watching a significant improvement of indicators like the actual overall life satisfaction reported by individuals, especially by the poorest ones, the quality and purity of air and water and other environmental factors, the healthiness of the food eaten by the average person, the amount of living and leisure space available to each person, the amount of free time each person can enjoy, the percentage of recycled materials used in the production of mainstream consumer goods or the useful lifespan of said goods. On the other hand, while it may be hard, they should also be taught to be happy when certain indicators drop, such as the amount of waste generated, the amount of non-renewable resources used, the number and frequency of visits to clinics and hospitals, the number of cars on the roads, the average age of the people who purchase or otherwise end up owning their first homes and so on.
None of those things require overall economic growth, yet they are a few very real indicators that define the actual quality of life enjoyed by people, both directly and indirectly, through the quality and health of their surroundings. That makes them the truly meaningful indicators and therefore the ones that should be followed. Leave money and overall economic growth behind, because their only value is the one humanity decides to give them, usually even at its own expense…
So do tell me who’s the one who fails to understand how things work and what’s really meaningful?
The weather offered me a nice surprise. I knew it was going to get cold again and that some snow was expected, but assumed it’d be mixed with rain and therefore would turn to muck and only be a nuisance. Well, there was a lot of rain too, but I had a nice snowfall to watch yesterday and now I’m looking at another one. Sure, the ground is very wet because of all the rain and the snow has a hard time settling, so you still don’t have a layer on the ground, but at this rate it could just make it, especially since there’s more snow expected over the next few days and temperatures are expected to stay low until the end of next week.
This certainly lifted my spirits a little bit. Hardly enough to counter everything else for any length of time, but at least it helps a little. Especially since that pile of snow I mentioned before was much more resilient than I gave it credit for and there still was just a little of it left when it started snowing yesterday. Now let’s see how long it will really hold. Talking about both the return of winter and my slightly improved mood…
My ideal climate would likely involve something that we could potentially describe as three seasons. That means four months of real winter, with snow covering everything and temperatures likely not going above freezing for at least half that time, and the other eight split between spring and autumn. I’m saying spring and autumn because the end of one and the beginning of the other would obviously involve the highest temperatures, but not quite what the people who live in a temperate climate would currently describe as summer.
Or, actually, it could be better described as having four seasons, but with winter and summer having four months each and spring and summer having two months each, as long as the expected temperatures for summer would drop. I’m saying that because I don’t favor long transition periods, so I’d like the temperature maximums to go from just a little above freezing at the end of winter to around 30°C pretty quickly, let’s say within two months, and then not get noticeably higher for the duration of the summer. And the process would obviously be reversed in two more months after the end of the summer.
Such uneven seasons and such constant temperatures for so long don’t really seem possible, if I’m to go on what I know about star systems and climate patterns, but the general idea of harsher winters and milder summers at temperate latitudes is certainly possible even here on Earth. It’d only require a significant reduction of the greenhouse effect… And there you have a very personal reason of mine to be worried about the direction we’re currently heading in, albeit a minor one compared to all the rest.
But there have been far too many personal posts lately, once again, and I really hope I’ll be able to use the slightly improved mood to write about something else next week. I won’t say that I’ll try to write three posts because that’s highly unlikely, but maybe I’ll at least manage to write two non-personal ones. As always, there’s no lack of topics I mean to write about, just that I’m almost never in the necessary frame of mind…
Writing two non-personal posts would get significantly easier if I’d finish King’s Bounty: The Legend no later than Friday, since in that case I’d be likely to write a review for it and post that as well. That’d probably be the only way to write three posts next week, though even then it’d be unlikely…
Remembering things that make me feel awfully embarrassed is very common, usually happening several times per day and often making me stop and wince very visibly, but lately I’m thinking of things that make me feel guilty more and more often as well. And I’m not really sure why. I feel that almost all of them were, and perhaps still are, fully justified, yet that doesn’t seem to help, so I’m now feeling bad in yet another way. Or at least yet another way of feeling bad is making an appearance much more often.
I won’t say what I’m feeling guilty about here, in a few cases because it wouldn’t be wise, in a few others because I’m not ready to talk about it, and in the rest of cases because I’d add even more embarrassment to the guilt because of how silly they are. But yes, hardly writing anything serious and non-personal on this blog yet again is one of the things that make me feel guilty.
Maybe it has a lot to do with the coming of spring, or at least with the end of winter. Though it’s going to get rather cold again in the next period and I’m even seeing a little snow in the forecasts, but I doubt it’ll be able to settle again, so it’ll just be muck.
But, regardless of temperature, the days are already starting to get too long for my liking. I imagine that by the end of the month I’ll already be very bothered by this, and then it’ll just keep getting worse. Can’t I just find a place where daylight will end a steady three or so hours after the time I wake up without requiring me to wake up later as spring and summer come along?
But spring is making me think of gardening yet again. I know it sounds very strange for someone who hates going out of the house as much as I do, but I still say that I’d like gardening. And would also just want to try to grow my own vegetables and perhaps some plants to make tea from. Even if it’d just be enough for a salad and two cups of tea, it’d be a start and, at the very least, an interesting learning experience.
But that isn’t going to happen. Not just because I don’t have a garden, since I could start with growing some things indoors, but because of lack of freedom of movement around here, seeing as I live with my parents and don’t want to bump into them. If I’d live alone I’d certainly want to try growing some things in pots, mainly on the balcony but perhaps also in rooms other than the one I’d spend most of my time in, so sunlight would be allowed in at all times.
So that’s my current frame of mind: Guilty, embarrassed, irritated and frustrated. On top of the usual bad mood that’s constant since she left, of course. And that’s not going to get any better, seeing as three days from now it’ll be four years since I got thrown back here.
Ethics and business practices have little to nothing in common most of the time, the old adage stating that good business is manufacturing as cheaply as possible as many items as you could possibly sell at the highest possible price being the first rule in the vast majority of cases. Pharmaceutical companies, and the medical sector in general, are perhaps the best and most worrying example in support of that statement, their objective often ending up being to sicken as many people as possible and keep them sick as much as possible, as long as the illness in question can be managed and treated with their products. At worst, they could even resort to releasing diseases that they already have the cure for into the general population, but common scenarios actually include releasing treatments that never really cure the disease though a cure would in fact be possible, ensuring that regulations permitting the use of substances that could cause certain treatable diseases are adopted, making use of all their influence to push competing practices, such as alternative medicine, out of the market and perhaps even into illegality, and making people believe that they need to be medicated when in fact they do not. And this last method is the golden goose, especially when it comes to mental health.
But, despite that introduction, this is not a post about the health of people, but about the health of dogs. Because, you see, while otherwise all the diseases and conditions that can affect all the other species we share this planet with receive perhaps less time and attention from the medical sector than those affecting a single human organ, certain companies have decided that something needs to be done for the mental health of dogs. Which would be a laudable initiative, if only it wouldn’t involve encouraging people to medicate their dogs in order to get rid of behavior patterns that are perfectly normal under the stated conditions, therefore unnecessarily medicating yet another species.
To make it very clear for everyone, if a dog does certain things to let its owner know that it doesn’t like being left alone, the owner should spend more time with their dog! That’s how you get rid of these problems and how you “treat” this condition properly. Because a dog is a living being who has certain needs and desires, so if you get one you should be ready to fulfill those needs and desires, not figure out ways to remove them when they become inconvenient. Putting it bluntly, if you want something that’ll just be fluffy and cuddly and not bother you when you don’t want it to, you should get a stuffed toy, not a real animal!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the lack of response to a certain stimulus or situation usually considered a sign of disease or malfunction? If so, wouldn’t that mean that the dog’s brain is functioning exactly as it should if you’re really leaving it alone and it reacts to its situation? And wouldn’t that mean that, by reducing or even completely removing this response through medication, you’re actually causing your dog’s brain to function abnormally and potentially creating even worse problems in the long run?
Also, perhaps as a curiosity, I ask you to compare the list of symptoms the drug supposedly alleviates and the list of potential side effects. Interesting, isn’t it?
Of course, the drug itself is nothing new, as it had been approved for use in the USA a few years ago, but the fact that it has now been accepted on an European market as well is a huge step forward for pharmaceutical companies and all others who generally try to gain the most out of every situation by manipulating people, and a huge step back for anyone advocating a correct approach to medical conditions in general or even to the relationships between humans and members of other species.
But what would you expect when you take into account some of the changes that will apparently make it into the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? It follows the general rule that mental health professionals have been sticking to for the past several decades: Stick a “disorder” label on every possible behavior pattern, even if it’s absolutely normal, come up with a treatment for it that will earn you as much as possible and then convince as many people as possible that they suffer from the disorder in question and require your treatment. Oh, and also come up with better ways to keep the relatively few people who actually do have serious mental health issues out of sight and out of mind of the general population, not that much because they’d be a threat to themselves and others but mainly because it wouldn’t be profitable to find real cures for them and because the others may start making comparisons and realize, despite your best efforts, that there’s nothing actually wrong with them after all. And don’t forget to convince parents that there’s something very wrong with their children and your products are the only solution. But, as a backup measure, you may also replace children with pets and try once more.
On a somewhat different note, there’s one more thing that I want to point out because it has to do with pets and I believe it’s unethical: The pet washing machine. I firmly believe that having a machine wash your pet because you can’t be bothered to do it yourself and either can’t or don’t want to pay for a groomer is simply wrong. (I also think that using the services of a groomer or pet stylist is wrong, but it’s by far the lesser evil.) Not necessarily because the machine may cause injuries to the pet, but because using it proves that you can’t be bothered to give your pet the time and attention it needs, so its existence encourages unfit pet owners to become even worse, potentially making the pet mental health business flourish even more in the near future.
Yes, I’m fucking pissed. Or at least I made myself be pissed after spending three hours trying to get out of bed and only managing when I got angry enough to just get up in a rage, so that mood persisted. I guess turning sadness into rage can work for a little while. Not that this would be a new discovery, as it happened quite a few times before as well.
For the most part, the reasons are the usual ones… Plus certain skin problems flaring up again, which is awfully irritating. Plus something else I noticed a couple of days ago, which reminded me once again how much of a coward I am. Plus people rambling, without necessarily talking to me, about that utterly idiotic concept that happiness has little to nothing to do with external factors and is mainly a personal decision. Plus the fact that winter’s over…
I hoped there would be some traces of snow left outside my window at the end of the week, and perhaps a little even on Monday, but I’m not so sure anymore. There is a small area where snow takes longer to melt and a pile of snow formed somewhere by people who cleared it off other areas, but I’m starting to doubt that even those will last that long. Two days, most likely, but four or five seems quite improbable.
As always since she left, I just wish I’d wake up and realize that all this time has only been a very bad dream. Failing that, I wish she’d talk to me again, I’d learn that the thing I fear most didn’t happen and isn’t going to happen, we’d get close very quickly and then be together again within a reasonable time frame. Failing even that, I wish I was close to someone I could talk and cuddle with, probably preferably someone who’d be in a similar situation so she’d understand and we could just cry on each other’s shoulders and lick each other’s wounds, as they say, cutting ourselves away from the rest of the world as much as possible.
But failing all of those, I just want to smash something, or even someone, all right?
