How close do you think we are? We seem to be close to hitting peak consumption. How much longer before the system falls down around us? Try to keep this non political, because no one country is responsible for this. How much longer do you think *the system* can last with an economy built on consumption? :nerd: Note that I'm not talking about mass extinction or any nonsense like that.
naaahh capitalism has always been this way... overproduction vs subconsumption is what drives our western world , multinational firms produce more and better , and stok em just to be one step ahead from competition. Then aggresive marketing takes the lead forcing consumers into thinking they need the newer product. As long as money flows back to the pockets of consumers this works fine. Problems start to arise once the "HEADS" decide they need MORE money in their pockets and therefore decrease the flow of money back to consumers by decreasing wages , increasing taxes , forcing governments into recession by manipulating titles etc karl marx knew all about this long ago
Nah. Not close. Because there are ways out, and people know them. They will just be implemented when things can't go any further in order to perpetuate the thing. We have genetically modified crops to yield more and people now are shouting "bad bad". When normal crops stop giving in developed countries, people will start shouting "why aren't you planting those other ones?!" Consumption peaked? Hardly. It just shifted. Instead of changing their cpu every 6 months people change their phones...
i believe humans will eventuallllllllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy (emphasis on eventually (hopefully)) see the sh!t and take evasive maneuvers
This isn't a doomsday prophecy. I'm legitimately curious how much longer our economic model is sustainable. For the record, wages have stagnated while costs of living have increased. That's a problem that can be fixed. But what about the whole dependence on people always buying "new". At what point can people simply not afford to do that anymore? When we reach that point, the system has gone full circle and will grind to a halt. It also doesn't help that our population is increasing exponentially, and the wealth gap is increasing too. Latest estimates that I saw peg the richest .1% having control of around 50% of the entire global wealth. So no, I'm not talking about "the end of the world". Just our current system.
Hehe, yeah, hope... the problem is, our system in the western world is by default a capitalist system, and that won't change soon. See the "best" universities, the professors there teach the same crap they've been teaching the last 50 years considering ecnonomy and business, which simply is a faulty system. As long as there won't be a general consent, as well as the right people agreeing on it in the top positions, nothing will change. You won't see any big business guys give away something for free, or make less profit except when they aquire a totally new mindset... But yeah, nice trollbait anyway
People in the top positions already do a lot... Inhumanely lot.... but capitalism has nothing to do with humanity anyways. trying to control population in third world countries , making war so as to revive frozen economies , taking over new resources so as to maintain our western civilization and such... And when there will be no third world countries left to invade , western countries will fight each other , resulting in huge destruction and huge reconstruction costs and then all countries will agree that a new debt inflation round will start and so on.... it goes around
A very good question and one a bit more complex to be answered easily. I'm sure there's study dedicated to just this question. Anyhow, my take on it is this in very basic Sinclair BASIC... 10 REM Circles 20 print "Press any key to see the future" 30 if input = "any" then go to 40 40 print "With the economic rise of China and Chinese citizens becoming slowly aware that they are human and deserved of rights they eventually start demanding higher wages and better conditions. In effect a revolt. Once they have their new revolution the west won't have the cheap mass production facility it has at the moment. Things over here will grow expensive again. So step in India, who are a relatively politically enlightened country compared to China. When the Indian manufacturing sector grows to standards as China's they too will collapse as they will attempt higher working and living standards, not through revolt but as a driven goal by a democratic country. The west will have to again return to being much more industrialised in regard to manufacture and of course wages will drop. Then the east starts slowing and it all starts to swap again and keeps going thus in circles." 50 go to 20
THX1138 explains how the world will continue on in a comsumerist economy. Consumerism is an indirect threat. Food production is more of one. Few decades ago it was easy to increase output since a majority of farmers were not using up-to-date scientific methods to increase yields; not talking about genetic modification. Now the majority are. It is not uncommon anymore to see contries buying land in underdeveloped contries and farm it only to export the food back to their country. As afluence builds in emerging countries more of a strain will be put on the food supply in general. This is stated simplistically but is what I feel is one of the true limitting factors. EDIT: TERMINUS may not have been too far off; SOILENT GREEN.
+1. I'm all for the overly concerned "global citizens" starting a hemlock society to deal with the guilt of not living in western africa.:banana:
I don't think there is something like this. A bigger problem are unbalanced exports and imports between countrys some countrys are building billions of claims and the other billions of liability.
Oh Ebola will reap some then we will see some new light at the end of the tunnel. Btw if humanity is to end it will wither away not go boom Our planet isn't going anywhere that is for sure.
