>>> jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk 06/28/00 10:39AM >>>
In message <20000628095906.A20386 at panix.com>, Gordon Fitch
<gcf at panix.com> writes
>Such things as the exhaustion of important resources and
>catastrophic breakdowns of the environment have been noticed
>on a small scale before now; I can supply examples if necessary.
Yes, please do. Gutta Percha, perhaps? My point is that some specifically named natural phenomena might reach exhaustion, but there is no record of any reversal of the increasing rate of interchange between man and nature, ever. There are no absolute boundaries to human development, only relative, and generally social ones.
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CB: Of all the species that have gone extinct, might many of them have had no record of any reversal of an increasing rate of interchange between them and nature, up until very close to extinction ? I can't quite understand how no record of reversal of increasing rate in the past insures no such reversal in the future at some time. Of course , that doesn't say a "future" reversal is imminent, but what about the possibility of a midterm future reversal ?
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>As human powers of production and transformation increase,
>then, it seems certain that misadventures of these kinds will
>become increasingly likely on a broader scale, especially if
>(as is now the case) those in authority and their flacks deny
>the possibility.
'Seems certain'? Isn't it precisely those things that seem certain that ought to be questioned. You seek to demonise counter-arguments ahead of time as the work of government spokesmen. But it is government spokesmen who have done most to insist upon the limits to development, and naturalise the engineered scarcity of capitalist societies.
-- James Heartfield
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