Originally Posted by McBTC

Originally Posted by PaulH

The answer is that we have been so oversaturated on advertising that we just tune it out. People in the former Soviet Union came to have the same response to propaganda. I'd say it is fairly widespread. This may be particularly true of the Baby Boom generation, who were exposed early to fraudulent advertisements targeted at them and came to see everything as a con.

Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike

Speaking of simple lifestyles, I'm listening to a book of essays by Evan Wright published in the book Hella Nation. One of the essays is relevant to the discussion of simple lifestyles and extreme economic/cultural theories promoted by at least one posteron this list. The essay discusses "future primitives" that have somehow managed to turn love of "Mother earth" into a cult of apocalyptic doom. The essay first appeared in Rolling Stone in 2000 and id described at: johnshaplin: Anarchism in America by Evan Wright

Except from the essay :
"Portland, Oregon-based author and thinker John Zarzan, who describes himself as a "leading theorist of the anti-civilization movement"- what he sometimes calls the "primitivist movement". Zerzan came of age as an antiwar protester in San Francisco in the 1960s. Employed as a social worker by the city, he earned a master's degree in history from San Francisco State University and gradually evolved from being a garden-variety left-wing activist to an anti-technology theorist. In 1988 he published Elements of Refusal, a collection of essays in which he began to formulate his argument that all technology developed since about the time of the Paleolithic era has harmed the human race."
[SKIP]

"By the time our salads arrive, Zerzan is explaining the desired end state of the current anarchist-environmental movement as he and Kaczynski see it: to dismantle civilization and turn the clock back to the Paleolithic era, aka the Stone Age.

"You mean so we can live like cavemen?" I ask.

Zerzan laughs and assumes a professorial air as he labors to erase my ignorance. "Think of our ancestors as wonderful primitives, not cavemen," he says. "Before agriculture and animal husbandry," Zerzan states, "when we were a hunter-gather society, there was equality between people and between genders. There was no war and no pollution. There was leisure time. Disease was unknown. Cancer did not exist." Zerzan smiles. "How wonderful the Paleolithic era was."

Zerzan refers to the harbingers of this new age- young anarchists like Wingnut- as 'future primitives". As I get to know Wingnut better, the influences of Zerzan become clear. "What needs to happen for Earth to survive is for a few billion people on this planet to be killed off," Wingnut tells me. "I'm not saying I want it to happen, or that I would try to make it happen. But people are a disease to the planet. If there is nuclear war, good riddance. Some of us will be out here surviving at the hunter-gathering level, where we belong."

Wingnut, his anarchist friends and mentors like Zerzan and Kaczynski have somehow managed to turn love of "Mother earth" into a cult of apocalyptic doom."

Originally Posted by 350htrr

Simply that they went from 29% car ownership to 31% car ownership in the last few years, Oh, No, they too are getting seduced... Hard to fight the man...

Originally Posted by McBTC

Manual threshing of wheat? Buggy whips? Less sanitation, dirtier water, cooking over a wood fire?

Originally Posted by 350htrr

Really? Nobody here is preaching anything like that, a bit of restraint is what people here seem to want in general...

Originally Posted by McBTC

...the tax man... what with the, Danish 180% Tax on Cars

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

Lets be clear about this? You are saying that after reading all of these posts "No one" is preaching giving up income for free time? No one is preaching that we need to give up air conditioning? No one is saying we don't need central heating? No one has put forward the idea of acceptable poverty? "No one" is saying we focus to much on comfort and ease and not enough on sacrifice for the common good? No one? No one has suggested trading their labor in a barter system as being a solution they favor?

And no I am not going to go back and bring up the quotes.

But it was a interesting take on things.

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

Lets be clear about this? You are saying that after reading all of these posts "No one" is preaching giving up income for free time? No one is preaching that we need to give up air conditioning? No one is saying we don't need central heating? No one has put forward the idea of acceptable poverty? "No one" is saying we focus to much on comfort and ease and not enough on sacrifice for the common good? No one? No one has suggested trading their labor in a barter system as being a solution they favor?

And no I am not going to go back and bring up the quotes.

But it was a interesting take on things.

Originally Posted by McBTC

...the tax man... what with the, Danish 180% Tax on Cars

Originally Posted by cooker

They seem to be happy with it: 1 - Denmark - In Photos: The World's 10 Happiest Countries

Originally Posted by McBTC

The happiness scale is what you go to when you cannot point to the GDP per capital scale. "Average gross domestic product (GDP) in the US is about 40% higher than average GDP of the EU-15 when measured at purchasing power parity (PPP)." A EU study found that if part of the US, EU nations would fall among the 5 poorest states. Looking at the GDP of Denmark can be compared to looking at the GDP of Indiana, right next door to Sweden... I mean, Ohio.

Originally Posted by cooker

First of all, you are referring to one person who has unique views - it's not like its a movement. Secondly, none of those ideas is actually so far out. You worry about heat islands - they could be greatly ameliorated with various engineering solutions that capitalize on natural and/or passive heating and cooling techniques including shade trees and awnings and so on, and more reliance on human climactic adaptation - a greatly underappreciated talent and resource - instead of the high-energy brute force techniques in use now. Giving up materialism and serving others are actually core beliefs of the religion that is supposedly dominant in these parts (and of which I believe that poster is a practitioner) and it is shocking how many people claim to adhere to it and yet reject its tenets. Underground economies including barter are one of the ways many people are coping with economic uncertainty nowadays.

Originally Posted by McBTC

The happiness scale is what you go to when you cannot point to the GDP per capital scale. "Average gross domestic product (GDP) in the US is about 40% higher than average GDP of the EU-15 when measured at purchasing power parity (PPP)." A EU study found that if part of the US, EU nations would fall among the 5 poorest states. Looking at the GDP of Denmark can be compared to looking at the GDP of Indiana, right next door to Sweden... I mean, Ohio.

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

Lets be clear about this? You are saying that after reading all of these posts "No one" is preaching giving up income for free time? No one is preaching that we need to give up air conditioning? No one is saying we don't need central heating? No one has put forward the idea of acceptable poverty? "No one" is saying we focus to much on comfort and ease and not enough on sacrifice for the common good? No one? No one has suggested trading their labor in a barter system as being a solution they favor?

And no I am not going to go back and bring up the quotes.

But it was a interesting take on things.

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

That then makes my point. Someone has made the assertions it was suggested "No one" makes. Unless the one posting such things is a no one? And others have encouraged such suggestions.

Originally Posted by Roody

Your reading skills are apparently not the best. And your aversion to using the website's quote function,or otherwise backing your outlandish claims, is well known.

Originally Posted by cooker

"No one" is advocating the cultish paleolithic primitive lifestyle I-Like-To-Bike referenced. You were the person who falsely equated that with some of tandempower's ideas, and I am pointing out that his are not actually as extreme or ridiculous as you imply.

Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike

You and a couple of other posters are working overtime in supporting each others' P&R "ideas", no matter how extreme or ridiculous the posted P&R"thinking" .
BTW, see https://www.bikeforums.net/18990521-post125.html

Originally Posted by cooker

Damn, they can't have the GDP of the US so they have to settle for being happy. I feel bad for them.

Actually part of the reason is greater economic equality. A lot of Americans aren't getting a very big piece of the action of all that GDP. No matter how happy the Kochs are, they don't bring up the national happiness average much.