The Age of Stupid
polycounter lvl 18
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s[/ame]
from wikipedia:
"The Age of Stupid is a 2009 British film by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel and founder of 10:10, and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. The Executive Producer is John Battsek, producer of One Day in September.
The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
http://www.ageofstupid.net/
i just saw this movie, right now i am in thinking of how to help our planet. i mean, i thought a lot about this before, but now i just can't find a place for myself to not do anything.
have you saw this? what's your impression? we can't just sit and look how the world plunges into the ass...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjsJdokC0s[/ame]from wikipedia:
"The Age of Stupid is a 2009 British film by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel and founder of 10:10, and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. The Executive Producer is John Battsek, producer of One Day in September.
The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archive footage from the mid-to-late 2000s and asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Stupid
http://www.ageofstupid.net/
i just saw this movie, right now i am in thinking of how to help our planet. i mean, i thought a lot about this before, but now i just can't find a place for myself to not do anything.
have you saw this? what's your impression? we can't just sit and look how the world plunges into the ass...
Replies
You have to draw a line somewhere between becoming a total hippy versus being a total consumer whore, but most people seem to think it's all or nothing. My wife and I still use some plastic and whatnot, but generally we produce about a trash bag of trash once every two weeks, and about the same with recycling (usually more recycling but we have a good recycling program here).
We try to do what we can, and I know it's cheesy but doing something is better than doing nothing at all. I don't think there's an easy solution because it is impossible for us to continue living the way we do; it's totally unsustainable. I think things will have to get pretty bad before large groups of people start living more sustainably, mostly just because the only way people learn is the hard way :P
go monarchy?
Our world is made to please the ego, here and now. Money, drugs, fame, material gain over spiritual... the cycle of ignorance is too global to stop it, I fear, not without a change of heart. So long as people put their own egos over nature, we will continue to plunder its resources for our own, immediate and personal gain.
In aboriginal cultures, it is a custom when a decision has to be made and the collective elders gather, the main factor considered is how will that decision affect 7 (!) generations ahead. That's such a stark contrast to what stands in front of our governments eyes when they make theirs...
My point is, it's the companies themselves literally co-writing the laws that regulate them. As in, representatives from affected industries are part of the lawmaking process to such an extent that they sit in on the meetings and demand or decline parts of new bills to be included before Congress gets a vote. Officially, they have no influence, but in practice, it's they're "campaign contributions", etc., that will determine whether or not these bills are passed; which is why they're involved in the writing/revision process. They're regulated by the government, but they negotiate their own regulations.
Maybe that's just democracy in action, or maybe it's bribery. But regardless of the principles and ethics involved, it's what allows the billion dollar US industries to keep effing up the planet.
Meanwhile, at the state level, it's cool to see what Schwarzenegger is trying to do with the energy in California. I don't live there and I don't know much about the details or how it's going to affect other things there, but it looks like he at least has the right idea.
Cojax, can you provide some studies for that? I would be interested.
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/pO7SM7M-The-Age-Of-Stupid-Full#zoomed
cojax, its a bit more than a simple scientific theory;)
You're also right in that everyone driving an electric car is not goign to fix anything, the problem is much bigger.
This isn't just about global warming, it's about the clusterfuck that we're creating with overconsumption at all levels. I agree "green washing" is ridiculous, that's why it's about consumption, not just changing what we're consuming.
someone watched the day after tomorrow one too many times ;-)
jk I hope this is actually the truth. that way we will hopefully be less F*ed.
Person A "Oh hey i thought you were all about (blue), why are you doing that?"
Person B "Oh i quit (blue) a friend told me that it was bad and stuff, now I'm all about (red)!"
Person A "Oh cool i should try (red) too!"
^pretty much sums up humanity.
Cyreal, look up a a visual history of the planet over the last 4 billion years. It swings from hot to cold every 100 thousand years. We just so happen to be in the middle of the mild period between the overly hot and overly cold.
I mean this seems to be a main thread in a lot of modern story telling, video games especially.
Maybe I`m just getting older, and every generation has its apocalyptic anxieties, Or maybe it has to do with the US no longer being on top of the dog pile. Maybe it has to do with a little climate change causing a bit of ruckus?
but either way I feel this weird primal instinct kickin in thats telling me to brace myself. Part of me thinks I should be scared, but in all honesty I cant feel anything else but excited.
!!!BRING IT ON!!!
Well as our CO2 levels are high, they are not as high as they have been in the past... our WAY far back past but our past. So yeah all we can do is speed up the switch from a moderate period to a hot, so it can before a very cold again.
Konstruct,
"Maybe I`m just getting older, and every generation has its apocalyptic anxieties, Or maybe it has to do with the US no longer being on top of the dog pile."
You nailed it!
Things are not like they used to be... WERE ALL GOING TO DIE! IT'S A SIGN OF THE END OF DAYS!
As for over population, fixed by... women working and medicine. You don't have time to be a baby making machine when your working 9-5. Add that on top of the survival chances are much greater for kids, so you don't need to have a as many kids to ensure your seed is passed on.
in complete honesty I feel a similar way. I've felt that something is gonna happen pretty soon that a lot of people are going to be put into very bad situations... like you said, its more of an ingrained thing, like that primal instinct you mention, something that doesn't sit quite right with you when you think about everything thats happening in the world...
Thegodzero - Agreed.
Lobbies freak me out honestly.
Thanks for reminding me about that movie, Conte! Forgot about it, but wanted to watch it.
thirded.
Can't shake this feeling that things are deceptively calm. I keep hearing about things like the systemic releasing of methane gas that is frozen in permafrost caused by global warming; how it feeds into a cycle that releases more methane. It's things like that make me think that the obvious problems aren't really obvious. They're there, so to speak, but their impact is hidden until it's too late. Cataclysmic changes that occur too quickly to really deal with comfortably.
The general lopsided quality to everything in our times globally (the burdens of society, distribution of wealth, education, and culture, etc.) seems too out of whack to support a global society, which we're becoming.
Which gives rise to things like Bin Laden and Global Terrorism, Global Warming, Katrina and Haiti, gluttonous consumerism and tea baggers.
Things are getting tense in the disparities between nominal systems and dangerous ones.
I mean, in a way the cold war was as tense as it gets. The thing is though it's black and white cutthroat nature kind of hid all the other problems that were starting to rise, and are here now.
Not to mention those nukes still exist, and the problems they pose still do too.
So if you ask me, things are just as bad as ever if not worse.
That's my mindset too, pior.
Bingo.
People also apparently forgot the cold winter we just had.
You can never win with the climate change folks. They play both sides of the coin. People were crying out "extreme weather" a few months ago. But if it was the warmest winter we've had in a while then they say "see...global warmingz!1"
I share konstruct's concern that something bad is coming. I think of this often. But the environment is the least of our worries. 100 trillion in unfunded baby-boomer liabilities is a much greater concern to me. I fear a currency collapse far more. All that bailout money for the banks seems to be making its way into the system now. $80+ per barrel of oil we hit just recently was attained at a much faster pace than it did a couple years ago. Commodities like this have an inverse relationship to the dollar.
High unemployment + rising costs + savings wiped out = disaster. A financial apocalypse is what I worry about far more than a few temperature degree changes in either direction.
"So, be sure next mealtime to ask for your free sep-tua-centennial cupcake in a cup."
I hear if you reserve a hover chair now they throw in a free round of virtual golf...
Add to it that there is a social war against having kids. When was the last time "I'm pregnant" wasn't met with "oh sh!t... you're f*cked".
The people that listen get the message, "don't have kids they ruin your life...". The problem is no one ever finishes that conversion and prepares them to actually have kids when the actually decide to have them
"Your life is over, this thing just destroyed every hope you've ever had of being happy" is not the good way to start off being a parent.
Climate change = more extreme weather, global warming would cause colder winters and hotter summers.
If you ask me, this is why space travel, and colonization needs to be the #1 world priority. everyone needs to put aside all their bullshit, and pull together in the most bad ass space race the world has ever seen.
its time to abandon ship suckaz!
Man-made or not should be the debate.
Shall I bring out climategate again? :poly124:
This is better...
http://books.google.com/books?id=DJxlzuOdK2IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=unstoppable+global+warming&source=bl&ots=vZiNw9pOYF&sig=GeObsomV9vZMef2RPY5t6vx0fsQ&hl=en&ei=onHSS_r5EIL_8AbClP0O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
wether or not were actually screwed or not should be the debate, We need to get a move on if were gonna get our asses into space.
smartest thing iv heard all month. Frisbee golf this weekend btw! lol
zombies... :thumbup:
edit: also as a note to the electric car hub-ub earlier... They run on electricity, batteries need charging, the majority of the world has its electricity charged via coal.
And solar and wind energy can't be more than 10% of our energy grids because there's no form of energy storage, and they could cause black outs or put too much power in the grid. That's why countries/states export a lot of their wind power.
I'm sure it's not the only perspective out there with a ton of pretty graphs and charts to back them up though.
Unfortunately most of us would go down with the ship suckaz. :[
And the super smart, and the richest assholes would fly off into the great unknown.
Just kill off about 3 billion people, maybe four billion and we'll certainly make a dent in that resource consumption.
Best thing is we'd only set our population numbers back 50 years.
Prophetic or not, I think we can all agree that anything promoting a greater mass awareness of the damage our species does to this planet and itself as a global community, is a good thing. It reminded me of something Terence Mckenna once said.
What strikes me as a pessimistic reality is that we all sit here assuming there are knowledgeable people out there, scientists, environmentalists and what-have-you who have their finger on Earth's pulse. They know what's going on, they've got all the answers and they're dealing with it. The sad truth is there's most likely no one capable enough taking care of business for us. Everybody's helplessly looking around hoping someone's in charge...
A global society gives rise to Katrina and Bin Laden, what a load of crap :poly127:.
Kinda proves what I said earlier and where 'I thought' Cojax was going with his post. "Man-made global warming" apologists have already got it set in their heads to believe one side of the science no matter what. If this last season was one of the warmer winters we've ever had on record then the climate change believers would be playing that card to the hilt, of course.
For those who are truly interested in the topic instead of playing "follow the leader" it is good to read and watch stuff on both sides of the coin.
The more I've looked into the "green push" the more it just seems like a money making scam for certain industries to profit while taking from others. I'd say we have more investigating to do before we decide to cap, tax, and trade ourselves to death with some new government bureaucracy. The panic button people are hitting with this stuff seems a bit too alarmist for my blood.
edit: btw I aint no republican. The google book I posted was written by a democrat if memory serves.
We'd get there much faster if the government would declassify things like Roswell so we can copy that alien technology.
http://www.disclosureproject.org/
**cue x-files music**
If reason is causing problems then it isn't very reasonable.
If science is causing problems then it's because of the phony reasoning around it.
Phony reasoning is the weapon of choice of unbridled capitalism.
I think it's important that all people remember 'their leaders/experts are for better or worse, just as human as they are. No monkey on this rock flying through space has perfected the art of living here yet and none of us has all the answers. We're all just passing through this life, trying to work out what the fuck is going on.
acc> A good point sir. I think 'Mckenna also went on to talk about the way capitalism/materialism uses scientific/technological advancements to justify it's dominance in the cultures of modern societies. I suppose that's why we are where we are as consumers, always chasing the newest toys, unaware of what they're really costing the rest of the world.
Right? And don't give me any of that bullshit "science" to explain to me how global warming can make things colder...
lol
edit, in case this needs any elaboration: The amount of damage to our natural resources and the portion of land rendered unlivable by all out nuclear/chemical warfare definitely outweighs the potential gains, even if you were being purely sociopathic about it.