Digg:
It had potential, but after becoming an ai news aggregator now there’s none.
Lemmy:
Low engagement / kinda dead. Also, I have heard that the growth is slowing down(somebody pls provide a citation for this).
Besides that, it’s pretty much reddit, for better or for worse.
9gag:
I just made a post there, my first impressions are not good. Got insulted and my post got removed. Now, that might have something to do with me not understanding how the website works, but only time will tell. I will spend more time there to see if it’s worth anything.
Developing and advancing does not mean continuing consumerism. The overproduction of cheap plastic goods and planned obsolescence are purely problems of capital, not socialism. We can develop more intelligently, without relying on a system that requires production of endless trinkets at the destruction of the environment. Extraction will not end, sure, but it can be done more intelligently, and it can be minimized.
Historical socialism has faced numerous problems due to lack of development. They didn’t simply develop to compete, but because the basis of socialism is in large industry. We cannot freeze history at a communalist level where we are hunter/gatherers, we have to advance to socialism so that we can actually intelligently solve problems leading to climate change and environmental destruction, rather than having capitalism ensure it is destroyed.
Communist ecology is a wide field, and you’d do well to study it.
No one is arguing to freeze history and return to being hunter-gatherers. That seems like a real strawman. I am talking about a steady-state economy where we actually live within our physical means, rather than assuming we can just innovate our way out of finite planetary boundaries.
You keep saying we can extract “intelligently” and “minimize” it, but you have to look at the actual material math of the green transition you keep praising. Building solar panels, wind turbines, and global electric vehicle fleets for billions of people requires an unprecedented scale of mining for lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare earth metals. There is no “intelligent” way to strip mine the deep sea or destroy lithium salt flats that makes it ecologically harmonious. Planning just makes the destruction more organized. The physical limits of the planet do not care how smart our five-year plans are.
You say large industry is the basis of socialism, but large industry is exactly what caused the massive metabolic rift with nature in the first place. Capitalism absolutely accelerated it, but the industrial metabolism itself requires a massive throughput of the natural world. Communist ecology has a lot of great theory, but if it ignores the hard limits to growth and assumes we can infinitely develop our productive forces on a finite planet, it is repeating the exact same productivist mistakes as capitalism. It is just substituting red flags for green ones while the mines keep digging.
I’ll gladly revisit communist ecology as soon as it stops ignoring the real material limits of our planet. This explains your fears of me being on a ‘eco-fascist pipeline’ though i guess. I want to conserve the commons specifically to guarantee abundance and avoid the scarcity that breeds fascism. You, on the other hand, want a centralized state to continue forcing industrial extraction and advancement on a finite planet. When your planned development inevitably hits the hard ecological walls you refuse to acknowledge, it won’t be the profit motive deciding who gets the last of the resources. It will be your socialist state. And a state forcing through industrial limits for the ‘greater good of historical progress’ is a lot closer to the architecture of fascism than a community trying to protect its water from a lithium mine.
I know we’ve strayed a bit far from the initial talking points(via most of my best points being ignored and retreated from, mind you), but I have to ask, surely you have enough context to no longer be puzzled/confused by the meaning of one characterized as a ‘moderately conservative communist’? Did I clarify enough, or only muddy the waters further? If I did clarify enough, what label would you assign yourself in contrast to me and my position? Would it be better (or more productive lol) for me to take on the label of ‘degrowth communist’? I feel I understand my position more confidently, but I’m still pretty lost on where your initial confusion stemmed from.
Communist ecology does not ignore the material limits of reality, that’s a strawman. Advancing recycling, renewable materials, renewable energy sources, all of it requires more advanced technology, but can be done in a fashion that does not harm the environment. My point is that degrowth does not work, and actually works against the capabilities of advanced ecology. We need to advance onto socialism as quickly as possible so as to end overconsumption and overproduction, but we should not try to freeze where we are at.
I guess what I am trying to say is that advancement does not mean endless production, and large industry does not mean overproduction and overconsumption.
You say advancement doesn’t mean endless production, but you haven’t explained what physically stops it. You are treating advanced recycling and renewable technology like a magic wand that bypasses the laws of physics. Thermodynamics dictates that recycling is never one hundred percent efficient, and building the infrastructure for a global green energy grid requires a staggering amount of initial extraction. You cannot build solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries out of thin air.
You also keep using the word freeze, but I am not arguing for freezing society. Degrowth is not about returning to the Stone Age. It is about intentionally shrinking the parts of the economy that are actively destroying the planet, like fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and the military industrial complex.
You claim large industry does not mean overproduction, but what exactly limits it under socialism? If the state is trying to meet human needs, and industrial advancement constantly creates new needs as fast as it solves old ones, how do you prevent the system from just producing more? You assume removing the profit motive removes the drive for endless consumption, but the culture of advancement itself creates that desire. Without a hard commitment to physical limits, your planned large industry will still overconsume, just more efficiently.
The reason for overproduction is because the profit motive requires the sale of as many commodities as possible. Socialism essentially means we can scientifically plan production and distribution, meaning we aren’t constrained by this any longer. As for the bits you are talking about like fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and the military industrial complex, we aren’t at odds here, these are products of capitalism and the profit motive.
Advancement is not a “culture.” It is a historical process. You are confusing the problems of capitalism to be problems of culture, and not material conditions, which leads to errors in judgment. All environmentalism going forward requires socialism as a basis, which will end overconsumption because the base of overconsumption is overproduction for sale of commodities.
You argue that removing the profit motive removes overproduction, but you are treating “human needs” as a fixed, objective metric that planners can just calculate. Advancing industry inherently creates new needs. A hundred years ago, indoor plumbing was a luxury; now it is a basic need. As technology advances, the material baseline of what humans require to participate in society advances with it. A socialist state aiming to provide for an advancing society will have to extract the resources to meet those constantly expanding needs.
If your scientific planners realize that meeting those advancing needs will destroy the lithium salt flats or the deep sea, and they choose to restrict production to save the environment, they are intentionally limiting consumption. That is degrowth.
You say I am confusing capitalism with culture, but you are treating “scientific planning” like magic that can bypass thermodynamics. Planning how much to extract does not change the physical impact of the extraction itself. Whether a capitalist or a socialist planner orders the mining of cobalt, the local ecosystem is destroyed. Removing the profit motive changes who gets the wealth, but it does not change the physical reality that large scale industry consumes the natural world.
You are correct that the profit motive drives overproduction under capitalism. But once profit is gone, you still have a system that demands the continuous development of productive forces. Without a hard commitment to ecological limits, your planned economy will still consume the planet, just more equitably.
The “need motive” is not what you think it is. There is not an imperitive to endlessly expand. I am not treating scientific planning like it can bypass thermodynamics, that is a strawman. Profit doesn’t just change distribution, it changes production, because profit needs more sales. This creates new demand that then is fulfilled, this is the basics of why socialist ecology is necessary.
Again, the “need motive” does not have the same endless feedback loop that the profit motive does.
You say the need motive does not have an endless feedback loop, but I think you are really ignoring how need scales with technological advancement. When socialism develops new medical treatments and/or better housing those immediately become new basic rights. The standard of living constantly rises which requires constant material input. Advancing society expands the definition of what people need to live a dignified life.
Even if we accept that the need motive lacks the artificial acceleration of the profit motive, you still have to face the baseline. Providing a modern, dignified standard of living for 8 billion people with housing, healthcare, and green energy already requires an ecological footprint that exceeds the Earth’s capacity.
We do not need an endless feedback loop to hit ecological collapse. The starting line is already unsustainable. Stopping the profit loop just means we crash into the wall at a steady speed instead of accelerating. To actually live within planetary boundaries, we have to intentionally shrink the material baseline of our consumption. That is degrowth. You cannot simply assume that meeting human needs will automatically align with the Earth’s carrying capacity, because right now, they do not.
I’m aware that advancements also elevate living standards. However, your conception of this necessitating destruction of the environment is incorrect, and this is not at all the same as capitalism’s incessant drive towards accumulation. Degrowth as a focus is the wrong approach, advanced technology like developed rail systems actually save the environment more than car-centric infrastructure. We have to advance further to protect the environment, and combine that with climate-focuses approaches, not slow our advancement and stick with small-scale production, which is less environmentally efficient.
Degrowth is a trap. Environmentalist socialism is necessary, and is the actual way to protect and preserve the environment. Socialism will end fast fashion, incessant trinket production, and more that currently only serve to accelerate capital accumulation, while advancing technology that is more environmentally efficient.
It’s really as simple as this.