Endgame

[534634634265]

a (so far) excellent read from Derrick Jensen.
have you read it? if so, thoughts?
i think he writes well but restates himself too often, assuming the reader doesn't grasp his point fully. it can be an annoying detractor to an otherwise awesome read.

[Sentinel]

I haven't read it, but Jensen is a primitivist so I doubt many here would agree with whatever he has to say.. Could we get a link though?

[534634634265]

its a book. if i could link you to it i most definitely would.
also, to label anyone a primitivist or a lifestylist or a whatever-ist is a really nice little tool for minimizing and diminishing that person and their respective beliefs.

[Sentinel]

its a book. if i could link you to it i most definitely would.

Ok, some of his texts are available online so I thought it might be.


also, to label anyone a primitivist or a lifestylist or a whatever-ist is a really nice little tool for minimizing and diminishing that person and their respective beliefs.

Obviously if a label is unjustified, it's unfair -- but that doesn't mean all labels are misleading. Applying the label primitivist to Jensen, for instance, is quite descriptive of him after what I've read by him.

He does seem a little bit less of a lunatic than the blithering idiot John Zerzan, though -- but not much.

[Dimentio]

a (so far) excellent read from Derrick Jensen.
have you read it? if so, thoughts?
i think he writes well but restates himself too often, assuming the reader doesn't grasp his point fully. it can be an annoying detractor to an otherwise awesome read.

I have seen three lectures by him. Rhetorically, he is skilled. Contentfully, he is full of shit. Technology is the basis of any possibilities for a progressive future, and if you appreciate those who want to destroy progress in the name of progress, your username is indeed quite fitting.

[534634634265]

O THNX LOL!
:D:D:D:D

really though, its a difference of opinion i think. what if you don't view all this technological advancement as advancing the human race, but rather hindering it?

i don't think hes some literary messiah writing about the promised land, but he is an excellent writer who skillfully creates and conveys the message hes trying to spread. i think to say that humans need to fall back to stone age life is to discard lots of really great developments in our history, but i don't think wanting to return to pre-industrial or at least primarily agrarian living is that far out.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

really though, its a difference of opinion i think. what if you don't view all this technological advancement as advancing the human race, but rather hindering it?

How does technology "hinder" the human race? Before technology, humans were a fucking rare species. As technology developed, the human species grew to be one of the most successful and widespread on the planet, inhabiting all the continents and being able to support a population of over six billion, a population well out of proportion to the average human body size.

Without technology, we are doomed to eventual extinction. With technology, we have the chance to escape this planet into the greater universe.


i don't think hes some literary messiah writing about the promised land, but he is an excellent writer who skillfully creates and conveys the message hes trying to spread. i think to say that humans need to fall back to stone age life is to discard lots of really great developments in our history, but i don't think wanting to return to pre-industrial or at least primarily agrarian living is that far out.

Returning to pre-industrial or agrarian living would result in the deaths of billions. Do you really think that's a good thing?

[534634634265]

as unfortunate as any death is, this planet cannot sustain a population of six billion. using techniques and technology that brutalizes the planet we can temporarily sustain them, but i don't see that as feasible in the future.

[jake williams]

The only mistakes he makes are a sort of radical absolutism, where anything that looks anything like Western culture, not just any technology but it reads like any philosophy or any science or any art, is part of the destructiveness of [at least present] industrial civilization. There's two sort of questions, I think, which I answer differently than he does. The first is whether or not industrial civilization is destructive to nature, that we just can't do the sorts of things we want to do without destroying forests and ripping up mountains and poisoning the water, and I tentatively think we can, and that it's important that we do, but I'm sympathetic to his arguments in this regard because obviously what we're doing right now isn't working. The second is that industrial civilization is destructive to societies, to psyches, to souls, and I very much disagree with him in this regard, although again I sort of see his logic. I don't think his arguments on this point are ultimately valid, but I see where he's coming from.

I will say that I have a lot of respect for him despite some very fundamental disagreements.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

as unfortunate as any death is, this planet cannot sustain a population of six billion.

On what do you base this statement on?

[534634634265]

on the many learned scholars who have written about the green revolution and how it enabled explosive population growth. i see this green revolution as something that is losing steam, and as such, losing its ability to sustain an immense populace.

[Killfacer]

Don't say can't to a technocrat.