Pentti Linkola

Yes, he seems to be a nutjob just from my brief investigations. Based on that youtube video I thought I would compare his positions to Technocracy's.

If this guy and people like him were more scientific they would probably be Technocrats. However their emotions, philosophy, and subjective beliefs lead them into knee-jerk reactions and false conclusions.

This guy has described himself as a biocentrist - a completely subjective and philosophical position, bordering on religion.

1) no immigration - In a Technate, immigration would initially be completely halted until it could be calculated how many immigrants could be let in per year. This is in keeping with the Technate's goal of providing the highest standard of living. Obviously there is an optimum population if everyone is going to have a good life.

2) downsize population - This would occur naturally by raising standards of living and increasing education and access to birth control. Technocracy does recognize that 2 billion people would be the optimum population for the world, unless major technological breakthroughs are made which can increase the carrying capacity.

3) kill defectives - absolutely not! The Technate's goal is to give everyone the best life possible, regardless of their ability to "perform work". Even though they are not contributing this has 0 effect on the overall functioning of the Technate. Also, how do we decide what "defective" is? Seems like a very slippery slope!

4) stop rampant technology - this is a meaningless statement. If this is to mean "technology in general" than Technocracy is very much opposed to this idea. If this is to mean "the misuse of technology" Technocracy does recognize that technology in the hands of the Price System will ultimately lead to collapse and destruction. But technology can never be good or bad, it is how the technology is used that determines if it is good or bad. Calling a technology bad would be like calling a rock bad. If it is used to kill someone, maybe. If it is used to grind up grain to make bread, it is good.

5) everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed - No. Technocracy does say that when we start over with a Technate we will have to demolish and recycle almost everything we have built. I think what this guy is saying though is that we should abandon any technology discovered over the last 100 years. A pointless idea resulting from a false dichotomy: "the misuse of technology has wrecked the planet, therefore we either abandon technology or we wreck the planet" which ignores the obvious third choice to properly use technology.

6) birth licenses / eugenics - the point of this seems to be to make people more "fit" so that they can be better workers. Entirely pointless in a Technate. There is no need to make people better slaves. The question of whether or not people with serious inheritable diseases should be allowed to reproduce is subjective and must be decided by the population of the Technate when the time comes. The only reason eugenics would be practiced in a Technate would be to raise the quality of life for everyone, not to increase productivity.

7) Traffic is mostly done with bicycles and row boats. Private cars are confiscated. Long-distance travel is accomplished with sparse mass transit. Trees are planted on most roads - Ok, there are some similarities here. Within urbanates, walking, cycling, and small mass transit would easily meet all transportation needs due to the urbanate's compact size. Connecting urbanates would be an extensive high-speed rail network. It would not be "sparse", in fact it would be capable of providing a higher level of service than our current transportation infrastructure. Private cars would be confiscated. Actually, nothing is privately owned in a Technate but I don't think I need to explain that one Trees planted in most roads - I don't see the point of this. Most cities would be completely torn up and recycled over time, and the roads that we still need would be left intact.

8) any dictatorship is better than democracy - No. While Technocracy recognizes that dictatorships usually acheive very good top-down control over their technology, they also handle their people in the same way and thus most think that it is not worth it. The only way to maintain a dictatorship is through the threat of violence. Any such society is inherently unsustainable.

9) best dictatorship is where lots of heads would roll and no economic growth - Technocracy proposes a steady-state system, but I think that's different than what this guy is talking about. I'm pretty sure he is saying "Nothing should be built" which is different from "no economic growth". The part about heads rolling is completely against Technocracy's non-violent approach.

10) We will have to learn from the revolutionary movements national socialists, stalinists, etc - All were defeated! This is just idiocy.

11) elimination of technological and human excess - Why? It is really apparent that this is an ideology, not backed up by scientific evidence or any factual information. We can raise standards of living (increase human and technological "excess") and at the same time create an ecologically sustainable society. Such has been proven by the research of Technocracy, Inc.

Anyway, I think this guy is pretty worthless. Just one more in a long line of philosophers. Technocracy, Inc. has long held the view that ALL previous theories regarding human society must be thrown into the trash bin if we are to proceed rationally.