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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/19/21 10:09 AM, Pieter Steenekamp
wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Capitalists plan to make huge profits by
recycling. <br>
<a href="https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/</a><br>
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<br>
<p>Redwood certainly has a slick website... I can't tell what they
are actually *doing*... as websites (and brochures) go, they
definitely claims some conceptual/business territory that might be
valuable later, even if they don't have any significant tech or
logistics to back them up. A good domain name, a few trademarks,
some slick graphic design and aspirational stories can go a long
way to generate something that can be parlayed into "wealth".
With any luck, they are actually investing in the tech and
logistics implied and required by their story. Or also possible,
someone who is *doing the work* already joins forces with them and
the "good story" and the "good work" converge. <br>
</p>
<p>Are they planning to make huge profits recycling or
pretending/aspiring to? And even if they are, what is this free
energy/entropy they are dipping into? What did that represent?<br>
</p>
<p>Maybe the big money invested in *creating all those waste
streams* and *exporting the externalities into one commons or
another* will use these good stories for GreenWashing their
usurious behaviour? <br>
</p>
<p>When I personally was confronted with the idea of recycling
household packaging (~40 years ago) I was resistant and
resentful. "how dare YOU tell ME how to dispose of my cans,
bottles, boxes, etc.?", "it is my god-given right to burn off the
organics in a barrel and dump the residuals in the arroyo, or
maybe just bury them in my back yard, or maybe a community
landfill, or even better, stick them out at the curb and have
someone else do all that for me!" But as I gave over to the
process of having separate bins and noticing what I was filling
those bins with, I became more aware of what kind of load I was
putting on the downstream systems. When it was made evident that
most everything *except* aluminum cans were either costing a lot
of money/energy to recycle and in fact in some cases were just
being rediverted to landfills, I could have thrown out a cynical
"see! it was never a good idea in the first place!" but instead
I had to take a breath and notice how much embodied energy was
implied in these buckets of bottles, cans, etc. and how much the
"dream" of recycling was aspirational. <br>
</p>
<p> The era when returning shipping containers to Asia filled with
our "recyclables" is apparently over... either their standard
of living raised enough that they could no longer "afford" to
sort and process all of our "junk", or their standards for
polluting their own air/water were raised enough that they could
no longer "afford" to turn our junk into their pollution? When I
lived in Berkeley (2005/6) there were days when air quality
monitors on the west coast could detect particulates wafting all
the way across the Pacific. Many were deeply offended at that,
but a few of us recognized that a huge percentage of that smoke
was being generated *on our behalf* either in energy-expensive
manufacturing or in low-cost waste disposal, FOR US to have
ubiquitous and inexpensive consumer products. And *I* was deeply
offended by my own assumptions about all this. I think this is
what Trumpsters refer to as "Progressives' Self Loathing"? <br>
</p>
<p>My point, if I actually have one, is that our *analytic* efforts
to reduce a huge system to a series of atomic bits we can easily
apprehend and address, does not necessarily address the issues
which are intrinsically *systemic*. I believe that within the
transnational corporations (Leviathan-esque Superorganisms in
themselves) that *they* consider the systemic properties of their
supply chains and the environments they exist withing (raw
materials, labor markets, consumers). It is only when they are
asked to (openly) consider their impact on other systems *outside
of their boundaries* that they want to reduce their arguments to
trivialities that can be addressed/dismissed easily. <br>
</p>
<p>grumble,</p>
<p> - Steve</p>
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cite="mid:CAPerSOKzdvz4d0_+7O3XG0kQ4ShqS_sRMcvHWoNhSWquQhaMPA@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 19 Apr 2021 at 17:49,
Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Corporations
are collective intelligences -- people -- but they need
someone to sell to. No point in owning all the air or water
unless you have millions of people desperate to pay for it!
But that said, horizons of five years are a long time for
most companies. CEOs incentivized to extract every bit out
of those short horizons to please their shareholders. And
the shareholders are too selfish to achieve something like
Elysium or even large private water desalination plants.
Even if there is a small evil population that kills off the
rest, I don't see how capitalism is going to lead to that. <br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>>
On Behalf Of u?l? ???<br>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 8:11 AM<br>
To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">friam@redfish.com</a><br>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)<br>
<br>
I should have linked this:<br>
<br>
<a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-ted-chiang-transcript.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-ted-chiang-transcript.html</a><br>
<br>
"It’s capitalism that wants to reduce costs and reduce costs
by laying people off. It’s not that like all technology
suddenly becomes benign in this world. But it’s like, in a
world where we have really strong social safety nets, then you
could maybe actually evaluate sort of the pros and cons of
technology as a technology, as opposed to seeing it through
how capitalism is going to use it against us. How are giant
corporations going to use this to increase their profits at
our expense?"<br>
<br>
On 4/19/21 8:01 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:<br>
> Ha! Sure. ... it still looks like SteveS called it with
the Red Queen's Race. Even if such tech solves more problems
than it creates, it'll still be distributed according to the
power structures in place (e.g. rich people) when the tech's
ready to scale.<br>
> <br>
> On 4/19/21 7:54 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:<br>
>> Again technology to the rescue... Nanotechnology
for desalinization. <br>
>><br>
>> -----Original Message-----<br>
>> From: Friam <<a
href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On
Behalf Of u?l? ???<br>
>> Sent: Monday, April 19, 2021 7:45 AM<br>
>> To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">friam@redfish.com</a><br>
>> Subject: [FRIAM] water, again (was murder offsets)<br>
>><br>
>> Copper? Natural gas? Pffft! Water's the interesting
one.<br>
>><br>
>> <a
href="https://theconversation.com/interstate-water-wars-are-heating-up-alon"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://theconversation.com/interstate-water-wars-are-heating-up-alon</a><br>
>> g-with-the-climate-159092<br>
>><br>
>> And another one:<br>
>> <a
href="https://www.theolympian.com/news/business/article250595449.html"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.theolympian.com/news/business/article250595449.html</a><br>
>><br>
>> On 4/15/21 7:59 AM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:<br>
>>> Another good example is water rights across
states given watersheds, <br>
>>> flood irrigation, etc.<br>
>>> <<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/05/arizona-water-one-p"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/05/arizona-water-one-p</a><br>
>>> er<br>
>>> centers><br>
>>><br>
>>> So, the question you're asking (how might
"storage" in BTC be less preferable to other assets?) isn't
really answerable *without* first discussing what that
reservoir is *for*, what end does it serve?<br>
> <br>
<br>
--<br>
↙↙↙ uǝlƃ<br>
<br>
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