Tuesday, November 1, 2022

Questions Nov 3

 MF -p.104

  1. What are your questions/comments on the book, its characters, its depiction of life in the relatively near future, etc.?
  2. Is the voluntary-exile scenario in chapter 14 something you can imagine ever having to experience yourself? 
  3. What will it take to successfully "redirect fossil fuel companies to do decarbonization projects" and transition permanently from extractive industry? 53
  4. What are you prepared personally to give up, in order to end your own "nonessential buying of things that degrade the biosphere"? 55 How often, for instance, do you make impulse purchases online?
  5. Do you agree that living "at adequacy" is healthier and happier than the pursuit of wealth? 57  Is the notion that society must incentivize greed a myth propagated self-interestedly by the wealthy?
  6. Is there enough energy, food, housing, clothing, healthcare, education etc. for all at present population levels? Should "enough" be a guaranteed human right? 58 
  7. Are "actor networks" real, with or without agency? 60
  8. Does hope "have to reside in something like this: hope to do some good, no matter how fucked up you are"? 64
  9. Do you, like Frank, feel a confused compulsion to do something? And do you think it's not impossible that one person might actually change things? 65
  10. How do we explain people in nations with rising inequality voting "for politicians who will increase their relative impoverishment"? Is monocausotaxophilia part of the explanation? 73
  11. Do we need to replace GDP? Or take the question of our collective health and stability "back out of the realm of quantification"? 76 
  12. Do climate scientists need now to be more like politicians? 82
  13. "Philosophy is very often proving we can't think to the bottom of things..." 88 So is philosophy a help or a hindrance, when confronting a climate disaster?
LISTEN. Kim Stanley Robinson, the legendary science-fiction novelist, has a private utopian hope: “to dodge a mass extinction event.” He joins Azeem Azhar to explore his recent novel, The Ministry For the Future, and what it would take for institutions, individuals, and emerging technologies to save millions of lives.

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