Gore makes the same pitch as he did in 2006, and that’s where the film fails—because it doesn’t address the root of the problem.

Comments

1
I think 2000 years from now, future humans will see the 20th century debate over capitalism like we see the Socrates era debate over rhetoric, and ask what the hell we were even arguing about.
2
Of course you know that giving away IP is not a very capitalist thing to do.
4
Thank you! How is it possible that some people can more easily accept the end of human civilization than the end of capitalism?
5
@1 & @3 both got it very badly wrong.

2000 years in the future, (whatever species replaces) humans will look back on the 20th/21st century humans as ignorant for not doing more about human overpopulation without which, we would enjoy clean air, water, etc. But nope, capitalism and churches combined to spread the word that more babies = growth.

Check this out for a change http://www.vhemt.org
6
Even if we did away with capitalism tomorrow we would still have the problem of how to get the developing world up to the standard of living of, say Sweden.

In a socialist (or other) system, we would still have to produce far more energy for the people coming up than we could conserve amongst the currently fortunate.

The fundamental problem is not capitalism, capitalism is a (crappy, divisive, inegalitarian) means of managing the problem.

The fundamental problem is that there is a maximum sustainable level of global resource consumption, no matter what system you use to distribute those resources.

Given that sustainable resource ceiling, there is an inverse relationship between the number of people we can have on the Earth, and the total level of security and/or comfort they will experience over the course of their lives (including length of lifespan-- so longer lives would mean fewer people and/or lower standards of living). This is true even if you distribute resources on a strictly egalitarian basis, with every person using up exactly the same level of sustainable resource.

That is the fundamental problem.

You can try to harness or constrain capitalism in ways designed to improve the management of the fundamental problem. This capitalsim-in-a-cage may or may not produce outcomes better than 'euthanize capitalism entirely, and replace it with a command economy, or with nothing, or with mumble-mumble-don't-worry-we'll-come-up-with-something-after-the-revolution.
7
@5

There are many ways to reduce population; some of them nicer than others, and some are, um, quite a bit faster.

I am confident that 2000 years from now humans (who will still be very, very recognizably human) will exist in numbers which can be supported by the resources available. And I'm pretty sure those numbers will be lower than today, due to the exhaustion of "fossil" resources. How they get there from here, though, I don't care to guess.
8
The alternative to capitalism is the The Party shitting all over the environment, stomping on civil rights, crushing innovation, and getting rich off of everyone else's labor. What a fucking lame review.
10
@8 @9 or maybe political systems exist on a spectrum, idk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic…
11
I wish there was one example in history of a population voting against their own short term interests for the long term good of all.

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