Are those articles suggesting how to fix capitalism or are they actually suggesting eliminating private ownership of the means of production? There are numerous example of the latter being crushed by, e.g. the CIA among others, for around a century. As for how they are marginalized, I'd challenge you to name a single instance of a capitalist state becoming anything else. There have been a few, e.g. China, USSR, PRK, Cuba, etc. which became state capitalism, but that's still a form of capitalism. The anarcho-syndaclists in Spain tried, but they were crushed by the state.
Private property is inextricably linked with capitalism. If there is no private property there can be no private ownership of the means of production, hence no capitalism. Conversely, within capitalism there is private ownership of the means of production hence there can be no private property, only personal property.
Criticizing such details are not the same as criticizing the system itself. Preferring one implementation of capitalism over another isn't a criticism of capitalism. Similarly, espousing one political party over another isn't criticism of democracy.
If you suggest eliminating private property to mitigate certain ills engendered by capitalism, or express another view that is truly antithetical to capitalism then you will find yourself marginalized to the point you cannot influence the system.
This is true of any political system. You are not allowed to criticize what the system claims to be. For state capitalist nations like China or the former USSR which claim to be communist you are unable to criticize communism. In an oligarchy like America which claims to be a democracy you are unable to criticize democracy. They differ in the means by which they marginalize dissidents but in either case you are rendered unable to threaten the presiding political order.
This is true of capitalist economic systems and democratic political systems. The USSR was not unusual in eliminating heterodox views, not that it was ever communist in more than name.
> If we have all eternity, would we have the drive to keep improving ourselves and our society?
Are we improving ourselves or society now?
I doubt many decisions humans make are concerned with improving society. Even if they are it is with respect to their perspective of what it means to improve society.
A given society places constraints on people and incentivizes them to act in certain ways and over time this elicits changes in that society, but I don't see that constituting an improvement, unless your notion of improvement is simply change in the manner induced by societal pressures. But then improvement is guaranteed, tautologically, hence it is a a rather poor definition.
If humans were to become immortal then it seems likely that the constraints and incentives of a given society would elicit different responses from its members, thereby inducing a different type of change. And again whether this is an improvement depends on what your definition of improvement is taken to be. Surely, should such a time come, these new immortals' notion of improvement should take precedence over our own. But I doubt they would take conscious control over the manner in which their society changes any more than we do presently.
I have similar issues with the notion that we are, presently or at any time in the past, improving ourselves.
The purpose of a legal system is not preventing people from doing things deemed illegal. Its purpose is the maintenance and expansion of state power. Laws are not designed for your benefit. If you benefit from a law that is merely incidental.
Laws are just a facade to legitimize, in the eyes of the populace, the state enforcing its will.
The state writes the laws in their own interest so that the majority of the time it serves them to remain within legal bounds. And the majority of the times a state violates its own laws are not made public until years later, if at all, negating public outcry. In this way the citizenry remains placid and is willing to overlook the few events in which a state publicly flouts the law.
Presumably to make it less bleak than it would be otherwise.
I don't see how it would be possible to avoid climate change. But attempting to minimize it, or at least minimize humans' contribution seems preferable to doing nothing.
> Engaging further with our cultural and religious psychoses should be disincentivized
The sort of techno-optimism you're espousing here amounts to a religion as well. It's a religion to which the majority of the developed world appears to subscribe. It seems to be losing adherents to disillusionment, albeit incredibly slowly.
The prevalence of views similar to yours are one of the reasons why I don't foresee a positive future. I suspect society will continue down your suggested path of more technology and more resource consumption believing it to lead to some sort of salvation. I see it instead as the furtherance of human's destructive tendencies which have only grown more potent with every increase in humanity's capacity to effect its will via technological development.
What if the necessary change is something like lowering the standard of living in order to reduce net resource consumption? If people will never voluntarily do that, then how do you propose to sell that as leading to a sunny future?
This might be why these articles are never positive. Because there isn't a solution that people will like or vote for. No one is going to publish your article if it says we need to impose limits on births or reduce everyone's standard of living to that of sub-Saharan Africa.
> And in the western democracies, you (by design), won’t get dramatic, sweeping change until there’s broad bottom-up support.
Yes, this is precisely why there won't be the necessary change. And it's a great argument against democracy.
Climate change is one of the main factors in "wiping out most life on earth." Habitat fragmantation means that flora and fauna cannot shift (generally poleward) to remain in regions they are suited to climatically, so the effects of climate change on biodiversity are worse than they would be otherwise. Even without habitat fragmentation, or the other pressures humans exert on the biosphere, the rate of climate change is such that it alone could potentially induce a mass extinction.
I do agree that the biosphere as a whole should be the primary concern and the focus on only one component, namely climate change, is incredibly short sighted.
It is not defined as such, but it certainly only seems possible in the absence of the state. One well known dictionary phrases the relevant definition as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action". Many nation states (although the US is the worst offender in this regard) and those whose interests a given state protects, have quite successfully convinced their citizenry to celebrate the limitations placed upon them and further to mislabel these limitations as freedom.
I don't think anyone would disagree that a better home environment is fundamental. But do you think that, in general, the longer sentences and higher rates of incarceration (especially for non-violent crime) in the US compared with other developed nations are beneficial?
Publishing names and mugshots of arrestees prior to convictions, the existence of the sex offender registry, rampant human rights abuses in prisons, loss of voting rights for felons, and the explicit allowance of slavery as punishment do not make it seem like the US "justice system" even approximates the humanist notion of justice that other developed nations apparently aim for.
Is this really a surprise to anyone? The US is second only to the USSR in incarceration rate. The disenfranchised, e.g. foster children, will certainly suffer disproportionately under such a system. The lack of social safety nets, mental health services, etc. certainly play a role, but the larger issue is the authoritarian nature of the US regime.
> Outside of work I certainly live in a free society.
Only if you define freedom as the capacity to do whatever is allowed or at least not expressly prohibited by the state without legal consequence. Fortunately no one defines it that way. You cannot be simultaneously free and subject to state power. Companies simply add another layer atop the restrictions to freedom imposed by the state. You might feel freer outside of work, but don't make the mistake of thinking you are free.
Being satisfied with temporary respite from greater restrictions imposed at work is hardly something you should celebrate. Slaves in antebellum America enjoyed free time as well, presumably many were intelligent and self-aware enough to resent their situation despite this.
That was my point. Humans celebrate themselves for possessing the ability to reason, think, or have values. But judging other species by this standard is a preposterous notion. Just as a dolphin judging humans inferior for our limited ability to catch fish in our mouths via echolocation.
But if one can't judge species according to their own natural abilities we can still judge them according to their interactions with other species. This is where humans, come out looking poor. Mink do not negatively impact humans, and would have essentially no interaction with humans, but humans willfully imprison and brutalize millions of mink for frivolous pleasures.
I can't prove that a sufficiently impaired mentally disabled human can reason, think, or have values.
But I suppose if I wanted to raise thousands of mentally disabled humans in cages for the purpose of skinning them and selling their hides I would probably justify it to myself by asserting my inherent superiority based on their potential inability to replicate certain biological processes in the fatty organ within their craniums.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21060