TRANSCRIPT

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, we explore some fundamental questions and assumptions in sustainability.

This episode was recorded on 16 September 2019.

When talking about sustainability, how far into the future are we looking?
- “On a long enough time scale, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” (Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club)
Does sustainability imply a sense of remaining static?
- How do we make sense of that in light of an ever-changing world?
The choices we make today could result in vastly different futures
- Importance of understanding various conceptions of “quality of life”

Annihilation vs. living forever – a false dichotomy?
- Curtailed potential, a sub-optimal existence
Who is to blame for human problems?
- To what extent is sustainability the moral responsibility on a species level?
- Notions of power, inequality, and impact
- Capital and commoditisation as a measure of “value”
How important is the human species, in the grand scheme of things?
- Humans are special, we may be the only ones in the universe with the ability for it to “know itself” (Carl Sagan)
We don’t know the full consequences of our actions
- But neither do we know the consequences of our inaction

Anthropocentrism is rooted in the belief that humans are fundamentally different from other species
- Generally tied to our minds, this idea of consciousness
- But we don’t really have a clear way to assess consciousness
Where a living being does not have the ability to make its own decisions, a “guardian” may come in and act on your behalf
- Supposedly with the being’s best interests at heart, but also opens up abuses of power
- We do this for the environment – or at least the non-human parts of the environment
Metabolic rift: the separation of man from nature (Karl Marx)

Instrumental value is about the utility of an object, like a fork or a car
Intrinsic value is contained in and of itself, such as a sunset or human life
We may see intrinsic value in something instrumental, or vice versa
- It depends on each of our relationship to that thing, which affects how we perceive its purpose and role in our perspective
Is valuing things in terms of their utility (instrumental value) necessarily wrong?
- There is always the question of foresight and hindsight: how might the way we value and use something today diminish its potential future instrumental value?

The term “The Great Acceleration” refers to a trend across a range of factors, socio-economic and environmental, which has shot up since 1950
- Originally coined in 2004
Exponential trends correlated with the post-WWII period, the industrial “development” agenda lobbied by western, capitalist countries
A story of energy: it has become abundant and cheap, and humans have been able to exploit it for our purposes
- “Oil Is the Cheat Code” (Nick Blood)
Does intention matter, if the outcome is the same?
- Next episode, we’ll be talking about philosophy in action