Categorie: consuming

Capitalism and Comfort: a segregation of state and economy is needed.

I have to admit, capitalism has worked, allowing us, at least in our part of the world, to live in luxury. Even the poorer part of society here with us don’t have it as bad as in large parts of the rest of the world. However, the whole system has…

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Oppenheimer and ‘the Wealth race’

Last week, I watched the film about Oppenheimer, and that piece of history made me realize that what we are experiencing now is, in fact, a kind of (nuclear) arms race: who can grow the fastest, who can protect themselves the most, to acquire wealth, and who can extract the…

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Bullshit Products…

A significant part of humanity is engaged in say “pushing papers around” not really contributing to generating value, physical value that is: investing and capturing energy, for example, processing materials, growing plants and food. They are engaged in trading in it, to make as much profit as possible, or writing…

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Living in dreamland

On a recent trip, in one of the excursions I was sitting in a bus behind a young couple. The bus had just stopped for a pee and drink break, and as soon as we were driving the guy in front of me turned on the video on his phone,…

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A EU Referendum: wine, or soybeans, or solar panels?

I’m sitting on a terrace on the borders of the Moselle, tasting some local wine. And looking out over the slopes along the Mosel, I come to a rather confrontational observation: we have deforested an enormous area, in order to be able to grow our wine… All the southern slopes…

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The world of Babel (2)

Well, since we’re grumbling anyway, like last time, let’s do this one too, to end the year. We are constantly led astray, by the way messages are send out, by companies, organizations, and the press. Its about the way a certain subject is portrayed. Not only with regard to direct…

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Continue partying, or (CO2) lockdown ?

There are actually only two options (‘scenario’s’): Either we go into CO2 lockdown, or we party on until the whole thing collapses…. The latest IPCC report makes that perfectly clear again. What we are doing now is a case of “soft nurses make bad wounds”, with our decades-long unbridled optimism…

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Living of presents , all year round…

In the coming weeks, the Black-Peter discussion will undoubtedly re-surface: its a Dutch tradition celebrating Saint Nicolas assisted by “black Peters’ coming from ‘Spain’ and distributing presents for children in shoes next to the fire place, by Black Peters climbing down the chimney. Hence the black color. Recently there has…

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