WALL-e

[Wigwam Jones]

Originally Posted by Fast_Eddie

I don't know the right way to say this so it doesn't sound like something I don't mean it to, so I'll just say it and take it for what you will.

That really makes me sad. Not like in a condecending way, but in an Elanor Rigby kind of way.

Don't get too teary-eyed. My question is more of a philosophical one, really. I have concern for future generations - my question is intended to ask the legitimate question - why should I?

Three themes that run through "we're killing the planet" themes consistently are these:

1) We Americans (OK, USA-ians) own, consume, produce, spend, output and in every other imaginable way create or use 'too much' of whatever *it* is. We're bad.

2) That we (humans) actually possess the capability to destroy the planet through our presumed overuse and abuse of it.

3) That we should - or must - care.

It could be that all three are true (although the first is a value judgment and difficult to attach an objective value to). I don't know. I suspect no one else knows, either.

BUT, I tend to challenge those three assumptions whenever I hear them - on the basis that such assumptions need to be challenged.

If one is to assess that I 'own too much', then they must really be prepared to tell me how much 'too much' is, who decides, and what they intend to do about it. Otherwise, it's just talk, isn't it?

I mean, how easy it is to proclaim my (or your) ownership of 'too much stuff' as the cause of the ills of the planet. How difficult to detail in what way that is actually true.

The same can be said of the assumption that we are, in fact, breaking the planet. People observe effects and ascribe them to factors without a great deal of evidence. I liken this type of thinking to 'end of the world' religious thinking. In every religion that has an 'end of the world' scenario, predictions are made so that one may know when the end is nigh. And lo - we seen the 'signs and portents' constantly - the world insubordinately and stubbornly refuses to end. This, to me, is not unlike the type of mawkish claptrap being peddled as science that tells us the earth is being destroyed and we're the ones who did it in (in the pantry, with a candlestick). When the growing season refused to give rain to our primitive ancestors, they sacrificed a couple virgins to appease the Gods for whatever offense we might have given them. Nowadays, we merely try to make everyone give up their SUVs.

And finally, that I should care. Well, in point of fact, I do care - but I fail to see any compelling reason why I should, other than that I choose to. It is not unlike (to me) my 82-year-old mother-in-law being urged to stop drinking and smoking heavily. Her response? "What on earth for?" I get it - there is no point, so what purpose does it serve? If one presumes we do not possess the power to break the planet, or that the planet is not actually being broken, or even that the planet is in fact drying, but that there is nothing to be done about it, then there is no point in getting all broken up about it.

The flood, as I stated, will come. What comes after that? I won't be here to know.

[Fast_Eddie]

I thought it was a great movie and my kids really had a good time. Sorry for my part in dragging this so far off topic.

[soundmotor]

Originally Posted by Wigwam Jones

Quite a sentence.

What would be your suggestion for fixing the problem?

Let me just take a few of your objections to us awful Americans at random...

Thank you, I'm wordy.

Why do you believe I think there is any problem to contend with or that Americans (me being one) are awful in any way whatsoever? I'm sure some are but most of the ones I know and spend time with are not.

I don't think you fully grokked the word suppose at the end of my big ol' sentence? Everything I reference comes from the daily onslaught I receive inferring (either by allusion or direct condemnation) that I am a bad person because I BBQ (often), use a 2-stroke string trimmer, have owned guns and shot them, drive rather than walk or bike, and don't ball up in the thumbsucking fetal position asking to be forgiven for my envirosins over the thought that........ it might get a couple degrees warmer sometime over the next 55 years. (Meaning at the end of my life I might not have to migrate south in the winter and perhaps can start my tomatoes a month earlier in New England.)

So again, what makes you think I am saying Americans are awful in any way at all? Indeed I am not, the above was sarcasm but perhaps it was with too fine a point. (Although I personally thought it was a bludgeon.)

[markc2]

I admire Wall*E if only for bringing a conversation like this to light.

[Wigwam Jones]

Originally Posted by soundmotor

Thank you, I'm wordy.

Why do you believe I think there is any problem to contend with or that Americans (me being one) are awful in any way whatsoever? I'm sure some are but most of the ones I know and spend time with are not.

I don't think you fully grokked the word suppose at the end of my big ol' sentence? Everything I reference comes from the daily onslaught I receive inferring (either by allusion or direct condemnation) that I am a bad person because I BBQ (often), use a 2-stroke string trimmer, have owned guns and shot them, drive rather than walk or bike, and don't ball up in the thumbsucking fetal position asking to be forgiven for my envirosins over the thought that........ it might get a couple degrees warmer sometime over the next 55 years. (Meaning at the end of my life I might not have to migrate south in the winter and perhaps can start my tomatoes a month earlier in New England.)

So again, what makes you think I am saying Americans are awful in any way at all? Indeed I am not, the above was sarcasm but perhaps it was with too fine a point. (Although I personally thought it was a bludgeon.)

Yep, gotta admit, I missed the sarcasm. Even going back and looking again, I see your 'supposedly' but still didn't quite make the connection. However, point taken. My remarks are clearly not meant for you, my apologies.

[soundmotor]

Originally Posted by Wigwam Jones

Yep, gotta admit, I missed the sarcasm. Even going back and looking again, I see your 'supposedly' but still didn't quite make the connection. However, point taken. My remarks are clearly not meant for you, my apologies.

Not accepted as I was not offended in any way whatsoever.

Sometimes you just gotta say what's on your mind & screw 'em if they can't take a joke!

[wineslob]

If anyone thinks we, the USA, comsume too much, go to Japan.
As far as the movie, I might rent it, but I don't like "preachy" movies.

[soundmotor]

I saw it and really enjoyed it on the big screen. The story is shall we say a bit....shallow? But it is still a treat. The theater was empty, the sound superb, & the visuals wonderful. I can see how many would find it an indictment of US society and a stark warning to change our habits. However, it is so over the top you would have to be already somewhat hyperbolic in your viewpoint to accept it as such. In other words, you might have thought "Idiocracy" was a documentary too.