I live in a ruralish area. There is a lot of forested area and due to economic depression there are a lot of people living in the woods. Most live in tents but some actually cut down the trees and turn them into make-shift shacks. Using planks and nails like you suggest. They often drag propane burners into the woods which often leads to fires. Perhaps this is what you mean?

In reality, most people will continue to live the modern life where there are doctors, accountants, veterinarians, mechanics. We'll continue to enjoy food distribution and grocery stores. We'll all hope that North America gets its act together and build high speed rail so we can travel comfortably for long distances.

There was a time Canada was a big exporter of engineering technology. From mining to agriculture, satellites, and nuclear technology. I want Canada to be competitive in these ways, not making makeshift shacks out of planks and nails for junkies that have given up on life and live in the woods.

> They often drag propane burners into the woods which often leads to fires. Perhaps this is what you mean?

I believe you very well know it’s not, and are transparently arguing in bad faith.

> shacks (…) for junkies that have given up on life

The insults you’ve chosen are quite telling. Not everyone living in a way you disapprove of is an automatic junky.

> I believe you very well know it’s not, and are transparently arguing in bad faith.

That is actually what you are talking about; "uncompetitive" looks like something in the real world. There isn't an abstract dial that someone twiddles to set the efficiency of two otherwise identical outcomes - the competitive one will typically look more advanced and competently organised in observable ways.

To live in nice houses and have good food requires a competitive economy. The uncompetitive version was literally living in the forest with some meagre shelter and maybe having a wood fire to cook food (that was probably going to make someone very sick). The reason the word "competitive" turns up so much is people living in a competitive society get to have a more comfortable lifestyle. People literally starve to death if the food system isn't run with a competitive system that tends towards efficiency; that experiment has been run far too many times.

What the experiment has repeatedly shown is that people living in non-competitive systems starve to death when they get in the way of a system that has been optimized solely for ruthless economic efficiency.

The big one that leaps to mind was the famines with the communist experiments in the 20th century. But there are other, smaller examples that crop up disturbingly regularly. Sri Lanka's fertiliser ban was a jaw-dropper; Zimbabwe redistributing land away from whites was also interesting. There are probably a lot more though, messing with food logistics on the theory there are more important things than producing lots of food seems to be one of those things countries do from time to time.

People can argue about the moral and ideological sanity of these things, but the fact is tolerating economic inefficiencies into the food system can quickly leads to there not being enough food.

The big ones that leapt to my mind were the Great Irish famine the duration of which food exports to Great Britain were higher than food imports, Bengal famine (the Brits again), and starvation of Native Americans through targeted eradication of the bison.

You stated one ludicrous extreme (food comes out of the ground! shelter is planks and nails!) and I stated another ludicrous extreme. You can make my position look simplistic and I can make your position look simplistic. You can't then cry foul.

You are also assuming, in bad faith, an "all" where I did not place one. It is an undeniable fact with evidence beyond any reasonable doubt, including police reports and documented studies by the district, that the makeshift shacks in the rural woods near my house are made by drug addicts that are eschewing the readily available social housing for the specific reason that they can't go to that housing due to its explicit restrictions on drug use.

> ludicrous extreme

I don’t understand this. Are you not familiar with farming and houses? You know humans grow plants to eat (including in backyards and balconies in cities) and make cabins, chalets, houses, entire neighbourhoods (Sweden currently planning the largest) with wood, right?

You are making a caricature of modern lifestyle farming, not an argument for people literally living as they did in the past. Going to your local garden center and buying some seedlings and putting them on your balcony isn't demonstrative of a life like our ancestors lived. Living in one of the wealthiest countries to ever have existed and going to the hardware store to buy expensive hardwoods to decorate your house isn't the same as living as our ancestors did.

You don't realize the luxury you have and for some reason you assume that it is possible without that wealth. The reality of that lifestyle without tremendous wealth is more like subsistence farming in Africa and less like Swedish planned neighborhoods.

> (…) not an argument for people literally living as they did in the past. (…) isn't demonstrative of a life like our ancestors lived. (…) isn't the same as living as our ancestors did.

Correct. Nowhere did I defend or make an appeal to live life “as they did in the past” or “like our ancestor did”. We should (and don’t really have a choice but to) live forward, not backward. We should take the good things we learned and apply them positively to our lives in the present and future, and not strive for change and consumption for their own sakes.

You said: "Humanity survived and thrived before all this unfettered consumption, we don’t need to kill ourselves for more."

To deny that your juxtaposition of this claim with your point about growing seeds and nailing together planks doesn't pass my personal test of credibility. You say: "Stop and think for a moment. You can literally eat food which grows from the ground and make a shelter with a handful of planks and nails." but that isn't indicative of a thriving life as I demonstrated. You can do both of those things and still live in squalor, a condition I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

You then suggest that I don't understand farming or house construction to defend that point, as if the existence of backyard gardens or wood cabins proves the point that a modern comfortable life is possible with gardens and wood cabins. My point is that the wealth we have makes balcony gardens and wood cabins possible and you are reasoning backwards. To be clear, we get to enjoy the modern luxury of backyard gardens and wood cabins by being wealthy and we don't get to be wealthy by making backyard gardens and wood cabins.

> We should take the good things we learned and apply them positively to our lives in the present and future

Sure, and I can argue competitiveness could be a lesson we have learned that can be applied positively. The way it is used positively in team sports and many other aspects of society.

You, too, should read this and maybe try and tale it to heart:

https://crimethinc.com/2018/09/03/the-mythology-of-work-eigh...

This may resonate with you:

https://crimethinc.com/2018/09/03/the-mythology-of-work-eigh...

> “Competitiveness” and “innovation” are the words the unscrupulous people at the top use to instil fear on everyone else and run rampant

If a society is okay accepting a lower standard of living and sovereign subservience, then sure, competition doesn't matter. But if America and China have AI and nukes and Europe doesn't, one side gets to call the shots and the other has to listen.

> a lower standard of living

We better start really defining what that means, because it has become quite clear that all this “progress” is not leading to better lives. We’re literally going to kill ourselves with climate change.

> AI and nukes

Those two things aren’t remotely comparable.

> it has become quite clear that all this “progress” is not leading to better lives

How do you think the average person under 50 would poll on being teleported to the 1950s? No phones, no internet, jet travel is only for the elite, oh nuclear war and MAD are new cultural concepts, yippee, and fuck you if you're black because the civil rights acts are still a decade out.

> two things aren’t remotely comparable

I'm assuming no AGI, just massive economic efficiencies. In that sense, nuclear weapons give strategic autonomy through military coercion and the ability to grant a security umbrella, which fosters e.g. trade ties. In the same way, the wealth from an AI-boosted economy fosters similar trade ties (and creates similar costs for disengaging). America doesn't influence Europe by threatening to nuke it, but by threatening not to nuke its enemies.

There's no objective definition of what progress even means so the guy is kinda right. We live in a postmodernist society where its not easy to find meaningfullness. All these debates have been discussed by philosophers like Nietzche and Hegel. The media and society shape our understanding and importance of whats popular, progressive and utilitarian.

> on being teleported to the 1950s?

That’s not the argument. At all. I argued we should rethink our attitude of unfettered consumption so we don’t continue on an path which is provably leading to destruction and death, and your take is going back in time to nuclear war and overt racism. That is frankly insane. I’m not fetishising “the old days”, I’m saying this attitude of “more more more” does not automatically translate to “better”.

You said "all this 'progress' is not leading to better lives." That implies lives were better or at least as good before "all this 'progress'."

If you say Room A is not better than Room B, then you should be, at the very least, indifferent to swapping between them. If you're against it, then Room A is better than Room B. Our lives are better--civically, militarily and materially--than they were before. Complaining about unfettered consumerism by falsely claiming our lives are worse today than they were before doesn't support your argument. (It's further undercut by the falling material and energy intensity of GDP in the rich world. We're able to produce more value for less input resource-wise.)

> You said "all this 'progress' is not leading to better lives." That implies lives were better or at least as good before "all this 'progress'."

No. There is a reason I put the word in quotes. We are on a thread, the conversation follows from what came before. My original post was explicit about words used to bullshit us. I was specifically referring to what the “unscrupulous people at the top” call “progress”, which doesn’t truly progress humanity or enhances the lives of most people, only theirs.

There are many people claiming many things. Not sure which "top" you are referring to, but everybody at the end of a chain (most rich, most political powerful, most popular), generally are selected for being unscrupulous. So not sure why you should ever trust what they say... If you agree, just ignore what most of what those say and find other people to listen to for interesting things.

To give a tech example, not many people were listening to Stallman and Linus and they still managed to change a lot for the better.

To be honest, the 1950s become more appealing by the year.

I'd like to see a poll if the average person would like to be teleported 75 years into the future to 2100.

When does that competitiveness and innovation stop though? If they stopped 100 years ago where would we be today as a species and is that better or worse than today? How about 1000 years ago?

We face issues (like we always have), but I'd argue quite strongly that the competitiveness in our history and drive to invent and innovate has led to where we are today and it's a good thing.