<< "Laying back" does nothing to ensure their long-term future. In fact, you could be cutting your own throat by not acquiring them when you need them >>

YES!!

Crikey, what’s happened here Pericles? Have you suddenly seen the light and come to my side of the debate??

<< Whatever the case, unless you have a long-term plan to cope with the situation, you have signed your company's death-warrant. >>

Yes yes YES!

Long-term plans are what it’s all about! Not just for each individual company, but for whole sectors and indeed for the whole of our society!

.

.

Oh uh, hold on a minute....

Isn’t it big companies and various business sectors (eg: housing) that push our government to uphold rapid population growth?

Um….yes, it is indeed.

So…. it would appear that there are long-term plans and there are long-term plans. There is a plan for continuous growth in demand, which is what businesses are after, and a plan for a genuinely sustainable society, which neither businesses not government seem to be interested in.

It would seem that there are fundamentally different motives here to the type of long-term plan that is typical of the average business and the type that we need in order to maintain a high quality of life and environment, and be able to significantly improve infrastructure and services.

Hmmm, so maybe business plans are generally not as long-term as they should be. If they are helping to take us towards a greater discrepancy between demand and supply of many of our basic essential resources and hindering us from significantly improving services and infrastructure and hence compromising our future economic and social wellbeing, then perhaps they are taking us towards a future in which THEY will be struggling, along with everyone else.

And I put it to you that this is EXACTLY what the business lobby is doing.

When big businesses stop giving big donations to political parties, which let’s face it are bare-faced favour-buying bribes, and start pushing for a balance between supply and demand, ie: a stable population, rather than continuous rapid growth, then I will be able to agree with you Pericles; that businesses do indeed plan properly for a healthy future!

Poirot
You're not genuinely interested and stop lying and evading.

You've got the onus of proof back-the-front. I'm not the one asserting that government can manage sustainability, Ludwig is. It's for him to prove before I disprove.

You are not the slightest bit interested in discussing sustainability and if you were, you would have something to say on topic, instead of only mere bitter snivelling ad hom.

Ludwig
Can you see, or do you not understand, that it's illogical to argue "I think government should do X, therefore government can do X"?

Can you see it's illogical to argue "Government must be able to know because government must be able to know"? or “It must be so, because it must be so"?

Can you see it's illogical to argue "I don't know what values sustainability would need to achieve, but it must be achievable?"

Because that's all your argument is. When challenged, all you do is assume that *someone else* must be able to defend what you can’t.

OTOH, there's nothing intrinsically illogical about doubting that government can do it.

You have completely failed to understand the significance of my questions. It’s not that they’re “copious”. It’s that they provide a total logical refutation of your entire belief system.

Why? Because how could “sustainability” (your definition) be achieved without answering those questions? How? Don’t assume someone else knows or can.

You said you’ve thought through the issues. You haven’t. All you’ve done, is go round and around and around, endlessly chasing your tail, without once thinking what sustainability actually entails, and how anyone could or would achieve it, let alone the government.

Have a look at the questions I asked you. You will see that not only you, but the government, is not capable of answering them. If you could have answered them, you would have by now. You haven’t because you can’t. That means you’re talking nonsense.

Furthermore, if what you’re assuming were true, full socialism would be both possible and desirable. All you have is a garbled self-contradictory confusion.

JKJ,

You said to Ludwig on the subject of sustainability,

"....I'll show why I think government can't achieve it..."

You're good at howling down other posters in their ability to show things...I merely asked you to show us what you claim to be able to do

Go on then?

In reply, you inform that I'm not really interested in the subject, accuse me of lying (erm, what's that about?) and dismiss my request as a form of ad hom.

My theory is that you seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in debates "sorting out" the mechanism or "rules" of the discussion. It's rare for you to actually get around to discussing the substance at hand. You're too busy denigrating your opponent on this issue or that, bating your opponents with false bravado and braggadocio, or preemptively congratulating yourself for your triumph.

If, as you say, you can show that government can't achieve sustainability, why don't you just write it down and let us judge for ourselves.

Poirot you beat me to it. I was going to say much of the same sort of thing.

Jardine, please just tell us why you think government can’t direct us towards a sustainable future and then govern us accordingly. That is surely the next step in this discussion.

It seems as though you can’t.

<< Can you see, or do you not understand, that it's illogical to argue "I think government should do X, therefore government can do X"? >>

Oh dear! Who’s having a lapse in logic here? Surely if you feel that someone should do something then you feel that they are inherently capable of it. It would be illogical to suggest they should do something that you feel they are not able to do!

<< Can you see it's illogical to argue "I don't know what values sustainability would need to achieve, but it must be achievable?" >>

We DO know the values! It is perfectly sensible to desire that our government aspire to them, and for it to sort out the minor details as part of an overall approach. It is completely illogical that sustainability be defined to the nth degree before we even consider whether it should be achievable or pursuable.

Growth, economy, government, science, progress, environment…. and on into a very long list… are things that we understand the broad concepts of but which are all fuzzy and ill-defined around the edges. But you wouldn’t suggest that stop pursuing growth or progress or that government should stop funding science or looking after the environment until these things are all minutely defined and pigeonholed…. would you??

continued

<< OTOH, there's nothing intrinsically illogical about doubting that government can do it. >>

Doubting whether government can do it and insisting that they can’t are two quite different things.

It is such a defeatist position to hold! In fact, it is entirely the wrong discussion! What we should be discussing is how to get our government to move towards the sustainability path, not arguing over whether they can or not.

Your whole tenet is so negative. You are basing it on logical argument. But sorry, your logic doesn’t stack up, and actually comes across as highly illogical.

<< Furthermore, if what you’re assuming were true, full socialism would be both possible and desirable. >>

What??

<< Have a look at the questions I asked you. You will see that not only you, but the government, is not capable of answering them. If you could have answered them, you would have by now. You haven’t because you can’t. That means you’re talking nonsense. >>

Could you restate the questions that are most important to you. No more than three please. And we’ll take it from there.