for: quote - Marjorie Kelly, quote - finacialization, progress trap - financialization, progress trap - capitalism, speculative investing

quote: Marjorie Kelly

• we're not in the economy of the 1950s anymore.
• And we act as though we are, that finance is this productive force and it's building, it's building wealth.
• Well, for the most part, it's not.
• There's so much financialization, so many financial assets, that they've become an extractive force.
  • And a big piece of this is that we're not really distinguishing between
    • productive investments and
    • speculative investments

title

• Waves of Abandonment
  • The Permian Basin is ground zero for a billion-dollar surge of zombie oil wells

summary

• a story that illustrates the intersectionality of fossil capitalism
  • progress trap
  • exploitation
  • tragedy of the commons
  • fossil fuel industry
  • gold rush
  • externalization
  • fossil capitalism

Comment

• Yet another example of capitalism's tendency to externalize manifests at the most basic level.
• The tendency to treat nature as an inexhaustable garbage dumping ground seems to be built into our culture's economic norms taught to us by most parents and society at large.
• There are not enough parents that teach their children to love, respect and feel that they are an intrinsic part of nature.
• The externalization our society teaches us in the form of destructive, widely-accepted social norms of waste such as::
  • having the concept of waste and garbage
  • garbage taken out once a week
  • waste bins everywhere
  • keep our backyard clean, but at the expense of trucking out our garbage to some unknown place
• has been enculturated into us from early age

• technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism
  • where profitability isn’t the goal;
  • perpetual return on investment is.
• Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations
• reinforce capitalist agendas.
• Innovation will require pushing past this capitalist infrastructure to achieve the social benefits and civic innovation that will work in the United States.
• China is a whole other ball of wax.
• If you want to go there, follow up with me. But pay attention to Taobao centers.
• We haven’t hit peak awful yet.
• I have every confidence that social and civic innovation can be beneficial in the long run
  • with a caveat that I think that climate change dynamics might ruin all of that
• but no matter what, I don’t think we’re going to see significant positive change by 2030.
• I think things are going to get much worse before they start to get better.
• I should also note that I don’t think that many players have taken responsibility for what’s unfolding. -Yes, tech companies are starting to see that things might be a problem,
  • but that’s only on the surface. -News media does not at all acknowledge its role in amplifying discord,
  • or its financialized dynamics.
• The major financiers of this economy don’t take any responsibility for what’s unfolding. Etc.

• principal researcher, Microsoft Research
• founder, Data & Society