looking at the world today, the disintegration of liberal capitalism, the prevalence of the newer Chinese authoritarian model, populist leaders being elected across the globe, I see no tendency towards leaders of judicious foresight coming together to make much happen here.
i can think of no current leader who has judicious foresight about anything other than their own election prospects
well i guess that's it then. no problem solving to be done here, let's just continue on with a system that produces mountains of unnecessary waste, and keep our best minds working on the next big Graze Box App But For Dogs
im talking specifically about waste that was supposed to be recycled. From the UK, the majority of it isn't. It's incinerated in China, or more and more, we send it to them and they send it back.
I don't understand, so basically if you're homeless or don't have a bank account, or if you're not in the workforce for one of a million reasons, you don't get a say at all?
The jury's out on whether or not this is "true", as macroeconomics tends to not be an exact science by any means.
What strikes me is how comforting the idea is for us as the wealthy; if the companies have an agenda to have us believe this (which they do) and the idea is very comforting (which it is), it only really matters whether we can be convinced that it's true.
I agree but the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking, attending protests, etc. as it's really a stand-in for the idea of "making your voice heard", as opposed to "completely opting out of the political process and telling yourself that doing so is making your voice heard".
Being "apolitical" actually turns out to be a pretty naïve stance on politics. There's a great David Foster Wallace quote about "protest by non-participation" like this:
“If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”
DFW wrote that 15 years ago at this point. Non-voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. The fact that you're not voting means they don't have to give a shit about what you think.