A Quote by Herman E. Daly
If nonsatiety were the natural state of human nature then aggressive want-stimulating advertising would not be necessary, nor would the barrage of novelty aimed at promoting dissatisfaction with last year's model. The system attempts to remake people to fit its own presuppositions. If people's wants are not naturally insatiable we must make them so, in order to keep the system going.
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Every system tries to get people to conform to support that system. That goes for communism, socialism, free enterprise, or any other civilization. If they don't demand loyalty, they can't keep their civilization together. So what they do is they teach things that would support an established system. We do not advocate an established system. TVP talks of an emergent system into state of change. So that we always prepare people for the next changes coming ahead. So that people will not cling to the past.
What we need is a system of thought - you might even call it a religion - that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.
When artists connect to a system because they want to make a living, it's their own choice. In fashion, designers don't have that choice. I know everybody mentions Azzedine Alaïa, but he's been going for a long time in the system - showing to people, selling to clients - and I think it's admirable how he's transformed it into his own system in a way, but it's still a system.
People expect those in authority to take on big problems and to solve them. We had an opportunity to reform Social Security in a way that would have protected people's benefits and created a solvent system. Younger workers would be confident that the money they were putting into the system would be available to them when they retired. It was a missed opportunity. I regret that.
If we're ever going to get the world back on a natural footing, back in tune with natural rhythyms, if we're going to nurture the Earth and protect it and have fun with it and learn from it - which is what mothers do with their children - then we've got to put technology (an aggressive masculine system) in its proper place, which is that of a tool to be used sparingly, joyfully, gently and only in the fullest cooperation with nature. Nature must govern technology, not the other way around.
If you look into the way that materials are used in an ecological system you'll notice that you'll find that there is no waste. The waste of one organism becomes food for another and everything's recycled in an ecological system whereas in our human built environment there's a throughput system. We use something then we throw it away... We have to imitate nature and try to re-use everything we make as human beings or recycle them - when we cannot re-use or recycle them we should try to reintegrate them back into the natural environment.
People don't want novelty - they want the reassurance of familiarity. No-one wants to be challenged, no-one wants to have their minds blown. There is an insatiable appetite for affirmation.
With a traditional human resources system, we would work with a company, select the product, customise and implement the system, and our job would be over. Some companies are changing and asking why do they need to own the HR system when they can connect to an Internet service and pay as you go?
The purpose of a Christian education would not be merely to make men and women pious Christians: a system which aimed too rigidly at this end alone would become only obscurantist. A Christian education must primarily teach people to be able to think in Christian categories.
What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
For the present system to work, poor people must be excluded from the innovation, because if they could get access at an affordable price, then affluent people would find ways to buy it cheaply as well - and then the innovator would be poorly rewarded and introductions of new medicines would decline.
People who are fit are the same as anyone else. The only difference is their level of commitment. If looking good and being fit was easy, everyone would do it! Most people don't want to put in the work or make the sacrifices needed in order to be fit.
The problem is that in order to publish a book in mainland China, you have to agree to be subject to censorship. That's the nature of the system. I don't challenge that system on its face. It's their system. But as an author, I have a choice to make whether I'll participate or I won't.
Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system.
I think if you're going to remake a film it should be something that was a good idea, but wasn't executed well. There isn't anything I would like to remake. I have too many of my own ideas I want to make.
Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.
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