George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 19/02/20251. A few years ago, people like me were widely attacked in the media for “declinism”. How could we fail to see that we were heading into a capitalist utopia, in which everything would keep getting better? This is a thread about what we could see that our critics could not. 🧵 682695840
Lesley McG @lesleymac.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Seeing patterns can be a curse when most decide to ignore them 1171
Oligarch Mind Virus 🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇦🇵🇸🇨🇦🇲🇽🇬🇱🇩🇰🇵🇦 @woketofuninja.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Can you please do a podcast with Gary Stephenson? (If not already) 010
Christina Lattimer @christinalattimer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025I remember feeling pretty well off when I started work and bought my first house at age 18 - it’s a stark contrast to my children’s experience: I agree your timeline. I blame neoliberalism which created political and corporate greed. Greed (and greed for power) is the underlying poison imho 2292
DavidMittelmann @bitcoindavey.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Everyone laughed when I said the chemtrails have mind control chemicals that will make everyone do stupid things and now here we are. 000
From over the pond🇬🇧💙🇨🇦 @fromoverthepond.bsky.social · 19/02/2025For siding with Putin, pino Trump is a traitor to the USA 000
alexpontikas.bsky.social @alexpontikas.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Tax the rich so that more than half of the wealth ends up in the middle class 121
Keith Campbell Tupman @alex-harvey-1960.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Great. Can I have another hefty dose of turbo capitalism (on steroids) please? The sooner large tracts of Dartmoor and other SW SSSIs disappear under rare earth slag heaps, the happier we’ll all be. Oh. Hang on… 021
John Bransfield @cclcircles.bsky.social · 19/02/2025George they saw it, they knew it, it was really all about empowering the rich and denigrating foreigners and using the weak to make it happen. The people who voted for this shit now wallow in their ever declining lives pretending to be happy because they won, the cost is irrelevant to them. 052
Lady MacMhuirich. @romanyflower.bsky.social · 19/02/2025The whole idea that there can only be growth is unnatural. The universe is ebb and flow, the human heart expands and contracts.. why is it capitalists cannot grasp this simple fact? 172
Existential Movement @existentialworld.bsky.social · 20/02/2025We need to extend our understanding of what is wrong in the natural world with what is wrong in the social and emotional and moral worlds of humankind. youtu.be/ZjVZmn28rXo?...youtu.beEXISTENTIAL MOVEMENT BRINGING WISDOM TO A TURBULENT WORLDYouTube video by Emmy van Deurzen 011
J Green @jgreen63.bsky.social · 19/02/2025In my own less visible way the journey has been very similar. 020
Malthe Mathias @houndpig.bsky.social · 19/02/2025You're so very clever, George. I wish I was like you. 030
lousassole.bsky.social @lousassole.bsky.social · 19/02/2025The final form of capitalism is the sale of our public institutions the private equity. What comes next is something we've never seen before. Techno-feudalism. Capital has the $ to buy the hearts and minds of the "under-informed" voter, and they can now just publicly buy all politicians. 193
Michelle Laughran @misciel.bsky.social · 19/02/2025I think a lot about the primary source evidence in a chapter on “The Need for Water in Ancient Societies” from by M.E. Wiesner-Hanks’ textbk “Discovering the Western Past”… (1/2) 111
5 minutes to midnight @aloha1787.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Aussie here: All legal rulings will go against Trump and then what? Charged with contempt which he will treat with contempt. The only ruling that matters is that the Supreme Court needs to hold a special session and rescind their immunity ruling. Yes it's unprecedented but this is a crisis 100
Overshot the Carrying Capacity @overshot.bsky.social · 19/02/2025I would say the same about people who can see "ecological overshoot", "planetary boundaries", "sixth mass extinction". The forces pushing growth and techno-optimism keep outcompeting attempts to improve biodiversity and reduce human impact. Attacked as "Doomism", rather than clear-eyed. 1141
Ben Belshaw @benbelshaw.bsky.social · 19/02/2025How many of these critics were a) actual historians, b) credible political scientists or c) economists not attached to the IEA? 010
Nottodaysatan @undefinedbeauty76.bsky.social · 19/02/2025They began declining in their heads first. They began making up new names and inventing too many illnesses for personality flaws. They wanted everyone to act the same but look diverse. Lol they have been making no damn sense since I was born in 76. I see nothing has changed other than sex organs. 010
LanceThomas @lancethomas.bsky.social · 20/02/2025Sadly I agree with everything you say. 5 Qs for today 1)Since Brexit is the UK irrelevant? 2)Is the rest of the West (EU, Canada, Australia etc) the bad guys? 3)Is Ukraine being thrown under a bus? 4)Is USA abandoning NATO? 5-Have the middle & working classes been abandoned & replaced by soundbites? 000
Joe Adhemar @joeadhemar.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Thank you for trying George. I was always listening. I often noticed that healthy cynics were always portrayed in drama and film as ‘buzz-killers’. In short, the ‘declinists’ were strategised against by the agenda-setters (to borrow Noam’s phrase). So thank you for enduring 020
🚥Perrywong🚥 @perrywong.bsky.social · 19/02/2025It’s not that they could not see, it’s more that they would not see. 010
Andy doyle @ad1957.bsky.social · 19/02/2025When you point all of this out to some people it likes preaching to the an intolerant convert to some weird religion they are completely deaf to any other viewpoint 010
Ted Shiress @eccentricman87.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Yes George, how dare you read a few books, observe history and be aware of what's happening! 060
Leo DP @leodp.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Next steps: - Decouple the application of policies from human actors, however inadequate the AI may be. - Grab resources (minerary, personal data, ...) - Offer privatized services (health, school, infrastructure, security) to whoever may afford to pay for them. 020
Tom Jennings @tomjennings.bsky.social · 19/02/2025A thread that articulates the growing threat with characteristic eloquence - none of which I disagree with - but could benefit from a few more proposed solutions 031
Mike Wilson @whisperingwind.eurosky.social · 19/02/2025It was clear to many of us that Thatcher & Reagan letting big business off the leash would end badly for all but a few. 214611
Wonko the Sane @kernowmad.bsky.social · 19/02/2025I left the UK in 1998 and returned in 2016, the two things that shocked me the most was that the wages of my old job were identical in 2016 to when I left. And the rights and protections in nearly every area of life were stripped bare. If I could emmigrate again I would. #BrokenBritain 052
uphillwheezer.bsky.social @uphillwheezer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Ah, the 'doomsters and gloomsters'. How wrong they were! 030
Eleanor Rylance 🔶🌳🌍🇫🇷🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇦🇨🇦 @eleanorrylance.bsky.social · 19/02/2025We may be heading into difficult times George, but we also need to be able to find hope- that we can tackle some of the challenges, that humanity and the planet can peacefully exist with each other, that social order won’t break down even when things are difficult, because most people want peace. 381
Roberta Aske 🇱🇰🇮🇪🇪🇺 @kamalini.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Similarly taxes can always be cut, savings can always be made. Nonsense of course, but gospel for any right wing government. 010
zymurgeist.bsky.social @zymurgeist.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Capitalism didn't cause insanely out of control government spending. 000
George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 19/02/20252. It was pretty astonishing that the attacks on us “declinists” peaked in 2012, with the BBC series by David Aaronovitch whose mocking title was “Things Ain't What They Used To Be”. By then, four years after the 2008 crash, things were getting tangibly worse for many in the UK. 447839
Old man Griffin @oldhuman2.bsky.social · 19/02/2025It is difficult to see this and try to explain or discuss with anyone. Even on the left, most wibble on with slogans and nothing more, and some Green chums lack understanding of the possibilities in a fiat economy. 010
meditationxvii.bsky.social @meditationxvii.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Absolutely brilliant & informative article. I’m 70. I remember the warnings about damaging the earth in the late 60s with pesticides to grow food. Anyone remember Whole Earth Catalogue? Things just got worse and continue to, because of human greed. “Capitalism will eat itself.” 4446
Claire Tee @clairetc.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Thanks, really good summary of our current sh*tshow. 010
Glen cares, live from Bullwinkel @glencares.bsky.social · 19/02/2025but.... we are suffering more than ever today.... captain hindsight... what is anyone doing? 011
William Carbine (sanfele) @sanfele.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Capitalism is an irredeemable problem. 020
Duncan Poundcake @duncanpoundcake.bsky.social · 19/02/2025They saw it but they are the cheerleaders of the elite. 140
Steven Starry @madridteacher.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Aghast because it's ghastly. All of it. At a this critical time when we need all hands on deck to put out the fire, we've got this clown car rushing to punch holes in the hull. 191
Sally SJ Brown @sallysjbrown.bsky.social · 03/03/2025Well basically capitalism is Inherently finite. Eventually those who have will have bled the have not to death 010
Chris Dixon @avalanchechris.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Have you had a look at the book @brexitrage.bsky.social and many others have put together to highlight the benefits of rejoining the EU? Ordered 10 the other day and going to be sending them off to MPs. amzn.eu/d/7OChB9Xamzn.euAmazon.co.uk 153
Your friendly neighborhood Autism Creature @splumpi.bsky.social · 19/02/2025For me it's "what good does a capitalist society do for people that frequently get barred from participating in said society?" 020
Steve B @stevebasnett.bsky.social · 19/02/2025To a lesser degree, the story of my own life, George. Even on the rare occasions I presented win-win-win-wins all round for everyone and everything, suggestions were stonewalled because decision makers didn't like the 'green nonsense'. It was an automatic knee-jerk rejection without consideration. 041
AdyBee 🐝 @adybee.bsky.social · 19/02/2025 AdyBee 🐝@adybee.bsky.socialDoes money make you mean ❓ #PaulPiff #Monopoly #Entitlement #MemeForToday 0103
Ralphie the Rover @cornbeef.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Aaronovitch supported the Iraq war as they are Muslims, you forgot THAT aspect of his agenda. 000
cerimu.bsky.social @cerimu.bsky.social · 19/02/2025Most of the critics weren't blind but greedy. The problem isn't that BP, Musk, Murdoch et al can't see what's happening. It's that they care more about their profits than people, creatures and planet. It's sociopathy. 0133
Martin Roche @cluthaman.bsky.social · 19/02/2025bylines.scot/politics/wor...bylines.scot“US now least reliable partner in NATO”, says MP Stephen Gethins“The democracies of the world must work together” 1183
Hapexamandios - Ian C @hapexamandios.bsky.social · 19/02/2025So long as media including movies, TV shows etc. keep portraying the following as good: Cops Capitalism Billionaires Guns/war/violence Not a whole lot will change. Oh and also, having unusually warm weather in places like Ireland or the UK is also something we need to stop viewing as good. 042
niteskylight @niteskylight.bsky.social · 19/02/2025let's say you are correct (you are), here's a question to consider on top of this all, what happens to adults when they become the wielders of discomfit; children get along and play together, something changes in adult life to make them become people who will do this... it's right there, if we look 232