Environmental impact of the music industry

Worth remembering that data centres contribute 2% of total greenhouse gas, that is more than many countries, so Netflix, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc should be doing more than they are currently, if their users demanded it they would have to act.

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I do agree with the spirit of what you say. I just wanna point out that there are a lot of people without education who have big hearts and pure souls … and a lot of over educated evil psycho personas as well!

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This topic deserves a few music albums!

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Pretty heavy topic. And i hope someone smarter and less selfish than me comes up with a solution!

I think the main problem is that whats best for people short term is not whats best for the planet. Politicians wont do drastic changes as that will impact peoples comfort and self imposed needs to a degree that would stop all hopes of re-election. So it is part democracy’s fault that big changes wont happen over night. Here in Norway taxation on stuff is the biggest “solution” to pollution. And it does help some with lowering emissions and stuff. But it will always be harder on those who have less.

Another challenge is what to cut. There has been a big move on plastic waste the later years. And focus on what should come in plastic wrapping. But on the other side plastic has made food have longer experation dates, and does help with food production and lessens food waste. So its not that easy to just remove it either.

I see overpopulation as one of the biggest challenges. As we dont have enough natural resources to go back to when you lived of the land. There is not enough wild animals to hunt, or fields to grow crop naturally to feed everyone. Veganism might help to some extent, but there is absolutely no way to get everyone to stop eating meat voluntary.

The argument about rich people polluting more than the rest is a problem. A bigger problem would be if all the wealth where distributed evenly as more people would fall into the extreme consumerism inspired by the western countries.

As for the music industry i think its like every other industry. Its there because there is people willing to pay for instruments. Only way to make less of an enviromental impact would be to raise prices on everything. So the people on top have the same profits with less sold items. But then it makes it a “hobby” for the super rich. Or if everybody goes out and makes their own instruments. But not everybody, because that would hurt nature instead.

But humans are capable of the most awesome stuff. And some of the most despicable things ever. The problem is that they mostly “better” after a big crisis than before. People really come together to help each other after catastrophic events, more than they help out beforehand.

As i started with, i hope someone smarter than me has solutions for this problem, as i dont really see a solution to change this as fast as its needed. Before a catastrophic event forced a change.

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I’ll get right on it! After NAMM ofcourse. I need a couple of new synths to finish my album first! :wink:

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Nice to see this thread going so well, this means this topic is on a lot of people´s minds and awareness is the first step towards a change.

Since we mostly agree that education is the key I think another problem that correlates with it is that we are all living in our own filter bubbles, no matter if we choose them ourselves or if we are being kept in it from outside.

One of the main problems of today´s society is the “me first” mentality, for a lot of people that´s even “only me”. No empathy, no understanding for the situation of other people and also no direct consequences for their actions but instead people with this attidude make it to the top and are presented as hero´s in our media. That´s one kind of filter bubble we are being kept in: other people decide on what we get to see and therefore how our view of the world is shaped. If you hear bad news all the time while the good news are being kept away from you that definitely has a negative impact.

Another filter bubble is the social media (I would even count forums like this as social media): you hang around with like minded people, read news that fit your interest and political views and so on and again it is being decided by others of what appears in our timeline. We´re basically just reassuring ourselves all the time. And when you only see news and reports that reassure you and read approving comments etc. you end up thinking you´re part of a big movement and on the right side of things. But when put into perspective we´re always just part of a niche movement.

For example barely any climate change activist is trying to have a serious/respectful discussion with climate change sceptics on their channels and vice versa, trying to understand their point of view (understanding doesn´t automatically mean approving) and widen their own horizon. Instead climate change activists pat themselves on their back and look down on the opposing side (and vice versa), not willing to question their own point of view and reassuring themselves that they have it all figured out and that everybody should listen to them and no one else. And if there is a discussion on a neutral platform like in comment sections of news sites, then you don´t even have time to flip a coin before the insulting starts or it´s just trolling.

We are also never really thought to engage in discussions with the opposing side and the competition bullshit already starts in school. You have to be better than the rest, you need good grades to get the best job, make the most money and all that shit. If you hear news about schools it´s most likely because someone got bullied or there was another school shooting but news about how all kids chip in to buy the janitor a present or how teachers stay longer because one of their students has a problem that you won´t find in any news that is being filtered out for you. Fear works better than good news.

We live in our filter bubbles just as journalists and every other group of people do. The mainstream press consists for the most part of middle to upper class people who can afford the education and live in their own world and people living in a different world don´t understand the problems of the rest because they never had to face them. Same for politicians who for the most part never had the struggle of a blue collar worker because they go from school to university directly into the parliament.

It has always been a version of “divide et impera”, when nation vs. nation doesn´t work anymore, then it´s religion vs. religion, then men vs. women, then women vs other women and so on until you´re left with thousands of small groups all too small to have a real impact and hating each other instead of joining forces. We have the chance and for the first time in history the infrastructure to actually connect to each other and reach the critical mass but we´re being played against each other instead. And the longer we wait the more unlikely it gets because the compass of “the elite” is set to authoritarian regimes/dictatorships. We´re getting screwed over bit by bit, always more restrictions and more surveillance that they always mask as some kind of safety measure. That might even be true but they don´t say whose safety they´re talking about. The reason for all these restrictions is changing to whatever works at the moment, if war on terror doesn´t work anymore then Russia is the bad guy… again.

Break out of your bubbles and take a look behind the scenes. We don´t all have to get along and live in a hippie community but we need to realize that we´ve been fooled and open other people´s eyes for this. And I think it´s better if we wake up one by one and slowly stop this insane machinery instead of crashing and burning it. Doesn´t guarantee that it´ll all be better after but if we keep going this way then there´s only war, dictatorship or environmental collaps. None of these options are attractive.

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https://sonicstate.com/news/2019/12/16/roland-go-piano-with-alexa-buil t-in/

Symptoms, symptoms everywhere…

I definitely agree and can tell that I met those people myself. That is, what made me ask, who is to decide, who may have children or not. The worth of a human beeing is - at least in my world - not dependening on level of education or wealth.

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And this world a soft revolution … :wink:

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This is true - in a way - but it may be some kind of consolation that in countries without true democracy or even having some kind of dictatorship the situation is much worse.

Doesn’t mean that we have any point to blame them and feel better, if we continue to ignore, what has to be changed :wink:

Yeah, of course. I didnt mean to imply that the dictatorships in this world is better. But if the leader would focus only on reducing pollution and emissions, they would get the job done. Not that i would want to live in a country like that though.

This is IMO a natural outcome by having those “activists” and “scepticist” in the media and on the streets. On both sides I watch more and more “fundamentalists” and partly “fanatics” fighting each other over the “right ideology”.

Their problem might be - if the foundation of their argument has become too ideological - that every ideology I have learned about was simple as is “WRONG” in the first place.

Sad that I forgot the source of the following saying:

“The main issue with every ideology is that an ideology often has some truth in it, but it also states that this truth is the only truth acceptable.”

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This is a big problem. Everything gets more and more polarized. The voices thats heard is the extreme ones on both sides. The reasonable middle disappear in arguments and exaggerations.

This can lead to people trying to help their own argument by either faking real research, or exaggerate some of the facts to fit their narrative. And when caught it is used by the opposing side to disprove every other correct facts they have.

I feel the same argumentation is happening all over the society today. On every topic from politics to Overbridge and firmware updates for synths.

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I wonder how much power porn streaming consumes.

A good question … I forgot this source also (like the one above) … so that will be not a scientific fact … but IIRC it was a surprisingly high percentage … about 30% of data traffic. But the most telling was that the statistics showed the most video time of such stuff was during typical working hours of the country, which was monitored :wink:

We just need to google this and there are quite some statistics online :wink:

Fundamentalism is a pretty accurate description. And the frame of allowed expression of thoughts gets thinner by the minute. Nowadays the extremes on both ends of the spectrum don´t even engage in arguments anymore in public, they just throw around labels like “conspiracy theorists” to name just the most popular one and hope that this will stick with the audience and not the argument being brought up. Heck, if someone is not buying the “Russia is the bad guy” narrative this person gets labeled as “Putin understander/friend” so a positive word like understanding/friend gets turned into something negative, this is manipulation to the fullest. And when someone from the right wing says it´s raining outside you can´t confirm it because then you get labeled as a racist. That´s how you end any discussion before it even begins because nobody wants to face a shitstorm (from an orchestrated anonymous mass of people who would never have the guts to talk shit face to face).

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I believe that this has a very simple reason:

Fundamentalists want to fight for having a fight and have the feeling as a group or individual to be better than others in the first place. Their credo is: “WE are the Upright - and - YOU are the Rotten”. (Doesn’t this remind somehow on preachers? Never mind …)

I have never watched a fundamentalist to use real facts to solve a problem. Mostly they only have an “oppinion” and/or a “faith”. I have never seen one of them making their hands dirty, digging facts, making a serious analysis and discuss this in a civilized manner.

Hah :slight_smile:

Fundamentalists define themselves through their belief. If you take that belief away it basically means their whole life has been a lie and obviously they will fight that with everything they have, even bulletproof evidence will be denied if it was standing right in front of them.

Religious fundamentalists are still the most dangerous. I´ve seen a report about religious families in the US who teach their children themselves at home. They couldn´t even do basic math but were able to quote the bible. And these people are connected, they have massive influence in politics…

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Considering the scope of our issues, now is not the time for any kind of middle ground.

One side acknowledges were facing the collapse of our species, the other not only refuses to look outside but does every thing in its power to muddy the conversation for their benefit. There’s no compromise; these people are accelerating our demise.

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