Chris Hedges took the red pill, and Agent Smith told him, "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I've realized that you are not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague."

The Matrix would have been a better allegory to use than Moby Dick, particularly for HNers. Moby Dick might appeal to Harvard-educated, Arabic-speaking, Vermont liberals like Hedges, but most of us haven't read it and don't want to.

It's not that I disagree with any of Hedges' major points, it's just that I find his presentation erudite, pretentious and snobbish.

Economist Kenneth Boulding summed this up more concisely: "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

And if Capitalism is a "plague," what is the cure? Hedges talks about Marxist revolution, but stops short of calling for one, instead falling back on quotations from Shakespeare, and Kant, and Dante, and Black Elk, and Nazim Hikmet.

So, what is the cure?

1. War and revolutions aren't the answer: If they decimate the population, temporarily reducing resource consumption, decreasing the supply of labor so that wages might finally start rising again after 30 years of stagnation, then what? After all the misery and suffering that war brings, we've bought ourselves a few decades with a slightly more equitable wealth distribution, and put ecological disaster in check for a while, but it's only temporary, and our populations will soon grow themselves back into the same problems all over again.

2. Technology? Increased efficiency will only spur increased consumption. It's called Jevons paradox. Technology will only speed things up.

3. Accelerationism... Help the capitalists steal all the wealth and push us over the edge of ecological disaster. Evolution will make sure something else succeeds us.

4. Enlightenment: In the Gospel of Thomas, Saying 56, Jesus said, "Whoever has become acquainted with the world has found a corpse, and the world is not worthy of the one who has found the corpse."

The world is already dead, and there's nothing Chris Hedges can do about it! Whenever something we love dies, we experience mourning. The stages of mourning are--

Denial - Most of the people in the world are stuck in this stage.

Anger - This is where we find revolutionary groups like the Tea Party and OWS.

Bargaining - I think this is where Hedges finds himself. He really thinks there's a way to resurrect the planet--Art, Poetry, Novels--but he doesn't seem sure.

Depression - Lot's of people struggling at this stage. About 800,000 to a million people commit suicide per year.

Acceptance - Doesn't mean you're ever going to be happy again. It just means you're awake to reality.