Society knows it’s doing things that will do immense harm to the environment for many generations to come. So why can’t it change? We like donuts too much.
You are right, but if it weren’t for the amount of consumers and our growing appetite for conveniences the world would look hell of a lot differently.
Now we’re at a point where meaningful climate action would be a sacrifice so big not many of us selfish little pieces of shit would take. No more plastic, no more meat, no more cars, no more global overnight shipping for items you don’t even need. We’ve grown very accustomed to things we only just recently realized are extremely expensive and we cant afford them. Too bad that the people who make those things are even less willing to stop selling them to us, than we are to buy. We really are screwed, because one day it’ll all abruptly stop. There will be no gradual progression into the climate extinction. We will be pretending we’re not at fault until our dying breaths.
You’ll never convince these people to take some responsibility. Billions of people are living obscenely wasteful lives whilst believing nothing they do matters. It’s like voting, ‘my vote doesn’t count therefore I shouldn’t bother.’ And then they all complain about the government. Money talks and if consumers actually worked together we would have an enormeous amount of power.
This is a stupid argument. Even ignoring the obvious whataboutism, it’s like arguing peasants were responsible for the Norman conquest because they didn’t ’advocate for Harold hard enough’, or because they ‘didn’t convince Edward the Confessor to have a child’.
The general public have known about climate change for decades and made little to no effort at doing anything about it. We have elected climate change deniers, made Bezos a billionaire and bought bigger and bigger cars all whilst claiming it’s all completely out of our control. Grow up and take just a little responsibility for your choices.
Meh I don’t think you have a very clear understanding of this topic. The American public voted for gore, the British public voted for corbyn. Both elections were stolen. Oil companies spent vast unimaginable sums of money popularising the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘carbon footprint’ to minimise public conception and maximise the concept of personal responsibility. Global climate disaster is not a personal problem, it’s a systemic problem of governance, and it needs systemic governmental solutions.
Ok, so we’re not responsible for anything we do. We are completely controlled by our government and corporate overlords. We are incabable of thinking for ourselves or making any decisions not dictated by marketing and anyone daring to suggest we should consume less is asinine. Maybe we really deserve what’s coming to us.
I mean, people in the U.S. have the largest impact on the environment compared to other first-world countries. And first world countries have a much, much larger impact on the environment compared to the rest of the world. It’s not linear, either. I agree with the argument that much more culpability rests on those with more power, but I think that also translates into socioeconomic power individually.
I also agree that there is a blame-shifting propaganda campaign, but I think that also includes a point about not blaming consumerism, which also is a huge determinant in the status quo.
Personally, I think as usual, complex topics will have complex solutions; I think you’re both right up until the point where it excludes each other’s points. No-one is forcing anyone to choose only one thing to work on.
Oh, we can totally blame consumerism. We just can’t do so entirely and relieve ourselves of the burden of the future because we found a partial root cause.
While I’m a nihilist at heart, I can’t righteously shift the blame on to the average, dying-from-poverty < 38 year old. For decades, we’ve known that corporate interests are what drives the largest amount of climate change (and that it’s the engine that will likely kill all of us before a changing climate does). Not since the 90’s (arguably earlier) has it been an individual and his dollar.
Grow up and take a little responsibility in your communication.
There’s plenty of blame for everyone in western countries at least. Profit drives corporations and those profits come from people buying their crap without caring about the consequences. Blame business all you like but corporate profits don’t exist in a vacuum.
Every one of my efforts could be wiped out by a single stroke of a pen, and they have been thousands of times over by billionaires making decisions that affect all of us.
“We” aren’t to blame because “we” aren’t running the show.
I did not mean to discourage voting, on the contrary, i think the people who don’t vote are the problem. We have compulsory voting where i live and i think it keeps things a little saner as the parties don’t need to spend so much effort making people angry or afraid enough to be motivated to vote.
I think people would feel a lot more responsibility if they actually had a decent say in what goes on. Our individual actions do so little to change things relative to the actions of corporate goliaths and governments that it kind of makes logical sense to just give up and try to enjoy your life.
When our “democracy” (speaking specifically to the US here) essentially amounts to voting between two shitty options nobody likes and having to wait four years to remove them if they do something you don’t like, you can’t really call that a system that gives power to the people. We need more direct democracy imbedded in these systems so that we can quickly reverse bad decisions and implement new laws, directly. Otherwise, why should people feel responsibility?
You are right, but if it weren’t for the amount of consumers and our growing appetite for conveniences the world would look hell of a lot differently.
Now we’re at a point where meaningful climate action would be a sacrifice so big not many of us selfish little pieces of shit would take. No more plastic, no more meat, no more cars, no more global overnight shipping for items you don’t even need. We’ve grown very accustomed to things we only just recently realized are extremely expensive and we cant afford them. Too bad that the people who make those things are even less willing to stop selling them to us, than we are to buy. We really are screwed, because one day it’ll all abruptly stop. There will be no gradual progression into the climate extinction. We will be pretending we’re not at fault until our dying breaths.
You’ll never convince these people to take some responsibility. Billions of people are living obscenely wasteful lives whilst believing nothing they do matters. It’s like voting, ‘my vote doesn’t count therefore I shouldn’t bother.’ And then they all complain about the government. Money talks and if consumers actually worked together we would have an enormeous amount of power.
This is a stupid argument. Even ignoring the obvious whataboutism, it’s like arguing peasants were responsible for the Norman conquest because they didn’t ’advocate for Harold hard enough’, or because they ‘didn’t convince Edward the Confessor to have a child’.
What whataboutism?
The general public have known about climate change for decades and made little to no effort at doing anything about it. We have elected climate change deniers, made Bezos a billionaire and bought bigger and bigger cars all whilst claiming it’s all completely out of our control. Grow up and take just a little responsibility for your choices.
Meh I don’t think you have a very clear understanding of this topic. The American public voted for gore, the British public voted for corbyn. Both elections were stolen. Oil companies spent vast unimaginable sums of money popularising the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘carbon footprint’ to minimise public conception and maximise the concept of personal responsibility. Global climate disaster is not a personal problem, it’s a systemic problem of governance, and it needs systemic governmental solutions.
Ok, so we’re not responsible for anything we do. We are completely controlled by our government and corporate overlords. We are incabable of thinking for ourselves or making any decisions not dictated by marketing and anyone daring to suggest we should consume less is asinine. Maybe we really deserve what’s coming to us.
I mean, people in the U.S. have the largest impact on the environment compared to other first-world countries. And first world countries have a much, much larger impact on the environment compared to the rest of the world. It’s not linear, either. I agree with the argument that much more culpability rests on those with more power, but I think that also translates into socioeconomic power individually.
I also agree that there is a blame-shifting propaganda campaign, but I think that also includes a point about not blaming consumerism, which also is a huge determinant in the status quo.
Personally, I think as usual, complex topics will have complex solutions; I think you’re both right up until the point where it excludes each other’s points. No-one is forcing anyone to choose only one thing to work on.
Oh, we can totally blame consumerism. We just can’t do so entirely and relieve ourselves of the burden of the future because we found a partial root cause.
It turns out it’s beef, not donuts.
While I’m a nihilist at heart, I can’t righteously shift the blame on to the average, dying-from-poverty < 38 year old. For decades, we’ve known that corporate interests are what drives the largest amount of climate change (and that it’s the engine that will likely kill all of us before a changing climate does). Not since the 90’s (arguably earlier) has it been an individual and his dollar.
Grow up and take a little responsibility in your communication.
“His dollar”? Responsible communication lol
There’s plenty of blame for everyone in western countries at least. Profit drives corporations and those profits come from people buying their crap without caring about the consequences. Blame business all you like but corporate profits don’t exist in a vacuum.
…but also the larger issue - younger generations have never had the economic power to invest in the outcome of the world, which kinda sucks, lol.
I’m sorry you don’t understand the conventions of the English language if that’s what you mean to imply.
I’m a furry. I bathe in trans content.
“Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written.”
Every one of my efforts could be wiped out by a single stroke of a pen, and they have been thousands of times over by billionaires making decisions that affect all of us.
“We” aren’t to blame because “we” aren’t running the show.
While I appreciate the comparison, don’t downtalk voting. Local laws are made and broken by small margins.
I did not mean to discourage voting, on the contrary, i think the people who don’t vote are the problem. We have compulsory voting where i live and i think it keeps things a little saner as the parties don’t need to spend so much effort making people angry or afraid enough to be motivated to vote.
Why… Fuck, you’re not from the States.
I still have a stale taste in my mouth for our conflicting opinions, but I can’t deny a different take on Capitalism from another country.
Edit: though I hope our communication was thoughtful and stimulating in spite of being down-putting.
No, without the profiteers capitalizing on our desires the world would look a lot differently.
I think people would feel a lot more responsibility if they actually had a decent say in what goes on. Our individual actions do so little to change things relative to the actions of corporate goliaths and governments that it kind of makes logical sense to just give up and try to enjoy your life.
When our “democracy” (speaking specifically to the US here) essentially amounts to voting between two shitty options nobody likes and having to wait four years to remove them if they do something you don’t like, you can’t really call that a system that gives power to the people. We need more direct democracy imbedded in these systems so that we can quickly reverse bad decisions and implement new laws, directly. Otherwise, why should people feel responsibility?