I mean I can vote and get reasonable parties and politicians that will enact reasonable regulations, laws and systems in place, eat entirely sustainable foods, use sustainable energy and means of transportation, recycle and reuse just about everything and get everyone else, as in every single person in the entirety of the United States on the same page and there will still be seven and a half billion people that fucking don’t. I’m not the problem here.
I know that the US isn’t in a vacuum and sometimes one country’s legislation and practices affect others, but I find it very interesting that a lot of these conversations don’t mention insanely populated, growing and polluting countries like China and India that are disproportionately burning this planet without much concern. A lot of your points are just laughable when it comes to China and its government (for example), its deception of its people and their push to have even more kids at all costs. Let’s not even talk about their laughable environmental protection measures.
I know it’s a hot take and maybe it’s foolish and unsympathetic, but while I already do take measures to mitigate some of my impact on this planet, I won’t do it at great personal expense or inconvenience when I fucking know that somebody else will just take whatever gains my actions have had and will fill that vacuum and then some by having more kids and consuming more oil, coal, plastic, meat, fish, etc than I ever will in my lifetime. The last few years have shown that lives aren’t all that precious and I value mine and my comfort above most others and at this point I don’t think I give a shit about people halfway across the globe. They certainly don’t give a shit about me.
Call me an edgelord, hurl insults at me, but I won’t lose sleep over it. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not the problem here and I don’t give a shit anymore.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
I’m so tired of people turning everything into an awful prisoner’s dilemma. Everyone should just aim to be the best person you can be and stop fretting about whether everyone else is trying quite as hard as you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Right? On a global scale, though, “best person you can be” should be something like, “let’s try to behave in such a way so that if everyone behaved like me, the world would be a good place”. That is hard though, to think like that.
What can help is the knowledge that by doing so it is impossible not to on some level inspire others to do the same to some degree by example.
If you’re a selfish jerk that will cause people around you to be .001% (or something) more selfish and jerky. If you are kind and good that will push the needle the other way similarly.
Except the amount more those people are better or worse for knowing you then also influences how much better or worse the people they know are etc and so while it is a small effect per person, the diffused effect is meaningful, cumulative and self-reinforcing. It doesn’t take a lot of people within a community either giving up and being the worst or finding enough of a spine to try to be good to start to tip the balance of the whole community in either direction. It also means that as you are better and kinder, your immediate external world gradually becomes a little better and kinder which makes it easier and more rewarding to be that way in an endless virtuous cycle.
Ok now apply the fact that at least 45% of the western world is brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry. They’re low IQ repeater bots who would glady kill every single one of us because climate change is a “hoax”.
I think a very small minority “would gladly kill every single one of us”, not 45%. If it were 45%, there’d already be open civil war all over the west.
I mean I can vote and get reasonable parties and politicians that will enact reasonable regulations, laws and systems in place, eat entirely sustainable foods, use sustainable energy and means of transportation, recycle and reuse just about everything and get everyone else, as in every single person in the entirety of the United States on the same page and there will still be seven and a half billion people that fucking don’t. I’m not the problem here.
I know that the US isn’t in a vacuum and sometimes one country’s legislation and practices affect others, but I find it very interesting that a lot of these conversations don’t mention insanely populated, growing and polluting countries like China and India that are disproportionately burning this planet without much concern. A lot of your points are just laughable when it comes to China and its government (for example), its deception of its people and their push to have even more kids at all costs. Let’s not even talk about their laughable environmental protection measures.
I know it’s a hot take and maybe it’s foolish and unsympathetic, but while I already do take measures to mitigate some of my impact on this planet, I won’t do it at great personal expense or inconvenience when I fucking know that somebody else will just take whatever gains my actions have had and will fill that vacuum and then some by having more kids and consuming more oil, coal, plastic, meat, fish, etc than I ever will in my lifetime. The last few years have shown that lives aren’t all that precious and I value mine and my comfort above most others and at this point I don’t think I give a shit about people halfway across the globe. They certainly don’t give a shit about me.
Call me an edgelord, hurl insults at me, but I won’t lose sleep over it. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not the problem here and I don’t give a shit anymore.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
I’m so tired of people turning everything into an awful prisoner’s dilemma. Everyone should just aim to be the best person you can be and stop fretting about whether everyone else is trying quite as hard as you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Right? On a global scale, though, “best person you can be” should be something like, “let’s try to behave in such a way so that if everyone behaved like me, the world would be a good place”. That is hard though, to think like that.
What can help is the knowledge that by doing so it is impossible not to on some level inspire others to do the same to some degree by example.
If you’re a selfish jerk that will cause people around you to be .001% (or something) more selfish and jerky. If you are kind and good that will push the needle the other way similarly.
Except the amount more those people are better or worse for knowing you then also influences how much better or worse the people they know are etc and so while it is a small effect per person, the diffused effect is meaningful, cumulative and self-reinforcing. It doesn’t take a lot of people within a community either giving up and being the worst or finding enough of a spine to try to be good to start to tip the balance of the whole community in either direction. It also means that as you are better and kinder, your immediate external world gradually becomes a little better and kinder which makes it easier and more rewarding to be that way in an endless virtuous cycle.
Ok now apply the fact that at least 45% of the western world is brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry. They’re low IQ repeater bots who would glady kill every single one of us because climate change is a “hoax”.
I think a very small minority “would gladly kill every single one of us”, not 45%. If it were 45%, there’d already be open civil war all over the west.
I don’t think this is a hot take anymore. Middle/lower class are sick of hearing that everything is our problem. It isn’t.