US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2032

On January 16 2020 07:28 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]They don't have to insulate themselves from the consequences. They just don't have to give a shit, or less shit then they give about losing 20% of their pay (random ass number) for the company to become green.

People are really good at ignoring negative consequences that are not directly apparent, and by the time we see direct consequences of climate change, beyond "oh this year is a little hotter then the previous one" it will be way way to late.

On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why.

And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable

On January 16 2020 07:33 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

Which do you think is more likely, that 50% of the workers of a company that are not insulated collectively decide not to give a shit, or that a board of CEOs that are insulated decide not to give a shit? Sounds fairly clear cut to me, do you disagree? I'd love to see why.

And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable

On January 16 2020 07:41 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]I will confidently say neither of them will give enough of a shit.
Which again goes back to what Belisarius said.[quote]So far your answer still is 'magic'.

Walk up to 100 average Joes and ask them how much salary and living comfort they will give up to save the environment. The answer will be "not enough".

On January 16 2020 05:14 Nebuchad wrote:
Well yeah, it's likely that humanity is screwed. We realize that. Doesn't mean we just stop fighting in my book.

On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you?

[quote]

On January 16 2020 07:43 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

Well then we're going to die, which I also believe is the most likely outcome. Is that an issue for you?

[quote]

On January 16 2020 08:03 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]Not particularly, I resigned myself to the fact that humanity as a whole isn't going to do enough a while ago. And yes I am aware that is a rather pessimistic outlook.

Nor do I think you shouldn't stop fighting. But you should realise that people aren't just going to jump aboard of whatever idea you come up with.

On January 16 2020 08:47 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]My belief is that humanity is the fundamental issue with the problems facing humanity. Hopefully we survive long enough to develop advanced enough AI to take over the task of making important decisions for us.

On January 16 2020 08:58 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]Through Magic mostly, didn't say it was a great shot. But I'm also not trying to convince people its the right way to go on the internet.

On January 16 2020 06:59 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]

No problem, thanks for asking. There are two main drivers of climate change, it's emissions by the more developped countries and emissions by the industry. Industry is responsible for most of the emissions of course but there's also a more individualistic element in that our way of life produces a level of emissions that is not really sustainable long term.

The issue that capitalism has in dealing with this is that because it allocates too much power to the specific people who run the industries, the capitalist class, it is ill-equipped to activate change in those. So instead we observe what we have seen in the world today: people should take personal responsibility and change their lives according to climate, we should stop having vacations, we should stop using cars, we should pee in the shower.

This is something but it's not enough because of the dual nature of the problem we face. We see that capitalism is "decent" at demanding that people change their lifestyles, it can use propaganda, it can tax them if they behave poorly, that sort of thing. We also see that capitalism is atrocious at demanding that industry changes, because of the amount of power allocated to the bosses of industry, and because of the profit motive that causes every change to be adopted reluctantly.

Therefore a logical step to make is to increase the power that we have over industry. We can do that using social democracy and have the government regulate the businesses so that they are forced to be more ecofriendly. That has issues, but either way it's the only realistic step that we have so let's do that.

The reluctance that will be shown by industry and the general issues of corruption and propaganda will make it so that it's not enough though. It isn't realistic to expect that the capitalist class won't fight back. Corruption will be more profitable than respecting their limits, so they will corrupt the controllers. All the change that we see will be done reluctantly, thus basically ensuring that it isn't bold enough to lead us to where we need to be. And they will still hold more power on society than the rest of us do, which means they will be in prime position to influence politics and make the discourse drift right again in the near future even if we manage to win right now.

That's why we shouldn't stop there, logically, in an ecologic framework. Luckily not stopping there is also a good thing in general, so it's not a problem that we have to continue.

And there is zero evidence that once they do the people make decisions collectively that are better for the environment and not to make their own lifestyles more comfortable