US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3039

On January 20 2021 04:47 KwarK wrote:

The argument that nobody who indirectly benefits from X can ever criticize X is a stupid argument and people should really stop making it if they don't want other people to call them stupid. Greta absolutely has a moral high ground, she's not complicit in the sins of the past just because she benefited from them, but even if she was a hypocrite, that doesn't actually make her point wrong. The argument you're using is some grade A Ben Shapiro idiocy where, instead of actually addressing whatever the issue is, he attempts a "gotcha" to paint the other side as hypocrites. But whether or not the other side are hypocrites has no bearing on the issue in question.

Ben Shapiro is an idiot who boasts about his inability to sexually satisfy women. Don't be like him.

On January 20 2021 04:54 evilfatsh1t wrote:

why in the hell do you think greta absolutely has moral high ground? why should she? who gave her the right to pass judgment from the comfort of her home? i didnt realise greta thunberg was actually the 2nd coming of jesus.

On January 20 2021 04:48 Liquid`Drone wrote:
She has wider reach with young people than old scientists have.

Read this. I'll even point to some key figures:

'A global strike on 15 March 2019 gathered more than one million strikers in 2,200 strikes organised in 125 countries. On 24 May 2019, the second global strike took place, in which 1,600 events across 150 countries drew hundreds of thousands of protesters. The events were timed to coincide with the 2019 European Parliament election.

The 2019 Global Week for Future was a series of 4,500 strikes across over 150 countries, focused around Friday 20 September and Friday 27 September. Likely the largest climate strikes in world history, the 20 September strikes gathered roughly 4 million protesters, many of them schoolchildren, including 1.4 million in Germany. On 27 September, an estimated two million people participated in demonstrations worldwide, including over one million protesters in Italy and several hundred thousand protesters in Canada.'

How is this not being influential? The young people participating in these strikes are going to overwhelmingly vote green in future elections - which for most of them is one or two election cycles from now. If you actually spend some time talking to a wide range of youth and children (and in particular girls - she definitely appeals more to girls than to boys), it will quickly be evident that a very significant number are inspired by her to do 'whatever they can' (be it picking plastic from beaches or having meat free monday or using the train instead of plane to go somewhere) to help save the climate.

I mean - if you don't actually think we have a climate crisis, if you reject that we're living at the beginning of a mass extinction, then I can totally see how her message would annoy you, because she might help inspire policies that you don't like. But if you actually agree with the message (that the environment is in a crisis and dire action is urgently needed), then she's one of the most important people in the world to spread that message. Doesn't really matter whether you find her off-putting, that's on you.

On January 20 2021 04:58 KwarK wrote:

You don't have to be the second coming of Jesus to have moral high ground. Also she pretty famously left her home to make a bunch of speeches. That time when all the world leaders sent representatives to one building and then she gave a speech wasn't actually in her house, the building was the UN.

On January 20 2021 04:44 evilfatsh1t wrote:

yeah this is a pretty bad analogy.
the people upstream may have shit in the river but if they didnt there may not have even been a river to drink out of.
the world didnt reach this level of carbon emissions because we liked fucking with mother nature. its the direct result of our pursuit for prosperity and better quality of life. whether greta admits it or not, she is a direct beneficiary of that wealth and she has no right to get on a moral high horse and call out her previous generations for trying to better them and their childrens' lives.
what were our ancestors supposed to do? the world enters into industrial and modern eras and they all just say "you know what lets not raise people out of poverty and lets keep riding horses because otherwise in a few hundred years greta thunberg is gonna call us evil"?

On January 20 2021 05:01 evilfatsh1t wrote:

yeah i wasnt saying she literally made her speeches from home. who gave her the right to judge people for their past actions when she herself hadnt even reached adulthood

On January 20 2021 05:02 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


If on one side of the climate change conversation, you have scientific experts devoting their life to climatology + Greta Thunberg trying to save the environment and the future of her generation, and on the other side you have greedy politicians who are ignoring and denying climate change because they stand to make less money and have less power... surely the former side has the moral high ground, compared to the latter? She doesn't need to be Jesus, but to be fair, even the Biblical God was the one who drowned all of humanity because of His own ineptitude.

On January 20 2021 05:01 Liquid`Drone wrote:


They were supposed to start massively investing into renewable energy 50 years ago when climate scientists started warning about the relationship between carbon emissions and potentially dangerous global warming / climate change. Nobody is arguing against the industrial revolution. We're saying growth could have been slowed a bit. I was a child in the 80s and 90s in Norway. My family's income amounted to slightly below the median wage. Norway's GDP/capita was at 66% of what it is today back then.

And we were absolutely fine. Sure, our summers were mostly spent visiting family in other parts of Norway or Denmark, and once we went to Sweden, and going to Thailand twice yearly is more fun than that. (Norwegians made 7.7 vacational trips abroad in 2019. We're a country with 5 million people. ) But abandoning that type of luxury doesn't amount to riding horses instead of cars. We could easily eat 50% of the meat we do without suffering from b13 or protein-deficiency. It's like, there are so many small things we could have done in the past 50 years which would have made a massive overall difference, and it would not result in 'global poverty'. Even if I grant that China had to massively increase their emissions to raise their living standards, that's no excuse for the western world, which was already plenty rich.

On January 20 2021 05:01 evilfatsh1t wrote:

yeah i wasnt saying she literally made her speeches from home. who gave her the right to judge people for their past actions when she herself hadnt even reached adulthood

On January 20 2021 05:08 KwarK wrote:

You were using "from the comfort of her home" as a phrase to imply that she never lifted a finger in for the cause but condemned others for inaction. Whether or not you misidentified the UN building as her literal home you're still wrong, the use of "from the comfort of her home" does not apply to someone who makes the efforts she has made. She has left her home, both literally and figuratively.

As for who gave her rights, that depends on who you ask. God? Jefferson? Paine? The point is that she has them.

On January 20 2021 05:16 evilfatsh1t wrote:

actually i used that phrase to imply that she hasnt endured nearly enough adversity in life to be able to pass any form of judgment to people, let alone people who are literally multiples older. but nice try.
and no, she doesnt have the right. i dont care if you think she does but she doesnt. i can understand that she could judge people anyway without the right, but then itd be only fair for people to judge her just the same and yet at the moment a lot of people are jumping to her protection because shes "young". the double standards is rich isnt it

On January 20 2021 05:22 KwarK wrote:

Well in that case who gave you the right to pass judgement on her?
If you're going to argue that she should shut up because you have not yet given her the right to judge others then please explain to my satisfaction why you shouldn't just shut up right now.

On January 20 2021 05:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


So I guess now the question is: Does MM mobilize the Republican establishment to convict Trump so that he won't win the 2024 Republican primary, or does MM blame Trump while simultaneously saying that this isn't an impeachable offense?

On January 20 2021 04:59 evilfatsh1t wrote:

i dont have a problem with her having influence. that in a vacuum is completely fine. my problem with her stems from the fact that shes not just a climate change advocate; one of her biggest points is the zero emissions target. pushing for that is wrong and unfortunately her influnce will cause many young future voters to probably push for the same thing. practically speaking youre not ever going to get zero emissions but the more support this generates the more unlikely you get any action at all because it will never satisfy this base

On January 20 2021 05:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


So I guess now the question is: Does MM mobilize the Republican establishment to convict Trump so that he won't win the 2024 Republican primary, or does MM blame Trump while simultaneously saying that this isn't an impeachable offense?