I think it’s just part of how languages work and people communicate, at least for people learning a second language - but I even do it in my native tongue, so I think it’s general.
For example, if when you are learning English you hear a lot of people say “God dammit” when they are frustrated, then when you are frustrated you’ll probably also start saying the same without ever even thinking about God. It’s essentially just a series of sounds when you learned to make to express frustration.
And so they vote republican?
Either way, not much else is gonna matter when the planet is too hot to live on, and entire Islands full of people go underwater, and no other country is willing to take in the refugees.
Sorry if I sound so evangelical about this shit, but that’s because I’m fucking surrounded by these “80% who total care” people, and I see how they live their lives and the decisions they make. It’s fucking lip service and pushing of the responsibly on to other people while hoping you don’t have to make any changes in your life. Or, at best, it’s complete fucking ignorance.
So 80% want stronger climate action? But not enough to vote for green parties, and even not enough to not vote for anti-climate action parties?
Using the US as example and assuming the Dem/Rep split is about 50/50: if all Dem voters want “stronger climate action”, then that means 30% of Rep voters are voting for anti-climate policy while claiming to want stronger climate action.
Sounds to me like those 80% don’t really know how bad the issue is or how much needs to be done. Which means they are lying to themselves or to others, and this number is actually meaningless. That’s the point the user above you is making, and it seems you agree.
Yes.
Do Democrats all agree 100% with each other? Do Republicans? They still manage to get together to vote for those parties. How many single issue voters are out there?
But I’m expected to believe 80% want significant climate action or have any clue what that would really entail, but can’t get together and vote for a green party? Perhaps if by “stronger climate action” they mean more electrical cars and recycling bins, or maybe these 80% even include people who want more green coal, but I’m sure we both know that doesn’t mean really mean anything.
You can’t assume from people voting for one of the only two parties that can win an election
The survey says 80%… that is enough to get any party to win. Hell, if you dare to dream high enough, that number is high enough to completely set the current government to the side, deny their legitimacy, and make a new governmental system - like one which is not a “first-past-the-post system”.
The argument of “only two parties that can win” is nonsensical in this context, no offense.
Either way, the US is not the only country in the world, and it’s not the only example the other user gave. Even if we ignore the US, how do you justify this in other countries that don’t have a first-past-the-post system? Like I said in another comment:
Survey’s also show that most people want carbon taxes, but look what happens when the price of gas goes up.
People don’t like that, and it affects how they vote.
For example if we do something relatively small like ending beef subsidies here in the US, then ground beef will double or triple in price, and people will naturally consume much less.
And you think people will be okay with that and just let it happen? A politician does that and not only are they not elected again, they might have protests and even riots on their hands. You can’t post c/vegan without non vegans showing up and being disruptive. Which begs the question: why would politicians ever do it when they know this?
You can’t have systemic change if people aren’t willing to change their lives in the first place. People often say they want this or that, but don’t actually stop to think what that requires. Survey’s also show that most people want carbon taxes, but look what happens when the price of gas goes up. What do people think carbon taxes will do? Well, the answer is they don’t really think about it; they just think “tax for company to help climate”, and that’s where it stops.
If you want systemic change, then you also need to acknowledge and raise awareness to the need to take accountability and change our own lifestyles, otherwise that systemic change will never work. Going around saying we could all “change our lifestyles and it wouldn’t matter” and that “what we need is systemic change” in response to people talking about taking personal accountability, does, ironically, very little to bring about that needed systemic change; or at least that’s my perspective.
Mind if I ask what you are basing this on? Because the experience I’m having in my country tells me that would probably just reinforce the status quo, and then the far-right would have a huge increase.
In my country the center-“left” soc-dems (who have been leaning more and more liberal) were in power since 2014, with a majority on the left; in 2022 that party got a majority of votes, and the rest of the left loss a lot of votes, but the right was still in minority. This has essentially resulted in them being able to keep doing whatever they want and what they’ve always done and not keep their promises because they know a bunch of people always vote for them anyway because “it’s them or the right wins!”. Then in late 2023 there was a corruption scandal that resulted in us having new elections early this year where the far right saw unprecedented growth, the “center”-right party won the elections, and there is now a majority right in parliament. At no point during these 10 years did our country turn further left; the right certainly didn’t.
My point is, based on that, I would guess that having liberals (who are the ones in charge of the Dems) in power so long with a majority would just result in them consolidating power, the rest of the left to be pushed out, and eventually for the far right to see a renewed growth.
The real solution would either be for everyone to vote for a new different left-wing party (if we’re already talking about convincing “everyone” to vote for Dems, why not dream a little higher?), or turn to mutual aid and grassroots movements. And a party that wins elections will almost certainly never want to change the electoral system because they benefit from it the most; again, the best hope for that might be getting behind one party whose mission purpose is exactly to turn away from a 2 party system.
When I studied Computer Engineering, I met several other students who had a lot of trouble using the Windows file system, and navigating a file system through a terminal was a Herculean task for them.
Most people growing up now, and since over a decade ago, are only tech savvy in the sense they know how to use smartphones, tablets, and social media; none of those require any understanding of file systems, and even using desktops doesn’t really require it that much for most people.
Is it 100% optional? Are there no dietary conditions that require eating meat? Even if it is optional, I only said that expecting everyone to change is unrealistic, not that it’s impossible.
What point are you trying to make here? It’s ok for people to support the meat industry because an incredibly small fraction of people need meat? How many people do you know that eat meat? And how many do you know actually need meat for medical reasons? And how many of those specifically require eating red meat, by far the worst offender, the most expensive, and still massively consumed?
How much do you expect people to sacrifice? If you give up eating meat can you fly to go on vacation? Or are people expected to give up everything in the name of the climate while billionaires jet around and corporations expell endless emissions?
“Guys, you don’t get it! Doing 100% is hard, so why can’t people just do 0%?!?” Also, you can criticize people for eating meat and still criticize billionaires on private jets; but nice whataboutism, I guess.
If military operations are required for survival (like eating)
You don’t need to eat meat.
“yes we will only defend that military base and we will not kill everyone in the nearby school” and then they go and kill everyone in the school, why wouldn’t they be blamed for not following their orders?
Pray tell, what is the meat industry equivalent of this? You can’t not worsen climate change with a meat industry. And before you argue “lab-meat”, 1) that also takes a lot of resources currently, and it hasn’t been massively adopted so ti’s not what people are eating, 2) you know whether you’re eating lab-meat. You can’t support the meat industry, which you know is responsible for climate change, and then pretend you don’t know the consequences. Stop.
But fine, you want another example, think of a hitman. “They only hired the hitman to kill people, they are not morally responsible for the hitman killing people”. Except in this case, the hitman is also raising his victims from the ground up and worsening climate change.
You know eating meat, and thereby funding the meat industry, is bad; stop wasting time trying to justify it to yourself and other people and engaging in some kind of double think, and start actually making change for the best.
But anyway, blaming people for the depravity of companies is also not going to fix anything
Eating meat is 100% an optional and more expensive action that is demonstrably worse for the planet, even aside from ethical concerns, but which the majority of people keep consciously choosing to do even when made aware of the issues and presented with alternatives. Those people are just as responsible as the people actively doing the farming.
This wouldn’t even be considered a controversial statement if it wasn’t for the fact so many participate in it and want to keep making excuses. If a nation hired mercenaries to conduct military operations, you wouldn’t absolve that nation of guilt and say only the mercenaries are at fault, would you?
Both can and should be blamed. You can’t complain that what someone is doing is wrong and then keep supporting that wrong action when you don’t even have to.
Eating meat is 100% an optional and more expensive action that is demonstrably worse for the planet, even aside from ethical concerns, but which the majority of people keep consciously choosing to do even when made aware of the issues and presented with alternatives. Those people are just as responsible as the people actively doing the farming.
This wouldn’t even be considered a controversial statement if it wasn’t for the fact so many participate in it and want to keep making excuses. If a nation hired mercenaries to conduct military operations, you wouldn’t absolve that nation of guilt and say only the mercenaries are at fault, would you?
If you think it’s all up to the customer and the corps nor the system have no blame in comparison
When did I or anyone else say companies and the government do not have any blame? Can you link me the comment and quote the relevant bit?
Who is consuming their products? I’m doing my damn best not too while striving for structural change, and I’d bet the other user is too. What about you? People taking your stance are usually the ones trying to make excuses to keep consuming mindlessly.
“We can’t make our own phones, so there’s literally nothing we can do!”
Do you have a plant based diet, or try to reduce meat consumption to the best of your abilities?
Do you walk or take public transport when you could walk?
Do you avoid buying things you do not need?
If you answered “yes” to all that, then congratulations! You are part of a different 1%, and you are also just arguing for the sake of arguing.
If you answered “no”, then you’re part of the problem. You can pretend otherwise all you want, but you are one cog that keeps the system going. The system isn’t magical, other wordly, or some fundamental law of the universe. The system is people and their choices.
I just wanted to say, this is a very good comment.
When people say it’s not “we” and it’s just a few people, or just companies, it always seems to me that they are - consciously or subconsciously - just making excuses for not having to actually do anything and hoping someone else will solve the problem for them. They want the problem to be solved, while not having to do anything or change their lifestyle.
There are some very obvious and clear examples of this; here’s two of them:
Studies have shown most people are in favour of carbon taxes. But with carbon taxes, companies would just shift the extra cost onto the consumers by increasing prices. One thing affected by carbon tax, would be the price of gas itself. And when prices (especially gas prices) increase, that usually results in a lot of anger and protests. So why would any democratically elected politician ever implement a carbon tax? If they did, they would be voted out, and the next one to come in would just undo it.
Another obvious example, is meat. We know one of the major protagonists in CO2 emissions is animal farming. Red meat especially is responsible for a huge source of those emissions. And yet most people don’t even wanna think about eating less meat, and they will still crack jokes about vegans and look at them sideways. And as for regulations regarding meat, the example from before still applies.
As you seem to be implying, what really needs to happen is a whole cultural shift. Trying to shift blame onto to a few people and hope they get the guillotine, won’t change anything as long as people keep demanding all the same things because then someone else will come in to fulfil that demand. Whether we like it or not, we have to accept that it’s the sum of all our actions that will determine the future, and our actions can influence other people’s actions; therefore, one way or another, we are all responsible.
Sorry for typing some much at you since you’re basically making the same point already, but I just felt like adding on.
Yeah, the post is only true if we start implementing a bunch of copyright laws for the training and use of AI; ironically that is something most anti-AI people support.