Oh Chloe.... sweet Chloe. Yeah. It’s the government and those damn corporations. The democratic government we have where people vote and can petition and protest has acted completely against the will of the people, and those demonic corporations who have forced us to enjoy their many products and goods. People kept telling corporations “I like the price of this. Don’t ever make it cheaper...” and those corporation kept saying: “NO! We will do anything and everything to make our product cheaper even though you’re willing to buy it at a higher price because we HATE money!”
Chloe, yeah- things like silly straw campaigns largely exist to placate. It distracts people from issues that would be uncomfortable or costly if people looked into them. But they also give people a feeling of power. It’s for people like you Chloe- because you’ll blame the corporations for destroying the planet and then go out and buy the newest gee wiz gadget that will be in a Chinese electronics graveyard in a year or 3, then hop on a cruise ship while it destroys the oceans and guzzles fuel until its crashed into a beach in Africa to be disposed of by DIY ship breakers with no safety or environmental oversight, and then you’ll go buy something off amazon because the one produced with more socially conscious means costs much more.
It’s a way for people to reconcile their part in the whole thing and absolve themselves of a feeling of personal responsibility because they can then say: “I did something.” They can feel like they did their personal good deed to make things better and when someone like me points out that corporations and governments are in a popularity contest- they stay in business through pandering to the emotions and wills of those who enable their existence- you can say “in my personal life I do everything I can as one person to be conscious and help- whatever these companies do is beyond me and since I’m helping but the environment is still in danger it’s THEIR fault and I’m not to blame!”
Chloe, if it’s EVER possible to make a smart lock or a robot vacuum or a smart watch or whatever toy- let alone the batteries to power it or the energy to power those batteries- it’s will be thousands if not many more years before we can do it without causing pretty big harm to the environment- especially when we need to supply that to many billions of people. The simplest and easiest way to help is to do without. But living without gadgets and toys, doing things on a small scale and seeing your paycheck not go half as far and your free time get sucked up with chores so you can avoid buying from companies that are somehow involved in all this (spoiler: basically every company for everything...) requires much more work than blaming faceless and random corporations or governments.
Chloe- we complain the system is dirty, but we are the system. We make it, support it, guide it. The moment Clorox figures out of could slap “environmental friendly” on a bottle of soap and you’d buy it to feel good without actually verifying its claims- and that you’d pay more? They figured out they didn’t actually have to try, just do some marketing. So you can mock people for the whole straw thing, point out the futility and the distraction- but for what reason if you’re just going to pick another scapegoat to blame the personal choices of millions on? Perhaps we could even say that at least the straw people are willing to try and make some type of personal effort or take at least some misguided personal accountability vs trying to lay the blame on someone else’s feet?
@princessmonstertru- It happens more often than you’d think. In fact- we often align on certain ideological concepts and not minutia or vice versa, and many times it isn’t the truth of something you might say that I can’t agree with, but the fact that I do not believe it is the only truth or the most valid truth.
@dr_richard_ew- lol. So you noticed.
Fucking Chloe.
I was watching Neighbors 2 yesterday and the Chloe part hit me twice as hard in a way.
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Edited 5 years ago
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· 5 years ago
I'd say "the Earth is dying" is pushing it. It's fucked up sure but this ain't shit in the grand scheme of things. Take the Permian Mass Extinction for example: 96% of all marine life went extinct and 70% of all terrestrial life went extinct. Life on Earth very nearly ended then and there. We don't exactly know what caused the so-called Great Dying, though a popular theory is that an entire mountain range of volcanoes in what is now Siberia erupted all at once, choking the planet in more greenhouse gases than we could produce in a millennium.
C’mon, it’s totally self-centered but we don’t mean the EARTH is dying when we say the Earth is dying. We mean it’s become less hospitable for our survival.
The planet will be fine. Millions of species on the planet will be fine, even if we have another event like you describe. Just not *our* species. Whatever the outcome for humans over the next two hundred years, most of us would rather not have the various forms of local and global upheaval that more extreme temperatures would cause.
But you’re right. Those who are only worried about the planet instead of humans can rest easy.
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· 5 years ago
Humans too. We've made it through countless calamities: nuclear war (so far), the Spanish Flu, the Black Death, the most significant of all a population bottleneck around 70000 years ago that lowered the global human population to 10000-30000 individuals in the global population (with merely 2000 in Africa). For several generations, we were teetering on the edge of extinction but we survived it nonetheless. Climate change may eventually take many lives but it won't put us in the ground.
I don’t know why the downvotes. The truth is that almost certainly there is little or nothing we can do to make this planet lifeless. Life adapts. As far as human extinction that’s more possible but a leap. Human beings survive almost everywhere on earth. There might be less land mass above water, more deserts or etc etc- but somewhere on earth its likely humans would survive and even thrive.
The world, society, and daily life might not resemble anything remotely like what we are used to or remotely to our liking- but life- including human life- tends to find a way. That’s certainly not ideal- we don’t want to be reduced to a triple digit global populace who can only live in a small zone of the planet and live short brutal lives of practicality- we should try to avoid that- but even the idea that people would die out is a bit melodramatic. Things would be very unpleasant for most people, and lots of people would die. Not quite the same as mass extinction. Or not. We don’t really know. Maybe we do go extinct that easy. Not a chance to gamble on but irresponsible to predict doom without fact.
Yeah... nothing larger than a tartigrade would survive the first great dying... but the mass extinction we are bringing upon ourselves (and yeah, we are), is nothing compared to that.
That just shows you how diverse single celled organisms are.
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· 5 years ago
I think someone is just going through my account and downvoting my comments.
Do people really think it's government and corporations at fault?
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· 5 years ago
I mean they are the ones contributing to the largest carbon footprints while wrecking down laws and restrictions protecting the environment at the same time
So it's the mining of coal thats the problem, not the end electricity user who's enjoying their AC on a hot day?
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The retail sales company is to blame but the person who gets their new wireless headphones delivered next-day is the victim?
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I don't know what you think this planet should look like but if you expect a government truly chang things in that order of magnitude, be prepared to make some serious quality of life changes.
Some people do take advantage of it, and they’re at fault too, but renewable energy sources are never utilized and made way too expensive for the common consumer to use. Who do you think makes those prices? Because the consumers sure don’t.
Actually that’s a common misconception. The consumer does set the prices. A for profit company can’t make money charging more than people will pay. If a Coke was $500 for a can- do you think Coca-Cola would be such a profitable company? If people don’t buy- they go out of business. Company’s that are out of business do not pollute the planet as much as the ones in business- generally.
Simply put the consumer can refuse to buy a product which they do not support or who’s parents methods they do not support, and demand the company change their behavior. A company generally cannot force a consumer to buy their products. You blame the prostitute for providing but not the John of whom prostitution wouldn’t exist without. Funny enough many places don’t criminalize or tend to prosecute prostitutes simply for that reason.
So a company can’t sell a good for less than its real cost of it wants to stay in business long right? But it CAN charge as much over that cost as it likes. That’s the negotiation with the consumer. If no one will buy what you make for what you charge, and you’re charging as low as possible for the cost of making the product and running the business- you either need a way to lower costs, get people to pay more, or go out of business right? When WILL people pay far over cost for an item? When they actually NEED or feel they NEED it right? They don’t want to live without it and they HAVE to have it and will pay.
Go on eBay or to certain independent retailers around a major gift holiday like Christmas and see the prices being charged for that seasons “hot” “must have” gift. An item made for $5, sold for $30, and now being bought for hundreds or thousands. That “Fluffy buddy” doll or whatever it is- people have decided is worth a months rent, they CAN’T live without it. They’d pay anything. That’s their decision. They’ve made a decision and at that moment that is their priority. Their actions speak for them.
So for some odd thousands of years people lived without cars or electricity etc etc. So we can’t say those are “necessities” of survival. They are necessities to maintain your lifestyle as you want to live it and it is structured. You CHOOSE to buy these things, to use them. Knowing the corruption and destruction of their makers you give those same people your support in cash while denouncing them. You’re so much better than them right? They put their comforts and wealth and lifestyle above the environment- the future of humanity even.
Tl:dr- They profit from the destruction of the planet. What about you? Don’t you profit? Doesn’t that system benefit you? Why are you buying this thing? To support the comfortable lifestyle you have. To support your ability to gain wealth. Not to survive. People without jobs and homes survive just as most humans had long before these things were invented. You’re just as culpable. Is a person who volunteers to join an army amidst a genocide not culpable because they didn’t give the order to genocide- they merely agreed to participate and support it because they wanted to be a pilot and it was the most available option for them to get what they wanted?
All too often people just don't understand how their quality of life is intertwined with all of these "evil" corporations.
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To the people who have a simple view of the world's condition, like Chloe:
1) the recent high human quality of life that most of the population enjoy is a LOT more complicated to create and maintain than you understand.
2)if you don't believe #1, try to go and be the change that you think should happen on a scale equal to that of a corporation.
Yes. Life is complex. Far too complex to truly realize. We might not like it- but it’s life. Things don’t tend to change unless we recognize and admit our behavior. Asking someone else to change to fix your issues is... ineffective. The liquor store can refuse to sell you cigarettes, you can lock a smoker in a sealed room for a week- and they won’t smoke. Because they can’t. Not because they don’t want to or have the skills to say no- because you stopped them. But if no one is stopping them....
@dr_richard_ew- lol. So you noticed.
I was watching Neighbors 2 yesterday and the Chloe part hit me twice as hard in a way.
The planet will be fine. Millions of species on the planet will be fine, even if we have another event like you describe. Just not *our* species. Whatever the outcome for humans over the next two hundred years, most of us would rather not have the various forms of local and global upheaval that more extreme temperatures would cause.
But you’re right. Those who are only worried about the planet instead of humans can rest easy.
That just shows you how diverse single celled organisms are.
.
The retail sales company is to blame but the person who gets their new wireless headphones delivered next-day is the victim?
.
I don't know what you think this planet should look like but if you expect a government truly chang things in that order of magnitude, be prepared to make some serious quality of life changes.
.
To the people who have a simple view of the world's condition, like Chloe:
1) the recent high human quality of life that most of the population enjoy is a LOT more complicated to create and maintain than you understand.
2)if you don't believe #1, try to go and be the change that you think should happen on a scale equal to that of a corporation.