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This is a very shortsighted and unrealistic way of thinking. Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and

This is a very shortsighted and unrealistic way of thinking. Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? This is the same backwards line of thinking that insists non-profit compensation be lower, leading to our best and brightest wasting away spying on people at Facebook instead of optimizing drug delivery out of Dakar. Until we get over the fact that there isn't anything inherently wrong with capitalism/consumerism, we won't be able to start making it work for our people and planet. Luckily initiatives like the B-corp are beginning to change this mentality.

lawlessone 8y ago
>Until we get over the fact that there isn't anything inherently wrong with capitalism/consumerism There's loads wrong with it though. We only make it work because we patch it up with numerous environmental laws, social safety nets etc
- pnongrata 8y ago
  Exactly. Unrestrained consumerism is exactly the cause of deforestation and many other ills.
k1m 8y ago
> Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? Because it's a major contributing factor to the situation we're in. It's a perfectly rational response for environmentalists to choose not to support projects like Ecosia that promote consumerism.
- zeropnc 8y ago
  Ecosia isn't "promoting consumerism". It's simply accepting the reality of it and helping mitigate/counterbalance the damage. There's a key difference there. You can ra-ra all you want about it, but consumerism isn't going anywhere - so either you work around it, or you accomplish nothing.
  - k1m 8y ago
    It's a search engine that makes money from advertising. That's essentially its core business model. I browse with uBlock Origin enabled so I don't see ads. A search on Ecosia shows me a large banner saying: "Ads plant trees! We’ve detected that you are using an ad blocker. We plant trees thanks to income earned from ads. Please disable your ad blocker for Ecosia so that we can keep on planting." Beneath it is a large button: "DISABLE AD BLOCKER". To me, a site that wants me to view ads I have no interest in, is promoting consumerism. I realise this applies to a lot of sites, but it's less excusable for a project that touts itself as focusing on the environment. If you don't see a link between advertising and consumerism and the state of our environment, then I guess we look at the world differently. For my part, I try to encourage friends to install ad blockers, and will not encourage them to visit sites that tell them to disable their ad blockers. I even worked on a page to make detecting and installing an ad blocker as easy as possible: http://blockads.fivefilters.org http://blockads.fivefilters.org
krageon 8y ago
Advertising has shown itself to be a vehicle for malware. Promoting it as something genuine and useful is unethical and short-sighted. Not to mention it doesn't consider the victim here at all.

lawlessone 8y ago

>Until we get over the fact that there isn't anything inherently wrong with capitalism/consumerism There's loads wrong with it though. We only make it work because we patch it up with numerous environmental laws, social safety nets etc

pnongrata 8y ago
Exactly. Unrestrained consumerism is exactly the cause of deforestation and many other ills.

k1m 8y ago

> Consumerism is core to how our society functions and isn't going away - why should social good and environmentalism fly in contrast to it? Because it's a major contributing factor to the situation we're in. It's a perfectly rational response for environmentalists to choose not to support projects like Ecosia that promote consumerism.

zeropnc 8y ago
Ecosia isn't "promoting consumerism". It's simply accepting the reality of it and helping mitigate/counterbalance the damage. There's a key difference there. You can ra-ra all you want about it, but consumerism isn't going anywhere - so either you work around it, or you accomplish nothing.
- k1m 8y ago
  It's a search engine that makes money from advertising. That's essentially its core business model. I browse with uBlock Origin enabled so I don't see ads. A search on Ecosia shows me a large banner saying: "Ads plant trees! We’ve detected that you are using an ad blocker. We plant trees thanks to income earned from ads. Please disable your ad blocker for Ecosia so that we can keep on planting." Beneath it is a large button: "DISABLE AD BLOCKER". To me, a site that wants me to view ads I have no interest in, is promoting consumerism. I realise this applies to a lot of sites, but it's less excusable for a project that touts itself as focusing on the environment. If you don't see a link between advertising and consumerism and the state of our environment, then I guess we look at the world differently. For my part, I try to encourage friends to install ad blockers, and will not encourage them to visit sites that tell them to disable their ad blockers. I even worked on a page to make detecting and installing an ad blocker as easy as possible: http://blockads.fivefilters.org http://blockads.fivefilters.org

krageon 8y ago

Advertising has shown itself to be a vehicle for malware. Promoting it as something genuine and useful is unethical and short-sighted. Not to mention it doesn't consider the victim here at all.