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> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your co

by lagzi 6y ago

> We need to stop trying to pin the blame on one group and take responsibility all together. Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. Blaming people for what corporations should be held accountable for is counterproductive and distracting. We should focus on enacting laws to protect us from the damage corporations are doing to the planet.

mcntsh 6y ago
> Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. If more people thrifted, went vegan, and minimised their consumption, it would shrink the footprint of these corporations as well. These things don't all exist in a vacuum. Shipping/manufacturing companies pollute the earth shipping/manufacturing things for consumers. Now, it's not to say that these businesses shouldn't be held accountable, but people need to take some personal responsibility too. Once regulatory action passes, and corporations are forced to abide by environmentally conscious laws, consumers will be forced to be less consumeristic just by force of economics. It'll come down to consumers in one way or another.
- KozmoNau7 6y ago
  It comes down to consumption in general. The modern materialistic society is born from decades of advertising, product placement and the idea that to get ahead in life, you have to outspend and outconsume your peers. You have to flaunt your material goods, because that is the only thing equating to status in our current society. This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. They haven't simply satisfied existing demands for decades, they have created and planted those demands via advertising, in order to sell their products. Add the factors of planned obsolescence and lack of repairability on top of that, and you have a recipe for constant consumption and endless waste creation. Then they tried to foist recycling on us as an end-all be-all solution to the pollution we're creating, but it not even close to being enough, by several orders of magnitude. We need to increase quality, reduce quantity and make do with much much less. And the start of that is to do something about the 100 corporations that are responsible for ~70% of all emissions. Tax all emissions hard, as a start.
  - mcntsh 6y ago
    > This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. Corporations aren't some faceless evil entity. They're made up by people trying to make money to buy material goods to raise their quality of life and status in society. This is what bothers me about the "evil corporations" scapegoat. People paint this picture of "corporations" as if they're an infection that was given to the human race, but they're just part of the human condition. Humans are to blame.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      Corporations are unique in their ability to, for example, spill 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico. Some people feel the narrative of "Oh BP aren't responsible for the consequences of their actions, it's just that people want their product so very much" is PR from oil industry lobbyists.
      - mcntsh 6y ago
        Huh? I never claimed they shouldn't be responsible for their actions. Where did you get that from?
        michaelt 6y ago
        When you said they were "scapegoats" and "Humans are to blame" ? And that "It'll come down to consumers in one way or another" and that what's needed is more people to shop in thrift shops and become vegan?
        mcntsh 6y ago
        ...are humans not to blame? Who's running these businesses? Who's cutting the corners? Who's buying the BP products?
    - esarbe 6y ago
      Yes, humans are to blame, and corporations are the mechanism. The problem with the "corporation mechanism" is that it absolves people from any moral responsibility, because shareholder values. It's a viscous mechanism that drives people to dissociate themselves from the consequences of their actions.
zpeti 6y ago
What exactly is a corporation in your opinion? Something that’s completely independent of “people”? Corporations are people and they produce things that people want and use. If suddenly we had 0 corporations according to your theory, what would the world look like? You’d have nothing.
- dlkf 6y ago
  > Corporations are people This is an interesting usage. The same sentence comes up a lot and normally it is intended to mean "corporations are (legally) people (though they are obviously not literally people)." But you seem to mean "corporations are literally people." I think the distinction normally made is actually kind of important, because not only is a corporation obviously not literally a single person with intentions and agency, but it's also a little different than "a group of people" because of the economic dynamics imposed by corporate law. How about this: Corporations do what their directors (people) order, and directors are ultimately beholden to activist shareholders (also people). The activist shareholders typically want to maximize profits, and believe the corporation can do so by meeting market demand (of people).
- esarbe 6y ago
  Corporations not people. People have consciousness, emotions, morals, values, friends, lovers, depression, hunger, pain, hopes and dreams. Corporations are not people. Come on, repeat it with me; corporations are not people. Let it sink in, because that's important. People have intrinsic value. Corporations don't. To suddenly have 0 corporations in the world, you'd need have magic and that's the end of the discussion. Because, you know, magic.
aequitas 6y ago
> you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. They can only get those profits because they supply a demand in an economy of scale. Any law against a corporation will only reflect down on the consumers as prices go up or supply reduces. This is what it means to take responsibility together. If the majority of people can't live without their curent living standard and constant consumerism no law can be put into place to change a thing.
unionpivo 6y ago
The thing is it's individuals in aggregate, who empower those corporations. If people stooped buying iphones (just example, not picking on Apple) Apple would stop building them. If people would travel less, there would be less planes burning fuel. If people would stop buying cheap plastic crap, there would be less plastic created, less fuel used by ships bringing stuff from china etc. Sure some corporations rely on government or b2b, but a lot are consumer dependent. And yes one single consumer changing his ways doesn't change much. Several millions or more, can start having an effect. Point is you can make all the laws you want, corporations are great at finding workarounds[1]. We have to get people to consume less[2] or in the long run figure how we can make all of this stuff with less environment impact. [1] just look at all the "disruptive" startups, most of them are using workarounds to get ahead (uber, airbnb) [2] Of course if we actually managed to do that, we would pretty much kill of our whole economy, which is build upon the idea of everything always going up (revenue, gdp, stocks, housing, retirement plans, ...), so we are dammed if we do and damned if we don't.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Sure some corporations rely on government or b2b, Corporations, by definition, rely on government; the corporate form is a government-created privilege that is also government-granted in each specific instance. But, of course, government, and businesses of all kinds, ultimately depend on people. I mean, if people just stopped listening to a government, it would ceases to exist as a government.
  - unionpivo 6y ago
    > Corporations, by definition, rely on government; the corporate form is a government-created privilege that is also government-granted in each specific instance. Sure I meant they rely on them for their revenue (the government is their customer, like military contractors) > But, of course, government, and businesses of all kinds, ultimately depend on people. I mean, if people just stopped listening to a government, it would ceases to exist as a government. This is only sort of true in democracies. There are plenty of places where people don't get a choice of listening to government or not.

by lagzi 6y ago

mcntsh 6y ago

> Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. If more people thrifted, went vegan, and minimised their consumption, it would shrink the footprint of these corporations as well. These things don't all exist in a vacuum. Shipping/manufacturing companies pollute the earth shipping/manufacturing things for consumers. Now, it's not to say that these businesses shouldn't be held accountable, but people need to take some personal responsibility too. Once regulatory action passes, and corporations are forced to abide by environmentally conscious laws, consumers will be forced to be less consumeristic just by force of economics. It'll come down to consumers in one way or another.

KozmoNau7 6y ago
It comes down to consumption in general. The modern materialistic society is born from decades of advertising, product placement and the idea that to get ahead in life, you have to outspend and outconsume your peers. You have to flaunt your material goods, because that is the only thing equating to status in our current society. This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. They haven't simply satisfied existing demands for decades, they have created and planted those demands via advertising, in order to sell their products. Add the factors of planned obsolescence and lack of repairability on top of that, and you have a recipe for constant consumption and endless waste creation. Then they tried to foist recycling on us as an end-all be-all solution to the pollution we're creating, but it not even close to being enough, by several orders of magnitude. We need to increase quality, reduce quantity and make do with much much less. And the start of that is to do something about the 100 corporations that are responsible for ~70% of all emissions. Tax all emissions hard, as a start.
- mcntsh 6y ago
  > This mindset and ideal was created almost entirely by big corporations. Corporations aren't some faceless evil entity. They're made up by people trying to make money to buy material goods to raise their quality of life and status in society. This is what bothers me about the "evil corporations" scapegoat. People paint this picture of "corporations" as if they're an infection that was given to the human race, but they're just part of the human condition. Humans are to blame.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Corporations are unique in their ability to, for example, spill 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf of mexico. Some people feel the narrative of "Oh BP aren't responsible for the consequences of their actions, it's just that people want their product so very much" is PR from oil industry lobbyists.
    - mcntsh 6y ago
      Huh? I never claimed they shouldn't be responsible for their actions. Where did you get that from?
      - michaelt 6y ago
        When you said they were "scapegoats" and "Humans are to blame" ? And that "It'll come down to consumers in one way or another" and that what's needed is more people to shop in thrift shops and become vegan?
        mcntsh 6y ago
        ...are humans not to blame? Who's running these businesses? Who's cutting the corners? Who's buying the BP products?
  - esarbe 6y ago
    Yes, humans are to blame, and corporations are the mechanism. The problem with the "corporation mechanism" is that it absolves people from any moral responsibility, because shareholder values. It's a viscous mechanism that drives people to dissociate themselves from the consequences of their actions.

zpeti 6y ago

What exactly is a corporation in your opinion? Something that’s completely independent of “people”? Corporations are people and they produce things that people want and use. If suddenly we had 0 corporations according to your theory, what would the world look like? You’d have nothing.

dlkf 6y ago
> Corporations are people This is an interesting usage. The same sentence comes up a lot and normally it is intended to mean "corporations are (legally) people (though they are obviously not literally people)." But you seem to mean "corporations are literally people." I think the distinction normally made is actually kind of important, because not only is a corporation obviously not literally a single person with intentions and agency, but it's also a little different than "a group of people" because of the economic dynamics imposed by corporate law. How about this: Corporations do what their directors (people) order, and directors are ultimately beholden to activist shareholders (also people). The activist shareholders typically want to maximize profits, and believe the corporation can do so by meeting market demand (of people).
esarbe 6y ago
Corporations not people. People have consciousness, emotions, morals, values, friends, lovers, depression, hunger, pain, hopes and dreams. Corporations are not people. Come on, repeat it with me; corporations are not people. Let it sink in, because that's important. People have intrinsic value. Corporations don't. To suddenly have 0 corporations in the world, you'd need have magic and that's the end of the discussion. Because, you know, magic.

aequitas 6y ago

> you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment. They can only get those profits because they supply a demand in an economy of scale. Any law against a corporation will only reflect down on the consumers as prices go up or supply reduces. This is what it means to take responsibility together. If the majority of people can't live without their curent living standard and constant consumerism no law can be put into place to change a thing.

unionpivo 6y ago

The thing is it's individuals in aggregate, who empower those corporations. If people stooped buying iphones (just example, not picking on Apple) Apple would stop building them. If people would travel less, there would be less planes burning fuel. If people would stop buying cheap plastic crap, there would be less plastic created, less fuel used by ships bringing stuff from china etc. Sure some corporations rely on government or b2b, but a lot are consumer dependent. And yes one single consumer changing his ways doesn't change much. Several millions or more, can start having an effect. Point is you can make all the laws you want, corporations are great at finding workarounds[1]. We have to get people to consume less[2] or in the long run figure how we can make all of this stuff with less environment impact. [1] just look at all the "disruptive" startups, most of them are using workarounds to get ahead (uber, airbnb) [2] Of course if we actually managed to do that, we would pretty much kill of our whole economy, which is build upon the idea of everything always going up (revenue, gdp, stocks, housing, retirement plans, ...), so we are dammed if we do and damned if we don't.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Sure some corporations rely on government or b2b, Corporations, by definition, rely on government; the corporate form is a government-created privilege that is also government-granted in each specific instance. But, of course, government, and businesses of all kinds, ultimately depend on people. I mean, if people just stopped listening to a government, it would ceases to exist as a government.
- unionpivo 6y ago
  > Corporations, by definition, rely on government; the corporate form is a government-created privilege that is also government-granted in each specific instance. Sure I meant they rely on them for their revenue (the government is their customer, like military contractors) > But, of course, government, and businesses of all kinds, ultimately depend on people. I mean, if people just stopped listening to a government, it would ceases to exist as a government. This is only sort of true in democracies. There are plenty of places where people don't get a choice of listening to government or not.