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You can't build a society on oil and gas and then, now that we're experiencing the side effects, just be mad at the companies that provided this service. We all

You can't build a society on oil and gas and then, now that we're experiencing the side effects, just be mad at the companies that provided this service. We all participated in this process. Apportioning blame isn't even particularly useful compared to just fixing the problem.

epistasis 5y ago
We most certainly can be mad at them for intentionally deceiving the public and shareholders. It's one thing to provide a product honestly. It's another to provide a product dishonestly. This entire post is about the dishonesty, so just forgetting about that dishonesty and not addressing is seems odd.
- refurb 5y ago
  When will tech’s reckoning come? Social media’s negative influence and incitement of violence? When we will start throwing engineers in prison who built these products knowing what they do?
  - minikites 5y ago
    Hopefully soon, but I'm not optimistic about that group ever facing consequences either.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Tech is bad, but it gets held to a far higher standard than fossil fuel companies. It doesn't take much digging to find far worse direct human death from fossil fuel companies, instead of the second-degree human death from social networks.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    Probably sometime after the printing press reckoning comes. Because it facilitated the same thing and is equally dumb to blame for how people use it.
- likecarter 5y ago
  You really think them being honest would change anyone’s usage of fossil fuels? Hell, oil companies are transparent about climate change now, and usage is still going up YOY. Only now that we are experiencing greater effects of climate change, everyone is jumping on half-solutions like electric cars - let’s not even get started on the ecological footprint of batteries.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    So you think the O&G went on a massive, expensive, coordinated disinformation for fun, and without the intention of increasing fossil fuel usage? Why would executives put themselves at risk for nothing? Why would they spend so much money for nothing? Why lie if the lie doesn't benefit them? The truth is that these disinformation campaigns to this day are killing our transition away from fossil fuels. They have spawned a political movement that is far more extreme than the publicly stated opinions of the fossil fuel companies. One prime example of this disinformation campaign is repeated by you: > let's not even get started on the ecological footprint of batteries. This myth that batteries are somehow worse than fuel is exactly the type of disinformation that fossil fuel companies manufacture and that others spread, seemingly willingly, because of their tribal politics motivations. You don't know the footprint of batteries for electrical cars. It's certainly no worse than what we use to make the rest of a car. I've spent hours combing the web for concrete ecological impacts. The only concrete thing anybody talks about are not ecological, but social. Indigenous people in South America not getting compensated for their land. Cobalt mining from artisanal, unaccounted mines using child labor. But the ecological footprint is a tiny shadow of all the steel, copper, etc. that goes into al the rest of society.
    - likecarter 5y ago
      > You don't know the footprint of batteries for electrical cars. It's certainly no worse than what we use to make the rest of a car. Have you heard of open-pit mines? I would call the ecological damage of that much higher than a comparable oil drilling site. I have nothing against electric vehicles, or progress away from CO2 emitters. But EVs are a half-backed solution. And EVs might even be net-negative for climate change. What do you think mining equipment runs on? A shit-ton of diesel. The largest cost of a gold mine is energy - diesel. I just think the mental gymnastics people use to justify the smaller ecological impact EVs is ridiculous. Heck, I even own a Tesla.
pessimizer 5y ago
So if I live in a city with a corrupt water department, I 1) can't complain about it because I drink water, and 2) should realize the real problem is the concept of corruption, not punishing the corrupt. We punish the corrupt in order to make the decision to be corrupt in future more expensive for the people considering it. A culture of total impunity doesn't help with "the problem."
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  I'm not talking about corruption, but the poster above seemed mad that the oil companies made us use oil, beyond just being angry about the oil companies' corrupt practices. If you drink water from a corrupt company, by all means try to get the corruption fixed but don't blame them that we live in a water based society.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    >oil companies made us use oil They also actively lie about oil usage effects on environment, and lobby governments to not only to allow them to continue destruction, but also give them subsidies for it.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      They should be punished for misleading people, of course, if we can show that it was done knowingly - which I can imagine it was.
Rioghasarig 5y ago
Nah, man. This "we all did this" is just not true. Power is not equally distributed among people. A few people in charge of oil and gas companies have more power to affect the state of affairs than thousands of normal people. So, no, I do not buy that "it's everyone's fault".
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  We all use fossil fuels and derived products. It's not easy to replace those things with something more environmentally friendly even now that governments are getting involved.

epistasis 5y ago

We most certainly can be mad at them for intentionally deceiving the public and shareholders. It's one thing to provide a product honestly. It's another to provide a product dishonestly. This entire post is about the dishonesty, so just forgetting about that dishonesty and not addressing is seems odd.

refurb 5y ago
When will tech’s reckoning come? Social media’s negative influence and incitement of violence? When we will start throwing engineers in prison who built these products knowing what they do?
- minikites 5y ago
  Hopefully soon, but I'm not optimistic about that group ever facing consequences either.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Tech is bad, but it gets held to a far higher standard than fossil fuel companies. It doesn't take much digging to find far worse direct human death from fossil fuel companies, instead of the second-degree human death from social networks.
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Probably sometime after the printing press reckoning comes. Because it facilitated the same thing and is equally dumb to blame for how people use it.
likecarter 5y ago
You really think them being honest would change anyone’s usage of fossil fuels? Hell, oil companies are transparent about climate change now, and usage is still going up YOY. Only now that we are experiencing greater effects of climate change, everyone is jumping on half-solutions like electric cars - let’s not even get started on the ecological footprint of batteries.
- epistasis 5y ago
  So you think the O&G went on a massive, expensive, coordinated disinformation for fun, and without the intention of increasing fossil fuel usage? Why would executives put themselves at risk for nothing? Why would they spend so much money for nothing? Why lie if the lie doesn't benefit them? The truth is that these disinformation campaigns to this day are killing our transition away from fossil fuels. They have spawned a political movement that is far more extreme than the publicly stated opinions of the fossil fuel companies. One prime example of this disinformation campaign is repeated by you: > let's not even get started on the ecological footprint of batteries. This myth that batteries are somehow worse than fuel is exactly the type of disinformation that fossil fuel companies manufacture and that others spread, seemingly willingly, because of their tribal politics motivations. You don't know the footprint of batteries for electrical cars. It's certainly no worse than what we use to make the rest of a car. I've spent hours combing the web for concrete ecological impacts. The only concrete thing anybody talks about are not ecological, but social. Indigenous people in South America not getting compensated for their land. Cobalt mining from artisanal, unaccounted mines using child labor. But the ecological footprint is a tiny shadow of all the steel, copper, etc. that goes into al the rest of society.
  - likecarter 5y ago
    > You don't know the footprint of batteries for electrical cars. It's certainly no worse than what we use to make the rest of a car. Have you heard of open-pit mines? I would call the ecological damage of that much higher than a comparable oil drilling site. I have nothing against electric vehicles, or progress away from CO2 emitters. But EVs are a half-backed solution. And EVs might even be net-negative for climate change. What do you think mining equipment runs on? A shit-ton of diesel. The largest cost of a gold mine is energy - diesel. I just think the mental gymnastics people use to justify the smaller ecological impact EVs is ridiculous. Heck, I even own a Tesla.

pessimizer 5y ago

So if I live in a city with a corrupt water department, I 1) can't complain about it because I drink water, and 2) should realize the real problem is the concept of corruption, not punishing the corrupt. We punish the corrupt in order to make the decision to be corrupt in future more expensive for the people considering it. A culture of total impunity doesn't help with "the problem."

beaconstudios 5y ago
I'm not talking about corruption, but the poster above seemed mad that the oil companies made us use oil, beyond just being angry about the oil companies' corrupt practices. If you drink water from a corrupt company, by all means try to get the corruption fixed but don't blame them that we live in a water based society.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  >oil companies made us use oil They also actively lie about oil usage effects on environment, and lobby governments to not only to allow them to continue destruction, but also give them subsidies for it.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    They should be punished for misleading people, of course, if we can show that it was done knowingly - which I can imagine it was.

Rioghasarig 5y ago

Nah, man. This "we all did this" is just not true. Power is not equally distributed among people. A few people in charge of oil and gas companies have more power to affect the state of affairs than thousands of normal people. So, no, I do not buy that "it's everyone's fault".

beaconstudios 5y ago
We all use fossil fuels and derived products. It's not easy to replace those things with something more environmentally friendly even now that governments are getting involved.