I think you're confused about the forum you're in. If you have a counter argument to people's arguments, all the power to you and you're more than welcome to di

I think you're confused about the forum you're in. If you have a counter argument to people's arguments, all the power to you and you're more than welcome to discuss, in the hopes that we can learn something more about it. But if your argument is mere willful assertion of what is already stated, or is calling people names, kindly back off. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. Normally I wouldn't want to honor your manner of discourse by responding to it, but I want to make the case that one can still discuss the contents of an argument despite emotionality; > You turn to apathetic nihilism because your only alternative is panic. I myself have turned to opt-out nihilism—I try not to own stuff, don’t have progeny, looking to isolate on a small farm. I personally am pretty optimistic and excited regarding the prospects of tackling this problem, because embedded in it a plethora of large scale multi-agent coordination problems we ought to solve, and we do have the capacity for it. Incidentally, I think individual level solutions don't necessarily have the strategic depth to address what is essentially a problem of scale. But if you think you're doing the right thing, more power to you, at least at your scale you couldn't harm things even if you wanted to. > Greta seems to be on a much better track: trying to influence the people who can make the decisions that will improve the outcomes. Does her influence look like a success to you? It doesn't to me. Maybe there is a self-fulfilling prophecy in talking down to people, or appeals to romantic emotionality, instead of bringing the best and the most rational in them. Maybe rampant consumerism and lack of higher-order thinking to maneuver climate change are sibling problems, both intimately related to the problem of stupefaction of the masses. Maybe calling people names is part of the shame-politics that attempt to turn adults into temporary children. Hijacking our deepest fears of ostracism in the name of some ostensible "greater good", but inadvertently reducing people's agency and higher order thinking, both of which are deeply needed to steer out of the problem.