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> For the very wealthy it’s simple greed. It's greed for basically anyone above the poverty line. There's functionally no difference for wanting a better life

> For the very wealthy it’s simple greed. It's greed for basically anyone above the poverty line. There's functionally no difference for wanting a better life for you and your children and to increase your wealth for what is, in the end, the same goal. Unnecessarily driving an SUV, eating far too much meat and running the lines supplying peoples with those meat is morally not that different.

throwaway894345 5y ago
> Unnecessarily driving an SUV, eating far too much meat and running the lines supplying peoples with those meat is morally not that different. At the very least it's a difference in degree. If we use wealth as a proxy for power then a given billionaire has at least the same political power as 10K median Americans. And of course the median American has expenses which constitute a much larger share of his income than that of our hypothetical billionaire, and they need to work such that they can't devote their full time and energy to climate problems while our billionaire can live a lavish lifestyle on capital alone. Beyond that, I find it particularly ludicrous that there's no difference between being an end consumer and literally being at the helm of the supply chain. A consumer has virtually no ability to control the emissions involved in the supply chain while obviously the supply chain helmsmen very much do have that ability, and the creation, refinement, and transport of those goods is overwhelmingly the cause of those emissions in the first place. You might argue that consumers can choose low emissions products but we don't even have the ability to assess which products are "low emissions". And this isn't even touching the "advertising/promoting a carbon-intensive lifestyle" or lobbying to maintain a system that incentivizes pollution. So while "not that different" is relative, I can't imagine anything more different than our hypothetical billionaire and median American. The idea that eating a cheese burger is morally equivalent to investing in and lobbying for the fossil fuel industry is nothing but repugnant ideology.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  The supply chain is a symptom, not the disease. Our hypothetical billionaire could close down (or increase prices, for the same effect), but his piece would either be grabbed by another ruthless business man wanting to be a billionaire or simply merged with the existing competitors. Unless you make people change their lifestyle, closing carbon-intensive production lines is just playing whack-a-mole. So, in reality, he really has not that much more power than you. And yes, you as a consumer can make a large difference. You can choose to not eat meat, not drive a car, buy your clothes from eco-friendly shops and dedicate your life to make a change. It's just not as convenient as saying 'rich man bad'. People who try can change the world - see beyond meat and Tesla for success stories. Not doing so, but instead chasing a life of personal wealth and well-being is, simply stated, greed. With different amounts of money involved, sure, but the exact same greed. People starving in Africa do not have a choice, yes - but we do. We just choose to blame 'better connected' people because it's easy. I fully agree with you, however, that lobbying for the wrong thing is definitely bad and something that can be done far more effectively by billionaires. Still, it does not absolve you from your own failures.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > The supply chain is a symptom, not the disease. Our hypothetical billionaire could close down (or increase prices, for the same effect), but his piece would either be grabbed by another ruthless business man wanting to be a billionaire or simply merged with the existing competitors. Unless you make people change their lifestyle, closing carbon-intensive production lines is just playing whack-a-mole. So, in reality, he really has not that much more power than you. That might be true if votes weren't for sale (lobbying, campaign contributions, etc), but they are and thus political power is proportional to wealth. Our hypothetical billionaire can advocate to preserve policies that allow him to profit by polluting the environment, which is to say plundering society (in that the environment is a shared resource--it belongs to all of society). To use your metaphor, the disease is that there isn't a mechanism to decouple political power from wealth.
    - Sebb767 5y ago
      That's a failing on the side of our political system, but yes. We can definitely agree that using you power to lobby for the greater disadvantage is morally far worse than falling in line.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        Yes, it is a failing on the side of our political system, but the political system sets the rules that constrain the market including whether or not corporations can pollute for free or rely on foreign pseudo-slave labor. And this means they have lobbied to maintain a market that penalizes companies who don’t exploit the environment and/or slave labor and due to a lack of transparency (i.e., there are virtually no reliable indicators to inform consumers how environmentally friendly or humaine a given product is—indeed many alleged certification programs are shams set up by industry groups to mislead customers into believing they are buying ethical products) make virtually everyone complicit. That’s a heck of a big difference between the hypothetical billionaire and the middleclass family struggling to keep a bit of buffer between themselves and poverty.

throwaway894345 5y ago

> Unnecessarily driving an SUV, eating far too much meat and running the lines supplying peoples with those meat is morally not that different. At the very least it's a difference in degree. If we use wealth as a proxy for power then a given billionaire has at least the same political power as 10K median Americans. And of course the median American has expenses which constitute a much larger share of his income than that of our hypothetical billionaire, and they need to work such that they can't devote their full time and energy to climate problems while our billionaire can live a lavish lifestyle on capital alone. Beyond that, I find it particularly ludicrous that there's no difference between being an end consumer and literally being at the helm of the supply chain. A consumer has virtually no ability to control the emissions involved in the supply chain while obviously the supply chain helmsmen very much do have that ability, and the creation, refinement, and transport of those goods is overwhelmingly the cause of those emissions in the first place. You might argue that consumers can choose low emissions products but we don't even have the ability to assess which products are "low emissions". And this isn't even touching the "advertising/promoting a carbon-intensive lifestyle" or lobbying to maintain a system that incentivizes pollution. So while "not that different" is relative, I can't imagine anything more different than our hypothetical billionaire and median American. The idea that eating a cheese burger is morally equivalent to investing in and lobbying for the fossil fuel industry is nothing but repugnant ideology.

Sebb767 5y ago
The supply chain is a symptom, not the disease. Our hypothetical billionaire could close down (or increase prices, for the same effect), but his piece would either be grabbed by another ruthless business man wanting to be a billionaire or simply merged with the existing competitors. Unless you make people change their lifestyle, closing carbon-intensive production lines is just playing whack-a-mole. So, in reality, he really has not that much more power than you. And yes, you as a consumer can make a large difference. You can choose to not eat meat, not drive a car, buy your clothes from eco-friendly shops and dedicate your life to make a change. It's just not as convenient as saying 'rich man bad'. People who try can change the world - see beyond meat and Tesla for success stories. Not doing so, but instead chasing a life of personal wealth and well-being is, simply stated, greed. With different amounts of money involved, sure, but the exact same greed. People starving in Africa do not have a choice, yes - but we do. We just choose to blame 'better connected' people because it's easy. I fully agree with you, however, that lobbying for the wrong thing is definitely bad and something that can be done far more effectively by billionaires. Still, it does not absolve you from your own failures.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > The supply chain is a symptom, not the disease. Our hypothetical billionaire could close down (or increase prices, for the same effect), but his piece would either be grabbed by another ruthless business man wanting to be a billionaire or simply merged with the existing competitors. Unless you make people change their lifestyle, closing carbon-intensive production lines is just playing whack-a-mole. So, in reality, he really has not that much more power than you. That might be true if votes weren't for sale (lobbying, campaign contributions, etc), but they are and thus political power is proportional to wealth. Our hypothetical billionaire can advocate to preserve policies that allow him to profit by polluting the environment, which is to say plundering society (in that the environment is a shared resource--it belongs to all of society). To use your metaphor, the disease is that there isn't a mechanism to decouple political power from wealth.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    That's a failing on the side of our political system, but yes. We can definitely agree that using you power to lobby for the greater disadvantage is morally far worse than falling in line.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Yes, it is a failing on the side of our political system, but the political system sets the rules that constrain the market including whether or not corporations can pollute for free or rely on foreign pseudo-slave labor. And this means they have lobbied to maintain a market that penalizes companies who don’t exploit the environment and/or slave labor and due to a lack of transparency (i.e., there are virtually no reliable indicators to inform consumers how environmentally friendly or humaine a given product is—indeed many alleged certification programs are shams set up by industry groups to mislead customers into believing they are buying ethical products) make virtually everyone complicit. That’s a heck of a big difference between the hypothetical billionaire and the middleclass family struggling to keep a bit of buffer between themselves and poverty.