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I agree with the spirit of large chunks of this comment. > ... Me being all self sacrificing won't fix it. I might as well enjoy myself a little before we all

by xpe 5y ago

I agree with the spirit of large chunks of this comment. > ... Me being all self sacrificing won't fix it. I might as well enjoy myself a little before we all die and this world turns into a smoking husk." We won't get far enough with individuals making, for example, 1% changes in their consumption patterns. Rather than asking individuals "to do more", a better way forward is to emphasize systemic changes in policy. Policy includes a range of options: investment, taxation, and regulations. To quote a line from one of my favorite Despair posters: "None of us is as dumb as all of us." I mention this because, left to our own devices, each individual (more or less) tends to spend most of their attention, time, motivation, and money to address their most immediate needs. Our systems are quite efficient at converting these needs into resource-extracting economies, without paying attention to externalities (i.e. downstream costs that an extractor doesn't face). Long story short, it turns out a tribal species evolved to deal with scarcity isn't inherently driven to act in ways to ensure our long-term survival. That's a bug. Together, we have done an amazingly efficient job at throwing our planet off balance. This is why we need collective action. If the word 'collective' makes you uncomfortable, feel free to substitute in 'organized', 'coordinated', 'intelligent', or 'wise'. Whatever word you pick, we need the political will (or, in the case of some countries, the autocratic will) to drive changes to our systems.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
It doesn't necessarily have to involve self sacrifice. For example, we could build a world where life is comfortable for most people without a car. I don't know how we actually get there from here. But I'm confident that it isn't effective to make everyone believe that our choices are between 1. short-term personal gratification at the cost of everyone being certainly doomed and 2. short-term personal sacrifice with a very slim hope of marginal collective gain. In that scenario, most people will look out for themselves. Only crazy people sacrifice themselves for no real gain for anyone else. We have to create a plan for short-term personal gain that leads to collective gain long term. Most conversations don't allow for that possibility to exist at all.

by xpe 5y ago

DoreenMichele 5y ago

It doesn't necessarily have to involve self sacrifice. For example, we could build a world where life is comfortable for most people without a car. I don't know how we actually get there from here. But I'm confident that it isn't effective to make everyone believe that our choices are between 1. short-term personal gratification at the cost of everyone being certainly doomed and 2. short-term personal sacrifice with a very slim hope of marginal collective gain. In that scenario, most people will look out for themselves. Only crazy people sacrifice themselves for no real gain for anyone else. We have to create a plan for short-term personal gain that leads to collective gain long term. Most conversations don't allow for that possibility to exist at all.