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There is a heck of a lot of this that goes on within the energy and environment community where I have been involved for a decade. Tragedy of the Commons basica
by dougmwne 5y ago
There is a heck of a lot of this that goes on within the energy and environment community where I have been involved for a decade. Tragedy of the Commons basically means that individual responsibility is a complete dead-end to solve any kind of shared resource issue. We've known this formally within economics for 200 years. Government, law and enforcement is the only solution, whether we're talking a city park or the entire planet's atmosphere. You should know that any time you are getting shamed or guilted into doing something like recycling, reducing energy consumption, cutting up plastic soda rings, instead of there being a law, some monied interest put a lot of effort into shifting the perception of responsibility away from themselves and onto someone else.
I am a staunch environmentalist and I full out reject any effort to make any of this somehow my personal fault and that I should guiltily stop having children, stop traveling, stop eating, stop driving or anything else. We are either all in this together, collectively solving the problem through our collectively determined governments or we're not.
More and more I think we are not going to solve this in a way that doesn't involve a massive diminishing of planetary carrying capacity. Currently we are bailing out the Titanic with a thimble.
- heurisko 5y ago> I should guiltily stop having children The unintended consequence is that only the conscientious people take themselves out of the gene pool, which is counterproductive.
- olyjohn 5y agoWell, their kids could still end up being assholes.
- birksherty 5y agoWhat is exactly counterproductive? These children will suffer the consequences in coming years, better they don't have to.
- heurisko 5y agoIt is productive to raise conscientious children who can meet challenges of the future. It will increase suffering, to remove the next generation of conscientious leaders, organisers, engineers, scientists.
- birksherty 5y agoProductive for whom? Children should not be seen as just workers for future, like they already have tasks ready for them to perform, to fix things their ancestors screwed up. It's not the conscientious kid's responsibility. It's pretty selfish of parents to bring them without their consent to do this. Let's see them as normal humans. I will never want my kids to bear this burden, doesn't matter whether they can or not. Anyway dystopia is waiting for them, there is no reason to bring a kid here which for the interest of the potential kid.