"We" cannot choose "as a society" any more than an individual can choose not to consume fossil fuel products, or sweatshop labour, or child slavery (yes, child

"We" cannot choose "as a society" any more than an individual can choose not to consume fossil fuel products, or sweatshop labour, or child slavery (yes, child slavery, and you're benefiting from its fruits, too; where did the materials to build the computer you're reading this on come from?). The environment, the slate of available choices, are intentionally constrained in order to make a small number of people richer than even numerate HN readers can conceive. Victim blaming consumers, or even the engineers who create the products that usher in our inevitable future, isn't useful. Well, OK -- I suppose it isn't inevitable, it's just not avoidable without the failure of several complex societal institutions dedicated to preventing the kind of grass-roots, bottom-up reorganization required to stop it.