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Yeah, it's also why I stopped feeling guilty about driving a ICE car and not choosing the more expensive renewable supplier option on my power bill. At the end

Yeah, it's also why I stopped feeling guilty about driving a ICE car and not choosing the more expensive renewable supplier option on my power bill. At the end of the day I'm not so rich that I can afford to make inefficient sacrifices. My kids' college funds still need filling, sourcing my power from coal/natural gas means thousands of dollars in those funds over the years that wouldn't otherwise be there. Or I can make a negligible dent in global carbon emissions and my kids can take on thousands extra in student loans. I'm happy to do my part when we're all (or at least most of us) playing the same game, but I have too many people directly relying on me to be an ineffective martyr. Back in 2016 I read a "human interest" story about some janitor who saved his pennies for months, keeping track with an excel spreadsheet, so he could make a multi-hundred dollar donation to Hillary Clinton's campaign. The article was clearly trying to frame this as some noble sacrifice from someone who doesn't have much to begin with, I just saw a poor person getting fleeced by an aristocrat, and she lost anyway.

godelski 4y ago
I think something difficult about this is that a big component depends on how much we weigh future outcomes. Obviously too much future weight is not good because we do a lot of harm now ("for the greater good" utilitarian philosophy has done extraordinary damage to our world) but also hyper focusing on the now too does substantial harm (existential threats like climate change can be traced to these effects). It also depends how we weigh collective actions vs individual. I do not think there is a correct answer here, at least one we can measure or define in a meaningful way, despite how much passion we have for certain views. But I also agree with your main message, that it is hard to encourage collective action if we are not willing to first go after the main contributors to the problem. Individuals who contribute to the problem several magnitudes above the median individual (e.g. independently, Gates and Musk both produced more emissions than the median American, in a single week, purely do to their aviation admissions). We get mad at those who are above the law, and it is unsurprising that we would be mad at those who are above our moral codes. How can we have collective action while we let hundreds or thousands of people like this persist in their actions?
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  This sounds incredibly nihilistic. I don’t think it’s helpful to eschew personal action with the idea that we have to do collective action for any of it to matter. Personal action is contagious and helps create the impetus for collective action. Heck, democracy as an institution relies on individuals making small actions (votes) that make no difference individually but collectively determine who runs the city, state, and country. So this is ultimately a sort of nihilistic argument, maybe a sort of rationale for not taking action.
  - godelski 4y ago
    It's not nihilistic nor defeatist. It is saying that the playing field can't be this uneven and expect collective action. Which means there is a clear solution. Ensuring that no one is above the collective moral code.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      It gives you way more moral authority to argue for these sorts of things if you’re actually taking personal action ala Greta Thunberg (who has inspired me to change my personal emissions, and to support stronger collective actions).
      - godelski 4y ago
        I agree with you here. But we aren't talking about my actions, we are talking about how to cultivate a larger collective action. I completely agree with you and I specifically mention Gates because he is a big climate advocate. I don't believe that any of the information he is spreading is wrong or even misleading, but that his actions often don't align with his speech. Though I will admit that there is a nuanced discussion to be had here given that he substantially invests in climate research and technologies to decarbonize the world, but I also wouldn't blame anyone for thinking he's a hack given that his personal footprint is several orders of magnitude above the median American (which is even higher than the median Westerner). We do have a current culture of defeatism because it looks like you can just buy your way out of all this. But if you are making the argument that actions speak louder than words, I'd fully agree.

godelski 4y ago

I think something difficult about this is that a big component depends on how much we weigh future outcomes. Obviously too much future weight is not good because we do a lot of harm now ("for the greater good" utilitarian philosophy has done extraordinary damage to our world) but also hyper focusing on the now too does substantial harm (existential threats like climate change can be traced to these effects). It also depends how we weigh collective actions vs individual. I do not think there is a correct answer here, at least one we can measure or define in a meaningful way, despite how much passion we have for certain views. But I also agree with your main message, that it is hard to encourage collective action if we are not willing to first go after the main contributors to the problem. Individuals who contribute to the problem several magnitudes above the median individual (e.g. independently, Gates and Musk both produced more emissions than the median American, in a single week, purely do to their aviation admissions). We get mad at those who are above the law, and it is unsurprising that we would be mad at those who are above our moral codes. How can we have collective action while we let hundreds or thousands of people like this persist in their actions?

Robotbeat 4y ago
This sounds incredibly nihilistic. I don’t think it’s helpful to eschew personal action with the idea that we have to do collective action for any of it to matter. Personal action is contagious and helps create the impetus for collective action. Heck, democracy as an institution relies on individuals making small actions (votes) that make no difference individually but collectively determine who runs the city, state, and country. So this is ultimately a sort of nihilistic argument, maybe a sort of rationale for not taking action.
- godelski 4y ago
  It's not nihilistic nor defeatist. It is saying that the playing field can't be this uneven and expect collective action. Which means there is a clear solution. Ensuring that no one is above the collective moral code.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    It gives you way more moral authority to argue for these sorts of things if you’re actually taking personal action ala Greta Thunberg (who has inspired me to change my personal emissions, and to support stronger collective actions).
    - godelski 4y ago
      I agree with you here. But we aren't talking about my actions, we are talking about how to cultivate a larger collective action. I completely agree with you and I specifically mention Gates because he is a big climate advocate. I don't believe that any of the information he is spreading is wrong or even misleading, but that his actions often don't align with his speech. Though I will admit that there is a nuanced discussion to be had here given that he substantially invests in climate research and technologies to decarbonize the world, but I also wouldn't blame anyone for thinking he's a hack given that his personal footprint is several orders of magnitude above the median American (which is even higher than the median Westerner). We do have a current culture of defeatism because it looks like you can just buy your way out of all this. But if you are making the argument that actions speak louder than words, I'd fully agree.