4 ms·

In addition to being toxic and irrelevant to the parent comments (who mentioned kids?), This argument is a red herring. Of course if everyone dies, we mitigate

In addition to being toxic and irrelevant to the parent comments (who mentioned kids?), This argument is a red herring. Of course if everyone dies, we mitigate anthropogenic climate change, but that doesn't really further our analysis of the issue. There is nothing inherent in children that uses carbon, it is human behavior in the context of petro-capitalism that uses carbon. If I have thirteen kids and they live on a farm cooperative, I'll be responsible for less carbon than the parent commenter.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. The parent said: > [international flights taken often] completely dwarfs any [CO2] savings I could reasonably expect to make. What dwarfs CO2 savings isn’t so much an individual’s international flights, it’s an individual creating more individuals that create more individuals. Your thirteen kids on a farm cooperative are likely to have and eat cows, which is plenty of tonnes of methane. Not to mention the number of children that 13 couples will produce afterward. My 0 kids will require 0 cows and 0 methane. Having children is important for the propagation of the human race and I want our race to be propagated. But it makes no sense to lecture somebody about their greenhouse gas emissions while taking action that results in a thousand or a million more greenhouse gas. If you believe having children is a net positive, go for it. I’m not lecturing you to avoid it.
- public_defender 4y ago
  > Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. That's certainly your opinion. My opinion is that this thread of analysis (a) is not interesting; (b) tends to propagate harm. I think the discussion is not interesting because it lacks intellectual rigor. I mentioned that the subject of having kids is an irrelevant red herring. I think we can call your thesis a form of "whataboutism." You actually double down on this in your response. Kids on a farm? Whatabout cows? (It's a vegetable farm. Try again, I guess.) Let me also add that there is no logical limit to your analysis. Who is responsible for your carbon use? You or your parents? Is this toxic comment on the internet something I should address with you or your grandmother? The harm-causing part is more important. You are saying--here and in siblings--that "other people" can/should have children and that society will be sustained by babies who are "born anyway," but that people who procreate have lost the moral agency to participate as your equals in the climate discussion. This is toxic (harm-propagating) because it treats biological procreation as a distasteful externality. Procreation is not an external process when we are considering anthropogenic climate change. Worse, you are drawing an artificial line to separate people who can have valid policy opinions on climate change from those (parents) who can't. Ironically, this is the same thing that you accused me of doing when you objected to my use of the word "toxic."
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    "You shouldn't be allowed to walk around as a tourist in this archaeological site because you're trampling it" "Why are you telling me where I can't go while blowing up large chunks of it with dynamite?" "That's whataboutism. Besides maybe my dynamite isn't causing any damage, and I'm still right that you're trampling it."

unsupp0rted 4y ago

Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. The parent said: > [international flights taken often] completely dwarfs any [CO2] savings I could reasonably expect to make. What dwarfs CO2 savings isn’t so much an individual’s international flights, it’s an individual creating more individuals that create more individuals. Your thirteen kids on a farm cooperative are likely to have and eat cows, which is plenty of tonnes of methane. Not to mention the number of children that 13 couples will produce afterward. My 0 kids will require 0 cows and 0 methane. Having children is important for the propagation of the human race and I want our race to be propagated. But it makes no sense to lecture somebody about their greenhouse gas emissions while taking action that results in a thousand or a million more greenhouse gas. If you believe having children is a net positive, go for it. I’m not lecturing you to avoid it.

public_defender 4y ago
> Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. That's certainly your opinion. My opinion is that this thread of analysis (a) is not interesting; (b) tends to propagate harm. I think the discussion is not interesting because it lacks intellectual rigor. I mentioned that the subject of having kids is an irrelevant red herring. I think we can call your thesis a form of "whataboutism." You actually double down on this in your response. Kids on a farm? Whatabout cows? (It's a vegetable farm. Try again, I guess.) Let me also add that there is no logical limit to your analysis. Who is responsible for your carbon use? You or your parents? Is this toxic comment on the internet something I should address with you or your grandmother? The harm-causing part is more important. You are saying--here and in siblings--that "other people" can/should have children and that society will be sustained by babies who are "born anyway," but that people who procreate have lost the moral agency to participate as your equals in the climate discussion. This is toxic (harm-propagating) because it treats biological procreation as a distasteful externality. Procreation is not an external process when we are considering anthropogenic climate change. Worse, you are drawing an artificial line to separate people who can have valid policy opinions on climate change from those (parents) who can't. Ironically, this is the same thing that you accused me of doing when you objected to my use of the word "toxic."
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  "You shouldn't be allowed to walk around as a tourist in this archaeological site because you're trampling it" "Why are you telling me where I can't go while blowing up large chunks of it with dynamite?" "That's whataboutism. Besides maybe my dynamite isn't causing any damage, and I'm still right that you're trampling it."