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Imo, you can have all of the philosophical arguments you want but in the end, how do you make people go along with your goals? Not everyone is ever on board and
by wnkrshm 3y ago
Imo, you can have all of the philosophical arguments you want but in the end, how do you make people go along with your goals? Not everyone is ever on board and the 'means' of the famous idiom have looked the same everywhere for most of human history.
Maybe we should first be more effective at policing our means than dream up better ends. The chosen means of centuries ago caused what people want to heal now. The ends (colonial industry, hegemony, religion, power) didn't matter at all for the people who were their victims.
Edit:
What if, by being too zealous, longtermists damage the image of their goal so much that it won't be seen as acceptable to pursue for centuries (ref. communism).
- dublinben 3y ago>how do you make people go along with your goals? This is the challenge that "degrowth" or other scarcity-rooted environmentalists have. When you are pushing a promise of deprivation on the currently comfortable, your message is going to struggle to gain traction. For any movement, it is of primary tactical importance to have a message that is appealing to your audience.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoIt's not the currently comfortable who push back the most, it's those who don't have much and hear that they will have to lose even that (even if this is not true). Constraints on the rich are popular even among some of the rich. Shared suffering is something the poor, rightfully, don't believe.
- imtringued 3y agoI feel like you are missing an opportunity here, the submission is about longtermism. If you wanted to stay on topic you would say something like, if people have the option of certain deprivation and uncertain deprivation (effects of climate change) they will choose uncertain deprivation and that is exactly the problem with longtermism as well.