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Considering how well someone survives the coming decades depends on how wealthy they are (more than in the past), it makes sense. It is a little callous of them
by Kye 3y ago
Considering how well someone survives the coming decades depends on how wealthy they are (more than in the past), it makes sense. It is a little callous of them, but sometimes survival and being nice are at odds.
- voisin 3y agoMerely surviving is different from being happy you survived. I am not sure it will feel like much of a victory when you survive to bake in intense heat every summer and breath smoke filled air, or lose your mansion to a hurricane or tornado. This whole mindset of “at least I profited” seems to rely on the notion that there is somewhere on the planet that will still be safe and enjoyable to live in as the climate apocalypse settles in. I don’t see where that is.
- selestify 3y agoThere may not be an enjoyable place to live on earth when the climate apocalypse hits, but at least having more money will mean less personal suffering for yourself. Given how unlikely that the world will actually get its act together to prevent such an apocalypse from happening, you might as well assume it’s going to happen anyways and prepare accordingly
- paulcole 3y agoIf the number of safe and enjoyable places to live approaches 0, it will be much much much better to have “at least profited” than to have not profited.
- voisin 3y agoWell, I think this is the philosophy that is making the number of safe and enjoyable places to live approach zero!
- dv_dt 3y agoI would counter that by staying that Homo sapiens is at the top of the evolutionary success ladder because of collaboration with one another. Which means being nice to one another is the actual winning strategy.
- Kye 3y agoWe're in this situation because a handful of people have decided they have to own everything, and the necessary collective action to deal with it has been in short supply for all the decades we've known there was a problem. It's only now when it's almost too late that people are waking up from all the propaganda deployed to confuse the issue. I'm still doing my part by advocating for good policies and collective action, but like ActorNightly, I think it's prudent to build a boat just in case things continue to not change.
- selestify 3y ago> just in case things continue to not change. Given the world’s track record in not changing for as long as the alarm has been raised, I think this is a pretty sensible approach to take. At this point, it may well be more prudent for the individual to assume that the climatepocalypse is going to happen anyways, and prepare accordingly rather than continuing to hope for futile efforts to stem the tide
- dv_dt 3y agoIt is certainly prudent to consider that an overall "win" over time may be decoupled from individual circumstances. If we are to overcome climate change as a earth-wide society, it will have to be through collective action of enough people forcing those in power to be "nice" - whether that will happen in a fast and large enough scale - I have my doubts about too. If we aren't systematically nice to a wider swath of people (even if in a self-interested Machevellian, The Prince kind of way), I share concerns about needing to plan for a general decline of civilization.
- boondoggle16 3y agoNo, no, no. Being nice to our family and kin is what made us strong. Being nice to the whole world? Not so much.
- shadowgovt 3y agoDoes that calculus change in a world where the actions of people in Shanghai alter weather patterns in London?