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>all stemming from one political axis point located at the top-left corner I'll say the quiet part out loud: you're worried about the authoritarian left - or,

>all stemming from one political axis point located at the top-left corner I'll say the quiet part out loud: you're worried about the authoritarian left - or, as the libertarian left calls them, tankies. Green washing and ESG aren't an authleft project. They were invented by corporate interests looking to avoid brand damage, so at best we could say it's a right-libertarian project. Insamuch as people apply social justice frameworks to environmental causes, it is to say that global warming is going to kill underprivileged people first and faster than wealthy people. Depopulation (aka "overpopulation") was the authright framing of environmentalism: we have too many mouths to feed and we need to stop making more, and conveniently for us it just so happens to be some other people's fault. These viewpoints are irreconcilable; in fact, I would argue the social justice environmental view is specifically a response to the authright trying to rehabituate themselves as environmental crusaders rather than industrial murderers. I object to calling JustStopOil loonies for the same reason why I don't call BuzzFeed loonies for pioneering clickbait. Smearing black paint on art is their tactic, not their goal. As far as I can tell there isn't really a libertarian (left or right) answer to global warming. Greenwashing and ESG won't actually fix the problem, because the problem is a public choice problem. Western standards of living are built on infrastructure that only loves oil and rejects all else. Everyone else wants western standards of living and is copying the same infrastructure to get it.

systemvoltage 3y ago
> Green washing and ESG aren't an authleft project. They were invented by corporate interests looking to avoid brand damage, so at best we could say it's a right-libertarian project. This is naive I think. The same crowd goes to Davos every year. It’s far deeper and insidious than “we don’t want to pay for lawyer/lawsuits”. The real quiet part is this: they want their genetic lineage to have better resources than others. Usually, group dynamics (tribe) provides a better overall outcome for their kids. The fracturing of unity has led to a bunch of elite clans to seize Gov power through proxy of social justice, climate change, etc.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  Ok, so some of them are also auth-right. One might argue further that the political compass is not topologically flat, and that at the extremes right-authoritarianism and right-libertarianism are the same ideology. After all, what's the difference between today's brutally authoritarian regimes and a large corporation that owns monopolies on everything? It's all abusable power. I also object to discussing this in terms of "genetic lineage". Humans are mesaoptimizers, none of our intelligence gives a shit about what evolution gives a shit about. Social justice was something that the economic elites were able to appropriate, Rebel Sell style, because nothing about capitalism forbids irony. However, there is nothing left-wing at Davos. They have no intent on actually bringing social justice about when it contradicts the moral foundations of their ownership. So their support boils down to "black lesbian dollars are still green" and rainbow logos, and not "let's stop destroying the world and impoverishing people for profit".
dTal 3y ago
>Everyone else wants western standards of living and is copying the same infrastructure to get it. This is an excellent reason why we should focus on putting our own house in order, in spite of all those people who say "there's no point doing anything while China is burning coal".
reducesuffering 3y ago
The libertarian answer to global warming is law such that free markets are free of externalities. Carbon tax is a start to align incentives so that people don't get a freebie by ruining other peoples' air.
- imtringued 3y ago
  The libertarian answer is to deny his own theories by ignoring inconvenient information.
- dTal 3y ago
  Just ban fossil fuel extraction. Then fossil fuels will become too expensive to burn. That is a much more "free market" solution than a byzantine system of taxes that will probably fail to adequately model all externalities.
  - reducesuffering 3y ago
    You're hopelessly naive and haven't read even a few hours into the economic ramifications of 0 zero fossil fuels in the current global economy. Their products are embedded into everything and many simply don't have alternatives. Our best hope is to account for the fossil fuel externalities such that their use (probably at a significant reduction) accurately pays to remedy the consequences. There is no world you'd want to live in with 0 fossil fuels.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
The main reason people apply social justice concepts to climate change is that a) the right defected from their initial agreement to fix the problem with carbon taxes and other market mechanisms, then b) spread a lot of propaganda about how addressing the problem was going to hurt the poor. So anyone who wanted a democratic coalition to deal with climate change had to look to the left of the political spectrum for support and dispel the notion that it would make the poor poorer.

systemvoltage 3y ago

> Green washing and ESG aren't an authleft project. They were invented by corporate interests looking to avoid brand damage, so at best we could say it's a right-libertarian project. This is naive I think. The same crowd goes to Davos every year. It’s far deeper and insidious than “we don’t want to pay for lawyer/lawsuits”. The real quiet part is this: they want their genetic lineage to have better resources than others. Usually, group dynamics (tribe) provides a better overall outcome for their kids. The fracturing of unity has led to a bunch of elite clans to seize Gov power through proxy of social justice, climate change, etc.

kmeisthax 3y ago
Ok, so some of them are also auth-right. One might argue further that the political compass is not topologically flat, and that at the extremes right-authoritarianism and right-libertarianism are the same ideology. After all, what's the difference between today's brutally authoritarian regimes and a large corporation that owns monopolies on everything? It's all abusable power. I also object to discussing this in terms of "genetic lineage". Humans are mesaoptimizers, none of our intelligence gives a shit about what evolution gives a shit about. Social justice was something that the economic elites were able to appropriate, Rebel Sell style, because nothing about capitalism forbids irony. However, there is nothing left-wing at Davos. They have no intent on actually bringing social justice about when it contradicts the moral foundations of their ownership. So their support boils down to "black lesbian dollars are still green" and rainbow logos, and not "let's stop destroying the world and impoverishing people for profit".

dTal 3y ago

>Everyone else wants western standards of living and is copying the same infrastructure to get it. This is an excellent reason why we should focus on putting our own house in order, in spite of all those people who say "there's no point doing anything while China is burning coal".

reducesuffering 3y ago

The libertarian answer to global warming is law such that free markets are free of externalities. Carbon tax is a start to align incentives so that people don't get a freebie by ruining other peoples' air.

imtringued 3y ago
The libertarian answer is to deny his own theories by ignoring inconvenient information.
dTal 3y ago
Just ban fossil fuel extraction. Then fossil fuels will become too expensive to burn. That is a much more "free market" solution than a byzantine system of taxes that will probably fail to adequately model all externalities.
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  You're hopelessly naive and haven't read even a few hours into the economic ramifications of 0 zero fossil fuels in the current global economy. Their products are embedded into everything and many simply don't have alternatives. Our best hope is to account for the fossil fuel externalities such that their use (probably at a significant reduction) accurately pays to remedy the consequences. There is no world you'd want to live in with 0 fossil fuels.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

The main reason people apply social justice concepts to climate change is that a) the right defected from their initial agreement to fix the problem with carbon taxes and other market mechanisms, then b) spread a lot of propaganda about how addressing the problem was going to hurt the poor. So anyone who wanted a democratic coalition to deal with climate change had to look to the left of the political spectrum for support and dispel the notion that it would make the poor poorer.