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That’s aggregate deaths one at a time, though. If all the car deaths happened all at once in a localized area and took out half of Rhode Island, it would spur a

That’s aggregate deaths one at a time, though. If all the car deaths happened all at once in a localized area and took out half of Rhode Island, it would spur action.

alangibson 3y ago
Then explain the total lack of action after Sandy Hook, that Las Vegas shooting, etc
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Most likely the politicians that belong to the NRA are controlling the narrative. Almost all politicians are also owned by the car and oil industries, so that would explain the lack of action with the high number of RTCs.
- jpfed 3y ago
  These are good examples of mass casualty events that didn't motivate effective responses. For both climate change and guns, there are people that want to keep the status quo as it is. I believe that popular arguments against gun control will be able to stay effective in ways that arguments against climate action will fail. First, one of the most popular arguments against action addressing climate change has been that climate change is simply fake. A mass-casualty event would make that argument less effective. The gun control debate in the United States is linked with people's perceptions of personal agency. Often, a mass casualty event perpetrated with a gun is ended by a gun being used on the perpetrator (sometimes, it's the perpetrator killing themselves, and sometimes it's police killing them). Many people imagine it would be possible to end those events as a bystander with a gun. But I think that it would be much harder to get people to fantasize about being a hero that stops a mass casualty event resulting from extreme heat. Such an event starts and ends when Mother Nature says it does, and it seems like it should be pretty clear to people that the only way personal agency is relevant is in the act of preparing the environment.
  - alangibson 3y ago
    > A mass-casualty event would make that argument less effective I would have bought this 10 years ago. But following the recent rise of conspricism, especially far out things like Qanon and Pizza Gate, I've come to realize that it's possible for vast numbers of people to just decide to believe something is/isn't true because it suits them.
    - InSteady 3y ago
      Or Sandy Hook for that matter. Also, elsewhere in the thread people have mentioned comment sections on major news sites coverage of the Maui fires, and apparently droves of people are more interested in blaming clean energy installations, imaginary energy weapons, and Obama, Zuckerberg, and Oprah (of all people) than anything else.
- adolph 3y ago
  Within a year of the Las Vegas shooting, the "bump stock" device used by that person was banned by the US. The Trump administration has banned the use of bump stocks, devices that let rifles fire like machine guns, after promising to do so earlier this year. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46614001 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46614001
  - alangibson 3y ago
    Great example of my main point. Instead of fixing the real problems (availability of weapons and to some degree mental illness) we ban an accessory. Meanwhile elsewhere the bodies keep dropping.
    - adolph 3y ago
      Great example of moving the goalposts. You wrote "total lack of action" for which there is counter-evidence in the form of a national government action. With the same logic, one might as well claim that an entire firearm is an accessory to whatever is redefined as the "real problem."
      - InSteady 3y ago
        This commenter also fails to recognize that there is a tremendous amount of political activity aimed at changing gun laws, and that represents real and earnest efforts on the parts of tens of thousands of people (or orders of magnitude more, depending on where we set the bar for having "done something"). It's true that our system of government and industry is set up to preserve itself and resist sweeping change. It is further true some incredibly wealthy and influential individuals within the system are aligned with those goals, making change all the more difficult and unlikely (this applies to climate change as it does to gun laws, car culture, throw-away consumerism, etc). It is a mistake to equate trying and failing to change massive and powerful institutions with doing nothing. I get it, from a cynical and pessimistic perspective, doing nothing vs trying hard but failing to do something all looks the same in the end (when society is roasting canned spam on it's own embers, as we might imagine). But fatalism becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and mostly appeals because it has the "benefit" of requiring no action of the individual. Just a lifetime of depression, apathy, and/or moral bankruptcy. Even if the fatalist is wrong, it means people made things work out for them in the end and they didn't even have to lift a finger. What a deal! It certainly has its appeal to those parts of our brain that we share with lizards and other creatures that look to avoid personal risk and conserve energy at almost any cost.

That’s aggregate deaths one at a time, though. If all the car deaths happened all at once in a localized area and took out half of Rhode Island, it would spur action.

alangibson 3y ago

Then explain the total lack of action after Sandy Hook, that Las Vegas shooting, etc

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Most likely the politicians that belong to the NRA are controlling the narrative. Almost all politicians are also owned by the car and oil industries, so that would explain the lack of action with the high number of RTCs.
jpfed 3y ago
These are good examples of mass casualty events that didn't motivate effective responses. For both climate change and guns, there are people that want to keep the status quo as it is. I believe that popular arguments against gun control will be able to stay effective in ways that arguments against climate action will fail. First, one of the most popular arguments against action addressing climate change has been that climate change is simply fake. A mass-casualty event would make that argument less effective. The gun control debate in the United States is linked with people's perceptions of personal agency. Often, a mass casualty event perpetrated with a gun is ended by a gun being used on the perpetrator (sometimes, it's the perpetrator killing themselves, and sometimes it's police killing them). Many people imagine it would be possible to end those events as a bystander with a gun. But I think that it would be much harder to get people to fantasize about being a hero that stops a mass casualty event resulting from extreme heat. Such an event starts and ends when Mother Nature says it does, and it seems like it should be pretty clear to people that the only way personal agency is relevant is in the act of preparing the environment.
- alangibson 3y ago
  > A mass-casualty event would make that argument less effective I would have bought this 10 years ago. But following the recent rise of conspricism, especially far out things like Qanon and Pizza Gate, I've come to realize that it's possible for vast numbers of people to just decide to believe something is/isn't true because it suits them.
  - InSteady 3y ago
    Or Sandy Hook for that matter. Also, elsewhere in the thread people have mentioned comment sections on major news sites coverage of the Maui fires, and apparently droves of people are more interested in blaming clean energy installations, imaginary energy weapons, and Obama, Zuckerberg, and Oprah (of all people) than anything else.
adolph 3y ago
Within a year of the Las Vegas shooting, the "bump stock" device used by that person was banned by the US. The Trump administration has banned the use of bump stocks, devices that let rifles fire like machine guns, after promising to do so earlier this year. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46614001 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46614001
- alangibson 3y ago
  Great example of my main point. Instead of fixing the real problems (availability of weapons and to some degree mental illness) we ban an accessory. Meanwhile elsewhere the bodies keep dropping.
  - adolph 3y ago
    Great example of moving the goalposts. You wrote "total lack of action" for which there is counter-evidence in the form of a national government action. With the same logic, one might as well claim that an entire firearm is an accessory to whatever is redefined as the "real problem."
    - InSteady 3y ago
      This commenter also fails to recognize that there is a tremendous amount of political activity aimed at changing gun laws, and that represents real and earnest efforts on the parts of tens of thousands of people (or orders of magnitude more, depending on where we set the bar for having "done something"). It's true that our system of government and industry is set up to preserve itself and resist sweeping change. It is further true some incredibly wealthy and influential individuals within the system are aligned with those goals, making change all the more difficult and unlikely (this applies to climate change as it does to gun laws, car culture, throw-away consumerism, etc). It is a mistake to equate trying and failing to change massive and powerful institutions with doing nothing. I get it, from a cynical and pessimistic perspective, doing nothing vs trying hard but failing to do something all looks the same in the end (when society is roasting canned spam on it's own embers, as we might imagine). But fatalism becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and mostly appeals because it has the "benefit" of requiring no action of the individual. Just a lifetime of depression, apathy, and/or moral bankruptcy. Even if the fatalist is wrong, it means people made things work out for them in the end and they didn't even have to lift a finger. What a deal! It certainly has its appeal to those parts of our brain that we share with lizards and other creatures that look to avoid personal risk and conserve energy at almost any cost.