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I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty of some avoidable negative externality of something you do just because some entirely separate function of it is

I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty of some avoidable negative externality of something you do just because some entirely separate function of it is the thing your customers want. If I were a plumber who fixed leaks by diverting the water into the customers' neighbors houses, my customers aren't the ones responsible for the damage it causes. I don't think it matters even if the externality isn't avoidable. I think people who sell murder-for-hire services are culpable of murder, even if they are paid by someone else If the argument were about slavery instead - slavery enables cheaper goods, ergo by buying our products, some of which were made using slavery, but we refuse to reveal which ones, but nonetheless by buying them you support slavery and are morally responsible for the slavery not us. Nobody would accept this framing. I agree that China has done very well from manufacturing and trade, and would not have done as well if they had not industrialised at a large scale. But that doesn't change the fact that industrialisation of this kind causes pollution and is damaging the planet and it especially doesn't mean that China has no moral obligation to do as much as it can to reduce emissions. I also don't believe the argument that the pollution is inherent to production, or that there is no way to satisfy demand without pollution. (or that china, specifically, derserves to be the one to profit from satisfying that demand). Production of almost all commodities can be done without massive emissions these days, and even when it couldn't, nobody was forced to ramp up production Someone will inevitably jump in here to point out that china makes a lot of solar or whatever. Sure, they do. They also make a lot of wind power. Their emissions per capita are trending in the wrong direction though. Europe's have been going DOWN since the 1970s, and china's are going UP. China's emissions per capita are roughly equal with the EU at the moment and are going up - pretty soon they will catch up and surpass the US.

lmz 2mo ago
Re: emissions per capita - why should the Chinese be limited to a lower amount than the US citizens? They want a high standard of living too.
- RugnirViking 2mo ago
  that might make sense in a world where the US has been chugging along emitting at a constant rate for many years, to maintain a certain standard of living.- but the reality is the US emissions has been going down for many years, while increasing their standard of living (arguable, but difficult to say that US standard of living is less than half of what it was in the 90s), while china is going up in emissions. I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns. I don't get a free pass to behave like a mafia boss just because I really really want to have a bunch of money like one
  - lmz 2mo ago
    There's a phrase for that "do as I say, not as I do" (see also: "pulling the ladder up"). This is rightly viewed as hypocritical by those on the receiving end.
    - autoexec 2mo ago
      There's also the phrase "Now we know better". When the industrial revolution came to the US we were ignorant and we polluted the world like crazy because of that. Today, we've learned from that mistake. We now know that you can and must control the pollution factories spew out into the world, even though doing that cuts into corporate profits. China doesn't get a pass to pollute at historic US levels for their industrialization because they have the benefit of having learned from our mistakes. Rejecting the "No Fair! It's my turn to needlessly destroy the planet just to make myself richer!" argument isn't hypocrisy, it's just acknowledgement of history and the progress we've made in dealing with the problems we ran into while we were industrializing without the benefit of anyone else's past experience. China and every other developing country has already been benefiting enormously from the example of developed nations, but they want to cherry pick the things that maximize their wealth while ignoring everything else at the expense of every living thing on Earth. They want to point to the damage we caused while we were stumbling around in the dark with no idea where we were going, even though today the sun is shining and they've got all the maps we made and GPS to guide them.
sokoloff 2mo ago
I don’t think looking at first derivative of emissions per capita is more important than absolute measure when thinking of the morality of polluting. If China’s per capita is lower than some other place, they’re doing better. The first derivative tells us that might become untrue, but countries with high historical emissions don’t get a pass because they’re lowering those high levels as compared to a lower emitting country whose emissions are rising.
- RugnirViking 2mo ago
  china's historical total emissions will also surpass the US's pretty soon, on account of their nearly 3x as large population combined with their per capita emissions being nearly as high. and as mentioned, theirs is likely set to grow way faster. I agree extrapolating isn't always the best way to assign historical blame (for whatever that might mean), I do think it makes sense to use when thinking about what policies people ought to take now, to reduce damage as much as possible I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns
  - sokoloff 2mo ago
    I believe that every person has just as much right to emit pollution in 2027 as every other person in 2027. What that person emitted in 2025 has no bearing on their 2027 “allowance”. We can certainly discuss how much is an appropriate, sustainable, or defensible per-person amount, but I’m only interested in the 2027 amounts, not the increase in their amount versus a prior period, nor in allowing past large emitters to continue at higher rates than past low-emitters. (I think we strongly agree on your last paragraph’s point. That was the point of my GP post, but maybe it didn’t land somehow.)
    - spwa4 2mo ago
      > I believe that every person has just as much right to emit pollution in 2027 as every other person in 2027. Because every person has their own planet?
AlecSchueler 1mo ago
> I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty I made no such suggestion, only that China isn't solely responsible for the future of humanity, which was the claim I responded to.

lmz 2mo ago

Re: emissions per capita - why should the Chinese be limited to a lower amount than the US citizens? They want a high standard of living too.

RugnirViking 2mo ago
that might make sense in a world where the US has been chugging along emitting at a constant rate for many years, to maintain a certain standard of living.- but the reality is the US emissions has been going down for many years, while increasing their standard of living (arguable, but difficult to say that US standard of living is less than half of what it was in the 90s), while china is going up in emissions. I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns. I don't get a free pass to behave like a mafia boss just because I really really want to have a bunch of money like one
- lmz 2mo ago
  There's a phrase for that "do as I say, not as I do" (see also: "pulling the ladder up"). This is rightly viewed as hypocritical by those on the receiving end.
  - autoexec 2mo ago
    There's also the phrase "Now we know better". When the industrial revolution came to the US we were ignorant and we polluted the world like crazy because of that. Today, we've learned from that mistake. We now know that you can and must control the pollution factories spew out into the world, even though doing that cuts into corporate profits. China doesn't get a pass to pollute at historic US levels for their industrialization because they have the benefit of having learned from our mistakes. Rejecting the "No Fair! It's my turn to needlessly destroy the planet just to make myself richer!" argument isn't hypocrisy, it's just acknowledgement of history and the progress we've made in dealing with the problems we ran into while we were industrializing without the benefit of anyone else's past experience. China and every other developing country has already been benefiting enormously from the example of developed nations, but they want to cherry pick the things that maximize their wealth while ignoring everything else at the expense of every living thing on Earth. They want to point to the damage we caused while we were stumbling around in the dark with no idea where we were going, even though today the sun is shining and they've got all the maps we made and GPS to guide them.

sokoloff 2mo ago

I don’t think looking at first derivative of emissions per capita is more important than absolute measure when thinking of the morality of polluting. If China’s per capita is lower than some other place, they’re doing better. The first derivative tells us that might become untrue, but countries with high historical emissions don’t get a pass because they’re lowering those high levels as compared to a lower emitting country whose emissions are rising.

RugnirViking 2mo ago
china's historical total emissions will also surpass the US's pretty soon, on account of their nearly 3x as large population combined with their per capita emissions being nearly as high. and as mentioned, theirs is likely set to grow way faster. I agree extrapolating isn't always the best way to assign historical blame (for whatever that might mean), I do think it makes sense to use when thinking about what policies people ought to take now, to reduce damage as much as possible I also don't agree that just because someone else became rich through some negative process (crime, perhaps), that everyone has a right to the same. This sort of thinking is the way the world burns
- sokoloff 2mo ago
  I believe that every person has just as much right to emit pollution in 2027 as every other person in 2027. What that person emitted in 2025 has no bearing on their 2027 “allowance”. We can certainly discuss how much is an appropriate, sustainable, or defensible per-person amount, but I’m only interested in the 2027 amounts, not the increase in their amount versus a prior period, nor in allowing past large emitters to continue at higher rates than past low-emitters. (I think we strongly agree on your last paragraph’s point. That was the point of my GP post, but maybe it didn’t land somehow.)
  - spwa4 2mo ago
    > I believe that every person has just as much right to emit pollution in 2027 as every other person in 2027. Because every person has their own planet?

AlecSchueler 1mo ago

> I don't think you get to abdicate responsibilty I made no such suggestion, only that China isn't solely responsible for the future of humanity, which was the claim I responded to.