At a certain point, apathy sets in. If this is our generation's mesothelioma, so be it.
People seem to accept that it's all downhill from here, and sometimes even cynically applaud it. Like with the male sperm story. It's catastrophic and accelerating, yet got near-zero attention. The few responses to it seem to celebrate it.
Humanity lacks a story for the future. It can't just be "it's going to get so much worse" nor can it be "if we try really hard, we may slow down the decline, but a decline it will be". Those stories just aren't good enough. Nobody invests in a sinking ship.
Strange, I know plenty of people that do see an upside, including myself. It's a choice to believe things can and will get better.
Unless you have a crystal ball, we're both choosing to believe in an unknown future. So choosing to believe it will get worse is no different from believing it will get better. Although one is arguably better for mental health.
The distortion lens of media and social media is a thing. The real world and its people are vastly different from what one might read online. Yet an increasing amount of people barely interact with the real world and real people, hence they internalize the doom and gloom as if it is reality.
If you want to identify as black why not simply say you are black? Especially if you can pass as black without further modifications?
Most people’s lineages aren’t even so pure that you can say they are a pure example of a certain “race” anyway. We just accept people at face value. You could be 50% black and say you’re black and people accept it wholeheartedly (i.e. Barack Obama) So why not 40%? Or 5%?
But regardless, we can't ignore some major cultural shifts. LGBT is an example where you have real LGBT and what seems to be a cultural version of it. People honestly probably not belonging to that group in a lasting way, but joining in regardless.
It's fits a larger pattern of creating a persona with as many victim labels as possible. These labels creating the self-fabricated identity, which are then used to excuse yourself from your own flaws and bring down the "privileged", those with less labels.
This may be fun for a while but the obvious danger is that this self-obsession over identity gets you nowhere in the real world. Nobody gives a crap about these labels nor can you hide behind them.
You should not read this stereotyping the wrong way. I have empathy for minorities, I loathe the cultural version of it where it's worn like fashion or weaponized.
And I do worry about social contagion. A teenager chronically online in the most gullible part of their lives are absolutely affected. A teenager will believe anything you tell them and they'll copy anything other teenagers do.
Teenagers are idiots. Source: once was one.
Endocrine disruptors [0] are widely distributed by humans within our environment, for use directly or indirectly within food & water resource streams, such as:
- Polymers within plastics, used in food, water, and other human-consumed product containers (and other lifestyle commodities, such as clothing, toiletries, etc.). Example: Phthalates [1]
For more examples google "Plastic polymer endocrine disruptors"
- Herbicides. Example: Atrazine [2] (As well as Pesticides and Fungicides)
For more examples google "Herbicide endocrine disruptors", "Pesticide endocrine disruptors", and/or "Fungicide endocrine disruptors" (Many chemicals in each of the three categories are endocrine disruptors)
You can thank the EPA & FDA for being revolving doors for chemical industry lobbyists, for companies such as Bayer (which purchased Monsanto), Syngenta (which produces Atrazine), and Dow Chemical.
[0] "Many chemicals, both natural and man-made, may mimic or interfere with the body’s hormones, known as the endocrine system. Called endocrine disruptors, these chemicals are linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, and other problems."
National Institute of Health Environmental Services. https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/endocrine/ind...
[1] "Some types of phthalates have affected the reproductive system in animals. Human health effects from exposure to low levels of phthalates are not as clear. More research is needed to assess the human health effects of exposure to phthalates." "CDC researchers found measurable levels of many phthalate metabolites in the general population. This finding indicates that phthalate exposure is widespread in the U.S. population."
CDC. National Biomonitoring Program. https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/Phthalates_FactSheet.html
[2] "Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs". Tyrone B. Hayes tyrone@berkeley.edu, Vicky Khoury, Anne Narayan, +7, and Sherrie Gallipeau. University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved January 15, 201 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0909519107
But you went for gender politics.
Not everything will go downhill. Some things surely, but not everything - some things will go uphill. For example, suppose climate change eliminates half of Earth biosphere, including half of humans. Chances are, their medicine, technology, education, social structure will still be better.
I believe the GPs point was that there needs to be a positive story about the future to inspire people to realize that future. Like if all that the future holds is the death of your loved ones, why would you care about issues facing society?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...
Current consumption and wealth levels are not sustainable but reducing consumption is completely antithetical to the capitalist and consumerist society of present day.
Buying less stuff, going on fewer vacations, driving less, eating less varied food. Unthinkable to almost everyone, including the overwhelming majority of those who actually recognize the problems and what's at stake, let alone those simply claiming that they do for social brownie points.
And don’t get me started about food packaging. Every 100 gram of food comes with at least 5 gram of plastic packaging. Sadly I must eat sometimes and can’t do anything about packaging.
Again and again we’ve shown we can make these transitions, including surviving a major ice age. While there’s good reason to worry, as lack of worry denotes foolhardiness, despair is both self-defeating and counterfactual to the whole of human history.
This time it may well be different, but if it is, then your attitude is guaranteed to lead to failure, as we will then not take the necessary steps to secure the future.
My money is on a technological solution overall, but there are many things regular people can meaningfully do, such as driving less, giving up one or more cars, or choosing to build or renovate toward highly insulated, potentially net carbon sequestering house as with the passive house standard, switch to heat pump based a/c and water heating, and voluntarily contributing to carbon sequestration efforts such as through YC alum Wren https://www.wren.co/join/Empact
If you think that’s not enough, and perhaps you’re right, what lever do we need to press to make change? It is our responsibility as the current generation to identify and press that lever to secure the future for our descendants.
Politically, my money is on the Citizen’s Climate Lobby effort to bring about a carbon tax, and the American Conservation Coalition for its effort to raise the prospect of environmental policy in the Republican sphere. If enough people vote on this issue alone[1], as the second amendment and abortion communities have effectively done over the past forty years, then we have a chance to shift policy in the direction of conservation/protection.
For me that means: a carbon tax to reduce demand, unleashing zero-carbon sources like nuclear to further out-compete the fossil fuel plants, while also embracing efficient infrastructure like pipelines to efficiently convey that supply we continue to use. On this last point, remember that the demand is constrained via a carbon tax.
The world needs our earnest efforts. You can keep your despair.[2]
[1] particularly in the primaries, as most house districts are now non-competitive between the parties
[2] Incidentally, I think the hysteria on the left is also counterproductive, as “the sky is falling” only reaches so many people before it discredits the speaker, and the goal should of convincing the middle does not require them to be terrified - IMO the easiest way to do that is to make the behavior high-status and motivate people that way, e.g. see Tesla, solar panels, etc.
The left is definitely more vocal about it, but it seems like it's a state of mind created by tough personal circumstances which act as a base of projection + poor education which doesn't throttle the projection, and those two things affect many people across the political spectrum. Right-wingers have the steam valves of denial and religion though.
If, instead of climate change, the hysteria were about engineered pandemics escaping labs (not COVID; I mean an actual engineered pandemic sometime in the future), I think it would actually be warranted but equally unhelpful. :p
This kind of adlib really works against getting people to care. Given the immediate (and intentional) destruction of all evidence that could point either way, such definite claims are ill-advised.