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Comment by vhlhvjcov | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the sentiment but a couple problems with this approach

1. When you put the onus on the individual, powerful organisations will jump at the opportunity to absolve themselves of blame. Look at recycling and how it was pushed by the plastics lobby or the idea of a “personal carbon footprint” that was pushed by oil companies. There is a fact that these are systemic problems, that require systemic solutions.

2. History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Which massive threat to human life has been solved through bottom-up grass roots action (I.e. not protest to drive systemic change)? Look at small pox, the ozone and cfcs, covid, lead pipes, asbestos, etc. these all required huge top down programmes to deliver results.

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Re. #1 it drives me nuts when I see articles with titles like “Did you know that almond milk uses X gallons of water to make?” as if the onus is on me to understand the calculus of almond vs. cow milk vs. just pouring plain water on my cereal.

If we look at every issue an article like that wants to point to they all have mostly systemic causes, big Ag pushing factory dairy farms, heavy water subsidies for almond growers on land that otherwise wouldn’t support growing almonds, etc.

I hate that in the name of “conserving the earth” there’s this sort of endless game of shame and blame. Switch from cow milk to almond milk, not good enough. Recycle plastic, oh but you need to be aware of which plastics you’re recycling. You can switch to reusable containers. Oh but don’t buy aluminum, the carbon footprint for producing it is too high.

If we just decided to regulate one thing, like the diesel fuel container ships use, that would have a bigger effect than any of those environmental “tips”.

Personally, I think this is why solutions such as carbon taxes and appropriate pricing are the way to go. Market forces start bringing out the desirable outcomes as people look to find ways of living, purchasing, and consuming sustainably.

> When you put the onus on the individual, powerful organisations will jump at the opportunity to absolve themselves of blame.

Powerful organizations already absolved themselves. Check out the headline.

Also, this doesn’t put the onus on individuals. Individuals aren’t responsible for the change, but they are powerful enough to do something.

Doing something doesn’t mean doing everything.

The question to me is: what is the thing I should do? Where should I invest my energy?

Time and energy are finite resources and taking political action to drive systemic change has proven results (see previous examples).

I don’t know of any transformative movement against mass threat to human life that hasn’t relied on some form of top-down implementation to achieve its aims. Maybe environmental vegetarianism in the west? But that’s hardly been an unqualified success…

But they didn’t start with top down action:

Sustained political movements that drive results build upwards through the layers outlined, because that’s how you change culture — and politics is downstream of culture.

We live in a democracy, so if you don’t convince your neighbors first, then politicians will correctly respect the majority’s wishes over yours.

COVID is a great counter example:

The reason that it destroyed our society and has led to years of bitter fighting that’s doing massive damage to public health is precisely because it was authoritarian policy lacking public consensus — and now is likely to destroy many of the institutions that supported it in the backlash, as the public investigates gain of function, PSYOPs, ineffective policy interventions, etc.

I’m able to focus on multiple items.

But let’s assume that I must choose one thing to focus my energy. Birds are better off with me working on a habitat in my back yard that maybe homes 10 birds over my lifetime, the next 70 years.

That will have a greater impact than any way I can influence top-down implementations.

But fortunately, I can both build a habitat, donate to environmental charities, advocate for improvement, and vote for political parties.

WRT #2, I'd argue that many, MANY peoples – towns, families, cultures – have survived MUCH longer thanks to their bottom-up, localist thinking. I'm not saying top-down doesn't work, but it clearly isn't working for climate change. Too many adverse incentives, to much systemic ineffectiveness.

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