Comment by dog_boxer72 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dog_boxer72 | Hacker News Reader

My own father, who is in his 60s, has said blatantly to me that he will be dead before the real problems hit, so he would rather not give up his cruises, large cars and international flights - he just doesn’t even care that his grandchildren will suffer, since he personally won’t be around for it. Completely dispicable, but ultimately, asking people to do the right thing out of altruism is never going to work. Democracy will not work either because these people vote.

At least he can admit he’s being selfish I guess. I think most climate deniers, especially the older ones, simply can’t face the idea they might be responsible for terrible things happening, and don’t want to change now, so the brain latches on to any explanation that spares them that psychological pain. Thus arguing facts is pointless with these people because it’s about feelings not actual truth (as many things are with our species). The solution is to hack peoples psyche to make them “feel good” about climate change, somehow…

I see literally no issues whatsoever with that outlook unless he's the CEO of a multinational company.

Personal responsibility is pointless for climate change. The only thing that you can do - that actually impacts the climate - is to not have children. Everything else isn't even going to be a rounding error. Even if aggregated with thousands of other people abstaining as well.

The whole thing is just purely virtue signaling so people can tell themselves that they're doing something and it's the other people's fault that it keeps getting worse.

>Everything else isn't even going to be a rounding error. Even if aggregated with thousands of other people abstaining as well.

I truly dont understand this mindset. The total is always the sum of the components.

You actions make the same difference if you do them alone or with 7 billion other people. Both actions are the same tiny marginal impact.

The alternative just comes off as an excuse to do nothing. As if car manufactureres will just keep building cars that nobody buys.

Even if everyone in your city stopped doing $whatever you're taking issue with, the climate will not be impacted.

Climate change is a global problem, nothing besides global regulation that's actually enforced will have a meaningful impact. It's just too profitable to ignore climate impact for this to change.

What you're doing is just lying to yourself if you honestly think your actions (even if aggregated to hundreds of thousands of people doing the same), will be a meaningful contribution on the issue.

And just to be clear, pollution is another story entirely. That's primarily a local issue and can be significantly improved (not solved!) through personal responsibility.

Most people don't apply your reasoning to any other moral question. Nobody thinks that killing a child is OK because it has little impact on the grand total of child deaths. They don't rationalize that some warlord in Africa will keep killing, even if they don't.

How is this any different? You are either part of the solution or part of the problem, and accountable for your actions.

My point is that the contribution to climate change is exactly proportional to your personal emissions devised by the the total.

You talk about policy Solutions, but how is that any different than personal action?

Killing is heinous act giving unparalleled suffering to others, that starts right at the moment, to many related person. Not same as one person doing nothing to reduce climate change. You are comparing apples to sky.

That firmly establishes that killing is very bad and faster. What it doesn't do is make an argument it is moral to emit large amounts of carbon that will also hurt people (but more slowly) just because other people are doing it too.

But that was the point: a person flying around the globe every week will not impact the climate significantly, even if thousands of people did the same. You're not going to achieve anything without global regulation, so trying to shame individuals is just pointless.

Wherever they're boomers or not.

Agreed, though for children there’s an argument that you could have a descendent that solves climate change with some technical achievement or discovery. Seems like a long-shot though, so I wouldn’t take that bet.

To reiterate, there’s “no one simple trick” you can personally do to affect climate change. No mainstream action is worth a damn. That’s kind of the definition of a systemic issue.

There’s something to be said about doing the right thing simply for the sake of doing the right thing.

Beyond that personal choice, setting an example for others is a powerful tool to promote change.

There's that 'me' generation for you. My parents say the same shit.

100% Democracies are accountable to the interests of people as they understand them. Nobody wants to be told what's good for them.

Democracy will work, it's the only thing that's ever worked. Mass movements achieved pretty much anything you can think of, like better working hours, better rights for women, civil rights, end of slavery ...

Literally every (correct) example you gave is a case of people voting in their own short-term self interests, a dynamic which does not exist with global warming.

In the case of slavery, democracy didn't end this. Southern states literally seceded, and we had the bloodiest war in American history, to end slavery. And the dynamics there were that the economic systems of Northern states didn't rely on slavery, so they had little problem opposing it on moral grounds. The entire economic system of the South was built around the plantation system and slavery and so it's not surprising democracy didn't end slavery there.

The end of slavery in the United States was achieved by killing enough people who politically supported slavery in a war, that they surrendered and accepted the _de jure_ end of slavery. However, they then spent a century in a a low intensity conflict / rebellion (Reconstruction, Jim Crow, etc) against it, with significant success (unfortunately).

Democracy is not the cure all that you make it out to be.

Well, those things all directly benifitted the people who were currently alive campaigning for them. It doesn't go against op's point.

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