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Comment by mmooss | Hacker News Reader

> but most people in the world are worried about putting food on the table and taking care of their kids

People love to repeat this myth, as if most human beings won't care about others or about their own future, as if they can't understand enlightened self-interest, or can't understand climate change. Mostly, it's yet another argument for powerlessness and inaction.

The public has gotten behind so many things now and historically. Right now they are the power behind movements that have nothing to offer but brazen falsehoods, corruption, and hate. And yet all the good people say, mass movements are impossible, there's nothing we can do but suffer.

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For me personally it has been very disheartening to see how many people simply don't care about what goes on slightly outside of their immediate vicinity.

The one simple easiest thing you can do to fight environmental disasters is to stop eating meats. Or at least reduce the consumption of the most harmful ones. Try taking up that conversation with people whose opinion on the matter you don't know. Most of the time it's not going to be pleasant, satisfying or leading to much progress.

People like to think about big picture decisions with their taste buds and emotions.

> it has been very disheartening to see how many people simply don't care about what goes on slightly outside of their immediate vicinity.

They are disheartened by you spreading this myth. Plenty of people have and do and will do otherwise.

Yeah, but it's not enough. Who's the next US president? Why is the Amazon rainforest being burned down? How many % support does AfD have? I know good people are out there, but it only takes so many to ruin it for the rest of us.

Bad behavior and problems have always been there - in history, much worse than now. The difference now is the quitters.

We have never faced an existential threat that is planet scale from fucking up the climate. Never. This might be our great filter.

Nuclear war was and is a bigger threat. Climate change has been a threat for decades, before quitting became a pastime of the Americans and the West.

Wars and other localized dangers are much greater threats for people involved; WWII was a much greater threat to the West. Black people in the US have faced greater threats for most of American history.

I’d argue climate change was never so serious. It’s getting worse and worse and is happening right now. It’s possible we’re passing a tipping point and that it will accelerate while feeding on itself.

Nuclear war is a hypothetical in comparison (although it would also be pretty bad but it’s not currently happening).

Black people in the US aren’t the only persecuted population in the world, and it’s targeted (by definition); It’s not universal.

Climate change or nuclear war would wipe out humans as a species (and most other living things) indiscriminately, regardless of race.

From my perspective, the feeling is people at large don't care. Likely because it's difficult, uncomfortable, expensive, or all 3.

Do I wish it wasn't that way? Yes. But what if it stays that way? Is there a solution then?

I'm not saying the fight shouldn't be had. I am saying that—at least in the USA—change doesn't really appear to be a priority unless the $ is there.

You are not an observer watching from the Moon, you are an agent, a full participant right here on Earth. Your 'perspective' is the problem, not a third-party observation.

In wars, enemy propaganda says the kinds of things you are saying, to create despair and powerlessness. Look up operations like Tokyo Rose, for example. It's more powerful than any other weapon - it causes the foe to unilaterally disarm. And, as propagandists intend, here you are repeating it, spreading the disease.

Imagine you are working on a team, and someone keeps saying 'nobody cares', it's probably hopeless, etc. That person is the problem, spreading a communicable disease within the team.

The good people outnumber the bad, by a lot. Goodness is not a new or alien concept, but fundamental to humanity and to every culture. Human rights has been overwhelmingly successful and popular across people and cultures. History shows it overwhelmingly. All that is missing is belief in themselves and a way forward.

Instead of this disease, you could spread what people actually need. Hope, courage, belief in what is right.

Gross generalization and characterization.

You can push for change while also recognizing that others don't respond well to it. Why? Because you need to adjust tactics to get the outcome you want.

Blindly "spreading hope" is just as lazy imo as saying everything is futile.

You have to live in the world the way it is, not the way you want it to be.

And let me be very direct: I'm close to positive the approach you've shared will not work. Sorry. It will be too late by the time people get onboard (when it's clear that the medium-term negatives will outweigh shorter term costs).

You don't provide any evidence; you just seem to think your despair is objective reality, not merely your subjective perception, and insist on it. You are following the rhetoric of propaganda.

As I said, there is a long, long history of people doing far more against much greater odds. What many people are doing now is just propaganda and cowardice; nothing is stopping them.

Make the future a bright one, don't drag everyone down and make those bad things happen.

A Pollyanna approach is not the answer (and rarely is.) I believe you've missed my point.

I'll state it again although I don't have good faith in this conversation: because the majority of people don't prioritize (or even believe in climate change), the tactics are going to be different than other social issues.

Literally look up any polling on the matter for "proof."

With what happened to the CEO of UHC, I think we are starting to see society hit a breaking point. Where simply "acting through the process" is no longer acceptable to an increasing minority of people who are getting ready to... well. Best not type it, lest I end up on more watch lists.

I don't endorse that kind of action, FWIW, I've lived through enough historically significant events already and I'm not even forty. But the powers that be seem unwilling to simply make less money, so something's going to give eventually.

IMHO that is the same weird narrative of powerlessness. It talks about events like they are on an empty ship adrift at sea.

You are on that ship. What are you doing? It's not adrift; others are steering it. If you don't also guide it, then the results are your fault just as much as those steering it.

It’s more that change won’t happen until it has serious impact to majority of population.

It sounds cold but food/water/housing shortage will be solved once it starts affecting > 51% of the population. (or at least resources will start flowing towards real solutions).

The sad part is by then there will most likely be irreparable damage (as well as enormous amount of human suffering). That’s at least how the western part of the world sees things

For the record, I care, but there’s only so many people I can convince to stop eating meat

:%s/of the population/of the assets/

If we've seen nothing else in history, it's how effectively a tiny crust of the population can keep the Orphan Crushing Machine running as long as it doesn't affect them directly.

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