Investing in fossil fuels makes you responsible for the people who use those services?
If the top 1% dictate what you should do, that is evil, but if they don't, that's also evil?
Even the most extreme free marketeers like Walter Block (author of "Defending the Undefendable") talk about pollution as a violation of private property. Climate change as a result of pollution definitely would come under that kind of argument. They would just say it's a matter for the courts, like everyone affected should sue the people who emit the pollution or something like that (yes it's not a very practical ideology when you get into things like that)
And I've seen "anything market-rational is also moral"-shaped argument many times: on HN, in newspapers, company responses to criticism, pretty much any time someone defends crypto's negative effects.
Also, if EvilCorp is worth $10, I could just buy it and stop all the EvilActions.
I disagree that GP's argument depends on this.
I disagree that the principle you attempt to refute is even fairly characterized that way. You seem instead to argue against the idea that acting rationally in the market is amoral: i.e., not concerned with morality, and not requiring moral consideration.
But worse, it comes across that you imagine that moral viewpoints not agreeing with your own are inherently fallacious, or perhaps even that morality is an inherently objective matter that you have all figured out. That seems much more dangerous to me.
It's entirely possible for reasonable people to disagree with you. I personally feel that holding people culpable for the actions of others is a great injustice.
That said, it doesn't seem like you've actually explained anything:
> Clearly if you invest in something popular, you are assisting in its ability to be popular.
(e: Also, what poincaredisk said. This isn't necessarily the case at all.)
But suppose it did?
How does that make you responsible for the actions of others?
> That those consuming the thing are also at fault has no impact on that fact.
By saying "also" you beg the question. Why is the investor at fault?
Why does making it possible for others to do something cause moral culpability for those others actually choosing to do so?
Suppose I manufacture fertilizer. In this case, is it my, personal, moral responsibility to determine whether my clients are terrorists seeking to refine explosive materials? Why? In principle, how should I go about that?
Is the planet itself morally responsible for consumers using fossil fuels, simply because it provides those fuels? How about, say, the inventor of the coal-burning electricity plant?
Or does this only apply to investment for some reason?
> That the next guy would do the same if you hadn't has no impact on that fact.
It doesn't change what you did, sure. But you don't explain why this means you should be morally culpable for anything.
> but anything else is nonsense to the point of being essentially a lie.
You continue to argue by assertion and do nothing to actually explain your moral principles.
Incidentally: do you suppose that investors who enable virtuous actions are similarly virtuous, even though they neither perform the action nor cause it? Or does your premise only apply to the immoral?
This makes intuitive sense: the machines are owned by the investors, not the consumers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/climateskeptics/comments/1hk9nwc/ma...
https://voz.us/en/society/240508/9963/launchpad-mark-zuckerb...
I don't think blanket divestment is a good solution, but there is clearly a perverse incentive. You don't get to profit significantly from these companies while being absolved of blame.
It seems reasonable to then also attribute the negstive effects of their investments to them.
Maybe not responsible, but not exactly a great move if you cared more about our world than your own financials.
Said another way, if the top 10% stopped investing in companies continuing with fossil fuels, and instead tried to aim to invest into renewables, couldn't that potentially A) make companies dealing with renewables more attractive as investments increase and B) make companies dealing with fossil fuels less attractive or potentially make them change towards something else?
Basically "Vote with your wallet" but for the ultra-rich, and "Vote" is really "Make Earth still be habitable in the future".
Investment doesn't drive our behavior, our behavior is what is driving investment.
In the mean time, investors in oil companies are not "responsible" for warming – our consumption is.
So far it seems that it can't as long as these companies are using investors' money to lobby various governments.
> investors in oil companies are not "responsible" for warming – our consumption is.
Many people would happily use alternatives to lessen the impact of their consumption but there are companies more powerful than them trying to influence and limit their options.
Yes, investing doesn't come with free pass. You are very much involved and supporting the company. Thus morally tied to what the company does.
Whether you care about that at all, is up to you. You just don't get to eat your cake and have it too.
Of course people using fossil fuel take part of the blame as well, but responsibility for investments more than normal consumption by quite a margin.
While others use the ressource, you have a profit incentive with its use and you also now have incentives to increase usage further.
the top 1% emits to amass more capital for themselves, not to produce what's needed by consumers, who are thereby responsible for their share of emissions and that share is already accounted for in the data.
Also, rural area could be bettre connected if all that money didn't go into individual cars
differently
we don't know how, we sure can't say it would be worse, it probably wouldn't.
modern medicine is not energy intensive likewise aren't better hygiene and better food. Actually vaccines, that fight infectious diseases, have been discovered when we used little or no fossil fuel and the light was kept on by candles or oil, including whale oil.
So yes, investors are partly responsible.
We are far from the simple supply-demand your comment suggests..
To provide a scenario that takes this argument to its logical conclusion: if one person owned 100% of the only oil & gas company in the world, and all 8 billion people on earth used that oil & gas for their cars and their stoves, etc. and this in turn constituted the entirety of emissions that caused warming, then by this metric it would actually be that one businessperson who is "responsible" for all warming.
Even if that person doesn't consume any oil & gas themselves and lives off-grid on a farm somewhere.