That’s because no one pays attention to the huge developments in infrastructure or the amazing new technologies coming to market - e fuels like sequestered carbon jet fuel made from excess renewable power, and no it’s not a science fiction dream it’s happening now. Of course we should have more funding for these things but they are happening.
A huge part of that problem is that people resist even the slightest positive change, paper straws are fine but I bet there are people who like this post who also liked posts complaining about them - if we stopped organized sports and spent that half a trillion on transitioning local infrastructure or establishing carbon sequestration systems with productive use of captured carbon (e.g. building materials that get landfilled at eol) we could move much faster, but no one will give up a single football game to save the planet they’d rather bomb something and feel like a hero
Bread and circuses, working as intended. We wouldn’t want people coming home after a day’s work and putting anger and frustration into something productive, would we?
Not gonna lie, it’s way past too late to really be able to spare human life from the effects of climate change. A revolution likely won’t even be enough at this point.
Yep. I was learning about the actions we need(ed) to take like 25+ years ago in elementary school. But we didn’t take any of those actions and instead added 2.5 billion to the population.
The problem is millions die, government’s are no longer able to govern and popularist war lords gain power in the chaos which results in huge conflicts that cause far more ecological damage without any measures or efforts to remedy them - we still get clomate change but probably sooner and worse.
Also let me ask the people here with children who among you would let your child freeze to death and who would chop down a tree to burn? The ecological damage done by a civilization collapse would be intense, we’re too close to the edge to risk that - maybe if it’d fallen at the start of the Industrial revolution but how long would it have been until that technology comes back and we’re right where we are?
We need to change society and evolve new technology, the later is actually doing really well with many giant leaps for climate friendly technologies and infrastructure but society is proving to be very resistant, people aren’t going to create a new greener world if they get angry at the very idea of being told to reduce, reuse, recycle.
Why would government fall over? They have police and military to keep/restore order
Anyway out of the violent methods I prefer a slower method where selective vandalism pushes away investment and insurance, so the fleets of diesel ships can be slowly replaced; so city energy can slowly adapt
Seriously, a lot of CEOs and most managers could be much more easily replaced by AI than the workers. Run some analysis on some metrics lay off people based on that. Go over the market analytics, direct staff to work on derivative versions of the products that have good numbers, cancel products that don’t. I’m not even sure if you really need AI for this, a very basic script could handle a lot of it.
Of course a program would be lacking in the common sense to say “Nobody is going to drop a week’s pay so they can go into a virtual world where they’re a poorly drawn legless cartoon character”. But present day CEOs make these mistakes anyway. It wouldn’t be good, but it wouldn’t be worse than the status quo.
I’d be much more likely to support and sympathize with a group blowing up fossil fuel infrastructure than standing in the fucking road, blocking traffic.
The clear answer is yes. This is exactly like the people who say they won’t be allies anymore if we LGBT+ people aren’t polite enough.
No halfway decent person who isn’t a steaming pile of excrement would be deterred by such a protest. That user’s take stems from discourse specifically designed to shut down protests, and it’s imperative that we do not let it work.
So no, the “dude” doesn’t have a “point.” It’s all horseshit. Shut them down immediately when they start flapping their pie hole with that shit.
No halfway decent person who isn’t a steaming pile of excrement would be deterred by such a protest.
You assume there are significantly more “halfway decent people” than “steaming piles of excrement”. If your assumption were true, we would have abandoned fossil fuels in favor of electric vehicles at least 40 years ago, and wouldn’t be having this argument today. Humanity leans far more to the “excrement” side of this particular debate.
You need the support of quite a lot of the people you describe as “steaming piles of excrement”, and all you’re doing is driving them straight to the first politician who says “I’ll lock up every last one of these asshole protesters as soon as they step in the street” while taking the money of every oil tycoon on the planet.
No, OP’s idea is infinitely superior to those jobless, orange-coated jackasses.
You don’t actually need public support to shut down fossil fuel infrastructure if your supporters are organized and willing to perish over it. The doomers actually do have large enough numbers that they could organize and set up their own militias if they really wanted to. Hell, the right wing nutjobs do it all the time.
🤨 If that’s the way you regard your fellow man for protesting something simply because their protest inconveniences you, then it’s no wonder so many people are undeterred by possible jail time over it.
Damn dude. You all demand unending sympathy for rapists and pedophiles, but the second someone implies a threat to your access to McDonald’s and 7-11, all that talk goes out the window. Nope, off to jail you go! you say without a second’s thought toward the hypocrisy.
There’s no reason anyone should take you seriously.
You suggested they are ready, willing, and eager to go to jail, and now you’re arguing I’m some kind of bad guy because I share their desire for them to be jailed. And somehow, I’m the hypocrite?
You bike anywhere that doesn’t have these movement-infringing obstructionists. You don’t bike anywhere that does have such criminals.
“Jail” seemed the most appropriate option. “Hood ornament” and “speed bump” are perfectly reasonable alternatives, but you indicated their willingness for “jail”. “Jail” would make everyone happy.
Actually yes, you do, and I know because I’ve been on both sides of this equation. The only thing you can do is be patient and wait for them to pass or politely cheer them on and walk/push your bike around them. They are not seriously going to stop pedestrians.
The fact that they’re willing to endure jail over this is morally laudable. Jail is awful for those who can’t afford to bail themselves out. It shouldn’t be a place protesters are thrown into for exercising their first amendment rights but that’s how tyranny works.
You need to stop being selfish and grow the fuck up.
You keep using those words, but you clearly don’t comprehend their meaning.
“Selfish” is demanding exclusive access to public thoroughfares. “Selfish” is insisting that you are the only person who can use a public road. “Selfish” is denying public access to public roads.
“Tyranny” is when an individual forces the public to bend to their personal whims, instead of allowing them to conduct their own affairs in peace.
These people are not protesting. They are infringing on the rights of every person they deliberately delay.
Protesters have the right to speak. They do not have the right to demand a captive audience to hear their speech. They do not have the right to stop anyone who wants to move. They do not have the right to harass. You can speak; you cannot force anyone to listen, and you should be jailed for trying.
No, no, you’re being selfish. You can’t be assed to sit in traffic for 10 minutes or simply turn around to accommodate for other people’s right to protest. That silly thing people fought and died to have. All because you don’t want to tolerate being inconvenienced. That is the height of selfishness.
You are selfish. Selfish, selfish, selfish.
Drivig isn’t even a right, it’s a privilege. Legally it’s a privilege. You have no right to drive and never did. They do, however, have a right to protest.
Stop only caring about yourself and invest your mental energy in something other than your shitty 9 to 5.
No, no, you’re being selfish. You can’t be assed to sit in traffic
No, no, no: that isn’t traffic. I’m not stuck in traffic. “Traffic” is people trying to get from where they are to where they want to be. I have no problem sitting in traffic.
The problem is that they aren’t traveling. They aren’t creating “traffic”. They are detaining people. They are unlawfully stripping people of their right to travel, without their consent. Unlawful detention is a crime.
I’m not caring only for myself. I am caring about all the other people who are similarly being unlawfully detained by these selfish, tyrannical, criminals who have unilaterally stripped us of our right to travel in peace.
You can Share the road, get the fuck off the road, go to jail, or get run over. I don’t particularly care which one you pick, but “detain others” is not an option.
Yeah, you’re the one with the ability and the will to run them over and kill them and yet somehow, you’re the victim being detained. 🙄
Grow the fuck up. You are not a victim. It is not all about you. You are not entitled to 100% guaranteed access to empty roads.
You have to share the road with pedestrians and even protesters whether you like it or not. Protesters are a part of driving and a part of life you have to accept.
Do what you tell everyone else to do: Get over it.
You have to share the road with pedestrians and even protesters whether you like it or not. Protesters are a part of driving and a part of life you have to accept.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
Obstructing the road is not sharing the road.
I have to share with travelers. I have no problem sharing with other people traveling on the road, even when the act of traveling introduces delays.
Protesters also have to share the road. They are not allowed to obstruct the road in the course of their protest. Obstructing the road is a criminal act specifically because the roads must be shared and “obstruction” is not sharing.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
Pedestrians always have the right of way regardless.
See, I can be obnoxious to prove a point too.
It doesn’t matter if protesters are hanging out in the middle of the road. You have to put up with them regardless. And honestly, the situation is too serious for your inconvenience to be taken into account. Fix the planet, then we’ll talk.
Pedestrians do, indeed, have the right of way. “Right of way” meaning they are traveling.
To have the right of way, you have to be traveling. If you are not traveling, you can have no right of way. If you are not traveling on a thoroughfare, you are obstructing traffic for those who are traveling.
Protesters obstructing traffic do not have the right of way. They are criminals, and it is a good thing that they like jail.
They have the right of way regardless of whatever they’re doing on the road. You don’t get to run them over like you’re in a Newgrounds game no matter how much you want to.
That means even when protesters are sitting on the road, you have to put up with it. Turn around. Find another route. Park and find another route.
That’s not what “right of way” means. They do not have the right of way. They are violating the right of way.
They can be arrested, charged, and convicted for obstructing traffic. Their act of violating the right of way can also constitute unlawful detention, and the detained can use force to escape or arrest their captor.
Yes it is what right of way means. You can’t just run over pedestrians on the street no matter how much they inconvenience you. You especially can’t run over protesters.
Get over their presence and get a life that doesn’t revolve around your 9 to 5, or you in general.
No, sorry, it is not. “Right of way” means they are legally permitted to be there. If they had the right of way, it would not be lawful to remove them.
They do not have the right of way. It may not be completely legal in all cases to run their asses over, but they do not have the right of way. The travelers they are obstructing have the right of way. Travelers have the right to use the road, but non-travelers are illegally infringing on that right.
Yes, actually, it is, and you have to deal with them whether you want to or not. You can’t justify your hatred and bloodlust against protesters with the law; the law sides with them.
So yes, protesters on the street have the right of way. That’s the price you pay to live in a country that claims to be free. Don’t like it, move to Russia with your topsie Putin.
Protests are supposed to raise awareness and motivate people to join their cause. These particular protests are turning away far more people from this cause than they are gaining.
These protests are ideal for promoting stricter laws against jaywalking and unlawful detention, but not so much for reducing the use of fossil fuels.
Oh, there is no implication about it: you need one hell of a justification to deliberately infringe on freedom of movement. It should be a criminal offense on the same level as “harassment” or “simple assault” to deliberately prevent someone from traveling. Each of these protesters should be charged with a separate count for each and every vehicle so delayed.
And, anyone so impeded should be justified in using any force necessary to end that unlawful impediment.
Reasonable person standard applies to all use of force, so no, not really.
The right to protest does not extend to infringing on the rights of another. My right to protest does not supersede your right to leave your home and travel in public. I cannot detain you or deny your free movement.
You do not have a monopoly on the use of public roads, sidewalks, etc. “Taking” the public roads or sidewalks for your private use is not reasonable.
It might be a fact of law, but if they have figured out some loophole that allows them to get away with it, the law can and should be changed to eliminate that loophole. And that’s the only real effect they will have: convincing the general public to adopt some authoritarian bullshit law that should not need to exist, because nobody should be enough of a cunt to deliberately impede movement.
The problem is studies have demonstrated it’s counterproductive both in the popular debate and at driving policy, it can actually set back the green movement.
Just because you agree with their idealism doesn’t mean you need to agree with their behaviour, if I burn tires to get awareness for climate change that isn’t something a sensible person supports
Oil prices rising won’t just affect cars that run on petroleum products. All your electricity bill will probably rise as well unless power in your area is 100% provided by renewable energy.
Even then, most renewable energy still rely on fossil fuel to run the vehicles for transporting and maintaining their infrastructure, so now even that cost would sharply increase.
Talking about EVs, just which EV companies have eliminated the involvement of any fossil fuel in their supply line? Unless we have enough of these supply lines, EV prices will also increase for the majority of people.
Very few electric plants burn petroleum products. Fossil fuel plants typically burn either coal or natural gas, neither of which would be significantly affected by disruption of oil-based infrastructure.
When an oil refinery blows up and gasoline prices are suddenly 8x what they are now are you going to be saying “OMG why did they do this without any kind of warning”?
Consider the possibility that blocking traffic, throwing paint on paintings and yachts, the orange dust, etc. might be a warning. If your commute is being blocked, use that time to think about what your plan will be when you can no longer afford to put gasoline in your car. Put emotion aside and think about how you would logically solve that problem. Because you might have to soon enough.
So you’ve chosen your side in this. No one needs to feel bad about the problems it’ll cause for you if and when it comes time to start blowing up refineries.
Correct. The problems of a blown up refinery will affect the oil producers first. The problems of obstructing traffic will affect the oil producers never.
Picket the oil infrastructure. Make it expensive and unreliable, and consumers will gravitate away from it. The problems it will cause are not a big, but a feature.
It could be said that blocking traffic benefits oil producers by increasing gasoline usage and making people less sympathetic to the cause against them. Wasn’t there a case of someone in the oil industry paying people to protest in a similarly asinine way?
Imagine you’re in a room and someone is pumping some gas into the room. SSsssssssssssssss.
The people pumping in the gas say “don’t worry it’ll be ok, just keep on doing your work, trust us!” But the smartest people in the room all say “yeah… that’s gonna kill us eventually.”
One guy starts kicking at the vent the gas is coming from.
Another guy says “keep that racket down! I want to be a good boy and get my work done!”
So you think the reasonable person is the one that wants to sit around debating who’s fault it is while gas is still pumped into the room is the reasonable person?
We shouldn’t damage that gas pump because an underpaid worker installed it? We don’t want to be a nuisance! SSSSSSssssssssssssss…
What if that gas allows everyone in the room to function and when it stops they all either die or fight for the limited alternatives, that fight releases far more gas than would have been released over the next five hours and kills all the people working on opening the window and making alternatives who would have been finished with in the hour?
Your metaphor only works because it misses out all the important bits.
I fully agree with the sentiment… but I’m also not sure kicking at the vent will do much to stop the room from filling. To solve that I think we’d need to tackle the larger forces creating a situation where someone somehow benefits from the absurd situation of pumping gas into this hypothetical shared room…aka economic system.
Your mistake is to assume everyone is on the same level, having access to the same amounts of resources. The guy asking you to let him do his job is doing so in order to survive. He doesn’t think four generations ahead. He barely thinks four meals ahead.
So the guy working to survive is the reasonable one, whilst people with no food, power, living, clothing, infrastructure, or any real form of insecurity, who ask them to start kicking the vent are just too obtuse and unaware of the real world to start thinking about reason.
Global warming is bad. Your kids crying themselves to sleep because of hunger is worse. I don’t care what your argument is. It is worse. So stop attacking people trying to survive, and start looking for alternatives before asking people to give their lives up, for your kids future. Be less selfish.
Have you ever felt hunger? Have you ever seen someone beg you for food? Not someone approach you in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, Champs-Élysées, or whichever privileged place you are from, in order to make a buck, but see someone weak from actual hunger? Have you seen that?
I am all for green energy, and God knows I want us to stay away from fossil fuels.
But going “yeah, let’s end fossil fuels, and then see what happens to fix it ” is being very cavalier about ending millions of lifes, making billions suffer all around the world, so you can say you’ve done something good in your privileged community, go to the country club, opera or whatever and boast about your achievement.
But hey, you won’t be affected, so who cares, right? Let the poor eat brioches!
Worse: saying people that are trying to get by without any help from privileged folks (spoiler alert: those few quid you gave some NGO is being used in its majority to pay for wages in your own country) are “shheeple” is the apex of stupidity.
And criticizing people for pointing pity the flaws in your reasoning just shows how obtuse “green” people actually are. We have to fight global warming, but it does not start by having a Tesla. It starts by having viable alternatives, that are affordable to everyone, so a transition is possible.
So yeah, let’s make tons of noise around ending fossil fuels with an electric Volvo, Mercedes or Audi in the garage. Let say nuclear is as bad as fossil, while we’re at it, so we can show how truly stupid we are. Let’s have less ways for poor people to have food. I am sure Bill Gates will take care of the tab.
Sometimes I wonder if people actually are this stupid, or are just doing it for internet clout.
Lol nah, I am one of the working class and it’s obvious you’re just playing victim because the truth is, you like the system and refuse to believe you’re actually being oppressed.
Meanwhile, that gas is leaking into the room. SSSSSSssss…
The guy trying to break the vent is one of your fellow victims too. He works hard to try to survive. Yet you are completely merciless toward him simply because he recognizes the boots you lick are the problem and you don’t… so where’s his pity? Where’s his sympathy? Where’s his wall of text with motte and baileys subtly defending what he’s doing without outright saying it?
A few of your fellow hardworking victims have already passed out. The brown ones in the south corner, do you see them? A few of them are clawing at the windows trying to break them. Don’t think they’ll disturb your work?
What if the men in the scenario busted into the room with machine guns and announced to everyone that they’re going to systematically murder everyone inside, including you?
Will you get mad at the working class guys who turn over the desks and throw chairs at the mooks with guns to try to save their own lives? Or will you tell them to shut up and stop disturbing you too, as mooks walk desk go desk and shoot you in the back of the head?
😆 You’re such a bootlicking sap. You absolutely do not deserve any sympathy from me and you won’t get any, nor will arguing about whether you deserve it or not stop me personally from breaking those windows and climbing out, the other guys from breaking the vents, or the gas from slowly leaking into the room in the meantime…
SSSSSSSSSssssss…
But maybe the gas has already affected your brain, so there’s no point in arguing with you. Maybe that’s the real moral.
Congratulations, my “working class” friend, for your rant!
Hope you got the kick you needed out of insulting someone, as if you knew me, where I am from and what I am talking about, like probably you do regularly on social media.
Meanwhile, let the grown ups do the dirty work, so you can say your Tesla is the way to go. I am glad my existence makes your arrogance possible. Sleep well. There is no reasoning with obtuse.
The rest of us are over here breaking the windows and smashing the vent while you’re too busy getting angry at us for disturbing your work to notice you’re delusional from lack of oxygen, and about to pass out.
I know. Grownups are having to fix everything those pesky kids keep braking, in order to keep them in their sheltered existence. But hey, maybe someday those kind will learn how to think. Who knows? We keep trying to educate them.
So you now admit you’re helping the ruling class murder us. Well, that’s one way to finally be honest.
The rest of the intelligent people climb out the window
Here’s the kicker though: while you’re helping them trap us inside the room slowly filling with poison gas, remember they never gave you an oxygen tank. They’re killing you, too.
And I flip you the bird as I, too, climb out of that window.
Can you hear that? Men with guns are stomping as they rush to the room, only they’re not there to stop us and save you. They’re there to kill you and pursue us.
The reasonable person is the one who realizes they’re all brainwashed into allowing themselves to be murdered and runs out of the room. Even the guy who kicks the machine is damning himself because the others are programmed to turn on him when he does, stopping his efforts and distracting him, guaranteeing he’ll suffocate too.
It really would be better for us just to leave and start a new country elsewhere, or at least shoot the people pumping in gas from afar.
Let me fix that analogy. Imagine everyone in the room is pumping varying amounts of gas into the room and if they suddenly decide to stop, a significant number of people in the room are going to die.
Now sure, people are going to die anyway, but humans tend to be a lot more comfortable with the negative consequences of inaction than the negative consequences of action.
What would it require for people to restructure modern society in a way that would allow humans to stop producing greenhouse gases? A lot of actions. We can’t simply “stop” without the widespread availability of alternative technologies for energy production and transportation.
We are already allowed to stop. Turning on a machine is an action. We don’t need more technology to stop using existing technology.
It sounds like your concern is more systemic than the literal action of polluting. In which case, the action we’re currently taking is legal protection of polluters from people who would defend themselves.
Sorry if this is putting words in your mouth, but we aren’t entitled to all the same stuff we have today, at the cost of destroying the climate. We’re essentially stealing from future people.
I get people see one-on-one comparison in salary and it can appear stark. But I do workforce management and planning for a career. The last place I worked at spent $2.1B in employee costs annually—around 17.5K active employees which is actually not that big—,while chief officers were on close to $1M. If they were canabalised, people would get a few extra bucks in their paycheck, fuck all.
The CEO got paid that well because they could handle a $2.1B employee cost company, so obviously other companies want them since few people can do that with success, so obviously they were paid their worth.
Edit: Granted, this is in Australia where there’s a lot less capitalistic energy.
This is actually a popular misconception. MLK was just as radical as Malcolm X, it’s just that his more radical writings and speeches are not as popular or quoted. Libs and conservatives both want you to believe that MLK was a reasonable progressive liberal, when in fact he despised them. I say this as a huge fan of both MLK and Malcolm X, and I had this explained to me initially by a professor of African American history at university.
Another way to say it is that every movement needs a carrot, a stick, and an ultimatum. The carrot is evangelizing the injustice (MLK), the stick is direct action (Malcolm X), and the ultimatum is an implicit show of force and dedication that demonstrates how many people will resort to the stick if the carrot is not accepted (the mach on Washington).
While I am nearly always in the peaceful outreach camp, I strongly suspect that my efforts will not see fruition until breathless WSJ editorials start describing environmentalists as “dangerous” and “unamerican.”
That’s my point. I knew y’all were wannabe terrorists for a while, but everyone kept denying/downplaying it. I now have several highly up voted posts to point at. I’m sure the denial will continue, but this a start.
Radical? Sure. Terrorist? Nah. Liberals (and especially right wing libs) are violent towards marginalized groups and literally the planet itself, among others. Marxists, anarchists, etc. are violent towards capitalism and those who seek to uphold it. Revolution takes shape in many ways and some of those are violent, particularly towards the end. Don’t act like the system we’re living in isn’t abhorrent and violent. Politics in all of its forms boil down to violence. What are you seeking to build, what needs to be destroyed, who stands in your way, and what means are you able to use? That’s politics in a nutshell. Answer those questions for the majority of governments the world over and then answer them for your left wing Boogeyman of choice. Which sounds like it’s worth fighting for?
That would only make you feel good. It would not make real change.
I’m frustrated that I want to get a full off the grid solar setup but then it’ll cost 25K and won’t really offset itself until 10 years or more. I’ll feel good about being net zero in home energy usage but that is not a cost that the average person can afford.
Size refers to how many solar panels you have and their efficiency. Try sunroof.withgoogle.com but I think that site undersizes and expects you to pull some from the grid.
It probably will bankrupt him. But only because he built his business on the basis of exploiting employees. He won’t make money if he doesn’t do that. Which of course means he shouldn’t be in business.
Exactly. It’s not “his” company, he’s just at the peak of the decision-makers, currently. If he remains (short-term) profit-focused, they’ll give him a golden parachute of most of the workers’ labor to safely land at another company to cut costs and terminate employees and further enrich himself…
Ah yes, "enlightened" centrism, where causing relatively insignificant damage to stop the destruction of the planet is just as bad as destroying the planet for profit.. 🤦♀️
This shitty take reeks of being
more devoted to "order" than to justice; and preferring a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice
Bruh this has nothing to do with centrism. It’s "if we blow up an oil pipeline, the oil will spill out and be far more destructive than it would’ve otherwise"ism.
Fuck off with your “Insignificant damage” bullshit.
Fuck fossil fuels, fuck the industry that peddles them, but your ideas would just cause way more problems than they solve.
It doesn’t have to be an extreme like that. It would send a strong message If every gas station had to replace their LCD screens every week, or the windows of their headquarters.
But I guess non-action and bootlicking while we wait for our thoroughly bribed politicians to do nothing is better.
You’re the only one talking about non-action and bootlicking. I think you might be projecting a little.
And please realize that actions such as breaking lcd screens is going to increase the production of lcd screens. But if you wanna throw some bricks through some windows, i say go for it.
Just to point out, we’re running out of sand to make those windows, as well. They’re digging it up from the ocean floor, at this point, which isn’t great.
I have no solutions, but I’ll sure be quick to point out the problems…
Anything other than writing strongly worded emails is going to cause some form of economic damage, even just peaceful protesting with signs.
It’s about being heard and forcing the governments to ignore the billions in oil bribes they have already received. You can’t do that by sitting at home and making angry faces.
At what point did I give a shit about economic damage? Throw bricks, occupy refineries, do what you want. Just don’t dump an inordinate amount of toxic material into our environment just to try prove a point about protecting the environment.
“You can’t do that by sitting at home and making angry faces.” Agree 100%, never said we could, glad we’re on the same side here.
A large number of gas stations are franchises. Breaking the LCD screens hurts the local franchise owner, not whichever fossil fuel company they’re working with.
More to the point, breaking LCD screens accomplishes absolutely nothing. Most people don’t drive because they love driving, they drive because of zoning, sprawl and a lack of reasonable alternatives. If you get rid of fossil fuel infrastructure without fixing the underlying car dependency, they’ll be stuck at home.
I do, and I get it. We used to have the infrastructure, but it was lost as our communities became more car-centric. Personally, I own a cheap used fuel efficient car that I only use when I have to drive long distances.
I also know a lot of people who own gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs who don’t need them, and people who choose to live in expensive suburban areas because they fancy themselves too good to live amongst us “poor people” in “bad neighborhoods” because we’re supposedly dangerous. Also, a lot of people who think they have to drive everywhere they go, even a few blocks from their home. Those people can fuck right off.
I’d rather be inconvenienced by losing my car than continuing to subsidize the type of people I see driving every day.
The amount people drive is closely tied to local urban design, which comes down largely to local zoning regulations and infrastructure design. Those are primarily impacted by the people who show up at town meetings and vote.
Advocate for walkable, mixed-use zoning, improved bike infrastructure, etc. Most people aren’t “drivers”, “cyclists” or “public transit riders”, they’re people who want to get from point A to point B as easily as possible and will take whatever is best.
Your take is bad. The person who is destroying the planet isnt some conpany that sells you shit. They just give you what you want for some competitive price. I would bet my entire life that if most people had the opportunity to pay more for a greener product/greener service, they would still choose the cheaper/worse for environment option.
I mostly agree with this. Companies only pollute as part of their process for making whatever good or service it is that they sell. They only sell those goods or services because people are buying. If suddenly everybody stopped buying and switched 100% to growing their own crops, the pollution from corporations would drop to zero. Not because they’d suddenly care about the environment, but because you don’t spew out a ton of CO2 making a widget if nobody’s buying widgets.
Having said that, corporations are optimized to produce as much profit as possible. If it’s cheaper to run a plant on coal and they can get away with it, they’ll do it.
As consumers, we have no real way to audit a company’s supply chain. Even a government would have trouble doing it since most supply chains are international. If I honestly wanted to buy the most ethically-created widget out there, I’d have to trust a lot of people’s stories about where everything comes from. And, because corporations know how hard it is to audit their supply chains, they’re incentivized to save any bucks they can, even if that means massive pollution, massive suffering, and so-on.
Then there’s lobbying. It would be nice if the government passed a law that required audited supply chains, but the government won’t because it’s corrupt. Evil government. But, the government won’t pass anything like that because corporations will lobby against it and bribe politicians to make sure it never happens. Evil corporations. But, the money corporations have to lobby / bribe comes from their revenues, which come from people buying their goods and services. Evil consumers. But, consumers don’t know which corporations are lobbying and bribing because there’s no audit trail. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a law requiring audit trails…
Fundamentally, we can only do what we can do. Part of that is admitting we’re part of the problem. If you own an F-150 for status, not because you move heavy things often, you’re a big part of the problem. If you live in a part of the world where you need central heating in the winter, you’re part of the problem. If you run air conditioning in the summer, you’re part of the problem. If you use a car (even an electric one) instead of public transit, you’re part of the problem. If you buy potato chips in a plastic bag, you’re part of the problem. If you eat meat, you’re part of the problem. If you have kids, you’re a huge part of the problem. If you watch sports, you’re part of the problem.
This is the true black pill. We are in a loop where we as the general public are in control, but everything is so convoluted so we are more comfortable shifting blame to the next guy. Its attractive to say that we cant see the supply chain but in the end it wont matter unless we start caring about it.
But what does it mean to care in this case? We can end lobbying, but we dont vote for that because it might be in an omnibus bill that also gives tax breaks to billionaires. We can end overfishing, but we like eating sushi on Fridays even though we live in Omaha. We can reduce overspending on useless purchases, but I have undiagnosed depression and spending gives me endorphins.
I would bet my entire life that if most people had the opportunity to pay more for a greener product/greener service, they would still choose the cheaper/worse for environment option.
Yeah that’s the point. We know people will choose the cheaper option even if it fucks up their future.
Some oil refineries getting exploded would result in the “worse for the environment” option to be more expensive than the green option. Now I don’t think we’re at that point yet, but without significant changes, in a few years we may reach the point where blowing up a refinery is the only way for people to have a chance for survival.
Blowing it all up in one go would do a lot less long term damage than just allowing it to continue indefinitely. Surely that’s not too hard to understand, right?
No the post compared his salary to the employees earning $66,000 or above. I’m not sure what the median income is at Ford, but I’d guess it’s less than that - so really the post is only in support of less than half of the company’s workforce.
Your attempt to spin my comment into a scarecrow you can argue against is the real stretch here.
I’m not saying it isn’t ridiculous that giving a raise to employees of a profitable business would bankrupt the company. I’m saying it’s a bad example for the meme to bring up the CEO’s salary, rather than the profit of the company. The CEO’s salary is peanuts divided amongst every employee, meanwhile the company profits and shareholder dividends represent much more of the wealth that the employees have generated without being compensated for.
The CEO’s salary is peanuts divided amongst every employee, meanwhile the company profits and shareholder dividends represent much more of the wealth that the employees have generated without being compensated for.
True. The big shareholders are definitely a problem. I wonder who Ford’s largest individual shareholders are.
James D. Farley, Jr. owns a total of 1,103,833 Ford shares.
Its called juxtaposition my guy, Ford also spent almost half billion on stock buybacks last year which could have been used to give every Ford Employee a $2500 bonus to share their profits, but instead they used it to buy back stocks…
And buying back the stock has the effect of making the stock price go up. And guess who gets the most stock? The CEO and C suite. They give themselves huge raises by doing this and it’s perfectly legal :(
Well see that’s a good example. Ford is a profitable business, and should be paying their employees. All I’m pointing out is that the CEO’s salary - in the specific example of this business - does not represent a significant proportion of what is being taken from the average employee. That’s most likely going to the shareholders.
The CEO’s are partially to blame, but more blame lies with the shareholders, and also the legal system that mandates the CEO’s act in the interest of the hypothetical worst, most profit-hungry shareholder.
It’s a larger part than you think. It’s another part of manipulating the stock.
Companies should be regulated better. They should get tax relief when employees are paid well with good benefits. I don’t care if a company pays taxes as long as the employees are making money. They’ll translate to taxes being collected other ways.
What I can’t stand is all the bullshit waste and games.
I think layoffs should be severely punished by either taxes or forced severance.
I don’t care a ceo makes 20 million but there should be regulations to make sure they’re earning it and not just manipulating things
I mean I personally think income should be tax free up to a relatively high amount. Like 6 figures, minimum. You’re giving up your time, in service of a business which itself is in service of society, you shouldn’t have to subtract from your reward for that to give more. The business’ taxes should be covering that.
We should be heavily taxing investments, the times when people don’t actually do anything themselves but pay for things to be done, with the plan of getting money back and giving as little to those that actually did the work as possible. The business owner gives the minimum to their employees and takes all the excess for themselves.
What’s needed is a sliding tax scale where employers benefit from giving out higher mean salaries, not median, such that employees and employers both together benefit from the success of the business. If you pay your employees better, up to or maybe a little above the average income, your business gets taxed less. That’s the sort of government incentive we should be having.
Investments should be taxed little or zero till a certain income is produced from dividends. That’s how retired people live. That’s why certain stocks were called pensioner stocks.
Out whole tax system needs an overhaul. If a company was producing an economic advantage to the community and employees. I have no issue with them not paying taxes. We are getting it through the value they create.
The current model rewards taking from the community.
Sure, but Ford made a profit of 10 billion last year according to google. That means that they can give every single one of those 186k people a 6000$ raise and still be left with almost 9 billion in profit.
Isn’t the CEO one of the main people that decide salaries? When you’re ok with you having a multimillion salary and you say that others should be happy with 60k a year… that sounds like a problem to me
The CEO decides salaries, but the CEO is also legally obliged to pursue profits for shareholders first and foremost. The issue isn’t specifically the CEO, but the infrastructure that ensures the CEO behaves maliciously towards employees and customers.
It’s not a secret, we know who the billionaires are that are funding this madness, but the only people that could put a stop to it, are the ones benefiting from them.
It makes sense if they’re pulling out of the stock market entirely, in that case it’s just settling the books. Any other reason is to manipulate the price. The whole stock market is a house of cards controlled directly by a few self-titled elites though, so chicanery is literally built in and always was.
I agree. I could live with it if it were merely a way to defer taxes, but the U.S. has something called the stepped-up basis. This allows people to inherit stocks without paying tax on the capital gains. The wealthy can live their whole lives without paying any tax. Both stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis severely undermine the stock market and tax system.
I am an MBA and agree that buybacks are fine. The problem is toxic anti-capitalism from my perspective. People are not really educated well on these topics. I find your comment funny that an army of accountants come to explain things and help everyone understand the nuances and why this is needed, but all the experts are somehow shills.
It’s not like capitalism is doing itself (or the 99%) any favors. When it’s blatantly clear that the ultra rich and short-term profit seeking are responsible for a lot of world problems (extreme pollution, climate change, corruption, being essentially immune to most laws), being “toxic anti-capitalist” is a natural step.
That was probably more valid before WW2. Afterwards, it’s mostly government (military) spending and financing that really funded the innovations we’re using today, at least regarding computers and electronics
The modern PC was developed in a garage. Linux was a pet project. Uber and many other companies was funded by the previous success of another app. The owner sold StumbleUpon to eBay for $75M then used that money to make a killer rideshare app. SpaceX, Tesla, Streaming media. I beg to differ on whether most innovation is government funded. There are thousands of entrepreneurs that prove you wrong on that point.
The USA version of a modern PC, overseas the brits were fiddling with their own versions. It was only possible because the govt spent loads of money financing companies into creating electronics. If not for the USA govt needs and the competition arising from that, its unlikely Silicon Valley would be what it is today, and Steves Wozniak and Jobs probably wouldn’t have access to cheap chips.
Linux was a pet project
Of a university student, not an entrepreneur, and something he did because he didn’t want to pay for a license of MINIX, not for financial gain.
Uber
Is a piece of shit that just tacked together existing technologies and abused a completely unregulated space to grow and dominate the market.
SpaceX
Wouldn’t exist if the USA gov’t didn’t get its shit together after the initial successes of the URSS’s space program. Look how long it took until private companies began bothering with space without direct funding from a government.
There are thousands of entrepreneurs that prove you wrong on that point.
Most of them relying either directly or indirectly on the shoulders of gov’t funded innovation that likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise, especially any company dealing with space. The internet would either have taken longer to develop or be much different without the ARPA Net as a forerunner, for instance. Most of its innovation afterwards came from universities, not entrepreneurs. More often than not, entrepreneurs take existing technologies and find a way to profit on top of them.
Pricing together existing technologies to create new innovations is exactly how things have always worked. We stand on the shoulder of giants. It is the reason why many discoveries happen simultaneously in different parts of the world. Because the latest understanding and tools available make the next innovation possible. Saying that Uber is shit for making a GPS enabled app that can act as a commissioned merchant service is like saying anyone that uses AWS is a bad company because they don’t host their own servers. SpaceX filling in a government void is a great entrepreneur story and puts the scope on how significant government overspending is. The internet would have come about even without ARPANET. University labs were already messing around with these systems and were all working towards transmission protocols.
abused a completely unregulated space to grow and dominate the market
And I didn’t even mention how they began fucking their “partners” (drivers) after their place was consolidated. Not too different from what Amazon did for years to grow into “the” online marketplace despite competition.
When I said that capitalism doesn’t do itself any favors, the reasoning was mainly that. Any innovations or “innovations” are beside the point when the companies and people with a certain amount of money can simply bend the rules to their will. The Microsoft antitrust case in the late 90s became a nothingburger. FacebookMeta after the Cambridge Analytica scandal turned into nothing. Amazon can probably buy its way out of a possible antitrust suit, which is still “being considered”. There’s a reason people joke about “finger wagging” and “wrist slapping” being the biggest punishment the rich ever get
Sorry for the late reply. Busy week being a slave to the system. Need to work hard to play hard though.
Uber did exactly what it should have. It tapped into a blue ocean, creating a brand new vertical in a stale market. This is capitalism at its best, bringing something innovative and useful into the world.
They never presented the gig economy as a career path. It’s a side hustle. Anyone complaining that they can’t feed their family off it is missing the point. It was meant to be something that you do with your car in between jobs for some extra spending money.
I agree that we have an issue with those in power not enforcing market regulation. Plato predicted this too. These are not new concepts by any means. He also said that redistribution of wealth doesn’t work either. His utopian society was a bit wired though. I don’t like the part where no one owns anything.
If anything we need a reset of congressional term limits. That alone might help get more interesting people into politics.
I agree. They need to do a reverse split if they want to change the shares in circulation.
The idea was a company could show faith by buying their own stock. Now ceo pay is tied to factors associated with the stock that can be manipulated by buying it back.
The IBM bro Ginny made millions while the company shrunk by manipulating the stock.
I don’t care what a ceo makes. I do care what they do. If they’re only focusing on themselves, I care.
If I’m being honest, I don’t understand this angle. Why are stock buybacks immoral or wrong? Isn’t it simply using extra cash in a company to buy back stock from shareholders? With the same demand and reduced total stock, of course the price is going to go up. But the total market capitalization remains the same. I don’t understand why this is somehow wrong. Can someone help me out?
Because executive pay is largely given in shares, so it incentivizes the leadership to invest funds in buy backs to inflate the price of the very shares they own instead of investing that money into employee pay or other company centric initiatives.
The other reply is correct regarding the macro effects of the practise. The more immediate issue is that it allows shareholders to avoid paying dividend taxes. So they can effectively defer paying taxes until they realise any capital gains. This is a huge benefit, as the present value of money is worth much more than the future value of money. However there is an even larger benefit in the U.S. Dependents can inherit stocks at the current price and avoid paying any capital gains tax. This is called the “stepped-up basis.” It’s an insane tax loophole. Together stock buy-backs and the stepped-up basis allow the ultra wealthy to pay little to no tax, ever. They take out perpetual loans to pay for living expenses, guaranteed against their holdings.
It’s very obviously is. Stock buybacks aren’t allowed almost anywhere else in the world for a reason. It just leads to terrible behavior. This coupled with insanely low effective corporate tax rates means companies horde capital and do buybacks instead of doing other activities that are more economically beneficial to the country. Like increasing worker pay…
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