• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      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!”

      Who is the reasonable person in this scenario?

      • jimbo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

          • jimbo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • explodicle@local106.com
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              1 year ago

              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.

      • Rediphile@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          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…

      • IDriveWhileTired@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • psud@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Transit would adapt quickly. Electric rail is easy. It’d only be a few shit years