7 ms·

What I find scary is that we might invest lots of resources into "reversing" climate change, and while under this belief that the reversal is just around the co

What I find scary is that we might invest lots of resources into "reversing" climate change, and while under this belief that the reversal is just around the corner, we let the degradation continue at unnecessary rates, pretty much creating a race between the ability to reverse it, and it reaching a point of no reversal

KerrAvon 4y ago
What's scary is that we might not invest any resources either to deal with or reverse climate change, because the billionaires in charge are planning to jet to New Zealand until the waters recede (they're not generally very bright).
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  They aren't smart, but they are old and they know that. The don't expect to live long enough to see the bad shit they are causing, so they don't care.
  - donkarma 4y ago
    Billionaires have kids so
    - Sunspark 4y ago
      You are making the assumption that they care about their kids. A sociopath thinks only of themselves.
      - bigiain 4y ago
        I dunno why you’re being downvoted, when the richest guy in the world has a daughter who’s changing her name to avoid being associated with him…
      - bryananderson 4y ago
        True, but not that many people are true sociopaths. Much more common among “bad” people is garden-variety self-centeredness with lots of rationalization. Everyone has selfish instincts, but very few people can sleep at night if they see themselves as a bad guy. Fortunately for them, humans are ridiculously good at mental gymnastics to subdue that cognitive dissonance.
        bigiain 4y ago
        Not many people are billionaires either, and anecdotal evidence (or maybe just internet pundits assertions?) suggests there’s probably some strong correlation between the two. “Everybody has selfish instincts“, but the magnitude of “selfishness” required to amass a wealth of a billion dollars is way way beyond “normal”. Whether that guarantees sociopathy or not is not a simple question I guess.
        bryananderson 4y ago
        That’s fair, it’s definitely plausible that the process of becoming a billionaire does select for sociopathy or similar traits. Still, this is far from scientific, but any time I read in-depth about bad (in my view) people, I’ve always been struck by the seemingly low incidence of true sociopathy among them. Corrupt politicians, robber barons, mobsters, warlords, lackeys of authoritarian regimes—you see some who read like a list of sociopathy markers[0], but seemingly more who do not, who had people in their lives who they clearly loved, activities that brought them joy, and so on. It’s a very different and more extreme example, but I remember being really struck by this when I first visited the US Holocaust Museum: even if some at the top were true sociopaths, many of the major perpetrators who were profiled at the museum were seemingly psychologically “normal” people who committed unthinkable acts (often because that was the way to climb the ladder in the hierarchy) and rationalized them somehow so they could sleep at night. To me that was just terrifying: I’d always sort of thought that the people who did these things must have been so abnormal as to be barely recognizable as human, but if they weren’t, what then? Then it could happen anywhere and to anybody if we don’t get serious about teaching moral courage. The Germans today know this very well, but I’m not sure Americans (and presumably others) absorbed the lesson. I think it’s tempting to try to explain terrible people as being fundamentally different from oneself, because then we don’t have to worry about how not to become like them. It’s rather scary to think that they’re not so different, but if they’re not, we have to ask ourselves what we’d do different if we found ourselves in their position, whether that’s running a little startup that turned into a big corporation or serving in the Dutch state bureaucracy in 1940. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disor...
hooande 4y ago
It would take massive social change to dramatically slow the current rate of climate change. I would guess that it would politically require about the same amount of time as carbon capture / reduction technology. Out of the blue, I'm thinking that everyone on earth would have to use 20%-30% less energy on a daily basis to effectively slow or reverse the process of climate change. Technological improvement seems much more realistic, to me.
- fnordpiglet 4y ago
  Don’t look up!
- imiric 4y ago
  One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[1] Rather than trying to change the habits of everyone on earth, a more realistic goal would be to change a fraction of these corporate polluters. Efforts to place the responsibility of climate change on individuals is mostly corporate propaganda. Not that altering our habits wouldn't be an improvement, but it's not addressing the main cause of the problem. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
  - cdelsolar 4y ago
    Why do you think companies exist? For customers…
    - bigiain 4y ago
      That’s a funny way to spell “shareholders”. If you start something to benefit other people, you run a charity or a non profit. Companies are started and run by people who want to make money for themselves and their investors. You might be using “benefitting our customers” as a tool in your profit-making, but it’s not why you get out of bed every morning (whether you admit it to yourself or not).
    - 4y ago

KerrAvon 4y ago

What's scary is that we might not invest any resources either to deal with or reverse climate change, because the billionaires in charge are planning to jet to New Zealand until the waters recede (they're not generally very bright).

mrguyorama 4y ago
They aren't smart, but they are old and they know that. The don't expect to live long enough to see the bad shit they are causing, so they don't care.
- donkarma 4y ago
  Billionaires have kids so
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    You are making the assumption that they care about their kids. A sociopath thinks only of themselves.
    - bigiain 4y ago
      I dunno why you’re being downvoted, when the richest guy in the world has a daughter who’s changing her name to avoid being associated with him…
    - bryananderson 4y ago
      True, but not that many people are true sociopaths. Much more common among “bad” people is garden-variety self-centeredness with lots of rationalization. Everyone has selfish instincts, but very few people can sleep at night if they see themselves as a bad guy. Fortunately for them, humans are ridiculously good at mental gymnastics to subdue that cognitive dissonance.
      - bigiain 4y ago
        Not many people are billionaires either, and anecdotal evidence (or maybe just internet pundits assertions?) suggests there’s probably some strong correlation between the two. “Everybody has selfish instincts“, but the magnitude of “selfishness” required to amass a wealth of a billion dollars is way way beyond “normal”. Whether that guarantees sociopathy or not is not a simple question I guess.
        bryananderson 4y ago
        That’s fair, it’s definitely plausible that the process of becoming a billionaire does select for sociopathy or similar traits. Still, this is far from scientific, but any time I read in-depth about bad (in my view) people, I’ve always been struck by the seemingly low incidence of true sociopathy among them. Corrupt politicians, robber barons, mobsters, warlords, lackeys of authoritarian regimes—you see some who read like a list of sociopathy markers[0], but seemingly more who do not, who had people in their lives who they clearly loved, activities that brought them joy, and so on. It’s a very different and more extreme example, but I remember being really struck by this when I first visited the US Holocaust Museum: even if some at the top were true sociopaths, many of the major perpetrators who were profiled at the museum were seemingly psychologically “normal” people who committed unthinkable acts (often because that was the way to climb the ladder in the hierarchy) and rationalized them somehow so they could sleep at night. To me that was just terrifying: I’d always sort of thought that the people who did these things must have been so abnormal as to be barely recognizable as human, but if they weren’t, what then? Then it could happen anywhere and to anybody if we don’t get serious about teaching moral courage. The Germans today know this very well, but I’m not sure Americans (and presumably others) absorbed the lesson. I think it’s tempting to try to explain terrible people as being fundamentally different from oneself, because then we don’t have to worry about how not to become like them. It’s rather scary to think that they’re not so different, but if they’re not, we have to ask ourselves what we’d do different if we found ourselves in their position, whether that’s running a little startup that turned into a big corporation or serving in the Dutch state bureaucracy in 1940. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disor...

hooande 4y ago

It would take massive social change to dramatically slow the current rate of climate change. I would guess that it would politically require about the same amount of time as carbon capture / reduction technology. Out of the blue, I'm thinking that everyone on earth would have to use 20%-30% less energy on a daily basis to effectively slow or reverse the process of climate change. Technological improvement seems much more realistic, to me.

fnordpiglet 4y ago
Don’t look up!
imiric 4y ago
One hundred companies are responsible for 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.[1] Rather than trying to change the habits of everyone on earth, a more realistic goal would be to change a fraction of these corporate polluters. Efforts to place the responsibility of climate change on individuals is mostly corporate propaganda. Not that altering our habits wouldn't be an improvement, but it's not addressing the main cause of the problem. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...
- cdelsolar 4y ago
  Why do you think companies exist? For customers…
  - bigiain 4y ago
    That’s a funny way to spell “shareholders”. If you start something to benefit other people, you run a charity or a non profit. Companies are started and run by people who want to make money for themselves and their investors. You might be using “benefitting our customers” as a tool in your profit-making, but it’s not why you get out of bed every morning (whether you admit it to yourself or not).
  - 4y ago