[PhileasNietzche]

Point? They're just using their knowledge base to excuse the OP's complaint with the typical and weak argument that "everybody does it" while assuming there was some insinuation or belief that oil barons are the only people in the extensive history of humanity guilty of these crimes.

[jeffwask]

I didn't think I would have to explain this to a philosopher on a short form blogging platform but yes there have been numerous destructive forces in society but the comment I was extending was

"oil has enabled bad people to stay in power"

so I wasn't looking to write a thesis

but sure... we can add

religion, colonialism, nationalism, capitalism, gold, big tech...

there are more isms but I digress. And in theory we could lump oil, gold, etc under capitalism but oil (and more broadly fossil fuels) have had an outsized impact over the last 50-100 and in that very short time on overall scale have sewed massive destruction and continue to do so.

It doesn't make other things more or less bad but big oil has more power than countries today. (Big tech is getting close Apple would be ranked in the 30's if it was a country.) Exxon's $316.993B puts them between Singapore and Malaysia and pushing Ireland and Denmark next year... fucking Ireland. (Now think about where they are if you combine all of them because their interests very much align) From what I can see the world is far from prepared for corporations wielding more power than governments in fact that is the topic of a lot of dystopian fiction. It's far from theoretical... governments didn't shut down the Russian economy... they are still debating if they should shut down Russian oil (hmm there it is again) ...it was corporations who shut down Russia which should be a warning light even though many (myself included) agree with the outcome.

The stifling of emissions controls, fuel efficiency, alternative energies, regulation on pipelines and spills, emissions from extraction, fracking are horrific even when compared to other industries and destructive forces. They actively seek to destroy anything that could compete often murdering the tech in the research phase and using their limitless resources to spew propaganda and convince the masses of bullshit.

We can focus on one set of guilty people doing a thing right fucking now without having to include everyone else who has ever done a thing.