[catchnear4321]

Now we are fucked? Now?

The people scolding the masses for using plastic bags at the grocery store are still riding in private jets. For media events and fancy dinners. Jaunting around the world in planes fueled by dinosaur juice, financed by human suffering. But this is nothing new. Dinosaur juice just means that no humans are having to row inside the plane. That and physics, but if it weren’t for the physics, Amazon warehouses would look like damn good employment compared to the flying contraptions of the elites.

We have been fucked for a long time. Generations upon generations. The environment is a symptom. This is a systemic issue.

Nothing can be done? Well, you’re dumping a meme on the internet claiming that all is lost. That’s doing something. Harmful. Could spend the same effort to point the finger at those most to blame. Yes, one finger. One finger can open many eyes. Shoot, maybe you hate my idea, find it frivolous, and thought of a better one. Fantastic! I don’t care. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I won’t be offended if you do something more productive. That’s the point. Do anything but roll over.

What if people decided it was about more than the environment of Earth? Do you want this species shitting on Mars next? Earth may burn in a fire but the disease can still spread. We only have one Mars, too. And plans are already being made on how to carve it up.

Or what if the powers that be found eco-friendly ways to drain the livelihood of the rest of humanity, should we celebrate that the planet is saved? At least hell could be lush and vibrant?

Again, the environment is just a symptom. As is your attitude. The real problem is not being addressed. So neither are the symptoms.

“Look at this internet warrior typing angry things.”

Sure, why not. The plankton isn’t dead yet so I might as well.

[brutusborn]

Just out of interest, is the systemic issue you mention laisse faire capitalism?

[catchnear4321]

No. Significantly older. If there is a name I do not know it.

[brutusborn]

Can you describe it?

[catchnear4321]

The seeming inevitability of power dichotomies and the abuse that tends to follow.

Different levels of power is unavoidable. It is part of existence. Those differences may balance out when dealing with two individuals, or groups, but typically there is a more powerful and a less powerful.

And typically the more powerful group takes advantage of the situation. That’s long been advantageous but the advantage has also long become a hindrance on real progress. A parasitic replacement for it.

It doesn’t take humans for this to arise, but humans have spent millennia institutionalizing it in numerous forms.

“How to stop being animals” is too flippant, and not terribly accurate.

Regardless, our society and history is so permeated with this concept / construct, and with attempts to enshrine it as unshakeable truth of being, that “doing something different” is incredibly difficult. For many reasons.

It is so pervasive that it is borderline… fractal? The power structures showing institutionalized abuse are parts of power structures that… abuse of power differences all the way down.

More angles for explaining why than you can shake a stick at. Not a lot of broad “why not,” it is usually focused on some localized example.

That’s an attempt at describing it.

[brutusborn]

Thanks for the description. Sounds like you mean power hierarchies, which as you say are inevitable.

From that point of view the best 'solution' would be to spread power as wide as possible. I think in reality the reason power hierarchies are useful is because spreading power too wide leads to Ochlocracy.

In the same way democracy is good or bad depending on the level of rationality, morality in your population; but for modern society I would say it's mostly bad (e.g. if you let the average man on the street 'solve' climate change he would lay the foundation for a dystopia)

[catchnear4321]

“From that point of view the best 'solution' would be to spread power as wide as possible”

Not necessarily. Because how? And to your point, because on that I think we agree, what would a well intentioned individual do with no guardrails, let alone one with bad intent?

I am under no delusion that the solution would be to simply spread out power. For one, my simple mind can’t imagine how that would actually work, without getting corrupted, in current year.

No, I’m more concerned about how humanity can form any sort of societal structure, power structure, without having one of those two above people (meaning all of us, at times) royally fuck it up.

But that’s what thousands of years of human history seem to indicate. We are doing something wrong as a species, if not at least something horribly inefficient, vulnerable to abuse, and likely to cause harm.

I’m not looking for an answer, I certainly don’t have one. I still don’t fully understand the problem. But it seems lower level than the distribution of power. I’d almost say more primal, or animal, but that feels like it cheapens it.