[Draiken]

But there are many ways to make all of this stuff. Many times there are better ways and less harmful ways, but those are basically always less profitable.

This is capitalism and the one and only objective is profit. It's never going to be working towards having a sustainable world, getting better stuff, getting less useless stuff, etc.

We don't need half the stupid stuff that's being sold to us and we keep buying it because that's how the system is setup.

So yes, they aren't polluting for the fun of it. They are doing so for the profit of a few.

[klooney]

This is a common but equally silly complaint- people were denuding their islands of trees and hunting animals to extinction long before anything approximating capitalism. Socialism's externality record isn't amazing either.

Disagreeing on what things are important is just the human condition.

[Draiken]

Sure, but we evolved and now we know better.

Except with the current state of affairs, we know it's the wrong thing to do but still keep doing it in favor of profits.

It makes no sense to compare how things were ages ago (even quite recently, in fact) to where we are now. This kind of dismissal is low effort and deflects the real issue because nobody wants to admit just how bad it is.

For a very recent example, it became public Exxon knew the harm they would be doing to the planet through fossil fuels and they couldn't care less. Gotta increase that shareholder value.