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by palata 999 days ago
> If you want people who aren't ideologically on board to sacrifice, you need viable alternatives.

If people are not ideologically onboard with "we don't want society to collapse" while wanting to keep using plastic straws... I think they need information more than viable alternatives.
1 comments
kelnos 999 days ago
Part of the issue with your argument is that most policymakers will be dead by the time society collapses, so they don't care as much. Sure, there's often rhetoric around "saving the world for my children and their children", but in the end most people are selfish and are fine with making things the problems of future generations.

"Information" doesn't sway people. Feelings do. If they feel like they're eating/using/whatever something inferior to what they've grown up using, all in the name of sustainability, they're going to balk.

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palata 999 days ago
> Part of the issue with your argument is that most policymakers will be dead by the time society collapses

Hmm... given how it is going (climate seems to be changing faster than the models predicted), it's getting more and more clear that global instability, wars and famine will be here in the next few decades (if you doubt the "famine" issue: take any big US city, and ask yourself what happens if trucks can't get into the city and bring food for a few days). Unless most policymakers are 60 or so, they have a good chance to live long enough to see that. Most definitely their children.

> "Information" doesn't sway people. Feelings do.

When you realize how bad the biodiversity problem is, how bad climate change is, and how bad the energy problem (which is actually the root cause of the other two) is, I think the only reasonable feeling you can get is fear. Maybe faith in technology helps (many people hide behind "they will find a solution"), so maybe one needs to realize that the tech industry is a big money-making joke.

But once you get that information, you should get the fear. And fear should make you accept to start thinking about actions to mitigate the consequences of... well of our way of life.

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