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by AlexandrB 794 days ago
If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you (outside of Elon/Zuck type wealth). If it's merely disruptive, then it's just another factor to consider in your investments.

Think of it like nuclear weapons. You can't really plan for nuclear war, but you can still take nuclear capability into account when making financial decisions (e.g. China is unlikely to annex Taiwan because of US nukes so investing in TSMC is not a terrible move).
1 comments
bluefirebrand 794 days ago
> If climate change is cataclysmic, no amount of savings/wealth will help you

Which is why people are choosing not to bother saving, of course

Because they're constantly being told that it is in fact cataclysmic and there's no stopping it

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AlexandrB 794 days ago
That's why I compared it to nuclear weapons. There's little point in making decisions based on possible cataclysmic events you can't predict or control. I think it's wise to plan based on a more optimistic reading of the future instead even if you think the cataclysm is inevitable.

It's also notable that the "Boomers" managed to do this with the spectre of nuclear war hanging over them and this threat never actually went away. The younger generation just chooses to ignore possible nuclear war cataclysms in favor of possible climate cataclysms.

Edit: Just consider how "real" the threat of nuclear war must have been to someone who had regular "duck and cover" drills in school. There's nothing comparable for climate change (yet).

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bluefirebrand 794 days ago
The difference is that the nuclear war "might happen but everyone is doing our best to make sure it doesn't"

while the climate crisis "is happening already and it's too late to stop"

People genuinely believe we will not have a habitable planet in a couple of decades no matter what we do now.

That seems a lot different than "maybe some people decide to fire nukes but probably not"

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ryandrake 794 days ago
Even though I consider myself a flaming liberal, this is the one "conservative boomer" belief I allow myself to have: Telling an entire generation that 'they have no future because of something they cannot control' has been huge a society-wide mistake, turning so many people into doomers or reckless gamblers, incapable of planning for their future. I think we are starting to finally bear the fruit of telling our children's generation over and over that there is no future and no hope.
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bluefirebrand 794 days ago
It's been more than one generation at this point, and it gets louder with each one

People forget that the "climate cataclysm" doomsaying started decades ago. There are articles about "we will be under water/burning alive/etc in only a few years!!" As far back as the 70s. Maybe before!

So it's been a huge mistake in two ways, because it's led to two types of outcomes:

The first is like you said, the younger generations have basically given up. High rates of depression, anxiety, and just general "checked out of society"

The second is the older generations that have high rates of "They've been saying the world will end in five years for the past fifty years, so clearly this climate stuff isn't a problem at all" and they are behaving accordingly, as though it weren't a problem at all

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