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by mmooss 545 days ago
You are not an observer watching from the Moon, you are an agent, a full participant right here on Earth. Your 'perspective' is the problem, not a third-party observation.

In wars, enemy propaganda says the kinds of things you are saying, to create despair and powerlessness. Look up operations like Tokyo Rose, for example. It's more powerful than any other weapon - it causes the foe to unilaterally disarm. And, as propagandists intend, here you are repeating it, spreading the disease.

Imagine you are working on a team, and someone keeps saying 'nobody cares', it's probably hopeless, etc. That person is the problem, spreading a communicable disease within the team.

The good people outnumber the bad, by a lot. Goodness is not a new or alien concept, but fundamental to humanity and to every culture. Human rights has been overwhelmingly successful and popular across people and cultures. History shows it overwhelmingly. All that is missing is belief in themselves and a way forward.

Instead of this disease, you could spread what people actually need. Hope, courage, belief in what is right.

1 comments

Gross generalization and characterization.

You can push for change while also recognizing that others don't respond well to it. Why? Because you need to adjust tactics to get the outcome you want.

Blindly "spreading hope" is just as lazy imo as saying everything is futile.

You have to live in the world the way it is, not the way you want it to be.

And let me be very direct: I'm close to positive the approach you've shared will not work. Sorry. It will be too late by the time people get onboard (when it's clear that the medium-term negatives will outweigh shorter term costs).

You don't provide any evidence; you just seem to think your despair is objective reality, not merely your subjective perception, and insist on it. You are following the rhetoric of propaganda.

As I said, there is a long, long history of people doing far more against much greater odds. What many people are doing now is just propaganda and cowardice; nothing is stopping them.

Make the future a bright one, don't drag everyone down and make those bad things happen.

A Pollyanna approach is not the answer (and rarely is.) I believe you've missed my point.

I'll state it again although I don't have good faith in this conversation: because the majority of people don't prioritize (or even believe in climate change), the tactics are going to be different than other social issues.

Literally look up any polling on the matter for "proof."

With what happened to the CEO of UHC, I think we are starting to see society hit a breaking point. Where simply "acting through the process" is no longer acceptable to an increasing minority of people who are getting ready to... well. Best not type it, lest I end up on more watch lists.

I don't endorse that kind of action, FWIW, I've lived through enough historically significant events already and I'm not even forty. But the powers that be seem unwilling to simply make less money, so something's going to give eventually.

IMHO that is the same weird narrative of powerlessness. It talks about events like they are on an empty ship adrift at sea.

You are on that ship. What are you doing? It's not adrift; others are steering it. If you don't also guide it, then the results are your fault just as much as those steering it.