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by imgabe 414 days ago
We have a government to enforce laws to protect the commons. If someone is poisoning the river, the government should fine them and shut them down. They should be inspecting gold producers to make sure they are complying with regulations so that all gold is produced in a sustainable way that doesn't destroy the environment.

If that's not happening, then we need to fix the government so it does happen. Expecting each individual person to be their own EPA and research how every single item they consume is produced idiotic and doomed to failure.
2 comments
merouan 414 days ago
Governments are pushed to do things to protect people by the people. Seat belts were not a thing (i.e., required by law) until there was sufficient public pressure to make them so. Heard of Ralph Nader? Food is made in unsafe conditions and governments are fine with it until there is pressure - have you ever heard of "The Jungle"?
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imgabe 414 days ago
Yeah, you'll notice that we didn't get seat belts in cars by boycotting car companies until they promised to add them.
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merouan 414 days ago
Your point being? There are multiple levers we can pull, sometimes this one, sometimes that one. That is no surprise.
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imgabe 414 days ago
Some levers are effective and some are meaningless posturing.
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giomasce 414 days ago
Yeah, that's the theory, and by any mean we definitely need to pursue that as well. I wish we had the luxury of making it work on its own. But since we do not, we need to pull all the levers we have, not just one.

> Expecting each individual person to be their own EPA and research how every single item they consume is produced idiotic and doomed to failure.

That's a false dichotomy. There are many middle grounds between researching every single item you buy and dropping the problem as a whole. You can focus on items which are most likely to bring negative impact, you can draw information from journalistic reports and material produced from dedicated associations. There are many ways to be sensitive to economic externalities of the things you buy without getting insane and without considering the whole problem moot on general phylosophycal principles.

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