This is also implying that common everyday people actually have control or can influence the situation.
While a wealthy few in the world are the ones that can actually drive change for the better but refuse to because it would affect their wealth and power.
90% of the population wants to do something
10% of the population owns everything
The 10% who have all the control don’t mind watching the world burn as long as they keep their mansion.
90% of the population can’t do anything because they don’t have the wealth to influence anything
100% of the world is completely fine with this situation.
I think most of us are resigned to this situation.
We’re not good at popular organizing. We’re very good at finding ways of othering factions, which the elite are glad to utilize.
We’re good at consolidating power. We’re not good at utilizing that power to serve the public. Hence billionaires don’t even think of charity work except as a means to preserve power.
The human species may be doomed to extinction or a cap on technological progress. We may just be tribal hunters too attached to dominance hierarchy to reach into space and colonize other worlds.
Or we may be stuck in a perpetual cycle where we just form feudal empires that poison the world for another epoch.
The solution — if there is one — is sociological. We figure out a way to diffuse political power so it can’t be consolidated. We fix dominance hierarchy and tragedy of the commons. We figure out a way to teach people that everybody (even the ones that disgust us) are part of the community and deserve regard.
Until we find it, we’ll continue to let elites hold all the resources and poison the earth with impunity.
The solution — if there is one — is sociological. We figure out a way to diffuse political power so it can’t be consolidated
This is the final jeopardy question… We need to focus on how to shape society to be resistant to power consolidation. Otherwise any progress is temporary at best
From an evolutionary perspective, only the ones who survive matter.
So in that spirit, the only way to create a society resistant to power consolidations is one that actively recognizes, seeks out and annihilates said power consolidations.
As otherwise, they will annihilate everything opposing them – as history tells us.
There are gentler social traditions to distribute wealth and power so as to avoid consolidation. Probably the post-colonial world is beyond that point.
A scary prospect, to be sure, but in the grand scheme of things… “The secrets of evolution are time and death” as Carl Sagan said in Cosmos.
We fix dominance hierarchy and tragedy of the commons.
Addressing fundamental flaws in the human psyche is absolutely a worthwhile endeavor.
I get the impression that, millennia from now, it might be possible for a person to look back on what humanity was before such technology was discovered. But, I’m a product of my time. I cannot fathom how that would be practical and ethical to achieve. That said, I am absolutely open to the discussion.
I get into this headspace often, but try to remember that all human systems are subject to being disrupted and dismantled, no matter their power or influence.
This is also implying that common everyday people actually have control or can influence the situation.
Here’s why I take issue with this statement:
- this ignores collective/mass action
- this disregards the few government entities that actually do serve public interests, albeit imperfectly
An example of an individual creating meaningful positive change is teachers. Most people have had a great teacher, and larger schools have greater reach and influence, thus an individual with many students over a period of time can make a big difference at the local level. And one of those students can rise to prominence and do further good.
Another is some benevolent nonprofits that seek government funding to maximize their reach and support of the community. Often they’re run by one or a small handful of folks. If they’re lucky, and prepared, they can affect positive change for many, like community garden organizers.
There can be a large volume of good change from a single person’s actions because of influence. Not saying that it’s a fast mechanism for change, but I refuse to abandon it. Because although it’s likely the only solution we have, it’s still one that is fueled by will and daily choice, which most everyone can enact in small and big ways.
Frankly, if we could just put solidarity of the working class first, we outnumber them.
I agree with you.
An apathetic populace is how despots or oligopolies consolidate or retain their power.
Activism doesn’t always work, but there are plenty of historical examples of big social changes coming on the back of direct action by the people.
On the specific topic here, of greenhouse emissions, the U.S. has been decreasing its per capita emissions for something like 15-20 years. We have a long way to go, and should be going faster, but we are making progress right now. And none of this progress was inevitable. It was specific efforts by nonprofits, by governmental entities, by private industry, and by individuals to demand lower emissions.
Past environmental successes include the elimination of acid rain, the reversal of the hole in the ozone layer, and the vast improvement in outdoor particulate pollution and smog in the past few decades. This stuff matters, we have been making a difference, and the moment we give up we will start backsliding.
90% of the population wants to do something
I always thought a significant majority wanted change, but I recently learned that a surpassingly large amount of people are against it outside of my social bubble. Even young people (about 20yo).
A lot of people seem to make up their minds about these topics with very little information. They blindly repeat the things some politicians spout, even though it’s complete BS. And when I question them about it they seem to actually know very little about it. They get uncomfortable and try to avoid the discussion, but their opinions still mostly stay the same.
It’s frustrating, and it has given me a lot less hope that we will be able to deal with it.
That is it. Most people want climate change to end, but without any change for themself. That however just does not work.
The good news is that as soon as the systems of phasing out fossil fuel are in place, that momentum helps to keep it running.
Common everyday people can influence the situation. For example, we can build bombs and set them off inside gas plants.
No, I don’t expect you to become a suicide bomber. But this is the truth: how much change you can accomplish is directly proportional to how much effort you put in. I’m putting in effort.
Despite the fediverse’s reputation for leaning leftist, I feel like such a stranger with how often I find myself arguing that the collective action and solidarity of the working class can and has improved the material outcomes of nations, with or without the capital of the owner class, and with or without the approval of the government.
Fight in whatever way makes sense to you. Some people will carpool or use less hot water. Some will put peer pressure on wealthy acquaintances. Some will alter design requirements or RFQs. Some will [redacted] a pipeline. It all works towards the same end.
Yes, this is the fault of the owner class, but who do you think is going to force them to change if we all sit on our hands and say, “I dunno, man, that sounds like someone else’s responsibility.”
Thanks. I work in wind energy exactly because of this. It’s hard to keep my head up some days. I needed that.
Remember to show people biking and windmills, radical capping of corporate polluting that makes up the majority of emissions. Nobody serious is saying it’s too late so we shouldn’t change anything, they’re saying it’s too late to stave off devastating effects of climate change.
People are also realizing that it’s not going to be the literal end of civilization though either.
Climate change and the crisis is happening as we speak. Tornados in February in Wisconsin. Temperatures rising. Jet streams changing.
But that doesn’t mean everyone dies. It mostly means huge impacts on mostly impoverished nations creating a larger refugee a crisis others don’t even want to handle.
People joke constantly that Earth will be fine, humans won’t be.
The reality is that humans and anything we absolutely need will be fine. Almost every other thing we can’t or don’t want to conserve will die.
Nothing will take us out short of a stray meteor large enough to make the globe molten or enough nukes regularly to send us into winter for decades. Even average nuclear winter humanity will get around.
The point though isn’t just survival. It’s striving to be as good as a shepherd as possible to our home planet and others we share it with.
That’s hard when 1% destroys it for profits to keep peoples retirements going because they refuse to pay a decent wage.
Not everything we need. As sea levels rise and inundate aquifers with salt, and as drought followed by flood becomes the norm, the places people live will run out of water for everyday use. Causing waves of refugees, spawning wars.
We are not going to be okay. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act. Pretending it’s going to be okay is just a foolish as pretending it isn’t real.
Unless people raise militias to fight against the superpower governments backing powerful megacorporations, we’re entirely fucked.
I’m not advocating violence.
But, some people are saying that it won’t take a milita but only a small amount of brave individuals acting separately and willing to sacrifice their own freedom to agressively disempower a tiny set of billionaires. One at a time and as a surprise.
No, this is not the way. Lone sacrificial actors hurting wealthy people wouldn’t work - they’ve got a whole system lined up to keep their generational wealth and power and it is extremely robust and every time you got rid of a billionaire you would get a handful more billionaires popping up where they were. Not only that, it would embolden reaction. You thought the BLM protests caused a violent police reaction? Assassinate one billionaire and just watch what happens. The reactionary machine would go ballistic. Maybe you want that, but that’s called accelerationism and it has never once worked to achieve anything good. Similarly the act of lashing out as a lone wolf has a name: revolutionary adventurism. It also doesn’t work.
The actual method that can work is prefiguration, building the new society in the shell of the old. We make the world better for ourselves and our neighbours right here and now and we don’t wait for permission from conservative and reactionary systems. We make them irrelevant to our projects.
When the CNT-FAI dispossessed the wealthy of their private property, they didn’t purge them. They offered them a place in their new society. Many took them up on the offer and admitted it was a good life. That’s a much more profound victory than just ganking someone.
Hope at this point is moronic, we’re talking about mitigating disasters, not eliminating them. So right now we need panic. Panic is a very powerful tool. It gets a fire lit under our asses.
I’d say a big part of the problem is that not enough people are panicked right now.
I’m in the United States. Conservatives are currently pivoting to their new “climate change is inevitable, and therefore we must seal our borders to protect America from climate migrants and give more subsidies to big corporations and fossil fuel companies whose technology will maintain our standard of living” talking point.
The more people panic about climate change, the more persuasive that argument becomes.
Human rights are one of the first things to vanish in disasters. When people are scared, they agree to give up their rights. When people are scared, they close their eyes as the government violates other people’s rights.
And the more frightened people are about climate change, the more they’ll turn to authoritarian demagogues who promise them safety.
Hope is vital. Because once people give up hope of saving the planet, all that’s left is an ever more vicious scramble for ever fewer resources. And once you decide that’s an inevitability, the only logical thing to do is get vicious as fast as possible.
Hope is vital.
What hope? Joe Biden is forcing federal workers to drive into work and apparently we have to vote for him anyway. What hope?
In the grand scale of atrocities against humanity and the environment, I think driving to work is pretty low.
Sure but the inverse is true too. Right now we have hope without panic. That translates to waiting for someone to come along and fix it for us.
