https://sfba.social/@drahardja/117344931893000589

the other day a tanky said a sentence constructed like that to me too, while literally arguing for me to join his authoritarian group

I see way too much of this on the internet, here on Lemmy included. Thanks for posting this. I have this thought a lot but haven't see this good of a way to put it before.

There’s a good chance that anyone making this argument doesn’t see it as a problem in the first place.

It's such a lazy answer and we see it everywhere. Check any discussion on veganism and you'll spot it.

Its state sponsored propaganda using companies as proxies to bypass those pesky human rights laws and is vastly on the Republican side but you do have aipac dems and similar issues in other first world countries.

The rise of right wing extremist politicians and the world also going to shit is no coincidence.

They'll also tell you things such as "don't trust the government" while also being the party in control. It should be obvious to anyone who isn't a cultist.

for all the good tankies might do in a moment at the end they just create new issues, which if they are successful will be quite bad again. so not worth it since it's completely unnecessary

What about games other than chess?

It should be obvious to anyone who isn’t a cultist.

I love the 'no true scot' part here.

Perfect is the enemy of good (or good enough).

it's one thing to do something ineffective, but be optimistic. it's another to waste others time and morally grandstand if they won't do ineffective things with you

Yeah, but this post won't stop everyone from saying that /s

I.e. eating less meat does not affect animal welfare, zoonosis and land use change?

Problem is in this case it's effective

it's not

nope

moral envy:

feeling of envy and resentment directed at another person, not because the person is wealthy, or gifted or lucky but because his or her behaviour is seen as upholding a higher moral standard than the envier’s own

Yeah I've had this kind of discussions with right wing folk. We were discussing socialist policies, which I was in favor of and they were against. They were pointing out there were people abusing current socialist policies and getting a free handout, so all of those policies should be cut to prevent the freeloaders from freeloading. I argued that any kind of policy, no matter what the policy is, is going to be abused by a small fraction of the population. It's not possible to create something without loopholes and people exploiting them. We should try to prevent it in the design, but in the end we should accept that's going to happen and instead focus on if the policy is also actually helping the people it was designed for.

Nothing is perfect, problems won't be fully solved and / or new problems will be created. That isn't failure, it's life.

Would be even worse if we all ate animals:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/20/vegan-diet-cuts-environmental-damage-climate-heating-emissions-study

Are you an imbecile or a troll?

Also systems designed to prevent exploits require resources. For example checking that people getting unemployment benefits are actually unemployed is actually work. It is often cheaper to be imperfect, just because those checks are so expensive.

this is a counterfactual and cannot be proven

In this paper, we link a validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to estimates from a review of 570 life-cycle assessments3 (LCAs)

lca studies are disparately methodized, and cannot be combined. this is junk science

calling me names won't change the facts

Or slightly less terrible

Make a comment about the benefits of fully eliminating direct usage of fossil fuels from your life and inevitably you get replies like: I can't do that because I rent. You are so privileged, most people can't afford an EV.

I think many have this idea that removing fossil fuel usage has to be expensive. It can also be by just not buying them. Yes I know not 100% of people can remove 100% of their direct usage right now, but a lot of people could do more than they are doing but don't. Some because they don't care, but others may not realise options they have, and positivity posting can help spread that kind of message.

How I fully removed direct fossil fuel usage from my life: never learnt to drive because I couldn't afford it, for years used the bike from my teens before getting a new bike in my late 20s. Once I bought a house I had the broken boiler replaced with a heat pump, due to how old the central heating system was it all needed replacing anyway do it didn't really cost any more than staying on fossil fuels. Had the gas meter removed from the house after a long conversation with the provider that no I really don't need or want it, get rid of it. The engineer said he would see me again when I need it turned back on, not seen him in a few years now. Still don't want it.

Total electricity cost is under £1k a year and winter usage is 3-4x summer usage. Recently switched to working in office so I can adjust the heating timing and zone layout this winter which should save some energy too.

Yeah. We can call you names, and it won't change the fact that eating less meat does affect animal welfare, zoonosis and land use change.

Or do you have some actual argument to make?

The growth of total meat production is not indicative of the change in harm done by developed countries. It can only be combated by increasing poverty, decreasing population or imposing laws onto developing countries. Most people would be unwilling to impose that.

Quoting rising meat consumption as an example of how vegans are wrong is... Non factual. Naming those that do consume animal (products) in smaller amounts just as bad as those habitual carcass consumption clowns isn't conducive to the goal of reducing meat consumption either.

meat production continues to rise, and there is no reason to believe it could rise any faster. systemic change needs to happen.

vegans aren't wrong to be vegan. but it would be wrong to say being vegan causes systemic change. which I thought was the point I made to begin with, and to an extent, the point of this post

"There is no reason to believe it could rise any faster" is a belief that doesn't really feel founded on anything. And you seem to build a lot atop that belief.

If people were eating more meat, more meat would be produced.

Me sitting here drinking soda with a soggy paper straw made from recycled toilet paper rolls:

Overly classy french.jpg

Nothing you do as an individual for yourself causes systemic change. Being social and causing your peers to change their behavior is effective. But in the end there are hundreds of people in the world and you are just one of them.

Persistent, effective influencing is what does the most. You could also do a little terrorism, I guess. But that causes further divide and harm.

If people were eating more meat, more meat would be produced.

that is already happening

Im saving this in high hopes that I will remember it when I could send it to somebody, butt (&titties): I have observed that older posts seize to exist after some time on lemmy (I’m saving it to my device)

Yes, but this message gives them the chance to expand their view. The chance.

A monkey is gonna monk. No matter what you tellem.

Yes. And that needs to happen less. That's the problem we are talking about.

I generally agree but not across the board. Bandaid solutions, half-assing things, etc often leads to worse problems down the road than you had to begin with.

You're doing literally precisely what this post is criticizing.

The point of this post was that comments like yours itt want to discourage positive change by naysaying, and that it's shitty and wrong. Not really sure how you twisted that into "vegans aren't doing anything".

Where "the facts" is just a baseless claim that since things look bad, they couldn't be worse, therefore vegans have never made any impact whatsoever. 🤮

There’s like two kinds of proposals, and whichever kind you make you get criticized. You make a big proposal, people say “Well yeah but how does that work on the ground?” You make an on-the-ground proposal, and people say “Well how does that scale to the whole thing?” Alright fine, then let’s just die!

Douglas Rushkoff at Bretton Woods 75

Because people are fucking stupid, i deal with this shit at work everyday nothing to do with global politics or whatever. Sometimes our vendors fuck things up for us, so therefore there's no point in us getting more organized at work -- literally how my supervisors think.

Yeah but at some point you have to try knowing you'll fail so you can make a better attempt next time. A lot of people are just sitting at like zero level of organization and refuse to even start trying ever.

I think the OOP describes situation where you did your best to chip at the big problem, but it wasn't enough.

Half-assing is when you could act more, but you didn't.

The difference is effort and intention.

That's correct. Dismissal of the effort and disgust for the goal seem to go hand-in-hand.

Digital privacy? They've got you anyway AND I don't care about privacy
Environmentalism? Nothing is 100% green anyway AND I don't care about the environment

Lots of examples like that.

They want to beat down both your goal and effort, because admitting even one of those being reasonable threatens their worldview.

What a person should do is pretty contingent on their agency.. If someone doesn't have leverage to organise a systemic solution, they should absolutely apply a bandaid solution. Ideally while keeping half an eye on the possibility of a better solution in the long run, but yeah.. Depends on context and capacity.

counterfactuals can't be proven. that's the only fact that matters when the actually baseless claim that it would be worse without a few people buying beans is raised.

It's a demoralization propaganda tactic to effectively blunt any issue. People have internalized the idea that they can do nothing on an individual level. Like habits that form out of persistent actions, people have been demoralized into giving up completely. It's some sort of ego trap. Where the presumption is that an individual is supposed Superman saving the world, but of course they aren't. Nobody is. So why bother at all. That's not the point. It's about the the population as a whole determining the norm. Everyone is convinced it's pointless and hopeless. That sets the tone. The issue is dead in the water. Any issue can be killed this way. It's extremely effective. People fall for it every time.

That's where climate change is right now. That's where wealth inequality is right now. People have listened to social media. They've internalized the quote repetitions. The demoralization mantras they saw on social media.

Your adversaries can handle words on social media. It's meaningless to them. It has no effect on their daily lifestyle or their bank accounts. Throwing words into the cloud. Somebody else's computer. Those servers are owned by your very adversaries. You're throwing your comments into a meaningless suggestion box. In all likelihood the quote repetitions were seeded by them.

Everyone is convinced that "the rich" consist of a few billionaires named Musk, Bezos, or Zuckerberg. This blinds people from seeing local issues. Like crony politicians or localized inequality issues. Ones where they actually have more of a voice. One where they can actually effect change.

There's no more blatant manifestation than when reddit (happens on lemmy too) bleeds their hearts over those posts about some rich asshole. Those carbon copy posts about how hard it is to be making techbro level money while "struggling" to live in the most wealthy cities in the world. Who gives a shit. Why does everyone have sympathy for those rich people at all. Everyone crazy? These people are part of the problem. They are the rich too. They are the source of issues that affect you locally. The guillotines are for them as much as Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg. They're out of touch rich people who have dragged you all into their reality where they're victims too. How convenient for them to have a few billionaire scapegoats that are untouchable. Whereas the average working class person can actually effect change on a local level.

People have given up on climate change because they're convinced the one or two people must stop flying private jets then the problem will be solved. It's quote repetitions. Fed to them from social media. "If those jerks can fly private jets, then why can't I consume as much as I want myself. I'll use all the plastic bags and straws that I want." It's not about the bags or the straws. It's about the collective demoralization. The propaganda is so effective.

If it was only a few people you wouldn't be getting so annoyed about them existing.

The real reason everyone hates vegans is that, deep down, we all know they're right.

I don't hate vegans and I'm not annoyed at them existing. you are reading something I haven't written

I dunno, I've seen society go from "vegans might get some fries but will likely go hungry from a restaurant" to "every restaurant except one has at least one vegan option permanently on menu". During this time stores and restaurants have stopped supplying eggs from cages birds, and fur farms has shut down across the country, and schools has started serving meat-free Mondays, multiple types of meat alteratives can be found in every corner store rather than specialist shops, the EU has banned animal testing for cosmetics, pet abandonment has become criminalised, etc...

None of those things would have happened if people weren't going vegan, asking for vegan options at restaurants and stores, and pushing for vegan ideals at stores, restaurants, local councils and government.

The meat and dairy lobby is massive, intense and wealthy. I understand that it may seem impossible to work against such an opponent. But the force enacted by each individual going vegan is what has made these changes seem worth it to all the above institutions, in the face of such massive industries, and that makes each individuals force incredible.

Systemic changes are slow, but when you see them across decades they are undeniable.