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ChairMaster posted:Tell me about how abortion is wrong because children would rather be born. Also tell me about how it's unethical for a woman to not be constantly pregnant, because even one egg being wasted in menstruation is tantamount to murder, as is the logical endpoint of such an argument. The real issue with his posting is that he's like a libertarian teenager frantically searching for any logical way out for the stupid garbage he believes and will resort to even the flimsiest nonsense before finally giving up, wasting everyone's time in the process. This was not the point I was trying to make at all. It was specific to the context of "The world is going to be so much worse for our kids than us so it would be wrong to have kids today". I still think if you took a poll 50 years from now, of all the kids that are still being born despite parents fears about a shittier world, they would nearly all say they were glad their parents took a risk and had them.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:31
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You desperately need therapy. Full stop.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:31
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ChairMaster posted:You're the one bringing up abortion in the CanPol thread by using a pro-life argument that isn't even honest when pro-lifers use it, dude. And we are not talking about the risk of a worse future as if there was some realistic chance that it would not be worse, it is already decided. Future generations will have it worse than we do. Full stop. How can you definitively say our world is going to be worse? All signs are pointing that way from an environment standpoint but I believe you are discounting the human spirit not to mention how much technology and our way of life has changed. We live completely different lives than we did 100 years ago, insanely different than 1000 years ago. Hell, even 15 years ago we lived quite different lives. Call me naive but I am still holding out we get to Star Trek civilization status in a few hundred years. And hopefully we kept some Patrick Stewart DNA to clone him back.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:35
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The idea that someone can be happier that their parents chose to have them, than the alternative, is nonsensical because people that don't exist must, ipso facto, not have feelings at all. I am happy that my parents chose to have me, but following the idea that just because people are generally happy to exist to its conclusion, we should therefore create more of them, the ideal way to generate the most amount of happiness in the world would then be constant procreative sex, and we can see that such a conclusion is absurd on the face of it. Have kids or adopt kids that already exist or do neither; whatever makes you happy. But if you choose to raise children, then take care of them properly and make sure they feel loved. I don't know if that generates Maximum Happiness, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:40
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It has been already said up thread, I think, but global warming is a problem the likes of which we have never faced before. Like orders of magnitude larger than anything else, and manifesting in such a way (slowly over decades) that is taillor-made to bypass/override human recognition and response. As has been proven over the past 40 years. Olds being scared of hippies isn’t even in the same galaxy, even if you cede the entire argument to the worst fears concerning them.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:40
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Okay I will withdraw that argument altogether then. I still think the human race has a great if not likely chance they will meet the challenge of global warming and its far from a end of world in 50 years scenario. Some countries are already moving towards zero emission power and with mass scale electric cars around the corner, real changes can start to happen fast. Regardless of focusing just on the environment as all the problems in the world, if you look at specific measures of how the world is performing, poverty has been massively reduced in the past 30 years and is at historical lows, as well as other things like many communicable diseases being at all time lows or eradicated. Not to mention the education and job opportunities for women in the 3rd world, etc etc etc. There is a lot of good in the world compared to even the close past. We can be hopeful we will get to see more improvement.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:47
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zapplez posted:How can you definitively say our world is going to be worse? Because I've done my fuckin research and I'm not a simple-minded child? There is no way to realistically view politics and science in a way that leads one to believe that the next few generations to come will have it anywhere near as good as we do. It is somewhat possible that in the distant future things could get better again but that has nothing to do with what kind of a life the children of people alive to day will have. You're desperately clinging to a fallacious argument that compares people 40 years ago and the issues they faced to people now. They are not similar in any way. It's a dishonest argument based on purposeful ignorance and false equivalency.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:47
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zapplez posted:Okay I will withdraw that argument altogether then. I still think the human race has a great if not likely chance they will meet the challenge of global warming and its far from a end of world in 50 years scenario. Please do some actual research. This is completely unfounded magical thinking.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:48
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zapplez posted:Just specifically to you, aren't you happy you parents took the risk of a crappier future and still had you? Get this, it's a completely irrelevant hypothetical, because had I not been born, I wouldn't have an opinion on it. It is a spectacularly dumb and facile argument regardless of context or framing and there's a reason why it's tied to idiotic appeals to emotion by anti-abortionists. I have no particular emotional investment in whether or not people ITT choose to have children, I'm just saying that if you do I hope you can come up with something less stupid than "because your hypothetical children would be glad they lived". infernal machines fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Dec 2, 2018 |
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Dec 2, 2018 19:48
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Stickarts posted:It has been already said up thread, I think, but global warming is a problem the likes of which we have never faced before. Like orders of magnitude larger than anything else, and manifesting in such a way (slowly over decades) that is taillor-made to bypass/override human recognition and response. As has been proven over the past 40 years. Olds being scared of hippies isn’t even in the same galaxy, even if you cede the entire argument to the worst fears concerning them. Even other apocalyptic fears like nuclear war or, I dunno, an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out all life are a completely different kind of threat. That's the kind of low-probability but high-risk threat where if it happens your hypothetical child dies but if it doesn't happen your hypothetical child lives a long, rich, and fulfilling life. Climate change isn't like that. It isn't the threat of a quick, sudden death in the unlikely scenario that the thing you're afraid of happens. It is, instead, the virtual certainty that life will just steadily get more difficult and unpleasant over time as the foundations on which modern civilization is built, the very things that make modern life fulfilling and worthwhile, are continually degraded and eventually destroyed. There's no sudden nuclear war scenario that abruptly ruins your hypothetical child's good life. There is, instead, the knowledge that what might start out as a good life will, as the decades pass, become an okay life, then a difficult life, then an awful grueling life as the consequences of the actions of people who died before your child was born slowly and inexorably play out around them.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:51
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Poverty was reduced almost entirely thanks to the one time boost of an authoritarian state capitalist government doing a forced march to industrialization through internal repression and colonization. That reduction in poverty also relied heavily on the cheap availability of fossil fuels. Pointing to a growth trend from the 20th century and using it to argue we're going to weather global warming just fine is like thinking an algae bloom will continue indefinitely. Population spikes due to cheap resources, followed by catastrophic drops in population when the resources dispensary, is a recurrent pattern in both nature and human history. The extent to which so many people are downplaying the scale of the problem here or just assuming some magical technological fix will save us would be disconcerting if it wasn't so grimly predictable. Especially the number of people who seem to anticipate some kind of stable pluralist society with liberal values and a functional non-authoritarian government can be preserved in a world racked by resource scarcity, extreme weather and mass migration. Canada won't turn into some national gated community where things proceed much as they did before but at a slightly lower level of material comfort - as the rest of the world collapses we'll fall apart too and whatever authoritarian measures are put in place to 'protect' us against foreigners will very rapidly be turned on us as well and used to strip away whatever remnants of democracy we enjoyed. You're not going to escape this fate just because you live in Canada.
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Dec 2, 2018 19:56
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zapplez posted:How can you definitively say our world is going to be worse? All signs are pointing that way from an environment standpoint but I believe you are discounting the human spirit not to mention how much technology and our way of life has changed. We live completely different lives than we did 100 years ago, insanely different than 1000 years ago. Hell, even 15 years ago we lived quite different lives. There's optimistic and then there's "I don't have a loving clue what I'm talking about" There's a slim -very slim- chance we end up in a future that vaguely resembles something like The Expanse if we're lucky but even if I had a real choice, I wouldn't make a baby now because in the meantime it's unavoidable that everything is going to be much, much harder and sadder for them than it was for me or my parents. Jesus loving christ even in Star Trek everything goes completely to poo poo in this time period followed by a nuclear war how do you completely miss everything I don't even
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Dec 2, 2018 20:00
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zapplez posted:Okay I will withdraw that argument altogether then. I still think the human race has a great if not likely chance they will meet the challenge of global warming and its far from a end of world in 50 years scenario. K, first off - I’m sympathetic to your mindset. I don’t see much point in giving up. Environmental disaster is coming. The degree of severity for the moment still remains tied directly to our ability to quickly mobilize and respond. So far not so good in that front. With that in mind, though, knowledge and advocacy are still key. However, I don’t think this is a case where you can point to progress being made as effective counter examples. All those are micro-level accomplishments produced within a system that has thus far relied upon offloading cost onto systemic/macro-level degradation. In a perverse way, it doesn’t matter if we achieve true societal equity if it comes at the cost of our societies ability to effectively function. All that progress is moot if the engine driving it is killing the planet. That circles back to the idea that the size and scope of global warming is literally unprecedented for humanity. vyelkin posted:Even other apocalyptic fears like nuclear war or, I dunno, an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out all life are a completely different kind of threat. That's the kind of low-probability but high-risk threat where if it happens your hypothetical child dies but if it doesn't happen your hypothetical child lives a long, rich, and fulfilling life. Climate change isn't like that. It isn't the threat of a quick, sudden death in the unlikely scenario that the thing you're afraid of happens. It is, instead, the virtual certainty that life will just steadily get more difficult and unpleasant over time as the foundations on which modern civilization is built, the very things that make modern life fulfilling and worthwhile, are continually degraded and eventually destroyed. There's no sudden nuclear war scenario that abruptly ruins your hypothetical child's good life. There is, instead, the knowledge that what might start out as a good life will, as the decades pass, become an okay life, then a difficult life, then an awful grueling life as the consequences of the actions of people who died before your child was born slowly and inexorably play out around them. Absofruitly.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:00
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Helsing posted:Canada won't turn into some national gated community where things proceed much as they did before but at a slightly lower level of material comfort - as the rest of the world collapses we'll fall apart too and whatever authoritarian measures are put in place to 'protect' us against foreigners will very rapidly be turned on us as well and used to strip away whatever remnants of democracy we enjoyed. You're not going to escape this fate just because you live in Canada. They're also ignoring how now, at the very beginning of whatever is facing us, we're already seeing right-wing authoritarianism, xenophobic populism, and anti-immigration sentiment being stoked by mainstream political parties. This doesn't get better from here with mass migrations and climate refugees.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:02
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Jordan7hm posted:You desperately need therapy. Full stop. This entire thread needs therapy. Like the Frontier Psychiatrist Wayne & Shuster kind.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:02
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By being made so uncomfortable by a frank and open discussion of the reality of climate change and it's effects that you insist that everyone who knows what they're talking about must just be depressed or insane, you are illustrating the point of what we're saying about the political reality of the situation very nicely.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:13
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infernal machines posted:They're also ignoring how now, at the very beginning of whatever is facing us, we're already seeing right-wing authoritarianism, xenophobic populism, and anti-immigration sentiment being stoked by mainstream political parties. This doesn't get better from here with mass migrations and climate refugees. It is very striking to me that in the liberal imagination fascism or authoritarianism is only bad in the abstract sense that it will hurt other people and that's obviously not good when it can be avoided. I'm honestly kind of bowled over by how many people here seem to genuinely expect our government will become very authoritarian in protecting Canadian boarders but not degenerate into a really dysfunctional, corrupt and unequal society domestically. Like, a lot of affluent liberal types clearly don't understand that the drift into authoritarian xenophobia is going to hurt them. Even when they want to stop it, they treat it like this really vague conceptual problem not a visceral threat to their future well being.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:14
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ChairMaster posted:By being made so uncomfortable by a frank and open discussion of the reality of climate change and it's effects that you insist that everyone who knows what they're talking about must just be depressed or insane, you are illustrating the point of what we're saying about the political reality of the situation very nicely. I think its possible you can both see climate change as the most pressing and serious problem our society is facing today, and possibly has ever faced, while at the same time thinking its better for us to press forward towards betterment in politics, society, technology and grassroots organization that might improve it, then just saying "gg its all over". We can take the issue as being deadly serious, and also worth working on and hopefully achievable. There are countries that are well on their way to be zero or extremely low emissions. Hopefully the rest of the world will start to work towards the same goal. Why do the climate scientists and energy conscious engineers even keep showing up to work if we are doomed regardless of how hard we try and fix things?
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Dec 2, 2018 20:20
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Helsing posted:It is very striking to me that in the liberal imagination fascism or authoritarianism is only bad in the abstract sense that it will hurt other people and that's obviously not good when it can be avoided. I'm honestly kind of bowled over by how many people here seem to genuinely expect our government will become very authoritarian in protecting Canadian boarders but not degenerate into a really dysfunctional, corrupt and unequal society domestically. Like, a lot of affluent liberal types clearly don't understand that the drift into authoritarian xenophobia is going to hurt them. Even when they want to stop it, they treat it like this really vague conceptual problem not a visceral threat to their future well being. The tyranny Athens imposed on the outer reaches of empire it finally imposed on itself
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Dec 2, 2018 20:20
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Helsing posted:It is very striking to me that in the liberal imagination fascism or authoritarianism is only bad in the abstract sense that it will hurt other people and that's obviously not good when it can be avoided. I'm honestly kind of bowled over by how many people here seem to genuinely expect our government will become very authoritarian in protecting Canadian boarders but not degenerate into a really dysfunctional, corrupt and unequal society domestically. Like, a lot of affluent liberal types clearly don't understand that the drift into authoritarian xenophobia is going to hurt them. Even when they want to stop it, they treat it like this really vague conceptual problem not a visceral threat to their future well being. Liberals don't really have that much of a problem with fascism, that's hardly something you can be surprised by at this point.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:20
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zapplez posted:There are countries that are well on their way to be zero or extremely low emissions. Hopefully the rest of the world will start to work towards the same goal. Why do the climate scientists and energy conscious engineers even keep showing up to work if we are doomed regardless of how hard we try and fix things? Scientists do not know anything about politics, they think that physical reality and political reality are one in the same. Politically they are some of the most naive and complacent people in the world, the fact that it's taken the majority of them this long to realize that having kids is a hosed up thing to do is evidence enough of this fact. Scientists will tell themselves that as long as there is a physical possibility of preventing catastrophe, it is still a logical possibility, even when the politics of the situation make it impossible a hundred times over. When that fails, most of them will tell themselves that maybe someone will come up with cold fusion and everything will be okay. They're not computers or gods, they falliable humans just like everyone else. Anyways, telling people not create more human lives is not the same thing as saying "gg it's all over", and I certainly am not on the side of the pt6a's of the world who insist that Canada has no responsibilities regarding climate change and that we must keep pumping worthless lovely tar sand out of the ground in order to dump it in the ocean later.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:25
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zapplez posted:I think its possible you can both see climate change as the most pressing and serious problem our society is facing today, and possibly has ever faced, while at the same time thinking its better for us to press forward towards betterment in politics, society, technology and grassroots organization that might improve it, then just saying "gg its all over". I don't think anybody here (okay, maybe Chairmaster  ) is saying give up, it's hopeless, game over. It's absolutely worth fighting and working for the, I dunno, 10% chance that we end up with a future that isn't a horrible hellworld. I absolutely hope we make it to that future and I try to work towards it as much as possible.But I also realistically recognize that it's far more likely that we fail and destroy the conditions that allow for the existence of civilization as we know it. Humanity will survive in some way, somewhere, but it won't be a life I would want for myself or for my children.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:26
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Hey, I am just basing my poo poo off the doomsday posts from before about everyone coming to kill Canadians for their resources.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:32
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We are already past the point of no return on climate change. Even if everybody adopted strict standards on emissions tomorrow and enforced them with an iron fist it would still take a while for the climate to return to 'normal'. Decades? Centuries? Whatever, it doesn't matter because nobody is willing to risk torpedoing their own economy without a guarantee that everyone else will do their fair share too (we also don't agree how to calculate a fair share). The only real hope is that better carbon capture technology is developed and used after the problem becomes undeniable for everyone, even the folks in alberta and texas. Or space mirrors. Or domed cities. Maybe the Jetsons live in those bubble towers because the surface is uninhabitable? It's too late to prevent it. Maybe someone will come up with a way to fix it.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:34
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Facebook Aunt posted:We are already past the point of no return on climate change. Even if everybody adopted strict standards on emissions tomorrow and enforced them with an iron fist it would still take a while for the climate to return to 'normal'. Decades? Centuries? Whatever, it doesn't matter because nobody is willing to risk torpedoing their own economy without a guarantee that everyone else will do their fair share too (we also don't agree how to calculate a fair share). A man falling off a 50 meter bridge might survive with relatively minimal injuries if they hit the water just right, or they might break their spine on impact. The inevitability of bad outcomes doesn't negate the need to do what we can. OF course mostly what we can do has nothing to do with carbon capture. The priority should be hardening our social institutions against the rise of fascism and authoritarianism. As the economic situation gets more dire the pressure for the rich to divide and conquer society will increase. Old prejudices will be rediscovered, current prejudices exacerbated, we'll be encouraged to turn on each other and blame our neighbours for our problems. If there isn't a powerful counterforce in society pushing back against the rise of right-wing authoritarianism and fighting hard for a humane collectivist response to your problems in which we all try to work together to equally share the burdens and benefits of society then we are truly lost. The physical reality of climate change is impossible to avoid but with proper social and political responses we could preserve something resembling a humane and functional society. It might be a world where we make do with less and mostly consume things grown or built in our immediate vicinity and in which life expectancy is shorter but it could still provide a decent way of life for many. The alternative is that we allow the current generation of rich people and politicians to horde all the existing resources while setting the rest of society against one another.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:45
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The frustrating issue around climate change is the narrative is to push it onto the consumer. Buy LED lights, compost, buy a high-efficiency furnace. That won't make a loving dent until industry changes its practices. So yes I am pessimistic that we are not going to do anything because we aren't even looking in the right direction.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:48
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vyelkin posted:I don't think anybody here (okay, maybe Chairmaster I wish you people would stop assuming that the reason I'm going to kill myself has anything to do with climate change or politics or anything like that. Vintersorg posted:Hey, I am just basing my poo poo off the doomsday posts from before about everyone coming to kill Canadians for their resources. Feel free to elaborate on why you think that our tiny military and gigantic border are going to keep us safe from the most powerful nation to ever exist in human history. e: or that our government would ever give a poo poo to protect us in the first place. ChairMaster fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Dec 2, 2018 |
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Dec 2, 2018 20:51
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apatheticman posted:The frustrating issue around climate change is the narrative is to push it onto the consumer. Pushing it onto the consumer promotes cultural change. You get the majority of people thinking "I've done my part" and they'll be more affronted by those who haven't done their part. That creates the political will to force industry to comply.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:54
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Facebook Aunt posted:Pushing it onto the consumer promotes cultural change. You get the majority of people thinking "I've done my part" and they'll be more affronted by those who haven't done their part. That creates the political will to force industry to comply. lol
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Dec 2, 2018 20:57
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you'd have better luck with a one man jihad and a rusted out makarov
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Dec 2, 2018 20:59
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Facebook Aunt posted:Pushing it onto the consumer promotes cultural change. You get the majority of people thinking "I've done my part" and they'll be more affronted by those who haven't done their part. That creates the political will to force industry to comply. We've had that poo poo since the 80s and nothing has been done. We even had that weird span of the 90s where most children's media was pro-environmentalism propaganda basically (Captain Planet, Ferngully etc etc). Also, the primary polluters are so far removed from the end consumer that it is difficult to force direct cultural change without some massive stock buy/shareholder pressure.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:59
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At least the deck chairs will be nicely arranged.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:00
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apatheticman posted:The frustrating issue around climate change is the narrative is to push it onto the consumer. Then you need to take action to try and change the narrative. Join a party, or an environmental lobby, and start making your voice heard. Start talking to people beyond this forum, most of whom already agree with you. Talk to your local representatives and make your concern voiced. Talk to your neighbors and educate them on the issues. No politician is going to be looking on these forums for what their constituents feel, so screaming in here is the same as going into an empty field and screaming it out there. Yeah, you might not get listened to, but you certainly won't by not speaking to someone that can affect policy. Yeah, even if you live in Ontario and have a PC party representative. You can book a meeting with them very easily. It's literally their job to take appointments and hear from their constituents. If you're worried about the future, take action. Don't just sit around on these forums and bitch about it.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:02
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apatheticman posted:We even had that weird span of the 90s where most children's media was pro-environmentalism propaganda basically (Captain Planet, Ferngully etc etc). the smoggies! loved that show. another reason not to have kids, the cartoons loving suck now.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:12
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ChairMaster posted:I wish you people would stop assuming that the reason I'm going to kill myself has anything to do with climate change or politics or anything like that. Seriously man, start taking your meds again. Or get a therapist. You do not sound ok.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:15
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patonthebach posted:Seriously man, start taking your meds again. Or get a therapist. You do not sound ok. Yeah, when you have more than 0 reasons to kill yourself please get help.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:16
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Kinda feels like a lot of you folks are too focused on the details here. Zoom out a bit. We aren't going to do anything about climate change because that is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism. When success is measured in quarters, or a year or two at most, the future does not matter. The rich will always be able to buy the best climate control and air filtration systems for their homes. Higher and thicker walls. Armoured cars. Security guards, and additional security guards to watch the first security guards. Capitalism by definition should result in all resources being captured or extinguished, the planet made mostly unlivable, and a relative handful of people ending up with all the money. Like it's right there on the label. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXl4ZwakAgQ&t=48s
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Dec 2, 2018 21:25
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berenzen posted:Then you need to take action to try and change the narrative. Join a party, or an environmental lobby, and start making your voice heard. Start talking to people beyond this forum, most of whom already agree with you. Talk to your local representatives and make your concern voiced. Talk to your neighbors and educate them on the issues. No politician is going to be looking on these forums for what their constituents feel, so screaming in here is the same as going into an empty field and screaming it out there. To what the butcher said above, no politician is going to change the narrative because the underlying narrative is capitalism is directly at odds with environmentalism. These gigantic entities with no foresight beyond their next year earnings and their balance sheet take resources, defer liability and have set up the political landscape that any consequence for their society destroying actions is barely the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, its like hearing someone maybe say a bad word about you from 3 blocks away. That's a loving gigantic narrative to change.
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Dec 2, 2018 21:44
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ChairMaster posted:I wish you people would stop assuming that the reason I'm going to kill myself has anything to do with climate change or politics or anything like that. Hey ChairMaster maybe you should take a break. Go for a walk. Go buy yourself some nice food. I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying insofar as climate change is very serious but I’m concerned for your well being here.
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Dec 2, 2018 22:10
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ChairMaster posted:I wish you people would stop assuming that the reason I'm going to kill myself has anything to do with climate change or politics or anything like that. Never discount chance. If history is any indication, we're pretty bad at divining its course.
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Dec 2, 2018 22:19
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