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It Is No Longer Possible to Escape What We Have Done to Ourselves
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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I feel it's time for people that care to start moving on the the acceptance phase of our future. Whether that is beginning to accept austerity in what we eat/wear/do and wait for the collective "we" to join us when they need to adapt more rapidly than we chose to, or if we give in and join the "it's already too late, let it burn" side.
I try to stay positive, because I've always tried to conserve and be responsible, so it isn't too bad, but I feel bad for the next generation or 2 at least. They asked for this even less than we did. But I feel the sooner we get on acting like this is a done deal the better, because most people aren't going to care until they're hurting.
I've recently started to feel this way as well. One need not look any further than this thread itself to see that we're fucked. The discussion here is a perfect example of how we seem to be frozen in some sort of complex "prisoner's dilemma" between the public, the media, the politicians, the industry, etc. All this finger-pointing going around, when the reality is that most people AND (especially) most companies in the entire developed/industrialized world shares a large part of the blame for this, and because of the mentality (human nature) and manipulations (capitalist nature) at play, nothing will be done in time before our species starts to be completely decimated.
I've been recommending this article to people who seem to share this realization, because it not only describes what we're thinking, but it also provides some resources to help us process this.
Edit: At the same time, I still would like to fight like hell to change our course. But I just don't want to fight alone, and I fear that that's what it would mostly feel like. Alone, or very, very few people by my side.
The prisoners dilemma seems an appropriate analogy. Business doesn't want to budge first and commit to a giant investment that isn't profit driven. It commits then to us and other businesses can eat their lunch while they sacrifice profit to help society. Government doesn't want to move first and drive business or if the county. And selfish people are just going to be selfish.
For your edit comments, just keep living by your principles. Share with others who want to listen, but don't force anyone. Just be you. If you're reading things like this out of curiosity, you're on the right side of things already.
You got what I was driving at. I don't even think that it takes people being particularly selfish either. I think it just takes human nature. Most people want to have nice things and very few want to be the first or only one to make a sacrifice. So people in general are involved in this prisoner's dilemma too, along with business, government, and media. It's like a 4-way prisoner's dilemma from hell.
Thanks, you too.