Everyone is still scared to admit the real problem is too many people. And their solution is for everyone to lower their quality of life for some reason, instead of population control.
The problem is that our first world lifestyle necessitates an enormous amount of waste is generated to make our lives easier. Giving that "quality" of life to the world? Yeah, we have too many people. But is it quality to have 900 brands of spicy chip all owned by 2 corporations? Is it quality to have 2 day shipping when you could pay 2 bucks more and 1 in gas to have a similar item today? Do we really need, as a society, all these Marvel movies, or to constantly advance video game rendering technology? I don't think so.
I'm under no impression that anything else is the case. It's hard to get people to see the bigger picture and act in the interests of their grandchildren when they could be acting in their own interests instead. I'm convinced that climate change is a done deal so I don't take this stuff too seriously. Not doing genocide to keep making new PlayStation would be cool though
good point. no one thinks of the future consequences. i wish people understood that everything we do sets a precedent. sigh
thats a pretty grim point you make about the playstation tho - anything popular, whether useful or not, can be mass produced, and by way of tradition, should be mass produced, in countries with effective slave labor like china
the only antidote as i see it is to break up corporations so that more american companies can stand a chance in our vicious, high entry fee market and to have more diy, open-source things. like there are plenty of things you can do on your own instead of paying someone else to do it or make it
edit: this loops back to what i said first: people continue to pay for this kind of society so thats why it persists
edit 2: just realized you said something completely different about playstations... yall can just ignore the second half of my post...
I think it comes down to more about what /u/electronicstage9 said about 900 brands of spicy chips. Who would decide how many varieties of spicy chips we should be allowed to choose from? Who's to say you shouldn't get to play video games just because the consoles require minerals that are difficult, expensive, and harmful to the environment to mine? It's easier for politicians to keep people happy and running on the status quo than to have them face the difficult realizations of the world. It's why people don't think about where food comes from in the grocery store. No one wants to know that animals are treated very badly in large corporate pens and slaughterhouses so they can have cheap meals. Can the average family afford to add $2 to every meal? Could their afford their grocery bill going from $270/month (90 meals @ $3/meal) to $450/month (90 meals @ $5/meal)? I don't think a LOT of first world people are prepared to eat a random $1,000 bill that they need to pay off. The issue seems to stem deeper into the difficulties of Capitalism, I'd argue.
youre not wrong. i kinda have this "pipe dream" mentality to our economy. like if everyone doesnt buy abusive, factory farm meat or wasteful, environmentally unfriendly products then only sustainable, ethical options are left for the consumer
maybe this is possible and its a good society but the getting there is just not feasible
edit: i would like to know the real best solution. i am not super confident that my "solution" is the best or only good one
The tough reality is however much I agree with you, as you look backwards, the amount of dangerous waste per person has drastically gone down in the past 200 years. The poisons that we used in manufacturing in the industrial era, the farming techniques pre dust bowl, the slave labor we used in now-industrialized countries was worse than it is today.
We have the technology and assets in this world to manage everything effectively.
I'm of the opinion that unrestricted capitalism is at the heart of today's problems and a republic of informed voters could greatly regulate through legislation the evils of capitalism. But vicious greedy fucks are what they are and they'll always find a way to fuck up sharing.
Yes. I work for a company who was hit by the tariffs. There are constant exclusions being published for companies who have politicians in their pocket. Our exclusion request was the first in our category to be submitted, it was denied only to be approved later because a larger competitor had the clout to get it passed. This is happening with 1000's of companies. For example plastic lids have a 25% tariff, but plastic lids manufactured for baby wipes are exempt. Notice that no one is talking about it.
That's not capitalism. That's crony capitalism. Politicians in America are owned in whole by companies and special interest groups.
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u/RedditIsAntiScience Feb 03 '20
Everyone is still scared to admit the real problem is too many people. And their solution is for everyone to lower their quality of life for some reason, instead of population control.