BS has a point about that. Politicians respond to power. To expect otherwise will lead to being disappointed every time. Some technological changes are eroding labor’s power.
The cause and effect are backwards. The actual environmental problems are climate change and air pollution. Improperly disposed plastic waste is at the bottom of the list, but gets highlighted specifically because it does not matter (i.e., powerful interests don’t really gaf about straws) and because it makes people feel bad about themselves. Sure, don’t waste a bunch of shit and be sure to properly dispose of your waste, but it’s not a big deal. It’s a pathology for your politics to transmute concern about “the environment” into guilt and angst about plastic straws rather than organizing around climate change and pollution (densification, mass transit, investment in carbon-free energy). It depoliticizes the issue.
Provocative tweet that I came across just now:
This really wasn’t a debate about ranking environmental problems. Plastic is an issue - an example - and I’ve been going with that. What I’ve actually done personally in my life has been more about carbon emission and air pollution than plastic.
I mean yeah. Politicians passed IP laws that made it so that the first person to get a lawyer to say he came up with someone got to be the only person who could do that thing for a loooong time.
If I was allowed to just whip up any software I wanted and compete directly with virtually anyone I’d probably start learning to code in earnest tomorrow. If I was allowed to buy a machine and print pills and sell them I’d be in the pharmaceutical business right now (and charging a hell of a lot less).
A lot of the really really broken stuff about modern capitalism is actually the result of politicians. That’s the core truth that attracts people to libertarianism.
This is definitely not me advocating for libertarianism lol. Obviously any ideology that attracts a lot of followers is going to have ideas that are true. It’s one of the reasons why I so love stripping the best parts out of ideologies and discarding the rest… the idea that regulation is often a tool of entrenched interests to exploit everyone else is one of the libertarian ideas I’m happy to have stolen.
Make no mistake, barriers to entering businesses and competing in them is a decent part of why inequality is getting so out of control. Rent seeking is a huge driver of inequality.
Sure, if i made an OP using the term “the left”, I should be fully willing, ready, and able to cheerfully explain to any other poster exactly what I’m referencing in that thread as “the left”. However, I didn’t make this OP. I’m in that “any other poster” role here. Again, I’m asking an extremely simple and easy to answer question of the OP here…
When you referred to “the left” in your OP, were you referring exclusively to the Donkeys? If not, who else are you referring to?
I’d expect to get a short and quick few word response to such a Q… something like… “sure I mean only the Donkeys”… or maybe “I mean the Donkeys and groups like the Communists”.
Instead I’m getting both stone walled and seem to be provoking some kind of angst and resentment. Why is that? Why does it seem a simple Q will simply not receive a simple A anytime soon? Like I said, this reminds me directly of the ACers, and their own strange word fetishes.
LOL.
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Living in dense environment is certainly better for the environment than suburban sprawl and imo actually living in an urban environment and taking advantage of that (short or no commute - public transportation - smaller buildings and land use per person etc) has a much bigger individual impact for all but the most influential people than either advocating or voting for densification.
Personally, I like Amazon and don’t think plastic straws matter, so I’m pretty consistent.
Your personal conduct is an issue of personal morality though, not politics. You’ve got to navigate the flawed world we live in as best as you can, but the project of politics is to change the system. What you should feel bad about politically is failing to join a bowling league and use the opportunity to align people who like bowling with progressive politics.
What impact does that have at a social level? If you live in one of the fixed number of apartment buildings that have access to a viable public transportation system in the U.S., you’re displacing someone else who could have lived there. It’s zero-sum. Individual decision-making can’t fix systemic problems. You need coordination.
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A whole bowling team’s worth of votes matters less than the hard to measure increase in demand you cause when you live in a dense Urban environment. I know you think that all construction is blocked or something, but there’s plenty of development going on at least in downtown Los Angeles.
I work from home so if I lived in a dense urban area I’d probably be doing significant damage (because I wouldn’t be utilizing public transit nearly as much as I could be).
That being said if I get divorced I am 100% moving to a dense urban area. Fuck morality I want a social life and I’m tired of owning a car.
Hi, OP here. I responded once already:
And you responded with rambling that made no sense whatsoever. I’m not interested in playing “define the left”, so I’m bowing out of wherever you’re trying to take this discussion. Maybe @boredsocial will have it with you, but engaging you seems like a waste of time. Cheers.
Dude, don’t use vague terms like “the left” and then turn around and complane about waisting time when asked to clarify. That’s all on you.
By your response, you are including groups like the PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation, a modern day Trotskyist party), the IWW, the BLM Network, Code Pink, etc/etc.
I can give a perspective from these kinda groups on the issues raised in your OP, if you are interested that kinda stuff.
That’s all I’ve been asking.
Is this some kind of performance art
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I need to figure out how to make money capturing carbon so I can have a greener job than you. It’s going to be hard lol.
Yeah, you seem to be in a masochistic mood but I’ve been around the block enough times to know that even when people want that masochism they still want it on their own terms, so, let me know if I should empty the clip.
Bear in mind though that this,
is starting to border on the wildly offensive so I might not give as much consideration to your wants.
microbet has a beard
this isn’t microbet
We tried that in Britain a hundred+ years ago, and it gave us some periods of centrist governments and many more of right wing governments benefitting from the split in the vote against it.