Amazon is definitely the one behind this. This is all part of their “vertical integration” bullshit I bet. They’ve been taking tons of money off the top for years. Where to go besides taking 100% of the money?

But raising taxes for the richest is a small band aid on a massively flawed system. It’d be like getting a second, even smaller bucket to bail water out of the titanic. After it’s broken in half.

There are so many incredibly serious problems that higher taxes for the wealthy wouldn’t fix. Liberals tend to cling to this option because it worked back in the 20th century. But capitalism has kept getting more and more “streamlined,” fucking over the working class more and more. Because the concept of endless growth has continued through multiple decades of massive changes to the game that only favored the wealthy, changes to the tax code being one that happened so long ago that it’s an entirely different concept at this point. Outsourcing, vertical integration, the explosion of invasive advertising, data mining, the explosion of privatization, the infestation of private money dictating policy, the infestation of private interests writing policy…this is a small list of the most visible things that have become so entrenched that a wealth tax would almost be nothing.

That money would get funneled right back into their pockets, even if they somehow let a wealth tax bill through—yeah, they LET a bill through. As you said, a massive stumbling block that only goes to show how deep this problem is.

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Exactly. Until we put either the heaviest lid on capitalism (never going to happen) or upend the system entirely, UBI will “drive inflation,” meaning we’ll still make the same (or probably somehow less) at our jobs while the UBI money literally just keeps everything at the same affordability. There is no world in which business doesn’t just go after that money. We saw very recently, with the flimsiest of excuses, capitalists will claim “inflation” while pocketing record profits. They’ll do the exact same if UBI is implemented without some massive changes to capitalism.

Burn it all down. Anyone that still has hopes for fixes that maintain the capitalist system are fooling themselves. We have no other options at this point. It’s either we do it now, or wait until capitalism and the devastating effects of climate change force our hand. At least if we do it now, at our own discretion, we might be able to throw the emergency-emergency brakes on climate change. Otherwise, companies and the capitalists that run them will absolutely watch us all fry from their self-sustaining pod homes that are built in the upper atmosphere to keep the temperature bearable and to stay above the devastating weather events. And they’ll do it without thinking twice.

Since changing from Reddit to Lemmy, I’m absolutely pulling out my phone to browse mindlessly far less. And I’m back to reading articles in full.

I’m not sure even what it is about Reddit that made the app much more addictive. BecauseI was all third party since I was on Reddit, so I didn’t get the “recommended” Bullshit. Maybe it was the really specifically (self) tailored endless feed whereas with Lemmy I’m browsing all instances, a bunch of weird shit pops up that when an article I’m actually interested in comes across, I’m all in.

But I was also never on social media besides Reddit, so I wasn’t filling a void? I dunno

Yeah, who says America doesn’t build stuff anymore?! Have you seen our premium content?!

Lol like I said, modern society is a fuckin joke. At this point I’m rooting for climate change

Not to mention, Spotify is putting ads in white noise content? Kinda…destroys the entire concept, no?

There is so much about this story that makes me hate modern society. How is more of this content still being created? Why are there ads? Spotify can destroy peoples livelihood on a whim?

Although, I did find the part where someone with podcast “didn’t want to call attention to their show” pretty funny.

They’re big about taxes. They love tax dollars when they’re broke, but they don’t exactly…”pay” their “taxes.”

Wait, bing is Nazi too?!?

“When poison factory shut down, poisonings went down drastically. More at 8:00.”

Do you always stream porn in 1080p? I guess I never thought about the quality, but I honestly don’t expect anything more than 720

add to the smegma pot

Good lord.

Arkansas: where the people rule! (Until we, the ones decidedly ruling over the people, decide we don’t like what you’re doing and think it’s icky.)

Anyone still using Google products is a fuckin idiot, IMO

Not to mention, so I can stop seeing pictures of him, pressing his fingertips together in front of his face like he’s some fucking pensive genius. I’m goddamn tired of it

No you’re missing my point. The stuff we read and share has a huge effect. If instead of aiming at the very bottom, hoping to pick up enough crumbs to stop the massive tsunami heading for us, we aimed all of our energy at the top, the mood would be very different. It wouldn’t be one of despair because we are reading about the lifestyle changes we need to make, knowing we can do everything possible and there are still millions if not billions of people that don’t have the luxury of making these decisions, not to mention all of the people that could but won’t. Instead, the feeling would be righteous indignation at the true culprits.

In fact, think of all the younger people reading this study, despairing that they don’t have the power or money to make these changes. We’re devastating an entire new generation, poisoning them against the feeling that they could do something positive against climate change. That has a powerful effect. That matters.

The feeling would be very different and we could see some true action that had the hopes of changing our course. Instead, with this kind of shit, it’s a mishmash of anger, despair, bickering over our lifestyle choices (as evidenced here)…it had the exact effect intended. To alleviate the pressure on the companies so they could continue destroying the earth while we sit here feeling guilty about having to drive to work here we live or about our clothing choices, eating habits, using our goddamn a/c in record heat, etc.

We are facing down a massive, gargantuan snake. And there are still some of us talking about taking small bites from the tail up to devour it. Instead of cutting off the head. Do those small bites actually help? On the most minuscule level, yes. But that head is still mowing down on everything and everyone while we argue about how to properly and effectively bite from the tail up. Cut off the fucking head and deal with the rest when the most dangerous part is vanquished.

The ability and willingness among the people to make the necessary changes—not to mention the efficacy of those individual changes on such a massive problem—make this conversation about how to best keep your clean outfits dry on the titanic. Useless. (And as I’ve always had to do in this conversation, qualify my statements by saying that yes, going vegetarian and vegan are great, doing anything with a net positive effect on the world around you is admirable and we should encourage it. But in this context, he framing of the conversation is deadly important. And that’s my entire point.)

Look, I get that logic, I really do.

And do it. I’m not trying to stop anyone from going vegetarian at all. But think of how many people need to change before your not buying meat actually has an effect. Because, think about it: you don’t buy any meat, but the store you shop at doesn’t change their order. If you went full vegan today, the grocery store would still stock the exact same amount of those products.

My point isn’t that telling people to go vegetarian is wrong. Not at all, it’s a great thing.

My point is, it’s thinking way too small and it’s actively changing the tone of the conversation. And that change was literally crafted by industry publicists, drawing attention away from the true culprits. The waters are muddier.

If every article and every study that came out telling individuals how to change their lives and sacrifice in order to save the environment were, instead, about how 100 companies are responsible for 70% of emissions, how they had internal studies a hundred years ago about how their product was altering the environment, about how they’ve escaped change via lobbying and misinformation, the pressure wouldn’t be spread out—this conversation wouldn’t be happening. Our lifestyle changes would be exactly as important as they should be in this conversation: a nice addition. Nowhere near the focus. Instead, I see way more articles focusing on how we can all collectively change to fight the monstrous beast that is climate change. That’s telling people to fire bottle rockets at an attacking Air Force. It’s pissing in the wind. When there are white armies out there that get to write off doing shit because it’s on those people.

Again, changing your life for the good of the environment is a great thing. Doing it is admirable. But it’s also privilege-restrictive. Living an emission-reductive lifestyle is literally not possible for a lot of people. Just like being poor is expensive, being poor forces horrible carbon emission decisions on people. I haven’t crunched the numbers, (no one has) but if every privileged-enough person changed, would that be enough? Probably not. More and more people are financially restricted, and talking about eco-friendly lifestyle choices like it’s all about how much you care is incredibly unfair.

But that’s all after the fact of this being a tactic invented by the oil/gas industry to take pressure off of the few companies that literally are responsible for—and that could have a huge effect on—climate change.

This is playing marbles in a hurricane and yelling at the kid who is trying to blow the marbles out of place—is that contribution actually changing things? Sure, a little. But there is a fucking hurricane and any time spent talking about changing that kid’s behavior is time not spent talking about the hurricane.

EXACTLY. The personal carbon footprint thing was literally made up by oil industry publicists. It wasn’t part of the discussion, the blame was being laid squarely at the feet of the companies who were destroying the earth for a buck. But lo and behold, here come the publicists and the entire environmentalist movement got caught in the trap.

Hold companies responsible. Do your own thing that makes you feel better, but even if everyone in this comment section went full-on vegan, we wouldn’t put the tiniest dent in the emissions of one individual company—and not even a big company, like, a small-to-medium sized company.

Think about your grocery store. How many people that shop at that one store would have to go vegetarian before they changed their order? And how many stores would have to change their orders for the distributor to order less from the supplier? And how many different regions would need all of those people to all stop buying meat before the supplier put out less meat?

Now punish one company for what they’ve done. It’s in the news, the investors change their tactics, an entire industry could shift with one prosecution. This debate is beyond silly. It’s not individual responsibility. We didn’t cause it, it’s not on us to solve it. We couldn’t if we all tried. This entire community could go vegetarian and not even move the needle.

EXACTLY. The personal carbon footprint thing was literally made up by oil industry publicists. It wasn’t part of the discussion, the blame was being laid squarely at the feet of the companies who were destroying the earth for a buck. But lo and behold, here come the publicists and the entire environmentalist movement got caught in the trap.

Hold companies responsible. Do your own thing that makes you feel better, if everyone in this comment section went full-on vegan, we wouldn’t put a tiny dent in the emissions of one individual company—and not even a big company, like, a small-to-medium sized company.

Think about your grocery store. How many people that shop at that one store would have to go vegetarian before they changed their order? And how many stores would have to change their orders for the distributor to order less from the supplier? And how many different regions would need all of those people to all stop buying meat before the supplier put out less meat?

Now punish one company for what they’ve done. It’s in the news, the investors change their tactics, an entire industry could shift with one prosecution. This debate is beyond silly. It’s not individual responsibility. We didn’t cause it, it’s not on us to solve it. We couldn’t if we all tried. This entire community could go vegetarian and not even move the needle.

##THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS NOT OUR FAULT, ITS NOT OUR FUCKING DIET’S RESPONSIBILITY TO FIX, GODDAMMIT. STOP TALKING ABOUT OUR “CARBON FOOTPRINT” (a term and concept invented by BP publicists) AND BREAK GODDAMN INDUSTRY INTO PIECES SMALL ENOUGH TO FUCKING FLUSH DOWN THE DRAIN

If every single person went vegetarian, we’d still be in deep shit. And it’s not our previous meat-eating that’s responsible. It’s the companies that have buried, obfuscated, lied, and manipulated everything and everyone for a goddamn century. And they’re still getting away with it with articles like this.