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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 8th, 2023

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  • No, there is no upper limit to suffering.

    If one person has been killed in a fire, that’s bad. If the fire killed two people, that’s worse. If it killed 100 people, that’s even worse.

    There is no magical point where you say “Oh, there are 42 people that we could rescue, but we won’t, because 600 people have been killed already and that somehow makes the rescue pointless”.

    If we can reduce suffering by just a bit, and delay the worst just a bit, then it’s worth it.





  • So it’s best to be a bad example? Why wouldn’t people then say “If very rich nations can’t even do it, then poorer nation surely can’t”, and suddenly nobody is doing anything?

    Also: If you’re a developing country, why would you try to buy technology from 50 or 100 years ago? Why wouldn’t you buy low-cost technology of 2023, e. g. solar power? I don’t see the rock-solid connection that you are assuming.

    Also: are you saying “developing countries might, in the future, emit lots of CO2” is an excuse for the current worst polluters to just continue? Would you accept it if I’m a serial robber and used the excuse “I expect a large number of poor people will commit a lot more robberies very soon”?


  • A few years ago, FFF were dangerous, lazy idiots blind to reality who just want to skip school and who scare people unnecessarily.

    FFF today is often portrayed as moderate and reasonable.

    Why the change? Does FFF now seem acceptable because they are relatively quiet and marginalized and clearly no threat to the status quo?

    Suppose theoretically, FFF held the same large, constant demonstrations as they did a few years ago. Suppose they looked like they could actually influence politics. Wouldn’t they again be seen as suspicious and impossible to support for decent reasonable people?


  • Support may have halved, but I can think of several possible reasons.

    Maybe people decided it’s a lost cause, we’re on the sinking ship, and why not enjoy it while it lasts.

    Maybe people realized that they would actually have to take moderate cuts, instead of just talking, doing little, and continuing as always (electing conservatives and neoliberals).

    Maybe people fell for “Bild-Zeitung”'s campaigns (“a fraction of heating systems need to be changed out, with government financial assistance, by the year 2044” being portrayed as basically “the Green minister wants to forbid you from heating your home, starting next year”).

    Maybe support wasn’t that sincere if it collapses that easily.

    Maybe the last 3 years are not that different from the last 30 years. The rhetoric “please please think of how your children will live” in the last 30 years has impressed about 1 in 5 persons, but not more. 4 out of 5 just don’t care.

    Maybe the surveys only got support because they presented the issue as “you won’t have to do or pay anything or have any inconvenience”.

    Etc.