I don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand, it makes for less of an echo chamber. On the other hand, their thoughts are fucking stupid and it hurts my brain to see them.
I mean, I think they're definitely still in the minority. It seems like there's a larger proportion of them here than on reddit. I see more of their opinions here. Maybe that's just how the algo works here regarding upvotes & downvotes and how comments are displayed.
It’s worst on lemmy.world I’ve noticed. Beehaw was right to defederate. Y’all need to tell them in the kindest possible words to go die over and over again until they don’t come back or you’ll end up like voat.
Happy to have them here. I almost never agree with them, but not only is it good to have your opinion challenged (though often wearying to have to repeat yourself), it's good for THEM to have their opinion challenged too. Maybe only 1/100 will change their opinion after being challenged and seeing that their opinion is very much in the minority, but that's 1/100 more than if we were all chatting away in a safe space with no opposing views.
(and to be clear, no I don't think shit like nazis, devout racists etc is an 'opposing view' that deserves any debate)
Yeah. I hardcore disagree with conservatives as a libertarian socialist myself, but I always want to hear what people who disagree with me (and people who agree with me) are saying, and engage in civil conversation with people who actually believe what they say.
The problem for me comes when shills (people who don't believe what they say but get paid to say it) come into the conversation, or when people use outright disingenuous arguments (usually strawmans).
You very well may be correct, but I always like to assume people are good and are arguing in good faith until proven otherwise.
If I can "steelman" (opposite of strawman) their position, and argue against it easilly, I see no reason not to do so, and that also makes for a better argument for other people viewing the comment thread who may believe the false notion that climate change is either fake or not caused by humans.
To me, trying to argue that climate change is fake or not caused by humans is the same as trying to argue that the Earth is flat. Very easy to debunk.
If they actually believe it, I would like to argue the factual point, which is very easy to do. If they don't believe what they are saying, then yes, I have a problem with it.
There is plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that climate change is real and that it is caused by humans. If they choose to not listen to evidence and hard facts, then they lost the debate. If they say that big money funded those studies, simply point them to the Big Oil-funded studies claiming that climate change is false, and the fact that they originally found that it was true, and then tried to bury it.
No, but it takes a person to control a company. A Person to direct the goals of a company.
So I guess Tim Apple is somewhat involved if there is innovation or not.
Man I am kinda sorry, that I invade your worldview.
But rich people don’t have all their money stored in a vault like Dagobert Duck. It’s all stocks.
And boy, if one of the companies make losses, then their money goes downhill. It’s volatile.
And due to immense concurrence in innovation in the tech sector, every investor has a huge interest in innovation.
And with many investment, the start of a company is ensured.
The current capitalism is the system that works best.
Especially the US capitalism is one hell of a driver in innovation.
I live in Germany and many companies wouldn’t be possible here. Even though we have capitalism, it’s much softer than its US counterpart.
The downside of course is poverty for cheaper labour.
And that’s brutal, but it’s the reality we live in.
Though I wouldn’t want to live in the US without healthcare, on the counter side I wouldn’t want to start a company here in Europe.
UserDoesNotExist, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this website is now dumber for having read it. I award you one downvote, and may God have mercy on your soul.
My dude, your argument boils down to "this is the way we've always done it so this is the way it must be".
Have you considered the possibility that if innovation were to slow, and companies DIDN'T insist on quarter-after-quarter growth, the world might just continue to turn? That while the richest individuals may be slightly less rich, the vast majority of people would continue their lives with no negative consequences?
Do you not understand the system at live in is actively dooming us all? Why are you so vehemently defending it? Especially when you can acknowledge that other systems can exist?
Why would you think that companies going bankrupt is somehow worse than people being increasingly unable to live.
The demand side of the economy is the consumer population. The consumers decide what they do and do not want to purchase, therefore driving demand.
"Infinite need" implies that infinite supply could exist, or that infinite growth is sustainable, both of which are not true. Infinite need also doesn't exist.
I will argue that people (for example) needing clean water increases the demand for clean water. This is why companies like Nestle are profiteering off of selling bottled water, and why the CEO said that water should not be a human right.
Wait. But someone has to bottle the water, right? Or is nestle supposed to do it for free?
Furthermore they have to compete with tap water. So the value of bottled water can only be the water itself + bottle + energy used to fill bottle + interest because their “service” is not for free. There is a justified interest to make a profit from one’s efforts.
I give you that. Just a few were directly involved in innovation.
But the rich do quite successfully create the framework conditions for innovation and development.
Mostly driven by profit, but a world based purely on goodwill fails at the first doubter, the first who does not want to participate.
So capitalism is what we got. And so far it has proven to be more resilient than other systems.
Even if they're right — which we all know they are not — it wouldn't matter. Climate change is going to devastate human life if we do nothing. If, somehow, the source of the warming wasn't human-caused, we'd still need to find a way to counteract it. It's not our fault doesn't prevent it from being our problem.
"Ok, then let's prepare for the inevitable, strengthen infrastructure, prepare for mass migrations, improve our crops to sustain bigger variances in weather, evacuate people from flood danger zones, ensure our supply chain doesn't collapse, fund poor countries so they can survive better, etc. You know, prepare for the crisis"
I had a guy tell me once that maybe climate change is just the Earth getting closer to the sun, and we should send an astronaut up to the Hubble telescope so they can look through it and measure the distance to the sun....
I've known this guy for over a decade, and it's not that he's stupid, he's just completely ignorant about climate change and doesn't put in any effort to learn about science.
It's not happening.
It's happening but it's all cyclical.
It's not cyclical this time but it's not our fault.
It's our fault but global warming is good ackshually.
Global warming is bad but there's nothing we can do about it.
We could do something about it but it's too expensive/late.
Maybe it's not too expensive but THE CHINESE!
That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
(no not all conservatives/climate change deniers are narcissists but the overlap is interesting)
There's a lot of money pushing this idea. I live in a certain US state where an organization has been paying to have billboards up that push this idea for years now.
The most terrible thing is that it's a half truth. While yes plants grow better with increased CO2, the downsides are so destructive it is not at all beneficial.
If you're based in the UK, then all you can do is smile at the shit we have to deal with government-wise. If you don't laugh, you'll go mad, kinda thing.
That 'Four Stage Strategy' is horribly, horribly apt even today.
I've found a clever way to counter those folks is to say, "you might be right, and as the apex species it's our moral obligation to seize control and protect the natural order of things for as long as we are able to slow the coming of hell on earth. Just like our right to shoot guns. Yee haw."
What I hear some acquaintances say is like "who cares, I'll go to the beach, turn the AC on, what's the big deal" .
As if the floods we had in Italy this year, or the wild fires, or the storms, or the draughts, or the Alps without snow, the glaciers disappeared, the sea turned green, the invasion of jellyfish weren't connected.
Some people, most people, are just too fucking stupid.
To be fair, I think both sides blow it out of proportion and that can stifle discussion. It won't be the "end of the world" where everyone will die, but we will have the "end of the world" as we know it.
I think one of the main points that need to be stressed to the kind of people in your example would be droughts.
Droughts will continue to get worse and will affect everyone. With a bad enough drought, we won't be able to feed entire cities. And that's when things really start to fall apart.
Yeah, people expect the earth to suddenly start cracking and spitting out hot lava or something.
No, it's gonna be a slow, steady march towards the end, just as it always has been. Slow enough that we feel like we can put it off for another day.
Slow enough that one day we will look up from our phones, see the oceans of fire and shrug. Too late now, just switch on the AC and go back to scrolling.