this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Imagine you're in a room and someone is pumping some gas into the room. SSsssssssssssssss.
The people pumping in the gas say "don't worry it'll be ok, just keep on doing your work, trust us!" But the smartest people in the room all say "yeah... that's gonna kill us eventually."
One guy starts kicking at the vent the gas is coming from.
Another guy says "keep that racket down! I want to be a good boy and get my work done!"
Who is the reasonable person in this scenario?
The reasonable person is the one who realizes they're all brainwashed into allowing themselves to be murdered and runs out of the room. Even the guy who kicks the machine is damning himself because the others are programmed to turn on him when he does, stopping his efforts and distracting him, guaranteeing he'll suffocate too.
It really would be better for us just to leave and start a new country elsewhere, or at least shoot the people pumping in gas from afar.
I fully agree with the sentiment... but I'm also not sure kicking at the vent will do much to stop the room from filling. To solve that I think we'd need to tackle the larger forces creating a situation where someone somehow benefits from the absurd situation of pumping gas into this hypothetical shared room....aka economic system.
Let me fix that analogy. Imagine everyone in the room is pumping varying amounts of gas into the room and if they suddenly decide to stop, a significant number of people in the room are going to die.
Now sure, people are going to die anyway, but humans tend to be a lot more comfortable with the negative consequences of inaction than the negative consequences of action.
But pumping the gas is the action, and stopping is inaction.
What would it require for people to restructure modern society in a way that would allow humans to stop producing greenhouse gases? A lot of actions. We can't simply "stop" without the widespread availability of alternative technologies for energy production and transportation.
We are already allowed to stop. Turning on a machine is an action. We don't need more technology to stop using existing technology.
It sounds like your concern is more systemic than the literal action of polluting. In which case, the action we're currently taking is legal protection of polluters from people who would defend themselves.
Sorry if this is putting words in your mouth, but we aren't entitled to all the same stuff we have today, at the cost of destroying the climate. We're essentially stealing from future people.
Certainly not the person who keeps blaming the underpaid worker for the gas leak instead of the billionaire who owns the building.
So you think the reasonable person is the one that wants to sit around debating who's fault it is while gas is still pumped into the room is the reasonable person?
We shouldn't damage that gas pump because an underpaid worker installed it? We don't want to be a nuisance! SSSSSSssssssssssssss.....
What if that gas allows everyone in the room to function and when it stops they all either die or fight for the limited alternatives, that fight releases far more gas than would have been released over the next five hours and kills all the people working on opening the window and making alternatives who would have been finished with in the hour?
Your metaphor only works because it misses out all the important bits.
You've just proven that you don't understand how metaphors work. Congrats!
Ha ha ok sure if that's what you went to pretend
Your mistake is to assume everyone is on the same level, having access to the same amounts of resources. The guy asking you to let him do his job is doing so in order to survive. He doesn’t think four generations ahead. He barely thinks four meals ahead.
So the guy working to survive is the reasonable one, whilst people with no food, power, living, clothing, infrastructure, or any real form of insecurity, who ask them to start kicking the vent are just too obtuse and unaware of the real world to start thinking about reason.
Global warming is bad. Your kids crying themselves to sleep because of hunger is worse. I don’t care what your argument is. It is worse. So stop attacking people trying to survive, and start looking for alternatives before asking people to give their lives up, for your kids future. Be less selfish.
Holy fuck, you're actually defending someone blind enough to allow themself to be murdered with poisonous gas.
There's no way you aren't either some concern troll or a paid shill.
Worse: saying people that are trying to get by without any help from privileged folks (spoiler alert: those few quid you gave some NGO is being used in its majority to pay for wages in your own country) are “shheeple” is the apex of stupidity.
And criticizing people for pointing pity the flaws in your reasoning just shows how obtuse “green” people actually are. We have to fight global warming, but it does not start by having a Tesla. It starts by having viable alternatives, that are affordable to everyone, so a transition is possible.
So yeah, let’s make tons of noise around ending fossil fuels with an electric Volvo, Mercedes or Audi in the garage. Let say nuclear is as bad as fossil, while we’re at it, so we can show how truly stupid we are. Let’s have less ways for poor people to have food. I am sure Bill Gates will take care of the tab.
Sometimes I wonder if people actually are this stupid, or are just doing it for internet clout.
Lol nah, I am one of the working class and it's obvious you're just playing victim because the truth is, you like the system and refuse to believe you're actually being oppressed.
Meanwhile, that gas is leaking into the room. SSSSSSssss....
The guy trying to break the vent is one of your fellow victims too. He works hard to try to survive. Yet you are completely merciless toward him simply because he recognizes the boots you lick are the problem and you don't.... so where's his pity? Where's his sympathy? Where's his wall of text with motte and baileys subtly defending what he's doing without outright saying it?
A few of your fellow hardworking victims have already passed out. The brown ones in the south corner, do you see them? A few of them are clawing at the windows trying to break them. Don't think they'll disturb your work?
What if the men in the scenario busted into the room with machine guns and announced to everyone that they're going to systematically murder everyone inside, including you?
Will you get mad at the working class guys who turn over the desks and throw chairs at the mooks with guns to try to save their own lives? Or will you tell them to shut up and stop disturbing you too, as mooks walk desk go desk and shoot you in the back of the head?
😆 You're such a bootlicking sap. You absolutely do not deserve any sympathy from me and you won't get any, nor will arguing about whether you deserve it or not stop me personally from breaking those windows and climbing out, the other guys from breaking the vents, or the gas from slowly leaking into the room in the meantime...
SSSSSSSSSssssss....
But maybe the gas has already affected your brain, so there's no point in arguing with you. Maybe that's the real moral.
Congratulations, my “working class” friend, for your rant!
Hope you got the kick you needed out of insulting someone, as if you knew me, where I am from and what I am talking about, like probably you do regularly on social media.
Meanwhile, let the grown ups do the dirty work, so you can say your Tesla is the way to go. I am glad my existence makes your arrogance possible. Sleep well. There is no reasoning with obtuse.
SSSSSSSSsssss....
crack crack CRACK!
The rest of us are over here breaking the windows and smashing the vent while you're too busy getting angry at us for disturbing your work to notice you're delusional from lack of oxygen, and about to pass out.
SSSSSSSsssss.....
I know. Grownups are having to fix everything those pesky kids keep braking, in order to keep them in their sheltered existence. But hey, maybe someday those kind will learn how to think. Who knows? We keep trying to educate them.
CRACK! And now that window shatters.
So you now admit you're helping the ruling class murder us. Well, that's one way to finally be honest.
The rest of the intelligent people climb out the window
Here's the kicker though: while you're helping them trap us inside the room slowly filling with poison gas, remember they never gave you an oxygen tank. They're killing you, too.
And I flip you the bird as I, too, climb out of that window.
Can you hear that? Men with guns are stomping as they rush to the room, only they're not there to stop us and save you. They're there to kill you and pursue us.
Have you ever felt hunger? Have you ever seen someone beg you for food? Not someone approach you in Times Square, Piccadilly Circus, Champs-Élysées, or whichever privileged place you are from, in order to make a buck, but see someone weak from actual hunger? Have you seen that?
I am all for green energy, and God knows I want us to stay away from fossil fuels.
But going “yeah, let’s end fossil fuels, and then see what happens to fix it ” is being very cavalier about ending millions of lifes, making billions suffer all around the world, so you can say you’ve done something good in your privileged community, go to the country club, opera or whatever and boast about your achievement.
But hey, you won’t be affected, so who cares, right? Let the poor eat brioches!