Distributed as in non centralized. Many people feel like there is nothing they can do to contribute to meaningful change, especially with how spread out Americans are, but surely there has got to be something.
Using the trend of blocking traffic as an example, I think a coordinated effort to not just block a highway in one city, but to block state routes and other arteries in many places would be more effective. Instead of one city having bad traffic for a day, it would be many towns and it would be harder to dismiss as a local problem if people across the states are engaging.
There does seem to be more overlap in our assessments than what I normally see in these kinds of debates: opposition in good faith is practically unheard of, so I’m quick to just point out fallacies and post fairly bluntly in a way that’s more addressed to any potential lurkers than the poster I’m actually replying to. I’m not getting that vibe from you, so fuck yeah I’ll cool it down!
Honestly the ‘any kid could be Hitler’ thing is kind of moot. All that’s saying is that the parent isn’t in absolute control of how their kid turns out. But let’s ignore that and pretend 100% of good parents result in children who grow to be good adults. I still don’t see that making a difference. There are so many bad parents cranking out children who grow up to be bad adults that it’s a losing battle either way. That ratio is exaggerated in people who are in positions of power: turns out it’s really difficult and really rare for a decent person to acquire one of those positions, be it political, military, corporate, financial, you name it. So individually, raising a kid to be moral in a world where evil excels is setting them up for some extreme frustration; and on a larger scale, the odds of that kid growing to have the desire and means -and community support- to make a meaningful shift in things like civil liberties? It sounds like a heart warming movie, but not at all something that can realistically happen.
Is that cowardly? It might be… it is admitting defeat, and defeatism can definitely be a form of cowardice. I don’t see it as an act of faith though: faith is belief without evidence. To the contrary, we unfortunately have an abundance of evidence pointing toward governments around the globe shifting to authoritarianism, civil liberties evaporating, hatred of outgroups becoming the norm and even celebrated, wealth gaps widening, and environmental feedback loops pushing the global climate closer and closer to the limits of supporting human life. And none of those things have we collectively stepped back and said “well shit, we really need to start fixing this” - instead we’ve slammed down on the metaphorical (and literal) gas pedal such that those things aren’t just worsening, but that they’re worsening at an accelerating rate. If you see a car straight-on approaching the edge of a cliff at 90mph and accelerating, and it’s a hundred or so yards out, it isn’t exactly an act of prophecy to claim that it’s about to hurl itself off the edge.
I’m not sure. Neither? Both?
There’s a distinction between reproduction categorically, and the choice to reproduce. We’ve already bashed heads over that. What bothers me is people who choose to reproduce without any real thought into what that means for the life they just created. Anecdotally, even my own parents have berated me for denying them their grandchildren, and denying myself and my wife ‘life’s greatest joy’. I’ve finally gotten them to fuck off after repeatedly telling them to stop being selfish or telling me to be selfish; and that I love my unborn child far too much to bring them into the hellhole of a planet we’ve built for the next generation.
…but reproduction categorically? Well, like you said there are a lot of folks who aren’t actually in a position to make a choice. I still fear for their children, but I have nothing against the parents who are put into that horrible position.
I’m not sure what you mean. Real-world, effective strategy to do what? Turn humanity around and fix our dying planet? It’s a nice dream, and I’d absolutely love to be wrong here, but again the real world trends are accelerating toward that cliff.
Real world strategy to reduce suffering? Well, you know my stance on that already: don’t choose to have kids.
Accounting for those inconvenient things is what landed me in this opinion in the first place. I don’t say this as an insult or point of aggression, but I really do think you’re projecting. I don’t see a rational basis for optimism. Frankly I’m a tad jealous of that optimism even if it is irrational… basing my worldview on current events certainly isn’t doing any favors to my mental health.
Disagree on that last bit, but I can shrug it off as a miscommunication. That aside, again I’m not really sure what you mean. I understand sanctity to mean holding religious value, or holy. I don’t personally believe in any of that, but that isn’t exclusive to morality or values - there is absolutely a framework. There’s also a lot of overlap - for many, that framework comes from religion. But concepts like good and evil, moral and immoral, etc can and do exist in a secular context as well. It used to be my belief that the majority of people are overall good; but that evil people have a tendency to rise to positions of power due to being okay with advancing themselves with unethical actions. That second bit still appears to be true, but as for the majority of people being good bit… well, the 2016 election was last bullet in that liver, with the corpse of my faith in humanity further perforated in 2024: it isn’t just one evil dipshit on top oppressing the masses, it’s that a solid third of the masses fucking love that evil dipshit for the evil dipshit things he says and does. Another third of the masses is maybe not cheering the fucker, but are so apathetic to that kind of evil taking power that they couldn’t be bothered to do so much as color in a quarter-inch fucking rectangle in opposition to that possibility. Genuinely good people are a minority; and genuinely good people in power are a unicorn.
So, there’s the grounds for my conclusion. Evil is the norm. The only realistic path ahead of us I see is the continuing degradation of our rights and quality of life until our planet is pushed beyond the conditions that support human life. This will take generations yet, but that’s barely a blip on humanity’s timeline: we’re a hundred or so yards out from that cliff, and now’s not a great time to be adding passengers in the hopes that they’ll grow up and figure out how to add wings to the car before it hits the ground.
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Full time surgical tech by day, part time nursing student by night, here. I get it. I 100% shouldn’t be doing these lengthy writeups either lol. Doing it anyway:
Oh, if an absolutist statement in response to very high or very low probability is a hangup, then that explains a lot of why you’re taking issue with my posts. Nothing is certain in an absolute sense. If that car zipping toward the cliff’s edge starts some kind of professional-tier driving maneuver right now where it skids to a 180° turn and uses the full force of the engine to apply force in the opposite direction, then yeah, maybe it’ll have a chance at not going over the edge. But when we’re talking about about the statistical equivalent to a miracle, I’m confident in using absolutist language to say that won’t be the case: the car will go off the edge, even if “will” in this case is only 99% or w/e certain.
To the contrary, I’d argue that making a decision based on that fleeting possibility of a perfectly executed turnaround to be an act of faith, as it’s in blatant disregard to very well documented trends.
Disagree. I’ll put my nurse hat on for this one: interventions in healthcare are typically made with the goal of being curative or at least stabilization to set the groundwork for what will later be curative. But that’s only when the patient’s condition is one that can plausibly improve. There comes a point where your body is so fucked up that we literally stop attempting curative interventions. And that absolutist response happens even when there’s still a tiny chance at turning that patient around: we don’t attempt curative interventions all the way up until you die. When you’re a hundred or so yards out from that cliff, we put you on hospice so you can live out the tiny remainder of your life in as much comfort as possible.
Humanity is our patient. That patient has not been compliant with the healthcare plan that could have saved their life, and the condition is now so unstable that further interventions are exceedingly unlikely to work. It’s time to go on hospice.
Reduction of suffering is both a real-world strategy and a moral choice.
You appear to be projecting again. Your stance is clinging to a hope based on the tiny possibility that humanity will deviate from the trends that have culminated into our current state. That is wishful thinking. Optimism. My assertion is that the trends we’ve observed will continue: much like the object in motion that stays in motion, our trajectory will remain unchanged unless we apply an opposing force of enough magnitude to turn us around - and so far humanity has not shown any willingness to do so. A minority of us have expressed the desire to do so, but that isn’t going to cut it.
Climate data and global political trends are not anecdote. I’ve only brought anecdote into this conversation a single time, which I prefaced by specifically calling out as anecdote.
No. Humanity as a whole, including its governments, corporations, and individuals would need to unify under the goal of, at the very least, stabilizing our climate. That would give us the time we need fix the other shit like civil liberties. Not only are we not doing that, we are actively accelerating in the opposite direction.
Very low. The problem isn’t that humanity doesn’t have the power to turn this around, the problem is that it’s refusing. I can’t quantify that any more than I could a type 2 diabetic subsisting on a diet of candy bars and soda: I can scream about how each mouthful is pushing them closer to a death that they’re already standing on the edge of; but this just amuses them because they think it makes me a ‘triggered lib’ or some shit.
That is a false dichotomy. My conclusion is based on the empirical data of climate and political trends; and the moral preference of not willingly subjecting anyone to that cruelty.