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?
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.
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!