Comment on YSK that apart from not having a car, the single greatest thing you can do for the climate is simply eating less red meat

• rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Yeah, it’s a problem. Our society is only sustainable to the extent to which we capture externalities through regulation and taxes, and efforts to undermine that entire concept is infuriating.

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  • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    It’s more that under capitalism, regulations and taxes only serve the bourgeoisie. It isn’t that the concept is being undermined, it’s that those are sold to the working class as a viable solution to avoid actually solving the problem.

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    • rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      You keep focusing on capitalism, but I’m working a little more generally than that. Any system that has markets would have the same issue, even anarchist ones. There has to be some feedback mechanism to reduce negative externalities on the commons. A centrally planned economy would struggle with it, as well as a fully distributed one.

      We shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. We can do a lot of good with well thought-through taxes and regulations, and while it may not be ideal, it gets us toward a better world, a more sustainable world. We live in a highly dynamic system, and perfection is likely impossible and must take into account human irrationality.

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      • Cowbee@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        I’m focusing on capitalism because we can’t let the progress we can imagine be the enemy of the progress we can actually achieve in the real world. Just like going up to Elon Musk and asking him nicely to not be a Nazi isn’t a viable solution to systemic issues, so too is trying to use regulations against the system they are meant to solidify and protect. Socialism is necessary because without it, we can’t get these well thought-through taxes and regulations to begin with, we are utterly at the mercy of profits.

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