The best thing that the average person can do is to stop reproducing. No, it won’t save the planet or anything. But will prevent them from being victimized.
A handful of people are slowly killing over 8 billion people, but we're expected to sit idly by and let it happen
Submitted 7 months ago by ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 7 months ago
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 7 months ago
thats why you should have the rick and morty version of the PURGE planet.
AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
If someone stopped them, it would be self defense IMO
jsomae@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
There are some people working on fixing that, but most people don’t take them very seriously for some reason.
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Like I always say if you eat enough rich people the other rich people might think the money isn’t worth their lives anymore and we could get back on track in the progression.
uhdeuidheuidhed@thelemmy.club 7 months ago
Exactly.
Billionaires should fear for their lives every day.
asg101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
“The Earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”
~Utah Phillips
Inb4 pedant quibbles that “the planet itself is not dying.” Yeah, but we and our fellow creatures are. It should be understood that is what Mr. Phillips meant.
LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
That handful of people also know how to make an uprising difficult, they realised tiktok was dangerous because people could (and were) using it to inform people about stuff behind the veil they’ve constructed using their media monopolisation. People were showing war zones atrocities in real time, conflicting with the handfuls narrative, so they hostile takovered it, like the do everything else they want to use to serve their narrative and further their interests. There’s power in boycotting, and block lists, but when they monopolise and cause manufactured high cost of living to force you to give them your money (serve them in slavery) it’s pretty hard to boycott. I often switch between two daydreams, one where I Thanos them out of existence, and the other where us 8 billion people combine to form “people of the earth” Chuck in a dollar each and systematically buy up all our politicians so they serve us again. Then we all collectively buy everything and share it, so everyone has the basics to be able to live comfortably. Every billionaire is unethical. They’re the ones causing destruction of our planet. We kinda need that! If it’s not prolonging fossil fuel use and mining, it’s creating “ai” that burns triple the power of the whole UK in one data centre. Like fuck!
Side note ai is tripping me out, a little. There doesn’t seem to be the costs associated with the levels of usage costs it generates, it’s also super not capable of what they’re trying to use it for, are they all just super fucking stupid, or is there some nefarious under plot going on?
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 7 months ago
They don’t even want to talk about the fediverse, because they know how much of a threat it is to their power structure.
uhdeuidheuidhed@thelemmy.club 7 months ago
Tiktok banned accounts that were saying 9/11 was caused by US support of Israel and citing Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to the American People.”
We’re being herded like sheep.
Every time I see a useful idiot recommend proprietary social media, I immediately think “oh, another dumbass that doesn’t realize what’s going on. Sad.”
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 7 months ago
We get the shitty version which is just an unreliable shortcut to wikipedia. Meanwhile, they get the real stuff making military plans in the background
nathanjent@programming.dev 7 months ago
Matrix films: The machines turn humans into batteries. More realistic: The rich humans turn the poor humans into batteries for the machines.
vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
AI seems to be the only thing propping up the American economy which is essentially one giant pump-and-dump scheme right now.
It’s not actually supposed to lead anywhere, just make a few people a ton of money on the road to enshitification.
surph_ninja@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You don’t have to convince all 8 billion people to put a stop to it. It’s just a few thousand evil people. Even a fraction of a percent of the people would be enough to put a stop to it.
garbagebagel@lemmy.world 7 months ago
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 7 months ago
You are not expected to sit and let it happen, that’s what the handful wants you to do.
Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Isn’t that what usually happens with humanity?
the current god pantheon does something that kills billions. Everyone cheers and worships the gods.
Repeat and profit
hancock@retrolemmy.com 7 months ago
Well, sad reality is a good percentage of 8 billion people are cheering. They dont understand it or are in so deep in whatever propaganda they believe in, have made they apathatic and or just defeatist.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 months ago
‘Cuz they all think they can win the lottery too. Or if someone sets up barriers to prevent wealth from being absurd that somehow the regular person doesn’t get any money or has to live in Soviet Block housing or something.
MarriedCavelady50@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
It’s the 0.1 percent being supported by the 1% who are a lucky day away from joining them, and the 9% who live pretty good lives as rewards for helping the 1%.
Pyramid scheme all the way down
uhdeuidheuidhed@thelemmy.club 7 months ago
Yeah, I know people who are in the top 10% and they take pride in looking down on everyone else poorer than them.
It’s a big reason why I don’t think the wealth cap and reclamation should stop at billionaires.
hancock@retrolemmy.com 7 months ago
I am talking about bottom ones who are working there ass off neck deep in debt. Who are not benefitting anything but still cheering them making there own pride in religion or straight up licking ass of likes of musk on social media. Personally ive been very demotivated (not defeated) as i try to explain the situation and dangers of insta to my school buddies only to meet with my brain exploding logics and ignorance.
Perspectivist@feddit.uk 7 months ago
Because of climate change? That’s not even on the ballpark when it comes to the worst case scenario estimates of the excess deaths because of it. No wonder young people are so stressed out…
mang0@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
“You have to respect the democratic process, otherwise you’re literally a terrorist!”
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 months ago
While ignoring that fact that the American democratic process was started by terrorists.
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 7 months ago
Also don’t forget that since the Citizen’s United supreme court decision, oligarchs are able to funnel as much money into election campaigns as possible.
It’s not even democracy when people votes can be bought.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
No, they were freedom fighters because we agreed with them.
DonZatch@midwest.social 7 months ago
You’re only expected to “sit idly” by the people who want you to stay out of the way. Ideally, you should be expected by society to organize and speak out against it. But getting a bunch of people to organize and fight back is difficult.
smol_beans@lemmy.world 7 months ago
People have organized and spoke out. At this point I feel like the only practical option is to [redacted]
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 months ago
The system has trained the peonies to push down any peon that voices any complaints. They all believe that they have a plan and their plan will take them to retirement and anything else isn’t their problem.
Zolidus@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Ribbit…ribbit, ribbit
theneverfox@pawb.social 7 months ago
Fun fact… Frogs will at some point realize they’re in pain and jump out, no matter how slowly you raise the heat
Maybe it’ll be true in humans. Any day now…
tisktisk@piefed.social 7 months ago
Is it getting hot in here or is it just me, ribbit?
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 7 months ago
While us poor saps blame each other and tell the other to use paper straws.
This is why I’m honestly done taking any blame for the environment. I can conserve and become the Greta Thumberg of environmental causes and a billionaire will undo my work with one weekend getaway trip.
You want to help the environment? Start building gallows for billionaires
toad31@lemmy.cif.su 7 months ago
Guillotines are too quick.
I hope some heroes torture these oligarchs to death so they can at least experience a fraction of the pain and suffering they’re causing billions of others.
ameancow@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This is why I’m honestly done taking any blame for the environment.
Why were you ever “taking blame” for the environment and what does it mean to “stop” doing so?
Serious question, because this sounds like the excuse my hick neighbor used to use for dumping used motor oil directly onto the ground so I wave fingers at this kind of rhetoric.
Just because corporations are the primary offenders, doesn’t mean you don’t have responsibility or accountability for at least the most basic measures. And more so, the accountability for allowing corporations is squarely on us as people who feed them massive amounts of money and then complain there’s no alternatives.
My suggestion for both helping the environment and ending billionaires is the one nobody wants to hear: stop spending so much money. Especially if you live in the EU or America, your money is the most valuable currency in the world, and every time you buy the latest model of iPhone or order Doordash, you’re harming the world and paying for the next CEO’s weekend getaway trip.
It’s far to much to expect any kind of actual “revolution” to take place. We could literally cripple capitalism overnight with a general strike, but nobody wants the inconvenience. So the next best thing is we start hoarding money away from the grips of these liches and undead dragons.
Juice@midwest.social 7 months ago
start building gallows
Just no. Join an org, get involved, learn to organize. During the French revolution the guillotine didn’t overthrow the aristocracy, they were mostly used on other peasants. What actually worked, was taking their shit.
You are right to want justice, but building gallows is what they will do, its their twisted justice. “When education isn’t liberating it is the dream of the oppressed to become the oppressor.” We have the ability together, although difficult, to create a more just world. Destroying the material basis for their class, the ownership of the means of production, is the only thing that will can make this possible.
Join an org, salt a union, get involved. Its messaging like this that makes the left completely unpalatable. Wanting justice is good, but we can only have it if we come together as a class to defeat the rich as a class.
Time to take it to the next stage. “Building gallows” won’t do shit, might as well eat pudding about it. There is only one thing that has ever worked against them, and that is organization and withholding our labor power. In 1935, after the national strike wave that brought the US to its knees, we got our new deal. Next time, there will be no deal. We are taking the power and we will never give it back. And we will use it to build a better world.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What orgs are out there building gallows?
Because this isn’t going to be fixed without bloodshed and I’m sick of wasting my energy helping treat the symptoms of this system when they just keep getting worse. We need a cure, not just treatment.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Im old, im past all that other stuff like protesting and joining groups. It never works or helps. I’ve become a bit of an anarchist in my older years as I realize humans just self sabotage and refuse to change unless they’re forced to. I know that a perfect system is impossible and that getting even a good system is too far from where we are. So you go ahead and organize and waste time and one day you’ll be old and go “i should have built gallows when I was young and didn’t have everything to lose”
Or go ahead and organize and do your thing and be peaceful and positive and pretend that’s all it takes, while some of us want to make them see their own blood and have them run for their lives and know that both sides are necessary. We can both be on the same side but I am done talking and sending letters, all we need is a proper leader to give us the go. I may not be a soldier but I’m a good handy man and can build some structures and human sized spits for the billionaire roast
ghost9@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No you’re supposed to thank them for it
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 7 months ago
By giving them all your money.
Strider@lemmy.world 7 months ago
We’ve been doing that for quite some time now (beginning from industrialization? Early knowledge about the environmental impact)
remon@ani.social 7 months ago
I’m pretty sure I’m not currently being killed. Also life expectancy is still rising and people are getting older then ever. Doesn’t check out.
Quazatron@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You’re being pumped full of microplastics, the climate is being shot so you can make funny AI memes.
But glad you’re feeling fine. Keep at it.
remon@ani.social 7 months ago
Go think back just any amount of years and check if you’d be off better.
Or you you know, keep whining while shitposting from the toilet about how terrible you have it.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
That tracks, you’re fine so everyone else is, right?
remon@ani.social 7 months ago
Yeah and so are the majority of the other 8 billion.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Be the change you want to see. Make sure you’re legally armed and be ready to defend yourself and friends from neo nazis.
FireRetardant@lemmy.world 7 months ago
There are many places you can’t be legally armed. In Canada for example firearms are legal for hunting purposes, but even using one for genuine self defense will lead to lengthy legal battles at best.
thedruid@lemmy.world 7 months ago
one gets attacked, one uses what one has to defend themselves . That way one lives long enough to see court.
CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Then sit there, do nothing, and be a forced bottom.
There are plenty of ways to defend yourself without guns and explosives.
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
“A handful of people”?!
Come on, about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions come from flying. Amd that’s done almost exclusively by the common folks, not the tiny minority. A kilometre by train causes 99 % less (electric) or about 70 % less (diesel) emissions per kilometre than an airplane does, and is a viable way to travel, but people still fly. Because they prefer being assholes and kil their own children if not doing.so would inconvenience them evem just a little.
Similarly, feeding one person with red mean causes about as much greenhouse gas emissions as feeding 10 vegetarians. No need to go full vegan, but decreasing consumption of meat would make another 10 to 20 %. And then there are the private cars, something in the ballpark of 5 %.
About a quarter of oyr greenhouse gas emissions are caused.by things that.are completely unnecessary. Yeah, at the moment all of those three would be inconveniences, but only because others don’t do the same. High-speed railways take less resources to operate per passenger and reach about half the speed of an airplane (if you take time spent at airports into account), but the service is unusably.bad because everyone flies. And all the nice ready-made food is meat-based, because the other stuff doesn’t have enough markets and is therefore too expensive, thus staying on the shelves And also, public transit is not comfortable because it isn’t used by the rich, so there’s no motivation to.keep it at the level it has in Switzerland, where even the richest typically commute by train.
The greenhouse gas emissions.don’t need to be brought to zero fot us to.survive. We common.folk have the capacity to lower them by almost a fifth, which makes a huge difference in pur future Yeah, the remaining 80-ish % is in the hands of the few, but in this case even our 20 % is relevant enough that your excuse is appalling.
remon@ani.social 7 months ago
Come on, about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions come from flying.
Where the hell did you get that absurd number for?
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Frome some people who are trying to defend flying. I’ve assumed their numbers make at least some semblance of sense for their argument.
But true, it’s too high. It’s more like, 10 to 15 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from tranportation come from aviation. Which is still significant, but indeed more like 2-ish % of all greenhouse gas emissions. Still, it’s one of the sources easiest to mitigate. Agriculture causes over a quarter of all emissions, so that would be the most important thing to look into.
But also, it’s common to only look at the amount of carbon dioxide coming from the exhaust, while planes are problematic largely because they happen to travel at the altitude where their emissions hurt the most. As almost any sources I can find put the aviation’s share around 10 to 15 % of transportation’s emissions, and it has been so commonplace to ignore the altitude where planes travel, maybe the real number is more like 3 to 5 percent or so?
ChaosCharlie@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
You’re right, it’s actually the poors fault! Lol /s what a stupid fucking take. Thanks for adding the same thing to the conversation that oil lobbyists were saying in the 70s
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
The oil lobbyists have been saying since the 70’s that they are responsible to the biggest share of greenhouse gas emissions?! Please show me even one place where they’ve made that claim.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
So because we can account for 20% of emissions ourselves we shouldn’t bother going after those responsible for the other 80%?
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I find it hard to believe that emissions would drop by 80% just by getting rid of all the billionaires. Or did you mean all of Western civilization when you said “those responsible for the other 80%”?
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
Why do you think we shouldn’t? (Or, alternatively, how do you come to a conclusion that someone thinks we shouldn’t go after those responsible for the majority of emissions
Your thinking is extremely foreign to me and I would be interested in hearing your reasoning!
crandlecan@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Yes please, but not before we perfected humanoid servants and the trillionaires are done with the preparations of their lairs.
Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Musk claims the have been people trying to kill him, so perhaps at least a few of us have their priorities in order.
Mike_Hunt@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Always makes me laugh that musk is so surprised people want him dead, He was using his child as a human meat shield and there is even video proof of him abandoning his child when he fell down some stairs.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Dunno about you, but I wanted him dead when he started throwing Nazi salutes.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Here’s hoping they succeed.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 7 months ago
He’s apparently started his own security company so odds are improving.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 7 months ago
They’ll succeed somehow. Even the awful people who died a ‘natural’ death tend to die an awful death because literally nobody wants to treat them properly.
uhdeuidheuidhed@thelemmy.club 7 months ago
I don’t have any expectations of any of you.
If any heroes want to take matters into their own hands and deliver some vigilante justice to these parasites, I’d support them.
We can’t use the system to fix the system.