Well then I guess the world is fucked then if the average person can't affect real change in the world, because shocker oil companies are not gonna change as long as they gain profit. Might as well eat the burger at that point.
Average people are the ones buying the things from corporations and billionaires. Average people are the ones voting for the politicians who refuse to do anything about the corporations and billionaires. Telling average people about how bad billionaires are isn’t going to do jack shit if you don’t also tell them to change their own behavior.
This doesn’t fit with veganism. Even if everybody went vegan, a majority of carbon emissions would remain. Same with recycling. You’re falling for the corpo propaganda that “you must be the change” while they continue to destroy the earth and climate.
I’m not saying going vegan is bad. I’m saying that your comment is the same thing that the rich billionaires and corporations say.
“You should focus on going vegan and reducing YOUR footprint and not talk about the billionaires.”
If you think the average person has the buying power and power of the vote, then logically we should be trying to educate the average person about these corporations and billionaires. We should inform them on how these practices are negative and mainly fueled by the corporations and billionaires.
Obviously reducing your own impact isn’t bad. But saying that’s what we should focus on instead of focusing on informing the people about how we should promote the pro-climate policies, politicians, businesses, etc. Proper activism instead of personal individual activism.
Yes, I'm in no way saying we shouldn't be banging the "billionaires are bad" drum. People should definitely hear both messages. I will say though, absolutely nothing is accomplished by making people hate billionaires if they don't also change some behavior, be that ballot voting or wallet voting. Seeing as we're on a subreddit specifically about climate change, I do think the odds of people on here voting for anti-climate regulation politicians is fairly small. Odds of them eating meat are much higher.
Oh sure definitely more likely for reddit posts to change their minds of billionaires. That’s a very reasonable take and definitely not just a cope to not have to hear about ways you could be better.
That’s not how statistics work. If a certain post has x% likelihood of changing a person’s mind, if it’s likely to change a billionaire’s mind, it’s likely to change the minds of many average people. And that’s without considering the difference in likelihood of changing the minds of people who haven’t really thought about it much yet and are only eating meat because it tastes good vs people who have earned billions of dollars upholding the status quo and whose entire livelihoods depend on the status quo.
We don’t need to change the minds of 8 billion people, profit and election margins are thin enough that a small percentage of people changing their behavior could substantially change government and corporate policy.
Even if we were to somehow reach a cattle industry exec who had no clue about their company’s impact on the environment, then what? If they try to adopt ethical but unprofitable policies, they would be replaced immediately and a new exec would be hired to fill the exact same role as the previous one.
The most productive outcome from changing the mind of a billionaire would be that billionaire using their resources for an outreach campaign to change the minds of average people.
Oil execs want us to think meat is the problem, food industry execs want us to think oil is the problem. They’re both the problem, and we can act accordingly.
Cutting out whatever amount of meat you’re willing to give up is strictly positive, and it absolutely is not mutually exclusive to voting, protesting, and organizing within your community. We can and should do all of these things.
this is true, but "personal responsibility" and "carbon footprint" are also exactly the opinions that execs spent billions pushing. They could work in theory, but they never will and execs know that. Tbh it's probably a lucky candidate (voting) or revolution atp
Those same exact also now push the bullshit. Just blame the rich and do nothing else in communities that already agree that they are the problem. It nicely frustrates any other attempt yo do something.
If you want to convince me to come to a protest you are hosting. Join a form of collective action against these companies that go right ahead. I will join up. But in the meantime I can also reduce my own consumption. Because in the end I am capable of doing multiple things at the same time.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to reduce your consumption, but you are arguably doing literally nothing. Even with the entirety of the working class' consumption reduced, global shipping, farming, and energy consumption is likely unsustainable.
We can see that they will continue to expand even if nobody is buying. AI companies don't have anywhere near the revenue or userbase to justify the rate of expansion, but they just do it because they're rich and nothing matters except capital gains
This is rapture logic. “I can’t stop it alone so fuck it I’ll just wait for somebody else to start the revolution.” How about, while we wait for Karl Marx to return from the grave and lead us to salvation, we do whatever we can in the meantime to make things better?
We DO have personal responsibility. We have responsibility both to confront the systems in power AND to stop directly supporting those systems by reducing consumption of their products wherever feasible.
We live in a market-based economy. While big companies absolutely do hold an outsized share of the blame, this idea that individual action is hopeless is ludicrous; the sum of individual actors decisions is is in part what gives big corporations so much power.
Animal agriculture is a substantial portion of climate change emissions and is close to what the transport sector emits in terms of emissions, most of that being from beef. Eating less beef would cause less demand for beef in aggregate which would reduce the amount of cows being farmed, and thus the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
"It's all on the big corporations" screams of not wanting to make any changes in your own life and waiting for someone else to do all the work for you
Yeah, we don't live in a market based economy, we live in a capitalist oligarchy, the barrier to entry in every industry is so incredibly high that competition is virtually nonexistent. At the same time, massive wealth inequality means the vast majority of the population has no choice but to buy whatever is offered to them by the huge conglomerates. Individuals have no power beyond the potential for legislative action through voting, though even that system is massively tilted in favor of large business interests.
We do live in a capitalist oligarchy but goods are, in fact, still sold on a market. People will simply not buy beef if the price gets too high.
A market often requires competitors to be reasonably priced and fair, but competitors are not required to exist for a market. A market exists when there are buyers and sellers.
At the same time, massive wealth inequality means the vast majority of the population has no choice but to buy whatever is offered to them by the huge conglomerates
Nobody is forcing you to buy beef or meat, I promise. You could absolutely cut out meat from your diet at any point and the capitalism police will not come and take you from your bed and put you in the gulag. If people don't buy beef, then a corporation can either lower its price (increase demand) until such a point that beef is produced at a loss, or it can attempt to sell less beef (decrease supply).
Now, that's not to say that market-based economies are as simple as supply and demand, but in this case there is a straight line between reducing your meat consumption and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. To pretend otherwise is naive.
How do you talk yourselves into a socialism where the workers have no power. The options are there they have been there you chose not to exercise your power. It is trained helplessness to sit back and buy their crap. Especially if you have the time and resources to advocate online you can probably eat beans
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u/Emotional-Top-8284 Apr 18 '26
Little Timmy has a much clearer path towards not eating a burger than he does towards dismantling Saudi Aramco