I agree. Biden’s presidency was the biggest lost opportunity of my lifetime for exactly that reason.

FDR responded to a similar global challenge - the Great Depression - by transforming the American government to serve the needs of struggling Americans - and the American people rewarded his courage and vision with overwhelming support when he ran for his second term.

Biden? Barely tried to improve America. And everything he tried failed. He couldn’t even reduce student loan payments. And when Harris had the opportunity to break with him and fight for her own vision of what America could be, she either had no vision of her own or was too afraid to fight for it.

The American “left” is terrified to promote anything more than a return to the Obama-era status quo. But if they don’t find their vision and courage the United States is guaranteed one party Republican rule for another generation.

I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we’d need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.

The back of the envelope calculation says if everybody on Earth lived like an average American we’d need the resources of about four Earths to cover it:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712

That being said, from the same source, if everyone on Earth lived like an average Indian we’d only use half the Earth’s resources and could support twice as many people.

So it’s not about the number of people - it’s about the standard of living those people have and the resources they use.

I think the most effective way forward is more efficient and sustainable lifeways - if the richest countries learn to consume less, if people around the world get access to better technology and better institutions to raise their standard of living without raising their resource consumption.

And it’s interesting to note, the better off people are, the fewer children they tend to have. If we improve people’s lives worldwide, a steadily declining population will be a natural side effect.

An incredibly difficult goal, of course, but worth pursuing.

In addition, I find it rather hilarious that someone seriously thinks humans procreate because of long term thinking 😅

I mean, kids are a lifetime investment. Most people think about whether they can afford to feed and educate their kids over the next few decades, and what kind of life the kids will have after that. In countries without social safety nets, children are often the only retirement plan. I think the decision to have kids (or not) is the longest term planning the average person will ever do.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily good planning, but it’s certainly thinking long term.

With that being said, I think this article isn’t claiming not having kids is a problem in itself. It’s a symptom of the real problem - despair for the future.

People choosing not to have kids for positive reasons? Because they have a vision of the future with a lower population and choose to live their values? Great! No problem there.

But when people choose not to have kids because they think the world is collapsing around them, that they can’t give children a good life, that there’s no hope for the future and it would be immoral to expose a child to the coming tribulations - those decisions are made because people give up on the future.

The despair is the problem - the decisions made out of despair are just the symptoms.

And it’s hard to motivate people to work for a better world now when they have no hope for a better world in the future. If we’re all doomed anyway, why not burn all the oil you want and let the fascists take over?

Of course it’s satire. I’m kind of shocked how many people don’t recognize it as satire.

Most of the public opinion on this isn’t former through personal conversations with climate activists. It’s formed through mass consumption of the media, and the information environment currently maintained by the corporate media environment will never allow for that much context.

I agree. But this mass consumption trickles down. Alex Jones or whoever spews climate bullshit, and your conservative relatives internalize it, and then repeat it to other family members and spread it further.

If you’re a climate activist, maybe you have a big enough platform to challenge media directly - the left has been absolute shit at mainstream social media and if they don’t mount a successful challenge to alt right dominance of the Internet we’re fucked.

But even as just an ordinary person who cares about climate, you’re going to hear people in your family or community repeat the propaganda. And that’s your chance to push back.

This is true for all conservative propaganda, not just climate.

But specifically regarding hypocrisy, I think the most effective response is to, in fact, engage in individual actions that live your climate values. Reduce your carbon footprint. Eat more plants. Take public transit instead of driving.

These are examples of possible actions, not specific mandates. If you can’t take public transit for whatever reason, don’t. But do something. And be prepared to talk about it.

You should do that so that if you are accused of hypocrisy you can push back and say “no, I live my moral values, and here’s how.” And climate activists should do the same, and publicize it, so when they are attacked by bad faith conservatives with false accusations of hypocrisy they can push back. And you can speak up in their defense when people around you attack them.

Even if they understand it, they certainly don’t care about it enough to vote based on it.

One of the ugliest victories of modern conservatism is rooted in the fact that this is wrong.

Because Americans do care about hypocrisy and morality.

And conservative media has convinced half of America that all politicians are corrupt, and liberal politicians are more corrupt than conservative politicians, so that the left has no moral basis to accuse the right of corruption.

American conservatives ignore the left when the left accuses the right of corruption, because they’ve been convinced the left is thoroughly corrupt and it’s hypocritical of them to call out corruption in others.

So when Trump is accused, rightfully, of nepotism and bribery and an overwhelming amount of obvious public corruption, American conservatives ignore it. Because American conservatives believe Trump is only doing, openly, what every politician has done secretly. I mean, how the fuck can Chuck Schumer accuse Trump of, say, insider training, for swinging the stock market with ridiculous tariff announcements and retractions, when Chuck has been insider trading on secret Senate information for decades?

And because American conservatives see left-wing politicians as corrupt and hypocritical and dishonest, they happily ignore every accusation they make her against Trump.

That’s why Bernie and AOC are so popular right now, because they have reputations for living their values, so when they go out and flip their shit about economic injustice, people listen.

Harris, during her campaign, tried to publicize a coalition of “good billionaires” support her to challenge Trump’s bad billionaires. Which, I’ll admit, is Harris living her values. But her values are shit and she lost for it.

Anyway, yeah. It’s because the American people care about hypocrisy that conservatives feel free to ignore criticism of Trump’s corruption. They think the liberal politicians accusing Trump are just as corrupt, if not more.

And the only solution to this is restoring honor to the American political system - getting a left-wing politician, or a coalition of politicians, that are widely seen as trustworthy and incorruptible, to lead the American left, instead of the usual DNC corruption and fuckery. And after the shitshow that was 2024 I’m not sure where someone like that will come from.

Problem is that no matter what you do or excuses you give, critical trolls can always point to something you can do better.

Absolutely. People who don’t argue in good faith won’t argue in good faith. Responding to such people in public is not about convincing them - it’s about swaying the audience listening to your conversation.

The people we want to convince are the people who want to argue in good faith, who care about understanding reality and doing the right thing, and who aren’t climate experts themselves so have to choose what experts to trust.

Those people are actually swayed by those bad faith accusations of hypocrisy - and can be swayed back by proof that you (or whatever climate professional is under attack) is not a hypocrite and is making a good faith effort to do the right thing.

I think this article identifies a genuine problem but comes up with the exact wrong solution.

The problem is accusations of perceived hypocrisy. Climate opponents claim that climate professionals aren’t living their values. They dictate rules for living to others that they don’t follow themselves. This makes climate professionals look dishonest and untrustworthy, and is used not just to discredit individual advocates but call all of environmental science and policy into question.

The solution the article suggests is to stop accusing climate scientists of hypocrisy because we all have to live in a broken system. Which is absolutely true. We do.

However. The people who accuse climate advocates of hypocrisy aren’t going to listen to that.

Here’s the way I see it. In the conversation, we have climate supporters, who believe in the science and want good climate policy; climate opponents, who want to block good climate policy; and undecided people, who don’t know about the science and/or don’t have strong opinions on policy.

Accusations of hypocrisy against climate professionals come overwhelmingly from climate opponents. The purpose of these accusations is to sway undecided people, who don’t know much about the science and who give more weight to the perceived trustworthiness of climate professionals, and their fellow climate opponents, to discourage them from listening to climate professionals and possibly changing their minds.

And then people who hear these accusations repeat them to their friends and neighbors and family. And if people have friends or neighbors or family who they personally know aren’t living their purported climate values, those accusations start sounding even more credible.

Look. The average American is not an expert on climate science. The average American doesn’t understand, in detail, the data and the sources behind the data. In order for the average American to believe in climate science, they need to trust climate scientists to be honest and provide truthful data.

The average American does understand hypocrisy and morality. And when climate professionals are credibly accused of behaving in ways inconsistent with their stated values, that harms Americans’ trust in the climate science.

Telling climate opponents not to accuse climate professionals of hypocrisy is pointless. They do it because it works. They will keep doing it because it works. Because their goal is to block climate policy and they’ll use whatever tools they have to do that.

Which is why, I think, it’s important for climate supporters - especially climate advocates - to live their values as far as they can, and to be able to talk about how they live their values. And when they’re not able to live their values - for instance, climate advocates needing to fly around the country for political rallies to build collective action - they should be able to explain why they’re not living their values and how they’re trying to make up for it in other areas.

So that when some friend or family member repeats a “gotcha” like “but you flew to Dublin for an environmental conference, lol” you can respond with “Yes, and I offset that consumption with x, y, and z, and I signed a petition to make next year’s conference virtual, and” etc, etc, etc. Show that the environment matters to you morally and that you are trying to do the right thing. Not only does it deflect the accusation of hypocrisy but it makes you appear more credible on the science.

It may not seem like it in the current political climate, but honesty still matters. Consistency still matters. Honor still matters.

And whether you’re Taylor Swift, burning enough jet fuel to heat a small country, or Joe Public the EPA paperwork drone, leaving your car running in the driveway for twenty minutes to warm it up before work, your personal consumption does matter. And the example you set to people who know you matters even more.

I think AI regulation is a great example of what I was talking about in my comment (and thanks to OP for the shout-out).

Banning or regulating AI takes collective action.

But (fantasies of green authoritarian dictatorships aside) we can’t enact collective action without public support.

People who use AI regularly, who rely on it for their jobs or hobbies or side hustles, or who just enjoy the “convenience” of asking ChatGPT or Google a question and getting a clear simple (often wrong) answer, who are afraid of AI regulation because it could take away tools they use, will be more likely to side with Big Tech out of self interest.

People who don’t use AI won’t suffer any harm from AI regulation. They don’t have to choose between their personal benefit and other values, like the environment, or user privacy, or how easy it is to exploit AI for harmful ends. And because they won’t be afraid AI regulation will harm them personally, they’ll be more likely to support regulation and less likely to buy into industry propaganda.

So the more we encourage people to make the individual choice not to use AI, the more likely collective action regulating AI becomes.

And of course telling people the reasons they shouldn’t use AI personally also helps motivate them to vote for AI regulation - and if the reasons are compelling enough, people will share them and spread them and build the anti-AI movement even larger.

I think that’s one of the reasons Big Tech is so aggressively shoving AI into every product. The more people use AI as part of their everyday activities, the more they rely on it, the less likely they’ll be to support regulation.

This is Trump’s strategy too. Make a brutal enough example of a few universities, or law firms, or immigrants, or other countries’ economies, and the rest will comply in advance. Like Trump said in his West Point commencement speech recently: "As much as you wanna fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just wanna look at them and have them fold.”

Reminder: Ender Wiggin is not a fucking hero.

To paraphrase, I think, Mark Twain, it’s hard for someone to act intelligently when they get paid for acting like an idiot.

And yet again a simple, easy, common sense climate adaptation is blocked by a tiny group of people who make money doing things the old way and can afford lobbyists to keep it that way.

Fuck capitalism.

Agreed.

This is a literal “no ethical consumption under capitalism” moment.

I have to buy food, I have to buy clothes, I have to buy all sorts of stuff, or I die naked and starving - and the only power I have is, in some limited cases, I can decide who I give my money to.

And in this moment, both the feds and red state governments are eager to persecute companies with, let’s say, politically incorrect viewpoints. Companies that continue to promote those politically incorrect viewpoints, despite the threatened consequences, are preferable to companies that bend the knee and kiss the ring.

Even if it’s just corporate virtue signaling. Even if the only value behind it is profitmaxxing. At a time when LGBT+ people are being silenced and driven back into the closet and are afraid or unsafe to be themselves in public, people benefit from seeing that fucking signal.

Yeah, that’s definitely a camping/survivalist/prepping question and outside my expertise. I suspect it’ll take you a long time to learn to be “comfortable” living that way, though 😆

poVoq linked an article from Low Tech Magazine, which is a great resource for low energy sustainable living. I wanted to highlight this older article from them, too:

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-get-your-apartment-off-the-grid/

It’s not clear to me, from your post, if you’re thinking about making a home/apartment “off grid”, and limiting your powered appliances to what solar power can cover to prepare for future disruptions to the power grid, or about living outside a fixed dwelling and using portable solar to power a few accessories like a portable induction stove. This matters because solar panels are bulky and batteries are heavy - charging a laptop and phone is trivial with a man-portable setup, but a solar generator capable of boiling water and cooking is not going to fit in a reasonably sized backpack 😆

If you’re thinking about “bugging out” or “going off the grid” in the survivalist sense, living with only the equipment you take with you, you might get better answers on equipment from camping and survivalist forums.

On the one hand, yes, it does.

On the other hand, I don’t want to hear it from an AI content farm.

And when Kamala had the entire DNC establishment behind her, what was stopping her from distancing herself from Biden? What was she afraid of?

My guess? The entire DNC establishment wasn’t behind Harris. They were behind Biden, and supported Harris as Biden’s successor rather than on her own (nonexistent) merits. She hadn’t earned their support, and knew it.

Exactly. And the Democrats made it even worse for themselves by claiming there was no economic crisis - that Biden had beaten inflation, beaten unemployment, and claims of a bad economy were just Republican propaganda. The American people looked at their paychecks and grocery bills and called bullshit. Harris was right that Trump would govern as a fascist dictator with Project 2025 as the roadmap - but the Democrats lied to America’s face about the economy and that made everything else they said sound untrustworthy too.

If the Dems had taken America’s economic struggles seriously, Harris would be President now. But Biden refused to admit his economy was bad and Harris didn’t have the guts to contradict Biden. And here we are.

Unfortunately not. She’s already moving to run for governor of California in 2026, as a platform for another 2028 Presidential run.

Was it really an imaginary rule? I think it was Original Sin that talked about how Biden made his support for Harris contingent on “protecting his legacy” - ie, no criticizing Biden, no claiming she would do things different than Biden.

Edit: the claim comes from “FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House”:

But the day of the debate Biden called to give Harris an unusual kind of pep talk — and another reminder about the loyalty he demanded. No longer able to defend his own record, he expected Harris to protect his legacy.

Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so. He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him.

“No daylight, kid,” Biden said.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5191087-harris-trump-biden-harris/

I see your argument being brought up all the time - it was especially common a year or two back when the 15 minute city had a moment among conservative conspiracy theorists. “But what about people who like to live in suburbs?” “How dare you force people into filthy crowded crime ridden projects?” “Do you want to live like a poor?”

And my response is, people who don’t want to live in those dense walkable urban communities don’t have to live there.

Even in an idealized sustainable civilization where neighborhoods like the one in the video become the model, there will be other types of communities.

Here’s the thing. Life is a series of tradeoffs.

People want the big home, lots of space, and no neighbors, and also want all the benefits of dense urban centers - jobs, stores, services, community, etc.

And that’s what gave us suburbs, and urban sprawl, and car culture, and unsustainable mass consumption to fuel all those individual daily commutes from the urban center to the suburbs.

Because what we traded for the current American civic model, which lets wealthy people have both big houses and lots of land and all the benefits of densely populated urban centers, was using enormous amounts of land, and energy, and resources of all kinds, to build and maintain unreasonably large sprawling megacities, and the transportation infrastructure for daily commutes, and the fossil fuel infrastructure to fuel all those commutes, and so on and so forth.

But that’s not sustainable. It’d take the resources of four additional Earths for everybody to live like a suburban American. And the more climate change (and the attendant economic upheaval) impacts our resource acquisition and supply chains and so on, the harder it’s going to be to funnel those resources to the cities. The suburban/urban sprawl model is on its way out.

So how does one live in a city and get all the benefits of living in a city while consuming a sustainable amount of resources?

The tradeoff for a sustainable urban community is losing the suburban “bedroom communities” with the big houses and the daily commute and the unsustainable consumption. If you want the benefits of city life you have to actually live in the city.

If you want to live with a ton of space and live sustainably, on the other hand, there are rural communal models that allow that.

But the American car-centric urban sprawl lifestyle has an expiration date. If we don’t give it up willingly, geopolitical realities will put an end to it sooner or later. And accepting we can’t maintain the privileged lifestyle we’re used to is something we’re all going to have to do sooner or later.