this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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You're absolutely right. They aren't cartoon villains. They're just rational agents acting according to very real incentives.
But where do these incentives come from? They depend on how we choose to organize our economy, what guiding principles our society follows in how to distribute resources, and harvest them from the environment.
They come from our economic system. Our economic system is capitalism. And one of the many, many problems with capitalism — it can't fucking slow down. In the eternal chase for greater and greater quarterly profits, there is no room for questions such as "is this growth sustainable?" or "I know there's demand for this, but should we really be doing it?".
Pointing fingers and blaming people is, indeed, a waste of energy. Instead, it may be better to ask: "How do we incentivise people to change their behaviour? What about our system needs to change? And how quickly can we dismantle the oil companies?"
We can't incentivize people to change their behavior because no one is going to deliberately lower their quality of life.
What politician is going to win on a platform of...
Let's make air travel so expensive that normal people can no longer regularly fly!
Vote for me I'm going to double your electricity bill!
You know that big SUV you love that is entirely impractical but you just like it because of how big it is... If you vote for me I'll make gas $7 a gallon so that you can't afford to have a giant SUV anymore.
You know how you like to eat your Taco Bell nachos in your car with a plastic spork... If you vote for me I'll replace the plastic spork with a cornstarch spork that starts to melt when you use it.
The only thing that is going to save us is technology. Like air travel being fueled by biofuels, electricity costs kept somewhat normal by building new nuclear generation, giant SUVs being powered by batteries charged by nuclear/renewable energy, actually recycling the plastic spork.