this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
482 points (94.8% liked)
solarpunk memes
3307 readers
186 users here now
For when you need a laugh!
The definition of a "meme" here is intentionally pretty loose. Images, screenshots, and the like are welcome!
But, keep it lighthearted and/or within our server's ideals.
Posts and comments that are hateful, trolling, inciting, and/or overly negative will be removed at the moderators' discretion.
Please follow all slrpnk.net rules and community guidelines
Have fun!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Precisely my point. Even if recycling is a corporate propaganda to shift blame to consumers and the majority of plastics do not get recycled, or that saving water is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of water lost to pipe leaks, it is still better than doing nothing.
Would these doomers have preferred if they had done nothing at all?
The reason the corporate propaganda to shift blame works is because you are spending your energy worrying about and debating it and telling people that every drop counts rather than doing the far more effective work of organising and fixing the actual problem which is the fact that capitalism is destroying our ecology.
They know it works, they've reused the same playbook for every major ecological disaster, and it keeps working, because we're here chastising each other to just recycle, just save water, just reduce your carbon footprint, just don't use plastic straws, and on and on and on, instead of organising a real solution.
And in case anyone asks whether you can do anything to change the capitalist hellscape that we're living under, I would give your own logic back to you - every little bit works towards the solution. Build local solutions, build mutual aid, wean yourself and your community off of dependence on capital and the state, build mycelial networks of resistance, and you might find that you're less alone and more powerful than you realised before you did this.
I didn't mean to say otherwise in my initial comment, but that is what i am trying to say. It is a collective effort-- all from all individual effort, from your neighbours, to yourself, to companies, to politicians, each of which combined together progress towards a meaningful path. We all have to hold each other accountable. It has not come perfectly of course, but at the very least there is some move towards combating climate change, which is better than doing nothing.
My comment is towards those who resign themselves to apathy when they find out that saving water doesn't do as much or what they put into recycle bin turned up in landfill. These little things are better than doing nothing at all. Some people have a notion that they are some sort of superhero. That's why I hate the phrase "hero of your own story. No, we are all just mere humans doing what we can to survive and help one another.
Can you explain what you mean by "hold each other accountable"?
Funding for global climate change has no oversight and is rife with corruption.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-finance/
A lot of the funds go to strange projects, such as building luxurious hotel with solar panel, and even fossil fuel plants that are somehow considered green.
Nicaragua was right not to sign the 2015 Paris climate deal because they correctly believe it doesn't go far enough. Governments, businesses and people have to be held accountable if we are serious about this.
Okay, when I talk about mutual aid and mycelial networks of resistance, I am talking about materially undermining those institutions that you seem to think we can hold accountable.
States & corporations are not going to do their part. I am talking about fighting a class war. They are not on our side in any way.
All this talk about everybody doing their part to recycle or whatever is part of the problem, because it distracts us. Instead of fighting against them, you seem to think they can be brought to heel, that we can work with them. That's simply never going to happen.
While I agree that corporations are scum, we still need some form of governance to manage and actually implement net zero emissions on a global scale. If you are advocating for anarchism, I have a bridge to sell.
I share the same disdain of authority as you, but I would be an anarchist if I weren't a social democrat.
I am advocating for anarchism, which is the basic principle that we should liberate ourselves from structures of domination by building horizontal power structures that undermine them.
There really is no reason why dominance hierarchies need to be involved. There are plenty of places in the world where horizontalist power structures have displaced the state, and many, many more where the mycelial networks of resistance are growing but are simply not yet openly visible. There is someone local to you who you could join and improve life locally now, and begin laying the groundwork for liberation. I can almost guarantee it.
If you advocate for the state, then you are advocating for your own domination by something you yourself have admitted is corrupt. If you ever think these corrupt structures whose whole purpose is to disempower you can be used for good, then you might be the bridge buyer.
Anarchism sounds great if you're a college freshman, but in reality that will devolve into even less progress than we currently have. Obviously there's no perfect solution, but anarchism has never and will never work at any kind of scale that matters. We need to purge the corruption from our current system and heavily reform it, but at the end of the day it's going to make more progress than a bunch of screaming college kids.
Oh wow "anarchism is for babies lol" is definitely something I've never heard. That's devastating, I'm going to completely change my whole political outlook.
There are plenty of examples of it working at scale. Let me know if you want more information.
I would love to know where it actually worked at scale, because I'm at least decently well educated in history and I've never heard of one instance. The key word here is "scale" by the way, it's important how you define that.
Rojava. CNT FAI historically. The EZLN is horizontalist, although they do not describe themselves as anarchist but as an indigenous movement.
Millions of people in each.
The reason that these ideally anarchist societies (I say ideally because in theory that is how it should work) only developed is because they live close enough to each other to form similar culture and values.
However, you would notice that these ideally anarchist societies are being oppressed or at war with a bigger other societies. It is a common observation as to why anarchism won't work. A bigger and more war-like society will always try to bully and fight another society if the latter is deemed weak. Like I said on another comment, this is literally anarchism in action.
I concur with the other person that it has to do with scale. Groups living close together may develop ideally anarchist societies. But if you are from such a peaceful grouping and go far enough, the other group from afar may not share the same values as you. Tribalism is still a pervasive natural issue after all, in spite of humans doing all we can to deviate from what we might consider flaws of evolution.
Which groups? What are you talking about? Do you mean the EZLN and Rojava which have successfully resisted the attacks of much larger states and also have millions of people and are still functioning right now?
What do you mean that they're small and local? They cooperate with one another and act in solidarity across continents. Rojava hosts and benefits from the help of many thousands of international volunteers. Is that what you're referring to?
What the actual fuck are you talking about? Explain yourself. Literally give me one single fact that explains this claim you've made.
And also, are you actually curious to understand what I'm saying here, or are you just trying to tell me I'm wrong without listening? Because I'm noticing a pattern here in the way you're ignoring what I'm actually saying.
Anarchism by basic definition is a collective of self-organising society. What do you think nation state governments are?
This is wrong on every point.
Your definition of anarchism is wrong.
Nation states are not anarchistic.
Nation states are not "self-organising".
Let me know if you have any actual questions about any of this.
Anarchism assumes independent, self-organising societies working together on mutual understanding and cooperation. What do you think nation states are and doing now?
Just like communism, anarchism sounds good in theory but in practice does not work and empirically deviate entirely-- almost perversely different from the concept. They only work on a small scale with people of who are like-minded and similar culture to respect each others boundaries. Issues as wide reaching as climate change requires global scale solution; and not everyone thinks the same. It doesn't matter if you and I organise locally, if groups on the other side of the world are not pulling their weight to combat climate change. Going back to my initial comment, sure we both save water, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to what is lost to pipe leaks or even other people using water excessively and needlessly. As we speak, some people in Arizona and China are playing golf, and golf parks always need constant watering. Those gallons water used in golf parks could be used to something more productive instead. Good luck with your community telling Arizonan and Chinese golfers to stop wasting water. I am guessing you did not even read the article on rich countries giving money to poorer countries to help mitigate the climate change, but poorer countries spend them elsewhere, even though they are the ones who beg for funds to help with transition to clean energy.
Maybe anarchism on global scale will work one day (I sure hope so), but it will take probably couple of hundreds of years of advancement in technology and communication to allow for cultural exchange that would permeate across the world, and thus lead to having a common global culture to facilitate the system. But at the moment, anarchism would not work to solve climate change. That is literally what is happening right now.
Nations states are dominance hierarchies, they are not self-organising and they do not depend on mutual understanding or cooperation. They depend on establishing a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Look at any law in a nation state. Push hard enough against it and you will find the barrel of a gun.
These laws are not established by consent, they are established by a ruling class that is mainly beholden to wealthy and powerful interests, far more than it is beholden to the rest of the people. That is not cooperation. There is science to back this up if you want it.
Anarchism is working in plenty of places where it has displaced the dominant state, and apart from that there are many groups that are absolutely "pulling their weight" as you call it.
Look at indigenous land defender movements all over the world, they have as a key part of their movements environmental conservation and combating climate change. In my country Gurridyula is an indigenous black rapper who sings about the years he's spent with his group living out on the land keeping the coal company Adani from mining there. He's fighting legal battles on one side and literally facing up against massive groups of police on the other. Is he pulling his weight? The state is trying to force him off his land so they can mine for more coal to drive climate change.
This is a common thread in decentralised resistance groups everywhere.
People aren't stupid, if we didn't have states sending cops to oppress us and physically stop us from tearing these corporations to pieces we would've done it long ago. The idea that you need a state to convince people to work in their best interests is absurd.
The fact you don't know about this resistance is emblematic of hierarchical programming. There is a lot more out there than you realise. I tried to tell you that, but you just keep on insisting that it simply doesn't exist. It's really strange.
There is a tipping point on the way. Two years ago most people didn't know what the fediverse was but it's slowly spreading, like a mycelial network of resistance, and now John Oliver is talking about it. Once it gets to some percentage of mainstream adoption I think it's going to tip.
Anarchism follows the same strategy. Did you know that federation as the fediverse practices it is literally an anarchist method? That practice of federation is how local cells link up and support one another.
So if you want an example of anarchism working, just look at this platform.
A drop in the bucket, which is fully comprised of drops ;)
"What is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?"
Definitely one of my favourite quotes.