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Real change isn’t at the polls
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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The only system that doesn't create any new problems is one that's static. Humans aren't static (we're born, we live, we die) and we live in a non-static environment. Unless you manage to completely isolate us from our environment & take away all our free will, you'll never build a system that doesn't create any new problems.
If you cant or dont want to see the reoccurring elements of the listed problems, then we probably cant find a common ground in this.
The biggest recurring element of the listed problems (at least 3/4): we didn't know about the problem when we started using the stuff that caused the problem.
How does any other system fundamentally solve this without completely banning research & development?
Probably by just taking some time (and yes I am talking in the time frame of years) for testing, evaluation and centering humans & earths needs when deciding on how to go forward. Very few innovations tackle so pressing problems, that they have to get mass adopted asap.
You could have spent a century testing CFCs in a lab environment. The problem they caused with the ozone layer would still not have become apparent until CFCs were used in the real world where they could interact with the ozone layer.
There is no amount of testing and preparation that can account for every possible outcome or interaction.
Asbestos is another good example. It is naturally occurring and quite common and was used as a building material for millennia. It is lightweight but strong, flexible in thin sheets, and fireproof. It's an extremely useful and versatile material, and abundantly available.
It wasn't until the 1900s that medical testing linked asbestos fibers to several health risks. It basically required the entire history of human development for our medical technology to identify the danger. No amount of testing, analysis or review done prior would have mattered.
Okay. Congratulations, your system failed, because some of those issues take decades to manifest.
Thats quite the logical leap. As far as I can see none of the examples tackled issues that were actually a threat to the existing system. Waiting on them would most likely saved more people from hurt / death than just doing the FAFO approach.
Alright, but we don't know which things will be dangerous decades into the future before we actually test them that way. So how long then do we have to test anything new before it is widely available? 50 years? 100?
Please consider the following:
How did early humans find out which food sources were safe to eat, and which were not?