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Samizdata quote of the day “If we want a more sustainable world, achieved through and driven by popularised digital technologies, we need to reframe the conversation and make it less about depriving ourselves of the things we like.”
Liat Clark, Wired magazine.
Indeed. It is easier to persuade people of your point of view if it can be shown in a positive, life-affirming sense rather than a gloomy one. Even where I find myself agreeing with environmentalists on certain issues, I find the coercive, “let’s ban it and tax it” stance taken to be a turnoff.
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It’s a bit early in the morning for me to figure out exactly how it relates, but look at the reaction when you try suggesting the government welfare state isn’t sustainable.
There’s also a mindset that in order to achieve what is perceived as morally good, you have to suffer, or at least people have to suffer. (The leaders of such movements are quite good at rationalising the suffering to people other than them personally). Doing good in a way that also benefits you personally is cheating, somehow.
The difficulty here is that those pushing for the bans on grounds of health, Gaia, Warble Gloaming, polar bears and all the other cause celebre of the modern bansturbator are just the excuses they use to get power over people they typically despise as plebs.
This is why we must have small government and low taxation, to prevent the state being used as a platform for moral tyranny against the people.
Mr Jennings, do you mean Christianity? For it is such a movement.
I wasn’t thinking of Christianity particularly. There are certainly schools of Christian thought that hold this view, but there are others that don’t.
“just the excuses they use to get power over people”
This. It really is just this. None of the catastrophe brigade are giving up anything themselves despite the imminent danger they tell us we face, it is much more important to get the little people to give it up.
Want to do “10:10”? just drive your car 90% of the distance and walk the rest, or take the battery out of your phone for an hour and a half in the middle of the day, show us how it is done. Or perhaps make a film at great environmental expense showing kids heads popping … and then not show it after all.
It really is nothing more than getting someone else to do your whim, with a big dollop of self aggrandizing on top.
Tell someone that energy saving technology will enable you to watch cat videos all day on your i-shiny-thing and you’ll get a much better reaction.