this post was submitted on 12 May 2024
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I think that message tends to not resonate well. e.g. in USA politics liberals tried that and conservatives freaked out, thinking that "those (out-of-group) people" might actually get some help, even in situations where "these (in-group) people" would have gotten more.
Hate and fear are more primal, and people are trying to get the message out to the widest possible audience.
I think you're skewing terminology here between liberals and progressives. Liberals have not actually cared much at all about climate change. Not enough to do the changes required to see it mitigated.
You cannot compromise with the capitalist class that is suffocating the planet.
As I mentioned in another reply in this chain, Kurzesagt is among the sources that are attempting to inform people about the effects of climate change. They are based in Germany iirc.
In the USA, the definition of "liberal", like "conservative", has changed greatly over the years, skewing ever more towards the latter, but it was not always that way. Also, I am making a distinction between Democrat politics vs. liberal philosophy.
This is something that I do not understand: are you advocating for a radical overthrow of the entire government, in the very next USA presidential election in the coming months? Or are you advocating for a protest vote for like an independent, exactly like what happened with Clinton, before which more than anything else is what put Trump in office then? If not, it seems to follow by your definition that we would be "compromising" to vote for Biden, who "ha(s) not actually cared much at all about climate change. Not enough to do the changes required to see it mitigated."
So we either compromise or we... do what? It reads to me like childish "tough talk". Maybe that's not what you meant, hence getting back to how I do not understand it. And at a bare minimum, it suffers from being a statement of what to not do, yet never states what should be done in its place. Therefore, it seems likely to result in helping Trump win again.
Which seems to me to not be ideal either?
I am advocating for our survival. I don't think we make it out of this on the current trajectory. We need something new, radical, and different, something actually willing to tackle the climate crisis to the extent that it needs. I don't think that's a crazy thought.
We aren't gonna get out of this by sticking our head in the sand and I feel like that's what a lot of the techno optimists are doing. I actually find Kurzgesagt's content incredibly dangerous for this reason.
Fear is an incredible motivator and we are placating the masses right now, acting like the capitalists of the world are gonna be our saviors. Related to this thought, I always find it rich how everyone wants to look to the stars as if we are going to escape this planet, and that will be the solution, as if the more logical conclusion is not just to sustainably live in the planet we already have that we are perfectly adapted for. Something that their channel seems to advocate for is just blowing off into space and leaving it all behind.
Upvoting, since while I do not agree (though I haven't kept up with their latest videos, e.g. damn do they really advocate for leaving Earth behind? I never saw that but in that case, I would agree with you that's not great - though just b/c they have videos about aliens doesn't mean that they are advocating that as their solution? can you send me any examples to look at?), in any case I do thank you for explaining your POV.
Fwiw, I do see that Kurzgesagt's newer videos do have a "forced" optimism injected into them that their older ones did not - example. As you see, it wasn't even that they were "all doom & gloom", they were simply factual & even slightly positive, but they were not positive enough, so people complained and stopped watching them for that reason, therefore this was their response. Here is where we could argue that capitalism won... but they do exist in a capitalist society, and had to find a way to move forward, and anyway I actually don't think that's it (though I have no direct proof here).
As that famous saying goes, there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
I think they opted for the latter (walking the path), so as to have at least some hope of reaching people. And it worked!?! In the sense of solving that immediate issue of concern, i.e. at least they made really fantastic videos. If someone could not understand their 5-minute blurb of e.g. the vaccination process (What Actually Happens When You Are Sick?, then as the premise of how this whole conversation string started, they really aren't listening and won't hear no matter how simply it is explained. This is a service that they provided, b/c it needed to have been at least tried before abandoning all hope from that path.
Mind you, that path overall may have failed, but we cannot say that it was from lack of trying, in large part b/c of Kurzgesagt's videos - free, easy to watch, funny cartoonish graphics make them pleasant to look, they are nicely paced, have great voice-overs, etc. Most importantly, anyone from a child to an octogenarian could handle 10 minutes of that, even if they have to pause and rewind, or watch many times, etc. - if they really did want to know, such a video leaves no excuses to not knowing after having watched it.
Keep in mind that Kurzgesagt's goal wasn't to solve the problem - their goal was to educate the general populace, which I don't know if they accomplished, but they did at least make the videos.
Similarly it is up to scientists to monitor - which they likewise are doing - and for governments to enact policy change and... shit, yeah that's where it all breaks, isn't it?:-P But Kurzgesagt at least did their part admirably, imho (I dunno about scientists, I cannot judge there but even if not, that would be in large measure up to funding which gets back to governments).
So, if our governments or even humanity itself deserves to survive, it's up to our next steps to make it happen... or not, whatever. But, and here's where I finally start to diverge from what you said, after you make a "diagnosis", the next step is to do something about it. Simply stating that we should not compromise with capitalists makes sense... so then what do we do?
Do you take think trying to appeal to US "conservatives" in any way will do anything? These people are lost anyway.
I think people are starting to realize that now (especially after the pandemic opened people's eyes to just how many of their neighbors would literally outright kill them, not only by refusing to wear masks but preventing others from wearing one too), but it is debatable how many people were "fully" that way when climate change was first starting to be noticed, and there may also have been more independents. [Edit: in fact, I keep hearing that even in the USA that is known for being so bipolar, only ~11% are on the extreme right and another ~11% on the "left" (for us, setting aside how right-leaning that is on the global scale, but at least it is the side that doesn't want Trump... which isn't nothing, see e.g. the funding sent towards Ukraine, even if so late that it may have cost the defense effort, yet still an enormous amount), leaving 3/4-4/5ths that are in-between. So not every conservative is a Republican. Don't forget: the media lies. Not equally, but indeed on both sides, and both sharing at least one of their myriad of reasons - profit.]
Also there is tremendous value in telling people things - whether they receive it or not is on them, but at least your own conscience is clear, if you shared what you knew. Like if you yelled "Fire!" but someone ignored that and went into the building (but never came out), you may feel terrible but not nearly as bad as you would have if you knew but chose to say nothing, for whatever reason.
Also, the more I think about it, I was being simplistic in my earlier comment: regardless of how pleasant life is or could be, whether humans (or even most large mammals) will continue to exist is a much more pressing concern. So it is not merely an issue of the choice of messaging, it is also about talking about the things that matter most. e.g. Kurzesagt has leaned much more towards the positive side of the message than they used to, but they still focus on the more realistic side of e.g. after our modern technological society collapses what could we expect to look forward to after that - like in a few hundred to thousand years, could we ~~recover~~ [edit: rebuild], especially without access to fossil fuels anymore? Here are two videos both from Kurzesagt:
We WILL Fix Climate Change!
Organization on the Brink of Collapse?
Not likely. The problem is that you can only appeal to them in person. Any appeal made through the internet or the media will miss them completely. They self isolate in the media by only watching networks that confirm their bias against literally any climate activism and online there are algorithms that do it for them. When you do appeal to them in person, they attack you as a Soros-serving, leftist, liberal and declare that everything you tell them is fake news. They won't believe it until it affects them personally and even then they'll try to blame liberals for it while continuing to refuse to take positive action.