Godammit. I’ve boycotted Exxon and BP, for their negligence that led to spills, for a long time. I knew shell probably wasn’t much better but I’ve preferred them anyhow. Turns out I was helping the worst offender. Awesome.
These companies are monopolies, they can’t be significantly materially affected by a consumer boycott. Most of their customers are in industry anyways. Any boycott against them is more about raising awareness than achieving something, it’s a diffuse form of political education.
To take on the fossil fuel industry requires having control over big levers at the top of the economy. Those levers are currently pulled, anarchically, by capital, not actual humans. Capital pulls those levers and spurns its highest level servants to get out of the way or feed it more bodies. To end this society-wide violence we must displace capital, it must not be in charge. We must be in charge.
It in fact doesn’t matter much which one you buy from, they all sell the same product and the product they sell is the problem.
Yes, it’s impossible to effect change as a single person so government action is needed… But the necessary consequence of that is that we also stop consuming as much fuel.
if it’s impossible to affect change as a single person, then why do anything at all? Why bother to vote? I hear this logic all the time and it doesn’t make sense to me.
“Don’t bother making personal changes, voting will save us!”
people vote for Trump
“Wait not like that”
That’s not to say that public policy is pointless. “Tragedy of the commons” tells us that regulation is necessary. But I think the framing is wrong. The culprit here is not oil companies. It’s oil. If you tell people “oil companies are evil”, and tax the oil companies more, these people are just going to get mad when the taxes trickle down to them in the form of higher gas prices.
The correct framing is “Oil and gas cost more to us, than the cost of simply digging it out of the ground. The added taxes are to reflect the true cost”. Then people will understand why gas prices need to go up.
Then add on some Infographics and memes that show how much more efficient public transit is. How solar panels pay off over the long term. Etc. Because personal responsibility does in fact make a difference.
1: to succeed in doing or achieving (something) : to cause or bring about (something) : accomplish
effect a transformation in company culture
effected a settlement of the dispute
… a powerful reminder of the potential of technology to effect change.—Chris Gallagher
2: to put into operation
the duty of the legislature to effect the will of the citizens
… an executive grant of clemency … to effect the prisoner swap.—Eric Tucker et al.<
English! 😆
Your point should be that usually “affect” is the verb and “effect” is the noun. I’m having trouble coming up with a mnemonic device, but at least these can be pronounced slightly differently.
Godammit. I’ve boycotted Exxon and BP, for their negligence that led to spills, for a long time. I knew shell probably wasn’t much better but I’ve preferred them anyhow. Turns out I was helping the worst offender. Awesome.
These companies are monopolies, they can’t be significantly materially affected by a consumer boycott. Most of their customers are in industry anyways. Any boycott against them is more about raising awareness than achieving something, it’s a diffuse form of political education.
To take on the fossil fuel industry requires having control over big levers at the top of the economy. Those levers are currently pulled, anarchically, by capital, not actual humans. Capital pulls those levers and spurns its highest level servants to get out of the way or feed it more bodies. To end this society-wide violence we must displace capital, it must not be in charge. We must be in charge.
And you base that on… a shitpost on lemmy without a source or even a damn label? It’s literally bunch of rectangles.
Cool, you’re a jerk.
It in fact doesn’t matter much which one you buy from, they all sell the same product and the product they sell is the problem.
Yes, it’s impossible to effect change as a single person so government action is needed… But the necessary consequence of that is that we also stop consuming as much fuel.
if it’s impossible to affect change as a single person, then why do anything at all? Why bother to vote? I hear this logic all the time and it doesn’t make sense to me.
That’s not to say that public policy is pointless. “Tragedy of the commons” tells us that regulation is necessary. But I think the framing is wrong. The culprit here is not oil companies. It’s oil. If you tell people “oil companies are evil”, and tax the oil companies more, these people are just going to get mad when the taxes trickle down to them in the form of higher gas prices.
The correct framing is “Oil and gas cost more to us, than the cost of simply digging it out of the ground. The added taxes are to reflect the true cost”. Then people will understand why gas prices need to go up.
Then add on some Infographics and memes that show how much more efficient public transit is. How solar panels pay off over the long term. Etc. Because personal responsibility does in fact make a difference.
“tragedy of the commons” is capitalist myth making
Just a friendly heads up, it’s affect, not effect.The way I remember it is affect is an action, and effect is the result of an action. English is dumb.I was confidently incorrect. See below.
No, they used effect in its verb form correctly.
English! 😆
Your point should be that usually “affect” is the verb and “effect” is the noun. I’m having trouble coming up with a mnemonic device, but at least these can be pronounced slightly differently.
Thank you for the correction!