• the_inebriati@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    What a truly fascinating way to view the world.

    If you actually believe that, surely you’re not going far enough though? You can follow your logic to its conclusion:

    People need water that isn’t full of whatever runoff dupont feels like dumping in 10 miles up the river

    Actually, some people have no water at all. We should literally expend no effort into cleaning up water until every single human on the planet has access to some form of water.

    People need shelter that doesn’t make them unable to afford food.

    Actually, some people can afford neither food or shelter, and so we should not expend any effort in providing them with shelter until every single human on the planet has access to food.

    It’s almost like we’re a complex society that can address more than one societal issue at a given point.

    • June@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      there’s always a bigger fish, right?

      the adage goes ‘pick your fights’ for a reason. while the needs that badadvice (fitting name, actually lol) mentions are vital and important, the scale of them is such that we would spend all of our energy on them and ignore the plethora of other issues being discussed in this post. while we need to be working on affordable housing, clean water, etc., we also need to be considering where we can do the most good. and people like badadvice get angry that the forest exists because it obscures the their particular tree and would burn the rest of the forest if they think it will help their tree. the reality is that the diminishing returns for fights like badadvice is advocating for puts us in a position that they are often untenable to try and tackle with the level of effort they want to put towards it. this isn’t a matter of being cold-hearted toward those issues, it’s a matter of triaging our problems as a society.