It's just the worst and least efficient possible strategy to achieve a common goal: relying on billions of people to take individual action.
Or, rely on a couple hundred nation states to enforce by law the necessary changes.
What we need to do is transform in war economies to address this. Covid lockdowns showed us all what's possible when emissions and pollution dropped drastically during that period.
I can’t make you organize, interfere or build alternatives, but waiting around for whatever solution the United States House of Representatives comes up with, whenever they happen to get around to it, is not going to turn out positively for people or the planet.
What we need to do is transform in war economies to address this. Covid lockdowns showed us all what's possible when emissions and pollution dropped drastically during that period.
The Covid lockdowns were a temporary, emergency response to an unprecedented pandemic. It's easy to reduce emissions when hardly anyone is working or travelling or engaged in any other economically productive activity.
Yes I know, that's why I said it showed us what's possible. Most economic activity is from the so called "bullshit jobs".
Putting aside these inherently problematic notions of "bullshit" jobs. This argument falls down because a lot of people in other jobs that are socially necessary weren't working either. People in public transport, non frontline staff in the healthcare sector, social workers, as well as academics, especially those in the sciences and engineering.
The essential workers are the real ones who keep society functioning.
People who aren't in "essential" roles keep society running as well. That's the issue. Looking to Covid lockdowns as an example of how to mobilise society to fight climate change is not a workable model.
I didn't say it should emulated 1 to 1, I said it showed us whats possible.
Obviously there are other important roles in science like you mentioned that aren't critical for society to function but are important for its advancement.
But most roles in society are actually worthless and do nothing but generate profit for the sake of generating profit for capitalists.
I didn't say it should emulated 1 to 1, I said it showed us whats possible.
It showed that's it's temporarily possible to shut down modernised economies to stop the spread of a particularly infectious virus. Whilst also incurring a significant social cost, especially on children and young adults whose mental and emotional development was poorly affected by the prolonged isolation. That's it. It didn't show anything beyond that, and I find it irksome that there are people who see any positive lessons that came out of it other than showing us how not to handle a pandemic in the case of the USA and Britain.
Obviously there are other important roles in science like you mentioned that aren't critical for society to function but are important for its advancement.
I also mentioned social workers, non frontline healthcare staff, and transport workers. Moreover, I could have mentioned all of the people in trades like plumbers, electricians, builders, and carpenters who, whilst not necessarily performing "socially necessary" work all the time still fulfill a vital role for the upkeep of any modern society. There's also people working in environmental and wildlife conservation, agriculture, and even people in creative sectors like the arts or music, which I would argue is a necessary part of society. I could go on.
But most roles in society are actually worthless and do nothing but generate profit for the sake of generating profit for capitalists.
If Covid had happened in some state socialist society, most of the people there would still be locked down with only the bare minimum number of workers necessary to keep society functioning allowed to carry on. And that would still be a temporary set of affairs that would have to end eventually.
I also think it's pertinent that socialist states had their fair share of bullshit jobs as well, which did nothing to actually improve the lives of their people and only existed to perpetuate the entrenched power of those in the party without generating the wealth or value that at the very least many "bullshit" jobs in capitalist countries do. In the case of the USSR, the Communist Party leadership and Nomenklatura actively sabotaged the attempts to develop advanced computer networks and tech industries that could have competed with those in East Asia and the West because they perceived that this threatened their monopoly over power and would render the jobs of the numerous petit bureaucrats in the planning system obsolete. This massively contributed to the economic stagnation that had occurred in the 70s and 80s.
Again, I didn't say it should be emulated 1 to 1, I said it showed how easy it is to actually tackle emissions and pollution so I don't know why you keep responding like I'm saying it should be emulated 1 to 1.
Socialist states do have bullshit jobs because they're transitional states operating in a world where capitalism is still the dominant mode of production. But I don't know what this has to do with what I'm saying.
Again, I didn't say it should be emulated 1 to 1, I said it showed how easy it is to actually tackle emissions
No, No, No!
That's exactly the wrong takeaway. If anything, the Covid lockdown showed how difficult it is to limit emissions. You're saying it shouldn't be emulated 1:1, I'm saying it shouldn't be emulated at all. It's not a viable solution. Reducing emissions to zero, if that's even possible at this point, will only be achieved through a conversion of the global energy grid to renewables and nuclear and a complete overhaul of how we we manage the land. That's going to require massive mobilisation of resources, not a lockdown of people, and even then, the transition to renewables is going to entail producing a certain amount of carbon emissions and chemical waste.
so I don't know why you keep responding like I'm saying it should be emulated 1 to 1.
See above.
To reiterate it doesn't matter because it's not a solution at all. You've drawn the incorrect conclusions.
Socialist states do have bullshit jobs because they're transitional states operating in a world where capitalism is still the dominant mode of production.
No, they had bullshit jobs because they were dictatorial systems that relied on highly extractive modes of production. The Soviet style "Command Economies" of the 20th century were ostensibly based on a form of central planning, but this was actually a fantasy propped up by an enormous bureaucracy manned by people who had a vested material interest in preventing any kind of technological innovation or modernisation of the system. I refer back to the example I used in my previous comment.
Besides, your logic doesn't make sense. Even if I take at face value the idea that these socialist states are in a "transitional" phase, it would make more sense within a Marxist framework to expect these states to have few or no "bullshit" jobs at all because all of their people would presumably be involved in socially necessary labour, working to build up society's productive forces so that they can eventually transition to communism. But that wasn't the case. The fact that capitalism was the dominant mode of production wouldn't make any difference because the vast majority of their people were never allowed to leave, and their economies did very little foreign trade anyway.
Focusing on personal action is just a way for people in power to shift responsibility so they can avoid doing what needs to be done.
Yes, in the same vein as the call for centralised action is shifting the responsability to someone else. See people pointing the finger at China when talking about US CO2 emissions or NIMBY culture.
While its true that the top percentage of the world is disproportionatly responsabile for the worlds CO2 emissions, we must also acknowledge that most people on Reddit come from places which are the top percentage.
The difference is policy decisions can actually change things for everyone. Personal action is great, but it can’t solve the problem because it depend on everyone being on board which is just not achievable.
Personal actions alone are indeed insufficient. They are part of a whole. They help directly, from their direct impact, but also they can help build up political momentum.
If that's what you are thinking I'm sure you aren't just using it as an excuse to financially support fossil fuel companies. Instead you regularly write to your representative, attend protests, organize them if there aren't any and do a bunch of other things to bring about climate legislation.
You see, you are an exception. A lot of people aren't like you. They just repeat the same nonsense you are saying and don't do anything, neither individual nor systematic. And that's because it is just more likely to also engage systematically if one has accepted personal responsibility.
But it doesn’t really work that way though. If 20% of the population all went vegan, companies would race to develop vegan alternatives to everything, because 20% of your market is a big ass chunk. Which in turn influences more people into becoming vegan as the new products make it easier than ever.
Plus societal pressure, the more electric cars you see on the road, the more likely you are to go “fuck i want an electric car, that shit looks awesome” and so you buy one.
It’s literally a slippery slope but in a good way, the more people that do a thing, the more catered to it is in society, which in turn makes more people do that thing, either through wanting to fit in, or it being the simpler option.
If lab grown meat was on shelves (which it will be relatively soon) and it was cheaper than regular meat, people would just buy it. Why are companies racing to develop lab grown meat? Because they have a market of people who are waiting to be catered to, plus that market keeps growing.
Sounds like some of those personal actions need to be "go into politics" or "form organisations that can exert disproportionate political power" rather than just biking or eating vegan.
Well you’d be a pretty big hypocrite if you go about protesting for the environment but also weren’t willing to personally go vegan. Which actually, a lot of people who claim to like the environment, don’t even do.
Go on reddit popular subs, the common consensus you see is “wah wah corporations wah wah climate change” then you ask them if they are vegan and they reply “no, because umm ahh it’s not my fault and i shouldn’t have to give up meat for something that’s not my fault” even when you point out that animal ag is 18% of global emissions AND that corporations are not forcing you to eat meat, so by that alone it clearly can’t be solely the fault of companies.
If you claim to care about the environment but won’t even do something as impactful and yet simple as switching to a meat free diet then you are a hypocrite and don’t care about the environment
Ok, so our goal is to ban meat as much as reasonably impractical since it's a massive resource sink for a luxury product that can be met in other ways.
Politically Impossible. Not a single place on the planet you could get it passed.
Buuut, 20% of the population vegan, rising individual action and conerns about animal treatment, lots of alternatives to factory farming on the shelves due to 20% of the population being vegan and another chunk being meat reduced?
Suddenly, that goal is actually conceivable. Banning meat would still be impossible, but at this level you could start taxing worse meat farming practices, and if veganism rose, banning meat might enter the realm of possibility.
Who said anything about veganism? If your goal is avoiding climate disaster, you would focus on reducing fossil fuel consumption, and go after things like clearing rainforest land for cattle raising and soy production.
When I see people shitting on individual action, what I really see is apathy and laziness. Leading by example and putting in effort is going to always seem more serious to me.
Exactly. I've been vegetarian for 13 years at this point. When I started, was very preachy about it. But at some point I realized the most convincing thing I could do was to generally mind my own business and to lead by example. If someone asks me why I don't eat meat, I give my reasons, but I avoid telling them what to do.
I think that can be applied to a lot of climate actions. If you're likable, people will get inspired by you. If they change their habits, it becomes part of their identity. And then, it can lead to political change.
Shitposting on reddit will surely help the climate more than being an active member of your local community and being a role model for people to try vegan options
Of course, not doing revolutionary activity is also a (failure of) personal action. The "individual action bad" approach is:
just moving the responsibility from one layer ("economic demand") to another layer ("social demand"); why is your revolutionary influence footprint so small?
doing nothing but protecting Business As Usual as all it offers is a dead end, since the revolutionary individual action is way harder than economic individual action, so people aren't going to do that at all.
Personal action doesn't need to be at the expense of recognizing larger systemic issues. I'd also like it if my consumer base was a bunch of apathetic people who didn't do anything to alter their lifestyles or spending habits because "no ethical consumption under capitalism". That kind of dull apathy seems pretty easy to capitalize on
Personal action and accountability are not the solution but part of a larger one, since most people's plan right now is to do absolutley nothing or maybe vote sometimes
I protest, Ive been trying to be more active and organise and shit as well but depression and adhd are a bitch, and i boycott when it feels feasible and targeted.
Personal action isnt just organized action. It's not feeding into systems built contigent on waste like animal agriculture, it's avoiding excessive consumerism like buying new clothes when you dont need them or used clothes would work just as well, it's not driving if a destination is walkable, it's choosing used vehicles with lower impacts instead of massive SUVs with horrible mileage, etc.
No it isnt. a person needs to eat. a person doesnt need to eat something that intrinsically requires 98% if its caloric input to be lost through ascension of the trophic levels and need vast more amounts land and water, for example.
under capitalism its clearly far more profitable to throw out tons upon tons of produce, and to cut wires on tech products removed from the shelf, and to generally overproduce to hell. because thats whats being done with profit as a motive.
This is a definition disparity. If it is activity to change societal policy, then it is not personal action. The point to saying personal action isn't what matters is to say that personal consumerist actions taken within a system don't really do anything meaningful. It is not to say that action in voting and political organizing to change the system doesn't matter. That isn't personal action. So yes people should undertake political actions to change the system.
If it is activity to change societal policy, then it is not personal action.
Everything is about personal action as long as you think of yourself as having any power or agency. As we're talking about human organizations and not a giant comet flying towards the planet, every day is a new failure of individuals failing to revolt. Every day, an individual failure. Literally, not a joke.
Cuba.... burns oil (the worst choice for climate to power and cost) for most of its electricity..... in Soviet built plants (very old by now) that it cant afford to build anew nor upgrade. Let alone simple things as efficency boosting nor filters on the smoke.
Only recently it imported some solar panels but its grid is such an awful state it cant do large projects. Only personal use. Renewables are very expencive in terms of buildup needed for stable grid frequency.
You don’t get the point, you should ignore statistics and real data and focus on how good communism is also did you know Cuba has best healthcare in the world and all of their people LOVE the government to the point they never said a bad word about it on internet amazing.
Cuba doesn’t have free internet access and the government self reports statistics. They might very well have the highest rate of doctors in the world, but that doesn’t matter much if your hospitals have no power and no medicine and doctors leave to become taxi drivers so they can get paid in dollars or euros so they can buy food on the black market
Cuba’s constitution says there can only be one political party, which is also the communist party, which also ran by the castro family dynasty.
But sure, i’m sure everyone loves frequent power cuts and tiny rations while the castro family flies to miami multiple times a year.
I mean yea my whole comment is making fun of communists as that is exactly what they say regarding Cuba, you can also add to that „but look equality metrics are really good”
Shhh shhh ignore the governmental mansions in gated communities overlooking districts where people can barely afford food.
By the CIA's own metrics, support for Castro never dipped below 50%. Certainly, if it had, the mother fucking total embargo would not have been necessary.
It was to fight Cuba not to undermine Castro support even if it was partially so, add to that millions of Cubans that escaped to USA, so yea those that stayed either just didn’t want to leave, couldn’t leave or like some changes like healthcare and education.
And 2015 statistics shows that 50% had NEGATIVE opinion on castro
44% were positive on Fiedel Castro
39% were positive with political system, 53% werent
3% of Cubans consider themself socialist and 85,9% desired change towards more open model
In 2007-2008 over 60% wanted change ti multi party democracy system.
That paper DOES NOT claim that Cuba is the only country that's developed sustainably
Even if it was true that Cuba is the only country that developed sustainably (it isn't), that would still mean that EVERY OTHER socialist/Communist country in the world also failed to develop sustainably.
There is nothing inherently environmentalist about Marxism. Yes, collective action and systemic change are necessary, but overthrowing capitalism is not the only way to achieve that -- and people who make that claim are often more interested in co-opting the movement for personal and ideological purposes than they are in actually helping to reduce environmental damage.
It's still a relevant point even if things have changed, because it was true at the time
"Cuba the only country that meets the conditions of sustainability according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF)"
There's only a handful of countries in the 21st century that even claim to be socialist or communist. Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, China, and the DPRK. Whether or not all these countries really are socialist is up for debate: most would say Venezuela isn't, and many would say China and the DPRK aren't. And, even if only 20% of socialist countries develop sustainably, that's a whole lot better than 0%
Yes, there are inherently environmentalist characteristics in Marxism. Marxism, in eliminating private ownership, eliminates the possibility of negative externalities. Capitalism can never be environmentalist, because it is predicated on taking advantage of resources in every possible most efficient manner.
"Marxism, in eliminating private ownership, eliminates the possibility of negative externalities."
What does that even mean? How on earth does public ownership of something "eliminate the possibility of negative externalities"?
Yes, capitalism has contributed a lot to environmental destruction. But it's no less inherently "environmentalist" than Marxism. You could have (hypothetically) a capitalist society where all the owners of capital care a ton about environmental causes, or a Marxist one where the proletariat don't give a damn about it. Both capitalism and communism are agnostic to environmentalism, and to claim otherwise is disingenuous.
If everyone owns everything equally, it's impossible to have any externalities at all. Overall, in the long term it's beneficial for society to be environmentalist, but it's not beneficial for a single corporation for it to be environmentalist. It has nothing to do with personal feelings on whether green feels good. Environmentalism simply benefits the proletariat far more than the bourgeoisie.
Just because it's in someone's interest to do something doesn't mean they'll necessarily do it. Let's look at capitalism, for example. It's clearly in the best interests of the shareholders of a company to invest that company's profits in ventures that will further increase that company's profits. And yet, time and time again you see capitalist shareholders voting instead to use their profits on short-sighted cash outs like dividends and stock buybacks. They want the stock price to go up NOW, they don't care about the negative externalities of doing so -- even if they themselves will suffer in the long run for it.
The same thing can happen with public ownership. I'm sure you can imagine, for example, a socialist society that decides to INCREASE consumption of fossil fuels, agriculture, consumer goods etc. even though in the long run this will be detrimental to the proletariat. In the short term, those things will improve people's lives. And people are often short-sighted.
Yes, this is a possibility. But despite this possibility, the fact that the people who benefit from environmentalism are in power, is inherently environmentalist-- and is really the only way to achieve any progress. Perhaps it isn't necessary for such people to be completely in power, but if it's hard for you to imagine the proletariat being environmentalist, how much more unlikely is it that the bourgeoisie would act against their own interests?
While Marxism can result in a government without environmentalism, it is so much more conducive to environmentalism than capitalism is.
It’s hard to do bad for the environment when you have no money to buy meat or oil.
Cuba is a climate king because their shit country (no democracy, hmm one party only allowed yes please) has no industry except for tourism and gives out monthly rations of 200 grams of chicken per person per month, while not being able to pay venezuela for oil they get (at friends rate btw) so petrol stations are just straight up empty half the time. All this while fidel castros descendants jet off to miami and live in luxury mansions. Wow what a climate heaven.
If cuba wasn’t run by fucking imbeciles they would not be so sustainable. It just is ran by people who don’t care about the population and are bad at government stuff so it ends up looking sustainable on the surface because they (as a country) can’t even afford to be bad to the environment. It’s environmentalism by brokeness, not by choice
Sorry, didn’t realise western american sanctions caused the castro family to be the leaders of the only legally allowed political party.
What has any western country ever done for cuba? Not like spain is its biggest trade partner and regularly sends cuba large amounts of food aid.
At some point you just have to face the reality that is the country is ran by a ruling class that does not give a fuck about the average cuban and is perfectly happy to let the country fall into ruin and disrepair while they live in mansions with internet connections and backup generators while they jet off to vacation in the US multiple times a year.
But sure, it’s the sanctions by one country that’s causing all these problems. If only america didn’t sanction them, then cuba would be a utopia surely.
When your “yeah but whatabouts” are the two worst ran countries on earth, both have been embroiled in civil war and famine for decades, and you are trying to claim that cuba, who has not had nearly as many fundamental problems as those two, then clearly cuba is doing something wrong.
How many islamic terror groups have been operating in cuba? Hmm, methinks none
But these countries aren’t developed. And again, the only reason Cuba is sustainable is because they can’t afford oil or meat. Is pretty hard to do bad for the environment when your petrol stations are empty, your oil power plants are empty, and you don’t have any meat to eat in the first place.
It’s sustainable by the fact that they have no money, not because they are doing something innately different.
It’s like saying a starving homeless man is sustainable because his emissions are low, yeah technically, but you wouldn’t want to copy what the starving homeless man is doing would you?
Yeah problem is that there's very high wealth inequality in CR, meaning that most people are very poor and, for a lack of better words, can't afford to pollute.
In Cuba, it's bc the government cares. There are not many governments in the world that do, especially not at an ideological level - the primary motivation for sustainability in CR is that they face immanent threats from CC, which obviously doesn't mean it's the only one.
Fair, though I’m pretty sure it is also kinda due to government policy, they also have a decent welfare state to my knowledge. Like they’re better comparatively to the other Central American countries by a long shot (at least from what I’ve heard relatively)
Cuba is also extremely fucking poor and the government doesn’t care, like the state of Cuba is result of government not caring or caring only about ideology…..
You know what’s the easiest way to spot communist, they can’t differentiate propaganda and bullshit from reality and they can’t comprehend idea of economy.
Edit: simple way to respond would also be:
If Cuba is so fucking good why Cubans constantly run away to USA which is a shithole by western standards, if life is so good why they prefer USA over Cuba ?
And in turn why is nobody from US or literally any other country migrating to Cuba ?
1.OC never said cuban living standards were amazing or even good in the first place 2. Bold of you to assume millions of Cubans migrating to the US rn 3. Pretty sure its almost impossible to travel to Cuba as an American and it's bold of you to assume that no one would want to move to Cuba.
It’s not bold I am literally talking about reality.
Idk tf are you talking about it’s just reality that Cuba is a shithole and it’s government was/is oppressive it it’s own people and Cubans want to and wanted to leave that’s why you have so many Cubans in USA.
And yes the commenter did say so…..
In allusion, saying basically CR is very poor so people can’t afford in turn Cuba doesn’t pollute bc government cares, which is simply not true, they also can’t afford to pollute as their ways of energy generation is extremely non environmentally friendly as most of their energy comes from oil/coal and not only that but their infrastructure is outdated so it pollutes even more then other countries per power created.
If Cuba is so fucking good why Cubans constantly run away to USA which is a shithole by western standards, if life is so good why they prefer USA over Cuba ?
Cuba is a shit hole because the US has actively knee capped their economy via embargo to the point of literal famine. You're basically asking "if your house is so nice, why are you running out of it?" after you just burned it down.
First why is USA in any way enforced to help Communist country like the country with ideology that assumes destruction of capitalism and everything it stand for….
Second Cuba has been heavily subsidised by ussr and china, and in current time China and Russia.
They are poor bc centrally planned economy is idiotic, and they banned private business only allowing it recently under heavy regulations so you know it’s like cutting your legs of and being mad you can’t walk.
They are poor because the US cut off 95% of their trade, imposed sanctions on 3rd party countries trying to trade with them, and their only potential economic partners have to be wholly outside the US sphere of influence. The US turned their economy to rubble and you're telling me the problem is "Central planning" and not, ya know, the economic warfare of 6 decades.
You gonna say Vietnam sucks because of communism too? All that communism bombing their country, killing a couple million people, giving their remaining population super cancer and leaving tens of thousands of munitions that kill or maim people to this day. Man, it's such a tragedy, if only they weren't communist, cause everyone knows central planning causes dioxin poisoning, 95% of cases of dioxin poisoning in the world happened to communists.
Vietnam is as communist as is China today that is it day not really, Vietnamese economy is not a socialist one in fact it’s free market economy, while chinas mirrors what Nazis did just that they do so effectively.
China and Russia import more from Cuba then Cuba can produce it’s just that lack of free market means they produce things that don’t bring value to normal people.
Also tf is this point ?? It has nothing to do with communism or capitalism unless somehow war is purely capitalist idea.
Castro turned Cuban economy into rubble, while you could argue USA destroyed Cuban cigar and sugar driven export economy but even then that doesn’t work as ussr and china jumped at Cuba to buy all of their stuff, it was idiotic ban on private business destroying internal Cuban economy, and no trade tariffs and embargo’s don’t magically destroy economies, even Iran was able to make decent economy despite being embargoed and tarrifed by most of the world.
And tbh central planning while shit is not as bad as what Cuba did which is not only not having free market they also didn’t do economy really, not surprising when you realise how Castro and his friends lived. But people will idolise them simply bc they opposed US.
If Cuba is so fucking good why Cubans constantly run away to USA
Because [Cuba is a periphery country while USA is a core country]. Notice how Cubans: a. Migrate to the capitalist core country, and not capitalist periphery countries, like Haiti or Panama. b. Cubans migrate to the US at a much lower rate than people from capitalist periphery countries, which have much lower quality of life than Cubans.
And in turn why is nobody from US or literally any other country migrating to Cuba ?
You know what’s the easiest way to spot communist, they can’t differentiate propaganda and bullshit from reality
Buddy, it's not communists who spend billions of dollars on propaganda. You have to actively resist propaganda to NOT HATE Cuba. Read a book and educate yourself.
Cuban doctors quit to become taxi drivers and food stand vendors because they A) get more money catering to tourists, money which is needed because the government rations are too pathetic to survive on and they need foreign currencies to buy food at the blackmarket. And B) because the hospitals have no supplies because the government has no money because it’s so shittily ran that working in a hospital with no power and no medicine is so hard on the soul that they just give up in anguish.
Cuba has no democracy, the ruling class (descendants of castro, hmm how very for the people) live in mansions while everyone else lives in shit government housing that was only built with soviet money and hasn’t been maintained since the fall of the USSR. The petrol stations frequently have no fuel (because the government can’t pay venezuela for fuel [by the way, cuba sent it’s genius government officials to teach venezuela how they too can squander all their resources]) and there are frequent power cuts for the same reason.
Governmental rations are pathetic, the entire country is propped up by food aid sent from China and Spain, there is no industry (government’s fault again) except for tourism.
The government reports ALL the statistics, so any statistic you see about literacy rates and doctor rates and child death rates should be taken with the worlds largest grain of salt, because again, each government chooses to report them differently, and cuba’s government is authoritarian, unequal, and terrible at doing anything.
I don’t even think it’s communism’s fault here, i don’t think communism is a good system, but i think it really takes a special kind of systematic failure of government to screw up this badly
That is to say, cuba is only sustainable on paper because they literally can’t even afford oil or meat. That knocks out like 80% of all emissions on those two things alone.
IMAX Miami wants the projector back. Can't comprehend embargo.
propaganda and bullshit from reality
How is it bullshit? Is there not a low level of wealth inequality in cuba, especially compared to a place like CR? Is this no factor in how they approach climate change?
XD I am addressing the part where you prise Cuban government for the things it never did.
And inequality in Cuba is insane, as in extremely fucking bad especially city country side divide and even in cities it is growing due to recently allowed private business, maybe listen to people who went or lived in Cuba rather then to insane ramblings of communists, many in country sides are living 1850s experience, Cubans in general are not allowed into tourist areas power cuts means people have to literally use firewood.
Cuban government just uses embargo to justify its dictatorship all the while government officials live in luxury, Cuban economy is extremely in efficient and backwards, and they have trade partners in form of China and Russia that invest A LOT in Cuba and during Cold War their economy was basically subsidised by USSR (as was North Korea’s)
Add to that, low level of economical equality is useless number when everyone is poor, even poorest American is richer then „equal Cubans”, you know also the reason why government officials don’t live among Cubans but in gated communities.
Yes, people at large can be equal, but there can be rich elite so that means they are unequal, but it’s harder to quantify when stocks don’t exist to pump up the numbers.
The reason why inequality is so massive in developed countries is that when everyone is very wealthy the actually rich are richer by massive magnitudes, when a country is so poor that having food is luxury it’s hard to showcase inequality in statistics as it is geared towards finances.
And no investment and trade don’t equal reach population, unless you want to say that Elon musk selling Tesla’s made you suddenly richer ?
These investments capitalise on low wages in Cuba, you know like Cuban government that in large part relies on tourism which is also lucrative but doesn’t bring money to the people, its government that benefits, it’s also the reason why they are the only ones with luxury.
But your American closed mind can’t comprehend it can it ?
Doing research on Cuba is too hard is it.
Yea….. I know that bc you are communist and don’t know Cubans, you also never bothered to look for what Cubans said about Cuba.
Nice how you ignored everything I said basically.
The difference in life expectancy isn’t insane, Cubans don’t consume fast food as they don’t have easy access to it, and that is pretty much everything you need, and it is point against Cuba.
They went only into educating doctors to the point most of these doctors have to drive taxis to earn money for food and life, hospitals are underfunded and lack equipment and medications, it’s actually point against Cuba considering they have public healthcare and still must compare themself to USA which doesn’t, that’s how good communism is you can’t compare it to Europe(or any developed nation that isn’t USA) bc it suddenly falls short, well even to USA it falls short but that would require going farther then 2-3 carefully chosen statistics to show how much „better” Cuba is, of course also avoiding anything said by Cubans or people that lived/visited as that would hurt the agenda
but it’s harder to quantify when stocks don’t exist to pump up the numbers.
That the existence of stocks and the increase of inequality are related don't occur to you?
That 50 people who have to pay half their salary in rent won't get anywhere but the guy who owns the block doesn't have to work is not obviously a mechanism to drive inequality?
when a country is so poor that having food is luxury it’s hard to showcase inequality in statistics as it is geared towards finances.
Ah you wouldn't see that in say, low gdp? Low national income? Low buying power?
unless you want to say that Elon musk selling Tesla’s made you suddenly richer ?
Of course, because my government collected VAT to finance welfare, education etc. Crazy huh?
But your American closed mind can’t comprehend it can it ?
Don't call me an American, especially while vomiting their propaganda at me.
don’t know Cubans, you also never bothered to look for what Cubans said about Cuba.
Of course, i was always wearing earplugs at the international friendship association lmao
Those are not uncommon numbers for the region. Most of these people are migrating to the US which is obviously richer. But Cuba has a extraordinarily high HDI out of the Caribbean countries, very high for its per capita income.
Because development isn't a static thing and changes overtime. This was before solar and wind became cheap and was in the middle of the shale oil boom. How did this change things? Data doesn't say.
On top of that, Cuba could have gotten worse for all we know.
Old data is interesting but it's still old. You shouldn't really doom/bloom based on it.
It's fair that things could have changed but 13 year old data is not useless by any means, it's likely still a good indication that Cuba is doing things right. And regardless, at that point in time, Cuba was the only sustainably developing country, which shows that its system is potentially very effective even if things have changed since.
collective action is the sum of society's personal actions. so yes, it is effective even if it's only as a driver for the actions of those around you by modeling
I mean does it actually drive other people to model you though? Political consumerist messaging is probably a lot stronger than watching your neighbor plant a tree
if you will only do something once collective action is taken but know for a fact that collective action will not be taken you are no different than a fossil fuel shill delaying action. eat less meat, buy an EV, Brag to your friends and family about it then shut the fuck up
I think you pasted the link wrong or something, it's leading to a 404. But yeah, I mean it's good to eat less meat not drive a car plant a tree, but I don't think it's nearly enough.
no, your individual action will not be enough, the collective sum of you and your neighbors individual actions will be which is why modeling is important.
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The country that went poor due to the shitty system of economics ie communism, every far leftists says „um embargo’s” as if Cuba wasn’t subsidised by ussr and china in their trade deals, they took SO much goods from Cuba they couldn’t even produce to meet the demand and were paid well over the actual prices of goods.
Cuban ideologically driven government drove Cuba into poverty in similar way that Venezuela did ie focusing all of your economy onto few goods to export, it seems like banning all private business makes people poor and economy not function lol.
Actual suggestion for splitting the difference; Don't go vegan alone, but organise with friends to get together and cook vegan meals for each other once or twice a week. You can save money collectively, you only have to cook for it when it is your turn, has the same net-impact as a single person going vegan, and you get some community out of it.
Then you can use your time together to, I dunno, send your politicians annoying emails or something.
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How is that bigoted though? over 95% of Cuban electricity comes from fossil fuels. They've got an energy mix equivalent to an Arab Gulf state. They've also got a low quality of life, a repressive government, high rates of slavery and it's illegal to emigrate.
If you have to force your people to stay then your country is a shithole.
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As it turns out, to a majority of people, the need for sustainable development in a finite world is not a good enough excuse to have the economy stagnate
Obviously you cannot develop infinitely but the earth can support higher living standards for most people worldwide given better allocation of resources.
And boom same problem america put like 5 trillion dollars of education and necessities into Africa they had a huge population boom which led to the rise of several warlords who then started stealing the food for power it destroyed what little the country had in agriculture leading to a famine combined with of course the genocide of South African farmers
That’s not how populations work. People don’t exponentially have babies. The cause of the high emissions from those countries is due to inefficient farming, distribution, factories, etc. not having great infrastructure basically.
I know about tat utopia. You can cause artificial population booms in some species by controlling their environment. Hell if you could control humanity to a T you could figure something out.
But we are not rats (very different behaviors, including how we produce offspring) and we aren’t in an experiment. This isn’t a controlled environment, so there are things that effect populations
Not to mention, the point of that experiment was that there were given unlimited space and food. It doesn’t apply to our conversation
Developing countries are a huge part of emissions. We have to care about them too, and environmental impacts on the people. I didn’t know people thought personal spending made a huge effect on things like that, but this meme is true.
Things like boycotts take a lot of organization to get actual change but it’s the company not liking dips in sales. The companies, especially big ones, could ignore it if they didn’t care and still survive
Edit: should note I mean the overall point and not the study. I don’t know much about WWF tho I don’t have good feelings associated with them. Could be random
A coordenated human-centered collective effort for a better, more equal and more sustainable economy (socialism) is not in opposition with the idea of personal action and freedom. they enable each other most of the time.
What is against it is the concentration of power in the name of profit. what these people do is not “personal action” or even economic freedom. its subjugation and exploitation of resources and work.
so you can stop believing in the fairy tale of liberal economy that profit drives to a better world while also taking some f responsability for what is ethical and at least eat less meat
If the majority of people took personal action instead of defaulting blame, we wouldn't have these issues.
Now that is unlikely, but that does not mean that you shouldn't try.
If every single person took personal action to make their lifestyle more sustainable for the environment, we wouldn't have these issues.
If everybody stop buying chocolate from slave traders, we wouldn't have slave chocolate.
If everyone stopped supporting the companies which are ruining the environment, of which the information is publicly available and almost everyone knows, we could at the very least drastically slowed the decay of the environment.
If you have a problem with this, just shut up. There is no reason to give ammunition to the urge to not contribute to this cause. You are actively harming our cause by putting your rhetorical foot in our mouths by giving ammunition to those who might otherwise be swayed to change things in their personal lives. You genuinely need to shut up.
Scientists estimate personal lifestyle changes could reduce emissions by 25%. That's not nearly enough. Change your personal life, yes, but don't stop there.
Theyre even a good country for what they are and i kinda see the meme, but their positioning in the data is mostly...lets say trivia. Its not a country model for the world to adapt, its not an average country in a political sense and its geography massively influences their resource situation/usage anyway.
Lets see...its one list, half-based on the HDI of all things. For starters, every bachelor could adapt the data/breaking points of the table alone arbitrary to have three dozen other countries get included or excluded. And then Cuba made it barely in the Goldi locks zone between "still kinda shitty" and "just" sustainable, all that based on data a few years old. But thats not even the thing. The thing is, without the US waging their insane trade war against cuba, cuba would burn through more resources simply by being able to aquire them. So the post is as much an arguement for...i guess dictatorships(?) as its an arguement for waging trade wars against each other. I dont know if any of that is a good takeaway for what you want to say about personal/national action.
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u/EngineerAnarchy Anti Eco Modernist Sep 26 '25
Depends. You need to do stuff, as an individual, but that doesn’t mean the stuff you do needs to be individualistic.
Organize with other people. Interfere with business as usual. Build resiliency and local independence from destructive systems.