sj_zero on Nostr: I saw a thread today where someone was calling the common man stupid for not wanting ...

I saw a thread today where someone was calling the common man stupid for not wanting to do more about climate change, and specifically mentioning the recent cop28 held in Dubai.

It's an easy thing to just assume people are stupid. It makes the world nice and simple and if only people would stop being stupid and start being smart (smart like you, obviously!) All the problems of the world would be solved.

For a lot of people, reality isn't so simple. The common man is already struggling. Throughout history, the age people get married and have kids has been indicative of the stress civilizations are under, and many people aren't having kids before they get too old to have kids because that's the level of stress the common man is under. Global civilization is facing a demographic bomb as every continent except Africa is facing a massive reduction in population in coming decades because nobody is having kids because life is so hard.

As a study in contrasts, just look at wages vs. rent while I've been an adult. Minimum wage went from 11/hr to 15/hr. Meanwhile, my first 2 bedroom apartment was 350/mo, and today you can't get anything for less than 1200. A few years before I rented, there were decent houses available for $50,000 and today the average house price nationwide is $800,000. (Not the US, obviously)

So when a bunch of the business leaders and politicians who magically seem to get richer every time something is done "for our own good" -- politicians who make as much as a senior engineer on paper but all of whom seem to become fabulously wealthy regardless (huh wonder where all those extra millions came from) while the common man has suffered -- get together to figure out new ways to squeeze the common man, is it really so stupid to be skeptical? "Don't worry everyone, we're going to make your life even harder but it's all for your own good."

Having the summit in Dubai is fitting -- a city of extreme inequality, paid for with oil money, built by slaves, ruled by kings.

You can try to guilt and shame people into not caring about basic biological drives, but you actually can't. Entire generations of people have been pushed so far that their family lines will end with them. It's comfortable enough -- like being in a pool of comfortably warm water right up to your neck that you can't escape from, but when you can see people plotting to add more water to your pool the next step is you drown.

In previous eras, common people being this stressed out led to the fall of the Roman empire, the French reign of terror, the end of the Romanov dynasty in Russia or the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. While you call people stupid for not listening to their leaders, historically speaking those same leaders will be lucky to keep their heads on their shoulders.