Guaraná!

I know what I am doing is wrong

I know there is an activity that looks similar that is not wrong

We had free healthcare including dental, mind you, my parents just couldn't be bothered. When my brother, as a teenager, asked our mother if she could take him to his orthodontist appointments (which he'd already arranged for on his own) she basically told him she didn't feel like it and he had to take the bus.

Did that, plus the free healthcare, translate into them actually parenting and caring for us properly? It did not. They only ever did any of that reluctantly when not doing it would make them look bad, and most of the time they did a shitty job because they could never resist the urge to boost their egos by means of bullying literal children.

We are at a point in humanity where there is no meaningful reason why we shouldn’t be structuring our societies around wellbeing for all instead of wellbeing for the “deserving”.

They can be busy, tired, stressed about finances, ignorant, etc. They can want to do the best for their kid and Fail Anyways.

"on the wrong side of 40" "huh, which side is that?"

Carb starts your engine, protein keeps it going.

Cookie

Fruit (canned or fresh)

Chips

Piece of bread

Popcorn

Crackers

Easy protein add on:

Nuts

Spoonful of nut butter

Cheese

Roasted chickpea snacks

Glass of milk (dairy or non dairy)

Like, I very much appreciate people trying to be mindful of their consumption and trying to be sustainable. But I need y'all to understand that it literally does not matter. The top 10% are doing more damage than all of us together could ever prevent.

you know, until we remember what to do with rich bastards.

There are ~8 billion people in the world. 10% of that is 800 million people. 1% is 80 million people, there are approximately 58 million millionaires. The top 10% is not just the super rich, you may actually be in the top 10%

Ideas like the above are so insanely unhelpful, because what the fuck do you mean “it literally does not matter”. It fucking does. Stop trying to use the incredible harmful actions of a few to take away responsibility from yourself

If you think “oh some billionaire is pumping oil practically directly into the sea so who cares if I order this fast fashion clothing from half way across the planet”, chances are another 799,999,999 people are thinking that too. Stop promoting this narrative or we’re all doomed

I know this, because I have literally gotten my first degree in economics.

Yes, people who live in rich, industrialized nations do overall have a higher impact in terms of "carbon footprint" than people living in more impoverished nations. But that footprint is an idea developed specifically by the fossil fuel companies to trick people into clawing each others eyes out rather than go after the companies actually responsible here. This is something we know for certain.

And the actual "rich vs poor" metrics are always a political matter. The poorest people in those industrialized nations are not drivers of environmental issues based on their individual choices, and the idea of them being the 10% is also kind of insane. While it is true on the basis of actual income that most people living in the G7 nations are richer than most people in the other nations - due to other factors like debt, cost of living and such, the actual impact analysis ends up completely different.

Most notably the idea you propose is basically that you can consume your way out of capitalism. You cannot.

Most of the environmental impact the average person has is happening on levels they have little to no choice about. Most people have very little choice about whether the food or clothes or other necessities they use have a high footprint and associated impact than others. In fact, due to how supply chains are structured, normal folks can barely even know what the actual impact of their purchases was. The amount of pollution, CO2 emissions, and also exploitation going into each purchased item are hidden behind layers of obfuscation. You can buy something that says it was actually sourced in sustainable ways - and in the end it turns out that actually it was not and the actual truth was hidden behind supply chain shit. See the entire "ethically sourced chocolate" thing as a fairly recent example.

It is your point that is the unhelpful one. Because the framing you use frames a systemic failing as a collection of individual failings, while it is not. The people living beneath the poverty line of their respective countries can decide which unsustainably and unethically sourced product they consume. But they rarely have a chance to not consume something sustainable and ethically sourced, due to limits in availability, access, and time.

The only way to save the environment is through the end of capitalism. Which is something that is attainable - whether by revolution or reform is up to your interpretation. But there is no way to save the environment without destroying capitalism. And any framing of "actually, if everyone would just be a bit more mindful" is a framing that has come to you from the people in fancy suits who are currently exploiting you and everyone else. It is distracting from the actual issue. Companies want you to just reuse that zipper bag 5 times and then feel like you did your utmost for the environment, so when you hear how the world is still getting worse, you will think about the people not reusing their zipper bags, rather than companies packing shit into layers and layers of plastics, or littering said plastics in a third world country where they are just allowed to do that after shipping that plastics there - because it turns out littering it there after shipping it half around the world is still cheaper than properly recycling it.

1. the artist is still alive and benefitting from you engaging with the art

2. the art is deeply fucking reflective of every single (and there’s so many) way(s) the author is bigoted as fuck.

compare hp lovecraft, who also wrote a bunch of stuff that was obscenely racist. however, hp lovecraft is dead as shit and can’t do anything bad with the money. jk rowling is using your money from harry potter merch to wreck the lives of minorities