Shoutout to this guy for debunking the argument about the market regulating itself with a real life example
Can you imagine if the social-media-interlinked self-reinforcing “save the world by buying different stuff” crowd could communicate with each other during the period of removing lead from gasoline? Deafening constant voices going, “just don’t drive so much sweaty don’t be selfish” “i myself prefer a clean lifestyle. I take the train everywhere” “if you really cared about the world you’d just buy expensive EthicGreenPetrol, only available in select stations in prosperous cities. Its the only way to get them to listen 😇 if EVERYONE does it then the companies will just have to change because they’re following our dollars!”
And ten years later, scientists and activists are largely unable to move the public, because everyone believes that the people who care about that stuff have the option of buying expensive EthicGreenPetrol, so surely that’s enough work on the topic - after all, there’s an alternative that people can freely buy if they want to. It becomes harder for people to get research funding or action change because inertia develops: a solution is readily purchasable but most people don’t buy it, so therefore nobody cares, humans are awful and one lives on a planet full of enemies. After all, it’s hard to go without nice things to afford the expensive gasoline that seems to be no different, especially when the people buying leaded gasoline are 1) instantly cancelling out your own efforts and 2) seem perfectly happy.It’s quite easy to dismiss the “just don’t buy the poison gas” crowd because they’re smug, patronising Facebook bullies. Distraction and exhaustion do the rest of the work.
A generation later it transpires that the “buy yourself free of sin” message was funded, disseminated and encouraged by the fuel industry. Lead is still in gasoline. When their heirs challenge them on this mass failure of obligations, the people who allowed it to happen say weakly, “Well, I always bought EthicGreenPetrol.”
Anyway corporations can’t be trusted to manage shared communal resources like atmospheres, even if you gently twiddle them along by the strategic deposition of dollars into different pockets. It is also perfectly possible to remove their ability to do so.
The amount of bait-and-switch going on here is staggering. First, the study being referenced has absolutely nothing to do with Joe Biden. Second, it has absolutely nothing to do with moderate Democrats. Third, it has absolutely nothing to do with policy positions.
The study breaks college students down into six categories by self-identification: conservative men, conservative women, moderate men, moderate women, liberal men, and liberal women. Each student was asked to rate their level of agreement with statements like “I am actively working to foster justice in the world” and “My worldview inspires me to serve with others on issues of common concern.” Moderate and conservative men tended to rank the lowest in terms of statements like those.
So, first off. Students were asked to identify themselves as conservative, moderate, or liberal. With so little granularity in the options, it seems likely that most self-described moderate Democrats would fall into the liberal category, while the moderate category would capture mostly people who self-describe as moderate, full stop. That’s speculation, but so is any conclusion to the contrary. They just didn’t ask the right questions to capture any information about the group they now want to draw conclusions about.
Now, about the substance of those statements. None of the statements listed in the article even have implications of a particular political position. Statements like “I frequently think about the global problems of our time and how I will contribute to resolving them” aren’t measuring ideology, they’re measuring activism. A highly motivated fascist would rate highly on pretty much all of these.
This study has nothing to do with Joe Biden, didn’t study moderate Democrats, and didn’t ask about policy positions, and now it’s being used to say that Joe Biden is a Republican because moderate Democrats share policy positions with conservatives. That isn’t even a stretch, it’s just a lie.
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
