matrixmann: (Standing one's ground)
matrixmann ([personal profile] matrixmann) wrote2022-08-08 11:38 pm

Worlds apart, united in anthropocentrism (together the ruin of the earth)

You know what’s going to be the biggest factor getting in the way of soothing the extent that climate change will have on this blue sphere here?
The international community outside of the Western countries gives a fuck about so-called “green technologies”. They care more about their own development, which had been kept down for centuries by the plundering of the dominant European and North American countries. And that means, cheap energy accessible to the biggest mass of people and local industries carries more importance than making it as exclusive as it can get through applying complex and expensive technologies in the chain, which the bigger parts of the population in the first world countries are able to afford (in whatever way possible to individuals).
The mindset of the Western world and what they think of as “problems” is so far away from those of the rest of the world - literally elevated thousands of kilometers above the ground, figuratively.

So are many other issues such as that of a cultural nature, for example.
The rest of the world literally doesn’t care about the gender-fantasies of twenty-somethings in the US or Europe and their dreams of deconstructing the biological base of the two sexes. Or about rainbow flags, pride months and loudly celebrating LGBT minority rights like they would be a cure against HIV and cancer altogether (rights which quite a chunk of areas in the world don’t have anyway).
There are way more urgent problems to them than such boredom- and living-in-security-driven ergotherapy of emphasizing things that revolve around the aspect of the anthropocentric worldview to overestimate the social ongoings between humans in a society.

To the rest of the world, the classic aspects of the mindset of the anthropocentric worldview are important: Where do humans get a space to live, a roof over their head, food and water for humans, jobs to earn money and chances to procreate - as well as chances to feed that offspring and raise it into an adult.

If you want to get the rest of the world into the same boat as the culturally loony Western part of the planet, then you first rather need to get them to abandon their part of the anthropocentric worldview, in which all natural resources of the planet exist just to serve and be consumed primarily by humans. - Including your own focus where human business and social interaction still also overshadows everything, beside you talking about “wanting to save the world” and “protecting the environment” (inconsequently).

[identity profile] kanzeon-2040.livejournal.com 2022-08-09 11:41 am (UTC)(link)
Interesting way to put it, that the one thing we all have in common is our selfishness.

I've been reading a book by a biologist who studied social behavior across species, in ants, termites, apes, humans, etc. He wrote that no animal has ever shown a concern for its entire species, much less concern for other species. He stated that humans are no different, except for a small minority of us who seem to have an unusual amount of empathy. He does argue that social animals show altruism for their kin or those they consider to be "on my side". But this is rarely a universal altruism, and when you run the biostatistics, there's no reason for DNA to evolve universal altruism. Instead there's a tension between actions that benefit the self and actions that benefit others in our social group.

The foreign aid budget of the US is only 0.2% of our GDP LOL, and we're still the largest GDP in the world. Only 2% of US residents listed the environment, pollution, or climate change as our #1 problem when asked during June 2022. Only 1% listed the gap between rich and poor. Another 1% listed foreign policy or foreign aid. 40% listed the economy, especially the high cost of living. Most people just want more stuff for themselves and their families — that's definitely what unites all of us.