alt Hacker News> What can I as an individual actually do to stop this?
Short of becoming the Luigi of the environmental movement, there is nothing an individual can do. You have to take part in some kind of ongoing collective action. This can include joining a campaign against the oil and gas industry, going door to door for candidates who will reverse climate change, or engaging in direct action against environmentally destructive projects -- or even all three at the same time.
Trying to go it alone is pointless. At best, you'll go down a rabbit hole of becoming the most virtuous consumer alive. At worst, you'll be spend all your time mad-posting on social media.
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Luigi accomplished nothing but folk hero status, United Healthcare premiums increased by double-digit percentages this year. Change requires a pattern not a moment.
Nonsense. This is defeatist talk. This is the logic folks use when they make dozens of small actions that add up, like buying more plastic cuz "it doesn't matter". The honest truth is people who use this logic have made the decision and just don't want to say, "I don't care." Small actions make big differences at scale.
8 billion people all making hundreds of decisions a day make a difference.
Once an individual starts to make those decisions they have a sunk cost, which encourages more action. This leads to voting a certain way, making more sacrifice(giving up excess), encouraging others, etc.
This whole "I'm a victim and have no recourse" benefits the bad actors.
Capitalism has filled our society and expectations with extreme excess. Modern folks eat diets that are insanely luxurious. Giving up our excess is the crux here, and capitalism tries damn hard to give us reasons to justify every little excess. Then those things are accepted and the baseline shifts down, capitalism then gives us more excuses and the baseline drops again.
I was watching an old movie from like 1985 the other day. A character in the movie was a horrible person and part of making that character a horrible seeming person was giving her a small dog as a pet, because it added to her aura of extreme excess. It made me and my friends laugh cuz nowadays that's expected of most people, to have a small dog. The character only had one! Nowadays it's normal to have 2 or 4 small dogs. Lol. Did you know cats/dogs in the US consume more meat than the entire nation of france? Good luck getting anyone to forego their emotional support pets nowadays. The baseline drops.
I didn’t know the Luigi reference. Google has led me to either Luigi Galleani or Luigi Mangione, as strangely similar options from different eras.
What did Luigi accomplish? If nothing, then why the comparison?