r/politics • u/slaysia • Dec 19 '17

Democrat wins Va. House seat in recount by single vote; creating 50-50 tie in legislature

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrat-wins-va-house-seat-in-recount-by-single-vote-creating-50-50-tie-in-legislature/2017/12/19/3ff227ae-e43e-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=.82f2b85b50fa
64.6k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/Oak_Redstart Dec 19 '17

Carlins line about the environment "the earth will be fine it's just a big rock" seems to come up a lot an annoys me. The following "its the people who are fucked" makes the apathy nihilistic.

3

u/Atomicbobb Dec 19 '17

Well it's true. It's not productive but it's objectively true.

1

u/vivianvixxxen Dec 20 '17

Can you elaborate a bit? I don't see why the line would annoy you, and I see even less why the second part makes it nihilistic. Just want to understand your perspective—and maybe have my mind changed—because I'm one of those people who'd say something like that (though not quoting Carlin directly).

1

u/Oak_Redstart Dec 20 '17

It just tends to derail conversations about environmental issues and turns it in a conversation about semantics - what constitutes "earth" the way it's being talked about. It is possible that we as a species and most higher forms of life are fucked from the damage are inflicting on the various systems that support life on this planet. But if we all cynically believe that we are doomed anyway it guarantees a bad outcome whereas if we hopefully work to solve problems it at least allows for the possibility of success. It bothers me species are going extinct and ecosystems are being degraded and so many other issues along those lines. To have these concerns be dismissed with flippant and haughty "this place is just a big rock and it will be fine" or something is annoying to say the least.

1

u/vivianvixxxen Dec 21 '17

So, when I say it I will admit it's a semantic thing, but it's semantics with a purpose. I want to bring people who don't care about environmental issues in a "hippy" way into the conversation. I'm acknowledging that, yeah, species evolve and go extinct all the time, global warming can and does happen naturally as well, the planet's eventually goign to be subsumed into the Sun, etc etc etc. BUT! Hey, here's how it affects you and your kids.

I mean, really, this is just a big rock with a bunch of semi-sentient matter crawling on it. And with or without humans here those lifeforms will go extinct and the rock will continue to orbit. That's just the reality, an that's where cynics and nihilists will go. But you can get people in on the environmentalism if you make it about them.

That's my reason for it.