> Not much frustrates me more than the overlap of two common interests among hippies: a vocal devotion to animal welfare, and a love for Chinese medicine (among other forms of medical fraud).
That’s really frustrating, but the non-hippies haven’t found an answer yet. For example, there’s no milk that you can buy in germany that has the same strict rules for animal welfare as demeter-certified milk, but Demeter also requires the farmer to perform magic rituals such as burying cow horns at full moon. There’s no animal welfare label that adopts the Demeter standards but leaves out the magic.
> Hippies cause climate change with anti-nuclear activism, and run some species of animal into extinction.
Blaming hippies for climate change and for the extinction of the white rhino is unfair. They’re neither the only or even primary believers in magic potions from animal parts nor are they the primary advocate for a huge chunk of the energy we use (think: cars that consume more every year, global travel, larger and larger footprint of land use,…) Quite often they’re among the ones adopting eco-friendly policies before they become mainstream (downsize, recycle & reuse, car free cities, …). They’re certainly wrong on a lot of things, but they’re also advocating for change that no other parties dare to yet.
It's most likely true that hippies aren't the largest group of believers in magical potions from animal parts — I certainly don't have the numbers and I'm going by intuition, but there's likely also a difference between the number of people and the size of the market created by those people. Not all people have equal purchasing power.
I think all else being equal, it would be unfair of me to make this characterisation, but I'm not holding these two groups of people to the same standard. I think the two groups we are talking about are people in rural China and Vietnam, and hippies in the Western world who are likely educated to a much higher standard than the rural Chinese and Vietnamese. To be clear: this is not a comment on education standards in China or Vietnam universally — I'm well aware that both countries are among the forerunners in medical science. I do think Western hippies should know better though, which is why I'm more comfortable demonising them rather than people growing up with less opportunity to benefit from a modern education.
As an aside, I don't think Vietnam as neatly fits the Venn diagram I described in my original comment. I lived in Vietnam for a while, and animal welfare is less of a thing there than in most of the West.
I want to be clear also that while I said that "hippies cause climate change", I don't place exclusive blame on them for it. That would be silly. I think it's important to recognise however that the holier than thou attitudes of PETA, XR, Greta Thunberg and others do not actually help alleviate any of the problems facing society, despite their best intentions.
> They’re certainly wrong on a lot of things, but they’re also advocating for change that no other parties dare to yet.
You're right — people and organisations aren't quite so binary. I think that's in line with the spirit of my original comment, although I worded it more antagonistically.
> It's most likely true that hippies aren't the largest group of believers in magical potions from animal parts — I certainly don't have the numbers and I'm going by intuition, but there's likely also a difference between the number of people and the size of the market created by those people. Not all people have equal purchasing power.
Despite the difference in purchasing power, there’s no indication that rhino horns get sold in substantial quantities in the western sphere. There’s certainly people that will purchase it, but the primary market is in Asia and Africa itself.
Additionally, as with most endangered species, hunting them is only part of what endangers the population. Destruction of habitat for crops or meat, often sold to Europe and the US is a major contribution.
The hippies are truly not at fault here.
> I think it's important to recognise however that the holier than thou attitudes of PETA, XR, Greta Thunberg and others do not actually help alleviate any of the problems facing society, despite their best intentions.
Blaming the hippies for climate change is absurd. When all relevant decisions were made, they were not in power. Nuclear power would not have saved us. There’s more blame to be put on the decision makers at shell than the hippies. Blaming them is a convenient scapegoat for the hard choices we need to make in the future.
> Why would you lunp Greta Thunberg in there? By age alone, she’s not to blame for climate change. And what she does explicitly advocate for is in her own words: “Listen to the scientists”
You're right, she isn't to blame for climate change, but she is one of the most prominent characters in the world and when she says "personally, I am against nuclear power"[0], people listen. It causes real damage.
She does indeed say "listen to the scientists", but the scientists say we need nuclear power[1]. Which she is against. Confusingly.
> Blaming the hippies for climate change is absurd.
I really don't think it is. I think it is climate alarmists (purely with good intentions, as I mentioned earlier) like Thunberg going back several decades that have pressured governments into abandoning investment in nuclear power.
Fundamentally, if you can’t listen to people that are wrong on one thing, then there’s nobody you can listen to. Everyone is wrong on one thing at least, everyone is inconsistent. A lot of people advocating for nuclear power still eat meat, while cutting back on meat usage is a substantial factor in combating destruction of wildlife habitat and reducing emissions. Not owning a car, not flying, all things that can effectively be done on a personal level now, instead of or even in parallel to advocating for nuclear power. The belief that technology will save us all and that we don’t have to change our personal lifestyles has in my opinion a strong resemblance to religious beliefs.
Again, I agree with you, so your comment feels like a bit of a strawman.
I'm not arguing in favour of ideological purity. I am merely concerned with pragmatic solutions to the problems that we face. I don't think pressing the power save button on your television makes a meaningful difference. I also don't think banning cars or planes — an idea many environmental activists are enthusiastic about — is realistic.
I think the scale of the problem we face, and the extent of impact necessary to mitigate it, requires investment in nuclear power. Other forms of clean energy are useful, but supplementary.
If Thunberg were wrong about other things, it would be inconsequential. For her to push the wrong message about her core argument though is far less forgivable.
I'm pretty sure we've moved past the need for nuclear. Renewables just work well enough. Given a better grid and sufficient overbuilding, combined with some storage (probably pumping water uphill) we can be on fuel free electricity.
The only actual data I saw on your source dated in the past 8 years was something showing that in 2019 alone, 1/7 more of the Germany energy production moved to renewables (doubling its share from 1/7 to 2/7). That sounds good to me!
They also said we'll have to invest hundreds of billions over a decade in rebuilding the electrical grid. Given that the grid keeps setting California on fire, that seems like an investment we'll have to make anyway.
If you only found one data point from the past 8 years in that source, then I'm sorry but you're just going to have to read a little harder.
If that's a struggle, come back after you've watched Pandora's Promise with a truly open mind.
The source above addresses why renewables aren't a complete solution. Fossil fuel companies also know that renewables aren't a complete solution, which is exactly why fossil fuel companies funded and ran anti-nuclear propaganda campaigns back in the 1970s, encouraging civilians to opt for solar instead! Because they knew it was never going to happen!
Germany's an odd case in the renewable energy space, because while they produce an excess of energy quite regularly thanks to their renewables, they're also heavily reliant on natural gas and imported nuclear energy from France to maintain grid stability. Their ability to build up such a large share of renewables hinges on other European countries not doing so.
TIL: That there is a brand of milk in Germany that involves moonlit rituals? I tried looking up this information on their website and didn't see anything about it. Could you possibly link me to more information about this? I'm really curious.
I do hope that someday hippies and non hippies alike find an answer for climate change and general wellness of the planet and all it's creatures.
It’s really vexing, because for animal welfare and general biodiversity requirements, they’re the toughest standards, but they have those magic cult-like rituals buried in there.
I believe the English term for this may be “bio-dynamic”, which is a movement similar to the organic movement but with stricter standards, and more emphasis on what farming techniques you should use (crop rotation, etc), rather than just what you shouldn’t do (e.g. use pesticides). From what I’ve seen, there seem to be a bunch of good ideas in there, along with a lot of ritual rubbish.
I buy one of the Demeter-certified brands of milk. It’s just the best you can buy, taste wise if you ask me. It still irks me that I have to choose between good milk from ethically raised cows and not supporting belief in magic.
What if I told you people are lying pieces of shit, say that they care about animal welfare in surveys and then in the supermarket buy the cheapest brand anyway?
I'd call you an unproductive cynic, point to the rise in eco and vegan labels that empirically provides counter evidence and move on.
This perspective adds nothing but a feeling of superiority, I'd rather think about how to replace the culty brand with a secular one and figure out how to work on climate change and corporate misconduct in my small capacity
Honest question: who does it harm? These aspects that you mention may not be to your (or to my) taste, but if they are relatively harmless and the other stuff is overwhelmingly good, why not let it go?
Fundamentally, the ritualistic behavior harms belief in science. Doing things because we believe in magic of any kind is fostering belief in other magic - for example healing by similar magic, the roots for both go back to Rudolf Steiner.
I've never seen hippies buy into the part of Chinese medicine that uses weird alchemy - I see your argument as a huge straw man to set up your pro nuclear point. Hippies, stereotypically, lean into smoking weed and have a higher likelihood of vegetarianism. But yeah, they believe in stuff like acupuncture and chiropractory too.
The Chinese medicine hippies are into is pretty much only the herbalist aspect of it, along with acupuncture. I know a lot of people involved in this and exactly zero of them agree with or do anything with animal products, especially anything rare or endangered.
Additionally, many of them embrace scientific knowledge and are very interested in why, and if, remedies work rather than treating them as magic and de facto superstitious rules.
Well, that's comforting to some degree. Of course, your recount is as anecdotal as mine, and unfortunately my experience (or at least, the parts of it that confirmation bias pushes into the forefront of my recollection) has been that of more enthusiasm for crystals, homeopathy, chakras, auras, tarot cards, and other mystical bullshit. The people I'm thinking of like to believe they are against the use of animal products, while at the same time using animal products through selective oblivion. It's a bit like former PETA VP Mary Beth Sweetland not considering herself a hypocrite for condemning the use of animal products in medicine despite using animal products to treat her diabetes.
I realize the label "Libertarian" is used by a lot of people to make themselves look more virtuous by signaling that they value liberty but it is a stretch in my eyes to equate authoritarian-minded people who merely desire the state to not interfere while they gain massive wealth and power, often over other people, and genuinely anti-authoritarian people (however delusional or misguided) who would just like the state and other authoritarians to not bother them or others.
I'm not a libertarian but have known plenty. None were very wealthy, nor did they want much other than a bit of land, and a small business.
Please do! I have no idea what you're talking about, but now I'm curious. The only Google search I came up with were the dancers in the 1920's... in which case I missed the joke =[
