this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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Fair enough. I get it, and agree with the underlying sentiment. I disagree that that language is likely to be effective in the direction we want though. I think it tends to be received as doomerist/alarmist and causes people to shut down and ignore the problem entirely. I think that sci-comms research is with me on this, but I don't have good references for that at hand.
You could definitely be right, I’m just going off of feelings on this, and my feelings about the general public are generally anger and disappointment, so not much logic involved.
The way I see it, this is a disempowerment problem. Most people don't feel like they don't have agency to do anything about it. Given the power structures in our societies, I can understand that, but agency does exist, through political activism in particular (in many forms). But I think things like "past the point of no return" and "worst impacts now unavoidable" really play in to and reinforce that disempowerment. If people act as much as possible soon, then we might be able to reduce the severity of the problem. If they get more disempowered and don't act at all, then it'll be as bad as possible.