Editor’s note: this is a post about American Independence Day celebrations
existentialmemes
Alright, I’m going to launch explosives around your house. For several hours. Yes it is dangerous and terrible for wildlife and the environment. And yes your pets will get sick from eating the debris and you will feel terrorized inside your own home.
No you can’t opt out of it. Everyone is doing it and frankly it’s weird that you don’t want to.
No you can’t be the one launching the explosives you need a license for that. You can however launch these marginally smaller ones though. Yeah just whenever you want. 2am sounds great.
So anyway, fireworks were a mistake and it’s never too early to start reminding you of that.
All fun comes at someone’s expense. Sparklers and fountains are made in factories, probably sweat shops, then sold by underpaid people while other folks benefit. No ethical consumption under capitalism after all.
I can, like you, make anything you enjoy shit.
This is called the nirvana fallacy. Yes you can go forever and you should reduce your consumption as much as possible. That doesn’t mean I have to buy the specifically really loud animal-terrifying cabinet shaking wake people up who have work tomorrow variety of fireworks, and that doesn’t give my neighbor carte-blanche to do whatever they want no matter how much it bothers me. It’s possible to do better without doing perfect.
At what point is consumption fine to do? If we’re to reduce the consumption and harm, what level is it acceptable to have some consumption and harm for what we want out of life?
Weirdly enough, I think the things you enjoy you’ll find are acceptable to compromise over and the things you don’t like are unacceptable. You have a bias as well.
So when the tone of this post, others comments and your comments leave no room for compromise, and people start whipping out the straw men and exaggerations, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take your “we can do better without doing perfect” as something said in good faith.
The line is arbitrary but “have things that sound like explosions for 2 weeks that might happen at any point for 24 hours a day that causes massive stress to animals and some people” should be crossing that line. Same for the animal industry and supporting AI when the data centers are causing huge issues.
I think almost anyone would agree if there was a set firework show, that lasted 30 minutes to an hour, and no other explosive fireworks outside the show (sparklers etc are totally fine), you would have 1/100th the people complaining. I am not personally massively affected by fireworks but I don’t think that’s an unfair compromise at all.
Good point. I’ve always wanted to build a shooting range in my own front yard, and you’ve convinced me to finally set it up. If my neighbors complain, I’ll just explain that there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and that all fun comes at someone else’s expense
Maybe you can put up a scarecrow in the range, too, since you like straw men so much.