[Politics] In Light of Recent Events, How Do You Feel About "Preachy" Environmentalist Media

[Terminal Blue]

That said, for me, it was very much pro-environment, with any anti-imperialist message being very tangental.

I think Avatar is an interesting case of the two being so tangled you can't really separate them.

Avatar is (and James Cameron has openly stated as much) a really blatant thematic repetition of a whole bunch of films like Dances with Wolves, the Mission and the Last Samurai. These stories generally involve a very similar pattern of a white dude who has become disenchanted with so-called civilisation going to live with a group of "primitive" people from another culture, discovering some quality which is missing from his life as a civilized white person and ultimately using his special white people powers to defend his new adopted culture from some existential threat which they would not be able to confront otherwise.

The environmental imagery in Avatar is definitely present, but it ultimately serves the narrative above. Specifically, the film plays on an age old dichotomy about indigenous people being closer to nature, while of course we civilised people have become disconnected from the natural world. There's a grain of truth in that, I guess, in that Western culture (and thus colonizers) have tended to view nature in instrumental terms, as something which exists out there to be exploited and tamed. It makes sense that now that attitude has come back to bite us all in the ass we might feel a bit more sympathy for colonised people.

But the problem is, Avatar is sort of bullshit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hihKrHP9aMc&t=973s]. Like all these white saviour movies, it's a wish fulfilment fantasy about saving some idealised pure, innocent culture of aesthetically pleasing people (who you can conveniently stick your blue cat hair-dick in). It is a fictional scenario in which opposing imperialism, or being an environmentalist, is very, very easy and obviously right, as opposed to reality where it's often quite difficult and requires questioning a lot of deep rooted internalised biases.

I mean, James Cameron made another film once about a high tech colonial military force fighting a technologically primitive alien species for control of an alien planet (and coincidentally, its alien resources). It was called Aliens, and the aliens were the baddies. The reality is that sometimes nature is not wondrous and beautiful, and sometimes indigenous people are not sexy noble savages you can totally fuck. If Pandora had been a shitty place and the Na'vi had been gross belligerent monsters, would that make it more permissible to destroy their habitat to steal its resources? The conservationist answer has to be no, but I doubt that movie would be the second highest grossing film of all time.

 

[Hawki]

Avatar is (and James Cameron has openly stated as much) a really blatant thematic repetition of a whole bunch of films like Dances with Wolves, the Mission and the Last Samurai. These stories generally involve a very similar pattern of a white dude who has become disenchanted with so-called civilisation going to live with a group of "primitive" people from another culture, discovering some quality which is missing from his life as a civilized white person and ultimately using his special white people powers to defend his new adopted culture from some existential threat which they would not be able to confront otherwise.

I'm aware of the so-called "white saviour" trope that Avatar takes reference from, but two points. First, Jake's ethnicity is irrelevant to the film, while in those others, it arguably is (I assume, I haven't seen any of them). Second, the na'vi would be capable of defeating the RDA without Jake. It's not exactly a subversion, but it's telling that it's Eywa's intervention that saves Pandora in the end, not anything Jake himself does.

Again, speaking personally, I always saw Avatar as having more in common with traditional fairy tales than the tropes you mentioned. It's an interesting combination of using (relatively) hard sci-fi to tell a story with fantasy trappings, but still being sci-fi rather than sci-fa.

It is a fictional scenario in which opposing imperialism, or being an environmentalist, is very, very easy and obviously right, as opposed to reality where it's often quite difficult and requires questioning a lot of deep rooted internalised biases.

Jake and co. make the right choice. They don't make an easy one. Excluding personal cost, losing Pandora means the RDA loses access to unobtanium. Losing access to unobtanium means that Earth's mag-lev network can't function. Losing the network means that Earth's economy is screwed on a planet that's already ecologically screwed.

I mean, James Cameron made another film once about a high tech colonial military force fighting a technologically primitive alien species for control of an alien planet (and coincidentally, its alien resources). It was called Aliens, and the aliens were the baddies. The reality is that sometimes nature is not wondrous and beautiful, and sometimes indigenous people are not sexy noble savages you can totally fuck. If Pandora had been a shitty place and the Na'vi had been gross belligerent monsters, would that make it more permissible to destroy their habitat to steal its resources? The conservationist answer has to be no, but I doubt that movie would be the second highest grossing film of all time.

I'm not sure if you're trying to draw an equivalence between the two, but if so, it doesn't work. The xenomorphs aren't native to LV-426. Alien and Aliens are seeped in anti-coproprate themes, but while that's true of Avatar as well, the Alien films don't engage in ecological ones. Burke gives lip service to not having the right to wipe the xenomorphs out, but it's glossed over. And given what we know of the origins of the xenomorphs, either pre-Prometheus (Xenomorph Prime) or post-Prometheus (David's creation), I'm not going to shed a tear over them, and the setting has never asked us to, in part because this is a setting where life is cheap for everyone and everything.

 

[Cicada 5]

It's also worth noting that the state of the earth is almost an afterthought. I think the only time it's mentioned in film (the theatrical release, at least) is when Jake's trying to appeal to the spirit of Pandora for help. Most of the environmental stuff? Backstory that you need to independently track down because it never made it to the film, and that which remained was more a facilitator than a focus, and the film comes off more as anti-imperialist than pro-environmentalist.

Saying Avatar is anti-imperialist isn't a stretch - it's outright stated to have anti-imperialist themes (though also pro-environment ones). That said, for me, it was very much pro-environment, with any anti-imperialist message being very tangental. Yes, in the theatrical version, the status of Earth is mentioned twice - Jake's plea to Eywa, and his monologue at the end ("the aliens went back to their dying world"). But even that aside, when you see that the RDA is there with an open-cut mine, when bulldozers carve a path through the rainforest, when the Omaticaya home tree is destroyed, when we consider Jake's arc and his feeling that Pandora is more "real" to him now than his old life, Avatar is seeping with environmental themes. In contrast, the anti-imperialist stuff is tangental. The RDA may be an "imperialist" force in a sense, but it's imperialism that stems from environmental degradation of Earth. If we define imperialism as "a state exerting control over another state's territory," then the RDA isn't really fitting the bill 100%. The RDA is there to make money, not to conquer the planet, even if the methods are similar at the end of the day.

I always disliked Captain Planet.

While it does mention the environmental problems of its time, it has villains who waht to increase pollution just for the sake of it. And most of the series is fighting against those villains as if fighting people does help.

And also our time.

But that aside, the CP villains can be divided into two groups - those who actively seek to cause pollution (Dr. Blight, Duke Nukem, Verminous Skumm), and those who want to get rich and don't care about pollution (Looten Plunder, Hoggish Greedly, Sly Sludge). I'm not calling this subtle, but it's a simplification to say that every villain in the show actively seeks to cause pollution. And even then, it does engage in other issues as well at times, such as the one where Looten sparks a war so that he can sell arms to both sides.

I think Avatar may have handled the environmentalism themes better than the anti-imperialism themes. There are certain subject in which you can use a nuanced bad guy but imperialism isn't quite one of them. Avatar makes it so that the humans need the Na'Vi's resources to save their dying planet which typically is not why other countries attack and conquer other countries.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

That said, for me, it was very much pro-environment, with any anti-imperialist message being very tangental.

I think Avatar is an interesting case of the two being so tangled you can't really separate them.

Avatar is (and James Cameron has openly stated as much) a really blatant thematic repetition of a whole bunch of films like Dances with Wolves, the Mission and the Last Samurai. These stories generally involve a very similar pattern of a white dude who has become disenchanted with so-called civilisation going to live with a group of "primitive" people from another culture, discovering some quality which is missing from his life as a civilized white person and ultimately using his special white people powers to defend his new adopted culture from some existential threat which they would not be able to confront otherwise.

The environmental imagery in Avatar is definitely present, but it ultimately serves the narrative above. Specifically, the film plays on an age old dichotomy about indigenous people being closer to nature, while of course we civilised people have become disconnected from the natural world. There's a grain of truth in that, I guess, in that Western culture (and thus colonizers) have tended to view nature in instrumental terms, as something which exists out there to be exploited and tamed. It makes sense that now that attitude has come back to bite us all in the ass we might feel a bit more sympathy for colonised people.

But the problem is, Avatar is sort of bullshit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hihKrHP9aMc&t=973s]. Like all these white saviour movies, it's a wish fulfilment fantasy about saving some idealised pure, innocent culture of aesthetically pleasing people (who you can conveniently stick your blue cat hair-dick in). It is a fictional scenario in which opposing imperialism, or being an environmentalist, is very, very easy and obviously right, as opposed to reality where it's often quite difficult and requires questioning a lot of deep rooted internalised biases.

I mean, James Cameron made another film once about a high tech colonial military force fighting a technologically primitive alien species for control of an alien planet (and coincidentally, its alien resources). It was called Aliens, and the aliens were the baddies. The reality is that sometimes nature is not wondrous and beautiful, and sometimes indigenous people are not sexy noble savages you can totally fuck. If Pandora had been a shitty place and the Na'vi had been gross belligerent monsters, would that make it more permissible to destroy their habitat to steal its resources? The conservationist answer has to be no, but I doubt that movie would be the second highest grossing film of all time.

The thing that makes me laugh about some people who hated Avatar, is that there was a fair amount of overlap of people who in turn were fans of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And to me the two movies have some interesting parallels.

Or put bluntly, in Avatar, Jake is Optimus Prime, Quaritch is Megatron. The RDA need Pandora to maintain Earth as much as the Decepticons have (in one form or another) needed Earth to rebuild Cybertron. Yet so many people get the shits about Jake seeing what the RDA is up to eventually and helping the Na'vi to beat them, find no similar moral dilemma for Optimus Prime. See also the last third of Man of Steel where General Zod is trying to turn Earth into New Krypton.

 

[Cicada 5]

The thing that makes me laugh about some people who hated Avatar, is that there was a fair amount of overlap of people who in turn were fans of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And to me the two movies have some interesting parallels.

Or put bluntly, in Avatar, Jake is Optimus Prime, Quaritch is Megatron. The RDA need Pandora to maintain Earth as much as the Decepticons have (in one form or another) needed Earth to rebuild Cybertron. Yet so many people get the shits about Jake seeing what the RDA is up to eventually and helping the Na'vi to beat them, find no similar moral dilemma for Optimus Prime. See also the last third of Man of Steel where General Zod is trying to turn Earth into New Krypton.

I remember when Age of Extinction came out and fans were crying bloody murder over Optimus killing the rogue CIA agents who were killing Autobots and using their parts to make money. Never mind that the two instances in the film of Optimus killing humans was done to protect other humans. Some even went as far as claiming that Optimus' promise to not kill humans was never established despite the first film in the Bayverse stating that the Autobots do not kill humans.

I remember a lot of MoS critics disliked Superman killing Zod and accused him of committing genocide for destroying the birthing chamber. Then again, that might be due to the Kryptonians looking like humans unlike the Na'Vi and the Decepticons.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The thing that makes me laugh about some people who hated Avatar, is that there was a fair amount of overlap of people who in turn were fans of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And to me the two movies have some interesting parallels.

Or put bluntly, in Avatar, Jake is Optimus Prime, Quaritch is Megatron. The RDA need Pandora to maintain Earth as much as the Decepticons have (in one form or another) needed Earth to rebuild Cybertron. Yet so many people get the shits about Jake seeing what the RDA is up to eventually and helping the Na'vi to beat them, find no similar moral dilemma for Optimus Prime. See also the last third of Man of Steel where General Zod is trying to turn Earth into New Krypton.

I remember when Age of Extinction came out and fans were crying bloody murder over Optimus killing the rogue CIA agents who were killing Autobots and using their parts to make money. Never mind that the two instances in the film of Optimus killing humans was done to protect other humans. Some even went as far as claiming that Optimus' promise to not kill humans was never established despite the first film in the Bayverse stating that the Autobots do not kill humans.

I remember a lot of MoS critics disliked Superman killing Zod and accused him of committing genocide for destroying the birthing chamber. Then again, that might be due to the Kryptonians looking like humans unlike the Na'Vi and the Decepticons.

Honestly I'm a little shocked he didn't kill Stanly Tucci's character since he was equally culpable for the murder and desecration of the dead bodies of his friends. And did he kill both Grammer and his field man? I remember he killed one of them but I can't recall if it was both.

 

[Hawki]

There are certain subject in which you can use a nuanced bad guy but imperialism isn't quite one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvPbj9NX0zc

That aside, you can give almost any subject a nuanced view. People have even managed it when dealing with the Holocaust for example.

The thing that makes me laugh about some people who hated Avatar, is that there was a fair amount of overlap of people who in turn were fans of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And to me the two movies have some interesting parallels.

Or put bluntly, in Avatar, Jake is Optimus Prime, Quaritch is Megatron. The RDA need Pandora to maintain Earth as much as the Decepticons have (in one form or another) needed Earth to rebuild Cybertron. Yet so many people get the shits about Jake seeing what the RDA is up to eventually and helping the Na'vi to beat them, find no similar moral dilemma for Optimus Prime. See also the last third of Man of Steel where General Zod is trying to turn Earth into New Krypton.

On ff.net, it astounded me as to how many people started writing to give the setting a more "nuanced" view or to portray the RDA as the "good guys." Which isn't inherently bad (it's fanfic, knock yourself out), but as you point out, where's the attempts at moral ambiguity where humans aren't the bad guys? Course, the simple explanation as that being human, we're going to have a blind spot for our own species. I haven't seen too much of that for Zod though - the most common complaint I've seen is the whole "why didn't Zod terraform Mars?" (never mind that you're trying to use made up science to explain made up science, and Zod himself indicates that terraforming a world requires a foundation - Earth is naturally a better choice than Mars, which is immical to life).

 

[Cicada 5]

Honestly I'm a little shocked he didn't kill Stanly Tucci's character since he was equally culpable for the murder and desecration of the dead bodies of his friends. And did he kill both Grammer and his field man? I remember he killed one of them but I can't recall if it was both.

I think it was implied Tucci's character wasn't entirely aware that the CIA guys were giving him Autobot parts as well as Decepticons.

Optimus killed Grammer while Mark Wahlberg killed the field man.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I want you to go back over my posts and tell me at what point I suggested that the fossil fuel industry is actually an example of laissez faire capitalism.

I'd strongly suggest you go back, read my post, and stop constructing straw men if you thought that was the only -- or main -- takeaway from my argument. Case in point,

Laissez faire capitalism does not function...a sad reality we must deal with.

The sad reality you have to deal with, is this is as every bit as pig-headed, stubborn, and thought-terminating an argument as the "commernisms is all Stalinsisms!" dogshit I have to deal with on the regular. This is not a productive point to argue, nor is it effective, depolarizing, or persuasive in any way. You're regurgitating party lines to appeal to an echo chamber, not advancing anything reasonably approaching the definition of "progress". And I say that agreeing with you.

The sad reality, here, is also that laissez-faire capitalists have a point in this regard. Government interventionism and favoritism -- regardless of the "how" or "why" this came to be -- is every bit as capable of creating and sustaining anti-progressive and anti-market forces, such as monopolies, as the lack thereof. Microsoft got to where it did by appropriating and misapplying intellectual property law; Disney, copyright and public domain law; Amazon, individualized tax incentives on state and local levels and no sales taxes on online sales; Ma Bell, state and federal legislation specifically empowering it as a natural monopoly.

And likewise, fossil fuels continue to sit the throne of king of the energy hill largely due to government intervention on that industry's behalf. No amount of panicked hand-wringing about the environment is ever going to change that, not while "the opposition" is and has been for decades inoculated against that point. What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

How would the free market play that one out?

I'll tell you what. You cut the shit, and we can have a conversation about that.

 

[CaitSeith]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

 

[Silvanus]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Laissez-faire as the solution to this issue? Do I take this to mean you advocate environmental deregulation-- removing restrictions or limits on pollution, reversing green taxes, low-emission zones etc?

That's what laissez-faire would entail.

Suffice it to say I do not trust in the innate goodness of unfettered greed to solve the issues this planet is facing.

 

[Seanchaidh]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

I think you are trying to describe capitalism but it sounds a lot more like communism in the real world.

 

[Seanchaidh]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

I think you are trying to describe capitalism but it sounds a lot more like communism in the real world.

If it looks like what I described, it is capitalism.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

I think you are trying to describe capitalism but it sounds a lot more like communism in the real world.

If it looks like what I described, it is capitalism.

No you see that's not TRUE capitalism. If it has any problems it isn't true capitalism because under true capitalism everything is perfect and works exactly the way it is supposed to to create the best society for everyone. If a capitalist society ever has anything go badly it's because it has become corrupted or undermined by outside forces or government intervention due to evil people with evil agendas being opposed to TRUE capitalism

 

[Seanchaidh]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

I think you are trying to describe capitalism but it sounds a lot more like communism in the real world.

If it looks like what I described, it is capitalism.

No you see that's not TRUE capitalism. If it has any problems it isn't true capitalism because under true capitalism everything is perfect and works exactly the way it is supposed to to create the best society for everyone. If a capitalist society ever has anything go badly it's because it has become corrupted or undermined by outside forces or government intervention due to evil people with evil agendas being opposed to TRUE capitalism

If your point is that a centrally planned economy-- especially one that is not democratic in either its politics or its economics-- can be capitalist in the way I described above, then I don't disagree.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Laissez-faire as the solution to this issue? Do I take this to mean you advocate environmental deregulation-- removing restrictions or limits on pollution, reversing green taxes, low-emission zones etc?

That's what laissez-faire would entail.

Suffice it to say I do not trust in the innate goodness of unfettered greed to solve the issues this planet is facing.

No, but...and allow me to make this as clear as possible, for the partisan-induced reading-impaired among us,

you'll get a lot more traction persuading the people you actually need to persuade, using their language and reasoning on your own terms.

Keyword persuade, because as I quite clearly stated last page, the "Christ, what a prick" factor involved in "debates" such as these when thought-terminating language comes into play. Because what I'm suggesting are the arguments you need to be making to break through echo chamber walls and start convincing people outside your own, if you expect any real sort of policy shift on the subject at all.

 

[Trunkage]

What does, is driving the point home the current status quo is anything but laissez-faire capitalism, it's "crony capitalism" wearing a laissez-faire mask, and if anything a good-faith, educated, and honest adherent to the principles of laissez-faire capitalism should be advocated for a prohibition of the very government action that empowers the fossil fuels industry.

Better yet: prohibit capitalists to pay/have cronies in the government. Without capitalists feeding them, cronies starve to death.

To really accomplish this, it is simplest and best to get rid of capitalists entirely. No longer structure the economy in such a way that small groups of owners absorb all the surplus value created by the labor of the mass of people. No longer privatize the wealth created by the social process of production and distribution; no longer accumulate that wealth in the hands of a very small number of individuals who then use it to control society-- not only the politicians, but media, legal, and other institutions.

I think you are trying to describe capitalism but it sounds a lot more like communism in the real world.

If it looks like what I described, it is capitalism.

No you see that's not TRUE capitalism. If it has any problems it isn't true capitalism because under true capitalism everything is perfect and works exactly the way it is supposed to to create the best society for everyone. If a capitalist society ever has anything go badly it's because it has become corrupted or undermined by outside forces or government intervention due to evil people with evil agendas being opposed to TRUE capitalism

I've heard this circular reasoning before. I've also heard it used for Communism as well. It's almost like their utopian ideals that don't have basis in reality. If your economic system can be corrupted, maybe, just maybe, the system has a flaw

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I've heard this circular reasoning before. I've also heard it used for Communism as well. It's almost like their utopian ideals that don't have basis in reality. If your economic system can be corrupted, maybe, just maybe, the system has a flaw

People have been searching for utopias since the dawn of mankind, and no longer paying attention when they believe they've found one. No political or economic system is incorruptible, and the best you'll get is keeping the system transparent, and actors within it accountable. The problem is, as we see, devotees to given systems tend more often than not to be actors against transparency and accountability within their chosen framework.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

you'll get a lot more traction persuading the people you actually need to persuade, using their language and reasoning on your own terms.

So, have you been doing it? Have you identified the people who "actually need to be persuaded" and broken into their own echo chambers?