this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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[โ€“] Tja@programming.dev 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Amazon is a seller, they don't manufacture almost anything, but that's beside the point. It's not about the individual. I can blame either BP for drilling for oil, or the millions of people who refuse to:

  • drive an EV
  • ordering the more expensive but locally manufactured products that don't need that much transportation
  • vote for walkable cities and public transportation
  • simply consume less stuff

That would require introspection, and maybe accepting responsibility. It's easier to live in a world that the BP's CEO is the bad one and me and all of my friends are blameless victims.

Billionaires can only burn so much oil with their private planes and yachts, they don't consume 100 million barrels per day.

[โ€“] Avicenna@programming.dev 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Retrospection is always nice and needed and consumption habits definitely need to change. However there is something to be said of someone who single handedly and deliberately pushes the world towards more and more unsustainable consumption habits because they are playing the world like they are playing a game of monopoly. Imagine opening a supermarket chain in a town with local shops and driving others out of business by creating unfair competition with very low prices (by providing goods from countries with lower wages and questionable production standards). Sure you can also blame the local consumers for being selfish and not owning their community but in some cases people actually have to choose between cheaper grocery prices vs other essentials. And now in this case you are comparing someone who is being selfish because it becomes a matter of providing yourself and your kids with basic necessities vs someone who already has billions but is driving even less sustainable consumption practices because it makes them more money. To me it is clear in this case on whom the bigger part of the blame falls to. Educate people and ask them to do retrospection yes but as long as people like billionaires exist, they will actively look for ways to exploit the system. So they should not exist.

Billionaires can only burn so much oil with their private planes and yachts

Everything aside, if someone is personally consuming yearly the fuel equivalent of hundreds of people, I can still call them a much more selfish person even though on a grander scale that particular impact is negligible compared to totality of commercial flights.