This was not news 20 years ago, and it is not really news today. These are people willing to destroy everything for just a few dollars more. You can argue that if it was not them, then it would be someone else. But that is why the system needs to be dismantled. Capitalism will fight any attempt towards fixing climate change. Systems wants to sustain themselves, if a sick system is causing damages, then it needs to go. It is the only way.
This should have always been news.
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Take all their money
What I really, really do not understand about these companies is that they could have easily played both sides and come up on top anyway. They could have continued to make a shit ton of money with oil and simultaniously invest in renewable energies and become the big players in that field too.
But I guess paying off corrupt politicans is much easier.
It’s because of the choice of measurement.
I used to do consulting work with C level execs at Fortune 500s.
One of the most interesting points that was made was that you could look at what the marketing department’s focus was and determine the metric the CMO’s bonus was tied to. A huge focus on new user signups (even at the cost of existing customer churn)? CMO was being evaluated on number of new users.
Well public companies overall are evaluated on a quarterly basis within their stock market fillings. Beat your quarter? The market and the board are happy. Fell short? The CEO may find themselves out of a job as the company chases getting back to beating their quarter.
The problem is, that’s an incredibly stupid bar to use as effectively the sole measure.
It’s lead to things like Dell being on top of the electronics market and being the first to outsource support to try and save a few percent for the quarter and ending up the butt of jokes that dropped their market share significantly within a few years (even though everyone then followed suit).
And in the case of oil companies, it led to catastrophic mismanagement where the focus on today and the quarter meant sacrificing the entire world long term.
How might this have looked if instead the evaluation metric was a 50 year forecast? Would it have still been prudent to bury and ignore research, or would it have been wise to invest heavily in R&D in alternative energy that might pay off in 20-30 years but you’d have been ahead of your competitors because you were first to identify the forecasted impact of the status quo?
The Corporation, not AI, is the thing that will continue to make paperclips until it destroys humanity if it’s improperly aligned.
And you align corporations by setting the measurements on which their success is evaluated. And we’ve somehow set it on 3 month increments.
An oversight which has likely already killed us all.
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Change costs $.
Doesn’t matter if it’s 1970 or today.
Plus they’d be bucking all the other petro companies trying to sway public opinion in favor of the status quo.
So they went with cheap and easy.
And here we are.
Predictions? Or goals?
Yes their goal was to destroy the planet, that was their reason for mining oil or doing business at all. What a shrewd observation you have made.
They knew what they were doing would destroy the planet.
They did it anyway to make money.
Therefore: yes, it was their goal to destroy the planet. For money.
What aren’t you getting here? Are you too enticed by Sunday Night Football and golf courses to fucking care? Your kids will die, bro. Wake the fuck up.
Their goal was to make a bajillion dollars, the planet was just the obstacle
Step down off your high horse son, you have made a lot of strange assumptions about the intent of my statement and who I am, and they are all completely off-base.
Literally just pointing out that their goal was to make money, and they didn’t care about the results. Their goal was not to destroy the planet like some sort of cartoon villain, the real villain was chasing money. I am not pro-oil or trying to defend these assholes, honestly the fact that killing the planet was incidental damns them even more.
Seriously though you gotta step the fuck off with this hateful and off-base bullshit, you have totally alienated me so you could go on your “brave” rant, when I am literally on your side and not any of the things you described me as in any way.
Wake the fuck up and treat people like humans instead of spreading needless hate online.
Literally just pointing out that their goal was to make money, and they didn’t care about the results. Their goal was not to destroy the planet like some sort of cartoon villain, the real villain was chasing money.
They KNEW they were going to destroy the planet, they still did it to make money. How is that not literally Captain Planet villain shit?!?!?!
Do you literally not see how doing it incidentally is worse?
They literally burned the planet down just to make more money, it wasn’t even a calculation to them, they had to do this for the sake of money.
Some evil villain insanely plotting in a mountain lair didn’t destroy the planet, there wasn’t a league of evil wearing flashy costumes, it was a bunch of “normal” people wearing grey suits, sitting in an office soberly making these decisions because the money required them to, their entire business operation depends on it.
The real villain is money, and my real issue is being screamed and accused at for trying to point this out.
And the reason you’re getting push back is because that is because yes we get it, capitalism is the arch vampire, but it’s avatars in the boardrooms wearing the suits are still “real villain.”
If the science was ambiguous they could claim they just did it for money and didn’t care, but they fucking KNEW. Seriously go watch an episode of captain planet and tell me how it’s different than actual cartoon villainy…
“Pushback”
You lunatics need to calm the fuck down, you alienate anyone that doesn’t fall into your ridiculous hivemind with personal attacks and toxic behaviour.
Literally quibbling over semantics and it immediately becomes personal and hateful.
I am done with all of you, there is no discussion only vile behaviour.
As long as conservatives have the power to defend fossil fuel megacorps, the world will continue to burn. If you aren’t fighting conservatism, you aren’t fighting climate change. Period.
Exxon Mobil continues to fund and build Carbon Bomb projects.
a solid business strategy includes understanding your risks as well as effective marketing campaigns. i don’t like it, but i can appreciate game when it’s played
Sometimes the right answer is “don’t do that.”
k
