Written by The following is an OpEd and does not reflect the broader feelings of Fastfrwrd as an entity.
Lessons Learned: We wanted to have a Crewdle session to talk about climate action and progress, as immediately as possible. There were two commenters, one public, one private who mentioned that the service we would use to host the discussion is involved in AI. No one ended up coming to the discussion. We were derailed because of the desire for ultimate purity. The fact that we may benefit an AI company is worth discussing. But guess what DIDN’T get discussed? Anything climate related. No one ended up doing anything because it was not pure enough. The service is likely sustained through the AI arm. So it is worth discussing. But not at the expense of discussing other things too. Of course I could not have proposed that we discuss in a group on Fastfrwrd instead because people don’t like signing up for new sites. So I used the video communication tool that is certified carbon neutral, has an ’emmissions avoided’ counter, is cheap, and yes, is tied to an AI company (but was not when I first signed up, they pivoted more than likely to stay afloat because as much as people will talk about eco, when it’s time to support eco, there are less people).
This is not about belittling internet commenters. But nothing got done after this fact. There could have been momentum and instead it lagged. Given my EVERYDAY sacrifices it hurts to think that I got derailed because of something like that. There could have been a: Hey, I see this service is linked to an AI company, let’s do the discussion since they’re a legit company but next time, I’d suggest this other carbon neutral service.
Someone wanted me to change right away with the suggestion they made technically. It was unresearched, it was in German, it did not feel comfortable. And I would have had to take others there too. Of course, the better idea in that case would have been to quit the project and revamp given the objections. If I had just approached with a non Ai green video communication tool (of which there seem to be 3 or 4, 2 of which are in German), then I would have been able to host it. Because I did not have the proper tools, no climate work was allowed to be done. It did not pass the standard. And no community was formed, no change was made, no momentum built, nothing.
The sacrifice or cost for not being pure enough should not be that hours of climate work that could have taken place no longer takes off. The cost for not being pure enough should not be that the planet suffers (the AI company is likely keeping the video comms tool alive, it’s not a part of it as far as we can tell, it’s bankrolling it, that’s different.) The tool was GOOD ENOUGH but not perfect. And the ‘perfect’ answer was in German and unknown.
When people talk about the left self cannibalizing this might be it but I do not see it that way. I see it as people who are saddened that the world has so many negatives, even in sheep’s clothing. People who keep anticipating the rug being pulled out from under them. Vigilantes, desperate to fight off greenwashing.
It’s good that they cared enough to argue. It’s good. But they still prevented good work from being done because it was not exactly to their taste. They still slowed something that could have gone fast and built well.
Here’s where it comes to in the end: These were masc presenting people and I do not want to say that men don’t know how to communicate but honestly, a lot of men in the environmental movement do have some communication issues that I notice as compared to femmes. I’m sorry it’s true. It’s not all men but enough that it is an issue. So here I AM being the one to make the perfect be the enemy of the good. There were ways to talk about the Crewdle issue and one person attempted to do so, in a way that would not derail and instead ameliorate, improve the momentum of the project. A ‘yes, and’ not a ‘no, but’. There are ways to be a BOON and a SUPPORTER of good enough but not perfect projects, instead of trying to ‘teach a thing or two’ and throw your genitals around a bit for show.
It’s not great. I don’t want to be the person talking about ‘men’ but the people who have been doing this have been men. Change my mind when you change the facts. This impetus to ‘be correct’ in the face of people who seem to be doing good things but ‘oh surprise, something about it ISN’T good, now I get to be the contrarian and righteous’…. it could actually be deadly. Because this is climate.
People were discouraged from saving their lives today. So it does matter. It matters a great deal. We need to talk about HOW we talk. We need to talk about soft skills. We need to talk about building rather than tearing down just because it’s not exactly as we would like.
There was another masc presenting person or two who derided the fact that we may use Unity game engine to build our games and learn to code. They both tried to encourage the use of Godot. But it was in a righteous manner that will not feel pleasant to ‘give in’ to because it will feel like a defeat rather than a moment of ‘growth’ which it can be. We do not want to use Godot for several reasons including the fact that the logo looks like a gollywog. We don’t want to use Godot but we love opensource and would love to find a popular engine that’s opensource and fits the criteria of our project’s linguistics, colour and interpretive standards that are key to the brand. Learning to code in Unity and then graduating to a better engine eventually or even a custom one may be the best path. We also have Twine that we make use of. There are very few engines to truly choose from really, we just have to make the best choice knowing the parameters and restrictions the project has.
And what this brings us to next is this: People make choices with good reason for most things. You have to give them equally good reason to do what you want. And that means also being told about the best new thing from a person who gives you good reason to listen to them. People like the Mortal Kombat approach where you ‘Finish Them’ with logic and are absolutely undeniable. But you’ve hurt someone with your tone, your implication that you know more, that the person you are belittling doesn’t have their own logic and set of reasons for why they think what they have and what they are doing is the best decision they could make at the time of choosing.
The pursuit of purity can be joyful or dreadful as seen in religious circles over millenia. Purity is an ideal that makes us think we will be on par with a heavenly state of being. It’s personal therefore to be deprived of it because it means you are deprived of heaven. Religion becomes offputting when it is weaponized because the religious person takes your ‘unholiness’ personally because you are preventing the Messiah from returning, you are causing the world to become hell. It is the same with Climate. Literally. The lack of purity means more forests will burn, a hell on Earth.
So the preachers come. They are righteous. They are armed with ‘logic’. I used to love a good argument with a believer when I turned atheist. It’s the same thing here. We don’t really change, us humans.
I would like to live in a world where people think that the person they are speaking with has spent just as much time on Earth becoming an expert in their idiosyncracies as the ‘educated’ alternative opensource environmental hero. That the person has just as much sense as them and made decisions for a reason, not out of ignorance of facts but because there are key issues that caused them to choose one thing, and then if they find another that equals or exceeds the value of that first thing, then they can switch over. Because they too are choosing what seems ‘perfect’ in their eyes for their situation. It’s not correct to belittle that.
In any case. People are people at the end of the day and while I won’t wallow in anger at all, I am still left wondering why men especially seem to lack the care required to actually have a decent and just transition to a green future because they insist on bullying their way through, causing distractions, wasting emotions and making things unpleasant.
Am I generalizing? Perhaps. But in the end, they left an impression, and that’s what they wanted.