In 18 whatever whatever, the Schuylkill River LIT ON FIRE. So polluted had it become by the Forces Of Noble Or At Least Unstoppable Progress ("what are we to do" the people shrugged, "money to be made," the people shrugged, "we all like what they're making," the people shrugged) that one stray spark was all it took to convert Philadelphia's erstwhile life-source into an inferno.
Look out your window. Look out the tiny window in your hand onto the world of information. You do not need me to tell you; you can already feel it; you already lament it: the river is on fire again. Stop shrugging!
In the 1920s, their heads needed not swivel when children entered the street. Cities were safe for play and dangerous for "jay-drivers," the reckless owners of newfangled automobiles, carelessly clobbering kids. "Don't blame the drivers," said the industry in papers, in lobbies. "Don't blame the manufacturer. Blame the kids." And in a decade, a generation, of propoganda, blame swapped from "jay-drivers" to "jay-walkers", and the industry convinced the world to reorganize; convinced cities and countries to spend millions on traffic lights, asphalt, and highways; convinced vast regions to rip out pre-existing rail systems, piling street cars in great pyres to please the gods of Progress; convinced nations to accept soaring rates of needless death; externalities all justified by the automotive bottom-line.
Look out your window. They're at it again. They'll burn everything you love to make a profit. Stop shrugging!
In the 1960s, fossil magnates invented litter. "Our future is in the trash," they said at their conferences, and laid out the plan: every beverage, every foodstuff, to be wrapped in single-use plastic; to print meaningless "recycling" icons on the bottoms; decades of commercials to shift blame from themselves, the manufacturerer, to "litterbugs." To individuals. To Personal Responsibility. At enormous and still-untallied cost—mountains scraped to chasms at taxpayer expense, filled with rubbish; country-sized gyres and plastic-burst albatros bellies; plastic-filled blood and endocrine systems—every beach, every community, every organism on the planet absorbed the externalities to protect executive salaries.
Look out your window. They're doing it again. Stop shrugging.
Now AI companies host "public education" conferences where Meta representatives lead panels on "how to protect teen mental health." The gall! As if they haven't spent the last two decades profiteering off the wholesale destruction of mental health, teen and otherwise. This is the company that will put uncontrollable AI bots in front of children and then "teach" you that it's your fault when things go poorly.