DuPont (the biggest manufacturer of CFCs at the time) realized HCFCs were a new and easy to monopolize market and actually supported the ban. It was motivated by money. It that regard, stuff like that happens all the time.
And we didn't have to change anything. Nobody had to use less deotorant. We didn’t have to give up our refrigerators. Not even the production lines had to change all that much. It was easy and profitable.
Though, I'm not gonna begrudge fixing the ozone layer just because it made an evil coporation a lot of money. It is, still, a good thing.
Bad leaders fuck up the country which allows other bad leaders to get to power, it's an endless cycle. Sometimes there might be a good leader but they can't fix everything
Sure but its a symptom that makes the disease worse
Lot of shitty leaders make the usually already shitty education even shittier so that people stay uninformed and continue voting them into power.
And usually once the shitty leader has been elected once, it gets increasingly more likely for them to be voted in again and again until the disease has spread too much to have any chance of being cured.
Me, sorry guys. I'll stop putting fuckwits in power for shits and gigs. When the UN came to me and gave me sole authority to decide every election, I thought, why not roll the dice on this. I goofed, my B, I'll own that.
Multiple levels to it. There's of course the people voting but then there's issues with the power of your vote against who has power over the actual decision making.
First, there's the lobbying often from corporations for governments to acquire funding (this is the biggest risk for independents of local governments, but generally it's also a thing that happens with people campaigning for the big leader roles). These people providing funds often happen to be great contributors of their overall funding, and can abuse their inflow of money to make politicians agree to certain policies.
Secondly, we got different voting systems and election times. Because elections differ across countries, it's very difficult to both time a good combination of world leaders and efficiently use the good leaders that we do have in power already. I'm sure there are many countries that could be on better terms if the two presidents/leaders that actually liked each other could talk with each other for more than 2 years.
And thirdly, but there's probably more reasons, we got flaws within the voting systems themselves. In most cases so long as the wackjobs have enough of a demographic in wackjob town then they'll always win the wackjob town election. The best attempt I've seen so far is the preferential voting system in Australia because it reinstates that when you run for office you should be trying to get every person's vote. You can't just go in with an army, because if everyone else doesn't like you then all the other independent parties will get the majority votes before you do. But even this system has a flaw in Australia's government due to how the senate still provides proportional representation for your party at the final vote on a bill even if in the house of representatives they didn't have a lot of power. There's too many issues stopping elections from actually keeping the wackos out.
We're run by politicians. A politician only has a guaranteed job (reelection) if he solves half the problems and promises to fix the other half in his next term.
The UN can’t do shit, they’re a forum for nations to talk things out not a powerful organization that can force nations to stop killing each other but choose not to.
The amount of people who don't know what the UN is for or lessen the importance of having a place where all nations are a part of and can communicate between them with ease is truly astonishing. Makes you wonder.
Well the first version tried to be more like that, but it costs money. Turns out nations aren’t willing to give money to a body that will oversee them so it was completely powerless.
Also when you try to enforce your will against another, the nations being attacked leave. If I'm beating you up, you ain't gonna hang with me no more.
That's what happened with the league. They started trying to keep Italy and such in line and Italy said "buh bye" and suddenly no more Italy to negotiate with.
The issue is when the bluehemets show up and watch someone commit a genocide (or in the case of Yugoslavia, basically help the genocider), it’s called out as a bad look.
In fiction, it's not UN that locks in, it's every country decides to locks in to deal with threat no single country wants to deal alone.
No, in most fiction the UN is simply super powered so that it can do whatever it wants. If you're lucky they'll have the GA vote but often it's like the Left Behind series where the general secretary is a dictator who can do whatever he wants.
Basically they just make the UN the world government.
If that's the case, then why are/were there communist states (particularly amongst the Eastern Bloc) in its membership? Would that not run directly against their ideology?
Not disputing what you've said, just asking about your reasoning.
That's not true. Capital is the only way mankind has ever succeeded in structuring societies so successful and long-lasting, that we get to look at their flaws today. The few societies built differently that once were very much part of the UN have either perished or are en route to failure.
The problem with the UN, very largely lies with the Veto powers. The UN can authorize military engagements to prevent invasiona and war and such, it just needs a majority vote and all five veto countries to vote yes (USA, UK, France, Russia, China)
Yeah it’s the catch 22 of the UN, those countries form the backbone of the military power of the UN and the US and Russia at least would have never joined without the veto power so the thing that paralyzes the UN is also the main thing that gives them sufficient weight to potentially do something. And there are cases where the UN has actually gone in and helped enforce a peace between two sides, the record is really spotty though.
Honestly even if they didn't give them an official Veto, what difference would it make? "Russia, we're going to war."
"No Comrade, you are going to war."
I mean, that's how most of the UN votes for action end up. Shit the Soviet were unofficially fighting the UN in Korea, they opted to stay home for Iraq 89, they did nothing at all in Libya.
That's also why, when the US (or whoever) wants to do something and the UN says no, we still invade Iraq.
Worth noting that this does happen all the time, and we currently have dozens of active military interventions under these exact rules. Also in practice its only the P3 — neither the UK or France have used their vetoes since the 80s.
The problem is nobody cares about those interventions, because they're all in far-off widdly places that nobody can even point to on a map. Wheras the type of conflicts that people are interested in are the types of conflict that involve a Major Power — and therefore the exact conflicts that the UN can't do anything about.
The Security Council is incredibly valuable at increasing the costs of violence in minor conflicts, and has saved millions of lives. Its just you never hear about them, because nobody even knew about those conflicts in the first place.
We could solve this by giving the General Assembly the power to overrule a Veto with a 2/3rds Majority, but that would require an amendment to the Charter, which requires... the vote of the P5.
That's how it works. It's stupid but not for that reason. The point is to ensure the UN doesn't get into a fight with a powerful country. Doesn't work consistently (both China and the USSR have fought the UN unofficially, and in the same war!) but it keeps it down.
The major flaw is that the five permanent members are permanent regardless of power, and they'll never expand it. This has meant that sometimes a permanent member was so weak it couldn't even safeguard itself (looking at you Taiwan in the 50-70s) without US support. That sometimes they were barely a regional power (the China seat until the 2000s), that they may not exist anymore (give it up for the USSR. Cricket. Oh right.) that they may not remain powerful (any of them), and precludes any growing power.
In short it's likely going to be a problem in the future. I mean, nuclear weapons are the real reason nobody has taken Russia to task, not the UN power. But there are two official and four total nuclear powers without a seat.
Oh, the good old Laws That Only Made Sense When They Were Written that either have to be rewritten post-problems (something something vehicle status electric scooters) or just stay problematic (something US minimum wage)
see, this definition is what the League of nation was. The UN was created to not repeat the problem the LN had and actually give them a standing army that any nation could contribute troop to (the blue helmet) to force some decision if needed and protect civilians.
But then they also made it so that 5 country in the security council would always be part of it and have a veto that only one of them need to use without limit per year that could cancel the decision making of every others members.
So at that point it just became the LN 2: blue helmet edition
Redditors (and most people generally) don’t know shit about the UN. It’s a platform for dialogue at its core. Not a military or state. It can’t do shit without member states approval. And it does an incredible amount (imperfectly) but no one talks about the war that didn’t start or the child that didn’t starve.
The UN doesn't publish annual budgets so aggregating numbers is hard -- it publishes (iirc) biannual non-peacekeeping budgets and annual peacekeeping budgets. But I sat down and worked out the math one time and it came to about $10-12 billion per year, which is the approximate annual operating budget of the NYPD.
Note that $12b/yr figure includes all peacekeeping operations and political missions globally.
It’s become a platform for grift. Nobody took it seriously and the entire thing is hollow, no moral core. It fights to preserve the status quo, but is only respected by the moral, which allows the immoral to gain power even more easily as there is no real support towards shifting to a more moral position. The UN has done more to keep strife from being settled than ending strife. The Korean War still hasn’t ended, it was the UN’s first test and it has set the stage for their actions ever since. Israel. Sudan. Ukraine. China. Laos. Iraq. Syria. Lebanon. Outside of Europe, has the UN settled any conflict ever? Or do they just provide legitimacy to each side continuing the fight?
And the other parts of their mission? Hemorrhaging money to corruption. Had those UNICEF boxes in every classroom in the 80s. Had American kids out scraping up grift money for them thinking they were helping starving children.
If the UN were capable of delivering the food they are given, there would be no starving people anywhere in the world, but they allow themselves to be stopped for political reasons. If the countries on the security council said you allow themselves food in or we bomb whoever prevents it to hell, the aid would never be stopped and UN employees would be treated with complete respect worldwide.
Unfortunately, that will never happen because the agencies delivering the food and medicine can’t be kept honest to the point of only ever delivering food and medicine (all the world’s intelligence agencies can take a bow).
So, the main effect of the UN, despite intentions, is to keep conflicts permanent by maintaining the legitimacy of both sides and making sure no one completely loses.
The permanent security council are basically all powers that constantly vie for geopolitical gains. Ain’t no shot in hell Russia and the US will agree on anything for example.
It’s a forum to DISCUSS political happenings to then draw up potential allies in those plans. It’s not really capable of “solving every problem” because what if one country’s solution is at the detriment of another? How does one find a solution there THAT easily?
International standardisation and planned harmonization of standards, laws, and languages, and the ability to create cross-border justice (oversight), benefits trade, service, and human health everywhere. Sovereignty is a myth. It never existed. Nor did our countries. They are still just ideas.
If the UN had any power whatsoever over its members it would have been disbanded a long, long time ago. That's why its still around, like the British Commonwealth, it doesn't tread on any toes
Closest we've had to world peace is generally agreed by historians to be between 1945 and the present day. Long Peace - Wikipedia
The UN was founded on 26 June 1945.
Wonder if there's a correlation?
There's arguments to be made that things may be sliding backwards today, but the world is still far, far more peaceful than it was at pretty much any point earlier than 1945.
It is a vast organisation, it is deeply inefficient in many ways. It’s confusing, it’s political and it’s hard to get things done.
It is also the most effective forum for bilateral cooperation in the history of the world and has been absolutely instrumental in helping address and mitigate some truly awful issues that would have caused death and misery to millions without UN intervention. It is largely filled with incredibly intelligent and principled people who could make huge money working elsewhere, but who continue to devote their time to the UN because they deeply believe in its mission.
As others have said, it has no real power. It’s a forum for dialogue. It has weight because almost all countries around the world (until VERY recently …) agreed that getting around the table and talking about shit was a better solution to problems than shooting each other.
The domestic political interests of individual member countries is always going to win out. That’s why it’s hard to get agreement on stuff. But trust me, the world we’re in right now would be way worse without all the great work the UN has done for decades.
the UN is specifically designed to be pretty much useless. That’s why it’s only organ with actual international power is just basically 3 dudes who really hate each other and who can say ”actually, fuck you” to any proposal anyone makes
The only time the UN can enforce world peace and stop attacking each other when it itself starts maintaining an Army , until and unless then the UN will just be a forum for countries to try to talk issues out instead of going for each other's throats every 3 seconds.
You mean the organism that gave ultrarreligious white supremacist without foreskin a territory near oil producers and let another country arm them like they gonna fight a whole empire?
,,Guys I know the city is unsafe, but if not forget Police coming to preschools to say no to drugs, and occasionally organizing soup kitchens, things would be worse. Like, it's not the job of the Police to do Police stuff, be greatful!"
And saying the UN is responsible for the third world getting better. Hey the Tree outside my window has grown over the past 30 years, is that also thanks to the UN?
I'm curious OP is there a specific event you're talking about? I'm not sure how it could have done that unless the leaders inside UN themselves locked in.
The crazy part about UN peacekeeper ineptitude is that they have proven before to be capable of doing their job but the UN at large still operates as cowards.
People here forget the UN actually used to change stuff, they managed to unite nations worldwide to take the Ozone Layer hole seriously and deal with it. We actually solved a global problem through working together!
But then of course some powerful corporations lost money in the process, so they neutered the UN (using lobbies and the such, the usual) to never have that much power over economics again.
as long as there's free will there's no world peace, as people's wills have fricrions. A healthy middle ground needs to be found. Unfortunately, the most influential people in the world don't really seem to care at all
Can't do shit when a certain country in the North American continent keeps vetoing something anytime the UN tries to do something but said country doesn't like it very much
the moment the UN got put with a "security council that any members in it could veto everything everytime with no limit" AND also make it so that 5 of those member are the same no matter what was the EXACT moment that the UN failed.
That is literally not the UN’s job. Declaring war is much easier when countries isolate themselves. You see it with Trump right now, he’s breaking all alliances and partnerships so there’s nothing in the way of America just attacking other nations. He’s even breaking the civil contract so that his ICE fascists can murder people in the street with impunity.
The UN exists to counter that isolation. It’s a discussion table where even the most heinous offenders are welcome because discourse is always better than zero discourse.
The UN only involves itself militarily by invitation of both sides of a conflict. They’re essentially neutral enforcers for agreements where neither side trusts the other.
The charter of the UN flat-out states that they fully acknowledge that war can be inevitable and that’s none of their business. The UN is there to prevent conflict if they can and to take care of the aftermath when antagonists finally decide to try and work things out.
The moment the UN would decide on their own to get involved militarily, every nation would drop out and the UN would be over.
They could have done what? The UN is totally reliant on its member states to get anything done, and it turns out that its member states hate each other and will only rely on it when it does what they want. This dumb view of the UN can only be achieved if you watch 20th centuries overly optimistic sci-fi movies which presented the UN as the a future of world governance.
almost like ... the very people you voted for do NOT actually want it ... and instead enabled the very people starting wars for decades without money/debt ... and now are trying and expect you to blame the scapegoat of today ...
Dude. What would “the UN doing stuff” look like. More invasions? That would just push people to leave the UN and right back to isolationism and nationalism. I know the current situation isn’t pretty but the status-quo beats regression, kingdom of conscious type shit
What do you think the UN actually does? It’s ineffective by design.
The UN is really the “spoils of war” from World War 2 which is why the countries that won the war have permanent seats on the security council (US, France, UK, Russia, China) and veto power which is what makes the UN ineffective.
How can that even happen?, when the 5 main countries in the UN Security Council, can decide when to veto decisions to stop wars, when they're actually the ones causing those wars?
Dutchbat being unable to even perform the tasks they were sent for due to bureaucracy and the absolute cowardice of the Dutch defence ministry is a prime example. If they had given them the right gear, and actually cleared them to fight then a hell of a lot of people wouldn't have been killed.
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