Ignorance Is a Privilege

Choosing comfort over conscience is a luxury too many of us can afford

3 min read

Just now

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Recently, I was talking to one of my friends about a certain coffee brand that’s enabling genocide in a controversial, news-popular country.
If you’re political and keep up with the news, you’re likely to know whom I’m referring to.

I told him to boycott this particular brand, and that it would help make a real difference. That it could even help do our part in saving lives.

He laughed and said,
“But I really like their muffins. Who even cares about anything else?”

I didn’t know what to say.

Some of us, it seems, prefer convenience over conscience. Muffins over lives.

What frightened me most wasn’t his response — it was how familiar it sounded.

I’ve been a politics-crazed lunatic these past few months, chanting mantras about sustainability and equality to anyone who would lend me an ear.

But instead of listening, people laugh it off. They say that a dramatic 17-year-old girl isn’t going to change anything, that I may as well keep quiet and stop harping on about nonsense.

Empathy isn’t a superpower. When did we stop caring about each other? About this planet?

Surely this particular 17-year-old girl isn’t alone… right?

We don’t lack access to information.
We lack willingness.

Looking away can only work for so long.

Borders are the only thing saving us from a lifetime of struggle, poverty, war, and misery.

What happens when even those are destroyed?

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As luck would have it, we’re living an easy life right now. But what we fail to see is that this is not permanent. At any second, we could be in the same situation as those we laugh off.

Silence isn’t comfort — it’s erasure.

The luxury to not care is built on the backs of those who cannot afford that choice.

We avoid boycotts because they interrupt our comfort and our routines.

We find it so easy to pretend that people out there aren’t suffering — aren’t dying — because of ignorance.

Writing this reminds me of another conversation.

A friend was using an AI model just to decide what item from the menu he should order.

In awe of his sheer stupidity, I told him that every prompt entered into AI models wastes enormous amounts of water and energy.

He didn’t seem to care. He just said,
“So what?”

I am utterly exhausted by this ignorance.

It brought to mind a familiar quote:

Only when the last tree is cut,
the last river dried,
and the last animal dead,
will we realise that we can’t eat money.

Why doesn’t anyone stop and give a damn about this dying planet?

Are we really that hopeless?

From AI to urbanisation to plastic waste in oceans, it feels like we’re in a race to see who can become the most unsustainable.

Neutrality has always — and will always — choose a side.

And history has certainly never been kind to those who “didn’t care.”

It starts with just one caring individual.