Helping you because you can't help yourself

February 13, 2007 1:03 PM

Cheatneutral. "When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere. Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience." [Via Gristmill.]
posted by homunculus (39 comments total)

Recent thread on carbon offsets.
posted by homunculus at 1:07 PM on February 13, 2007

My "HUH?" meter is through the roof.
posted by agregoli at 1:08 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Marvelous!

In the middle ages it was known as an "indulgence". If you laid an appropriate bribe on the local priest, he'd give you a signed piece of paper forgiving you ahead of time for a sin you wanted to commit, so you could do it with a clean conscience.

Nowadays among secular leftists it's known as a "carbon offset fee". And it makes just as much sense.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:08 PM on February 13, 2007

I promise to laugh at another thread, later.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:17 PM on February 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

/wish I'd thought of it
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:18 PM on February 13, 2007

Could we be more opaque or less funny? No, apparently not.
posted by doctor_negative at 1:20 PM on February 13, 2007

I guess www.giveacynicyourmoney.com must have already been taken. By a carbon offsetter perhaps?
posted by owhydididoit at 1:27 PM on February 13, 2007

Funnier than The Onion. Kudos to whomever found this gag site.




"Secular leftists" is funny, too.
posted by wfc123 at 1:30 PM on February 13, 2007

This is actually better than carbon offsetting, because it involves a person trying to do good for someone doing bad, rather than a nation with wads of peatmoss making cash off continued exploitation. more amusing too.
posted by wumpus at 1:33 PM on February 13, 2007

Perhaps Simon Pegg could pop along and explain.
posted by Abiezer at 1:33 PM on February 13, 2007

Can I buy Cheating Credits to offset some future travel to Thailand?
posted by mathowie at 1:35 PM on February 13, 2007

And "scared rightists" refer to this kind of thing as what?
posted by ericb at 1:37 PM on February 13, 2007

Should be *sacred,* but Ill go with the mistype.
posted by ericb at 1:38 PM on February 13, 2007

Nowadays among secular leftists it's known as a "carbon offset fee". And it makes just as much sense.

Huh. I always thought "emissions trading" was more of an uber-rightwing capitalism-decides-for-us thing. You know, Clear Skies and all that clap-trap.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:39 PM on February 13, 2007

elwoodwiles writes "Huh. I always thought 'emissions trading' was more of an uber-rightwing capitalism-decides-for-us thing. "

"Carbon offsets" are something different, at the consumer level. I don't know if they're as senseless as SCDB makes them out to be, but they're poorly regulated at this point, and the whole concept seems really scam-prone.

You can see more discussion of this in the thread homunculus linked above.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:50 PM on February 13, 2007

Elwoodwiles: you're right. The Economist has been promoting carbon-trading for years.
posted by adamrice at 1:51 PM on February 13, 2007

ha ha you said "emissions trading"
posted by jepler at 1:54 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Actually, on further review, offsets are different from trading, in practice, but follow a similar underlying theory: Money influences behavior. Offsets are usually chosen (marketed too? Is there much difference?) by individuals, whereas Trading is done on a corporate level. The end result is really the same, however. Be it pollution or cheating, the problem remains unsolved, though some people find ways of profiting from their existence.

Yes, I understand the site in question is a parody. I just wanted to address SC.DB's comment.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:54 PM on February 13, 2007

Just give me the money. I'll tell you whatever you want to hear.
posted by diastematic at 2:11 PM on February 13, 2007

I thought your cheating could only be neutralized by somebody cheating on you. Or killing by a cheater. Or by killing a non-cheater. Anyway, are these guys going to pay me if I start a WebScamNeutral.com? I'll find someone willing not to scam on the web. For a day.
posted by Laotic at 2:13 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

I think somebody doesn't quite understand how math works. I've been sexually active for 19 years and never cheated once, these jerks owe me some serious fucking back pay.
posted by nanojath at 2:20 PM on February 13, 2007

nanojath: You must be the one all the rest of us are offsetting our cheating against. ;-)

It's a public service, really. I cheated on my girlfriend in college so you didn't have to!

The way I see it, you owe me $50 for keeping you faithful.
posted by Ynoxas at 2:30 PM on February 13, 2007

Nowadays among secular leftists it's known as a "carbon offset fee"

Not to further derail, but for the life of me, SCDB I can't possibly figure out your connection between religious stance and environmental mitigation. Church-going lefties don't care about climate change? Even the help-the-poor hippie types? You have to be godless to use/understand a term?
posted by mathowie at 2:33 PM on February 13, 2007

Antarctica melted for your sins of emission.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:45 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

I thought your cheating could only be neutralized by somebody cheating on you. Or killing by a cheater. Or by killing a non-cheater.

Novelist John Crowley would like your input (sort of).
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:46 PM on February 13, 2007

elwoodwiles writes "Actually, on further review, offsets are different from trading, in practice, but follow a similar underlying theory: Money influences behavior. Offsets are usually chosen (marketed too? Is there much difference?) by individuals, whereas Trading is done on a corporate level. The end result is really the same, however."

Well, the difference is that emission trading takes place under a regulatory scheme, in which some governmental entity has capped the total available emissions credits. Firms then trade the available credits among themselves, allowing the market to distribute the right to emit carbon among the firms. Total carbon emissions are set by the government, though.

Carbon offsets are different: they're supposed to represent some reduction in carbon emissions or carbon sequestration. In theory, you can by an emissions reduction or sequestration amount equivalent to your emissions, thereby "offsetting" your emissions. It's a voluntary scheme, so there's no cap to total emissions, and no real regulatory involvement on the part of government.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:49 PM on February 13, 2007

Its not cheating, honey, sure I slept with your sister but I gave some money to this website that said I don't have to feel guilty because of it so why are you so angry?

Yeah, this'll work.
posted by fenriq at 2:50 PM on February 13, 2007

Can't we just blame the whole phenomenon on Nader Traders?

not to mention Florida.
posted by norm at 2:56 PM on February 13, 2007

Fenriq, BP told me the same thing, and it worked for me.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 3:03 PM on February 13, 2007

mr roboto: Yes, of course, you are correct. I, however, don't think either scheme really achieves their stated goals. Trading, despite coming under a regulated system, is still not any kind of solution for the problems of pollution. The amount of the cap is a carefully considered number meant to favor the industries involved. Since the scarcity of credits is always and only artificial, it practically doesn't matter, as the government will issue more credits when industry demands it. The voluntary scheme is also specious, but only more obviously so.

I also should amend my earlier post by stating the common theory is: Only money influences behavior. Some people don't cheat because, you know, they love their partner. Likewise, some people try to conserve resources because they understand the needs of the environment.
posted by elwoodwiles at 3:12 PM on February 13, 2007

Freebird has nailed this one good before.
posted by lalochezia at 3:16 PM on February 13, 2007

elwoodwiles writes "The amount of the cap is a carefully considered number meant to favor the industries involved. Since the scarcity of credits is always and only artificial, it practically doesn't matter, as the government will issue more credits when industry demands it. "

If you say so. This doesn't seem to be the case in the EU example, though I'd agree with the consensus that initial allocations were overly generous. The caps are dropping with phase II, though.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:28 PM on February 13, 2007

Hey, maybe it will work out - I wasn't considering the EU example, only the US, which I see as a cynical attempt to give up on protections and move toward a "market based model." The market, of course, being the engine that helped create the problems to begin with.
posted by elwoodwiles at 3:36 PM on February 13, 2007

/derail
posted by elwoodwiles at 3:37 PM on February 13, 2007

Carbon offsets are kinda ridiculous, but I think the similar mechanism of Green Power certificates make sense, given the architecture of the US national grid. If your local utility doesn't support electricity choice, you can route around them and just give the money directly to a green energy generator that will add a commensurate amount of power to the grid.

That's essentially what happens anyway when you choose a generator in a state that has residential electricity choice -- your power could very well be coming from the coal plant down the street, but your utility pays the generator you designate instead of the coal plant because it all feeds into the same grid.

Sadly, even with certificates I'm still paying the coal plant as well (and encouraging them to generate more power), but it's better than nothing.
posted by xthlc at 3:45 PM on February 13, 2007

You can't cheat on your hand, can you? Just sayin'..
posted by LMGM at 4:20 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

An example of an emissions trading scheme that worked: sulfur dioxide.

William Nordhaus presents a pretty strong argument for using a carbon tax (PDF) instead of cap-and-trade.
posted by russilwvong at 4:34 PM on February 13, 2007

Not to further derail, but for the life of me, SCDB I can't possibly figure out your connection between religious stance and environmental mitigation.

mathowie, all you need to know is that "secular leftist" is an invented category that has nothing to do with whether the leftist in question actually goes to church. It's all about black and white, lines in the sand, and demarking us vs. them.

Use of a sui generis term like this is essentially marking you as a very silly person.
posted by dhartung at 6:43 PM on February 13, 2007

Ok, awesome.
posted by fatllama at 8:36 AM on February 14, 2007