I have a class that focuses on sociology, health, and the environment, I took a similar class with the same prof last semester. She always opens the class with excerpts from Pinkers 2018 book (preface, chapter 1, chapter 10). I felt far more viscerally opposed to his POV last semester. This semester I kinda see things from his POV more. it still feels really couched in enlightenment/capitalistic optimism while also dismissing what feels like justified alarmism regarding the environment.

I think the worst thing is it's such a cut and dry position built on an assumption that everyone IS rational and WANTS TO BE rational that misses the steps needed to bring people with you. It misses that change requires facts and emotions to settle into the zeitgeist. For example, one cannot say "we fixed the ozone layer, why were you so angry about it" when one of the steps to fixing the ozone layer is making people understand why there are changes in refrigerants and aerosolizers. We can't get "here" from "there" without taking the journey together.

Similarly, with the environment, there are people who are bad faith actors (i.e. ExxonMobil and their highly accurate climate change science they refused to acknowledge or change under) or people who have been convinced that the bad faith position is tenable. No amount of rational argument is going to change their position. The ecopessimists, as Pinker calls them, have to be able to make the case or join forces with optimists, or ecomodernists (as Pinker calls them) to be able to effect change.

It's really easy to adopt a stance of "some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" if it's not your people on the sacrificial community.

I hate DND alignment so much. It's bad for dnd, it's bad for philosophy, it's bad for everything. The worst thing I keep engaging with it to hope I can make it better, but it never will happen. I'm finally just admitting I hate it and it can never be good.

I hate that I love to be caught in semantics, but here I am. Caught in semantics. And loving it.

I rebel, non-conformer, and contrarian are all the same term here because they carry similar broad societal meanings(read baggage) even if your usage or the dictionary definitions are distinct. I don't have a good term yet but I think you've identified what the correct word needs.

1. Connotation that someone will make a choice in line with their ethics/morality despite the cultural zeitgeist.
2. A personal ethics/morality that is considered and informed based on both primary societal standards and secondary or tertiary knowledges as well.

Eel sushi is so good. I don't know or care what they do, I just want more of it please and thank you!

I have a friend who works on similar programs in the UK. They are rebuilding marshland near Cambridge and building grates/sluices to let eels swim through and back to their spawning points. It's cool stuff!

Edit: Eels and other similar fish often have a mild electrical sense, it's like echolation but zaps instead of yelling. Some can use their zaps like a taser but most are just using it to know where they are: https://dwazoo.com/animal/electric-eel/