I’ll admit I’ve used it for similar reasons. What I really should be saying is “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to talk about this right now.” Maybe I’ll even be brave and say “I don’t want to talk about this with you.” but it’s rare for me to find a person I don’t want to hear at all from. That usually comes up because they’ve already made their arguments, and I’ve already accepted or rebuttal the points to my own satisfaction. At that point they’ll talk themselves into circles looking for justification for parts of their stance, but unable to articulate it themselves. I’ll listen to anyone’s views at least once, given I’m in the right mindset, but I still wouldn’t date someone I don’t morally agree with. Life partners should have higher standards than conversation partners, and aligning values is a bare minimum for relationships.
Oh shit thank you for reminding me. This idea that it’s our individual responsibility to prevent climate change rather than our largest producers/manufactures was a goddamn marketing ploy in the 1920s. It was spear headed by disposable companies like Dixie as people were getting more upset about littering, the public thought companies making one use items was incredibly wasteful and the reason for an abundance of litter in city areas. With the companies PR efforts, they were able to convince the general public that it’s not the producers of the litter that cause the problem, but the people who use it. We had a chance to kill the disposable industry and we missed it, I hope it comes back around some day.