3 ms·

> Why couldn't we ... Steps involved: - Convince people that it's necessary ("do we really need it?") - Find a commonly accepted measure ("how much can I

by sebst 7y ago

> Why couldn't we ... Steps involved: - Convince people that it's necessary ("do we really need it?") - Find a commonly accepted measure ("how much can I personally still travel") - Prevent loop holes ("But my neighbour has been to Mallorca recently") - Put laws into power. Globally (And one small country won't join the stuff and you'll end up full of envy at the point before, but on a higher scale). - Enforce the law. Globally. Fight corruption. Sure, we could... But try to limit gun posession in the US, or speed limits in Germany. Whatever people feel will reduce their freedom will make them oppose. If your idea is to implement all this democratically, it's a very weak selling point for politicians. If you pitch it, you're even missing the pain point. Most people do care way more about their next weekend than about the "future of mankind". > 8bn isn't a problem in itself, the hard cap is at least 50% more. Also a strong claim. What is it based upon? If we cannot scale the western life style for any of the 8bn, even if we could technologically, we're already behind the hard cap. It's not just "feed" them all, it's making them all "happy", reducing "envy" etc. More people, more conflicts. 8bn is a number this planet has never seen before (like it has never seen before this amount of pollution), and yet you claim that this "experiment" can be enlarged by 50%? > Somehow anything short of the status quo became "getting back to the middle ages" According to climate science, ~0.6t - 1.2t is the annual budget per person, if you want to stop climate change[0]. Now, look at this map[1]: Below 1 tonne per person is the lightest colour on this map. Compare the living standard of these countries to the middle ages and you'll come close. [0]: https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-a-persons-average-carbon-footprint-per-year-if-we-want-to-reduce-and-stop-global-warming https://www.quora.com/What-should-be-a-persons-average-carbo... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita#/media/File:Co2_emissions_per_capita_our_world_in_data.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

lm28469 7y ago
> 8bn is a number this planet has never seen before (like it has never seen before this amount of pollution), and yet you claim that this "experiment" can be enlarged by 50%? no no no, if we lived _sustainably_ Earth could handle way more people. Right now with 8bn we're already way past the equilibrium point, we both agree on that. That's what we get when some people consume their life carbon quota every single year. > If your idea is to implement all this democratically, it's a very weak selling point for politicians. If you pitch it, you're even missing the pain point. Most people do care way more about their next weekend than about the "future of mankind". But then again what's your alternative ? Wait until "technology" saves us ? If the human race prefers autodestruction over self restraint, let it be... You better start planning the pitch you'll give to your grandchildren now though, this one will be much more of a hard sell than mine.
- sebst 7y ago
  > But then again what's your alternative ? I don't wish for an alternative to "sustainable" living, just to be clear. Only I doubt people will voluntarily give up all the amenities of our unsustainable way of living. > Wait until "technology" saves us ? Is that really too far fetched? Like "technology" saved us from food shortage [0], bacterial infections [1], horse manure [2] and so much more. Technology like airplanes also saved us from being unable to leave our home town in a lifetime. Today's problems are mostly side-effects of yesterday's solutions, often accelerated by greed and selfishness. > If the human race prefers autodestruction over self restraint, let it be. Maybe the next iteration of intelligent life on this planet is less selfish and more sensible? Less prone to social traps [3]? > You better start planning the pitch you'll give to your grandchildren That's not a pitch. If that happens, it's more like "We fucked it up, we're going to die. End of the story". Nothing someone needs to buy. No one "pitched" the demise of the Ancient Rome to the people. It was just inevitable, yet painful. > this one will be much more of a hard sell than mine It would be a more fateful talk than yours, but your's is a big one to sell: "We've identified a bunch of problems, like nuclear weapons and climate change. Climate change is the only thing, YOU personally can do something about. So, yes, you would be able to buy an iPhone every year, watching TV on a big plasma while bbq-ing pulled beef and fly to any beach you can dream of just to get plastered with cheap beer over there, BUT we take ALL this away from you to save the planet. You can emit only as much CO2 as the poorest people in the world do. Yes, we try to reinvent all this stuff from scratch, but in a sustainable way, but this could take ages - if it happens at all. We don't really believe in technology, which is why we need to take it away from you NOW, but we hope for the best. The nuclear weapons and stuff, you ask? Yes, we talk to the world leaders. They are unregenerate at the moment, but YOU will join us for the good cause, won't you?" My point here is not that we would not be better off, if we all lived sustainable. But taking a single threat to humanity out of a big list of threats and conventionalise the one with the solution imposing the biggest cuts on an individual level, to the most detrimental one, might do more harm than good. And, according to science, every cut above these 0.6-1.2t per capita per year would just delay the catastrophe to the grand-grand-children. So, yes, this would sound a bit like "middle ages" to most people. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_productivity [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap

by sebst 7y ago

lm28469 7y ago

> 8bn is a number this planet has never seen before (like it has never seen before this amount of pollution), and yet you claim that this "experiment" can be enlarged by 50%? no no no, if we lived _sustainably_ Earth could handle way more people. Right now with 8bn we're already way past the equilibrium point, we both agree on that. That's what we get when some people consume their life carbon quota every single year. > If your idea is to implement all this democratically, it's a very weak selling point for politicians. If you pitch it, you're even missing the pain point. Most people do care way more about their next weekend than about the "future of mankind". But then again what's your alternative ? Wait until "technology" saves us ? If the human race prefers autodestruction over self restraint, let it be... You better start planning the pitch you'll give to your grandchildren now though, this one will be much more of a hard sell than mine.

sebst 7y ago
> But then again what's your alternative ? I don't wish for an alternative to "sustainable" living, just to be clear. Only I doubt people will voluntarily give up all the amenities of our unsustainable way of living. > Wait until "technology" saves us ? Is that really too far fetched? Like "technology" saved us from food shortage [0], bacterial infections [1], horse manure [2] and so much more. Technology like airplanes also saved us from being unable to leave our home town in a lifetime. Today's problems are mostly side-effects of yesterday's solutions, often accelerated by greed and selfishness. > If the human race prefers autodestruction over self restraint, let it be. Maybe the next iteration of intelligent life on this planet is less selfish and more sensible? Less prone to social traps [3]? > You better start planning the pitch you'll give to your grandchildren That's not a pitch. If that happens, it's more like "We fucked it up, we're going to die. End of the story". Nothing someone needs to buy. No one "pitched" the demise of the Ancient Rome to the people. It was just inevitable, yet painful. > this one will be much more of a hard sell than mine It would be a more fateful talk than yours, but your's is a big one to sell: "We've identified a bunch of problems, like nuclear weapons and climate change. Climate change is the only thing, YOU personally can do something about. So, yes, you would be able to buy an iPhone every year, watching TV on a big plasma while bbq-ing pulled beef and fly to any beach you can dream of just to get plastered with cheap beer over there, BUT we take ALL this away from you to save the planet. You can emit only as much CO2 as the poorest people in the world do. Yes, we try to reinvent all this stuff from scratch, but in a sustainable way, but this could take ages - if it happens at all. We don't really believe in technology, which is why we need to take it away from you NOW, but we hope for the best. The nuclear weapons and stuff, you ask? Yes, we talk to the world leaders. They are unregenerate at the moment, but YOU will join us for the good cause, won't you?" My point here is not that we would not be better off, if we all lived sustainable. But taking a single threat to humanity out of a big list of threats and conventionalise the one with the solution imposing the biggest cuts on an individual level, to the most detrimental one, might do more harm than good. And, according to science, every cut above these 0.6-1.2t per capita per year would just delay the catastrophe to the grand-grand-children. So, yes, this would sound a bit like "middle ages" to most people. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_productivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_productivity [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_trap