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> We are effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund and spending it on cocaine Not usually a fan of us vs them mentality, but your use of "we" here feel

> We are effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund and spending it on cocaine Not usually a fan of us vs them mentality, but your use of "we" here feels bad. Surely, it's all of us that use these resources, nobody on HN is self sufficient (please be the exception). But at the same time, most of us aren't getting much of the "cocaine" here, at least relatively. It would almost be reasonable to say "They are effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund and spending it on cocaine".. whoever they are. The ones with cocaine mustaches presumably. EDIT: Someone paid a lot of money to make this not an "our" choice but instead a "their" choice. If you feel like this is something you have any real control over, I urge you to change things.

aksss 6y ago
You kidding me? We're all getting the coke. Just because you're not Scarface doesn't avoid the fact that all of us are awash in plastics, silicone, rare earth metals, concrete, steel, precious metals, alloys, goods from far flung lands, industrial agriculture and many assumptions about available services that rely on the same and ravenous upstream fossil fuel consumption. We (as human consumers) never had it so good, and if that luxury is unevenly distributed, the fact remains that the tide continues to lift all boats globally. You certainly benefit from the aggregate bounty society as a whole has reaped (enjoy that Starbucks!) and directly are living a better life today than someone of your station would have lived 300 years ago. I don't even know you in the least, but am comfortable making that statement categorically because the difference is global capabilities is that profound.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  EDIT: This post is angry. I say my words more clearly below. > living a better life today than someone of your station would have lived 300 years ago > We (as human consumers) never had it so good You couldn't possibly understand how much better community and and a sense purpose is to the life we're living. The fact that we become more and more isolated, more and more lied to, more and more defeated and yet: you think gimmicky material goods is what defines quality of life.. it's depressing. I've seen so many people of your stance see how wrong they are the moment they find community, but I've never seen a person lose community and feel like money could replace it. -------- FURTHER! WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY IS ANY OF THIS NECESSARY TO GET THESE GOODS!? Can you really not imagine a world where we make technological progress without doing horrible things?! How fucking much cool-aid have you drank!?
  - simonh 6y ago
    It’s not either/or, you can have community with or without material goods. I do have community and a sense of purpose and a satisfying life with my family around me. Many don’t, but that has always been true at all times and all places through everything we know about the history of human life. You’re writing as though misery and suffering were recent inventions of Capitalism, previously unknown to mankind. The fact is though we are all in the developed world swimming in material wealth and comfort unimaginable to most humans from even a few generations ago. Only an incredible abundance of cheap energy and raw materials make this possible. Yes the very wealthy have yachts and helicopters, but if you have a reasonably up to date smartphone and laptop, a can of Coke or a Starbucks, maybe a PlayStation and a microwave oven, etc, there isn’t really much a billionaire can spend that will get them anything significantly better. The main advantage of wealth is getting other people to do things for you, but in terms of material life were in an incredibly democratic and egalitarian era.
    - seph-reed 6y ago
      I agree that things have gotten better over time, but how can you be so smug about it? The amount of hoarding, infighting, and extortion has been disgusting. We're advancing as slow as species seemingly could short of completely falling apart and destroying their Earth, and even that's in question right now. If we did things the way I'm speaking of, I guarantee you we'd have all of these things and more. Going slow and doing things right is worth it. Having value for creativity, community and labor is worth it. Not justifying oppressive decisions we couldn't have changed on the basis that we got some cheap consumer crap from it... it's worth it to me at least. This line of thought is unpopular now, but if history is any indicator, the sentience of the future will look back on these logs and question how the fuck you could read these words and not fucking get it. We would be more advanced if we didn't do these things. Not the other way around.
      - simonh 6y ago
        You’re largely right, we definitely need to move sharply in a more sustainable direction. Income inequality is a growing problem. However your assertion up thread that we in general don’t benefit is incredibly naive. I think you’re conflating disagreement with that position with disagreement with a whole host of utterly unrelated issues.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  This is a xomolete misinterpretation of today's economic and resource situation. The real tragedy is that all this is a conpletely unneccesary wanton destruction. Thrre is no coke, it serves no purpose. Pick amy product on a supermarket shelf or on Amazon, and you wil find that raw materials account for maybe 20% of its final price tops. They are called commodities for a reason, and its production of those raw materials that does the lions share of pollution. You could replace all manufacturing with a combonation of nuclear power and reneables, and youd hardly change the price of the final product.
  - aksss 6y ago
    There is no spoon?
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    It's often said that most of the (developed world) economy depends on consumers. Rich people tend to have a greater proportion of financial assets compared to consumption. When people criticize the rich, it's pretty standard to say they're stingy, they hoard wealth etc. Conversely when the rich consume, they're at least "creating jobs". So that seems to imply to me that ordinary people (in the rich countries) shouldn't be underestimated from an environmental perspective, and because our morality is pro-consumer it reinforces waste. I don't think that's brainwashing by the rich, I think that's just how people are, in Western society at least.
    - someguyorother 6y ago
      Sure, economic equality will lead to more direct consumption than inequality, all else equal. That said, I'd rather have equality plus appropriate Pigouvian taxation than have to rely on inequality to do the environmental rationing for us. A more equal society would probably have a greater chance of enacting Pigouvian taxes anyway because political power and economic power would be less intertwined.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    As you point out, cost has very little to do with the bulk consumption of natural materials, and seems tangential to the topic of discussion.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  generally one makes a distinction between Scarface and people who do an occasional line at a party though.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    Americans and citizens of high GDP countries are totally the scarfaces in this scenario
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      I mean sure, except for the ones who aren't. If the average citizen of the U.S is scarface what is a koch brother then? A monster made up of a thousand scarfaces all shouting say hello to my little friend in unison? If the average citizen of the U.S is scarface what about someone who works at Greenpeace, doesn't have a car and lives frugally? Probably scarface in comparison to the average untouchable in India but I don't know enough to make that comparison.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        I think folks are generally confusing three different topics here: per capita share of wealth, per capita material consumption, and per capita CO2 production. Warren Buffet has roughly 100,000X the wealth of the average american (~700k), but Warren buffet does not produce 10^5 as much co2 or consume 10^5 as much iron. Seph-reed posted: >Not usually a fan of us vs them mentality, but your use of "we" here feels bad. Surely, it's all of us that use these resources, nobody on HN is self sufficient (please be the exception). But at the same time, most of us aren't getting much of the "cocaine" here, at least relatively. This begs the question of what the threshold is for when it stops being a collective "us" problem, and becomes a "them" problem because of "their" disproportionate contribution to the problem. This [1] suggests that the richest 20% of americans account for 30% of US carbon emissions, or about 1.5x the average. If the bottom 80% are still emitting 70% of the emissions, than I would say it is still a collective "us" problem. If you somehow reduced the emissions from the top 20% richest americans to 0, the average american would still emit 300% more than the global average. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019315752?via%3Dihubz https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201...
s1artibartfast 6y ago
If you are an average american, you have the cocaine mustache, and your denial is the problem. There is no secret cabal where 1% of americans are using the vast majority of resources and emitting the majority of CO2. I addressed this point at greater length down thread in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23579653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23579653

aksss 6y ago

You kidding me? We're all getting the coke. Just because you're not Scarface doesn't avoid the fact that all of us are awash in plastics, silicone, rare earth metals, concrete, steel, precious metals, alloys, goods from far flung lands, industrial agriculture and many assumptions about available services that rely on the same and ravenous upstream fossil fuel consumption. We (as human consumers) never had it so good, and if that luxury is unevenly distributed, the fact remains that the tide continues to lift all boats globally. You certainly benefit from the aggregate bounty society as a whole has reaped (enjoy that Starbucks!) and directly are living a better life today than someone of your station would have lived 300 years ago. I don't even know you in the least, but am comfortable making that statement categorically because the difference is global capabilities is that profound.

seph-reed 6y ago
EDIT: This post is angry. I say my words more clearly below. > living a better life today than someone of your station would have lived 300 years ago > We (as human consumers) never had it so good You couldn't possibly understand how much better community and and a sense purpose is to the life we're living. The fact that we become more and more isolated, more and more lied to, more and more defeated and yet: you think gimmicky material goods is what defines quality of life.. it's depressing. I've seen so many people of your stance see how wrong they are the moment they find community, but I've never seen a person lose community and feel like money could replace it. -------- FURTHER! WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY IS ANY OF THIS NECESSARY TO GET THESE GOODS!? Can you really not imagine a world where we make technological progress without doing horrible things?! How fucking much cool-aid have you drank!?
- simonh 6y ago
  It’s not either/or, you can have community with or without material goods. I do have community and a sense of purpose and a satisfying life with my family around me. Many don’t, but that has always been true at all times and all places through everything we know about the history of human life. You’re writing as though misery and suffering were recent inventions of Capitalism, previously unknown to mankind. The fact is though we are all in the developed world swimming in material wealth and comfort unimaginable to most humans from even a few generations ago. Only an incredible abundance of cheap energy and raw materials make this possible. Yes the very wealthy have yachts and helicopters, but if you have a reasonably up to date smartphone and laptop, a can of Coke or a Starbucks, maybe a PlayStation and a microwave oven, etc, there isn’t really much a billionaire can spend that will get them anything significantly better. The main advantage of wealth is getting other people to do things for you, but in terms of material life were in an incredibly democratic and egalitarian era.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    I agree that things have gotten better over time, but how can you be so smug about it? The amount of hoarding, infighting, and extortion has been disgusting. We're advancing as slow as species seemingly could short of completely falling apart and destroying their Earth, and even that's in question right now. If we did things the way I'm speaking of, I guarantee you we'd have all of these things and more. Going slow and doing things right is worth it. Having value for creativity, community and labor is worth it. Not justifying oppressive decisions we couldn't have changed on the basis that we got some cheap consumer crap from it... it's worth it to me at least. This line of thought is unpopular now, but if history is any indicator, the sentience of the future will look back on these logs and question how the fuck you could read these words and not fucking get it. We would be more advanced if we didn't do these things. Not the other way around.
    - simonh 6y ago
      You’re largely right, we definitely need to move sharply in a more sustainable direction. Income inequality is a growing problem. However your assertion up thread that we in general don’t benefit is incredibly naive. I think you’re conflating disagreement with that position with disagreement with a whole host of utterly unrelated issues.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
This is a xomolete misinterpretation of today's economic and resource situation. The real tragedy is that all this is a conpletely unneccesary wanton destruction. Thrre is no coke, it serves no purpose. Pick amy product on a supermarket shelf or on Amazon, and you wil find that raw materials account for maybe 20% of its final price tops. They are called commodities for a reason, and its production of those raw materials that does the lions share of pollution. You could replace all manufacturing with a combonation of nuclear power and reneables, and youd hardly change the price of the final product.
- aksss 6y ago
  There is no spoon?
- perl4ever 6y ago
  It's often said that most of the (developed world) economy depends on consumers. Rich people tend to have a greater proportion of financial assets compared to consumption. When people criticize the rich, it's pretty standard to say they're stingy, they hoard wealth etc. Conversely when the rich consume, they're at least "creating jobs". So that seems to imply to me that ordinary people (in the rich countries) shouldn't be underestimated from an environmental perspective, and because our morality is pro-consumer it reinforces waste. I don't think that's brainwashing by the rich, I think that's just how people are, in Western society at least.
  - someguyorother 6y ago
    Sure, economic equality will lead to more direct consumption than inequality, all else equal. That said, I'd rather have equality plus appropriate Pigouvian taxation than have to rely on inequality to do the environmental rationing for us. A more equal society would probably have a greater chance of enacting Pigouvian taxes anyway because political power and economic power would be less intertwined.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  As you point out, cost has very little to do with the bulk consumption of natural materials, and seems tangential to the topic of discussion.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
generally one makes a distinction between Scarface and people who do an occasional line at a party though.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  Americans and citizens of high GDP countries are totally the scarfaces in this scenario
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    I mean sure, except for the ones who aren't. If the average citizen of the U.S is scarface what is a koch brother then? A monster made up of a thousand scarfaces all shouting say hello to my little friend in unison? If the average citizen of the U.S is scarface what about someone who works at Greenpeace, doesn't have a car and lives frugally? Probably scarface in comparison to the average untouchable in India but I don't know enough to make that comparison.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      I think folks are generally confusing three different topics here: per capita share of wealth, per capita material consumption, and per capita CO2 production. Warren Buffet has roughly 100,000X the wealth of the average american (~700k), but Warren buffet does not produce 10^5 as much co2 or consume 10^5 as much iron. Seph-reed posted: >Not usually a fan of us vs them mentality, but your use of "we" here feels bad. Surely, it's all of us that use these resources, nobody on HN is self sufficient (please be the exception). But at the same time, most of us aren't getting much of the "cocaine" here, at least relatively. This begs the question of what the threshold is for when it stops being a collective "us" problem, and becomes a "them" problem because of "their" disproportionate contribution to the problem. This [1] suggests that the richest 20% of americans account for 30% of US carbon emissions, or about 1.5x the average. If the bottom 80% are still emitting 70% of the emissions, than I would say it is still a collective "us" problem. If you somehow reduced the emissions from the top 20% richest americans to 0, the average american would still emit 300% more than the global average. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019315752?via%3Dihubz https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201...

s1artibartfast 6y ago

If you are an average american, you have the cocaine mustache, and your denial is the problem. There is no secret cabal where 1% of americans are using the vast majority of resources and emitting the majority of CO2. I addressed this point at greater length down thread in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23579653 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23579653