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I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between affluence and environmental impact recently. It seems that in general, the richer you become, the more g

I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between affluence and environmental impact recently. It seems that in general, the richer you become, the more garbage and pollution you tend to produce. I am far from being rich myself but compared to people from less affluent countries I have a lot of free income, and while I try to reduce my environmental impact I have to say it’s worrying how much trash I have produced and how many resources I have used over the years: Electronics, furniture, clothes, travel, food, .... If I was more affluent this would only become worse I suppose. I think the problem is that a rational person (in our current definition) is incentivized to spend most of the available income/wealth during his/her lifetime, so as peoples income grows they find new ways to spend it: Get a new car every two years, buy a weekend house, go on expensive travels, buy lots of expensive clothes or furniture, always have the newest tech gadgets, etc.. All this incurs more pollution and resource usage. I don’t see how we can break this cycle without fundamentally changing our economic system, as right now almost everything is optimized to continuously increase output and create more consumption.

logicchains 6y ago
>I think the problem is that a rational person (in our current definition) is incentivized to spend most of the available income/wealth during his/her lifetime This is not necessarily a problem; there's no objective way to weigh up the satisfaction of somebody alive now against the satisfaction of some hypothetical person alive in future. And attempting to do so introduces some interesting questions, e.g. if we seek to maximise the satisfaction of future people, as individuals should we try to have as many children as possible? Because more people means more overall satisfaction.
tokamak-teapot 6y ago
Also as humans get richer, they almost never consider themselves ‘rich’. If you’re born into affluence, it’s almost impossible to comprehend this. I’ve watched people living in a rich western democracy, who are rich by the standards of their host country, travel to India and see the grinding poverty of so many people’s lives. Their assessment was not that they themselves are rich, but that those people are poor. It’s also incredibly difficult for those living higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy to see that it’s their entire level of society that is - in aggregate - a force for negative environmental impact. Individuals won’t admit to this, and will instead say it’s fine because they sort their recycling and only have one car and... but the macro scale is ignored because the self-defense mechanism won’t allow it to be fully understood or admitted to. Those who manage to admit and realise this is a problem may try to help - or at least not contribute - by doing their best, but usually this means keeping as clean as they can personally, while still taking advantage of most of the trappings of their bubble. Il not saying they’re bad people or they shouldn’t make an effort, but ten people picking up litter versus ten million dropping it is never going to work out.
- logicchains 6y ago
  >It’s also incredibly difficult for those living higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy to see that it’s their entire level of society that is - in aggregate - a force for negative environmental impact. Individuals won’t admit to this Or maybe they just don't care? It's not exactly a stretch to imagine people value their wellbeing in the present over some impact to the environment. Most people don't even care about other people enough to give to charity, let alone care about the environment.
  - tokamak-teapot 6y ago
    I’m sure if they were able to understand their own position - and had enough confidence that it was possible for them to contribute to realistic change for the better - that they would show that they do actually care. Until there is understanding and some route to channeling the will of the larger populations of affluent societies, however, I think we are stuck in a downward spiral. The only realistic scenario I can conceive of is that eventually enough damage will reflect back on the affluent to effect a change in mindset. I regretfully believe that the poor all over the world will suffer a great deal before this begins to occur.
- eikenberry 6y ago
  I think a lot of this is related to class. In the US at least rich is sometimes used in relation to money/lifestyle and sometimes (usually?) used to refer to class. Class wise it refers to upper-class or people who don't have to work. So if you asked one of these affluent tourists if they are rich, they might say no as in 'no, I work for a living'.

logicchains 6y ago

>I think the problem is that a rational person (in our current definition) is incentivized to spend most of the available income/wealth during his/her lifetime This is not necessarily a problem; there's no objective way to weigh up the satisfaction of somebody alive now against the satisfaction of some hypothetical person alive in future. And attempting to do so introduces some interesting questions, e.g. if we seek to maximise the satisfaction of future people, as individuals should we try to have as many children as possible? Because more people means more overall satisfaction.

tokamak-teapot 6y ago

Also as humans get richer, they almost never consider themselves ‘rich’. If you’re born into affluence, it’s almost impossible to comprehend this. I’ve watched people living in a rich western democracy, who are rich by the standards of their host country, travel to India and see the grinding poverty of so many people’s lives. Their assessment was not that they themselves are rich, but that those people are poor. It’s also incredibly difficult for those living higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy to see that it’s their entire level of society that is - in aggregate - a force for negative environmental impact. Individuals won’t admit to this, and will instead say it’s fine because they sort their recycling and only have one car and... but the macro scale is ignored because the self-defense mechanism won’t allow it to be fully understood or admitted to. Those who manage to admit and realise this is a problem may try to help - or at least not contribute - by doing their best, but usually this means keeping as clean as they can personally, while still taking advantage of most of the trappings of their bubble. Il not saying they’re bad people or they shouldn’t make an effort, but ten people picking up litter versus ten million dropping it is never going to work out.

logicchains 6y ago
>It’s also incredibly difficult for those living higher up on Maslow’s hierarchy to see that it’s their entire level of society that is - in aggregate - a force for negative environmental impact. Individuals won’t admit to this Or maybe they just don't care? It's not exactly a stretch to imagine people value their wellbeing in the present over some impact to the environment. Most people don't even care about other people enough to give to charity, let alone care about the environment.
- tokamak-teapot 6y ago
  I’m sure if they were able to understand their own position - and had enough confidence that it was possible for them to contribute to realistic change for the better - that they would show that they do actually care. Until there is understanding and some route to channeling the will of the larger populations of affluent societies, however, I think we are stuck in a downward spiral. The only realistic scenario I can conceive of is that eventually enough damage will reflect back on the affluent to effect a change in mindset. I regretfully believe that the poor all over the world will suffer a great deal before this begins to occur.
eikenberry 6y ago
I think a lot of this is related to class. In the US at least rich is sometimes used in relation to money/lifestyle and sometimes (usually?) used to refer to class. Class wise it refers to upper-class or people who don't have to work. So if you asked one of these affluent tourists if they are rich, they might say no as in 'no, I work for a living'.