7 ms·

It's really not a priority above money, though. Money isn't some magical evil thing. Money is the unit of account that we use to measure goods and services. Som

by darawk 6y ago

It's really not a priority above money, though. Money isn't some magical evil thing. Money is the unit of account that we use to measure goods and services. Something "costing money" means that it reduces the amount of goods and services we can create. Climate change "costs money" in the sense that it reduces global output. Reducing global output has a human cost, especially for low income nations. To you and I perhaps it is 'just money' because your standard of living is sufficiently high that a 10%, 20% or even 50% reduction is a sacrifice of comfort, and not existential. But contracting the growth prospects for India by 25% over the next decade means consigning millions of people to crippling poverty. This idea that money is some morally lesser concern just fundamentally misunderstands what money is. Aggregate wealth is just all the stuff we have. Less money means less stuff. Less stuff means more poverty. That may be worth while, if we think climate change is severe. But it's always extremely important to keep this in perspective. Climate change is primarily going to hurt the world's poor, and so are the cuts we'll have to make to combat it. But if you don't keep that in perspective, the cure may end up worse than the disease.

titzer 6y ago
> But contracting the growth prospects for India by 25% over the next decade means consigning millions of people to crippling poverty. People say this, but I'll note that humans have lived through "crippling poverty" for most of our 2 million year existence. It is only crippling poverty by today's distortion lens (also a shifting baseline). We should focus on what people really need to live quality lives, which is: good health (read: access to modern healthcare, freedom from pollution, disease), good food (read: freedom first from starvation, from malnutrition, poor diet), shelter from the elements, and then the rest of Maslow's hierarchy. Cars, TV, home appliances, and the whole lot of today's energy-hungry living isn't sustainable, and I'd argue isn't even the thing we should be shooting for. People of the past lived very different and satisfying lives that we simply can't imagine because, frankly, we are spoiled. People lived in tribes and hunted with spears for 100,000 years at least. And you know what, they beat those drums, painted their faces, tracked the stars, and contrary to whatever we might believe from our high place of "development" they actually enjoyed their lives. This is a totally other conversation, but let's just say, I disagree with a lot of what you say about money and what it means to people. Money's new. We've been around a lot longer.
- darawk 6y ago
  > People say this, but I'll note that humans have lived through "crippling poverty" for most of our 2 million year existence. It is only crippling poverty by today's distortion lens (also a shifting baseline). That's very easy to say. But it's hard for me not to notice that you're commenting on web forums, which means you probably haven't given up on the creature comforts of modernity. If you're not willing to do it, what gives you the right to tell half of India to? > We should focus on what people really need to live quality lives, which is: good health (read: access to modern healthcare, freedom from pollution, disease), good food (read: freedom first from starvation, from malnutrition, poor diet), shelter from the elements, and then the rest of Maslow's hierarchy. Cars, TV, home appliances, and the whole lot of today's energy-hungry living isn't sustainable, and I'd argue isn't even the thing we should be shooting for. People of the past lived very different and satisfying lives that we simply can't imagine because, frankly, we are spoiled. People lived in tribes and hunted with spears for 100,000 years at least. And you know what, they beat those drums, painted their faces, tracked the stars, and contrary to whatever we might believe from our high place of "development" they actually enjoyed their lives. I see a whole lot of people saying things like this, and literally no one actually living it. The contradiction is hard to ignore. Maybe the old way of living wasn't really that nice.
  - titzer 6y ago
    > I see a whole lot of people saying things like this, and literally no one actually living it. The contradiction is hard to ignore. Maybe the old way of living wasn't really that nice. Well you quite obviously are not going to due to selection bias. But yes, there are people who have tried to simplify their lives down, both now and since the dawn of the modern era. Pick any level of tech you like: log cabin, lean to, nothing but a knife. People try. Some succeed. Sometimes they write books, sometimes books are written about them. Very few post on hackernews. Nowadays it's pretty much impossible to escape the modern world, so I wouldn't hold my breath for naturalist/primitivists to rise up and take over the world. But I'm not really arguing for anything. We're headed back to sustainability one way or another.
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
Giho 6y ago
> It's really not a priority above money, though. Money isn't some magical evil thing. Money is the unit of account that we use to measure goods and services. Money is not magical but they may conceal the truth as the rabbit in a hat. Money is numbers and with numbers you can do math, its easy to grasp. But money doesn't in itself explain the factors around. A product or service may have a certain cost because of the quality or because it's subsidized or because its valued different or because of another unaccounted factor. And what if its something that is invaluable? No money in the world can be fixed to it. The risk of letting money be the priority is that we may see the number but not the damage to the nature behind it. As climate change probably will take lives or even humanity in the future and life has one of the highest value, or at least the life of oneself, therefore it is a priority above money. > Something "costing money" means that it reduces the amount of goods and services we can create. Climate change "costs money" in the sense that it reduces global output. Reducing global output has a human cost, especially for low income nations. And if it's so then what says the cost needs to be distributed evenly? Around 5% of the world population hold 70% of the world wealth(at least 2012). > To you and I perhaps it is 'just money' because your standard of living is sufficiently high that a 10%, 20% or even 50% reduction is a sacrifice of comfort, and not existential. But contracting the growth prospects for India by 25% over the next decade means consigning millions of people to crippling poverty. > This idea that money is some morally lesser concern just fundamentally misunderstands what money is. Aggregate wealth is just all the stuff we have. Less money means less stuff. Less stuff means more poverty. That may be worth while, if we think climate change is severe. But it's always extremely important to keep this in perspective. > Climate change is primarily going to hurt the world's poor, and so are the cuts we'll have to make to combat it. But if you don't keep that in perspective, the cure may end up worse than the disease. If we would divide the aggregated wealth equally between all people then the standard of living would probably be pretty decent and economical growth wouldn't be necessary. Thou I find it hard to imagine that ever happening. The difficulty for people to work without incentives. The difficulty for people to realise it's just not their hard work but mostly luck that brought their wealth. Climate change hopefully will change peoples views and values. If we won't find a cure we may at least embrace the disease.

by darawk 6y ago

titzer 6y ago

> But contracting the growth prospects for India by 25% over the next decade means consigning millions of people to crippling poverty. People say this, but I'll note that humans have lived through "crippling poverty" for most of our 2 million year existence. It is only crippling poverty by today's distortion lens (also a shifting baseline). We should focus on what people really need to live quality lives, which is: good health (read: access to modern healthcare, freedom from pollution, disease), good food (read: freedom first from starvation, from malnutrition, poor diet), shelter from the elements, and then the rest of Maslow's hierarchy. Cars, TV, home appliances, and the whole lot of today's energy-hungry living isn't sustainable, and I'd argue isn't even the thing we should be shooting for. People of the past lived very different and satisfying lives that we simply can't imagine because, frankly, we are spoiled. People lived in tribes and hunted with spears for 100,000 years at least. And you know what, they beat those drums, painted their faces, tracked the stars, and contrary to whatever we might believe from our high place of "development" they actually enjoyed their lives. This is a totally other conversation, but let's just say, I disagree with a lot of what you say about money and what it means to people. Money's new. We've been around a lot longer.

darawk 6y ago
> People say this, but I'll note that humans have lived through "crippling poverty" for most of our 2 million year existence. It is only crippling poverty by today's distortion lens (also a shifting baseline). That's very easy to say. But it's hard for me not to notice that you're commenting on web forums, which means you probably haven't given up on the creature comforts of modernity. If you're not willing to do it, what gives you the right to tell half of India to? > We should focus on what people really need to live quality lives, which is: good health (read: access to modern healthcare, freedom from pollution, disease), good food (read: freedom first from starvation, from malnutrition, poor diet), shelter from the elements, and then the rest of Maslow's hierarchy. Cars, TV, home appliances, and the whole lot of today's energy-hungry living isn't sustainable, and I'd argue isn't even the thing we should be shooting for. People of the past lived very different and satisfying lives that we simply can't imagine because, frankly, we are spoiled. People lived in tribes and hunted with spears for 100,000 years at least. And you know what, they beat those drums, painted their faces, tracked the stars, and contrary to whatever we might believe from our high place of "development" they actually enjoyed their lives. I see a whole lot of people saying things like this, and literally no one actually living it. The contradiction is hard to ignore. Maybe the old way of living wasn't really that nice.
- titzer 6y ago
  > I see a whole lot of people saying things like this, and literally no one actually living it. The contradiction is hard to ignore. Maybe the old way of living wasn't really that nice. Well you quite obviously are not going to due to selection bias. But yes, there are people who have tried to simplify their lives down, both now and since the dawn of the modern era. Pick any level of tech you like: log cabin, lean to, nothing but a knife. People try. Some succeed. Sometimes they write books, sometimes books are written about them. Very few post on hackernews. Nowadays it's pretty much impossible to escape the modern world, so I wouldn't hold my breath for naturalist/primitivists to rise up and take over the world. But I'm not really arguing for anything. We're headed back to sustainability one way or another.
- pietrovismara 6y ago

Giho 6y ago

> It's really not a priority above money, though. Money isn't some magical evil thing. Money is the unit of account that we use to measure goods and services. Money is not magical but they may conceal the truth as the rabbit in a hat. Money is numbers and with numbers you can do math, its easy to grasp. But money doesn't in itself explain the factors around. A product or service may have a certain cost because of the quality or because it's subsidized or because its valued different or because of another unaccounted factor. And what if its something that is invaluable? No money in the world can be fixed to it. The risk of letting money be the priority is that we may see the number but not the damage to the nature behind it. As climate change probably will take lives or even humanity in the future and life has one of the highest value, or at least the life of oneself, therefore it is a priority above money. > Something "costing money" means that it reduces the amount of goods and services we can create. Climate change "costs money" in the sense that it reduces global output. Reducing global output has a human cost, especially for low income nations. And if it's so then what says the cost needs to be distributed evenly? Around 5% of the world population hold 70% of the world wealth(at least 2012). > To you and I perhaps it is 'just money' because your standard of living is sufficiently high that a 10%, 20% or even 50% reduction is a sacrifice of comfort, and not existential. But contracting the growth prospects for India by 25% over the next decade means consigning millions of people to crippling poverty. > This idea that money is some morally lesser concern just fundamentally misunderstands what money is. Aggregate wealth is just all the stuff we have. Less money means less stuff. Less stuff means more poverty. That may be worth while, if we think climate change is severe. But it's always extremely important to keep this in perspective. > Climate change is primarily going to hurt the world's poor, and so are the cuts we'll have to make to combat it. But if you don't keep that in perspective, the cure may end up worse than the disease. If we would divide the aggregated wealth equally between all people then the standard of living would probably be pretty decent and economical growth wouldn't be necessary. Thou I find it hard to imagine that ever happening. The difficulty for people to work without incentives. The difficulty for people to realise it's just not their hard work but mostly luck that brought their wealth. Climate change hopefully will change peoples views and values. If we won't find a cure we may at least embrace the disease.