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By the time the "I told you so"s can be deployed, there isn't much we can do. With brains optimized for short-term thinking and over-optimism against all eviden

By the time the "I told you so"s can be deployed, there isn't much we can do. With brains optimized for short-term thinking and over-optimism against all evidence (or just the innate ability to compartmentalize and ignore an imminent threat), it's like this crisis was custom built to kill off humans.

orf 5y ago
Humans are great at long term thinking, however capitalism is not
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  There's a lot of evidence monarchy, dictatorship, socialism , mercantilism, and fuedalism also aren't great at long-term thinking. What's your solution? Be China during it's golden age of credit expansion? Why not be the US during it's golden age of credit expansion? I don't think there's a governing/economic silver-bullet.
  - RedXIII 5y ago
    The solution is to shift away from a system that hijacks our species' selfishness in the name of domination over nature to one where we live in harmony with the environment. Only one of the forms of government you mentioned has threatened human extinction.
    - Tempest1981 5y ago
      Can someone explain why orf and RedXIII are being heavily downvoted without explanations? Aren't their claims generally (or often) true... sure, not 100%. Please explain why you are downvoting to enhance the discussion.
      - objectivetruth 5y ago
        The HN "mob consensus" is that anything even vaguely hinting at socialism or communism is ungood, and anything explicitly condemning capitalism is doubleplus ungood. It's totally safe to ignore the people who respond to this with "there is no 'what HN thinks about X', HN is just a bunch of different people..."
      - loopz 5y ago
        They like many of us now, dare speak up against the official dogma of the day. However, most will argue capitalism has proven to be the most efficient way to allocate resources correctly. So it's quite unclear how to ie. incorporate externalized costs into the system, without breaking it. Accountants make for terrible leadership.
    - seryoiupfurds 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
      - orf 5y ago
        Yes. This is a thing that exists. I’m not sure why it’s relevant to parents comment though.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Looking around it seems to me these are failures of government and government policy (i.e. failures of the people - I can't even convince people to stop buying plastic bottles of water) . Capitalism and businesses operate within the context of the environment they're in. China has lots of environmental problems and they have an autocracy. Maybe the less capitalistic you country is the less environmentally friendly your country is instead. One has to think that to the extent that resources aren't subjected to the tragedy of the commons, capitalists tend to be concerned with not killing the golden goose. Look around and ask yourself which countries are at least on paper most concerned with the environment and then ask yourself what kind of economies they have. Look at Europe: Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, etc... -> all highly concerned with the environment and all highly capitalist countries.
  - RedXIII 5y ago
    "Maybe doing all this cocaine is actually good for me," he said, blood dripping from his crusted nose. "Maybe it's everyone else who has a problem."
- darkerside 5y ago
  Many individuals are pretty good at it. Many more are bad at it. Groups typically end up taking action based on the lowest common denominator. This is irrespective of ideology.
  - orf 5y ago
    Irrespective of a ideology focused around consumerism, overconsumption and short-term gain by huge corporations who pay no cost for the future damage they are causing? There isn’t any biological or otherwise necessary reason why Coke and Pepsi need to exist, and yet we are generating a huge amount of greenhouse gasses to produce it whilst choking the environment with their plastic refuse after it is consumed. I think it’s disingenuous at best to say “well capitalism has nothing to do with the current state of the captialist-run world”
    - darkerside 5y ago
      An authoritarian communist regime has proven to be just as focused on the short term, even more narrowly scoped to a small group of oligarchs, and without name of the positive byproducts of a capitalist society. Is there an alternative system that you have in mind? Because that's really the way to demonstrate this is a property of capitalism in particular, and not humans in general.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      Coke and Pepsi give pleasure to people. In a way, that's the most important reason for anything to exist. Do you want a world without any pleasures that have any environmental costs? What would it look like? What else wouldn't exist and what would you keep despite the environmental cost?
- missedthecue 5y ago
  If capitalism is geared for short term next quarter thinking like everyone says, why do companies like Plug Power, with their negative revenue have $17 billion valuations?
kayodelycaon 5y ago
“I told you so” doesn’t work as people who didn’t listen in the first place aren't likely to listen when they are clearly in the wrong. Instead, they double down and will find a way to make you the person who was wrong.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  I generally don't condone "I told you so"s myself. But it's very difficult to stay silent in this case when they've basically doomed the future inhabitants of this planet.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    You don't get to say "I told you so" until after the doom has occurred. Otherwise it might turn out to be them having told you so.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      And now we are back to square one: my initial comment.
- justin66 5y ago
  In the decades to come, many of those in denial and angry at those who warn about the realities involved in climate change will instead angrily blame those who issued the warnings for not having been persuasive enough. There's a relevant scene in The Last King of Scotland. [0] [0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/
Arubis 5y ago
There’s some interesting selection bias here; “survivorship bias” would be misleading in this case. Specifically, any crisis that _wasn’t_ so well-tuned to run against our species’ inbuilt shortcomings wouldn’t be so threatening, as we’d likely have addressed it and moved on.
trhway 5y ago
> it's like this crisis was custom built to kill off humans. dialectics instilled in me by USSR education sees nothing surprising here. Increasing quantity of human activity creates qualitatively new conditions. All systems develop from crisis to crisis, each time being forced to undergo qualitative transformation to overcome another crisis or perish otherwise (i.e. exploit the current state as much as possible, hit the crisis resulting from the over-exploitation, explore for a new state, get into it if successful, exploit...). Human civilization has become a planet scale factor while lacking planet scale means to manage its impact - that is a classic dialectical quantity vs. quality mismatch leading to a crisis which if not proactively "soft landed" will settle on its own through a catastrophic style readjustment. And if to look as an outside observer - there is some logic to it as giving that humans are on the edge of becoming a space faring civilization the humans are either to deal with the climate change on their own planet or shouldn't be able to move to the next levels of energy/technology, handling other star systems and civilizations.
exporectomy 5y ago
Climate change is not expected to kill off humans. You're spreading misinformation.
- freshpots 5y ago
  It already has. What are you talking about? https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/ https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    "kill off" not "kill".
    - freshpots 5y ago
      Like "kill off" entire villages, right?
      - exporectomy 5y ago
        No. Like "kill off humans", as the OP said.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  There are speculative theories on a future "hothouse earth" scenario which could, in fact, drive human extinction (as if human extinction is all that matters). But yes, speculation on global human extinction or mere catastrophic societal collapse is just that: speculative. Our models aren't predictive enough to tell us, for example whether the drier, hotter climate and unpredictable weather patterns will cause food instability, mass migration, and collapse in certain regions. We can be fairly confident of one thing; people like you and me who probably won't be materially affected will continue to drive the "wait and find out" strategy.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    The problem of climate extremists is that they have no idea what the risks to humans are, yet they want to cripple or destroy civilization just in case it's bad. There's a cost-benefit balance to be struck and people screeching about the end of the world are incapable of doing that. It's like banning the use of radio just in case hostile aliens pick up our signals and know we're here and come and attack Earth. Yea, it's a risk, yea it might kill off humans, or at least cause food instability, but it's a low risk so we decide to employ the "wait and find out" strategy. You might say aliens invading is a ridiculously low risk, unlike the catastrophes caused by climate change, but to compare them, you have to quantify the risk climate change. Nobody has, as far as I know. I've seen some predictions of costs, lives lost, sea level rise, temperature rise, but all of them are extremely tame and no worse that common disasters that we already experience and tolerate.

orf 5y ago

Humans are great at long term thinking, however capitalism is not

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
There's a lot of evidence monarchy, dictatorship, socialism , mercantilism, and fuedalism also aren't great at long-term thinking. What's your solution? Be China during it's golden age of credit expansion? Why not be the US during it's golden age of credit expansion? I don't think there's a governing/economic silver-bullet.
- RedXIII 5y ago
  The solution is to shift away from a system that hijacks our species' selfishness in the name of domination over nature to one where we live in harmony with the environment. Only one of the forms of government you mentioned has threatened human extinction.
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    Can someone explain why orf and RedXIII are being heavily downvoted without explanations? Aren't their claims generally (or often) true... sure, not 100%. Please explain why you are downvoting to enhance the discussion.
    - objectivetruth 5y ago
      The HN "mob consensus" is that anything even vaguely hinting at socialism or communism is ungood, and anything explicitly condemning capitalism is doubleplus ungood. It's totally safe to ignore the people who respond to this with "there is no 'what HN thinks about X', HN is just a bunch of different people..."
    - loopz 5y ago
      They like many of us now, dare speak up against the official dogma of the day. However, most will argue capitalism has proven to be the most efficient way to allocate resources correctly. So it's quite unclear how to ie. incorporate externalized costs into the system, without breaking it. Accountants make for terrible leadership.
  - seryoiupfurds 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
    - orf 5y ago
      Yes. This is a thing that exists. I’m not sure why it’s relevant to parents comment though.
ericmay 5y ago
Looking around it seems to me these are failures of government and government policy (i.e. failures of the people - I can't even convince people to stop buying plastic bottles of water) . Capitalism and businesses operate within the context of the environment they're in. China has lots of environmental problems and they have an autocracy. Maybe the less capitalistic you country is the less environmentally friendly your country is instead. One has to think that to the extent that resources aren't subjected to the tragedy of the commons, capitalists tend to be concerned with not killing the golden goose. Look around and ask yourself which countries are at least on paper most concerned with the environment and then ask yourself what kind of economies they have. Look at Europe: Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, etc... -> all highly concerned with the environment and all highly capitalist countries.
- RedXIII 5y ago
  "Maybe doing all this cocaine is actually good for me," he said, blood dripping from his crusted nose. "Maybe it's everyone else who has a problem."
darkerside 5y ago
Many individuals are pretty good at it. Many more are bad at it. Groups typically end up taking action based on the lowest common denominator. This is irrespective of ideology.
- orf 5y ago
  Irrespective of a ideology focused around consumerism, overconsumption and short-term gain by huge corporations who pay no cost for the future damage they are causing? There isn’t any biological or otherwise necessary reason why Coke and Pepsi need to exist, and yet we are generating a huge amount of greenhouse gasses to produce it whilst choking the environment with their plastic refuse after it is consumed. I think it’s disingenuous at best to say “well capitalism has nothing to do with the current state of the captialist-run world”
  - darkerside 5y ago
    An authoritarian communist regime has proven to be just as focused on the short term, even more narrowly scoped to a small group of oligarchs, and without name of the positive byproducts of a capitalist society. Is there an alternative system that you have in mind? Because that's really the way to demonstrate this is a property of capitalism in particular, and not humans in general.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    Coke and Pepsi give pleasure to people. In a way, that's the most important reason for anything to exist. Do you want a world without any pleasures that have any environmental costs? What would it look like? What else wouldn't exist and what would you keep despite the environmental cost?
missedthecue 5y ago
If capitalism is geared for short term next quarter thinking like everyone says, why do companies like Plug Power, with their negative revenue have $17 billion valuations?

kayodelycaon 5y ago

“I told you so” doesn’t work as people who didn’t listen in the first place aren't likely to listen when they are clearly in the wrong. Instead, they double down and will find a way to make you the person who was wrong.

DangitBobby 5y ago
I generally don't condone "I told you so"s myself. But it's very difficult to stay silent in this case when they've basically doomed the future inhabitants of this planet.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  You don't get to say "I told you so" until after the doom has occurred. Otherwise it might turn out to be them having told you so.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    And now we are back to square one: my initial comment.
justin66 5y ago
In the decades to come, many of those in denial and angry at those who warn about the realities involved in climate change will instead angrily blame those who issued the warnings for not having been persuasive enough. There's a relevant scene in The Last King of Scotland. [0] [0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/but-you-did-not-persuade-me/

Arubis 5y ago

There’s some interesting selection bias here; “survivorship bias” would be misleading in this case. Specifically, any crisis that _wasn’t_ so well-tuned to run against our species’ inbuilt shortcomings wouldn’t be so threatening, as we’d likely have addressed it and moved on.

trhway 5y ago

> it's like this crisis was custom built to kill off humans. dialectics instilled in me by USSR education sees nothing surprising here. Increasing quantity of human activity creates qualitatively new conditions. All systems develop from crisis to crisis, each time being forced to undergo qualitative transformation to overcome another crisis or perish otherwise (i.e. exploit the current state as much as possible, hit the crisis resulting from the over-exploitation, explore for a new state, get into it if successful, exploit...). Human civilization has become a planet scale factor while lacking planet scale means to manage its impact - that is a classic dialectical quantity vs. quality mismatch leading to a crisis which if not proactively "soft landed" will settle on its own through a catastrophic style readjustment. And if to look as an outside observer - there is some logic to it as giving that humans are on the edge of becoming a space faring civilization the humans are either to deal with the climate change on their own planet or shouldn't be able to move to the next levels of energy/technology, handling other star systems and civilizations.

exporectomy 5y ago

Climate change is not expected to kill off humans. You're spreading misinformation.

freshpots 5y ago
It already has. What are you talking about? https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/ https://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/
- exporectomy 5y ago
  "kill off" not "kill".
  - freshpots 5y ago
    Like "kill off" entire villages, right?
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      No. Like "kill off humans", as the OP said.
DangitBobby 5y ago
There are speculative theories on a future "hothouse earth" scenario which could, in fact, drive human extinction (as if human extinction is all that matters). But yes, speculation on global human extinction or mere catastrophic societal collapse is just that: speculative. Our models aren't predictive enough to tell us, for example whether the drier, hotter climate and unpredictable weather patterns will cause food instability, mass migration, and collapse in certain regions. We can be fairly confident of one thing; people like you and me who probably won't be materially affected will continue to drive the "wait and find out" strategy.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  The problem of climate extremists is that they have no idea what the risks to humans are, yet they want to cripple or destroy civilization just in case it's bad. There's a cost-benefit balance to be struck and people screeching about the end of the world are incapable of doing that. It's like banning the use of radio just in case hostile aliens pick up our signals and know we're here and come and attack Earth. Yea, it's a risk, yea it might kill off humans, or at least cause food instability, but it's a low risk so we decide to employ the "wait and find out" strategy. You might say aliens invading is a ridiculously low risk, unlike the catastrophes caused by climate change, but to compare them, you have to quantify the risk climate change. Nobody has, as far as I know. I've seen some predictions of costs, lives lost, sea level rise, temperature rise, but all of them are extremely tame and no worse that common disasters that we already experience and tolerate.