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Why is every other post on hacker news about climate change
by whall6 5y ago
Why is every other post on hacker news about climate change
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoBecause it's of interest to hackers. Why? Partly because it's a technical problem, and partly because we care about the environment, because that's where we live.
- skeeter2020 5y ago>> Why? Partly because it's a technical problem Once the deniers soften this is always their answer. The reality is nobody is prepared to sacrifice to the extent demanded, skeptics and alarmists alike.
- whall6 5y agoCan you explain what the demanded sacrifice is?
- TremendousJudge 5y agoFor people in rich nations, the level of consumerism they have been accustomed to their whole lives, has to go. For most people this means no more driving, no more flying, no more eating fancy foods and buying fancy things. People have to live pretty much like hippies. For people in the rest of the world, the promise of the modern industrial rich age (which is mostly a mirage anyway) has to go. Pretty much nobody in the world is willing to accept this sacrifice (remember, covid only lasted like two years and public will was/is really strained by the end -- what's needed here is a permanent change), so since this is a hard requirement for any solution, there's no other except treating it like a technical challenge. That's my view anyway
- jacquesm 5y agoThink of it as the next big thing. It is.
- TremendousJudge 5y agoIf global news were a TV show, covid was the prologue arc before the arc of the arrival of the Actual Big Bad
- whall6 5y agoWell, not yet it isn’t.
- jacquesm 5y agoThat depends on where you live. Global warming, just like the future, isn't distributed evenly. But for more and more places every year the effects are undeniable. 55 million people displaced and 150K dead last year alone, expected to increase for the foreseeable future.
- anyfoo 5y agoBecause it's the most important problem to solve. Everything else won't matter if we don't solve this.
- whall6 5y agoWhy won’t anything else matter?
- dleslie 5y agoSociety will collapse when we become unable to ensure food security, and massive climate refugee migrations overwhelm our infrastructure.
- whall6 5y agoI believe that the globe is heating up. And I’m not being snarky. However, I fail to see how climate change means food insecurity.
- bjoli 5y agohttps://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/ https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/
- whall6 5y ago> projected a 1–29% cereal price increase in 2050 I agree that everything in this article could and probably will happen. However, how could even a 29% increase in cereal prices lead to a societal collapse? I didn’t see anything that would lead to societal collapse. Humans adapt. They always have. Is it not possible that we could perhaps be made better as a species because of climate change?
- bjoli 5y ago30% is not much for us, but for countries where agriculture is 60% of GDP amore capricious weather might devestate the economy. For those people climate change is a threat multiplier. Everything gets worse and more insecure in those regions. Big climate in short times has historically been very bad for the ecosystem in the short term. Something like the Triassic-jurassic climate shift (due to, presumably, volcanic activity) led to one of the larger extinction events in the history of the planet, killing something like 75% of all species. I am notnsaying that is where we are heading, but even something remotely close to that will most certainly be devestating for society as we know it. If there is something that will make humanity better it is overcoming this. Not hoping that whoever makes it through will be a part of a better species.
- melenaboija 5y agoBecause its audience seems to be a bit worried that we will cook ourselves taking a look to some statistics, which therefore means (luckily in my opinion) the audience trust statistics
- mattrighetti 5y agoRepeatedly showing stats won’t make things better or make people more aware of the problem, in the end people will still use their cars while they wait for others to make a change. Hypocrisy at its best, that’s what I see
- melenaboija 5y agoStats is stats and one of the advantages of it is that they won't change based on the times they are shown or opinions, neither your or mine. If you don't want to
- throwitaway1235 5y agoThey have to replace God with something. This faith will do.
- wilg 5y agoThis is one of the silliest things I have ever read
- dang 5y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting flamebait to HN. That's not what the site is for. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.