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I think it's interesting, and here's why. Think about this as it relates to other common problems humans face like debt or the need to lose weight. I can put

I think it's interesting, and here's why. Think about this as it relates to other common problems humans face like debt or the need to lose weight. I can put all of my energy and focus into making more money so I can get my debt under control, but that won't matter if I have really bad spending habits. I can put all of my energy into exercising more and burning the calories I take in, but that won't matter if I'm eating more calories than I can reasonably burn in a day. I'd argue that doing less is still doing something. It's just looking for a solution in a different place. It's focusing on the cause, instead of trying to put a band-aid on the effect. This falls into the category of "low hanging fruit", and one of the easiest potential sources of meaningful change. Inventing new things, increasing energy efficiency, etc. are all possible optimizations, but are not guaranteed. Eating less, spending less, and burning less energy are all but guaranteed to have a positive result. The real question of interest is now: how much are people willing to not do?

ethanbond 5y ago
Well I’ll take a stab at this one: Privileged folks like those on HN will not cut back much. Folks who are already being forced to cut back will continue to do so, and with massive amounts of suffering. Really a simple solution!
- haswell 5y ago
  This is rather pessimistic, trivializes the argument and assumes that it’s directed only at individuals. Doing less doesn’t have to mean it’s only an individual’s responsibility. Applying this more broadly, doing less is a category of potential solutions to much bigger problems. Relying on individuals will never move the needle very far.
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    This is the opposite of assuming it’s directed only at individuals. I’m saying we are already doing this, systematically, at massive scale. What it looks like is people fleeing particular regions, turned from farmer or industrial worker to… “doing less.” It looks like mass migration and failed states. This happens either because the economics cease to make sense (the sort of levers any systematic solution would have available), or ecological facts require it (the sort of solution that will be forced upon us in lieu of action). In either case, it’s clear that the “doing less” approaches are bound to start with the people who are already doing the least.
    - haswell 5y ago
      You said none of this in the prior comment. > In either case, it’s clear that the “doing less” approaches are bound to start with the people who are already doing the least. This is not clear, and does not logically follow anything that preceded it. If you constrain "doing less" to a very specific and restrictive definition of who/what this means, then perhaps. But as a general approach to solving certain kinds of problems, this can take many forms: - Policy decisions - Social movements - Creation of new product categories that remove prior requirements for more And it's also not necessarily always just a "thing", but a mindset, or another lens through which to consider options for solving burning problems.
  - rednerrus 5y ago
    The truth is if we're going to make it work, individuals are going to have to sacrifice.
Dylan16807 5y ago
For something like spending or calories, you probably have to cut back under 20% or under 10%, and even that is hard enough on its own. Trying to simply cut back for CO2 needs something like a 90% reduction to actually solve things. It could theoretically work but it very quickly hits diminishing returns and becomes a bad allocation of effort. Projects like actively replacing all our power plants, and making sure all cars have a minimum electric range, are much more "low hanging fruit" than trying to directly cut consumption that far.

ethanbond 5y ago

Well I’ll take a stab at this one: Privileged folks like those on HN will not cut back much. Folks who are already being forced to cut back will continue to do so, and with massive amounts of suffering. Really a simple solution!

haswell 5y ago
This is rather pessimistic, trivializes the argument and assumes that it’s directed only at individuals. Doing less doesn’t have to mean it’s only an individual’s responsibility. Applying this more broadly, doing less is a category of potential solutions to much bigger problems. Relying on individuals will never move the needle very far.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  This is the opposite of assuming it’s directed only at individuals. I’m saying we are already doing this, systematically, at massive scale. What it looks like is people fleeing particular regions, turned from farmer or industrial worker to… “doing less.” It looks like mass migration and failed states. This happens either because the economics cease to make sense (the sort of levers any systematic solution would have available), or ecological facts require it (the sort of solution that will be forced upon us in lieu of action). In either case, it’s clear that the “doing less” approaches are bound to start with the people who are already doing the least.
  - haswell 5y ago
    You said none of this in the prior comment. > In either case, it’s clear that the “doing less” approaches are bound to start with the people who are already doing the least. This is not clear, and does not logically follow anything that preceded it. If you constrain "doing less" to a very specific and restrictive definition of who/what this means, then perhaps. But as a general approach to solving certain kinds of problems, this can take many forms: - Policy decisions - Social movements - Creation of new product categories that remove prior requirements for more And it's also not necessarily always just a "thing", but a mindset, or another lens through which to consider options for solving burning problems.
- rednerrus 5y ago
  The truth is if we're going to make it work, individuals are going to have to sacrifice.

Dylan16807 5y ago

For something like spending or calories, you probably have to cut back under 20% or under 10%, and even that is hard enough on its own. Trying to simply cut back for CO2 needs something like a 90% reduction to actually solve things. It could theoretically work but it very quickly hits diminishing returns and becomes a bad allocation of effort. Projects like actively replacing all our power plants, and making sure all cars have a minimum electric range, are much more "low hanging fruit" than trying to directly cut consumption that far.