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Thats simply not true. Engineering 'solutions' to climate change like more efficient or cleaner technologies, or things like direct air capture are also social
by RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
Thats simply not true. Engineering 'solutions' to climate change like more efficient or cleaner technologies, or things like direct air capture are also social signaling, although more veiled and perhaps self delusional. These solutions are the equivalent of building more lanes on a highway instead of going with public transportation solutions. If anything many of these technologies may end up making climate change demonstrably worse through increased consumption.
The only real solution to climate change is to decrease the rate of consumption and the overall size of the human population. 'Technical' solutions to climate change aren't. They'll simply increase our bandwidth for pollution.
The answers to climate change aren't technical, they're social. Society needs to become comfortable with the idea that doing less, being less productive and less consumptive, are fine. UBI, socialized healthcare, a guarantee of a basic social safety net so people can be very unproductive and still live safe, reasonably comfortable lives is what we need to solve climate change.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- freemint 4y ago> The only real solution to climate change is to decrease the overall size of the human population. I would say reducing the US population would be more effective then reducing human population in an undefined way
- _vdpp 4y agoI see a lot of people saying “society needs to be more comfortable with less.” I never see anyone saying “I need to be comfortable with less.”
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- rayiner 4y agoColleges should offer a Bachelor of Science in Social Engineering. It would consist of spending four years writing “social engineering does not work” on a blackboard over and over.
- edmundsauto 4y agoPublic health has a history of social engineering, sometimes successful.
- rayiner 4y agoI think there’s room for debate about what “social engineering” means. I’m talking specifically about hoping to solve a problem by convincing people to do something they don’t want to do, whether that’s exercise and lose weight or turn down the heat and put on a sweater to fight climate change. You can educate people and provide them with low cost, high benefit options. But you can’t change human nature or brow beat people into having different priorities than they do.
- dionidium 4y ago> I’m talking specifically about hoping to solve a problem by convincing people to do something they don’t want to do Ironically, the social engineering project most impactful to global warming exists to give people what they (think they) want, not to force them to do something they don't want to do. They're called suburbs. We made a whole range of living arrangements flat-out illegal, because (most) people express a preference for low-density living. A social engineering project of historical proportions. You're right; we should eliminate it. People should be allowed to build whatever kind of housing they want to build on property they own and we should eliminate the social engineering scheme that restricts developers to single-family homes in most areas.