8 ms·

"Improving human wealth" is hardly the point of anything at all. If you believe otherwise, I'm afraid you are horribly confused. You won't be alone, but you wil

"Improving human wealth" is hardly the point of anything at all. If you believe otherwise, I'm afraid you are horribly confused. You won't be alone, but you will be confused. Are you trying to maximize "human wealth", "human life", or "quality of life"? You've brought at least three different priorities into it, and none of them are necessarily related to each other. In any case, "climate change" will wreak havoc on humanity and everything else. We should aim to avoid that to the extent that we think wreaking havoc on humanity and everything else is bad. This will involve tradeoffs, some of which are certain to be unpleasant. Adapt-or-die is a fact of nature, so having to justify adapting is at least curious. I remember a man on television many years ago who said he was in favor of "saving the planet", but who would pay for it? The implication was that if it cost too much money, he'd rather just let the planet die. That's a pretty wild idea, you know? Imagine a comet on a collision course with the planet, and we ask ourselves, you know, whether it's really worth spending all that money to prevent the annihilation of all life. </ramble>

danuker 4y ago
Pick any measurement of quality of life that you want. You'll see that it's closely associated with GDP per capita. According to these scenarios, the planet won't die, in as much as it can support GDP.
- epolanski 4y ago
  US has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world yet: - it's behind Poland and Lebanon or Barbados for life expectancy - it's behind Poland or Morocco for safety - is behind Poland or Slovenia or Turkey for work-life balance - is middle of the pack for environment (despite its gigantic size most people live in so and so unhealthy places) - is below average for civic engagement - is middle of the pack for social mobility - somehow US is among the highest in education rankings globally, something I have a hard time believing considering the emphasis on standardized tests and overall simplicity of US curricula (I guess research gets conflated with education, but ranking high schoolers for their math proficiency or functional literacy gets US middle of the pack) - is among the highest ranking for depression and other mental illnesses The best ranking countries in the world in all of those are...European social democratic countries that have never put GDP growth over social or environmental matters. Facts are that being born in LA and coming from a high GDP family likely won't give you a better life by most metrics than being born in Latvia. You're not gonna be happier nor healthier nor more fulfilled.
  - danuker 4y ago
    What you say is completely true. But you compare rich countries with other rich countries, and you are looking at exceptions rather than the trend. Morocco, the poorest country you've chosen, is richer than India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=USA~TUR~POL~LBN~BRB~MAR~SVN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-pe... Once you get past $20k/yr GDP per capita, there's indeed limited additional benefit (there are diminishing returns). Which country is ahead of which other is essentially random. It depends on other factors, not GDP. But if look at the scenarios for Middle East and Africa, it would take roughly 10 years longer for the Green Road scenario to get to $20k/yr, compared to the Highway. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=none&Metric=GDP&Rate=Per+capita&Region=Middle+East+and+Africa https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=no...
  - agent008t 4y ago
    And yet, there is no significant migration from the US to the European social democratic countries. Why not? Latvian population shrunk by a quarter since 1990. I am genuinely curious, as this often comes up in these discussion. Often, an argument would be that moving away from family and friends to a country where you do not speak the language is difficult. And yet, millions of people move to the US, which is a lot more difficult. So why not?
    - epolanski 4y ago
      > And yet, there is no significant migration from the US to the European social democratic countries. The reverse is also true. There isn't really a huge migration from Sweden or Switzerland to the US. > And yet, millions of people move to the US, which is a lot more difficult. We live in a society and world where you're brainwashed since your birth into thinking that money is the most important thing in the world. Thus people that already make good money move to the other side of the world (say to Silicon Valley) because they will make much more money there. Then they find they aren't necessarily living a better life, just that they can afford more things. I've been in places and cultures where there isn't such an emphasis on money and material things, like in central asia, and I think people there live much happier lives than most of us in high income countries do.
Izkata 4y ago
> I remember a man on television many years ago who said he was in favor of "saving the planet", but who would pay for it? The implication was that if it cost too much money, he'd rather just let the planet die. That's a pretty wild idea, you know? I haven't seen that, but I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant. It sounds like capability, not intent - people do need money both to live and implement the solution, so if no one's willing to pay then it can't be done. Your example with the comet is a totally different situation, looking at the funders instead of the implementers like that first person you referred to.
taolegal 4y ago
> "Improving human wealth" is hardly the point of anything at all. Human wealth enables to do anything beyond the natural course of events where most people die after a very short-lived and miserable existence. Where we're subject to starvation, disease, dangerous animals, or perishing due to mundane cold, heat and other natural events. Now, if you don't care about wealth, you basically end up being a consumerist. Fritter away whatever humanity can manage to produce on immediate consumption. Progress stagnates and humanity degenerates. If you claim to be none of those, you're probably just anti-human. In which case, nothing is stopping you from a pro-active start on depopulation.

danuker 4y ago

Pick any measurement of quality of life that you want. You'll see that it's closely associated with GDP per capita. According to these scenarios, the planet won't die, in as much as it can support GDP.

epolanski 4y ago
US has one of the highest GDP per capita in the world yet: - it's behind Poland and Lebanon or Barbados for life expectancy - it's behind Poland or Morocco for safety - is behind Poland or Slovenia or Turkey for work-life balance - is middle of the pack for environment (despite its gigantic size most people live in so and so unhealthy places) - is below average for civic engagement - is middle of the pack for social mobility - somehow US is among the highest in education rankings globally, something I have a hard time believing considering the emphasis on standardized tests and overall simplicity of US curricula (I guess research gets conflated with education, but ranking high schoolers for their math proficiency or functional literacy gets US middle of the pack) - is among the highest ranking for depression and other mental illnesses The best ranking countries in the world in all of those are...European social democratic countries that have never put GDP growth over social or environmental matters. Facts are that being born in LA and coming from a high GDP family likely won't give you a better life by most metrics than being born in Latvia. You're not gonna be happier nor healthier nor more fulfilled.
- danuker 4y ago
  What you say is completely true. But you compare rich countries with other rich countries, and you are looking at exceptions rather than the trend. Morocco, the poorest country you've chosen, is richer than India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-per-capita?country=USA~TUR~POL~LBN~BRB~MAR~SVN https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-pe... Once you get past $20k/yr GDP per capita, there's indeed limited additional benefit (there are diminishing returns). Which country is ahead of which other is essentially random. It depends on other factors, not GDP. But if look at the scenarios for Middle East and Africa, it would take roughly 10 years longer for the Green Road scenario to get to $20k/yr, compared to the Highway. https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=none&Metric=GDP&Rate=Per+capita&Region=Middle+East+and+Africa https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/ipcc-scenarios?facet=no...
- agent008t 4y ago
  And yet, there is no significant migration from the US to the European social democratic countries. Why not? Latvian population shrunk by a quarter since 1990. I am genuinely curious, as this often comes up in these discussion. Often, an argument would be that moving away from family and friends to a country where you do not speak the language is difficult. And yet, millions of people move to the US, which is a lot more difficult. So why not?
  - epolanski 4y ago
    > And yet, there is no significant migration from the US to the European social democratic countries. The reverse is also true. There isn't really a huge migration from Sweden or Switzerland to the US. > And yet, millions of people move to the US, which is a lot more difficult. We live in a society and world where you're brainwashed since your birth into thinking that money is the most important thing in the world. Thus people that already make good money move to the other side of the world (say to Silicon Valley) because they will make much more money there. Then they find they aren't necessarily living a better life, just that they can afford more things. I've been in places and cultures where there isn't such an emphasis on money and material things, like in central asia, and I think people there live much happier lives than most of us in high income countries do.

Izkata 4y ago

> I remember a man on television many years ago who said he was in favor of "saving the planet", but who would pay for it? The implication was that if it cost too much money, he'd rather just let the planet die. That's a pretty wild idea, you know? I haven't seen that, but I'm pretty sure that's not what he meant. It sounds like capability, not intent - people do need money both to live and implement the solution, so if no one's willing to pay then it can't be done. Your example with the comet is a totally different situation, looking at the funders instead of the implementers like that first person you referred to.

taolegal 4y ago

> "Improving human wealth" is hardly the point of anything at all. Human wealth enables to do anything beyond the natural course of events where most people die after a very short-lived and miserable existence. Where we're subject to starvation, disease, dangerous animals, or perishing due to mundane cold, heat and other natural events. Now, if you don't care about wealth, you basically end up being a consumerist. Fritter away whatever humanity can manage to produce on immediate consumption. Progress stagnates and humanity degenerates. If you claim to be none of those, you're probably just anti-human. In which case, nothing is stopping you from a pro-active start on depopulation.