4 ms·

I don't think so. You can be doing the wrong (unsustainable thing), even if you could afford to do the right thing.

bawolff 4y ago
Humans usually do the cheap thing. Historically making the right thing the cheap option has been much much more effective than trying to nag the invisible hand, which basically never works.
- graderjs 4y ago
  It's not the point, having cheaper energy is not going to magically reverse priorities. Focus on what's important. Anyway, you work it out. I'm not gonna waste my time having a discussion here.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Who cares what the priorities are as long as the right result happens? If cheap energy makes incentives align so the right outcome happens, why does it matter the wrong priority caused that outcome.
    - graderjs 4y ago
      You choose: no electricity for 1 month, or no food for one month? Do your priorities matter now? It matters what we get to first. Unlimited energy won't matter if everyone starved. We have multiply redundant energy, but food is vulnerable. We can't grow our food with soil that's broken and without the right fertilizer (if you don't think it's a risk look into it more).
TeMPOraL 4y ago
If we could afford doing the sustainable thing, but are doing the unsustainable thing anyway... that usually means we actually can't afford the right thing, or just can't do it. Note: you have to account for costs of coordination and taking on risk - then you realize a lot of the "if only everyone would ${trivial thing}..." aren't done because they actually are prohibitively expensive or downright impossible.
- graderjs 4y ago
  I think you need to look at history more. The world is not driven by rational moral actors...We could have been farming sustainably, but haven't been. It's even cheaper to rotate crops in the right way, that preserves soil, but it wasn't done. There are engine designs that are more efficient, use less gas, but gas companies held them back. There are treatments that are better, save more lives, but pharma companies would lose out if there were less chronically sick people. "Can't afford" is a dirty word. Depends on perspective, encodes morals/values. Who can't afford? The greater good? Or the greedy? Who can't afford? The present generation? Or 3 clicks down the line when everything's dead because of choices made now? The blocker to a better world is not some engineering impossibility, or market-rational overprice...not always. Often it's because someone with some power would lose out if we changed the way we did stuff, and they don't want that. Human fucking nature. Can't cure that. Small bore example: Your engineering org would be better without the power-mad meeting-coordinator kahuna middle manager who holds hours long meetings for no purpose than to lord over proceedings and justify their own pretense of importance. The greater good would be served by demolishing said meetings, and removing kahuna from org. Does it happen? Often, no. Why? Because the world is not driven my moral, rational actors.

Humans usually do the cheap thing. Historically making the right thing the cheap option has been much much more effective than trying to nag the invisible hand, which basically never works.

graderjs 4y ago
It's not the point, having cheaper energy is not going to magically reverse priorities. Focus on what's important. Anyway, you work it out. I'm not gonna waste my time having a discussion here.
- bawolff 4y ago
  Who cares what the priorities are as long as the right result happens? If cheap energy makes incentives align so the right outcome happens, why does it matter the wrong priority caused that outcome.
  - graderjs 4y ago
    You choose: no electricity for 1 month, or no food for one month? Do your priorities matter now? It matters what we get to first. Unlimited energy won't matter if everyone starved. We have multiply redundant energy, but food is vulnerable. We can't grow our food with soil that's broken and without the right fertilizer (if you don't think it's a risk look into it more).

TeMPOraL 4y ago

If we could afford doing the sustainable thing, but are doing the unsustainable thing anyway... that usually means we actually can't afford the right thing, or just can't do it. Note: you have to account for costs of coordination and taking on risk - then you realize a lot of the "if only everyone would ${trivial thing}..." aren't done because they actually are prohibitively expensive or downright impossible.

graderjs 4y ago
I think you need to look at history more. The world is not driven by rational moral actors...We could have been farming sustainably, but haven't been. It's even cheaper to rotate crops in the right way, that preserves soil, but it wasn't done. There are engine designs that are more efficient, use less gas, but gas companies held them back. There are treatments that are better, save more lives, but pharma companies would lose out if there were less chronically sick people. "Can't afford" is a dirty word. Depends on perspective, encodes morals/values. Who can't afford? The greater good? Or the greedy? Who can't afford? The present generation? Or 3 clicks down the line when everything's dead because of choices made now? The blocker to a better world is not some engineering impossibility, or market-rational overprice...not always. Often it's because someone with some power would lose out if we changed the way we did stuff, and they don't want that. Human fucking nature. Can't cure that. Small bore example: Your engineering org would be better without the power-mad meeting-coordinator kahuna middle manager who holds hours long meetings for no purpose than to lord over proceedings and justify their own pretense of importance. The greater good would be served by demolishing said meetings, and removing kahuna from org. Does it happen? Often, no. Why? Because the world is not driven my moral, rational actors.