4 ms·

I can confidently say the majority of fliers are not traveling for work. This is a strawman.

by pb7 4y ago

ethanbond 4y ago
Where did I say it was? My position is that every day people make tradeoffs without even considering what those tradeoffs are, because the benefits are so immediate and local while the costs are externalized both in time and space. It's important to connect everyday decisions (and their real benefits) to their externalized costs (which are also real, and probably ~impossible to recover once incurred). Once our cohabitants are gone, they're likely gone forever. We have no reason to believe we'll ever be able to recover a meaningful portion of them. Ecosystems are astoundingly complex and the more we learn about them, the more we learn how subtle they are.
- pb7 4y ago
  I get it, you were saying it for effect, but this statement: >if our descendants learn that we traded butterflies for 9 hour plane flights for business meetings Makes it seem like that's all flights are good for. It's not any different than if you said "quinceaneras" instead of "business meetings". They are probably a non-zero percentage of why people fly but even without these things, there would still be demand for air travel and the problem would remain. I share your doom and gloom about the situation but hope we can focus on changes that have material return. There are many optional things in life that we can cut out but then what would be the point in living?
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Which is exactly why I singled out a clear example of something we can reduce and that would be meaningful without incurring a huge negative impact on whether life is worth living or not. Environmental harm is both multicausal and overdetermined which means we do in fact need to pick (many) specific things which individually do not seem extremely substantial (because they’re not) and start reducing them.

4 ms·

I can confidently say the majority of fliers are not traveling for work. This is a strawman.

by pb7 4y ago

I can confidently say the majority of fliers are not traveling for work. This is a strawman.

ethanbond 4y ago
Where did I say it was? My position is that every day people make tradeoffs without even considering what those tradeoffs are, because the benefits are so immediate and local while the costs are externalized both in time and space. It's important to connect everyday decisions (and their real benefits) to their externalized costs (which are also real, and probably ~impossible to recover once incurred). Once our cohabitants are gone, they're likely gone forever. We have no reason to believe we'll ever be able to recover a meaningful portion of them. Ecosystems are astoundingly complex and the more we learn about them, the more we learn how subtle they are.
- pb7 4y ago
  I get it, you were saying it for effect, but this statement: >if our descendants learn that we traded butterflies for 9 hour plane flights for business meetings Makes it seem like that's all flights are good for. It's not any different than if you said "quinceaneras" instead of "business meetings". They are probably a non-zero percentage of why people fly but even without these things, there would still be demand for air travel and the problem would remain. I share your doom and gloom about the situation but hope we can focus on changes that have material return. There are many optional things in life that we can cut out but then what would be the point in living?
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Which is exactly why I singled out a clear example of something we can reduce and that would be meaningful without incurring a huge negative impact on whether life is worth living or not. Environmental harm is both multicausal and overdetermined which means we do in fact need to pick (many) specific things which individually do not seem extremely substantial (because they’re not) and start reducing them.