4 ms·

Well all you have to do is ask :) I live in a spectacular suburb of Denver, probably the nicest part of city that's still somewhat affordable for normal folks.

Well all you have to do is ask :) I live in a spectacular suburb of Denver, probably the nicest part of city that's still somewhat affordable for normal folks. My car-centric lifestyle is indeed convenient, but it's also efficient and resilient. I fucking love Costco. I drive a 1996 Honda minivan for which I paid $2000. This minivan does 25-30 mpg in the city. I fill that minivan right to the gills on my monthly trips to Costco, which allows me to minimize my miles driven, gas consumption, and time wasted on the mind-numbing task of buying staples. The less frequent trips to the store naturally requires us to store more food at home, so we end up having enough to last at least a couple of months in case of an emergency. Now, I could move to one of them fancy "walkable" neighborhoods they're building, and further cut down my car usage by taking light rail to a more expensive neighborhood grocer three or four times a week. This would require me to waste dozens of hours and spend hundreds of extra dollars simply to save a pint of gasoline per month. I'm interested to hear your case for why I should want to make that trade?

scoofy 3y ago
The obvious response is that you are trading your grandchildrens' future for a bit of convenience and quality-of-life improvement today. If you think that's a good trade, there's no convincing you of any moral duty to make sacrifices for future generations. I'm don't think moralizing is an effective way of changing minds, of course. I'm just generally disappointed that we haven't decided, collectively, that change is important enough to plan for and execute with minimal inconvenience for most people. That was my view 22 years ago, and it was very naive.
- nate_meurer 3y ago
  > If you think that's a good trade, there's no convincing you of any moral duty to make sacrifices for future generations. Goodness. So not only is my judgement incorrect-- I'm also irretrievably immoral? What could I do differently to redeem myself in your eyes?
  - scoofy 3y ago
    Again, I honestly don't give a shit about your personal choices, I just think that, collectively, we should disincentivize general behaviors that are exceptionally bad for the climate. The fact that you care that I care is exactly the type of anti-partisanship hostility that makes organizing on this subject so difficult. Any theory of moral sentiments must be universal (this is my background in academic philosophy talking), so an moral sentiments I have must apply to you as well, otherwise they wouldn't actually be moral sentiments. That doesn't mean that I think anyone making different choices than I do is a "bad person" or anything (my other comment in this thread specifically discusses how difficult the tradeoffs for urbanism have become in this country), I only mean that I think that you should generally care about other people, even people that aren't born yet, at least collectively (gasp: how pearl-clutching of me). Again, I'm a fatalist at this point, simply because the level of push back to any non-symbolic change has been much more than I thought it would be for all collective changes needed. We have a few tricks up our sleeves in the form of geoengineering, and the eventual dominance of effectively free electricity in the future, but as it stands, I think it's going to get much worse before it starts getting better, and caring about whether someone lives in the suburbs isn't worth the energy.
    - nate_meurer 3y ago
      You clearly do care very much about other people's personal choices, and you're not shy about calling them immoral if they come to different conclusions about, say, finding a life balance between between time, money, and minimizing externalities. In your mind, my willingness to use an extra pint of gas each month in order to have more time for my family indicates that I don't "generally care about other people". That makes me sad. I'm curious: how do you feel my monthly pint of gas compares to your pet dog's consumption of food resources, including the environmental destruction of factory-farmed meat, packaging waste, and transportation costs?
      - scoofy 3y ago
        I'm not going to participate in this nonsense nerd sniping. I don't have a dog. I think other forms of environmental destruction can be relevant in general, but generally irrelevant to any discussion of climate change. I think it's perfectly sensible to be concerned about climate impact on a macro scale and for people to make reasonable trade offs. I don't think "car=bad", only that in many areas (including where I live in CA) it's the highest single-source of greenhouse gas emissions, so it should be paid the appropriate amount of attention to.

scoofy 3y ago

The obvious response is that you are trading your grandchildrens' future for a bit of convenience and quality-of-life improvement today. If you think that's a good trade, there's no convincing you of any moral duty to make sacrifices for future generations. I'm don't think moralizing is an effective way of changing minds, of course. I'm just generally disappointed that we haven't decided, collectively, that change is important enough to plan for and execute with minimal inconvenience for most people. That was my view 22 years ago, and it was very naive.

nate_meurer 3y ago
> If you think that's a good trade, there's no convincing you of any moral duty to make sacrifices for future generations. Goodness. So not only is my judgement incorrect-- I'm also irretrievably immoral? What could I do differently to redeem myself in your eyes?
- scoofy 3y ago
  Again, I honestly don't give a shit about your personal choices, I just think that, collectively, we should disincentivize general behaviors that are exceptionally bad for the climate. The fact that you care that I care is exactly the type of anti-partisanship hostility that makes organizing on this subject so difficult. Any theory of moral sentiments must be universal (this is my background in academic philosophy talking), so an moral sentiments I have must apply to you as well, otherwise they wouldn't actually be moral sentiments. That doesn't mean that I think anyone making different choices than I do is a "bad person" or anything (my other comment in this thread specifically discusses how difficult the tradeoffs for urbanism have become in this country), I only mean that I think that you should generally care about other people, even people that aren't born yet, at least collectively (gasp: how pearl-clutching of me). Again, I'm a fatalist at this point, simply because the level of push back to any non-symbolic change has been much more than I thought it would be for all collective changes needed. We have a few tricks up our sleeves in the form of geoengineering, and the eventual dominance of effectively free electricity in the future, but as it stands, I think it's going to get much worse before it starts getting better, and caring about whether someone lives in the suburbs isn't worth the energy.
  - nate_meurer 3y ago
    You clearly do care very much about other people's personal choices, and you're not shy about calling them immoral if they come to different conclusions about, say, finding a life balance between between time, money, and minimizing externalities. In your mind, my willingness to use an extra pint of gas each month in order to have more time for my family indicates that I don't "generally care about other people". That makes me sad. I'm curious: how do you feel my monthly pint of gas compares to your pet dog's consumption of food resources, including the environmental destruction of factory-farmed meat, packaging waste, and transportation costs?
    - scoofy 3y ago
      I'm not going to participate in this nonsense nerd sniping. I don't have a dog. I think other forms of environmental destruction can be relevant in general, but generally irrelevant to any discussion of climate change. I think it's perfectly sensible to be concerned about climate impact on a macro scale and for people to make reasonable trade offs. I don't think "car=bad", only that in many areas (including where I live in CA) it's the highest single-source of greenhouse gas emissions, so it should be paid the appropriate amount of attention to.