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I find your approach arrogant; of course I understand that people die in car crashes and yet we continue to use them. Your original point was: >Yet there is z

I find your approach arrogant; of course I understand that people die in car crashes and yet we continue to use them. Your original point was: >Yet there is zero momentum toward doing anything about those from a policy standpoint. This is clearly false. There are many effective regulations and travelling by car continues to get safer. Yes people still die, yes we already somewhat normalise people dying from e.g. air pollution (not something that will happen, we already do it) There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history.

alangibson 3y ago
I should have written "fixing the problem" instead of "doing anything about those" as I did in other comments. I define "fixed" as reaching and sustaining the lower bound. So basically excluding deaths due to act of god only. > There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Exactly. Despite that, here we are with 35K traffic deaths a year. Here's what would actually be necessary to "fix" the problem: - 20 year project to build a tremendous amount of passenger rail - Manhattan project for self-driving cars - 10 year project to upgrade all city and highway signage to be self-driving car friendly - Close roads to human-driven cars when self-driving upgrades are ready This probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me too. And that's why I'm blackpilled on climate change: if we can't and won't do what it takes to fix traffic or gun fatalities on a national level, we definitely won't do it for a problem several orders of magnitude more difficult on a global level. > Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history. There will be an impact. Just most likely not a positive one. It could highly negative (see post-9/11 wars), or completely insufficient (our current response to climate change).

alangibson 3y ago

I should have written "fixing the problem" instead of "doing anything about those" as I did in other comments. I define "fixed" as reaching and sustaining the lower bound. So basically excluding deaths due to act of god only. > There are people who do think about these things every day. There are people who dedicate life to working on problems and progress is being made. Exactly. Despite that, here we are with 35K traffic deaths a year. Here's what would actually be necessary to "fix" the problem: - 20 year project to build a tremendous amount of passenger rail - Manhattan project for self-driving cars - 10 year project to upgrade all city and highway signage to be self-driving car friendly - Close roads to human-driven cars when self-driving upgrades are ready This probably sounds crazy to you. It sounds crazy to me too. And that's why I'm blackpilled on climate change: if we can't and won't do what it takes to fix traffic or gun fatalities on a national level, we definitely won't do it for a problem several orders of magnitude more difficult on a global level. > Saying that a major event would have no impact on the zeitgiest is questionable given history. There will be an impact. Just most likely not a positive one. It could highly negative (see post-9/11 wars), or completely insufficient (our current response to climate change).