5 ms·

> The only thing worth doing now is Even if we were to not use a single drop of oil tomorrow and start putting nuclear powered fans to capture CO2 everywhere,

by sgu999 2y ago

> The only thing worth doing now is Even if we were to not use a single drop of oil tomorrow and start putting nuclear powered fans to capture CO2 everywhere, the biodiversity would still be collapsing. Climate change is only a portion the problem of the destabilisation of our environment as a whole. When need to reduce our energy consumption and our footprint on the environment. That means roughly less cars, smaller homes, less concrete, less meat, less gadgets and the very low-tech "more trees". "AI for Y" is just a distraction...

tticvs 2y ago
However it is not possible to support the human population without industrial society and its corresponding energy use.
- schiffern 2y ago
  "It is not possible to support the Rome city population without the empire and its corresponding technologies and institutions." Same argument, but perhaps you now imagine a slightly different outcome. The piece that "gives way" is (of course, as any historian or anthropologist will attest) that the population size...... fluctuates. Generally the process isn't too too fun for people who find themselves in those populations.
RayVR 2y ago
I can only assume you are living in a mud hut, with no personal transportation, and you walked to a public library to use their computer so you could make this comment. Everyone wants to talk about reducing other people’s consumption.
- Teever 2y ago
  Can I ask you a question? Out of all the countless times you've surely seen this particular argument play out on the internet, have you ever seen it go somewhere productive? "Yet you participate in society, curious!" is not a productive response to the suggestion "We should improve society somewhat" Either we do this voluntarily and as orderly as possible, or it just happens for us. Your response seems to indicate a complete unawareness of the impending situation our species is going to be facing.
  - hollerith 2y ago
    It is fair to point out that people in the third world that already live on "less cars, smaller homes, less concrete, less meat, less gadgets and more trees" choose to ramp up their consumption of those things as soon as they can afford to. The Chinese for example probably have more cars per capita than the US did when its GDP per capita was what China's is now -- and mopeds and motorcycles (and bicycles if my hours spent watching Youtube videos of urban outdoor environments in China are any indication) are banned in the Tier 1 cities: to travel on the roads, you have to have a car or ride a bus -- and the privately-owned cars vastly outnumber the buses just like in any US city. And the Chinese eat many times more meat than they used to. It is fair to point those things out because it is evidence that living on "less cars, smaller homes, less concrete, less meat, less gadgets and more trees" really sucks and that it is possible for us to overdo our response to climate change and ocean acidification.
    - sgu999 2y ago
      "less" doesn't mean "none", it's not hard to find plenty of evidence of better living standards without car dependency or smaller average houses compared to the US for instance. Active mobility is good for your health, so is a moderated consumption of meat. Lots of benefits to organizing society better while respecting the finiteness of all our resources. It's always the same rhetoric with your kind, you pretend to fight for the poor, when all you really want is freedom to keep on grabbing as much as possible for yourselves.
    - Teever 2y ago
      Fairness doesn't matter. What does matter is that we make our best effort to mitigate the impending disaster to the human race and the ecosystem.
      - llm_trw 2y ago
        A modest proposal. Instead trying to keep the third world poor why don't we just nuke them? This has the triple benefit of: 1). Reducing the total population. 2). Reducing CO2 production of the survivors. 3). Starting a nuclear winter. It's just unethical to do anything else when faced with the impending disaster to the human race and the ecosystem.

by sgu999 2y ago

tticvs 2y ago

However it is not possible to support the human population without industrial society and its corresponding energy use.

schiffern 2y ago
"It is not possible to support the Rome city population without the empire and its corresponding technologies and institutions." Same argument, but perhaps you now imagine a slightly different outcome. The piece that "gives way" is (of course, as any historian or anthropologist will attest) that the population size...... fluctuates. Generally the process isn't too too fun for people who find themselves in those populations.

RayVR 2y ago

I can only assume you are living in a mud hut, with no personal transportation, and you walked to a public library to use their computer so you could make this comment. Everyone wants to talk about reducing other people’s consumption.

Teever 2y ago
Can I ask you a question? Out of all the countless times you've surely seen this particular argument play out on the internet, have you ever seen it go somewhere productive? "Yet you participate in society, curious!" is not a productive response to the suggestion "We should improve society somewhat" Either we do this voluntarily and as orderly as possible, or it just happens for us. Your response seems to indicate a complete unawareness of the impending situation our species is going to be facing.
- hollerith 2y ago
  It is fair to point out that people in the third world that already live on "less cars, smaller homes, less concrete, less meat, less gadgets and more trees" choose to ramp up their consumption of those things as soon as they can afford to. The Chinese for example probably have more cars per capita than the US did when its GDP per capita was what China's is now -- and mopeds and motorcycles (and bicycles if my hours spent watching Youtube videos of urban outdoor environments in China are any indication) are banned in the Tier 1 cities: to travel on the roads, you have to have a car or ride a bus -- and the privately-owned cars vastly outnumber the buses just like in any US city. And the Chinese eat many times more meat than they used to. It is fair to point those things out because it is evidence that living on "less cars, smaller homes, less concrete, less meat, less gadgets and more trees" really sucks and that it is possible for us to overdo our response to climate change and ocean acidification.
  - sgu999 2y ago
    "less" doesn't mean "none", it's not hard to find plenty of evidence of better living standards without car dependency or smaller average houses compared to the US for instance. Active mobility is good for your health, so is a moderated consumption of meat. Lots of benefits to organizing society better while respecting the finiteness of all our resources. It's always the same rhetoric with your kind, you pretend to fight for the poor, when all you really want is freedom to keep on grabbing as much as possible for yourselves.
  - Teever 2y ago
    Fairness doesn't matter. What does matter is that we make our best effort to mitigate the impending disaster to the human race and the ecosystem.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      A modest proposal. Instead trying to keep the third world poor why don't we just nuke them? This has the triple benefit of: 1). Reducing the total population. 2). Reducing CO2 production of the survivors. 3). Starting a nuclear winter. It's just unethical to do anything else when faced with the impending disaster to the human race and the ecosystem.