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We can't even be assed to mandate repairable smartphones in 2024. People don't care about our environment, they care about affordable technology that does what
by talldayo 2y ago
We can't even be assed to mandate repairable smartphones in 2024. People don't care about our environment, they care about affordable technology that does what they want while marketing the values they respect to them. Tire manufacturers, big tech, and most sizable businesses have figured this out by now. Even if you invented a miracle rubber alternative, it was cheaper than synthetic rubber, and you made it freely available, tire manufacturers would still undercut each other until they had the highest-margin product. Any way you slice it, our miraculous free market exclusively incentivizes manufacturers to destroy the one planet our human race has.
My advice? Give up on the environment. You're on Hacker News, the majority of this website would happily destroy the earth for decades to come if it meant they could be king for a year. Even outside HN, who consciously considers the environment when making purchasing decisions anymore? Who stands up to the lobbyists that stop pro-environmental change from happening? Nobody. We suffer because people with money insist it's the only way we can live, and biodegradable tires aren't going to change that political status-quo.
- westurner 2y agoWell, good luck with that approach, its outcomes, the costs and losses including poor food quality, and the gosh darn heat.
- talldayo 2y agoIt's not my approach, it's our approach. I don't like it either, but I also lack the determinate capacity to change it. It's easier to just acknowledge that nobody values anything besides greed and resource competition unless the monopoly on violence demands otherwise.
- westurner 2y agoA: Looking to share solutions for [XYZ] B: Don't even try, it's hopeless, just do hedonism without consideration like everyone else A: Use market incentives to change production and consumption behavior to head off costs and loss.
- talldayo 2y agoIt's less of a chicken-and-egg problem and more of a cart-and-horse one. You fundamentally cannot promote a new solution in a market that won't respect the values you're trying to promote. Hedonism doesn't drive synthetic rubber sales, price-sensitive customers do.
- fsflover 2y ago> price-sensitive customers do So we should fight with poverty.
- talldayo 2y agoFixing poverty doesn't fix the free market. Customers will be price-sensitive no matter how rich they are because tires are a utility we don't benefit from splurging on. In other market segments, it's convenience or proprietary lock-in that separates them from positive alternatives. The only way to "fix" it in America is to legislate the tire manufacturers into compliance. And when you do that people will kick and scream and say you've ruined their free market, so you've got to pick your poison and stand by it.
- westurner 2y agoPenalties or Incentives, to get the market to less expensive sustainable tires? - An N $ rebate for sustainable tires - Capital investment into R&D and scaling production of sustainable tires - Grants for open access research into cost-viable sustainable tires
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]