4 ms·

Sorry to put it so bluntly, but you're basically saying: "I don't care it the climate's fucked, I want to live away from civilization and drive 100 miles a day

Sorry to put it so bluntly, but you're basically saying: "I don't care it the climate's fucked, I want to live away from civilization and drive 100 miles a day everywhere" Of course we shouldn't hyper-optimize everything, but sooner people realize our environment depends on not everyone getting exactly what they want whenever they want the better. Living in a (walkable) city is just one such concession towards the environment we ought to make, even if we don't "want" to.

naming_the_user 2y ago
Or we could just compete with each other for resources as we have since forever. I’d rather do that than have no choice but to live in Kowloon. Just whack an externality tax on fossil fuels and things like cutting down wilderness, job done.
- xerox13ster 2y ago
  Or we can stop acting like there’s only two options: living in wide-open fields with a clear horizon or the fucking walled city of Kowloon. Also, you have the mindset of a typical anti-social coastal elite who thinks “oh no big deal we can just raise the cost of living for all the poor rural types by sticking on a tax because I want to go LARP as a Victorian manor lord. And people don’t bend to my every whim immediately or live exactly like me so I want to be in total control of the 50 miles around me.”
  - naming_the_user 2y ago
    Sure. All I'm saying is that the efficiency arguments are silly unless you are comparing like for like. If we're suggesting that people simply do less because it's more efficient, well, no-one is going to do that without an incentive. Everyone having 50 sqmi obviously isn't realistic (there actually is not enough space on the globe), but equally, if the idea is that everyone _has_ to live in a metropolitan apartment because each person has to use (1/7billion) of the resources, you're going to see an uprising, that just won't fly with people. The best outcome is probably to convince as many people as possible to live in a shoebox so that the rest of us can still have a decent life. It seems to be working!
- bmicraft 2y ago
  We're already competing under capitalism, and clearly the end-state isn't who'll get the most of what we already have, but who'll get the most of what's yet to get exploited. This competition doesn't have any upper bounds.
llm_trw 2y ago
If you think cities don't fuck the climate just as much as suburbs do I have a well you can carry water 40 flights of stairs from.
- r3d0c 2y ago
  cities do because they exist in a system that generate carbon, but they are vastly more resource & carbon efficient than suburbs per person https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-public-more-than-twice-as-much-as-compact-development https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-publ... https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels...
fragmede 2y ago
That’s not remotely what I’m saying. I live in a city and don’t drive most days because I can walk and take public transit and there’s never any parking. What I’m saying is that in the bigger picture, approaching life as a set of problems to be optimized is the wrong way to approach life.

naming_the_user 2y ago

Or we could just compete with each other for resources as we have since forever. I’d rather do that than have no choice but to live in Kowloon. Just whack an externality tax on fossil fuels and things like cutting down wilderness, job done.

xerox13ster 2y ago
Or we can stop acting like there’s only two options: living in wide-open fields with a clear horizon or the fucking walled city of Kowloon. Also, you have the mindset of a typical anti-social coastal elite who thinks “oh no big deal we can just raise the cost of living for all the poor rural types by sticking on a tax because I want to go LARP as a Victorian manor lord. And people don’t bend to my every whim immediately or live exactly like me so I want to be in total control of the 50 miles around me.”
- naming_the_user 2y ago
  Sure. All I'm saying is that the efficiency arguments are silly unless you are comparing like for like. If we're suggesting that people simply do less because it's more efficient, well, no-one is going to do that without an incentive. Everyone having 50 sqmi obviously isn't realistic (there actually is not enough space on the globe), but equally, if the idea is that everyone _has_ to live in a metropolitan apartment because each person has to use (1/7billion) of the resources, you're going to see an uprising, that just won't fly with people. The best outcome is probably to convince as many people as possible to live in a shoebox so that the rest of us can still have a decent life. It seems to be working!
bmicraft 2y ago
We're already competing under capitalism, and clearly the end-state isn't who'll get the most of what we already have, but who'll get the most of what's yet to get exploited. This competition doesn't have any upper bounds.

llm_trw 2y ago

If you think cities don't fuck the climate just as much as suburbs do I have a well you can carry water 40 flights of stairs from.

r3d0c 2y ago
cities do because they exist in a system that generate carbon, but they are vastly more resource & carbon efficient than suburbs per person https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-public-more-than-twice-as-much-as-compact-development https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-publ... https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/ https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels...

fragmede 2y ago

That’s not remotely what I’m saying. I live in a city and don’t drive most days because I can walk and take public transit and there’s never any parking. What I’m saying is that in the bigger picture, approaching life as a set of problems to be optimized is the wrong way to approach life.