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For the love of Earth, stop traveling

washingtonpost.com

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Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#31

Post by mbrock »

coldtea wrote: post #28
mbrock wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on how you define advertising. It's fundamentally impossible to have a market without marketing. The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right?

> The cinema gets its audience by posting events on Facebook, and that's advertising, right? No, that's just posting their events on their own channel that people have to subscribe to to see. But even if we classify that as advertising we can still allow that -- we're inventive, as humans -- without still not allowing for 90% of what today is used for advertising.

When you ban that 90%, all that desire and energy and capital will sink into the other channels, and the outcome will be nothing like you wanted, just like banning drugs is nothing at all like deleting drugs from society.

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#32

Post by votepaunchy »

crdoconnor wrote: post #15

Or perhaps shrink the size of the military industrial complex, which makes up 29% of the country's energy usage: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/3181:the-military-assault... That's probably not something the Washington Post is likely to advocate for though. Their relationship to the military industrial complex is eerily close, especially now that they're a big customer of Bezos: http://www.accuracy.org/release/cia…

“by the end of World War II, the military's share rose to 29 percent.”

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#34

Post by Turing_Machine »

cousin_it wrote: post #9
Auricoma wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Making advertising illegal Might as well make money illegal.

Let's say you're selling product X at price Y. There are three kinds of people you could reach with advertising: * People who have an unmet need for product X at price Y. * People whose need for product X at price Y is already met, but who can be manipulated into buying from you rather than someone else. * People who don't need product X at price Y, but can be manipulated into needing it. Advertising is only good for…

What does "manipulated into needing" mean, exactly?

The human race survived without computers for a couple of million years, so obviously we don't "need" them on an existential level.

In your scenario, who gets to decide what other people "need"?

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#35

Post by Turing_Machine »

jacobush wrote: post #7
mbrock wrote: post #4

Telling people to please stop doing things that are profoundly enjoyable, in opinion columns, seems like the stupidest possible idea for how to solve the climate crisis.

Also, you see, other peoples' travelings are mostly stupid and pointless, but my own travels enriches the world!

See also: Leonardo DiCaprio and his cronies taking private jets and mega-yachts to "global warming summits".

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#37

Post by Turing_Machine »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #36

"According to former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, we have only three years left " Oh, give it a rest. You've been playing the "only x years left" routine for at least 25 years now. As I recall, Manhattan was supposed to be under water by now.

According to James Hansen, we had only four years left in 2009.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/18/obama-cl...

According to Al Gore, we had only ten years left in 2006.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01...

According to the World Wildlife Fund we had only five years left in 2007.

https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/climate-change-five-years-lef...

More failed "only x years left" predictions can easily be found with a bit of Googling.

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#38

Post by Turing_Machine »

alexasmyths wrote: post #14

How about nationalize all Uranium on planet Earth thereby resolving fuel costs only to the cost of extraction, and building 1000 CANDU heavy-water reactors in Northern Ontario in a 10x100 grid - building only 3 variations (proven models) with very simple designs, and then simplifying the fuel cycle process dramatically. The French do 85% of their Electricity on Nuclear because they built a bunch of identical plants a…

No need to nationalize the uranium (I am quite skeptical that would reduce the "massive overhead of bureaucracy" you mention), but other than that your plan would indeed solve the problem (to the extent it is a problem).

The problem is that the people behind this don't actually want to solve the problem. They just want to use it as an excuse for a power grab.

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#39

Post by yongjik »

mbrock wrote: post #4

Telling people to please stop doing things that are profoundly enjoyable, in opinion columns, seems like the stupidest possible idea for how to solve the climate crisis.

Shark fin soup has been a highly prized delicacy in Chinese cuisine. I'm sure many Chinese people (who could afford it) found the experience profoundly enjoyable.

Many environmentalists, including the basketball celebrity Yao Ming, campaigned against it, highlighting how the world's shark population is collapsing.

Shark fin sales dropped by 70% in China.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2014/a...

Re: For the love of Earth, stop traveling

#40

Post by cousin_it »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #34
cousin_it wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say you're selling product X at price Y. There are three kinds of people you could reach with advertising: * People who have an unmet need for product X at price Y. * People whose need for product X at price Y is already met, but who can be manipulated into buying from you rather than someone else. * People who don't need product X at price Y, but can be manipulated into needing it. Advertising is only good for…

What does "manipulated into needing" mean, exactly? The human race survived without computers for a couple of million years, so obviously we don't "need" them on an existential level. In your scenario, who gets to decide what other people "need"?

For example, you've almost certainly been manipulated into feeling mildly inferior because you aren't young and taking joyrides with friends in your convertible on winding roads by the sea. Or if you're not that kind of person, you might be feeling mildly inferior that you haven't yet built a hobby project that would take the world by storm.

In other words, most people spend their lives being unhappy about status of some kind. It's partly an innate need, but mostly manufactured by overexposure to images of abnormally high status people. Reducing such exposure (remember that Israeli law that said models should have realistic body weight?) would help reduce misery.

As to who gets to decide? We come up with guidelines and make them law. It's not harder than other stuff regulated by law. Anyone can tell when an ad shows an alluring life instead of selling the product on merit.

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