We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too • Hacker News Board

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#111

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:22 AM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #93

teddyuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In london commuter trains are over crowded and they spend millions (billions?) every year on upgrading and it costs me about £900 a month to use these trains. If governments incentivised companies to encourage remote work, this money would be unnecessary as many people wouldn't commute any more - saving money for everyone, saving the environment and allowing people to have a home life and see their kids/partner etc.…

What would the right incentives be? I agree, btw

Lower taxes maybe since their employees aren't using fuel or infrastructure to commute.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#112

Post by distances » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

oddeyed wrote: post #58

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a post like this is that it tries to guilt the individual and their consumerism - but individuals cannot have enough of an impact. It's up to our chosen representatives to e.g. ban the import of soy and beef from Brazil. The net effect to the individual will be that beef is either more expensive or simply no longer available - and that's fine, there's plenty of local and renewable alternatives. No, f…

I'm curious how you think that a country would ever stop consuming soy from Brazil unless there was a strong desire from the populace of the country to stop doing so. Markets allow you to vote every time you buy something on what your values are. Every time you choose to buy something from, say Brazil, that will be read as an endorsement of Brazil whenever someone looks at a balance sheet of imports and decides wheth…

I don't think consumer choices are good for this at all. Society has to have structure where you can buy the things you need without doing a background check on everything. I don't want to research that each and every piece of electronics I buy is free of conflict minerals and slavery!

It's a job for our chosen representatives. We've given the mandate, it's up to them to create market frameworks with this through policies and trade agreements. And it works: EU doesn't import hormone laden meat, and could similarly decide on environmental requirements too.

Policy can be affected by voting, public discourse, and demonstrations, whereas active consumer choice would be very poor driver for that.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#113

Post by jcadam » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:23 AM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #93

teddyuk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In london commuter trains are over crowded and they spend millions (billions?) every year on upgrading and it costs me about £900 a month to use these trains. If governments incentivised companies to encourage remote work, this money would be unnecessary as many people wouldn't commute any more - saving money for everyone, saving the environment and allowing people to have a home life and see their kids/partner etc.…

What would the right incentives be? I agree, btw

Probably in the form of a tax break like everything else. $X tax credit per remote worker, or some such.

Whether or not that would be enough, who knows...

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#114

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:26 AM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #110

lucian1900 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All capitalist countries define a lack of economic growth as a recession. What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time?

> What incentive would there even be for companies to maintain or reduce their profits over time? Wanting to do something is very different from having to do something.

Well, you kind of have to - otherwise people starve.

There's lot of excesses and pointless elements to economies worldwide, but ultimately, at minimum they have to grow to compensate for population growth, or people will starve. And they really have to grow more than that, because a lot of people live in bad conditions and they justifiably want to earn their way out of it.

Growth is currently needed in the world we live in; trying to eliminate it wholesale is self-destructing. But growth doesn't have to be as environmentally taxing as it is today, and we should strive to fix that.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#115

Post by raxxorrax » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:28 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #88

raxxorrax wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pandas eat eucalyptus, which is the worst plant they could eat. Don't know why they do it, but it is what it is.

Pandas eat bamboo. Koalas eat eucalyptus.

Well... true. What can I say, they almost look the same...

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#116

Post by irrlichthn » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:29 AM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #109

kzzy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amazed that you're blaming future humans in the third world for current issues created by first world consumerism. Sorry but it is an absurd strawman argument and reeks of your privilege.

You have totally misconstrued what I am saying. I am NOT blaming anyone. My point is that it is a fantasy to think that wealthy westerners can significantly reduce global consumption by choosing to live a certain way. As a thought experiment, how much of a difference would it have made to the world today if the British empire decreed in 1700 that all its subjects adopt more eco friendly lifestyles?

"I'm not going to fix this crash, because next year, there might be a similar bug, and I'm not sure how to fix that yet." I hope you don't code that way.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#117

Post by johnisgood » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:35 AM UTC

oddeyed wrote: post #51

Mordisquitos wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reasoning is problematic, as it amounts to reviving the concept of "original sin" to apply it to anyone who happens to live in a developed economy. By throwing blanket statements such as that, it is discouraging even the small changes that may help (for we are all "sinners" regardless), and diffuses responsibility from those who truly could make an impact. I believe a lot of hand-wringing on these topics comes f…

Your comment reads like you are projecting your own guilt onto the parent. They said that you are "connected" to deforestation if you are living in a developed economy - you interpreted that as implying that all people in developed economies are sinning. They didn't say that everyone is guilty, just connected. They then made two conditions predicated on having high socio-economic status (eating meat regularly, invest…

> They said that you are "connected" to deforestation if you are living in a developed economy - you interpreted that as implying that all people in developed economies are sinning. They didn't say that everyone is guilty, just connected.

He replied to "if you eat meat regularly, you are connected to Brazil's deforestation, either for cattle or for soy feed. If you have invested in the stock market, you are most likely connected to the international flow of capital, which is also driving said deforestation.". Does this not assume "guilty"? There is the implication in that message that if you are in any way connected to the destruction of X (deforestation in this particular example), then you are at fault (i.e. guilty).

Then the person he replied to went on to "even if you are not doing any of that, you are still connected because you live in the middle of a society that reaps economic and material benefits from the structures that ultimately incentivise said deforestation.", i.e. "everyone who is connected is still at fault".

I read "being "connected" to deforestation" as contributing to it. Is this incorrect? Are we just arguing over words? I believe that in this context "connected" really just means "contributing" (to deforestation, which I assume is "bad").

Now my question is, how do we become unconnected? The part where he says even if we do not eat meat and so forth, we are still contributing to these problems. What is the solution, then? Is there a solution? Am I supposed to live anywhere but not "in the middle of a society that reaps economic and material benefits"? What if everyone did this, would it not lead to the same problem? I do not think that being fatalistic is of any help here.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#118

Post by esotericn » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:42 AM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #17

The tragic thing is that there's this idea you have to live life as an austere pioneer hippie to address this. You really don't. A world of mostly-vegetarian people living in modern, timber (for carbon sequestration) flats in mixed-use environments, using renewable electricity to power their heat pumps and AC, traveling primarily via bike, walking, and public transport, and owning less disposable crap would go a long…

I agree.

I'm at less than a third of the typical US footprint. I offset the rest.

That involves, in its totality, not jetting around, not driving an ICE, and not eating meat. My country uses primarily renewables.

A whole bunch of the rest of that is related to industrial processes and transport of food/materials that can be addressed. It would not impact me severely if my fruits came from different places or I had to eat different fruits.

I don't think my life is "worse" at all than the typical American lifestyle. People talk about quality of life, but what they actually mean is that they've chosen some arbitrary metric to maximise (e.g. overseas holidays particularly to very far flung places or whatever) and if they don't have that then QoL would be lower.

To me that sounds like a boring life, not a quality life.

Before someone trots out the 'but EVs are expensive'; 'but solar will take time' stuff; sure, it's not trivial for people to do this stuff in isolation, the point is that reducing carbon doesn't mean living in a cave. It means some small mindful adjustments, that's it.

When I look at what I'm using honestly it could be way lower making more substitutions; it'd just be the companies that provide services to me substituting instead of me, e.g. regulation.

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#119

Post by datenhorst » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:44 AM UTC

fit2rule wrote: post #68

CalRobert wrote: post #17

The tragic thing is that there's this idea you have to live life as an austere pioneer hippie to address this. You really don't. A world of mostly-vegetarian people living in modern, timber (for carbon sequestration) flats in mixed-use environments, using renewable electricity to power their heat pumps and AC, traveling primarily via bike, walking, and public transport, and owning less disposable crap would go a long…

My family and I have changed our ways. I used to live a typically American lifestyle - spending 4 hours every day in the car, mostly parked on a freeway, to get to work. Ordering takeout 5 times a week because I was too exhausted to cook for myself. Buying useless crap that filled my house, only to get a bigger house for more useless crap. But, after the 9/11 attacks, I took a good hard look at myself. You could say,…

> (Vienna, Austria) - a country that has long since decided to upgrade the standard of living of its people through smart economic policies designed to reduce dependence on petroleum.

As someone from a bordering country, that is a surprising statement. Could you expand on that point a bit?

Re: We, the peoples of the Amazon, are full of fear. Soon you will be too

#120

Post by johnisgood » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 11:50 AM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #35

propater wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always a bit baffled when, after decades of living in a globalized economy, people who are part of advanced economies claim they have no connections to events, driven by economics, occurring on the other side of the world. If you eat meat regularly, you are connected to Brazil's deforestation, either for cattle or for soy feed. If you have invested in the stock market, you are most likely connected to the intern…

I guess I am your boogeyman: I eat meat regularly, have investments, grew up and live in the middle of a western society. By default I'm inclined to stop doing exactly zero of those, and by saying "you're at fault no matter what you do or don't do" you've just removed the sole remaining incentive for me to stop doing it: being able to say "it's not my fault". If I'm to blame no matter what I do, I might as well enjoy…

Exactly, fatalism is not going to be any helpful.