What Will Happen in the 2020s • Hacker News Board

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#671

Post by ace_of_spades » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #664

rlue wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, parent comment made a faulty assumption about your policy preferences and the reasons you have for them. In responding to this grievance, you've entirely missed their point: the consumption of meat is above all else a moral issue—yes, a sin—and making other lifestyle choices of below-average ecological impact do not make up for it. I could elaborate, but I don't expect to change your mind; you've already stated…

I didn’t engage his point because I’ve taken it as a given that we’ll have to agree to disagree. There’s too much conviction on both sides to take that one in any meaningful direction. To some, to you and to the one I replied to, it is a moral issue. I’m not going to convince anyone that it isn’t a moral issue anymore than they will convince me that it is. There isn’t a lot that is objective, even scientific and hist…

The point that I was trying to make is to try to show you that I am pretty sure that you actually do care about moral questions in the case of climate change (on the surface you seem to argue it’s a matter of justice and paying for the true cost of your actions but the very reason that carbon is being priced in the first place (and you accept that price) is that it causes suffering in the world, right? You wouldn‘t accept an arbitrary oxygen tax, would you?) but somehow don’t extend that concern to the suffering of animals. However, similar to how scientists have shown that ghg emissions cause human suffering, scientists have shown that factory farming causes animal suffering.

Of course you can have reasons for denying the importance of animal suffering but most of those accounts are easily shown to be inconsistent and simply self-serving. People who accept animal suffering as real and probably a bad thing tend to have a much easier time to articulate a consistent world view. If you don’t agree with that claim show me how I am wrong and coherently articulate why the suffering of animals doesn‘t matter... it’s really surprisingly difficult to not reach for arbitrary distinctions like „they are not human“ but have substantial arguments grounded in empirical evidence that justify your opinion.

In the end my goal was not to convince you of becoming vegan (that’s generally a quite difficult task due to current societal indoctrination) but to simply make you reconsider how you view vegans who actually care about animal suffering. It’s a totally reasonable position and it’s generally much more coherent and aligned with evidence then other positions. Even if you don’t care, you don‘t need to judge other people who do.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#672

Post by simmanian » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

rdevsrex wrote: post #568

cletus wrote: post #416

So, I have a problem with a large number of these points. Each point alone requires a long rebuttal that no one would read. I think Fred is way off here. The bullet points: 1. There will be no global change in human behaviour and activity that is against the short term interests of those people. Period. The way to replace fossil fuels with renewables is by them being a cheaper source of power. We're well on the way h…

I do think nuclear will have a resurgence. You don't have to make nuclear as safe as clear air to use, only reasonably safe with a plan to handle the waste. Nuclear is already safer than coal in terms of people killed by power generation. Finland is building the world's first long term storage depot for nuclear waste and I think the same could be done in many other places. Plus, all the push for nuclear is for new nu…

I think nuclear will have a resurgence... in some places. I keep hearing that nuclear is safer than coal but coal won't make entire regions uninhabitable if something goes REALLY wrong. I'm thinking terrorist attacks, natural disasters, missile strikes, etc.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#673

Post by puranjay » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #637

puranjay wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our evidence from the 20th century shows that the only countries that are successful are democratic. The list of authoritarian countries that crashed and burned is longer than the list of democratic countries that did the same.

Singapore is fairly authoritarian and they've had outsized success going from third world to first. I think the root cause is pretty simple: having no checks and balances lets you move faster, no matter what direction (either up or down), and it's a lot easier to mess things up than it is to do everything right.

Again, countries like Singapore are poor models to follow simply because of their size and population. It is drastically easier to govern a country you can cycle across in a few hours, than a country like India or China.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#674

Post by ace_of_spades » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #657

ace_of_spades wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As there seem to be very few comments actually defending the ethical vegan standpoint here I go. Vegans who ask for „sin taxes“ don‘t want to piss you off, they simply have the belief (and actually quite well justifiable so) that meat consumption leads to quite a lot of suffering in the world. You don’t seem to be opposed to taxes on ghg emissions - presumably because you believe that they cause suffering. Why is it…

Your assumption is wrong. The tax I would support is entirely theoretical and would raise the prices of all industrial products on the market from all forms of food to all forms of textiles and all forms of computers and machinery. I suspect that if it were ever implemented properly to begin with, it would become a target to steer into a kind of sin tax or luxury tax by doubling the rate on this or that product or ze…

I elaborated the reasoning behind my statements in another comment to your child comment. Would love to hear your response!

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#675

Post by rjkennedy98 » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #162

The predictions about China are a little confusing. I know they’ve copied lots of foreign tech, but have they demonstrated any ability to source original research and development that had no external links? This read a little like what China would want the 2020s to look like.

Yes they have. Huawei and 5g is the largest instance of this, but there are plenty of others.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#676

Post by dagss » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 8:59 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #489

dagss wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet is already a huge step up in communication from 20 years ago. Turns out people use that to find ideologically likeminded people meaning tribalist movements everywhere are stronger now than before internet came along. 90's were full of optimism about how tribalism could be overcome that is completely vanished now. From the same technological situation you describe I can only think of how people would use…

Yet in these same cities people meet in places, and have the positive experiences we often define as being human. Consider how many of these are currently possible to have through the Internet, and how likely that is to change if social presence and shared spatial awareness are deliverable remotely. The greatest institutions, large and small (schools, libraries, churches, etc) all orbit the constraints of physical co…

I guess what I'm saying is that many people had that exact same hope, for the same reason, 20 years ago -- and that hope ended up being extremely wrong; the exact opposite of what actually happened.

Of course we cannot extrapolate. Noone can know. But are there any specific reasons why the ongoing tide of political, ideological, social polarization would suddenly turn around?

You say "across great tribal boundaries". To me, physical proximity seems to be the main thing left now that still counteracts tribal boundaries.

Can you provide examples/scenarios perhaps?

As my counter-example, I just moved out to the country-side. As a result, I start to now see different opinions in my Facebook feed from when I lived in a city, simply due to Facebook-friending new people due to physical proximity. Due to this influx of "random" impulses in my Facebook feed, I think am likely to have less polarized views politically (I can see different friends arguing both sides of a topic) than if physical proximity didn't play a role in who I friended.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#677

Post by chillacy » Fri, Jan 03, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #673

chillacy wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore is fairly authoritarian and they've had outsized success going from third world to first. I think the root cause is pretty simple: having no checks and balances lets you move faster, no matter what direction (either up or down), and it's a lot easier to mess things up than it is to do everything right.

Again, countries like Singapore are poor models to follow simply because of their size and population. It is drastically easier to govern a country you can cycle across in a few hours, than a country like India or China.

I think that's certainly a factor but your initial claim was:

> the only countries that are successful are democratic

And you're supporting it by excluding all counter-examples. Maybe a more accurate statement would be "most successful countries are democratic".

And since you mentioned China and India, India is a democracy, China is ruled by an authoritarian single-party. Both have huge populations, yet China has grown its GDP better? Assuming good economy = successful here. http://statisticstimes.com/economy/china-vs-india-economy.ph...

Let me present an alternative thesis: democracy has little to do with good governance. It acts as a buffer against discontent, it's in many ways moral, but it is not by itself sufficient to create prosperity.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#678

Post by SllX » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 4:25 AM UTC

rlue wrote: post #667

SllX wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t engage his point because I’ve taken it as a given that we’ll have to agree to disagree. There’s too much conviction on both sides to take that one in any meaningful direction. To some, to you and to the one I replied to, it is a moral issue. I’m not going to convince anyone that it isn’t a moral issue anymore than they will convince me that it is. There isn’t a lot that is objective, even scientific and hist…

> I’m not going to convince anyone that it isn’t a moral issue anymore than they will convince me that it is. This is really unfortunate. An anti-vaxxer knows that it’s a question of science, just as a Holocaust denier knows that it’s a question of historical record (even if they lack the scientific/historical literacy to see through the counterfactual narratives they’ve bought into). There’s insurmountable convictio…

I considered the morality of eating meat for a decent portion of my life. The conclusion I came to is such things like ethical vegetarianism is an ethical and intellectual dead end which disregards the nature of the beast, and the beast is the most violent and violently omnivorous apex predator to ever grace the Earth. If there’s a landmass we haven’t walked, it’s because it is literally underwater having been foreclosed upon by some glacier or the Ocean, and we’ve walked some of those lands too once upon a time.

If the way things are isn’t right, then it is besides the point because the way things are is so deeply rooted into our psychology that you can’t change it without violently changing what it means to be human, so you essentially have to have humans become something other than human, and that doesn’t seem like a winning survival strategy in the long term.

When we’re not eating God’s creatures, we’re burning down the forests and fields they live in and pouring concrete over them so we can sleep better at night in little towns and villages and hamlets with other people who participated in the festivities, or at least their ancestors did, or at least they bought the house from someone whose ancestors did etc. We also do it to grow more food, all those plants we’ve selected for over the entire history of agriculture that we’ve deemed to be beneficial to us to keep around? We burned down other species, even to extinction with no regard as to whether the burning mass over yonder was plant or fungus or animal flesh or insect.

I can’t seriously consider ethical vegetarianism or ethical veganism a serious argument for not eating meat because it goes so deeply against the violent nature of humanity that it disregards what we are entirely. Given it is probably the most defining characteristic of Homo sapiens, it is a fairly massive characteristic to overlook.

I can seriously consider reasons for eating less meat that include things like “this meatless dish is delicious”, only you don’t emphasize the meatless bit, or “methane emissions are a pretty serious concern, is there something we can do about that?” or “cows actually use up a large amount of resources that might be better spent on something else.”

I can consider those seriously, I just don’t think they’re winning arguments. But, at least they’re willing to try to work with the nature of the beast rather than against it. People who consider themselves “ethical vegans” can make a better case than starting from a position that eating meat is morally wrong, even if you believe it! It’s okay to believe something like that, I don’t agree with you, but so long as you or someone else isn’t trying to use state force to enforce their belief on me, I think we’ll get along just fine.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#679

Post by SllX » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

ace_of_spades wrote: post #674

SllX wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumption is wrong. The tax I would support is entirely theoretical and would raise the prices of all industrial products on the market from all forms of food to all forms of textiles and all forms of computers and machinery. I suspect that if it were ever implemented properly to begin with, it would become a target to steer into a kind of sin tax or luxury tax by doubling the rate on this or that product or ze…

I elaborated the reasoning behind my statements in another comment to your child comment. Would love to hear your response!

I just got home, I got some chores to finish up, but I see your comment and I will read and respond.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#680

Post by SllX » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:18 AM UTC

ace_of_spades wrote: post #671

SllX wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t engage his point because I’ve taken it as a given that we’ll have to agree to disagree. There’s too much conviction on both sides to take that one in any meaningful direction. To some, to you and to the one I replied to, it is a moral issue. I’m not going to convince anyone that it isn’t a moral issue anymore than they will convince me that it is. There isn’t a lot that is objective, even scientific and hist…

The point that I was trying to make is to try to show you that I am pretty sure that you actually do care about moral questions in the case of climate change (on the surface you seem to argue it’s a matter of justice and paying for the true cost of your actions but the very reason that carbon is being priced in the first place (and you accept that price) is that it causes suffering in the world, right? You wouldn‘t a…

I won’t judge them for caring, I won’t even judge them, but I do find being preached at to be generally unenjoyable and I don’t enjoy the company of people who wish to preach to me rather than engage me. You’ve engaged me, but that’s not what I have come to expect from vegans who are of an evangelical type, and I say that without it meaning to be disparaging, merely descriptive.

For what it is worth to you, I purchase the best meat I can find and afford at the local market. The more room to roam, the better. Absolutely no hormones, pointless antibiotics, or other growth techniques that degrade the meat. I’m under no illusions that what I purchase is cruelty free though, it’s livestock which was raised for slaughter, from a species that was cultivated to be raised as livestock, slaughtered and turned into various meat and leather products.

I buy better meat because it tastes better, I don’t do it to spare the animal. I advocate for better farming practices where possible because I want better and more pervasive products to be available and at a lower cost and to more people.

I do in fact care more for the lives of people than I do for most animals. I don’t care for needless deaths, nor do I like unnecessary cruelty, but when I eat an animal, it wasn’t needless or pointless. It lived until it died, and was recycled into my body. I too will live until I die and am recycled into other living creatures.

Laying it out, I sound more callous than I intend, but I don’t know that there’s a less brutal way to put any of that and keep it honest, but more than sounding callous, I don’t want to be or sound like a hypocrite, even unwittingly.

Thank you for engaging me, actually laying out my views allows me to solidify in my own mind what it is I’m thinking, and figure out how to communicate it better the next time.