Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Choose Optimism

secularhumanism.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 222 posts

Re: I Choose Optimism

#21

Post by tforcram »

deltasevennine wrote: post #19

The media is highly pessimistic. So yeah when you look at the world you are looking at the world through a biased lens of pessimism. Pessimsim draws attention and sells hence the media creates a sort of negative viewpoint of the world. But here's the weird part. Most individuals bias towards optimism. Most people are unable to see the hard truths of the world or even about themselves. The world is indeed cruel and ha…

I think pragmatism would be the middle ground, or 'dealing with reality as best you can'.

I don't think it's possible to actually sit perfectly in the middle, won't you always end up thinking slightly positively or negatively about whatever situation comes up?

In that case I think that 'Expect the best but prepare for the worst' is a good mindset to have.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#22

Post by narcraft »

salt-thrower wrote: post #16
DoreenMichele wrote: post #9

American homes in 1950 averaged 983 square feet; by 2014, the size had nearly tripled to 2,657 square feet. Today, 91 percent of our homes are air-conditioned. This is not actually a good thing. This is actually a problem.

Exactly. The author is living in a middle/upper class suburbian bubble. Bigger and bigger houses that consume more and more resources is a problem, not a sign of progress. It is a glaring sign of the consumerism and resource depletion that is fueling the crisis we're in. There is no amount of renewable energy that will make "average homes are 2,657 square feet and have air conditioning" a sustainable way of living.

If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning? I sometimes get the impression that sustainability advocates/environmentalists are more anti-technolgy or anti-human than they are pro-nature and saying things like "there is no amount of renewable energy that will make [enjoyable living standards] a sustainable way of living" doesn't make environmental reforms seem very palatable to me. What number of humans can the Earth ideally sustain in your estimation? If it's substantially less than the current population, then the cure is worse than the disease.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#23

Post by DoreenMichele »

narcraft wrote: post #22
salt-thrower wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The author is living in a middle/upper class suburbian bubble. Bigger and bigger houses that consume more and more resources is a problem, not a sign of progress. It is a glaring sign of the consumerism and resource depletion that is fueling the crisis we're in. There is no amount of renewable energy that will make "average homes are 2,657 square feet and have air conditioning" a sustainable way of living.

If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning? I sometimes get the impression that sustainability advocates/environmentalists are more anti-technolgy or anti-human than they are pro-nature and saying things like "there is no amount of renewable energy that will make [enjoy…

Air conditioning wasn't really a need in most places historically. Vernacular architecture relied heavily on passive solar design as the default. This uses less energy and also provides superior human comfort.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#24

Post by eCa »

narcraft wrote: post #22
salt-thrower wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The author is living in a middle/upper class suburbian bubble. Bigger and bigger houses that consume more and more resources is a problem, not a sign of progress. It is a glaring sign of the consumerism and resource depletion that is fueling the crisis we're in. There is no amount of renewable energy that will make "average homes are 2,657 square feet and have air conditioning" a sustainable way of living.

If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning? I sometimes get the impression that sustainability advocates/environmentalists are more anti-technolgy or anti-human than they are pro-nature and saying things like "there is no amount of renewable energy that will make [enjoy…

> "there is no amount of renewable energy that will make [enjoyable living standards] a sustainable way of living" doesn't make environmental reforms seem very palatable to me.

Imagine that those environmentalists are correct. Doesn’t advocating for change, palatable or not, make them at their core more pro-human than most? They are, after all, trying to make the human species survive.

> If it's substantially less than the current population, then the cure is worse than the disease.

If that is the case, then there ain’t no cure that any elected politican can pursue.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#25

Post by NovaVeles »

mrandish wrote: post #4

It's easy (and popular) to be a pessimist but when I look at objective global data on decade+ time scales, the only rational conclusion is that things are generally getting better for more people in more places than ever before (data like global poverty, infant mortality, literacy, etc). That doesn't mean we don't still have a ways to go and it certainly doesn't mean that things aren't terrible for some people in som…

I am in the camp of we are in overshoot, have been for a very long time. In the same way that a someone can spend way above their income by using the credit card. Looks great now but that looming cloud of debt is coming. Societal wise we have done this via the monkey pore wish for "unlimited energy" in the form of fossil fuels. We got energy unlike anything else in history but at the cost of environmental blow back and setting the paradigm for our living standards.

Maybe we will rise to the challenge and go green on these, I'm not convinced yet but I am definitely not ruling it out.

When it comes to optimism, it boils down to two distinct modes. Necessity is the mother of invention. Less energy, stuff and stimulation will be good for most people in wealthy countries.

Fossil fuels will decline, we will make some cool new stuff that makes that decline easier, we will demand less stuff and use of energy. This doesn't sound so bad. Hopefully we will move into something akin to Solarpunk + cottage core. A declined future that is more fair. But the pessimist in me feels like that is but fantasy.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#26

Post by NovaVeles »

philipashlock wrote: post #13
neilwilson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If I take out a loan to live it up for a year, but then have no way of paying it back, because I haven't invested the money into anything substantial did things really got better for me?" Yes. Because those you spent it with must have, or you wouldn't have been able to buy anything with it. Therefore you caused things to happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened. Debt is one of human's greatest inventions. It's w…

Ecological and resource extractive debt is not magic, they have limits and externalities that most financial systems don't fully account for in their balance sheets.

This is something I have to remind people of all the time - usually I just get blank stares.

Forget the dollars and cents tokens on wealth, they can and are manipulated but intentionally and unintentionally. How much energy and resources that gets us do we have? That is the real currency we have to work with.

All the debt in the world means nothing if we cannot produce the goods with the token we produced assuming the resources would be there.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#27

Post by atemerev »

salt-thrower wrote: post #18

This article comes across as extremely tone-deaf, and the author seems unaware of the existential scale of the problems humanity is facing. The fact that the phrase "climate change" only appears once - at the beginning, as a throwaway line - really speaks volumes. If the only problems we face were war and rising Christian fascism, I would also be optimistic, because those things can and have been fought successfully…

Human civilization will survive mass extinctions and change of habitability of some places. Humans are resilient.

And if they won’t, life itself is even more resilient.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#28

Post by salt-thrower »

narcraft wrote: post #22
salt-thrower wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The author is living in a middle/upper class suburbian bubble. Bigger and bigger houses that consume more and more resources is a problem, not a sign of progress. It is a glaring sign of the consumerism and resource depletion that is fueling the crisis we're in. There is no amount of renewable energy that will make "average homes are 2,657 square feet and have air conditioning" a sustainable way of living.

If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning? I sometimes get the impression that sustainability advocates/environmentalists are more anti-technolgy or anti-human than they are pro-nature and saying things like "there is no amount of renewable energy that will make [enjoy…

> If there hypothetically was a magical source of near infinite renewable energy that could be harnessed without negative side effects, would you be ok with 2600+ sqft homes and air conditioning?

Yes. In a world with zero negative externalities for massive resource consumption, then by all means, give everyone a mansion and a yacht.

> What number of humans can the Earth ideally sustain in your estimation? If it's substantially less than the current population, then the cure is worse than the disease.

In our current industrialized, consumerist, global economy? Far less than 8 billion. You're painting me as a rabid anti-human eco-fascist though, so let me assure you I'm none of those things. I want humanity to succeed and I want all people to be happy and successful. But the current rate of resource extraction and ecological disturbance that we're directly responsible for will drive our species into a brick wall very soon. Along with millions of other species. We will come to a point where we simply cannot extract the energy we need to feed everyone, and where the biosphere has been so damaged that the necessary agriculture yields just won't be there. And also the other things, like the tropics becoming uninhabitable, ocean acidification killing marine life that the food chain depends on, etc.

I'm not anti-human, I'm very much a humanist, and pro-nature. Humans are part of nature. Unfortunately, we seem incapable of limiting our consumption to sustainable levels when given the opportunity to overshoot. Or at least our current civilization does (past ones have done better, but they also didn't have to try to resist the temptation of internal combustion engines like we do now). I've lost hope for any political solutions given how lackluster all efforts have been thus far, so we don't really need to sit here and debate solutions, because no one's at the wheel and the brick wall is getting very close. Enjoy the surplus of energy while we can still extract it.

TL;DR the famous book "Limits to Growth" was very prescient and it mostly hit the mark.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#29

Post by davidkuennen »

I've always been an optimistic person and consider myself to be very happy. People around me who are more pessimistic often seem unhappy.

I see no value in beating myself down on things that I cannot control. The world around me is beautiful. I just have to make the best of it day by day.

Facing hardships is a natural part of life.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#30

Post by salt-thrower »

atemerev wrote: post #27
salt-thrower wrote: post #18

This article comes across as extremely tone-deaf, and the author seems unaware of the existential scale of the problems humanity is facing. The fact that the phrase "climate change" only appears once - at the beginning, as a throwaway line - really speaks volumes. If the only problems we face were war and rising Christian fascism, I would also be optimistic, because those things can and have been fought successfully…

Human civilization will survive mass extinctions and change of habitability of some places. Humans are resilient. And if they won’t, life itself is even more resilient.

> And if they won’t, life itself is even more resilient.

You realize that's hardly reassuring, right? You're right though - life is resilient. Life has survived worse.

But our fragile global civilization, propped up by fossil fuels at a core level, is not resilient in the worst case outcomes of climate change. And keep in mind: in order to avoid the worst case scenarios, massive economic and political change needs to happen. No such changes are happening yet, though.

So yeah, I agree that humans and life in general will probably survive, but not in any way that would be recognizable to us now.

Post reply on HN