100% bullshit and such a typically American way of looking at it (I am an American). Look how fast the world changed when Covid hit. Achieve a change in values and the whole world will turn on its axis.
Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
61–70 of 97 posts
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#62Decreasing consumption doesn't necessarily imply a decrease in quality of life. In the West, at least, we generally work too much, have too little social engagement, and spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives. Many things that could actually make us happier don't require much consumption, but they're essentially luxury goods because of the modern lifestyle's high demands. I'm…
>> we generally work too much I decide if I work too much. You don't get to decide if I work too much. >> have too little social engagement I get to decide my level of social engagement. You don't get to decide my level of social engagement. >> spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives I get to decide how to spend my money. You don't get to decide how to spend my money.
I agree to an extent but a person in North Korea would say they get to decide how brainwashed they are.
Everything's relative. As a nation, the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies compared to others. By numerous metrics, we do work too much.
Similarly, the US is the poster child of capitism and we do buy tons of things relative to other nations.
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The only thing left is to ditch capitalism entirely How exactly does that work?
Listen to the anarcho-syndacalists like Chomsky, which demand that companies be owned by workers in that company. There are many proposals for this, but here is an off the cuff one I just came up with: Every company with more than 100 workers, must have 80% of its ownership by those same workers. The difference between the ownership stake of the top worker and the bottom worker must be no more than a 5x.
Nothing is preventing any group from forming that exact governance structure. The cold hard truth is that nobody wants to do that. You’ll always lose to your competitors. Nobody actually wants to manage the entity that employs them.
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#64Implement a carbon tax, and it will happen. The insistence from some that we can just innovate our way out of the climate crisis, when the Industrial Revolution and pursuit of technological expansion for the sake of profit at all costs is what got us into this situation in the first place, is what I find truly “quixotic.” There is no incentive for corporations to improve the climate situation in a meaningful way.
carbon tax is less popular than 4 degree climate change
can't do it in a democracy
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> we generally work too much I decide if I work too much. You don't get to decide if I work too much. >> have too little social engagement I get to decide my level of social engagement. You don't get to decide my level of social engagement. >> spend lots of money and resources on things that don't really improve our lives I get to decide how to spend my money. You don't get to decide how to spend my money.
I agree to an extent but a person in North Korea would say they get to decide how brainwashed they are. Everything's relative. As a nation, the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies compared to others. By numerous metrics, we do work too much. Similarly, the US is the poster child of capitism and we do buy tons of things relative to other nations.
>> a person in North Korea would say they get to decide how brainwashed they are.
Nope. If a person in North Korea said they were brainwashed they would be executed at dawn. Sounds like you've been brainwashed. That's OK, they don't kill you for it here.
>> As a nation, the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies
It most certainly does not, if you don't want to work, don't work. Just don't make it my fucking problem that you don't work and we'll get along just fine.
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Listen to the anarcho-syndacalists like Chomsky, which demand that companies be owned by workers in that company. There are many proposals for this, but here is an off the cuff one I just came up with: Every company with more than 100 workers, must have 80% of its ownership by those same workers. The difference between the ownership stake of the top worker and the bottom worker must be no more than a 5x.
Nothing is preventing any group from forming that exact governance structure. The cold hard truth is that nobody wants to do that. You’ll always lose to your competitors. Nobody actually wants to manage the entity that employs them.
You misunderstand. Anarcho-syndacalists like Chomsky demand, that by law, all companies must follow this worker-owned structure. It's a complete restructuring of the economic system.
In the new system there won't be any capitalist-owned enterprises that will burn capital in the short-term, and exploit their own workers to to kill their more ethical competitors.
Also, all workers don't have to manage their company, only some of them. Workers at large just need to be able to kick out any management that decides to exploit their labor. In our current system it is the shareholders decide how much exploitation should be done, and their opinion is "as much as will keep profits high".
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#67Hey Bill and other elites - does this mean no more 20,000 square foot homes and private jets?
I always feel the talks of private jets are missing the point. (Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People never ask about the private jets of BP execs.) To simplify, let's assume that Bill Gates has a Boeing 747, which burns about 38 pounds of fuel per mile [1]. Distance between New York (JFK) and London (LHR) is 3,440 mile. For a round trip, double that, so we have…
I deeply believe in leading by example. Anyone demanding others change should be fully committed to those actions and demonstrate them in all aspects of their life. Anything else is absolutely purely hypocritical and person doesn't deserve to be heard and should be mocked out from any polite and non-polite conversation.
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Besides, it's always the private jets of Al Gore and Bill Gates that are in question. People never ask about the private jets of BP execs. Because the BP execs aren't being hypocrites and telling all the commoners to lower their living standards..
You have to think of the counterfactual. If 1x emissions are required for, say, government advocacy, that reduces emissions by 100x, you would lose 99x of emissions reductions by avoiding the advocacy. It’s not hypocrisy so much as pragmatism
Can't they just send letter or call on phone? You know minimise the emissions from their own actions. I always wondered why are people flying of all things to these climate conferences, instead of biking or just having them fully remote standing outside in a field...
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bill calls for greater innovation, but as soon as we get more efficient things, we just consume more. We have constantly gotten better and better tech, and yet our consumption of resources only goes up. It seems that resource usage has nothing to do with how efficient or advanced our tech is, but simply the maximum amount of human labor we can allocate to resource extracting. So climate change can only really be solv…
> as soon as we get more efficient things, we just consume more That doesn't seem to be true in terms of C02 output https://www.google.com/search?q=us+carbon+emissions+per+capi...
Look more globally.
Re: Bill Gates: You’ll never solve climate change by asking people to consume less
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree to an extent but a person in North Korea would say they get to decide how brainwashed they are. Everything's relative. As a nation, the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies compared to others. By numerous metrics, we do work too much. Similarly, the US is the poster child of capitism and we do buy tons of things relative to other nations.
>> a person in North Korea would say they get to decide how brainwashed they are. Nope. If a person in North Korea said they were brainwashed they would be executed at dawn. Sounds like you've been brainwashed. That's OK, they don't kill you for it here. >> As a nation, the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies It most certainly does not, if you don't want to work, don't work. Just don't make it my fuck…
It sounds like you might not be a native English speaker so let me explain it more clearly.
You said that others can't tell you that you work too hard. You decide if you work too hard. If you lived in North Korea and I told you that you're brainwashed, you would probably tell me that you decide if you're brainwashed. You would certainly also tell me that you are not brainwashed. No one in North Korea would say they're brainwashed. My point is that actual data is more useful to compare work cultures between countries than a citizen's perception.
Next, I mentioned the US has abysmal parental leave and vacation policies. Policies here refers to official government laws/regulations that would enforce a right to take time off. The US doesn't have a minimum vacation policy and is the only industrialized nation to not have one. What you mentioned about not going to work is not a government policy. It's just a personal decision.