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Pessimism is a barrier to progress

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Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#161

Post by BurningFrog »

boringg wrote: post #137
BurningFrog wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you or I, or even Gates do in our personal lives has absolutely no effect on climate change. Solutions or failures happen in other contexts. Gates does some real work in those. The whole "I must recycle all my plastic bags or the planet will die" mentality is, to me, a weird form of delusion of grandeur. Seeing past that can be both freeing and depressing :)

I think you miss that one persons effort if collective done has an impact. So if everyone recycles or lowers their energy use it has impact. However if one person doesn't, that in and of itself won't change the trajectory, however if everyone did it would. I'm sure there is some kind of name for this.

That's true. So take that thought a little further.

How does it happen that everyone, on average, recycles or uses less energy?

In general, by making non recycling or energy use more expensive. This can come from regulation, taxes, social pressure. Technical innovation can also sidestep whole issues by using less energy/materials and/or producing more. Maybe there are a few other paths.

Those things actually make a difference. Focus on them.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#162

Post by forgomonika »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #46

This feels like a "terrorist/freedom-fighter" thing and so is effectively saying nothing. Like, Bill Gates accepts climate change is happening, that we should do something to avert the problems, and thinks that we can do that as a species. He thinks that renewables and EVs etc. will all help, but aren't enough and we should look for newer solutions. He has invested in multiple different solutions, presumably because…

> Bill Gates accepts climate change is happening, that we should do something to avert the problems, and thinks that we can do that as a species. He thinks that renewables and EVs etc. will all help, but aren't enough and we should look for newer solutions. He has invested in multiple different solutions, presumably because he thinks some will be needed but not all will work. > > So he's a pessimist, pessimist, optimist, optimist, pessimist, optimist, optimist/pessimist. And that's one person on one idea.

That's a really interesting way to slice and dice it. When I read your first few sentences that's not how I interpreted it at all.

I got fact, fact, optimist. Optimist, fact. Fact, optimist, optimist.

But I'm not convinced that's a better way to go about it. What is likely needed is each of those chunks to be taken into context and when I look it at that, it's really "here is a problem and a solution to move things forward." To me that's optimistic. If it were pessimistic, I'd expect it to be "here is a problem and there's nothing we can do about it."

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#163

Post by lotsofpulp »

id wrote: post #152
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I still don't like Gates for various historical reasons. Even some of his climate stuff annoys me. But, it's highly likely that if you ranked the whole human race on how much they'd done to reduce climate change, he may well be at the top. So if it's about "doing his share" then he's probably doing okay. But regardless, I don't want people to stop flying, I want them to stop releasing fossil C02 in the air becaus…

I don't hate him for being rich, I simply want him to stop polluting excessively. It would help the climate and his message alike. And I don't buy that you can do your share by talking one way and doing the exact opposite privately. It's like being an animal rights advocate who (openly) tortures animals in their free time. Simply doesn't work that way, even if you save more animals than you torture.

It is not like animal torture at all because there is a clear line of the right amount of animal torture (for the sake of torturing) that is acceptable (which is obviously none).

Where is the line on how much pollution one is allowed to expel? 500sq ft per person apartment? 100sq ft? Prius or RAV4? Commercial flight to visit family, once per year or twice? How many kids?

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#164

Post by quesera »

decremental wrote: post #93
jackmott42 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which advocates in particular? Why do you think buying a beach homes implies they don't believe what they are saying? Are you arriving at the most convenient conclusion for yourself, rather than the most likely one?

Former president Obama stands out. Why would you spend a considerable amount of your wealth on a home that is about to be swallowed up by the ocean on account of us barreling headlong into imminent climate catastrophe? You wouldn't.

Climate catastrophe will not visit Martha's Vineyard within Barack Obama's lifetime. No one says it will.

Living on MV does not contribute to the climate problem, so his actions are not hypocritical.

If he was looking for a 100-year property investment, perhaps he should have chosen a different part of New England (elevation > X meters), the Pacific Northwest, or the Great Lakes region.

If he's looking for a nice, private, place to live for the next 30 years, MV has a lot going for it. He won't live there for 30 years of course, and maybe "leaving it to the kids" isn't high on his priority list, and maybe he even has a lingering hope that mitigation efforts will happen and succeed. He didn't get famous by being a pessimist (ObOnTopic).

And, sure is a good thing he didn't move to Florida or the desert West, where he'd be both more endangered and more contributive to the danger.

I really can't imagine any plausible explanation for how any person arrives at the "Obama says climate change is a problem, but buys house near beach, must be hypocrite and bad person" narrative, unless of course you started at the end and worked backwards.

(edit) ... which, I see from other comments, seems to be the case. You believe Obama is lying about climate change and that buying a house on MV is proof? OK. Amazing.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#165

Post by arolihas »

decremental wrote: post #160
grooot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe that his home is imminently about to be swallowed by the ocean?

I definitely don't and neither does he.

Does that mean climate change isn't real and we shouldn't enact any policy to deal with it? Just trying to understand what your actual position is.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#166

Post by buttercraft »

id wrote: post #57
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #46

This feels like a "terrorist/freedom-fighter" thing and so is effectively saying nothing. Like, Bill Gates accepts climate change is happening, that we should do something to avert the problems, and thinks that we can do that as a species. He thinks that renewables and EVs etc. will all help, but aren't enough and we should look for newer solutions. He has invested in multiple different solutions, presumably because…

https://twitter.com/GatesJets Hard to take Gates seriously on climate change. Imagine everyone was living like this.

Well, do you expect him to fly coach? With security and the rest of his entourage? And a layover in Atlanta?

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#167

Post by ajsnigrutin »

boringg wrote: post #134
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup... Do as you preach, and others will follow. Flying your private jet to a conference, and tell Johnny Average that he shouldn't use his car to drive to his workplace is a shitty thing to do. And he's far from being the only one doing that.

Does anyone know if he actually buys carbon offsets for his footprint? I mean that would be one way to negate the impact of flying around. I imagine he does.

He could buy carbon ofsets and still not fly around in a private jet and help the environment on two fronts.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#168

Post by grooot »

boringg wrote: post #159
grooot wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he only tried to join in on climate change way after it was politically convenient and he was trying to build his image Who can you say this is not true about?

Most people who were in the industry long before it was politically convenient.

That doesn’t prove they weren’t just image building. It proves they chose it as a topic to build an image around earlier than Gates.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#169

Post by adamc »

The discussion here is interesting. In general, I don't think either optimism or pessimism are the issue. Letting your feelings overwhelm data is the issue. It's fine to be optimistic so long as you can realistically assess when the idea isn't panning out. Same about pessimism -- it's fine, so long as you are willing to investigate and get some data.

There are lots of bad ideas, so undue optimism needs pruning. There are also lots of good ideas we haven't tried yet -- that is the evidence of history. The big problem I see in life -- including my own life -- is attachment to positions when the data is not in accord with that attachment. In science, it's why you often have to wait for a new generation of scientists who can fully integrate newer results (data) into their thinking. In life, it's why people like me get stuck in the past: it's the lens we understand.

Re: Pessimism is a barrier to progress

#170

Post by ZeroGravitas »

id wrote: post #152
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I still don't like Gates for various historical reasons. Even some of his climate stuff annoys me. But, it's highly likely that if you ranked the whole human race on how much they'd done to reduce climate change, he may well be at the top. So if it's about "doing his share" then he's probably doing okay. But regardless, I don't want people to stop flying, I want them to stop releasing fossil C02 in the air becaus…

I don't hate him for being rich, I simply want him to stop polluting excessively. It would help the climate and his message alike. And I don't buy that you can do your share by talking one way and doing the exact opposite privately. It's like being an animal rights advocate who (openly) tortures animals in their free time. Simply doesn't work that way, even if you save more animals than you torture.

There's probably many animal rights advocates that aren't hardcore vegan.
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