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I put my whole life into a single database

howisfelix.today

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Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#201

Post by BeetleB »

mahogany wrote: post #179
crazygringo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to reduce air travel for environmental reasons, then tax it more. Shaming individuals doesn't seem to be productive or helpful. Air travel works for people if the benefits outweigh the costs. The only thing that changes behavior is to change the costs. And even if costs were 10x there are still plenty of people who will fly tons, because it would still be economically productive. There are always going to…

> If you want to reduce air travel for environmental reasons, then tax it more. > Shaming individuals doesn't seem to be productive or helpful. First, none of us have any power to "tax it more" so this is a dead end of discussion. Second, people have agency and we can hold them accountable socially for negative actions even if they are abiding by the current laws (or tax regime). This happens all the time, because la…

> First, none of us have any power to "tax it more" so this is a dead end of discussion.

You probably have more power over that than changing a whole population's behavior.

I'd wager you probably have more power over that than changing just one person's behavior (Felix).

> Second, people have agency and we can hold them accountable socially for negative actions even if they are abiding by the current laws (or tax regime).

And people are holding you accountable for the shaming. This leads primarily to polarization, not change. Polarized folks are more likely to increase the negative behavior.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#202

Post by BeetleB »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #81
gardenhedge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a drop in the ocean? Why would any 'normal' person forgo flying? How much CO2 emissions have 'world leaders' produced going to summits, or Taylor Swift and her fans flaying to concerts or war flights?

Couple of things: 1) NO ONE is suggesting any one forego flying altogether, or skipping their once-a-year overseas vacation or periodic family visit. 2) THIS level of flying is not normal and is exactly the kind of harmful behavior people have in mind when they complain about frequent flyers. 3) Whinging about summits and Taylor Swift is just a bad faith red herring argument. Obviously less flying is better, no matte…

28 flights per year.

That's 14 round trip flights. A little over once a month. Not at all surprising if once a month. Or divorced and kid is in another state.

If we're generous and assume each trip is actually 2 flights (i.e. connecting flights), then it's 7 per year.

Yeah, more than typical. But not insane.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#204

Post by azan_ »

stevekemp wrote: post #10
brodo wrote: post #4

The takeaways at the very bottom of the page are valuable: > Overall, having spent a significant amount of time building this project, scaling it up to the size it’s at now, as well as analysing the data, the main conclusion is that it is not worth building your own solution, and investing this much time. When I first started building this project 3 years ago, I expected to learn way more surprising and interesting f…

I had a similar epiphany a few years back when I started wearing a step-tracker/sleep monitor. It was kinda interesting to see how many times I woke up, or track hours, but to be honest I realised after a few months that when my tracker said "You had good sleep", or "You had bad sleep" I was already aware - I woke up smiling, or grumpy depending on how I'd done. I didn't ever look at the data and think "I want to go…

I've found one very interesting thing from these trackers - namely how even small amount of alcohol destroy sleep quality metrics. One beer is enough for my sleep scores to drop by like 20-30% and it's consistent and reproducible for me every time. Whether it actually matters - I don't know, but it made me drink much less (from maybe once a week to maybe once every two months) which is good outcome I guess.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#205

Post by eudamoniac »

dansmith1919 wrote: post #104
lejalv wrote: post #38

A simple back of the envelope calculation shows that Felix causes between 70 and 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year just from flying. Paris accord says 1.5t per person per year, from all activities, Felix's flying alonre is ~10-15x current European yearly per person emissions and ~50-75x those compatible with +1.5C.

That was my main takeaway as well. How do you do this without any shame? My man is emitting an amount of CO2 on par with an small African country

I refuse to worsen my life for an absolutely minuscule abstract benefit to someone, eventually, maybe. I am going to continue eating meat and flying when I want to, and I don't feel the least bit bad about it. It's unfortunate that climate change is happening, but my personal actions are not meaningfully contributing. My choices do not have cascading effects on others; whatever I do, the climate will change in the same manner as it otherwise would have. In that light, I am not going to reduce my QOL just to feel self righteous for no actual benefit to anyone.

You may wonder how this is consistent with my propensity to recycle and follow traffic laws and not do crimes and other socially beneficial minor things to which a comparison could be made to CO2 output: because those all have a greater benefit:cost ratio than flying and eating meat, by far. I am including the benefits of living in a high-trust society in that analysis.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#207

Post by azan_ »

mahogany wrote: post #179
crazygringo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to reduce air travel for environmental reasons, then tax it more. Shaming individuals doesn't seem to be productive or helpful. Air travel works for people if the benefits outweigh the costs. The only thing that changes behavior is to change the costs. And even if costs were 10x there are still plenty of people who will fly tons, because it would still be economically productive. There are always going to…

> If you want to reduce air travel for environmental reasons, then tax it more. > Shaming individuals doesn't seem to be productive or helpful. First, none of us have any power to "tax it more" so this is a dead end of discussion. Second, people have agency and we can hold them accountable socially for negative actions even if they are abiding by the current laws (or tax regime). This happens all the time, because la…

> Suggesting that we should leave such things to the sole discretion of the economy and taxes describes a strange unhuman-like society that we don't live in.

Well, the choice is: either we leave it to economy and taxes which work, or we'll rely on shaming which doesn't work. To put it another way - it depends if you want to actually fix the problem or just want to have a moral high ground and don't really care about solving the problem.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#208

Post by cindyllm »

eudamoniac wrote: post #205
dansmith1919 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my main takeaway as well. How do you do this without any shame? My man is emitting an amount of CO2 on par with an small African country

I refuse to worsen my life for an absolutely minuscule abstract benefit to someone, eventually, maybe. I am going to continue eating meat and flying when I want to, and I don't feel the least bit bad about it. It's unfortunate that climate change is happening, but my personal actions are not meaningfully contributing. My choices do not have cascading effects on others; whatever I do, the climate will change in the sa…

[dead]

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#209

Post by azan_ »

mym1990 wrote: post #188
crazygringo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to reduce air travel for environmental reasons, then tax it more. Shaming individuals doesn't seem to be productive or helpful. Air travel works for people if the benefits outweigh the costs. The only thing that changes behavior is to change the costs. And even if costs were 10x there are still plenty of people who will fly tons, because it would still be economically productive. There are always going to…

I think a broad tax would just make it more difficult for middle and lower class to fly. Tax the business/first class and frequent flier, but don't push people who can already barely afford to fly out.

> I think a broad tax would just make it more difficult for middle and lower class to fly. Tax the business/first class and frequent flier, but don't push people who can already barely afford to fly out.

No, it's the other way around. If flying is bad then poor people absolutely have to be priced out of it. I know that it sounds absolutely awful, but unfortunately taxing just business and first class won't do much for reducing emissions if flying will be affordable for and used by billions of people.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#210

Post by azan_ »

Arn_Thor wrote: post #81
gardenhedge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a drop in the ocean? Why would any 'normal' person forgo flying? How much CO2 emissions have 'world leaders' produced going to summits, or Taylor Swift and her fans flaying to concerts or war flights?

Couple of things: 1) NO ONE is suggesting any one forego flying altogether, or skipping their once-a-year overseas vacation or periodic family visit. 2) THIS level of flying is not normal and is exactly the kind of harmful behavior people have in mind when they complain about frequent flyers. 3) Whinging about summits and Taylor Swift is just a bad faith red herring argument. Obviously less flying is better, no matte…

I don't know why someone going on a vacation would have moral high ground over someone that HAS TO travel for his work. If you are scientist you absolutely have to fly a lot to visit lots of conferences, disseminate your work, provide lectures etc.
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