Plans you're not supposed to talk about • Hacker News Board

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#51

Post by UnFleshedOne » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #26

The underlying issue, and one that bugs the hell out of me, is Policy vs Truth. You can say true things all day, and convince nobody. You can enact policy based completely on Truth (e.g., Trust the Science), and completely fail. People don't care about Truth, they care about what changes they need to make, and who is asking them to make them. Good policy is only partially based on truth, it's more based on easy imple…

While practical and maybe inevitable, this approach will alienate exactly the kind of people you want on your side if you want to _actually_ reach your goal and course correct when needed.

Instead you will attract people who will happily pretend to be on the right path and will keep performing rain dances on titanic.

What you propose can work if it is a technocratic conspiracy where people who know what's going on maintain power and can update direction relatively easily (we were always at war with Eurasia). Then again, there is always a risk of losing real power to one of the mid-rank rain-dancing activists and screw up the whole project, maybe for good.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#52

Post by 908B64B197 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:55 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #3

Like discovering the ancient concept of 'Public Communications' by accidental recourse of self aware rhetoric. Every single thing we do, if the public were to have access to the raw facts, it would cause 'outrage'. The entirely of leadership is putting the difficult facts into the difficult context and making the trade offs. We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to COVID patients past a certai…

> We 'don't talk about' the fact that we don't give medical aid to COVID patients past a certain point because we have to put a dollar figure on it (i.e. triage)

That's not how triage works.

> similarly the fact we have $1200 'solutions' to COVID that could probably wipe it out without vaccines if we could get everyone the tech, but we can't 'afford' it,

What is this mysterious cure?

> or that masks do not protect you like wearing a gas mask through a chlorine cloud, rather, they're minimally protective but nevertheless we believe 'do make difference' and we want people to wear them, so we don't talk about it in detail, rather, just suggest or require them as policy in some locales.

That's a known fact. Masks don't really protect the wearer unless it's a properly fitted N95. They reduce the aerosol emitted which reduces the chances of transmitting it to other people. They protect a group of people if most wear them by limiting transmission.

That's high school level biology.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#53

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:56 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #26

The underlying issue, and one that bugs the hell out of me, is Policy vs Truth. You can say true things all day, and convince nobody. You can enact policy based completely on Truth (e.g., Trust the Science), and completely fail. People don't care about Truth, they care about what changes they need to make, and who is asking them to make them. Good policy is only partially based on truth, it's more based on easy imple…

[deleted]

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#54

Post by mherdeg » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:57 PM UTC

Reading this gave me a kind of horrifying idea that goes something like:

You know about a deadly disease whose most serious outcomes can be avoided by getting a shot.

Many members of a group in your society have decided they don't want to get the shot. You are annoyed by the way they talk about a lot of things, including the way they talk about avoiding the shot. They, in turn, call you "smug" for the way your group talks about having everyone get the shot.

You realize that if the other tribe keeps acting this way, a lot of them will die -- 1% of them overall, and as many as 10-15% of the oldest members of the tribe, with them having a fresh chance to die with every mutation and reinfection every 12 months.

You realize that smugly insisting that those people should "get the shot" will make them dig in their heels and insist they will never do any such thing. This will, in turn, kill them. This will diminish their tribe's size and political influence. Is this a plan? Is it a thing you are doing on purpose?

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#55

Post by lowbloodsugar » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

calibas wrote: post #7

>Cutting back on CO2 emissions would clearly work, but it’s expensive and painful. This is so painfully backwards. "Saving the Planet" doesn't mean spending tons of money and doing tons of work, quite the opposite. The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every human being to do nothing at all. Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then things will quickly recover. Obviously that's a bit ex…

>Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then things will quickly recover.

... after "stop eating", stop breathing will soon follow. Why don't you go first? Why haven't you gone first already? Is it because humans just don't work like that? At all?

I mean, thanks. Your argument demonstrates precisely why "make less CO2" will never work: You believe it, and yet even you are still breathing.

(please don't stop breathing. i don't think your suggestion is serious, so neither is mine).

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#56

Post by joshxyz » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 9:59 PM UTC

calibas wrote: post #7

>Cutting back on CO2 emissions would clearly work, but it’s expensive and painful. This is so painfully backwards. "Saving the Planet" doesn't mean spending tons of money and doing tons of work, quite the opposite. The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every human being to do nothing at all. Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then things will quickly recover. Obviously that's a bit ex…

Haha this is nice, really a question of how much we live in excess and if do we really have enough for everybody in a sustainable manner

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#57

Post by vmception » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #54

Reading this gave me a kind of horrifying idea that goes something like: You know about a deadly disease whose most serious outcomes can be avoided by getting a shot. Many members of a group in your society have decided they don't want to get the shot. You are annoyed by the way they talk about a lot of things, including the way they talk about avoiding the shot. They, in turn, call you "smug" for the way your group…

1% decrease doesn't diminish their size and political influence substantially, even of the disproportionate elderly population. Then only a fraction of the remainders that lose a loved one would re-evaluate, a large fraction of them would still be bounced back when they realize the other ideas "your group" inherits is even harder to accept as a personality trait. Most of them will inherit just enough to not think further about the matter.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#58

Post by bsedlm » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #54

Reading this gave me a kind of horrifying idea that goes something like: You know about a deadly disease whose most serious outcomes can be avoided by getting a shot. Many members of a group in your society have decided they don't want to get the shot. You are annoyed by the way they talk about a lot of things, including the way they talk about avoiding the shot. They, in turn, call you "smug" for the way your group…

but why are you so adamant on making everybody so perfectly safe?

there used to be something about freedom and risk; heck, about life and risk.

it's risky to be alive but it was more risky live way back in the day

at what point does safety begin to stifle the drive to live?

we as humans originally evolved in a risky environment, we thrived in it, we made it safer for ourselves; but maybe, just maybe, we also acquired a need for this risky behavior and without it our lives feel emptier?

the point I am trying to make (granted not very eloquently) starts out from this idea [1] that humans are kind of crazy, and that maybe this crazyness is what makes us so successful; so I put that too much safety may undo this crazyness, it puts it to sleep?

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#59

Post by lowbloodsugar » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

calibas wrote: post #32

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every human being to do nothing at all. The planet doesn't care what lives on it or if anything lives at all. There is no best for the planet outside of goals humans set for it. > It's so odd that all our frantic doing is what's thrown the Planet out of balance The planet has never been in balance. And even if we stop anthropogenic climate change something else wi…

FYI, when people are talking about helping "the Planet" they're not talking about lifeless rocks, they're talking about preserving the diversity of life on the Planet. And by balance I mean not precipitating another extinction event. Sure, they're going to happen anyway eventually, but we probably shouldn't cause an extra one if we don't have to...

After the dinosaurs were wiped out, millions of new species evolved. So causing a climate disaster that wipes out humans scores higher on the "diversity of life" scale than keeping humans alive. Live evolves. The Planet, "Planet" here as Gaia, will survive our extinction.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#60

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #19

sushisource wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is technically true in a totally uninteresting way. People aren't going to stop doing stuff. That's just fairly obviously not really on the table, despite the minority of people who are into ideas of going back to some pre-modern agrarian societal model. So, how do we let people continue to do stuff without totally messing up the planet? That's the crucial question humanity is interested in solving (or, mayb…

I think it's interesting, and here's why. Think about this as it relates to other common problems humans face like debt or the need to lose weight. I can put all of my energy and focus into making more money so I can get my debt under control, but that won't matter if I have really bad spending habits. I can put all of my energy into exercising more and burning the calories I take in, but that won't matter if I'm eat…

For something like spending or calories, you probably have to cut back under 20% or under 10%, and even that is hard enough on its own.

Trying to simply cut back for CO2 needs something like a 90% reduction to actually solve things. It could theoretically work but it very quickly hits diminishing returns and becomes a bad allocation of effort. Projects like actively replacing all our power plants, and making sure all cars have a minimum electric range, are much more "low hanging fruit" than trying to directly cut consumption that far.