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Comment by czechdeveloper | Hacker News Reader

This actually paralyses me a bit.

Nice vacation? All I think is footprint I'm making and how I'm destroying that very beautiful nature I wanted to visit.

Start enterprise? I'll just add another CO2 to provide people with service they don't really need to survive.

Like this new gadget? I can't buy it, I don't need it and again, just another item in vicious cycle or consumption.

But what can I do. I want my enjoyment of those stuff back. I want to be motivated to create and experience, yet I can't as I see the other side of that. I want to enjoy good stuff, but I can't.

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I feel the same way.

How do you function as an engineer in a world with too much stuff. The most useful thing I can do is not to add to the pile of useless gizmo we covered the world with.

A bit over the top I know, but this is seriously impacting my work as I can't find any pride in what I do.

A very good graphic novel if you are interested in the subject and want to have an overview in the issue (and happen to speak french)[1].

[1]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saison_brune

I know what you mean, and you didn't even mention the thing that makes it extra stressful: The fact that other people keep doing all that stuff anyway. So you either disadvantage yourself against them while having no real effect as an individual, or you do the same as them while always feeling bad about it.

Although some of those things don't necessarily make life better anyway. Sometimes I'm happier having a break at home vs. trying to plan a vacation, and new gadgets often just mean more work in your life to maintain them. Not to mention the extra work you have to do to afford it all, that you could instead have as free time.

But in the end, I think individual change on a large scale requires government legislation, and government legislation requires worldwide agreement, because no-one wants to be disadvantaged against everyone else. Tragedy of the commons. But we do what we can.

Yes, I can either be social or ecological. As my family lives in different parts of country, it dictates car travel (public transport is really bad). Even just volunteering usually requires me to travel by car somewhere.

I try to live simply, it always gave me great pleasure, or at least less stress to own little. But I moved away from this a bit recently as I have family and also I feel like I should be less dependent on surrounding (ie. have good tools, have some backup items etc.).

Your conclusions are rational.

If sustainability is important, we'll have to rethink our actions.

Imposing constraints inevitably reduces choices, but there remains plenty of options: * local vacation (this is a tough one, I realise) * enterprises that are sustainable: either marginal negative emissions (e.g. durable goods) or carbon neutral (perhaps via credits) * sustainable activities: hiking, sailing, stand up comedy * start cycling * reduce meat consumption

Admittedly I do poorly at adopting sustainable choices merely for the sake of sustainability.

I did some changes (work from home, smallish energy efficient house), but it seems like not enough in any sense as I still travel by car, I buy a lot of plastic packaged stuff and overall if everyone (whole planet) lived like me, we would likely be in way worse trouble than we are.

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