Comment by perfunctory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by perfunctory | Hacker News Reader

So if I interpret you correctly, by "working on fixing the environment" you mean tech projects? I don't want to dismiss anyone's efforts but I have become convinced that believing in technological solution to the environment/climate problem at this stage is just another form of denial. We already have all the technology we can use in the short/medium term, and we don't have time for the long term fundamental breakthroughs any more. Improved energy efficiency won't help either[0]

We need fundamental cultural and policy change. The question is how to achieve it. Despite popular believe I don't think voting matters. Think about any significant societal change in the last century or so. Women suffrage, civil rights movement, anti-war movement, gay rights. None of these were initiated by the parliament. They all started as a popular rebellion and direct action.

So what are we to do.

- Change your lifestyle. Less flying, driving, meat.

- Divest fossil

- Get out of the techno bubble and get your hands dirty with direct action and civil disobedience. e.g. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

[1] https://rebellion.earth/

Technology is intimately related to culture; we simply need technology change in order to recover. We need more efficient energy generation, more sustainable materials, better recycling, etc. We can't all just go back to the land. The cultural change we need is the impetus to make the necessary technological changes.

Where I agree with you is that we need cultural change first, and THEN technological change should follow. A key change, for example, would be reconstructing American foreign policy so it does not depend on controlling Middle East oil supplies to maintain our economic dominance. This holds in place our use of fossil fuels. We need to replace fossil fuel technology with something else, but before that we need to replace our political dependence on controlling fossil fuels with something else.

> Technology is intimately related to culture;... Where I agree with you is that we need cultural change first, and THEN technological change should follow.

Thnx, this is a useful clarification. I didn't mean to come across as an anti-technologist.

A cultural change is one way to do it. But another way is to offer compelling technology that, as a side benefit to the average consumer, is also more environmentally friendly. Examples could be Tesla (many people buy Tesla cars because they like the car, but they can reduce CO2 emissions), Loop (packages look nicer, and are reusable) or pretty much every energy startup that promises lower electricity costs without using fossil fuels.

I think the technologies we need in order to change culture are in the realm of creative destruction, as in creatively destroying certain structures that keep the economy from working in a coherent way. Three things that come to mind are:

1. Knowledge. Making sure the intellectual richness of humanity is accessible to everyone. The technology is already there but the rent-seekers keep subverting progress through technology, law, and (pseudo-)morality. To address the issue of morality, we should promote the distinction between property and possession, and make sure property is seen as something that is subjected to the interest of society. Hence, why we need limits on intellectual property and other forms of property.

2. Commoditization. This goes back to knowledge from the previous point, but also to complexity in general. The idea is that certain products get turned into commodities (products with uniform standard characteristics that don't require much consumer choice) while others get turned away from being commodities. The process is currently too driven by ignorance/incompetence and greed, and I don't think it is easy to say where one ends and the other starts. So people end up needing three different computers (laptop, TV, cellphone) instead of one that can be adapted to different situations. Or they end up having to buy the entire computer instead of fixing one replacing one part of it. Technology sometimes does not integrate well. The need for choice ends up being created where it should not be. Capital ends up rewarding the unproductive, and the producers find ways to escape the effects of competition. Advertisement very much cultivates the element of ignorance that is behind this process. All the fake choices of food in the supermarket made out of different combinations of the same low quality commoditized ingredients. Meanwhile crops are becoming all the same (3/4 loss of diversity according to the FAO), at the expense of nutrition and adaptability. Life is becoming uniform in order to adapt to the machine. It's a long subject, if anyone knows of a good author that treats it I'd be interested in reading her.

3. Debt. The debt based economy introduces a paradox, by which too little scarcity is dangerous, because it means that products cannot be converted into enough money to pay the banks. This is clearly a big obstacle to progress. In practice it makes us act as if employment and economic growth are more important that health and soil. We need to come up with ways that allow people exchange the fruits of their work without relying on debt or on so-called liquidity. The availability of goods and service should be enough to allow their exchange not some abstract concept of "health" of the financial system. I think digital currencies can move us in this direction.

In summary let us make the economy work by taking into account the ecosystem, rewarding work and creativity above capital ownership. In the last two points, I see a lot of opportunity for promoting closer human and ecologic relations at the local level.

I agree we are likely at a point any single action is meaningless. For all we know, even with unheard of mobilization of global scale we’re heading towards a catastrophe that will shadow ww2. Nonetheless trying to do something seems the logical approach :)

I believe that "something" was meant to be a contribution to a large scale, disruptive, political movement, not an individualist act of changing diet or similar. So yes, "do something" but not if what you do is ineffective.

> divest fossil

Any hints on divesting from fossil fuels with index funds? It seems that the choice is between underweighing high carbon emitters (e.g. MSCI World low carbon leaders) or removing companies with fossil reserves (e.g. MSCI World ex-fossil fuels). The first will still keep you invested in all companies, even Exxon-Mobil, and the second ignores CO2 emissions. I'm looking for better options.

Agree on almost everything you said, but not having children will have far more impact than giving up meat. Going childfree almost like a taboo subject when discussing the environment.

Telling someone that wants to have a kid that they shouldn't is much less effective than explaining someone why they should to vegan most of the week. My experience is that no many people already tell me "they don't eat much meat anymore", so it's not unfathomable.

I dunno, it's like life's main directive to reproduce, and not having children means than in 30 years we have a mostly aging population and no youngsters. And besides, there are people that already have kids and to those I say: cut back on mean and dairy.

> Telling someone that wants to have a kid that they shouldn't is much less effective than explaining someone why they should to vegan most of the week.

Sure, but that's a very black-and-white take.

Firstly, those things aren't in opposition; it's trivial to advocate both.

Secondly, "telling someone that wants to have a kid that they shouldn't" is picking a losing battle. In many (most? all?) societies having children is effectively the default: choosing not to have kids is an explicit opt-out, that many people might not even consider. Lots of activities can help tip the scales a little, in a much more effective way, such as:

- Challenging everyday assumptions that everyone wants kids (e.g. if asked "when are you planning to have kids", pointing out that the "when" is presumptuous; or if asked "do you want a boy or a girl", what about "neither"; etc.)

- Sticking up for those who don't have/want kids, if getting pressured e.g. by their family (I get this a lot)

- Normalising childlessness in media by having more characters who just-so-happen to not want kids (often it's only ever mentioned in order to set up those characters to later either have kids, or express regret at not doing so; e.g. the Wilsons in the US Dennis the Menace come to mind)

- Promoting adoption and fostering, including possible changes to the rules. I've had many conversations where adoption is dismissed due to the difficulty of the process, which I can imagine is pushed more by the risk of (hopefully) rare abuses than by the reality of (unfortunately) common day-to-day struggles.

- Rebalancing the economics, to financially disincentivise having children (and certainly to avoid children being an income stream for prospective parents). Possibly have more existing support going directly to the children, e.g. via school-provided facilities, rather than as cash to parents.

- Increasing availability of contraception, and removal of associated myths/taboos (Thailand seems to be a good example here https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/10-010610/en ). Ideally reproduction would be opt-in (as with IUDs, for example): creating a human life is too important to happen "accidentally". Research and development of a male equivalent to the contraceptive pill would also be very important.

- Removing taboos around vasectomies and sterilisation. I've heard many stories of doctors refusing to carry out these procedures, or making patients jump through extraneous hoops to get it done (e.g. it's brought up a lot on https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree ). Here's another Thai example https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/12/06/Thailand-gives-free-...

- Encouraging closer-knit communities. Whilst technology like social media has made it easier to find and communicate with like-minded individuals, it also makes it easier to avoid human contact with those around us. For many, child-rearing instincts might be satisfied by helping to raise children who don't happen to share their genes. Perhaps technology could help with this, e.g. for organisation at a local level.

These are things off the top of my head. "Telling someone that wants to have a kid that they shouldn't" is a woefully simplistic dismissal.

Many people I've met through environmental activism agree with you and have chosen not to have children.

However, I think that giving up meat is a lot easier for people than not having children (reproducing is a pretty strong biological imperative). It also has the possibility to amplify your impact by encouraging those around you to make the same switch - that way you can impact many many lives.

Interesting that you find it taboo - talking about "population control" is definitely taboo in my opinion because it sounds like eugenics or forced sterilisation etc etc, but I've never heard people respond badly to personal choices to not have children.

Natalists are going to natal, they are biologically-wired to do so and their intellect is not strong enough to overcome their carnal desires.

Just watch them delete this post and ban me.

You do realize that framing the issue as a "them" Vs "us" is gigantically unhelpful?

I've always found this argument weird because you're basically telling the environment-conscious people to voluntarily eliminate themselves from the gene pool. Surely there must be more effective ways for a small minority of the population to fight Climate Change than by simply ceasing to exist?

Not reproducing does not mean you cease to exist. Also, consciousness about the environment does not transmit through genes.

> Not reproducing does not mean you cease to exist

In the long term it means that you don't pass your set of values onto the latter generations.

> consciousness about the environment does not transmit through genes

Intelligence, conscientiousness and empathy are all heritable to a degree. More importantly, your kids will likely inherit most of the socioeconomic factors that made you become environmentally-conscious in the first place. And I'm assuming you want the next generations to be as eco-friendly as possible.

I'm also incredibly skeptical of the environmental impact of antinatalism among hardcore environmentalist first-worlders vs the exploding birth rates across the globe. It just seems performative and hairshirty.

> In the long term it means that you don't pass your set of values onto the latter generations.

Education, activism, involvement in the community, publishing research, etc. are all effective ways to pass on values to future generations. Nudging the overton window of society is arguably a much more effective way to pass on values.

> Intelligence, conscientiousness and empathy are all heritable to a degree.

Nowhere near enough to keep up with technological and societal change.

> More importantly, your kids will likely inherit most of the socioeconomic factors that made you become environmentally-conscious in the first place. And I'm assuming you want the next generations to be as eco-friendly as possible.

Those kids would need to have a net-positive contribution to the environment for this argument to make any sense. It also seems mostly irrelevant to the argument about whether to have kids or not: any virtue you ascribe to those potential kids can also be ascribed to anyone else: if those kids could be a net-positive to the environment, why not the friends and neighbours that are already here? If influencing others in similar socioeconomic situations is beneficial, we can find plenty of those people around already. And so on.

> exploding birth rates across the globe

Do you have a source for this? All the evidence I've seen says the exact opposite (e.g. the UN's data and projections for this century show birth rates declining across every continent https://population.un.org/wpp/DataQuery )

I totally agree with this, part of the reason we're in the mess we are, is because the conservative populations abstain from birth control, so they hold a tight grip of this country by the power of the womb. I love my children, I think progressives and liberals should embrace the idea of large families because those children will grow up to be progressive and change the world, or just don't have kids so those of us who do, our kids will be ruled by the Trump's and Bush's for the next 200 years, until the world turns into Mars 2.0. or would it be Venus 2.0?..

Edit: I have 2 children (we went through 8 rounds of IVF for those 2 buggers), would probably have more if we could but funds are tight now. Though, we might adopt. Luckily insurance paid most of it back when I wasn't freelancing. So, I say this even though I don't have a huge family of 6+ kids, but if you're up to the challenge I salute you!

Adoption is also admirable and while you're not passing genes, you can pass on values and your ethical systems to a new generation so if you want to help the environment by not having kids but also change things generationally --think about fostering and adoption. We used to be foster parents and it'll change your entire viewpoint on life, it's hard though when the kids are reunified with the family even though mom and dad are still doing drugs... lots of heartbreak there, but it's worth it for the difference it makes.

Please don't do ideological flamewar on HN. I realize you probably didn't intend to, but "conservative populations abstain from birth control, so they hold a tight grip of this country by the power of the womb" is the kind of slur that takes a thread several circles deeper into hell. It's like a snake in snakes and ladders. Please don't do that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Suicide works too but if we get rid of people then what exactly are we saving?

You realise that there are many different numbers between seven billion and zero, right?

If we don't have children who are we saving the environment for?

Or probably that as with not much time left on hand, lesser volume of future population will bear the brunt, if we don’t have kids.

What are you referring to by the word "we"?

If by "we" you're referring to those like the parent comment (no pun intended) who aren't having children, it's presumably to help save the environment for those children that will grow up in the world that we leave behind.

If by "we" you're referring to a hypothetical scenario where the entire human species stops reproducing and hence ceases to exist, then I think you're in the wrong place because (as far as I'm aware) this is a discussion about actual people taking individual actions in the real world.

I meant it in both ways. Asking people not to have children is ridiculous. I can't believe it's even entertained. Maybe asking people to have smaller families but that isn't an issue for most people on here I would assume.

> Asking people not to have children is ridiculous.

Why?

> I can't believe it's even entertained.

Why?

> I meant it in both ways.

As I implied above, the second situation is utter lunacy. This seems to be nothing more than concern trolling about the perils of underpopulation.

Why? Because we're not here to be selfless vassals. We have an innate biological drive to reproduce and a core part of the human/animal experience. Its like asking people not to breathe or not to eat.

> Because we're not here to be selfless vassals.

Who says? We can be anything we want to (within the laws of physics).

> We have an innate biological drive to reproduce and a core part of the human/animal experience.

True, but the existence of contraception, sterilisation, celibacy, etc. are all examples that such "innate biological drives" are pretty trivial to avoid.

> Its like asking people not to breathe or not to eat.

Breathing not so much, since it's automatic (with a manual override). Eating is comparable, and is also a drive that many people successfully override for rational reasons (AKA "a healthy diet", rather than the "innate biological drive" to eat as much fat and sugar as possible). It's also something that public health efforts are trying to help us cut down on.

> True, but the existence of contraception, sterilisation, celibacy, etc. are all examples that such "innate biological drives" are pretty trivial to avoid.

You don't have kids because of the physical act. That's the how not the why.

Others

The Haber-Bosch process consumes around 1% of energy the world generates.

"Industrial farming is tapping underground aquifers faster than they can be replenished, threatening global water supplies. Nitrates from fertilizers contaminate drinking water. Agricultural runoff rich in nitrogen and phosphorus has created hundreds of dead zones in coastal waters around the world. And then there's the toll taken on the Earth from the sheer number of human beings we can now feed." https://phys.org/news/2014-06-humans-derailed-nitrogen-track...

"He concluded that 40 percent of the global population in 2000 were dependent on food production from synthetic fertilizers." https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-people-does-synthetic-fe...

I don't think telling the poor to have less children is very appropriate since the rich are the ones who pollute the most, even when they are environmentally-conscious. However, we should be aware that it is technology that is sustaining population growth, and that technology is emitting entropy into the systems life on earth depends on. It should be scaled back.

It doesn't strike me as fundamentally different from suicide. Or killing other people. Possibly less ethically questionable, but if you go that route, for whom are you even saving the environment, exactly? Obviously not your children, if you don't have any.

What the hell? Are you suggesting that not having children is fundamentally the same as murder?

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> It doesn't strike me as fundamentally different from suicide. Or killing other people.

Interesting take. Does menstruation strike you as not fundamentally different from murder? Do you consider ejaculation to be fundamentally the same as genocide of hundreds of millions of living people?

> for whom are you even saving the environment, exactly? Obviously not your children, if you don't have any.

Presumably the billions of people who live, and will live, all over the Earth?

I honestly can't tell if this is sarcasm, trolling, or a genuine disregard for the lives of every who doesn't share 50% of your genes.

"Eschew flamebait."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

While I agree on societal change I don't think Extinction Rebellion is the right group. AFAICS it's just a collection of the same Greenpeace-type students and hippies who've been embarrassing science-minded environmentalists for decades

They have definitely been getting things done though. What have you done? Or what other group is there? Insisting on perfection while doing nothing better is really unhelpful and actually works against the cause.

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