Hacker News Reader

Comment by ff317 | Hacker News Reader

+1 - I think the kind of marketing and messaging that makes environmentalism all about saving "the planet" and "the animals" and "the natural environment" really doesn't serve us well. A better strategic approach would be to highlight (with the right crafty messaging) that a very tiny statistical slice of earth's historical states and potential future states are any good at supporting large human populations comfortably like we do today, and our goal is preserving this state in our own self-interest. It's not environmentalism at all, it's human self-interest.

View on HN

Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does.

Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the idea of everyone else being worse off, going by the number of facially specious arguments and overtly sadistic rhetoric deployed by many self-styled 'skeptics'.

I don't disagree, but I also think it is important to note that what you are describing is baked into our entire economic system.

Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest, which automatically filters out any long term multi-generational outlook.

Capitalism is the root cause here.

That's a good point. Would be nice if vindictive people had to make an actual effort, instead of their position being the default path of least resistance.

Following one's desires is baked into our biology, and economic system is just the consequence. Kittens don't know about capitalism but they follow their desires.

Capitalism is just a mental framework which helps to satisfy one's desires in a big way without the need to kill people.

Full socialism, while very interesting to many here, especially when it comes to the final happy picture, unfortunately involves killing lots and lots of people, as history shows us.

There are different ways of looking at the "capitalism is the root cause here".

One is, "therefore let's get rid of capitalism and replace it with socialism/anarchy/whatever", which is generally a bad idea (and history proves that). Another is, "therefore let's focus on capitalism when looking for particular issues to fix, find those issues and fix them, without breaking the whole thing". Aka. not throwing out baby with the bathwater. I'm not sure if GP had the second thing in mind, but this would be the approach I think is best.

There has been quite a lot of killing arising from capitalist enterprises, some of which have employed their own armies.

One can also have desires which are more complex than mere impulse. The behaviour of soldiers willingly putting themselves in extreme harm’s way is one such.

>Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest

>Capitalism is the root cause here.

That is not how capitalism works, it works by providing value to the greater whole of people, that's how it obtains money. If a business isn't doing something we like, we don't purchase products, services, advice, etc. or at least that's how it should work. The bigger problem is why do we value the wrong things? or why are we unable to develop better solutions?

I agree there are things we can improve about the environment (for example plastic in oceans, etc.) but saying capitalism is the root cause is foolish and unsubstantiated.

> That is not how capitalism works, it works by providing value to the greater whole of people, that's how it obtains money. If a business isn't doing something we like, we don't purchase products, services, advice, etc. or at least that's how it should work.

The entire large industry called "marketing" exists explicitly to subvert this process. Why make something people need, or like, when you can make them like it or feel like they need it through persistent psychological manipulation in form of advertising? Hell, why make them like it at all if you can make it addicting instead? They'll hate every minute of their lives but still come back to your product.

Then there are countless ways of making money by providing value to someone, while providing lots of negative value to other people - also known as externalizing costs.

Point being, capitalism is good at making money, period. That this implies providing value to society is not true in general; in fact, it turns out it isn't the most efficient way of making money in many cases. And capitalism is really good at making money efficiently.

> The bigger problem is why do we value the wrong things? or why are we unable to develop better solutions?

Because capitalism is based on exchange value, not use value. The exchange value of keeping CO2 out of the air is $0. The exchange value of keeping bees and birds alive is $0. Neither of those things have any exchange value, but they have a massive amount of use value. There is a huge disconnect there. Explore marxism / socialism to learn more about this stuff.

> Explore marxism / socialism

Why? Are you such a fool to think this would actually work? Forcing people to provide value NEVER works and it NEVER will. Give up and come up with an alternative solution

It's hardly the fault of capitalism that lots of people do not believe in human responsibility for climate change. I wouldn't advise to force people into complying with your vision.

The point here is that it does't matter if they believe or not. Capitalism does not let them stay true to their beliefs.

Businesses that act in a sustainable way will not be as competitive as businesses that don't. So, it's very hard to be sustainable in a capitalism system that doesn't "price in" the externalities of the natural world that we've been taking for granted.

You can use the same example for globalization and offshoring of jobs. If I'm a business owner who manufactures cheap things, it doesn't matter how much I care about keeping my factory in the US or Europe because other factories will go to where the labor is cheapest and out compete me. So, I'm forced to do it too just to compete.

That's still not the fault of capitalism, but of the people opting for the cheapest solution. To introduce change, some kind of force would be required, which I strongly advise against. As soon as the self-interest of all actors is concerned things will change on their own.

Which is why it must be torn down.

Which gives rise to the question of whether saving the human species is actually worth the trouble. It might be, it might not be. I'm not convinced it needs to be saved at all costs.

I lean more towards ignorance than malice. The average Earth person (out of all 11 billion) probably doesn't have as solid of a scientific or historical background to form an educated opinion on what affect we are having on the ecosystem in the long term.

Population is ~7.7 billion

See! I don't even know how many people are on Earth :]

It is certainly a factor. The other thing is that even for people that now it is very difficult to change consumer behavior. E.g. I came across a family of three on the underground train in London. One of them lamented the fact that she wouldn't be able to part in a climate change protest march the following day. The reason being that they were flying to Germany the next day. Oh...and they came from Texas ;-)

>say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the idea of everyone else being worse off, going by the number of facially specious arguments and overtly sadistic rhetoric deployed by many self-styled 'skeptics'.

We don't even have to look at arguments and rhetoric. Simply go outside and observe. You can immediately see people driving conspicuously huge vehicles, and some of them have modified their vehicles to increase dangerous and undesirable emissions (noise emissions, combustion emissions e.g. coal rolling) for no other purpose but than to antagonize the people around them and intentionally degrade the natural environment.

Nearly every street you drive down in residential America is lined from one end to the other with lawns that have chemicals pumped in to increase growth unnaturally, and simultaneously chemicals pumped in to control undesired weeds and insects. None of this serves any practical purpose at all.

Look carefully at the ground and you'll find it's full of fragments of the discarded plastic and metal containers of quick junk food and the so-called "energy drinks". Not only is it bad enough we have to produce these items to satisfy a temporary need at the cost of creating permanent* garbage, we have to go and toss them by the side of the road just to illustrate how utterly callous and thoughtless we are.

Hopeless. Sometimes it feels very hopeless.

Hopeless? Aye.

I think part of the problem is we have become so hugely separated from the natural world. Nature and the environment isn't part of many people's lives, at all.

Go outside and look might reveal a few artificially manicured bits of monoculture grass, endless asphalt, concrete, poles, boxes and wires. Meat, milk, fruit, veg comes in plastic packs, and quite often ready cooked and prepared.

One of the things that stuck with me most reading The Uninhabitable Earth - the most strident and urgent call to action on climate and environment I ever came across, was in his preamble. [paraphrasing badly from memory here] He talks of being perfectly chilled at achieving growth by imposing a cost to nature, he's just not a "nature guy", and wouldn't dream of going near it for a holiday. It's OK to crow about being top of the food chain. Something about not caring about the cow so long as he can get the hamburger, not seeing an issue being a good city dweller, with completely separating ourselves from nature, from paving the planet in concrete and getting everything in packets. Sure, he goes on to say how he misunderstood, but FFS.

OK, now I start to appreciate the scale of the problem.

Hopeless? Feels that way, doesn't it?

> I think part of the problem is we have become so hugely separated from the natural world. Nature and the environment isn't part of many people's lives, at all.

The "disconnectedness" of people seems to be a big part of the issue. This applies to many cases where we might say that things are done wrong, but people don't seem to care.

For example, treatment of animals or other humans: When a person is given an opportunity to get close to, or get to know an animal or another person, their care for that animal (and animals in general) often increases - likewise for care for other humans, particularly ones of very different backgrounds.

So it is with nature as well. Give someone an opportunity to go feel the proven benefits of time in nature, and then show them a video of their "favorite" nature spot being clear cut, and they will have a negative reaction.

>Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead.

Sent from my iPhone

Oh hey I have to survive in society, this means I can't have opinions about how utterly fucked up that society is, because if I wanted to do that, I should starve myself and die to avoid hypocrisy in the eyes of random internet strangers.

You are society. Society is a large number of individuals just like you all pointing at each other and proclaiming everyone else is the problem. Do not ask others to do things you yourself are not doing. You care about climate change? Show me, don't tell me.

Couldn't have said it better

Reply on news.ycombinator.com