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Comment by asdfasgasdgasdg | Hacker News Reader

As someone who doesn't have to do business travel very often, I enjoy the trips to go meet with long-lost colleagues. But at the same time, it's pretty clear at least to me that most of these things are a waste of company money and don't really move the ball forward much compared to typical electronic collaboration. Selfishly, I'd be sad if business travel suffered a large permanent reduction. But it would be better for the business and the environment if it did, even ignoring the risk of propagating diseases.

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I just got done planning a 20 person meeting in Germany for July. It will cost almost $5k USD per participant for travel, lodging, and food.

We were only half joking when we said the company could FedEx us each a top of the line video conference setup, and then throw it in the trash afterwards, and it would still be cheaper.

$5k per person? Are these business class seats? this can certainly be done for cheaper.

Nope. Just premium economy seats. Summer flights from US to Germany with no weekend stay are really expensive.

An interesting side effect if it does lead to long-term change is the airlines. Currently ticket prices are kept low by expensive business class tickets and late purchased business travelers. If either of those sees a >10% drop, some major disruptions are going to hit the aviation companies and ticket prices.

I have to ask—since you admit to causing environmental harm with your admittedly unessisary travels—how do you morally accept the damage your selfish actions are causing? I’m genially asking, and not trying to be judgmental.

The company I work for uses high quality carbon offsets to reach carbon neutrality for all business activities, including business travel by employees. Of course, this isn't scalable, so it doesn't really absolve me. But the travel I do is also not really optional. I just personally don't think it's necessary or helpful. Doesn't mean I don't have to do it when I'm called upon to do so.

The other thing I do is live a fairly carbon efficient lifestyle. I travel much less than other folks in my income bracket, and I live in the most carbon efficient city in the U.S. I take mass transit to work and don't own a car. There is of course more that I could do, but if I zero out my usage it will make precisely no difference to the outcome. So I also vote with my dollars and my actual votes for political candidates who will push in the right direction on this issue.

But more than anything, I think if I'm honest, I don't justify it. I just do it. These scales cannot be balanced -- the human mind cannot encompass actions whose harms are so incrementally minor and diffuse, but corporately so major and severe. Our social heuristic engine is not equipped to process it, and mine isn't an exception.

Thank you for an honest and good answer

Generally speaking, people almost always find some way to justify their actions to themselves, if they even think about what they do in ethical terms at all.

They justify it by convincing themselves their actions are necessary to feed their families, or they think what they do isn't as bad as what someone else does, or everyone else is doing it, or they'll compromise for now but do better later, or they just don't care about most others and are looking out for themselves, their friends and family.

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