Comment by jlengrand | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlengrand | Hacker News Reader

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So much this. The events from the past years have already been difficult to digest. But every time I come and read comments, I'm even more depressed, anxious. "no matter if you don't drive, or stop meat; it won't be enough". "nice that you're stopping commuting, but that won't suffice". "offsetting by planting trees is not good enough compared to net zero". Or worse, dismissive like "it only helps with your own self-guilt".

This usually leaves me so depressed.

Yes, I realize all those actions won't suffice, even if we all agree to apply them starting tomorrow. And yes, we need both local and global impact for things to move forward. But I also believe that if everyone starts doing their part : buying less, reducing meat, whatever, it will get discussed more and more and become a concrete part of society much faster.

Guessing OP and I will get downvoted though, which is fine. HN has a fair share of the brightest minds in Tech and related, sometimes I miss a bunch of less pragmatic positivity.

I took an elective wildlife conservation class while earning my Master's. I had no right to be there, because I was surrounded by the brightest, most pragmatic minds I had ever met. The work that my classmates had done to stop destruction, or to sustain populations through novel solutions, was awe inspiring. We don't see it here, and there's an obvious reason for why that might be, but there are amazing people out there who are making the world a better place than it would otherwise be. The least I can do is not just give up. Thank you for doing your part. I really appreciate it.

My use of pragmatic was really not meant to be dismissive. My English is not always as good as I'd like it to be :).

Every time there is a discussion about climate change, there are comments in the lines of "we are in danger, Earth is not". That's entirely correct, but it doesn't help much :).

Thanks for the kind words, you are definitely right, many people are working in the right direction. We need to listen to them more.

Very curious about those brilliant ideas. Giving a few examples would be great.

I oftentimes see that parroted and I believe it is more slacktivism and politically motivated than anything- "Only my guy can fix everything! All I can do is like his political ads and keep on doing what I do"

For instance, how many times have you observed articles that call out cruise ships as "super polluters". Wouldn't not going on cruises be much more impactful than any sort of negotiated regulation? I believe the individual can absolutely do their part

Yes, reducing consumption as a sum of individuals is the most impactful thing we can do, next to voting.

Individual behavioral change is insufficient. A civilization-level crisis requires government intervention. Vote.

Most definitely agree about this. It's number 1 on my list. When I moved to the Netherlands I learnt that they actually have separate elections for the water management. Almost like a separate body of the government. I wish something like this for environment was implemented, simply because people tend to vote for things that are much closer to them, unemployment, security, ...

Given recent events, it seems clear we need to rethink the role of the executive branch, probably to strengthen gov't services (e.g. cabinet-level agencies) and make them more independent of political agendas and misdirection. A more independent EPA, NOAA, FDA, law enforcement, military, etc that are governed by strict codes of conduct and missions that proscribe their misuse by either a careless/malignant POTUS or legislature could save many lives, make US policy more stable and sustainable, and upgrade the standard of living for more than just Americans.

I think we need to do more than just vote.

I think we need to do more than just vote.

You're absolutely right: voting is a necessary, albeit insufficient, step towards fixing many of the challenges we face.

However, the vast majority of people who happen to read my comment on here will, at best, only vote. I don't want anyone to skip out on the very important and relatively easy step they can take just because voting isn't a silver bullet.

A dedicated individual can do quite a lot. Look at John Muir for example - should he have just voted and not do anything else with his life for the environment?

Just from the most immediate problems I could see a lot of profitable work in modeling wildfires, maybe using satellite pictures to identify the most vulnerable spots to light up etc. Also optimizing power usage over networks and things like that are exactly in the ballpark of tech. Is that whole problem space really just best left to the government to slowly add incremental improvements every 10 years? Yes vote but also maybe think about spending more than 1h every few years to think about the problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24494744

individual-scale action is not a substitute for collective action. You can plant trees and sort your recycling every day for the rest of your life and it won't make the tiniest fraction of the difference that raising fuel economy standards or implementing a carbon tax or whatever would do.

individual action is often presented as a sop precisely because industry wants to divert discussion from the forms of collective action that actually make a difference.

Entirely correct. And that's infuriating

Though it does not stop us from acting at local level. Let us all stop replacing our phones every year, and there will be a shift in consumption models. We collectively, as a sum of locals, have the power to make things change.

Not saying don't do those things, but we need society-level action to really make an impact. To plagiarize the saying about the internet and censorship, capitalism is a self-correcting system designed to route around any "errors" like individual ethics/behavior that produce non-optimal profits according to "the rules" of the system. If you reduce the demand for coal because everyone chooses to pay the extra for solar energy, someone is going to scoop up that cheap coal and find a way to use it. You have to "change the rules of the game" to make any impact, and that's society/collective level action.

That's an interesting point you're making (though scary). Didn't think about it that way. Thanks.

It's funny that this is also coming from the community that runs on building good-enough-for-now solutions rather than trying to raise $1B and build the perfect service from the ground up.

Which community are you talking about? HN?

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