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Comment by peterxpark | Hacker News Reader

The tragedy is the growing consensus that the world is going to shit and it's our fault. Even worse is that all this technology, social media, and so on isn't even making us more happy or fulfilled. Yet, most just sit on their hands not doing much at all. Content to eek out what comfort and pleasure we can get now and try our best to ignore the knowledge that devastation awaits us.

It's amazing that in tens of thousands of years, we've developed the power of gods yet have the same minds. And if anything our culture and values in many ways have gotten worse.

The solution to all of this mess isn't going to come from the same mindset that created the same problems (looking at you carbon capture tech).

What's needed most is an entire global shift in what we value and a concerted effort and funding to make that happen.

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This comment seems a little inconsistent to me. You complain about the fact that everyone doesn't have the mindset to solve problems. Makes sense so far.

Then you say carbon capture tech isn't going to work because... it's too focused on solving problems constructively? What is wrong with the mindset of carbon capture tech, exactly? What is the right mindset to have? (But also, the idea that we can figure out what solutions work based on diagnosing the "mindset" of those that propose them, as opposed to analyzing the solution itself in detail, seems pretty silly to me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy )

Admittedly i wasn't writing a through essay response. To elaborate, I'm saying that the exponential rise of technology coupled with the same exact type of mind our ancestors had 2,000 years ago is a significant source of the issue right now. The solution to create even more powerful technology to solve this problem will likely only lead to a bigger problem in the future.

What we don't spend relatively anywhere close to same level of energy and effort is creating, developing, funding ways to shape the human culture, values, and mind that underlies this relentless (and in many cases unfulfilling and self-destructive) pattern of looking to technology to solve everything.

It's a hard challenge for sure but I don't see any alternative solution.

Jordan Hall and Daniel Schmachtenberger talk a lot about this as one source to go deeper.

(side note, I live full time in a residential, monastic small community in the country side. Our carbon footprint is tiny for our size and we have daily conversations on this type of thing. We haven't "solved" it but this is a issue close to my heart I've dedicated my life to.)

>I'm saying that the exponential rise of technology coupled with the same exact type of mind our ancestors had 2,000 years ago is a significant source of the issue right now. The solution to create even more powerful technology to solve this problem will likely only lead to a bigger problem in the future.

I don't think that's obvious. It could be that we're at a part of the techno-societal landscape that happens to be bad, but if we keep working on technology, we'll get to a new part of the landscape that happens to be better. For example, as VR tech gets better, maybe it will replace social media with something healthier. ("If you're going through hell, keep going" as they say.)

I'd say this is the mantra humanity has used for over 2,000 years and part of the issue.

It's not so much that I'm saying technological development is bad. Obviously we won't stop making new tech. It's that the larger context in which that tech development is happening is toxic, is not oriented towards health or wellbeing for everyone. The incentives are all perverted.

So support and join the people who are pushing for that shift. There are very powerful actors working hard to keep dissenters silent and impotent. Lots of people in this forum regularly disparage social justice efforts.

Social justice seems like a distraction from these issues to me. It is focused on the past, not the future.

Social justice includes climate justice and social issues are very much interconnected with issues of environmental sustainability. Consider the appropriation of lands from indigenous peoples and destruction of its natural ecosystems to install monocultures for profit. Consider the fact that poor people must buy cheap disposable stuff again and again because they can't afford to buy long-lasting, more sustainable goods which have become too expensive for profit-seeking industries to produce at scale. Consider that urban sprawl was largely a result of racialised segregation and that the ubiquity of environmentally destructive vehicles and road systems was encouraged in no small part by the desire of certain classes of people to distance themselves from others (or others from them).

The most important climate legislation has bipartisan support: https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/15/how-to-decarbonize-america...

Framing everything in terms of past injustices turns what should be a bipartisan issue into a partisan one.

We need less infighting and more creative collaborative problem-solving.

I live in full-time in a small community dedicated to this kind of thing although many would argue we're not doing much at all.

I get your critique of carbon capture tech, but it's also the only way we can clean up (that part of) our mess.

I'm not a scientist so if I'm incorrect, I would love to know.

But given the current rate of accelerated use of carbon fueled technologies, how realistic is it that carbon capture technology will catch up within the next decade or less? How certain can we be that such technology won't lead to an even worse problem?

Everything I've seen says carbon capture is a moonshot idea. I'd say Elon Musk has a better shot at populating Mars in 20 years than carbon capture saving us. And even if it is a solid mitigation technique, there still is the issue that we develop this god-level of technological power while have completely underdeveloped and underfunded social/cultural/economic/psychological development of the humans developing and wielding it. Most likely we'll just create a bigger existential threat down the line.

To be clear I'm not saying carbon capture will single-handedly save us. Carbon capture is a bailing bucket. Our boat is sinking. The bucket can buy us time, and help clean up the boat once we've plugged the hole. We've still got to plug the hole. But we'd also be happy to have a good bucket.

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