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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

And there lies the difference that made my grandparents generation, albeit on the Allied side of WW2, the greatest generation. Not the willingness to go to war, that was enforced by drafts all over the globe back then. It was rather the total revamping of the economy, industry and society to support the war against the Nazis and Imperial Japanese. The UK went to rationing, and still people carried on in global struggle. The US produced all of three cars between 41 and 45 (I d have to look up sources here...). And don't even think about the hardships the USSR went through.

And here we are, pampered boomers and millenials, in a society so selfish and profit and status oriented that we are not willing to accept the slightest inconveniences, or god forbid tax increase, to tackle one of the biggest challenges we ever faced.

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> And there lies the difference that made my grandparents generation, albeit on the Allied side of WW2, the greatest generation.

The US was pushed into the war by Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt was in favor of joining the war effort directly but faced isolationist opposition at home. The best he could do was the lend-lease agreement with the UK, which was a hard bargain in the US’s favor.

After the war was joined it was sustained by a massive domestic propaganda campaign (all those iconic WW2 posters? Propaganda)

WW2 and the cold-war era space program represent the zenith of technocratic government in the west. What we have seen since is in many ways 50+ years of failure: social unrest, Vietnam war, inflation, terrorism, more war, financial crisis, pandemic. The government has seemed to be unprepared for all of those. While it’s not what I believe personally, I can understand if someone thinks that government will fail to meet the complex challenge of climate change.

The legislative branch of the US government is so thoroughly disordered that it can effectively pass one single piece of legislation per year through the budget reconciliation process. We trust this group of people and this process to solve climate change, when it will not even take up the more targeted and effective proposals such as a carbon tax?

It was easier for our grand grand parents to understand the issue. A global war is something that hits you on the head, you and everyone else. Climate change doesn't do that. Second, after the war (and before too) life was harder than it is to day, you had to work together. Then the sixties came in with lots of oil and all the richness. So people were just leaving the hardship of pas decades and entering a world where everything was much easier. We are the product of those years. We were born in an easier world (at least in western europe, where several countries had access to their late colonies on top of that)). So I'm afraid we don't know much about working together. We'll have to learn that again.

Hopefully, we could have a very big energy crisis. Unlike COVID, energy price rise affects everyone directly, it's not like "I know somebody who..." (unfortunately, the poorer are hit harder). This would affect everyone and would lead to some social unrest. Not that I wish social unrest, but that is a signal that can't be ignored, even though it is a very slippy slope.

Interestingly, the current spike in gas prices down here puts a lot of politicians in panic mode. Gas price, unlike covid, is the result of human negotiator; you can't invoke "bad luck" or "nature's revenge" or whatever....

we went into war only with reluctance after pearl harbor because japs were blowing our shit up... population was otherwise coming off a long period of isolationism and would not have fought, i think. considerably easier to deal with global warming than that: we have a wide range of latitudes where we can grow crops, lots of natural resources, can throw money at the problem. no need to destroy our lifestyle today

Sometimes I wish climate change was a person, or an idea, that threatened capitalism rather than a scientific phenomenon so that the American propaganda machine would take action to mobilize the American people. Unfortunately, this is not the reality we live in.

The US government has a problem with wasteful spending, not collecting enough money. Higher taxes will just mean more waste.

> Higher taxes will just mean more waste.

Nope. Even if 50% of US taxes are "wasted" on things manigandham doesn't care about, it doesn't follow that increasing taxes would simply all be diverted to things manigandham doesn't care about and thus "wasted".

That's not how ratios work. If 50% is wasted then 50% of new funds would still increase the overall amount.

And waste is defined as money spent that doesn't reach any goals, or even make any progress towards them. It's a very common topic on HN about startups spending capital poorly, and likewise profligate spending can be found everywhere in (US) government. $2T in a decades-long war is a recent example, including the hundreds of billions in equipment and resources left behind.

But surely, you knew what I meant. I wonder how much climate change progress could've been made with all that money. Feel free to donate more with your next tax payment if you want.

There are two problem here, you are conflating them:

1. Government spend on stupid shit like welfare and all the stuff in Paul's Festivus report,

2. Government spend inefficiently paying lot of buraucrats between when dollars are taken in and when they leave goernment.

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