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Comment by schnevets | Hacker News Reader

and are completely oblivious to the costs of their way of life (and certainly won't listen to a politician who mentions the existence of such cost)

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Or they believe the costs are worth it. Trying to convince people to support extraordinary lifestyle changes requires extraordinary evidence that the net result will be positive.

Well how did we convince people to stop throwing human waste out the window, pay for installing sewer pipes and using soap?

> Or they believe the costs are worth it.

The costs are more than likely paid by others, which is why they're oblivious.

Far easier than convincing them would be to stop subsidizing them, sprawling car dependent suburbs are a giant money sink that the people living in them rarely pay for.

If innovation can't happen until the ignorant are enlightened we're never going to see innovation.

Yeah, let’s impose our benevolent superior ideas on the ignorant majority. I’m sure no one has tried that before and it has never lead any country into dictatorship.

Often the majority is very ignorant. You don't need to jump to dictatorships to change their mind, marketing and innovation have proved more than enough

Innovation is all around you. It's just not the type of innovation that requires elected government officials to participate (and in a way that will frustrate some of their supporters).

You're likely reading this on a device that was invented while plenty of ignorant people were still not enlightened.

I completely agree and that's almost my entire point. Innovation that depends on the ignorant being enlightened is almost impossible to accomplish - innovation needs to work around ignorance and accomplish itself through smaller steps that provide benefits to everyone. I really wish this weren't the case as it gives immense momentum to doing things the wrong way - but it's something we need to cope with.

(I admit I may have worded my comment a bit better with a "that" - 'If innovation can't happen until the ignorant are enlightened we're never going to see that innovation.')

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