Energy Is a Form Giver
worldsensorium.com
worldsensorium.com
> "The global annual temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.08°C per decade since 1880 and over twice that rate (0.18°C per decade) since 1981. The 2020 Northern Hemisphere land and ocean surface temperature was the highest in the 141-year record at +1.28°C above average." (NOAA)
Practically, this means that at least as much effort needs to be spent on adaptation to new conditions as needs to be spent on replacing fossil fuels with renewables. These conditions include increased floods and droughts and heat waves (due to increase in atmospheric water vapor and its various chaotic effects) relative to human civilization history, and inexorable sea level rise on the longer term.
The 'positive messaging' advocates who say that stating this is discouraging and causes people to lose hope are simply wrong. It's better to think of it as a challenging reality. Adaptation is possible to some extent (termite architecture for example), and of course the sooner fossil fuels are eliminated from the energy mix the slower the changes will be. Also, don't buy property in flood plains or right on the coastline, or on debris flow zones, or in wildfire-prone areas, and don't complain about recycling urine for drinking water either.
As we have sowed, so shall we reap.
Yet for some reason many people seem to have a visceral rejection of a future like that. What is it motivated by? How could it be possible to make the idea of high-density living more accepted by the public?
The second it becomes a possibility, a significant percentage of people will flee the things that they have difficulty tolerating, simply because they no longer need to tolerate it.
This is people everywhere, dense or sparse—the difference is that in a denser city you have the ability to choose to engage with people who satisfy your standards, unlike a small town or suburbia where it is more about whom you happened to have living nearby (count them on your fingers) and whom you have to acknowledge whether you like them and agree with their mores or not.
I find this much more of an issue psychologically in smaller towns and countryside, where each individual ends up knowing much more about each other because there’s just no way around it (and whom sparseness and subsequent lack of things to do pushes to alcoholism, drugs and other vices). In a denser area I physically couldn’t care what each of the hundreds of strangers I come across every day does in their spare time, people tend to follow a certain protocol in public interactions, law enforcement is more efficient due to constrained area, and it generally feels safer and more respectful of my attention and privacy as a result.
Problems like degraded mental health (and resulting substance abuse, high crime rate, etc.) can probably be exacerbated and contagious in denser areas but I think they are more prevalent in sparser ones.
I know this is unpopular with the young childfree techie demographic of HN, but to many people, what you're proposing sounds like a human termite colony. The downtown high-rise lifestyle is great for careerists and twentysomethings whose life consists of work, happy hour, and dog parks, but most people want a little space and peace and quiet as they get older, especially if they want to raise a family.
The desire to be left alone is strong. An existence of listening to your neighbors pound on your walls and ceiling and being beholden to a condo association full of petty tyrants just doesn't appeal to a large group of people. I lived in urban apartments for most of my adult life. Since moving to a semi-rural house a few years ago, my mental health is vastly improved.
Now the trees are so thin you can see the neighbors large trucks and hear them all hours of the day.
Wanting peace and quiet is reasonable, but I don't think the only answer for it is perpetual sprawl.
I don't know what the solution to sprawl is. I was merely answering the question of why everyone isn't on board with the high-rise lifestyle. "Just put everyone in skyscrapers" is one of those obvious solutions that fails to account for human nature. People aren't widgets that can just be "put" somewhere.
The "put" thing comes from my perception that you think the only reason someone could disagree with you on this is because they're misinformed. Maybe I've got you all wrong, but that mindset tends to eventually feel justified in forcing people to do things "for their own good".
I'll reply to your other comment here so we don't have to juggle multiple threads of conversation:
Anecdotally, my experience of cities vs. small towns has been the opposite of yours. Almost every apartment complex I've lived in has had one "nosy neighbor" that insists on gossiping about everyone's affairs and causing drama with everyone they can sink their social hooks into. But that's not really relevant--you prefer cities and I prefer small towns. That's fine. I'm perfectly happy for everyone to live in whichever of those suits them best, or some other arrangement. You're the one who wants to prescribe a one-size-fits-all lifestyle for everyone.
Would you want to stop using disposable plastic straws because of how awesome paper straws are? No. Would you want to stop using them if it was required to stop microplastics from appearing in your blood stream and organ tissue? Let’s imagine a positive answer for a moment.
Now, apparently there are people who consider abandoning plastic straws absolutely hands-down unthinkable sacrilege. So the natural question is: why? Let’s pretend their refusal to ditch plastic straws actually hurts not only theirs but also your own body and bodies of your children, so you really want to find out the answer.
Eventually we might find out that some people really hate paper straws because they become soggy quickly and give paper taste to their drinks. While I don’t think either argument against paper straws (which are, incidentally, not the only alternative) outweighs the harm from the prevalence of single-use plastic straws, I can at least understand the reasoning because I, too, can notice the taste and the sogginess.
That’s one analogy; so I want to know what that argument is with regards to high-density living. The arguments I heard so far are mostly misguided (no forests nearby!), refer to problems not specific to high density living (nosy neighbors!), and such.
> Many people know from experience what that life entails and want nothing to do with it.
Every time I talk about it in various crowds, online and off, all counter-arguments come exclusively from people who grew up in suburbia, smaller or sprawling low-density towns and cities, and they have a very skewed picture that is mostly a product of their imagination. If you have lived in a well-planned high-density (say at least 20 thousand people per square kilometer of residential area) city, you’d be the first!
> And yes, that includes the idealized fantasy version you present in other comments, even if that actually existed
As I wrote, the technology to live comfortably with little footprint is here—I didn’t mention it’s applied in practice much less evenly distributed.
And it is not applied in practice because it’s not popular, so such areas are simply not built.
And it’s not popular… Because? This is the question we’re addressing here. So let’s see what is the argument from you, as someone who lived in high-density urban areas with apparently adverse experience that is unique to those areas.
> Almost every apartment complex I've lived in has had one "nosy neighbor" that insists on gossiping about everyone's affairs and causing drama with everyone they can sink their social hooks into.
Did you ever have an issue with neighbors in sparser areas (like low rise apartment buildings or standalone housing)? I’ve had plenty. Shady people hanging around, people renting out flats or standalone houses to loud party goers, etc. Could it be that it isn’t about high or low density but about something else, like crime rates, mental health care, regulation of short term rentals, education availability, unemployment levels, poverty?
By the way, in my experience it’s significantly more acute in lower density suburbia and sparse cities because there’s few enough people that it feels not only rude to not engage but also unsafe because if a person whom you can expect to see periodically turns out to be unstable there may be no witnesses and/or the police may be too far away to respond in timely manner.
To sum up, while it doesn’t have much to do with higher density living, this is the only argument on the substance that you have put forward. Thanks!
> But that's not really relevant--you prefer cities and I prefer small towns. That's fine.
Not really, no. Assuming limiting humanity’s footprint is the only feasible option in the future, people like you will either be highly uncomfortable or sabotage the future of the planet. Neither is a good outcome.
It's not an "unthinkable sacrilege", it's a fart in the wind. It's something that politicians and trendy restaurant owners do to make themselves feel like they're solving a problem while making zero effort. The reality is that it doesn't make the tiniest dent in the problem. Classic slacktivism.
> The arguments I heard so far are mostly misguided (no forests nearby!), refer to problems not specific to high density living (nosy neighbors!), and such.
Maybe I want to live in the forest. Yes I know, that's terrible because I and the rest of humanity are a blight upon the earth that must be contained, right?
Here are just a few problems that are definitely more prevalent in high-density areas: piss-soaked front steps on my building, high traffic (yes, I'm sure you have a "car free" solution to this, which is undoubtedly just as unappealing as the rest of your cosmopolitan utopia), neighbors pounding on my walls, and being accosted for money every time I walk outside. I could go on.
> the technology to live comfortably with little footprint is here
In another comment you explain that "comfort" means to you "suitable temperature and humidity, clean air, soft bed, clean water and so on". If your mindset is such that you think that's what people like me are worried about, then I'm not sure you're even capable of understanding what we're actually worried about. Suffice it to say that I am not interested in being an interchangeable unit of economic production to be kept in a neat little pod by my technocratic betters. Yes, even if it has "suitable temperature and humidity" LMAO. Do you actually think that the only thing humans want out of life is for their physical needs to be met?
> such areas are simply not built.
Exactly, so you don't even know if they would have all the wonderful attributes you extol. How about you go build one, and we'll see? Prove your idea and watch people come, instead of herding all of humanity into an experiment.
> Did you ever have an issue with...
No, I actually haven't. But like I said, it doesn't matter. I don't doubt that other people have these negative experiences, and they're free to go somewhere that they would be happier. Remember, I'm not the one trying to dictate where people can live. If you prefer cities, then by all means, live in one! I'll stay in my small town. Win-win.
I'm not sure why you're trying so hard to convince people of the benefits of city life. It's clear that if you had the authority, you'd herd them all into your skyscrapers whether they like it or not. Why waste your energy pretending that you care what people want or have any respect for their autonomy?
This is about sustainability—i.e., the opposite of what you wrote. “Unsustainable” means “bad later”. The point is that sprawl is bad for the humanity, but if you see humanity as blight then letting it sprawl is probably the faster way to exterminate it.
> How about you go build one, and we'll see?
They already exist, go to Singapore or a few other places and see.
> Maybe I want to live in the forest.
The fact that you want to buy a gun and walk around with it shooting people wouldn’t make it an OK thing to do, and doesn’t mean it suddenly falls within the accepted meaning of the word “comfort” (though admittedly it is an analogy, which based on your first paragraph you may have trouble understanding).
> But like I said, it doesn't matter.
And like I said, it actually does. Not to you, of course, but to your children and grandchildren. Shutting your ears and shouting doesn’t make this issue go away, sorry.
Where is your evidence for this? This is nothing but a supposition.
> They already exist, go to Singapore or a few other places and see.
Ah yes, the country that maintains the peace by handing out the death penalty for 30 grams of cocaine. Truly a model society. On a side note, you should make up your mind about whether these places exist or not.
> The fact that you want to buy a gun and walk around with it shooting people wouldn’t make it an OK thing to do, and doesn’t mean it suddenly falls within the accepted meaning of the word “comfort” (though admittedly it is an analogy, which based on your first paragraph you may have trouble understanding).
LMAO. This deliberately emotionally charged "analogy" is only relevant if you've bothered to first establish that rural living is harmful to others, which you haven't even attempted to do. You expect me to take it for granted that a cabin in the woods spells Armageddon, and that the only remedy is for all of humanity to hand over their autonomy to people like you.
Thankfully you're a nobody, and I can go happily about my day knowing you'll never be entrusted with the tiniest fraction of the authority necessary to carry out this disgusting plan :)
We’re talking about the article. The interviewee thinks so. I agree. We have to agree on this or it’s pointless to argue. I believe it is blindingly obvious, personally.
> if you've bothered to first establish that rural living is harmful to others
It is, from what I’ve seen. People bore themselves to drink, drugs. IMO suburban hell is one of the big reasons US has so many mentally ill people shooting other people. Too much time to be locked away from wider community, with just yourself and a couple of other people. Existence in your own little reservation, and outside of it locking yourself into a metal box on wheels.
> You expect me to take it for granted
It is the premise of the argument. Disagree on the premise and there’s no point.
And he also provided no evidence. He cites a few facts about climate change and then makes a massive logical leap to "everyone needs to move to the city". No attempt to imagine how current lifestyles could be adapted (not forcibly uprooted) to meet environmental needs. Just the lazy false dichotomy of "move to the city or destroy the planet".
> It is, from what I’ve seen.
Nobody cares. From what I've seen, it isn't. Anecdote, meet anecdote. I'm not trying to force people to live differently based on my personal opinion. You are. See the difference?
I also find it absolutely baffling that you think cities don't have massive problems with drug addiction, mental illness, and forms of general life dissatisfaction like boredom and existential angst. I would think someone who loves living in them as much as you do would be well acquainted with, you know, the realities of living in them. You describe them as places where everyone is happy, temperate, and full of purpose. Where is this gleaming city full of self-actualized ubermensch that I've somehow never heard of? You're describing a fantasy.
He was not asked for evidence. Think why.
> Nobody cares
Many people do. You don’t. We get it. Hopefully you don’t have any descendants or sociopathy runs strong enough in you that foreseeing their distress does not cause you any.
> I also find it absolutely baffling that you think cities don't have massive problems with drug addiction, mental illness, and forms of general life dissatisfaction like boredom and existential angst
These things characterize some cities. They also characterize some suburban communities. If you think about it, it will transpire that the actual problem is not density but other factors (such as the history of slave ownership and resulting immigration/assimilation issues catching up).
My experience is of course anecdotal, like yours, but I have observed much fewer of these issues, in proportion to population numbers, in well-designed dense areas than I did even in gentrified suburbia.
Because he has none, obviously. I'm sorry, was this supposed to be witty? If the author's conclusions are so obvious then presenting evidence should be easy.
> Many people do. You don’t.
I'm obviously talking about your personal negative experience of small town life. Argue about the environmental effects of urban sprawl all you want, but trust me when I say that precisely zero people are going to move to the city because you didn't like your neighbors that one time you lived in suburbia. That's what nobody gives a shit about. Do you realize how staggeringly narcissistic it is to present that as a reason other people should abandon rural life?
"Chocolate ice cream should be outlawed because it's bad for the environment AND because I don't like the way it tastes."
Do you not see anything patently fucking ridiculous about that statement?
On the contrary, I think your dislike is quite popular, hence my comment.
Re your termite colony analogy, yes you can draw a metaphor between humans and pretty much any animal or insect.
You can also draw an analogy between countryside dwelling humans and beavers; is that also bad? Or are beavers inherently better in some way that the analogy doesn’t rub you wrong?
I think we humans are indeed quite similar to ants, termites, bees in the way we are social and cooperative—and living in higher density would in fact be quite in line with that.
> The desire to be left alone is strong.
I feel much more alone and free in a city than in a little town or village (e.g., where I was brought up) where you know—have to know—everyone and engage in a polite talk, or be perceived as rude and subsequently excluded. I can also feel not alone if I wanted to, because meeting with someone I know is easier to arrange due to proximity.
Do they? Or do they merely allow us to live. Comfort for me includes looking out of my living room window and seeing the next door cat silently hunting among the trees or just sitting in a tree looking at me. It includes being able to relax in my garden full of buzzing insects and not hear any other sounds.
Do we really need to end up living in some poorly imagined version of a science fiction peak population hell?
By “comfort” I meant literal objective comfort (suitable temperature and humidity, clean air, soft bed, clean water and so on). Understandably, people can have other preferences—I’d be looking for a higher floor, you’d probably like a ground level floor or (I don’t know if you have seen modern high-rises) a floor next to a garden terrace. On the plus side, you will be more likely to have a cat-owning neighbor.