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Comment by hospitalJail | Hacker News Reader

I like that this trend of realizing that our hedonism is causing environmental damage.

Hollywood is a great example of frivolous waste that is producing movies that will never be watched by anyone in 100 years. Not to mention provides little to negative value right now. If there wasnt infinite entertainment, you could argue that hedonism is the correct ethical system and we should invest into entertainment, but there is enough entertainment to last multiple lifetimes.

We can probably expand this to things like coffee, but you could argue that it provides value.

How about firework shows? Veblen goods?

Would love to see low-impact entertainment become a thing.

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Just want to say how lame that is. What's the point of even living then? Why not think about how we can enjoy life sustainability and pragmatically instead of doing without for essentially religious reasons. This doesn't mean pretending to be happy while not doing stuff, it means finding ways to do what we want in such a way that our kids can do it to. Otherwise we might as well strip mine everything now and then shut down into the kind of lifestyle zealots are proposing. Some kind of pious self denial is as old as society I guess, but it doesn't help anything. What kind of a defeatist society do we have that people advocate giving up?

That is far more extreme than I was implying.

Why not play the million video games that already have been released? Why not read the million books that have been released? Watch the TV shows and movies that have already been released?

When you are done consuming all of them, you will be dead multiple times over.

All these examples of “living” involve being in a single location while being completely sedentary, something I would say most people would get very tired of quickly.

Everyone here seems to miss the point. The point is that a large population of the world (and likely almost everyone on this forum) live an over hedonistic/decadent lifestyle that overconsumes and contributes to environment destruction. The fact that most people can't seem to grasp that astounds me. This being a more politically liberal crowd whike being generally more wealthy crowd and consumerist is also striking. It seems like every day there is a new post about the climate change and the comments are quick to point fingers towards the fossil fuel conglomerate yet nobody ever confesses their excessive consumption that fuels thise conglomerates. Everyone here is too busy trying to sell their software that doesn't really do anything positive for world.

To your point directly, it is totally possible to "live" in a single location. Nobody said anything about being sedentary. There are many ways to make oneself useful every day. But if you live in New Mexico, maybe fresh salmon from the grocery store isn't an option society needs. These things are nice, not necessary, and it wasn't that long ago that we all got along fine without all the options required to feed every hedonistic impulse we have.

On mobile. Writing is probably fucked up. Sue me.

Why should you take away my chance to -create- any of those too tho?

To save the planet? Meh

There are plenty of things we don't let people create because of their harm or risk of harm. You're not allowed to create a nuclear or chemical weapon, for instance. And, no matter how much your artistic soul desires it, you're probably not allowed to create a snuff film.

why read new books, we have plenty of old ones. those authors could be slaving away for the planet

8 billions living a western lifestyle was always going to be a catastrophe and those praying to st. Technology to bail them out for that catastrophe, are hardend anti social creatures future generations have every right to attack.

Hedonism isn't necessarily the enemy, as one can take hedonistic enjoyment from low-impact activities. And indeed many common pastimes are already in that category.

Your point about realization is key, I think. The awareness of the consequences of various activities and choices. Which somewhat relies upon translating those consequences into metrics that ordinary people can easily grasp.

For example, in some countries, it's law that smoking tobacco must be sold in packaging which includes graphic imagery of surgical outcomes from tobacco use. Staring a diseased organ in the face (so to speak!) every time you have a cigarette is an easily grasped metric.

Perhaps other industries should fall under similar controls. Airline tickets with images of ???. Petrol pumps with ???. But of course, therein lie long battles between different interest and commercial groups. Or, as in tobacco's case, for the situation to progress to sufficiently large and undeniable quantities of deaths and disease, such that action becomes a belated but foregone conclusion.

Hacker News Man wants to ban the entertainment options of millions because they are a "frivolous waste". Coming soon, list of entertainment options that are not wasteful, and thus should be allowed for the masses ("low impact entertainment", as defined by Hacker News Man's impact metrics).

How about proposing better ways to price externalities, if applicable, to the entertainment options and then let people decide whether they are willing to pay for the impact (by, perhaps, working towards eliminating or reversing said impact).

The individual hedonism of the common person, even the extreme examples like in this article, are a drop in the bucket compared to industrial manufacturing, shipping and power generation.

And not for lack of advancements in those fields, no, but for the sake of filling the coffers of shareholders.

The hedonism that's destroying all we love isn't watching movies or drinking coffee, it's unchecked greed - hoarding of capital.

At the end of the day, consumers are using the things that require

"industrial manufacturing, shipping and power generation."

It's easier to tackle the problem at the source, consumers will adapt to say making single use plastics more expensive for manufacturers, but probably not a campaign asking them to use less single use plastics.

Consumers require the end result, we (as a collective) generally don't care how we get it.

I want my home to have electricity - that doesn't require that it comes from a coal plant spewing fly ash and carbon into the air. That decision is made by someone who stands to gain less money if the transition to cleaner sources is made.

It strikes me that concerns with “sustainability” like this may be a bit passé given the population of humans is very likely to peak, and decline soon. That solves myriad problems.

> ...producing movies that will never be watched by anyone in 100 years.

I'd say you're optimistic: US copyright on works for hire expires 95 years after first publication.

will you be providing us with a list of acceptably cheap entertainments?

> We can probably expand this to things like coffee, but you could argue that it provides value.

why should anyone need coffee, when they can just take caffeine pills?

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