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Comment by kurthr | Hacker News Reader

Have you seen the air in "easter-style societies"? I'm thinking of India and China as the two largest non-western populations in the world totaling a bit less than half. To take a Socratic turn: Do you think that air pollution comes from solar or renewable use? How has the increase in low cost labor and manufacturing affected consumption? Was this driven by governments or individuals and what is "non-western" about them or is everything western society now?

I'm all for making democracy better, but arguing for authoritarian solutions seems a path to war, destruction, and far greater ecological toll than all but the most extreme (lets bring on the end times) parties in western politics.

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This is, at best, a weak reading of the comment. Of all the damaging and un-ecological features of Western society, in a comment about climate change, the personal automobile and the effects thereof should top everybody's list.

You've taken this as a chance to farm karma and dunk on China and authoritarianism, but reading GP's comment in good faith, per the HN guidelines, suggests we need better transit, more walkable cities, and the ability to move people and their purchases without taking 3 tons of steel along for the ride. Think smaller vehicles like South-East Asia (Thailand, Veitnam), available and reliable transit (Hong Kong), and the ability to get someplace without dying, on foot (Japan)

East vs West doesn't need to always boil down to "China and Chinese allies bad". Sometimes it can be a chance for reflection, and to see where we could do better.

Last time I arrived in LAX I remember wanting to take public transport or walk down town. I actually tried to walk from LAX to find some public transport . You’re not actually “allowed”. There is like no path to follow. I ended up in a cab after waiting like an hour for a bus which was full when it arrived.

Perhaps you were on the wrong (upper) level? There are 24hr airport terminal shuttle busses that loop LAX and multiple ways to take public transport to DTLA (eg FlyAway busses at terminals 4-7, which might have been full?). You can also take a 10min Lyft to the Mariposa MetroC and take trains all the way to downtown. I've never heard of it being full.

Generally, Google Maps works in LA even if the distances are long and infrastructure lacking. The same cannot be said for the Shanghai Pudong Airport (PDX) and getting PuXi (anywhere in the main city west of the HangPu river). I mean, I like the maglev, but it's really the only "public transport" and since it was never completed, it doesn't go anywhere convenient. Everyone takes taxis everywhere.

The FlyAway bus terminal had a line like a like a mile long, and I waited there for about 45 minutes before anything showed up.

In the end I just got a Lyft down to Santa Monica for some lunch between flights (I had a 6 hour lay over). I was hoping to get on a fast train or something.

I see all sorts of problems with the "western" (as if the Americas much less Europe and the US and/or Africa could be painted with that broad a brush) consumer economics led growth. I also see problems with "eastern" (as if China and India, Japan/Malaysia/Indonesia etc are all very similar) production led growth (eg mercantilism). The imbalances caused by the combination of these have led to have not only increased inequality (especially local), lowered efficiency (increased total waste and consumption), but also risk to actual global stability. Perhaps questions about this should not be posed?

Your statement, "reading GP's comment in good faith, per the HN guidelines, suggests we need better transit, more walkable cities, and the ability to move people and their purchases without taking 3 tons of steel along for the ride", is to be found nowhere in the one sentence comment I responded to.

I find the commentary on my reading of the comment and karma farming odd, the conflation of China with India strange, and the acceptance (glorification?) of authoritarianism bizarre. How are cars western when the people who build and drive them not? Why is that not also a personal decision? Why shouldn't authoritarianism be criticized? Please justify why only democracies should "reform" themselves with something greater than personal decisions/votes. Why do people in all parts of the world not have both responsibility and agency? Why is self aware analysis of commentary for me (and the author of the original post) and not for thee. We can do better.

We includes everyone in this conversation. Please reflect on that. Try going somewhere in HK new territories (outside the city), in Japan outside Tokyo, or in Shanghai from the Pudong airport. I have and without cars and maybe busses they are miserable. LAX sucks, and it's better.

> I see all sorts of problems with the "western" (as if the Americas much less Europe and the US and/or Africa could be painted with that broad a brush) consumer economics led growth.

Then, surely you agree with the OP, who wrote for reference “We could also choose to reform political and economic systems that make western-style societies so un-ecological”.

There was no comparison with anything other than what western society could be, no need to get the Chinese bogeyman.

I am European. I have no clue about how to fix India, for example, because I don’t know the country enough. I don’t really want to live there, or in China, because I think that for all their flaws, life in European democracies is rather good. I am still advocating for “reform[ing] political and economic systems that make western-style societies so un-ecological”. What is the problem in that?

Why assume nastiness when reading other people’s posts?

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