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Comment by asah | Hacker News Reader

Environmental damage is real sure, but conservation and deprivation inspire nobody and aren't politically practical. The obvious conclusion is that the solution lies in some form of geoengineering, with $trillion budget to modify the Earth to suit billions of humans enjoying comfortable lifestyles.

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Until we demonstrate the ability to actually perform meaningful feats of geoengineering and the sustained willingness to commit trillions of dollars to it, this proposal is basically science fiction

The same is true for any proposal that involves half of the world reducing their living standard to match those below the median.

For reference, the median per capita household income is a little under $3000/year [0].

[0]: https://www.zippia.com/advice/average-income-worldwide/

Just noting that realistic or not, this solution is probably desirable by ~4 Billion humans. I’m not sure the (not less fantaisist) geoengineering solution is even comparable in term of popularity.

No disagreement, but we don't have a choice. Even if every westerner agrees to deprive ourselves of modernity, the rest of the world will not oblige, and they have >5x the population, all demanding smartphones, TVs, meat, AI, fast fashion, imported goods and much more.

Deprivation is guaranteed to fail, so I'm betting on innovation.

Our current way of living is a deprivation. The popularity of homesteading fantasies bespeaks the desire for a very different and less self-destructive way of life.

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