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Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

> we really had two options to reduce CO2: massive decrease in standard of living

We could cut a looooot of useless shit before our standard of living are impacted. And for the things we can't do without we have huge margins to improve.

I feel like a lot of people think "any kind of concession or compromise is an unbearable attack on my god given rights to do whatever the fuck I want whenever the fuck I want", if that's your point of view then of course, we can do absolutely nothing about climate change

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> We could cut a looooot of useless shit before our standard of living are impacted.

Do tell.

Let's start by not being so diligent on Diesel passenger cars' emissions, unregulated CFC production in China, not investing in PUE reduction sooner, not forcing effective filtering in coal power plants in some countries.

We can continue with (un)controlled deforestation for mining and palm oil (and increasing its use despite its health hazards), uncontrolled tapping of natural water resources just to sell it as bottled water (remember Nestlé CEO doesn't believe that water is a human right because they can sell it).

Let's add burning petrol wells, untapped methane leaks, oil companies' lobbying to slow down EV adoption, etc. etc. etc...

More on EVs & cars: Formula 1 cars are hybrids way before passenger cars were. This tech would have trickled down way earlier in history. SAAB made 4-cylinter Turbocharged 9-3 and made a compelling, powerful car for everyone, but everyone, esp. US. opted for V8s for "manly" reasons.

...lastly, let's not get started on single-use plastics and how we have been deceived with this arrowy-triangle and recycling.

We had the chance.

P.S.: I keep adding things, but there's also planned obsolescence. e.g.: I have a perfectly fine BT headphone with great sound quality, but I can't replace its battery without destroying it. How being able to replace its battery impacts my quality of life?

Do we need 40 car companies working on the same problem ?

Do we need 40 PC companies releasing 20 new laptops each every year ?

Do we need 40 smartphone makers releasing 20 new phones each every year ?

Do we need humongous cars requiring humongous engines, humongous brake pads and tires (massive source of pollution)

How is using a three tonnes metal cage to displace your 80kg ass three miles efficient ?

Do we need earbuds with soldered batteries ? The earbuds should be good for decades but the soldered battery is toast after a few years, same for laptops

Do we need fast fashion and shitty gadgets from china ? 20%+ of france's post packages comes from shein/temu, that's an insane waste of resource and energy: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/vente-en-ligne-temu-et-...

&c.

Take a few steps back and look around you, what the fuck are we even doing ? 80% of all that shit isn't actually bringing anything in term of quality of life

I was unable to find the comment now, but a comment about fabric quality bothers me to this day:

Paraphrased: "The clothes had longer lives back then, because we were unable to weave fabric that thin (i.e. low quality). Since we can do now, we do it."

IOW: Things are more expensive and lower quality, because we want you to buy more things and spend more, so we can make more monies.

You guys would have been really happy in the Soviet Union. Planned economies sound great on paper, I guess. (Though, to make my point: the standard of living there was below that of the West.)

I mean if the choice is between living with Soviet standard of living and burning in a wildfire, the choice sounds obvious.

Note that no one has argued for a planned economy.

Yeah because everything is binary and if you reject any bit of consumerism your dream is obviously to live in a gulag.

This place is filled with very smart dumb people...

Or, you can go full CERN. Two teams, same problem, under NDA except their teammates.

In CERN LHC teams, every problem is assigned to two groups, and their sensors are placed on the opposite ends of the accelerator relative to each other. Both starts from scratch, come up with completely different approaches to the same problem, and solve it independently, verifying each other in the process.

Higgs Boson is found by two teams, one week apart, independently verifying that it exists. You can apply this to any grand challenge. Space, AI, etc. Create two super-teams, NDA them, give them money and let loose.

Do we need trucks transporting tons of sugary water all over the place?

Do we need to smelt energy intensive aluminium for useless trinkets and gadgets?

Do we need to work energy intensive steel for useless trinkets and gadgets?

Do we need disposables vapes?

Do we need the flood of useless junk on Amazon and Alibaba that breaks after a couple of uses?

Do we need fast-food places selling meat?

Do we need fast-food?

Do we need fast fashion?

Do we need all the ultra-processed foods like crisps, candies, cookies, etc.?

etc etc etc

So the question I want to know is what the fuck do we even need in this world?

I think the answer quickly becomes nothing. Just eat food, sleep somewhere safe and wait for something to kill you.

We need shelter, food and a place to cook our food.

We need to be healthy, so we need medical help and assistance.

We need education.

We need friends and communities.

We need entertainment.

We need hope in the future.

> I think the answer quickly becomes nothing

That's exactly what I'm talking about lmao, people like you just completely lack the imagination, as if uber food delivery, 4 hours of netflix a day and buying a new iphone every year was the end game of humanity...

What about job security, healthcare, a community, a fulfilling job, &c. ? None of this requires soon to be e-waste tech gadgets, cheap cloth made from the most vile fabric known to mankind, huge SUV doing 0-60mph in 3s

Sure we got saved from polio and famines, instead we now die from lack of exercise, depression and obesity, that's not even the worst part, we're doing this while permanently fucking up our planet.

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