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Comment by kalenx | Hacker News Reader

By this logic, having a car in 2025 is "just completely unreasonable". Taking plane in 2025 is "just completely unreasonable". Use of AC unless life threatening circumstances is "just completely unreasonable". Wasting rainwater and use drinkable water to wash your car (or yourself, actually) is "just completely unreasonable". Eating cashew/almond or other highly water intensive crops grown in a dried out area (California...) is "just completely unreasonable".

Note that apart from the rainwater one, I do none of the above, so I'm not even pleading for myself and my "way of life". I'm just showing how easy it is to boldly state that "it is obvious, we just all have to be reasonable" while, in fact, _not_ being "reasonable" yourself.

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Yes! I'm not sure what the your intended upshot here is, but those absolutely would be beneficial changes in behavior and are perfectly in line with prevailing recommendations of ways behaviors need to change to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, and related recommendations more broadly in line with environmental conservation and public health.

Far from a counterpoint, they testify to the reasonableness of the request in this instance, of stepping away from factory farming, because it belongs to a class of similar and well respected recommendations. Getting people to actually change their behavior is an important issue, and the purpose of recognizing it should be to reckon with it in a serious way rather that use it to tee up complaints about hypocrisy that seem to imply the futility of doing anything.

The thing is, I'm not arguing against the fact (yes, the fact) that doing this would beneficial. I'm saying that stating how "simple" and "reasonable" are these actions is missing the point.

Again, not a personal attack, but do you follow all of these actions (I could add more similar ones)? Do you own or use a car? Have you ever taken a flight? Went on a cruise? Ate cashews or almond milk? If so, why are you doing this? Why are you (to use the terms stated by OP), so unreasonable, unwilling to do so simple things for your children?

I'm not saying that any action is futile, but that the cost (monetary or otherwise) to take them is _vastly_ underestimated and basically swept under the rug with arguments of reasonableness and simplicity.

And, just to restate, I am not defending my own lifestyle, it's not an emotional argument to make for me.

I might have missed something, but I don't see anyone suggesting such changes are easy. If anything, I feel like I'm seeing opposite arguments, imploring people to understand that we're working against human nature.

My concern is that both sides are frustratingly obvious and are corrections in search of someone or something to be corrected. I don't think that anything you're saying is strictly wrong, but I think it's baffling to offer in this context where it seems to be a counterpoint in a room full of people who already agree with it (except for maybe that I-want-my-cheeseburgers-at-any-price guy). This is what I mean about Learned Sage comments, and I think the fix is to cover your bases with charitable interpretation.

Not sure what's your point though. I do think people will always do "some" unreasonable things, but doing all reasonable things at once and as much as we can is probably not smart so we should at least discuss it. How large should a burger be? How many times per day should you wash your car? What temperature should you use for your AC? Don't know, but if someone tells me they eat 1kg burger at each meal, they wash their car 3 times a day and they put the AC to 15 in the summer I would tell them they are not reasonable and that they can enjoy life better if they change a bit their habits.

This, I absolutely agree with. Yes, there are small things you can do which (collectively) _can_ have an impact.

I'm arguing against : "So you know you are killing us in so many ways, and you can't be arsed to eat less meat? Aren't you supposed to care about us?"

You can replace "to eat less meat" by basically a thousand different "reasonable" things. Does that mean that _literally everyone on earth_ is willingly "killing their children and not caring about them"?

I really dislike those arguments patronizing everyone. They achieve nothing -- actually quite the contrary, at _best_ they do nothing for someone who do not feel targeted, at worst they turn people against your cause. There's a difference between stating that each of us can and should take action because those are needed and saying that everyone not doing X is a child killer. If someone suggest that I should stop drinking almond milk, I would consider it. If they introduce this by telling how ashamed I should be and how my children will hate me for this -- but not for long since they will soon be dead anyway because of me -- well, maybe I'll just ignore an otherwise perfectly reasonable and fact-based suggestion.

Definitely it should not be patronizing. Presentation was so bad for various important topics (burning fossil fuels, nutrition habits, sex stuff, etc.).

Still, personally I try to let myself challenged even if the argument is patronizing. I don't want to say "I will not do X because you made a patronizing argument!". But for the cases I conclude it is actually a good idea, I will try to explain to the people making the argument "you would have convinced me easier if communicated like this".

I call this bad faith. You're right, living the way we live is unsustainable. That's why almost all species are dying, and that's not yet a consequence of global warming. Now, some things are harder to change than others, and have more or less impact.

Stopping to eat meat/fish is probably the one thing that is reasonably easy, cheap (vegetarian food is globally cheaper), and would have a huge impact.

Well, humans and other omnivores species do need the rapport of animal diet.

And raising cattle dates from the dawn of civilization. It was sustainable tens of thousands of years and suddenly became unsustainable in the last ten years?

> It was sustainable tens of thousands of years and suddenly became unsustainable in the last ten years?

You really don't have a clue how it works, do you? I'm genuinely concerned.

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