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Comment by kingleopold | Hacker News Reader

That number directly correlates with life quality in almost every country on earth. More energy per capita means higher life quality, without a doubt in every high quality place.

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What about quality of life per watt and just making having a certain standard of living more energy efficient?

Simple examples: energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides, better insulation helps my apartment building retain heat, more efficient electronics mean that my homelab servers pull like 100 W total and public transport probably removes a bunch of cars from the road and increases air quality and decreases traffic jams (I can get everywhere I need that way, there’s literally train, tram and bus stops like 5-15 minutes away).

> energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides

Efficiency is good, but this isn't true. Decades into LED-ification we still suffer shit-tier PWM strobing, poor dimming, disruption to wildlife and human life, and streetlights turning purple en masse.

(The last two are installation and quality issues, but when driven by lowest-bidder compliance with simplistic "efficiency" mandates that's what you get).

Lower color rendering index than incandescent lights too. High CRI LEDs are available, but they're still worse than incandescents and less efficient than the conventional LEDs.

You can do more with less energy, if you use it more efficiently, which sometimes may be more cost effective compared to producing more. Electricity consumption peaked in Germany in 2007 and is down 15% since then while GDP grew by 50%.

Also energy consumption per capita is more than 2x higher in the US compared to Germany, while quality of life should be roughly similar. (In my personal opionion quality of life is better in Germany).

There must be a cap where quality of life is good enough though, right? Or do you propose it should go up indefinitely?

Air conditioning is quite nice if you find yourself living in a hot environment, for example. But do we really all need smart watches? Or cameras everywhere? Or LLMs, for that matter?

Do smart watches and cameras and llms increase quality of life?

That depends entirely on how you measure quality of life. Though I'd argue that if quality of life measures didn't noticeably increase after those products were released, then I'd say no.

I'd argue quality of life is down since the invention of smartphones

> There must be a cap where quality of life is good enough though, right?

Maybe in some hypothetical future, but even the fantastical world Star Trek TNG has improvements on quality of life that could be made.

I think part of the problem of today lands on the post-cold war and certainly post-911 media landscape. There just aren't optimistic future. Distopia is more popular and certainly more numerous than Utopia.

I'd argue that we have to find some level of "enough" when it comes to quality of life, likely a balance between incremental improvements vs the costs to get there.

Effectively all history of life was focused entirely on finding food, water, maybe shelter and safety, and breeding. Where do we draw the line and stop making new things just because we can?

I have nothing to base this on so its just a hunch, but I'd expect quality of life would increase for many people today by removing, rather than adding. Work a little less, buy a little less, have fewer distractions, etc.

In rich countries, energy usage for a middle-class lifestyle isn't really rising anymore, and in some places is falling significantly (homes are _way_ more thermally efficient than they used to be, all appliances are more efficient, cars are more efficient, and so on).

Energy use per capita will continue to rise in the medium term globally, but it's stable to slightly down over the last few decades in the US, say.

OK some people should use less energy

You say that like it’s an infinitely scalable proposition? It really isn’t.

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