6 ms·

This seems like a psychological defence against anxiety/depression rather than an actual foundation for real action. You're looking at big, broad patterns and

This seems like a psychological defence against anxiety/depression rather than an actual foundation for real action. You're looking at big, broad patterns and assuming they will work out on the huge scales necessary for civilisation to continue. Other people are looking at the big broad patterns and assuming that cascading failures will make problems accelerate.

starbugs 8y ago
No, it's not. It's a mindset and a positive attitude that is constructive instead of spreading fear and doom, which does not yield any positive outcome at all.
- gns24 8y ago
  I don't see how believing it will all work out fine and not worrying is constructive, yet spreading fear (which might actually encourage people to act) is not.
  - starbugs 8y ago
    I did not say that you should not worry. Still, spreading fear can yield very dangerous decisions.
- tralarpa 8y ago
  > spreading fear and doom, which does not yield any positive outcome at all. That's not true. You are keeping saying that in several of your comments. There are many examples where things have changed because of Spreading fear and doom -> Politicians pass laws -> Industry is forced to react -> New technologies developed/deployed/... What you and some others here are proposing is basically to wait that things crash and then directly jump to the "New technologies" part. Like a child waiting for christmas.
  - starbugs 8y ago
    No that's not what I propose and I also don't think that's what op proposed. If you read the comments again you will see that all that was said is "you won't change the outcome this way", which means that political action alone is not enough. Look at what's happening currently. All that fear and doom may lead to political decisions, but have they changed the carbon level in our atmosphere? You try to regulate something without looking at the overall outcome. If you want to do something, it's much better to do something positive, e.g. passing subsidies for renewable energy tech. I think it doesn't make sense anymore to discuss this here. HN is not a good place to discuss different opinions which could be interpreted as being political. The people with the downvote power decide what's valid and what's not. It's sad as otherwise we could have a fruitful discussion here.
    - tralarpa 8y ago
      > If you want to do something, it's much better to do something positive, e.g. passing subsidies for renewable energy tech. Okay, that makes sense and, even better, also works sometimes. In fact, renwable energy is a good example where incentives can trigger changes (see the solar market in Europe). However, there are also many examples where incentives have not worked, although running for decades, because people are too lazy or because the financial incentives are not big enough. People and (by design) the industry are waiting that the goverment pays and says "please, please, take that money and prevent that we destroy human life for next 100000 years". At some point you have to say "fck you, stop that behavior, otherwise you will kill us all". In my opinion, we are very close to that point with the CO2 level. In contrast, OP seems to suggest that we should continue and hope that some miracle in technology will help us, because saying "Stop that, you idiot" doesn't work, right? The market will fix it and regulations and deep states are bad, right? But the fact is that regulations have worked many times. See leaded petrol, asbestos, catalyzators, pesticides, and basically all laws that we have had in Europe for the protection of the environment in the past 50 years. I am not a child waiting for christmas, but an adult who knows that the parents bought the presents.
      - starbugs 8y ago
        This is different. It's not asbestos or pesticides. What differentiates it is that it's slow death by heating up. Some time in the future. Not now. You can't even measure the success of your political regulations with regard to global carbon emissions on a conceivable time scale. Success is directly measurable for the things that you named. That's not the case here. I don't get why it's necessary to start a left vs. right, regulations vs. non-regulations war on this. This is effectively destroying the discussion about real solutions. I got a completely different impression of op's comment. Namely, that we as humans cannot control everything, but there's ways we can get real progress when we combine our talents to come up with great technical solutions. I doubt that we will be able to turn the clock back, and I wouldn't want to participate in trying. That doesn't mean that we cannot do something positive via political means meanwhile. I'm just saying that evidence suggests it doesn't solve the problem on a global scale and hence is obviously not the whole solution.
- boomlinde 8y ago
  How is it constructive to say that there's nothing we can do about people's appetites for rhino horns when there's 70 years of evidence of that not being the case? It's not positive, it's an overall defeatist attitude thinly veiled in sci-fi speculation.

starbugs 8y ago

No, it's not. It's a mindset and a positive attitude that is constructive instead of spreading fear and doom, which does not yield any positive outcome at all.

gns24 8y ago
I don't see how believing it will all work out fine and not worrying is constructive, yet spreading fear (which might actually encourage people to act) is not.
- starbugs 8y ago
  I did not say that you should not worry. Still, spreading fear can yield very dangerous decisions.
tralarpa 8y ago
> spreading fear and doom, which does not yield any positive outcome at all. That's not true. You are keeping saying that in several of your comments. There are many examples where things have changed because of Spreading fear and doom -> Politicians pass laws -> Industry is forced to react -> New technologies developed/deployed/... What you and some others here are proposing is basically to wait that things crash and then directly jump to the "New technologies" part. Like a child waiting for christmas.
- starbugs 8y ago
  No that's not what I propose and I also don't think that's what op proposed. If you read the comments again you will see that all that was said is "you won't change the outcome this way", which means that political action alone is not enough. Look at what's happening currently. All that fear and doom may lead to political decisions, but have they changed the carbon level in our atmosphere? You try to regulate something without looking at the overall outcome. If you want to do something, it's much better to do something positive, e.g. passing subsidies for renewable energy tech. I think it doesn't make sense anymore to discuss this here. HN is not a good place to discuss different opinions which could be interpreted as being political. The people with the downvote power decide what's valid and what's not. It's sad as otherwise we could have a fruitful discussion here.
  - tralarpa 8y ago
    > If you want to do something, it's much better to do something positive, e.g. passing subsidies for renewable energy tech. Okay, that makes sense and, even better, also works sometimes. In fact, renwable energy is a good example where incentives can trigger changes (see the solar market in Europe). However, there are also many examples where incentives have not worked, although running for decades, because people are too lazy or because the financial incentives are not big enough. People and (by design) the industry are waiting that the goverment pays and says "please, please, take that money and prevent that we destroy human life for next 100000 years". At some point you have to say "fck you, stop that behavior, otherwise you will kill us all". In my opinion, we are very close to that point with the CO2 level. In contrast, OP seems to suggest that we should continue and hope that some miracle in technology will help us, because saying "Stop that, you idiot" doesn't work, right? The market will fix it and regulations and deep states are bad, right? But the fact is that regulations have worked many times. See leaded petrol, asbestos, catalyzators, pesticides, and basically all laws that we have had in Europe for the protection of the environment in the past 50 years. I am not a child waiting for christmas, but an adult who knows that the parents bought the presents.
    - starbugs 8y ago
      This is different. It's not asbestos or pesticides. What differentiates it is that it's slow death by heating up. Some time in the future. Not now. You can't even measure the success of your political regulations with regard to global carbon emissions on a conceivable time scale. Success is directly measurable for the things that you named. That's not the case here. I don't get why it's necessary to start a left vs. right, regulations vs. non-regulations war on this. This is effectively destroying the discussion about real solutions. I got a completely different impression of op's comment. Namely, that we as humans cannot control everything, but there's ways we can get real progress when we combine our talents to come up with great technical solutions. I doubt that we will be able to turn the clock back, and I wouldn't want to participate in trying. That doesn't mean that we cannot do something positive via political means meanwhile. I'm just saying that evidence suggests it doesn't solve the problem on a global scale and hence is obviously not the whole solution.
boomlinde 8y ago
How is it constructive to say that there's nothing we can do about people's appetites for rhino horns when there's 70 years of evidence of that not being the case? It's not positive, it's an overall defeatist attitude thinly veiled in sci-fi speculation.