9 ms·

But at least we can talk to search engines now

by pluc 18d ago

epolanski 17d ago
And eat beef every day. Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. I mean, it's just hard to care or do something, these things should be properly taxed, but there's no chance this would be popular. But it feels we're powerless beyond minor examples we can set something everyday.
- esikich 17d ago
  I think it often gets overlooked that effective carbon taxing would tax you right out of pretty much all modern convenience. Which would be the point, but people would fuckin revolt if it actually happened. Parent is complaining about 0.00000000001% of the damage done over the last 100 years.
  - dumberquestions 17d ago
    A very gradual carbon tax that could've been introduced a couple of decades ago would've been more tolerable, and would've given the market and consumers more time to adapt.
    - andai 17d ago
      Make each subsequent generation poorer and less populous. Aren't we already doing that?
  - haizhung 17d ago
    You could carbon tax it, and give people immediately back the equivalent of what they would lose (on average). Then they can keep their lifestyle - if they are truly diehard about it - or they can adopt a climate friendlier lifestyle and pocket the change.
    - maxhille 17d ago
      That was exactly the plan in Germany when we finally had a progressive ("center-left") government coalition a couple of years ago. The plan was dragged out and eventually killed by the centrist/neoliberal coalition partner (FDP). It is extremely sad it went this way. Just think of the acceptance the people would've had: Germans might have called for higher CO2 taxes out of pure selfishness...
  - Dylan16807 17d ago
    > effective carbon taxing would tax you right out of pretty much all modern convenience What tax number do you have in mind for "effective"? $100 per ton or maybe $200 per ton would have massive differences on industry but wouldn't prevent modern convenience at all.
    - esikich 17d ago
      What's the point if it doesn't change overconsumption?
      - Dylan16807 16d ago
        If would probably reduce it some as a side effect. But the two biggest points would be that every power plant and tons of factories stop emitting CO2, and the cost of vehicles shifts significantly in favor of electric.
- qyron 17d ago
  > Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. Can you give some references basing that? I would like to educate myself a bit (I'm a vegetarian myself)
  - epolanski 17d ago
    I'm not vegetarian, albeit I de facto am 5 days out of 7, I try to stick to the (classical) mediterranean diet. I wrote a comment here, you can of course fact check all I said and investigate more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502880
- ddorian43 17d ago
  The beef is not the source of this. Ruminant meat is the best food there is for humans. (i eat daily as part of ketovore diet)
  - epolanski 17d ago
    As you seem to be unaware: 1. a single cow produces 250 grams of methane per day. Methane is insanely more dangerous to the environment than CO2. A single adult cow pollutes in a day as much as a car driven for 165 miles. And that's only for emissions. 2. As a cow does not pollute just what it emits, you need to add the lifecycle: cows need to be fed. 80% of the food we humans grow goes to feed animals, not humans. Beef gets the lion share. So we consumes insane amounts of money, fertilizers, gas, just to feed cows, that pollute like crazy anyway. The amount of water cattle consume (from drinking to the one needed to grow food) is also extreme. 3. Cows produce a lot of waste, that ends up in rivers. Along fertilizers (mostly used to grow food for cattle anyway), it pollutes so much that waters around souther US are essentially dead. 4. By mass, beef alone, outmatches every single land animal on this planet, combined. You could put on a scale every single tiger, domestic dog, rabbit, squirrel, horse, hyppo, kangaroo, etc, etc, etc on the planet. They would weight less than the cows we grow. 4. Red meat is a category 1 carcinogenic. You should eat it rarely. I don't know where you get your nutritional facts, maybe from Joe Rogan? In essence, you demonstrate fully my point: we humans don't want to know really what our impact on the planet is, and we're happily distracted into the "just buy an electric SUV" trolling.
    - ddorian43 17d ago
      > Red meat is a category 1 carcinogenic It is not. There are no studies with simply meat. They count burgers and processed stuff. I literally do 90% carnivore so eat nothing processed. I only put salt on the meat. > You could put on a scale every single tiger, domestic dog, rabbit, squirrel, horse, hyppo, kangaroo, etc, etc, etc on the planet. Carnivore animals rarely are eaten. Horse/rabbit are low fat. Beef & lamb are the two most popular that are available nearly everywhere. > I don't know where you get your nutritional facts The best diet for mental health is animal based keto diet and carnivore diet (only red meat actually!, maybe some fish which is even more expensive often) The diet is used for kids/adults with refractory epilepsy & serious mental disorders like schizophrenia/bipolar/eating disorders, diabetes (it's easy actually but there are many potential people for this). -------- A short example: The only way to do vegan keto diet for epilepsy/schizophrenia/bipolar, is to eat protein powder, because there is no non-processed vegan food that has protein and is low carb.
- crotobloste 17d ago
  > Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. This affirmation only holds up for factory farming / intensive animal husbandry. Extensive pastoralism (aka free-ranging grazing animals) don't pollute per se, and if certain conditions are met (regarding population density), they can have positive effects on (already anthropicized) ecosystems by linking ecotopes.
IshKebab 17d ago
This has nothing to do with AI really. It's a century of pumping out CO2, not 2 years. Maybe in the future... but you can't blame AI for this year.
- pluc 17d ago
  I'm totally with you. The proliferation of AI, to me, is a collective choice of convenience over climate. Remember Covid? We can do something, we just won't.
  - IshKebab 17d ago
    Do we even want to? AI is in many ways amazing. We should obviously not be powering these data centres with gas, but... that's hardly unique to data centres. America voted for Trump well before AI used any power.
  - crote 17d ago
    The general population didn't exactly get a choice. AI is forced on us in many apps we were already using, solely because CxOs believe any mention of AI results in Line Goes Up. The population didn't choose for convenience. The billionaires chose for additional profit.
- thi2 17d ago
  AI is another symptom, adding up with everything thats wrong.
- insane_dreamer 17d ago
  But we can blame AI for making it much worse in 5 years instead of making it less bad as everyone agreed to ~10 years ago (until an idiot ascended the throne)
- mikrotikker 17d ago
  Yea but I bet if you still had beavers in Europe you'd still have water.
  - 17d ago

But at least we can talk to search engines now

by pluc 18d ago

But at least we can talk to search engines now

And eat beef every day. Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. I mean, it's just hard to care or do something, these things should be properly taxed, but there's no chance this would be popular. But it feels we're powerless beyond minor examples we can set something everyday.

esikich 17d ago
I think it often gets overlooked that effective carbon taxing would tax you right out of pretty much all modern convenience. Which would be the point, but people would fuckin revolt if it actually happened. Parent is complaining about 0.00000000001% of the damage done over the last 100 years.
- dumberquestions 17d ago
  A very gradual carbon tax that could've been introduced a couple of decades ago would've been more tolerable, and would've given the market and consumers more time to adapt.
  - andai 17d ago
    Make each subsequent generation poorer and less populous. Aren't we already doing that?
- haizhung 17d ago
  You could carbon tax it, and give people immediately back the equivalent of what they would lose (on average). Then they can keep their lifestyle - if they are truly diehard about it - or they can adopt a climate friendlier lifestyle and pocket the change.
  - maxhille 17d ago
    That was exactly the plan in Germany when we finally had a progressive ("center-left") government coalition a couple of years ago. The plan was dragged out and eventually killed by the centrist/neoliberal coalition partner (FDP). It is extremely sad it went this way. Just think of the acceptance the people would've had: Germans might have called for higher CO2 taxes out of pure selfishness...
- Dylan16807 17d ago
  > effective carbon taxing would tax you right out of pretty much all modern convenience What tax number do you have in mind for "effective"? $100 per ton or maybe $200 per ton would have massive differences on industry but wouldn't prevent modern convenience at all.
  - esikich 17d ago
    What's the point if it doesn't change overconsumption?
    - Dylan16807 16d ago
      If would probably reduce it some as a side effect. But the two biggest points would be that every power plant and tons of factories stop emitting CO2, and the cost of vehicles shifts significantly in favor of electric.
qyron 17d ago
> Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. Can you give some references basing that? I would like to educate myself a bit (I'm a vegetarian myself)
- epolanski 17d ago
  I'm not vegetarian, albeit I de facto am 5 days out of 7, I try to stick to the (classical) mediterranean diet. I wrote a comment here, you can of course fact check all I said and investigate more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502880
ddorian43 17d ago
The beef is not the source of this. Ruminant meat is the best food there is for humans. (i eat daily as part of ketovore diet)
- epolanski 17d ago
  As you seem to be unaware: 1. a single cow produces 250 grams of methane per day. Methane is insanely more dangerous to the environment than CO2. A single adult cow pollutes in a day as much as a car driven for 165 miles. And that's only for emissions. 2. As a cow does not pollute just what it emits, you need to add the lifecycle: cows need to be fed. 80% of the food we humans grow goes to feed animals, not humans. Beef gets the lion share. So we consumes insane amounts of money, fertilizers, gas, just to feed cows, that pollute like crazy anyway. The amount of water cattle consume (from drinking to the one needed to grow food) is also extreme. 3. Cows produce a lot of waste, that ends up in rivers. Along fertilizers (mostly used to grow food for cattle anyway), it pollutes so much that waters around souther US are essentially dead. 4. By mass, beef alone, outmatches every single land animal on this planet, combined. You could put on a scale every single tiger, domestic dog, rabbit, squirrel, horse, hyppo, kangaroo, etc, etc, etc on the planet. They would weight less than the cows we grow. 4. Red meat is a category 1 carcinogenic. You should eat it rarely. I don't know where you get your nutritional facts, maybe from Joe Rogan? In essence, you demonstrate fully my point: we humans don't want to know really what our impact on the planet is, and we're happily distracted into the "just buy an electric SUV" trolling.
  - ddorian43 17d ago
    > Red meat is a category 1 carcinogenic It is not. There are no studies with simply meat. They count burgers and processed stuff. I literally do 90% carnivore so eat nothing processed. I only put salt on the meat. > You could put on a scale every single tiger, domestic dog, rabbit, squirrel, horse, hyppo, kangaroo, etc, etc, etc on the planet. Carnivore animals rarely are eaten. Horse/rabbit are low fat. Beef & lamb are the two most popular that are available nearly everywhere. > I don't know where you get your nutritional facts The best diet for mental health is animal based keto diet and carnivore diet (only red meat actually!, maybe some fish which is even more expensive often) The diet is used for kids/adults with refractory epilepsy & serious mental disorders like schizophrenia/bipolar/eating disorders, diabetes (it's easy actually but there are many potential people for this). -------- A short example: The only way to do vegan keto diet for epilepsy/schizophrenia/bipolar, is to eat protein powder, because there is no non-processed vegan food that has protein and is low carb.
crotobloste 17d ago
> Who cares if a small burger pollutes more than commuting with a SUV. This affirmation only holds up for factory farming / intensive animal husbandry. Extensive pastoralism (aka free-ranging grazing animals) don't pollute per se, and if certain conditions are met (regarding population density), they can have positive effects on (already anthropicized) ecosystems by linking ecotopes.

IshKebab 17d ago

This has nothing to do with AI really. It's a century of pumping out CO2, not 2 years. Maybe in the future... but you can't blame AI for this year.

pluc 17d ago
I'm totally with you. The proliferation of AI, to me, is a collective choice of convenience over climate. Remember Covid? We can do something, we just won't.
- IshKebab 17d ago
  Do we even want to? AI is in many ways amazing. We should obviously not be powering these data centres with gas, but... that's hardly unique to data centres. America voted for Trump well before AI used any power.
- crote 17d ago
  The general population didn't exactly get a choice. AI is forced on us in many apps we were already using, solely because CxOs believe any mention of AI results in Line Goes Up. The population didn't choose for convenience. The billionaires chose for additional profit.
thi2 17d ago
AI is another symptom, adding up with everything thats wrong.
insane_dreamer 17d ago
But we can blame AI for making it much worse in 5 years instead of making it less bad as everyone agreed to ~10 years ago (until an idiot ascended the throne)
mikrotikker 17d ago
Yea but I bet if you still had beavers in Europe you'd still have water.
- 17d ago