[klabb3]

> we as a civilization have jumped too far, too fast, we don't actually need those things to survive, and we will need to be comfortable temporarily sacrificing certain luxuries

If you mean the average hacker news reader, you may be right. If you're talking about the average person on this planet, you're very far off. The type of global reform that makes a high earning tech worker's smart phone double in price will also have millions of people pushed back into poverty or outright starvation. The hypothetical political, economical or technological tools for reducing luxury consumption while at the same time having no net effect on survivability for the global poor, are entirely imaginary. You can say that we went too far when we discovered artificial fertilizer, which allowed the planet to support 2x its human population, but it's a bit late to put that genie back in the bottle now.

That said, doing nothing is a pretty good recipe for displacing and starving people as well, we just have much less information on exactly how and when that disaster will manifest itself.

[uoaei]

> The type of global reform that makes a high earning tech worker's smart phone double in price will also have millions of people pushed back into poverty or outright starvation.

I don't see any reason to believe this, nor any justification of that statement in the rest of your comment. Is it really so hard to believe that some of those at the top can lose a little bit of luxury, and the rest of the world can gain access to progressive economics, at the same time?

> it's a bit late to put that genie back in the bottle now

If we don't, the physical principle of conservation of mass will do it for us. We are demonstrably running out of the materials we need to continue down this path, both specifically with respect to artificial fertilizer as well as more generally with the finite resources available within reach given current and near-future technologies. Which approach do you think will cause less suffering: preparing for a dearth of resources that we can see coming before it happens, or waiting until people are dying of starvation en masse to start thinking about it?

[klabb3]

> I don't see any reason to believe this, nor any justification of that statement in the rest of your comment.

I hope you're right but am convinced you're wrong. There's no straightforward regulation that we can put into place that affects only the affluent layers. The most successful global regulation to date, that I can think of, is the elimination of CFCs, which was enabled because of readily available replacements. The replacements for fossil fuels are not even close, requires replacing the majority of existing infrastructure, and the cream on top is that climate activists are persisting in phasing OUT nuclear, when we need it the most.

> Which approach do you think will cause less suffering: preparing for a dearth of resources that we can see coming before it happens, or waiting until people are dying of starvation en masse to start thinking about it?

I think the former option does not exist in practice. Why? Because when you have a significant drop in standard-of-living over a short period of time, people turn to populism and will reject the paradigm that forces them to have worse lives than their parents, even if it's to their own or others' detriment in the medium-long term. Perhaps not the affluent classes, but certainly the working- and middle classes (that by the way have already been significantly eroded in the western world over the last decades).

The third option is technological advancements - in practice, finding non-fossil replacements at a cost that societies can bear. This is what, imo, the wealthy and climate-conscious nations should spend their time and resources on, to pave the way for others to follow when the solutions have become cheaper. The US can play a big role in this, but so can affluent, socially conscious and technologically strong smaller countries. Most of them, however, are living in complete denial and are instead intentionally crippling themselves to prove a point that developing countries don't give 2 shits about.

[uoaei]

> There's no straightforward regulation that we can put into place that affects only the affluent layers.

Eh? Wealth tax.

> phasing OUT nuclear

I don't agree that we should aggressively phase out nuclear, but it doesn't look like we need to build any new nuclear, just keep the ones we have and phase them out once we can replace their capacity.

> Because when you have a significant drop in standard-of-living over a short period of time, people turn to populism and will reject the paradigm that forces them to have worse lives than their parents

I agree, that mostly this is a cultural problem. People need to be convinced that it is worth it to accept a change like that. Before people read even more catastrophe into my writing, I guess I need to be explicit that I am not advocating for mind control.

> finding non-fossil replacements

I hope that the "wealthy and climate-conscious nations" can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. We can do multiple things at once. Scaling back and investing in research is the way, I hope.

[klabb3]

> Eh? Wealth tax.

I'm not ready (or qualified) to go into an in-depth analysis, but the implementation of redistribution programs has historically been unsuccessful, often to the point of having the opposite effect. The rich hide wealth and evade taxes, massive political corruption, and not to mention that the taxes never go to what they're supposed to after-the-fact anyway. If these programs worked I would be all for them.

> but it doesn't look like we need to build any new nuclear

Depends on where you are, and what you base the future projections on. We're gonna need a LOT more electricity for an electric vehicle fleet and synthesizing alternative fuels, at the same time most grids and nuclear plants are falling apart because they were built in the 50s. Electrification is our only chance of replacing fossil fuels without global disaster, imo.

> Scaling back and investing in research is the way, I hope.

Well, look at Germany. They got hooked on Russian gas and reopened their coal plants, simply because they scaled back (on nuclear). You desperately need prosperity to make ambitious infrastructure projects. It's not realistic to first cripple yourself and then expect to become a world leader in a novel technology. When you're in a crisis, you're gonna default to the familiar and proven.