[_heimdall]

I totally agree with this on the surface, but I never know how to align it with trying to solve larger problems we often hear people raising alarm bells about.

For example, if we really are concerned with climate change do we really want companies spending small fortunes to either fail or build an expensive product that takes a ton of resources to create? If we really are worried about health concerns related to excessive screen use, do we really want companies trying to strap screens on your face? If we're really concerned with inflation, is it beneficial for a company to spend this much money and resources to try to build a very expensive product that could very well become more of a novelty than anything else?

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

The problem with your argument is there is no singular "we" here. The are groups of people with a range of concerns and goals all working simultaneously, often at cross-purposes to each other.

[_heimdall]

Maybe I could have phrased that differently, I said "we" there thinking about all of us individually running into situations where we make choices that go in the face of bigger concerns we otherwise feel.

In this case, I'm torn on the idea of us needing companied to take shots like Vision Pro when I also personally think we as a society need to be consuming less and using fewer natural resources overall. I see others run into the same thing when someone, for a very specific individual example, uses petroleum based products to glue their hands to a street in protest of climate change.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

There are no solutions to such dilemmas, only actions which suck in different ways. Ultimately, I think big changes have to come from governments for this sort of thing. The ozone hole wasn't fixed because all the peoples of the world made separate and independent decisions not to purchase and use products with ozone-depleting agents. Even if there were big public awareness campaigns and giant warning labels. There would still be many people deciding to buy/use them because of the local short-term needs trumps long-term global effects. It was only when these products were simply never made in the first place that things changed.

[_heimdall]

I've always seen it as two different solutions depending on timing. Collective action, from governments usually, is most effective when we already broke something. Individuals are much better at avoiding problems before they occur, usually dependent on people being informed enough to know what they opting into.

I do wish more consumers would be hesitant to buy new products when they know little about how they're made or how they work. Ironically the more government we throw at preventing problems the more likely consumers are to skip past being skeptical and blindly trust that the big, regulated company must be doing what's best for us.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

> individuals are much better at avoiding problems before they occur

I think this is only really true for themselves, but even then short-term vs long-term biases affect decision making. Even when people know what the overall best choice is, they often just make the choice that makes them happy in the now. They will also tend to discount ill effects to others if those people are unseen and unheard.

> usually dependent on people being informed enough to know what they opting into

This is not a small qualifier.

[_heimdall]

> I think this is only really true for themselves, but even then short-term vs long-term biases affect decision making.

I can't think of a decent example of governments effectively avoiding a problem beforehand, curious if you have any for comparison though. I'm used to seeing governments either blindly ignorant of problems before they happen, or unwilling to act until something breaks and it becomes a talking point for elections.

> This is not a small qualifier.

We're in total agreement there. It shouldn't be a needed qualifier at all, but our education system is junk and we have collectively leaned into trusting experts rather than informed consent.

[ravenstine]

Climate change isn't a matter of energy consumption; it's about massively affecting the balance of the carbon cycle. Fix the carbon cycle issue, and there's likely no reason to tie the development of technology to climate change. No amount of ceasing further technological experimentation will correct climate change the way moving away from fossil fuels would.

[_heimdall]

The carbon cycle is a massive over simplification of how the ecosystem works though. Nature isn't that simple and we are fooling ourselves thinking that we can boil it all down to one simple lever.

Beyond that, energy consumption just can't grow indefinitely without having a negative impact on carbon, if that's your primary concern. Not only would the entire energy infrastructure have to be carbon neutral, everything we use that energy for would have to be carbon neutral as well.

Let's say that is even possible, if all that matters is the carbon cycle are we totally fine with cutting down every forest on the planet as long as we find a different way to sequester carbon?

I'm well aware that scenario takes it to am extreme, but we have to play it out that far to see if the core principle is right. We need to use less energy and consume fewer resources, we can't get around that fact by moving around carbon in computer models and mathematical equations.

[BeFlatXIII]

Would those companies otherwise have bothered to do anything productive toward reducing climate change or inflation with those resources instead of chasing novelty toys? I doubt it.

[_heimdall]

Not using the resources at all is a great start.

[BeFlatXIII]

The companies presumably already have the piles of cash to burn on failed investments, unless your argument is that their R&D moonshots bid up the price for components of important research.