[genewitch]

> There's no way we're going to convince the middle classes of the central economies to reduce consumption to that level, or even to convince people in that class of development economy to stop aiming for more.

What if there is 200% tariffs on junk they shouldn't be buying anyhow? What if a new car becomes so expensive that the idea of having to replace it in 3-5/years induces outrage and class action lawsuits? What if you were only allowed to own one residence? What if out of season foods were fantastically expensive unless you had a community "garden"?

I know, HN, straight to -4. I'll meet you down there.

[thunderbird120]

People would correctly identify that their standard of living is being reduced for ideological reasons without tangible individual benefits and would likely not respond well to that, resulting in a loss of political power for whatever movement instituted those policies and a reversal of said policies.

[genewitch]

People went with the green bin initiative in the US, perhaps elsewhere. we switched to more fuel efficient cars in general when fuel became more expensive. New home construction and retrofits to make houses fully electric - no gas hobs, not gas furnace. these were all "QOL" adjustments that people have been making.

You have to pitch things the correct way, and it would really help if it wasn't treated as an "Ideological" thing but an ecological and humanitarian thing.

It is not okay to shove our pollution, poor wages and working conditions, and so on, to another country, nor its population. Arguing that it's okay if Chinese and vietnamese and indian folks are treated poorly, have poor health outcomes, and so on, just so long as we get shein and temu and amazon and walmart...

The "there's plenty for everyone, consume buy purchase, it's ok!" is just a lie. you can't do that without harming someone else.

[twoodfin]

If for some unimaginable reason the western world had embraced this philosophy wholeheartedly in 1985, literally billions of people would be struggling in grinding poverty (or worse!) instead of living significantly better lives than their parents or grandparents.

Is it different now?

[genewitch]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6...

i don't know, you tell me. And billions are in poverty now so i'm not sure this is a productive conversation. 44.9% of the global population is under $6.85 per day. 740mm try to survive on less than $2.15 a day.

45% of the earth's population is 3,700,000,000 or so, which, if my counting of commas is correct, is "literally billions of people"

[jpc0]

> Three-quarters of all people in extreme poverty live in Sub-Saharan Africa or in fragile and conflict-affected countries.

The people in extreme poverty are not the people you are making the argument for. Changing your consumption isn't going to do a thing for sub Saharan Africa and latin America, as a matter of fact increasing consumption of goods from those countries will improve their quality of life.

If you are ever in South Africa contact me, really. I'll take you to those people in povery, tell them yourself how you think Americans spending less money is going to change their lives in any way.

You will probably find some peoplewho are just trying their best to make it through the day. You will also find a lot of their lack of wealth comes from a lack of education.

You want to make a lasting difference, stop donating to feel good charities or animals or nonsense. Find an organisation that is focussed on improving education in these areas and donate to that.

Because nothing kills corrupt governments quite like an educated voting base.

[genewitch]

"see, rampant consumerism is good for the people in sub-saharan africa! it's okay to buy disposable land-fill!"

another way to look at this is, we export our pollution to another country until their citizens get tired of the pollution, and thus charge more for production. So we pull up stakes and move on to the next country that's too poor to complain.

But i guess bootstrapping economies by dumping toxins everywhere on the planet is ok.

The goal should be to bootstrap sustainable, clean technologies, not the same 1800s era industrialization that coats the land in a fine sheen of toxic waste.

[ip26]

Most of those only really took off because the QOL sacrifice became close to negligible.

[serviceberry]

More importantly, a lot of it was hidden from view. Your washing machine and laundry detergent might be not as good as 30 years ago, but... do you know that for sure? And when did that happen? Maybe you're just imagining it.

Your old home had a gas furnace, and then you bought new construction and it's all-electric. Did the government do this? Are you even gonna think about it when making an offer? Your bill is gonna be higher, but how much of it is just because it's a different home?

And even then... you get away with it for a while, and then it all of sudden becomes a political talking point.

[fc417fc802]

Case in point, at some point people realized what was going on with pickup trucks in the US.

> do you know that for sure?

Yes. I absolutely loathe modern washing machines. The irony is that they don't actually save any water because I end up running them multiple times. One of these days I will hopefully get around to gutting mine to replace the control box with an RPi. It's a lot of busy work for something that ought to function well to begin with.

> Your bill is gonna be higher,

Maybe not with a modern mini-split setup. Those are genuinely better than anything that came before them. As a bonus, they remove the failure mode of "blow up your house" that all gas appliances inherently carry.

You can also power them with solar, removing your day to day reliance on the grid.

[genewitch]

> The irony is that they don't actually save any water because I end up running them multiple times.

i have an HE2 (which everyone, universally hates) and it cleans clothes fine with 1 load where you can't even see the top of the water most of the time. You have to load high efficiency top loading machines different than your grandparents loaded their speed queens. You must not put anything over the impeller. everything must go around the edges before the water starts. the impellers in HE washers don't agitate around the torus of the tub, they agitate like the electric field on a torus around the tub, so they go bottom, bottom middle, upper middle, upper, upper outer, bottom outer, bottom; in a loop. if you put stuff in the middle to start, it'll just swish that back and forth and never clean anything. Sometimes stuff won't even get wet, or you'll have dried soap stuck to your clothes.

secondly, don't use fabric softener. If you must use something because of your water quality, use vinegar.

If you need to wash sheets, curtains, blankets, comforters and the like, you can't put them around the outside, because the HE washers do that cycle differently, too. You have to gather the fabric like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindle sack, start with the sheet or whatever flat, fold all four corners (or whatever) into the middle so they all meet in the middle. Then pick it up by the four corners (or whatever) and place it in the washer with the middle of the sheet down and the four corners on top. Like a bindle sack. use the "sheets / heavy duty" cycle for sheets and the like. that's what it's for.

please, let me know if this solves your issues.

[dmix]

Is this the "Climate Authoritarianism" tree in a 4X game

[genewitch]

this is the big joke, i always score real high up on the 2-axis political tests; because i believe with good science, eschewing "oligarch" money, and getting corruption down real low, a proper government should be fairly draconian about things that affect everyone. So making it illegal to just drain oil from a car onto the street, that's authoritarian. Mandating that used oil must be returned to a "recycling facility", even if that facility just makes bunker oil and heating oil from it - that is also authoritarian.

Yes, there is a need to stop the small minority of humans that will not be good stewards of the planet, the people and creatures on it, and its atmosphere. I'm fine with being labelled an authoritarian.

oh and to answer a possible question about "what is 'good science'", i'd start with looking at scientists that have been doing science for at least a couple of decades, with no factual retractions on their record, or on the record of those they mentored (those who actually wrote the papers?). As an ancillary - their work must be reproducible, ideally by an competing institution - and it should go both ways. if Harvard always poo-poos UC Davis' research publications, then they shouldn't be surprised if the CSU and UC systems scrutinize Harvard's work especially.

to analogize to something i often hear, "We already have laws about that, just enforce them" - we already know what outstanding, excellent science looks like. Reinforce that.

on https://www.mapmypolitics.org/ i show as a lower left centrist, maybe 1 question away from "social Libertarian". I answered as though i were running the country, not as though i were living under the country i was describing. So questions where an answer is my ideal, but is impossible under the current system i answered that way. "Trade should be regulated to prevent unfair competition" was my answer, because "we pay our slaves - er... workers - 5 cents a day and don't care if they die" is unfair competition, to my reasoning. so is "we can provide cheap goods because we pollute the air, land and water, and ship cheap stuff to other countries they 'want' and pollute their air, land, and water, too." A couple examples, there.