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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

We are sure that the planet is warming we are not sure how much humans affect this and what it will mean.

If you want to stand a chance against whether you fear the environment will do to you need growth to be able to pay for the development of new technologies.

Here is the paradox you are dealing with.

We also know that growth and free markets help those who have access to it get out of poverty and much more prosperity. That means at least a couple of billion more people are hoping to get what you and I have.

Are you going to tell them they can't have what you have? And if you are what are you going to offer them in return that they would care about. They don't care about the environment in any shape or form that you or me or any other westerner does.

This is the paradox we are dealing with. If there is a third industrial revolution it certainly won't be based on the sharing economy that's not how humans work.

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> We also know that growth and free markets help those who have access to it get out of poverty and much more prosperity.

Growth and free markets are what is driving overconsumption

They also drive prosperity and have provided us with plenty of ways to deal with mother nature who's always been rough on us.

If you think that living 200 years ago was a better life for most people just because they had more nature and couldn't consume as much I think you would be mistaken.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Growth and prosperity comes with its own problems and challenges but I take those any day over an antigrowth philosophy.

You really need to deal with your straw-man fixation, or at least reserve it for people that may be impressed with it.

'Growth' as you are defining it, is unsustainable. Do you you know what 'unsustainable' means? It means it must stop. Not 'has to', 'would be nice to' but 'must'. It has a hard physical thermodynamic ceiling. Your philosophy has no future.

First of all you need to learn what a strawman is.

Second of all my philosophy of using technology to solve the problems that nature presents to us has no future? I am not sure what you are doing here using a computer then or why you are wasting time and energy on a website debating with strangers.

We know that the planet is warming, we know humans are responsible for the vast majority of that change, and we know what it will mean for the biosphere and the things that depend on that, i.e you and I. I'm not sure why you think we do not. There is 20km of air between the ground and space, you can breathe in the first 5km of that. We have been pumping billions of tons of C02 into that 5km for the last 200 years, what did you thing was going to happen, nothing ?

The next bit of your post exemplifies exactly the king of thinking that brought us to this point in human history. And then you end with the silly strawmen, seriously ? Do you really think 3rd world countries are going to repeat the same mistakes, why will they build coal plants when they can have of the shelf solar plants for a fraction of the price ?

I think first you need to learn what a strawman actually means.

Yes the 3rd world absolutely wants the prosperity we have. You might disagree with that (and you would be hard-pressed to find many countries who don't aspire) but it's certainly no strawman. But hey keep telling yourself that so you don't have to deal with the facts.

With regards to whether humans are responsible for that vast majority of the change again it's not as clear cut as I am sure you would like to portray it. None the less even if that was the case it's certainly not going to be solved by stopping countries from aspiring for more prosperity for their citizens.

I'll probably come off as a spoiled Westerner here, but that's not my intent.

Isn't it a bit presumptuous to assume that everyone in impoverished parts of the world even _want_ the kind of prosperity we have? It seems to be taken for granted that all the drawbacks to modern civilization are outweighed by the benefits. But then, isn't this the same mindset that has set us on this course of man-made global heating?

I suppose I'm advocating for leaving other countries to decide their own paths and not trying to push our prosperity onto them. If that makes me a greedy Westerner, so be it. I don't exactly enjoy my society, anyway.

So somehow magically all the countries who are rich today are the countries that want it and the other countries somehow magically don't or what is your point?

Even if there were a few countries that didn't want their kids to survive simple diseases have enough food to feed their family or not have to worry about the safety of their family I am fairly certain that most countries want that.

I am also fairly certain that you are not willing to trade all these "drawbacks" of modern society for a life in an unmodern society and even if you were it would most likely be a very short-lived desire.

Which countries exactly is it you think don't want the kind of growth we have in the west?

Not sure I understand what you are trying to show here.

He doesn't really have a point except to try to justify tanking the standard of living. As a preemptive attempt to justifying literal communism in 2018. Communists know that they cannot implement their vision while maintaining the current standard of living, so they want to tank it.

I'm not trying to "show" anything, just advocating for allowing other societies the opportunity for self-determination rather than pushing on them what we think is best.

Self-determination is a long and arduous process. It took the U.S. over 250 years to get to where we are (much longer if you consider how much we borrowed from Britain). We've paid a hefty price in mental health along the way.

We can provide healthcare and other benefits of modern society through trade without forcing these things on them, although that would admittedly take longer. It could be that poorer countries decide they value traditional culture and avoiding wastefulness (and the climate impacts this brings with it) to convenience and glamor. I don't know, it's not my place to say.

Other societies HAVE that opportunity they just didn't choose it and those who can't choose it are desperate to get invited to the club.

So not sure what makes you think other societies don't want the kind prosperity to their citizens we have in the west.

Not sure what you mean with providing healthcare for them as if it wouldn't be better they themselves were able to provide healthcare.

I would urge you to rethink your position. Not because I want to decide what you think but because it's not really founded in anything of thise world.

I'm a westerner. But I lived a bit in tropical parts who where very different in lifestyles. I'm also an ex tech-lover (my generation was fed on it). Nowadays, I think I'd enjoy a bit of green between 10 to 1000x more than a UHD Qdot LCD and fiber connection.

I think that our lifestyles is toxic, especially for other places (africa, asia), for us too (stress, sadness, different diseases).. anyway, we replaced one kind of life struggle with another one.

And I do feel sad that 3rd world is somehow envying, even though it's not surprising, western life is pure eye candy, and designed to be so.

And I heard a few people leaving big western cities to go into medium ones, for the difference of pace and life quality (more space, more green).

If you have children I am pretty sure you would agree that modern society is the best place to be without any real competition.

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