Hacker News Reader

Comment by pwdisswordfish8 | Hacker News Reader

> the waste of paper gave me a mental block

Serious question—not a pointed remark disguised as a question—but what's the impact of that waste paper vs the what goes into a latest gen reMarkable? Where's the inflection point where a device like that figuratively "pays for itself" (in terms of reduced environmental harms) over pen and paper?

Even if those numbers are good, I assume that the human rights abuses associated with paper production are minimal in comparison to the the kinds of things happening to support the manufacture of modern consumer electronics. Am I wrong?

View on HN

Found an interesting article on the topic: https://slate.com/technology/2011/09/paper-versus-the-ipad-i...

According to the article, if you already have an iPad, it’s better to take notes on that than to use paper, by a lot. 7 hours of iPad note taking equals 1 piece of paper (in carbon dioxide equivalents).

However if you’re buying the iPad just for the purpose of taking notes, it is probably better to just use paper. Unless you’re going to use more than roughly 8,000 a 13,000 pieces of paper (depending on the type).

So as far as the remarkable goes, my guess would be that paper wins unless you take an insane amount of notes.

There are obviously other factors to consider when deciding between remarkable and paper. I just found these numbers interesting and have absolutely no problem with people who take notes digitally. I have way too many computers/tablets/phones/who knows how many other electronics to be judgmental of this sort of thing.

That's a good question, I was wondering about it as well. I would assume the paper wins easily in terms of CO2, but in terms of human rights abuse I wouldn't be so sure. But I bought it for my personal gain, not the planet's. The problem is that, rational or not, if I don't have the tablet I feel guilty every time I pick up a piece of paper and it's a detriment to my work. If I have the tablet, the cost is essentially paid in full so the mental cost of a new page is null.

I imagine the stats come out better when using something like an iPad for notes which replaces other electronics you would have bought.

Good point. More on this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23018923

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21020682

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20320001

Reply on news.ycombinator.com