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Comment by mattcwilson | Hacker News Reader

> what William James called the "Moral Equivalent of War", not as mere National Service, but as Global Service. Literally pay people salaries to fight climate change.

I see what you’re going for with this, and I imagine I could be persuaded to a more workable version of this. What’s hanging me up is - how do you avoid these salaried people being captured by incentives to sustain their salary rather than be incentivized to ultimately solve the problem?

We’ve tried this with the war on drugs, war on terror, war on homelessness... haven’t we? Is your suggestion different somehow?

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> We've tried this with the war on drugs, war on terror, war on homelessness... haven’t we? Is your suggestion different somehow?

No, it's ill formed and to be honest you're probably the first person to take it seriously enough to return a comment that isn't ridicule or outrage.

Self-fulfilling capture, and indeed malevolent hijacking seem unavoidable pitfalls of such projects, you're right. But I notice the other wars on abstract nouns you mention are against human weaknesses (drugs/exploitation, terror/wrath, homelessness/inequity). And these always get twisted; wars on poverty become wars against the poor; wars on drugs become wars on addicts; wars on terror become wars of terror.

Is climate maybe different if it's an "external" threat? The danger is that becomes a "war on nature" which is how we got into this fine mess. So no easy answers.

However James is canny in reminding us that war is a (the) strong organising principle for humans and there may be a way to twist that into benevolence.

I like the “leverage/hack human psychodynamics to achieve positive group outcomes” angle. Guess I should check out some William James.

Wondering if maybe it’s less paying tsars and bureaus to solve climate change, and more about paying individual people as a direct incentive to reduce their own carbon output. Dunno that that helps as far as businesses or foreign nations go, though.

>paying individual people as a direct incentive to reduce their own carbon output

Is there anything you can spend this money on that is not produced using fossil fuels?

Music, art, books, comedy, pets, food, land, clothing, shelter... provided it’s all locally produced, I suppose.

Are you going after something in particular? Seriously not trying to be facetious - I just don’t understand where you’re headed with this glib? rhetorical? question.

Wasn't a glib comment, I think almost everything is either produced or consumed with the help of fossil fuels.

>Music, art, books, comedy, pets, food, land, clothing, shelter.

Every one of these requires fossil fuel input to some degree.

Music: Every instrument, music player whatever is produced using plastics and fossil fules.

books: Dead trees? Fossil fuels. Kindle? Plastics from fossil fuels

food: produced and distributed using fossil fuels

clothing: produced and distributed using fossil fuels

You see where I'm going with this? It's impossible to live a fossil fuel neutral existence in a modern world

I don’t think it’s impossible?

I think there’s a question of what fossil-fuel dependent comforts you’re willing to give up. But I assure you it’s entirely possible to live and have all of those goods, today, fossil-fuel free.

>But I assure you it’s entirely possible to live and have all of those goods, today, fossil-fuel free

Well I'd be curious to hear how. Even the apple in your pantry requires significant fossil fuel input.

Fertilizer: Fossil fuel based - the Haber-Bosch process is now directly responsible for sustaining 40% of the Earth’s population and is reliant on natural gas.

That's to say nothing of the transport involved in, for example, buying Avocado year round from your grocer.

That's just food though. Plastics are in literally everything. The amount of plastics, glues etc just in the pair of shoes you wear every day is unreal.

Sorry to play the man and not the ball, and please don't take this as as personal ad-hominem, but what you are doing is rationalised catastrophising [1]

Your fallacy is: Because all things are X and some X are bad, all X are equally bad.

Your game is: Whatever you think of as a humane activity, I can find a reason why it's destroying the planet so you may as well not bother - just continue destroying the planet as you are.

Fact is, everything you do will kill you. Every step you take wears out your body. Every bite of food and breath of oxygen takes you further down the road to death.

What will you do, stay in bed frozen in fear?

There are a billion things to do in life that have less environmental impact than flying around the world to go a jet-ski racing and tyre burning party. Reading a good book [2] :) on a beach would hurt less.

respects

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/catastrophizing

[2] https://digitalvegan.net

>Whatever you think of as a humane activity, I can find a reason why it's destroying the planet so you may as well not bother - just continue destroying the planet as you are

yes that's correct, there is nothing you can personally do that will make a measurable difference to making the planet a better place. You're wasting your time. Even collective action is probably doomed. There are just too many humans on the planet.

In 1500, the world population was 460million. That is probably a level that the planet can indefinitely sustain. We're at 8billion now and we're fatally addicted to fossil fuels. Buying local and taking a bus to work are not going to save the planet.

> Well I'd be curious to hear how.

A lot of hard work, non vehicular labor, local sourcing, and luck, providence, perseverance, and serendipity.

How do you suppose humans did it prior to the invention of the coal mine and oil drill?

Once again - not trying to be facetious or patronizing; just legitimately answering the request.

>A lot of hard work, non vehicular labor, local sourcing, and luck, providence, perseverance, and serendipity.

none of this will make any difference.

>How do you suppose humans did it prior to the invention of the coal mine and oil drill?

well, we didn't use fossil fuels, and there were far fewer of us on the planet. With 8billion fossil fuel addicted people, half of whom are yet to be raised from poverty, riding your bike will make you feel better but wont make any difference.

You have a strange definition of “any.” Going from 8 billion to 7.999999999 is one unit of difference. You aren’t interested in doing that?

>You aren’t interested in doing that?

Only insofar as it doesn't inconvenience me. I'm not trying to convince you of my pov, it's just my personal opinion.

I think that individual action is no more than privileged westerners play acting, and its all for nothing.

Humans are, on average, vicious parasites. Half the world wants big macs and SUVs, the other half aspires to that.

Riding a bike to your local vegan grocer is a hilarious solution to a catastrophically depressing problem.

We're doomed, enjoy it while you can ;)

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