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Comment by gadders | Hacker News Reader

Obviously this won't affect the billionaire oligarchs and politicians, only the regular working people.

In the EU private jets are exempt from the new fuel duty as long as they make less than 243 flights every 4 months:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PETI-CM-731622...

They don't even try to hide the hypocrisy. They're unelected and steal our money with ever-increasing taxes which they exempt themselves from.

Perhaps we should remove taxes on cigarettes while we're at it? Think of the working people!

If the tax is set appropriately and covers _all_ the negative externalities then we shouldn't even mind if billionaires fly since the entire costs of doing so (including environmental damage) are covered by the ticket.

I'm all for a post-scarcity classless utopia but this "but first the revolution" thinking isn't going to stop my kids from dying in a food riot or getting poached in a heat wave.

If it was even "but first the revolution" from genuine revolutionaries it would be better. Instead it's reheated hot-takes from Tucker Carlson, made by people too embarrassed to admit that they still don't believe in climate change and instead hiding behind pretend populism.

If it covers all negative externalities such that a private jet flight becomes as relatively expensive for a billionaire as it does for an average worker then I'm all for it.

Otherwise it's just a case of people with power/money legislating for external costs that will never materially affect them. They should have some skin in the game.

But money helps overcome all sorts of shortages and material inconveniences. Are you saying we need to end that before we can marginally increase the cost of flying?

22% isn't marginal, and a large part of my flight cost is already tax.

I'm happy with "natural" inconveniences - not everyone gets to have a Ferrari - but not with people legislating for rules they have no intention of being affected by or complying with.

How should we get people to use fewer fossil fuels without making them cost more?

Well, the reason we need to make them cost more is because the replacements are sub-par. If the replacement technologies were better, you wouldn't need to.

Regardless of this, how do we make billionaires use less fossil fuels?

You did not answer my question.

As far as the billionaires, we could ban fossil fuel use entirely, for one. We could also tax billionaires extremely heavily (we should), and tax fossil fuels so they're less appealing. We could also work on campaigns to shame people for it but that seems unlikely to have much success, we're not talking about fur jackets here.

I did not answer your question, but I don't think it's the correct question. The correct question is "How should we get people to use fewer fossil fuels without implementing regressive changes that unduly affect the less well off?"

OK - how do we do that?

You think I have the answer to this? I do not. However, I don't think policy makers/billionaire oligarchs are even considering this.

thats the plan isn't it? We all give up our suv's, big houses, gas stoves, meat and travel so that the elites that preach to us from their 500' yachts and private jets as they travel the world collecting global warming awards?

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

― Anatole France

Like Bill Gates saying he's part of the solution - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/im-part-solution-bill-gates-1...

"Billionaire philanthropist" - the definition of an oxymoron.

Honestly I preferred billionaires when they just blew their money on jets like Larry Ellison. At least they weren't making my life materially worse.

I rented a 5-10 million dollar home in Silicon Valley (an Airbnb). And as I imagined, the shower was a torrent. It wasn't conserving any water like my home in the Bay Area was regulated to do.

They're doing their part https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/01/private-jet-sa...

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