To save everybody the trouble, this article only elaborates on reasons around the environmental impact and carbon footprint of traveling to an isolated place such as Antarctica.
Hollywood is a great example of frivolous waste that is producing movies that will never be watched by anyone in 100 years. Not to mention provides little to negative value right now. If there wasnt infinite entertainment, you could argue that hedonism is the correct ethical system and we should invest into entertainment, but there is enough entertainment to last multiple lifetimes.
We can probably expand this to things like coffee, but you could argue that it provides value.
How about firework shows? Veblen goods?
Would love to see low-impact entertainment become a thing.
Why not play the million video games that already have been released? Why not read the million books that have been released? Watch the TV shows and movies that have already been released?
When you are done consuming all of them, you will be dead multiple times over.
To your point directly, it is totally possible to "live" in a single location. Nobody said anything about being sedentary. There are many ways to make oneself useful every day. But if you live in New Mexico, maybe fresh salmon from the grocery store isn't an option society needs. These things are nice, not necessary, and it wasn't that long ago that we all got along fine without all the options required to feed every hedonistic impulse we have.
On mobile. Writing is probably fucked up. Sue me.
To save the planet? Meh
And not for lack of advancements in those fields, no, but for the sake of filling the coffers of shareholders.
The hedonism that's destroying all we love isn't watching movies or drinking coffee, it's unchecked greed - hoarding of capital.
"industrial manufacturing, shipping and power generation."
I want my home to have electricity - that doesn't require that it comes from a coal plant spewing fly ash and carbon into the air. That decision is made by someone who stands to gain less money if the transition to cleaner sources is made.
Your point about realization is key, I think. The awareness of the consequences of various activities and choices. Which somewhat relies upon translating those consequences into metrics that ordinary people can easily grasp.
For example, in some countries, it's law that smoking tobacco must be sold in packaging which includes graphic imagery of surgical outcomes from tobacco use. Staring a diseased organ in the face (so to speak!) every time you have a cigarette is an easily grasped metric.
Perhaps other industries should fall under similar controls. Airline tickets with images of ???. Petrol pumps with ???. But of course, therein lie long battles between different interest and commercial groups. Or, as in tobacco's case, for the situation to progress to sufficiently large and undeniable quantities of deaths and disease, such that action becomes a belated but foregone conclusion.
I'd say you're optimistic: US copyright on works for hire expires 95 years after first publication.
How about proposing better ways to price externalities, if applicable, to the entertainment options and then let people decide whether they are willing to pay for the impact (by, perhaps, working towards eliminating or reversing said impact).
> We can probably expand this to things like coffee, but you could argue that it provides value.
why should anyone need coffee, when they can just take caffeine pills?
Their logic is similiar to admonishing a smoker for causing environmental damage while supporting the coal industry.
That said, I would be really interested in hearing you make your case that people should just accept invasion “for the environment” or they can’t care at all about any other environmental issues.
It's not comparable at all. The ukraine war is infinitely worse for the environment.
> That said, I would be really interested in hearing you make your case that people should just accept invasion “for the environment” or they can’t care at all about any other environmental issues.
We accepted the invasions of iraq, afghanistan, et al. What's another invasion amongst friends? Gotta save the environment right?
G7? COP? NATO? UN? And more? Remote all that bullshit. There's no reason Biden or Kishida or Xi or Macron or whoever the hell it is has to go anywhere in person anymore in the era of high speed digital communications.
Much less defensible, from a utilitarian perspective, are the corporate retreats and company meetups that are quite common in the tech industry.
That is why we ostensibly have ambassadors and embassies for the few occasions when someone must be physically present abroad.
For everything else, there's Maste-- I mean your favourite means of high speed, high fidelity, instantaneous, secure telecommunications.