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Amalie Trewartha's avatar

My counter argument here is that there are a few historical cases of societies en masse choosing to lower their collective standard of living in favour of some other goal. Quebecois laws on French language driving out the finance industry is a great example, arguably brexit also.

The Moriori choosing collective extinction over giving up pacifism is also a very striking example, though it’s hard to know exactly what the social dynamics were like there given lack of records.

*however* in each of the cases I can think of it was in favour of something pretty core to societal self image. And honestly being wealthy and eating steak is pretty core to the American self image

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Ari Gesher's avatar

"Fundamentally, the reason I believe in technology as a tool for improving the lives of others and averting the climate crisis is because I don’t believe in people. Specifically, I do not believe it is a good idea to bet on appealing to people to consume less, or to lower their standard of living so someone else in a different country with a different skin color can have a higher standard of living, or to cease to love their families more than they love their neighbors, and to love their neighbors more than they love their countrymen, and to love their countrymen more than they love foreigners. Even in the face of disaster."

True words. I add that I don’t believe in the power of political systems that are driven by short term electoral concerns to make the hard choices as a body politic.

My own diving into climate tech came from realizing that finding a high-leverage sub-problem to solve was the best use of effort if what you care about is actually making a difference.

(Which is why I'm chasing methane every day)

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