Funny enough you are falling into a similar situation as item 5 from that list. You are "pushing a view that has absolutely no advantage to anyone". You feel like one of the few sane people because you are of course technically right. However no one will listen to you because "even if that’s true, there’s no profit in thinking about it" as it is currently impossible from a societal standpoint. There is no way to get a critical mass of people to return to an agrarian society until they have no other real choice because collectively modern consumption makes our individual lives more enjoyable. That is why reducing emissions is expensive and painful because the cheap and easy answer of just not consuming isn't feasible.
Some part of modern consumption however is not really making lives any more enjoyable at all, for instance all the low quality clothes and items sold in large quantities to fill some internal void for people for a short while.
If there was for instance a carbon tax on the raw materials and transport then I’m fairly sure the price difference between high quality and low quality items would become minimal so people would start buying more sensibly for the planet because our systems would make it more sensible for them individually.
>to fill some internal void for people for a short while.
You just answered your own point there. It makes people happy. Maybe that feeling is fleeting, but it is still a good feeling that people will not give up voluntarily unless there are no other options.
>If there was for instance a carbon tax on the raw materials and transport then I’m fairly sure the price difference between high quality and low quality items would become minimal so people would start buying more sensibly for the planet because our systems would make it more sensible for them individually.
I don't disagree, but a carbon tax is in the expensive and painful bucket above not the cheap and easy one. It makes the low quality goods more expensive so people consume less of them. That is not people voluntarily giving up those good for the benefit of the planet.
Nah, I don't buy that.
People wouldn't be "giving up" anything for the benefit of the planet by not buying a new pair of shoes every month or something.
It would actually be for their own benefit to be more content.
That's kind of the whole problem, the people who would lose are the sellers and advertisers who cultivate the insecurities in discontent people for their own benefit, not the consumers.
Just to be clear, you are saying that you know what makes people happy better than people know themselves. And even if you are right, people's current behavior shows that they disagree with you on what is best. Therefore they won't voluntarily give up buying new shoes. You will have to force people to agree with you and this type of paternalistic "I know what is best for you better than you do" leadership is rather dystopian.
Also the human desire for endless consumption predates advertising as evidence by the lifestyles of much of history's royalty, aristocracy, and wealthy. People consume because it feels good.
I’m not talking about forcing anyone to do anything.
I talked about carbon taxes to make people pay the true price of their consumption so the market forces can find the right equilibrium, which they can’t when the price doesn’t include all the information.
It seems like we are talking in circles. The original debate was that there were two options for dealing with climate change. One was expensive and painful and the other was cheap and easy.
The cheap and easy one is we just all decide to voluntarily reduce consumption. That isn't feasible for the reasons listed in previous comments.
The expensive and painful one is a combination of disincentivizing consumption, offsetting carbon emission, creating carbon capture technology, etc. As I said before, a carbon tax is part of the expensive option because it obviously makes consumption more expensive.
That isn't to say a carbon tax is a bad solution. I generally support one. It is simply a recognition that a carbon tax is not the cheap and easy solution of us all simply reducing consumption. If you want a cheap solution either people need to voluntarily give up consumption or they need to be forced to give up consumption.
I agree with that.
The only thing I have an objection to is that it would be so painful to give up a portion of the consumption, because some of it is truly excessive and encouraged mostly by advertising and 'influencers'. To which I don't have a solution except trying to reduce the relentless consumerism and trying to convince people they'll be much happier with stuff they can buy outright and truly own (see Right To Repair) than with stuff they have to buy on credit and don't really own anyway (see iPhones and Audible collections).
>for instance all the low quality clothes and items sold in large quantities to fill some internal void for people for a short while.
For clothes, for the purchaser, have you done the math to show it isn't worthwhile? I find it's cheaper[1] to buy low quality clothes than to buy high quality ones in the long run. I'd buy shoes that would last only 6-9 months, but paying double wouldn't make them last twice as long, etc.
>>> I find it's cheaper[1] to buy low quality clothes than to buy high quality ones in the long run. I'd buy shoes that would last only 6-9 months, but paying double wouldn't make them last twice as long, etc.
This doesn't match my experience. I had dress shirts made-to-measure for about $50-60/each....that was 9 years ago and they are still going strong. For footwear, I mostly wear $150+ combat boots or dress boots, they all last for years and years of hard use.
True and I should have worded it differently. Not necessarily cheap but low quality.
You can get designer stuff at high price points that are not really much better quality, just better marketed.
It’s hard to find really high quality clothes today because there just isn’t the incentive to provide them when all the crap can be sold and segmented into fashion seasons so you “have” to buy a new jacket now.
This is not just clothes of course, I’m for example very susceptible to feeling a need to buy the latest gadget because it has more RAM. I might need it someday. Maybe.
>You are "pushing a view that has absolutely no advantage to anyone".
Really? I'm of the opinion that doing less, working less, and doing things like having your own garden would lead to much greater health and happiness for the average person. The only way I can see "no advantage" is when viewed through the lens of modern capitalism, then my suggestions are certainly blasphemous.
It's not they're blasphemous, it's that there's no clear way to incentivize a critical mass to change their behavior. Put another way: the destination is clear enough, but how to get there isn't. Reminds me a bit of nuclear disarmament.
Exactly, it is more the transition that is impossible rather than the end state. You can't tell people to give up international travel, visiting family members, eating non-local foods, air conditioning, and the overwhelming majority of society's leisure activities and replace it all with gardening. Maybe that is a desirable end result that would be healthier for both humanity and the planet, but there is no way to get there voluntarily. That is just asking people to give up too much.
You're ignoring his more important point that you will not be able to get the critical mass necessary to make it useful and true on a collective/societal level. Believing that you can ask people to work less, and that the lost income (and subsequently access to critical resources like food) can somehow be supplemented with a garden that many people wouldn't even have access to the space necessary to implement, betrays a lack of understanding of the economic situation of most people. How many proles rent rather than own, and how may have access to fertile ground?
