Seems to me like humans do lots of things for distant benefits: they die for ideals, work their whole lives to give their children a better future, save for retirement, produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future, etc

> they die for ideals

Sometimes. This is not something generally expected of people, and newsworthy when it happens. Not all ideals are also selfless - some, like loyalty to one's God in expectation of an afterlife, is directly selfish.

> work their whole lives to give their children a better future

A combination of biological imperative and social pressure older than civilization; also pretty selfish.

> save for retirement

Most people can't really do that, especially not when living paycheck-to-paycheck. That's why retirement funds tend to be done in opt-out and usually socialized fashion.

> produce research on subjects that will only achieve tangible outcomes in the distant future

Even ignoring the status seekers, pure intellectual curiosity gives short-term emotional rewards. I doubt most researchers would be able to sustain their efforts if they didn't feel at least some immediate intellectual reward that outweighed their lowered (or sometimes non-existent) salaries.

My point isn't that individuals aren't capable of putting long-term benefits in front of their short-term interests. My point is that they aren't capable of doing it at scale, in a coordinated fashion. A lot of this boils down to coordination problems - when personal sacrifice has low marginal utility (i.e. you need to get a lot of people on-board to materialize the benefits) and high immediate cost, few people will choose the sacrifice, and even if a small group coordinates on this, the first person to defect will destroy it all.

And still, a politician who says that airplane ticket and meat prices should rise to levels unaffordable by the bottom 95% won't get elected. It's too unpopular. Despite quite many people in non-western countries not flying in airplanes and only eating meat on rare occasions.

None of those are distant benefits.

The person who dies for “ideals” are mostly driven by false claims[0] about the nature of the afterlife.

Improving your child’s outcomes is a biologically preset desire.

Saving for retirement is still ultimately in one’s immediate self interest.

Producing theoretical research has the immediate benefit of recognition in their fields and the possibility of a “lottery win” outcome.

Saving for retirement is

Oops, don't know how I managed to submit that without finishing it. Oh well, I'll throw in my footnote anyway:

[0] More precisely, claims they can't know to be true. (And are also almost certainly false.)

Eh, a sufficiently high carbon tax would probably reduce demand for carbon intensive goods without killing too many people.

Carbon tax isn't meant to reduce production & consumption, it's meant to shift it towards things with smaller carbon footprint.

Isn't the problem that we're already scheduled to be killing a lot of people due to inaction? We need to find a path that maximises the chances for the remaining survivors.

Yes. My point is that there's no way of quickly getting to "produce and consume less" without dropping a lot of bodies, so that path isn't helpful.

Increases in energy efficiency do not cause deaths.

I think TeMPOraL's point is that if you take away luxuries like airplane flights, cars, meat rich diets from the masses, you will cause massive riots involving human casualties.

Not sure I fully agree with the premise that such measures are needed though. You can also increase efficiencies by e.g. requiring the industry to build more durable products or e.g. increasing spending in artificial meat research as well as high speed trains or hyperloops. People would still eat meat, would still travel the world, but now without causing as much of a carbon footprint.

Yeah, my point is either that or genocide; people won't voluntarily cut down on consumption, both because of strong desire to maintain quality of life and because a lot of that consumption actually is life-preserving. Think proper nourishment, sanitation, life-sustaining medicine.

I agree with your proposed alternatives - I was responding to parent's idea that we should "cut consumption and production".

It did drop in the us over the past decade though (for various reasons). I think it is possible, but would require something drastic changing about the way people work/live. If more people worked remotely, better infrastructure for a local lifestyle, etc, etc. The US average is like 12 kW per person, the world average is I think about 3. Surely it is possible without conflict, just requires the magic combination of better and more efficient. I keep thinking recently how it has changed from everyone watching one big tv and fighting over the channel, vs watching whatever you want on your mobile device. It is worse and better at the same time and probably more energy efficient and has become the norm. Makes me wonder what is the equivalent for transport, etc?

The problem is that action to restrict things is taken today and all regular people will get for it are promises of a better future. And some of them are simply empty promises, eg hyperloop.

To offset increased emissions from India and China over the next few decades, we don’t just need “energy efficiency.” We need to go net negative in CO2 output.

I think learning to give up unnecessary comforts is going to be an important part of the development of the human species. If we are every going to mature and learn to be stewards of this earth instead of stripping it for short term gain, we're going to have to change our outlooks.

So I believe mass change must be a necessity no matter how hard it is. If we don't change, we're not going to solve this problem.

Personally, I don't think individuals can learn this. To me, it seems that human psychology is essentially fixed. The changes need to be cultural - you need human civilization to learn this. But culture, I believe, is mostly a function of techno-economical landscape, with some small flavouring added from path dependence (i.e. history). Think of culture as water flowing into and settling in a valley, which shape is defined by available technology. It gravitates towards a particular configuration matching the landscape, and you can't make it flow differently by just asking. The way we learn, I believe, is through technologies we develop (possibly also through "social technologies" like forms of governance, though I'm not sure whether those can stand on their own, or are also a function of "hard"-technological landscape).

Culture is continuously created/reinforced by individuals. Technology has nothing to do with it really. All cultural change starts with individuals who then pass it on to others through their energy & effort, or by raising their children to be like them.

Nah, culture doesn't get far in a fixed technological landscape. People pass on new folk songs and dresses, but you don't get a Reformation without printing press. You don't break out of feudalism without firearms. You don't get a sexual revolution without countless of other technologies and economical transformations that enabled lots of people to live in dense population centers, above sustenance levels and with enough free time. You won't get long-term stewardship of Earth without technologies that enable us to meet our needs without destroying it.

How can technology have nothing to do with culture?

Culture inherently includes technology.