ponyfleisch
Yes, but my entire point is not only is this solvable without throwing the energy baby out with the dubious quality goods bathwater, it's easier to solve with more and cheaper energy.
If the consumption of abundant energy has negative externalities, then those need to be appropriately priced. At that point, buying pollution causing junk will become more expensive than buying clean junk, but we'll still be able to afford the clean junk we want.
Several forms of pollution are now much better than they were decades ago. Chlorofluorocarbons, lead in gasoline, rivers and lakes around the world, catalytic converters, slash-and-burn agriculture etc. etc.
Electricity generation is also headed the right way.
The solution is usually better technology and political action, not abstinence. We still have fridges, just not with CFCs.
I'm not saying we'll fix climate change in time, by the way. That is uncertain. But if we do fix it, it won't be with degrowth.
> Yes it is. It's about mindful production of useful products and services. Which is very much the same as reducing economic activity and energy consumption.
Why do you think that wanting less cheap temu junk means overall economic activity will decrease? Why can't that economic activity be redirected to a sustainable future with abundance instead? I still want to eat food grown elsewhere in the world, just not sold in plastic packaging and transported with fossil fuels.
I get being critical of mindless consumerism, but degrowth doesn't seem to be about "order less junk on amazon/temu", but fundamentally reducing economic activity and energy consumption, which is civilisational suicide.
Can you name specific issues caused directly by energy consumption as opposed to specific energy sources or downstream effects like pollution, which is avoidable?
Why would an ecologist have to be against more energy consumption? For climate change, what matters is energy from the sun hitting the earth vs. energy being radiated back into space. More energy consumption also doesn't necessarily cause more pollution of any kind.
I responded to a comment implying that if there is a philantropist like Bill Gates camping out in the desert sucking CO2 out of the air, we won’t need a massive collective effort.
Maybe this will be a somewhat effective solution one day for areas where fuel energy density is important (e.g. flight), but that’s about it. Carbon neutrality will still need a distributed effort as point source capture is massively more economical where feasible.
Did you get 750-800 out of the box with a Pi4 and USB ethernet? Asking because mine was around 300 and needed some manual tweaking (see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27231705)
I had 300-400Mbit/s out of the box and got it up to ~900 with the right set up.
Than energy wasting cash computed by chinese miners and (in the early days) a select group of early adopters? Yes, it makes more sense.
Would you mind linking the specific law(s) you talk about here?
You are not rewarded for "solving tough problems" or anything else related to creating actual value. It's FOMO driven gambling, scams and enabling organized crime that gets money into the crypto ecosystem.
My home country (Switzerland) has a conscription army. ~160k people, each with either a pistol or an assault rifle at home, receiving regular training for a few weeks a year while the government compensates their employer for the loss in productivity. There are tanks, fighter jets and massive alpine fortifications. It's expensive. Most countries have an army and they are usually sized for an unlikely worst case scenario.
One would think maintaining a stockpile of PPE that would allow the authorities to recommend (and even provide) masks for the general population without risking a shortage in health care would be a relatively minor expense compared to that. And yet, all over the western world, PPE is in short supply, and that is without the general public wearing masks like they do in many asian countries.
Roughly 1% of people born in the 17th century were not born in the 1600's.
Interestingly, Wikipedia contradicts itself here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1600s
> The period from 1600 to 1699, synonymous with the 17th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_century
> The 17th century was the century that lasted from January 1, 1601, to December 31, 1700.
I think this is going to annoy me until I forget about it.
Can you explain why it appeals to you? Do the low taxes make up for the limitations on personal liberty?
* Many overseas educated locals helping with cultural cross pollination
* Locals often live with their parents until their late twenties (when they get married), so there are a lot of young people with low personal burn rates
* Lots of government funding and plenty of private capital around as well
* A good amount of big tech companies have offices here
* Major finance hub
* Very business friendly regulations
* Cost of living is reasonably scalable (meaning you can slum it out here or live like a king, depending on your success)
* Good access to Indonesia, Vietnam etc. for talent
* Thriving e-commerce ecosystem in Southeast Asia
* Decent meet up ecosystem
con:
* Rent is expensive (both residential and office space)
* Foreigner visas are not always easy to come by
I might add more later in a separate comment if i can think of more.
It's probably a net positive overall though, especially if the money these people are paid (and spend locally) is coming from other parts of the world/country.
I visit home about once a year.
You can make decent money in Singapore as an expat. But the range of salaries i've seen here is quite a bit larger than in most of the west.
As for the rest of your comment - interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write that up. I am no longer a backpacker and i travel and look at places differently nowadays. I have to check out Jakarta again.
I live in Singapore currently, have been here since 2013. There are things that i miss from my home country (Switzerland), but overall life here is good.
As an expat, that would likely not affect you much. Lots of MNCs have fairly nice working hours, decent pay and 20-25 days/year paid leave (on top of the numerous public holidays)
Cost of living depends on whether you need a big apartment in a posh location and a car. Sending kids to international school is also pricey.