I both agree and disagree, because this comic is dangerously vague.
A good example is electric cars. It would be great if everyone switched to electric cars, but it would be even better if we built a city that didn't treat pedestrians, cyclists, and public commuters as second class.
The difference being the latter doesn't let private equity make fat returns.
And yes ofc we can both.
Trains are a technology. Walkable city planning is a technology.
Those aren't purely technological solutions though (except in the loosest sense of the word, where any non-hunter-gatherer behavior a human engages in is a technology), as they involve changing the way people live.
The electric car is a mostly drop-in replacement that fits in fine with the existing car centric suburban development model. The transit, cycling, and pedestrian oriented city involves changing how people think about their lives (many people in the US ask how it's even possible to get groceries without a car) and even changing some of the ways we structure our society (the expectation that the cost of housing will increase forever, or even the expectation that housing should be treated as a commodity to invest in at all, as well as many other things to do with the intersection of finance and landuse).
To give another example inventing new chemical processes to try to make plastic recycling work is a technological solution to the problem of petroleum use and plastic waste. Reducing or eliminating the use of single-use plastics where practicable is a non-technological solution, because it doesn't involve any new technologies.
In principle I'm not opposed to new technologies and "technological solutions". However you can see from the above examples that very often the non-technological solution works better. Technological solutions are also very often a poison pill (plastic recycling was made to save the plastic industry, not the planet).
In practice I think we need to use both types of solutions (for example, massively reduce our plastic use, but also use bio-plastics anywhere we can't). But people have a strong reaction to the idea of so-called technological solutions because of the chilling effect they have on policy changes. We saw this with the loop and hyperloop. Rather than rethinking the policies that lead to the dearth of High-Speed rail in the US and investing in a technology that already existed a bunch of states decided to wait for the latest whizz-bang gadget to come out. And it turns out this was exactly the plan. The hyperloop was never supposed to work, it was just supposed to discourage investment in rail projects.
It also ignores that everything has a cost and how much corporations like to pretend that "no study proving bad stuff means there's no bad stuff" for brand new things that haven't existed long enough for bad stuff to show up.
in an ideal world (heh) – our primary choice would be pedestrian, bicycle, electric micromobility, public transit – electric cars reserved for accessibility (personal ownership) – gas cars reserved for remote sites (rent or checkout only, no personal or private ownership)
I can't speak for the anarcho-primitivists but I can say I've been alive long enough to understand that a lot of miracle tech is just a cash grab or a way or distracting from the real solutions. Like carbon capture instead of just investing in renewables and zero emission solutions that exist.
Tech bros are intellectually and morally careless and if what they say seems to good to be true, it's likely not.
Renewables are technology.
And aren't magic. Switching fully to renewables is probably both impossible (still require non-renewable materials to make) and requires lowering of living standards (unless you want to build a dyson swarm you need to stop growing your energy use, which pretty much means recession, because our economy is energy driven - and if you need a different economic system for a technological solution to work it's not really a technological solution, is it. Also renewables are still pretty annoying when it comes to matching your output to your supply, and not being able to turn your AC whenever you feel like it is already a lowering of living standard for the richest countries).
And while we wait for them to "solve" the problem, we're already likely past 1.5°C, even if we just stick to not starving, having water to drink, and not freezing during winters from tomorrow.
That's a false dichotomy in a lot of the comments here
We do both
Carbon capture isn't so we can continue to use fossil fuels. It's because once we get to 0 emissions we still need to draw down the carbon in the atmosphere
An ounce of prevention is almost always worth a pound of cure but we're still going to want that cure because every extra tenth of a degree we can bring the Earth back to normal is going to be worth it
Nah, we don't do both. Carbon capture projects are bullshit for the most part, see https://time.com/6264772/study-most-carbon-credits-are-bogus/ for example. Some are actually generating more carbon, not less overall. Instead, companies have been using this as a way to "buy" their target metrics, except they are buying offsets that don't really exist. And they use this to market their products as green/net zero products, which incentivizes even more consumption.
So overall this whole thing is most likely a net negative, as in we would be better without them. And honestly is not surprising at all, technology is not magic. It's just people want perfect solutions so we don't have to do anything and the problem goes away, so they keep falling for this bullshit. Case in point, your comment lol.
Oh, and I thought they made carbon capture viable (assuming clean energy). Meh
Carbon capture isn’t so we can continue to use fossil fuels.
But that is literally how it is used in the official plans and projections by governments and the UN. They nearly all plan with an increase of fossil fuel use and later (unrealistic) draw-down to reach "net zero" by the 2050ties or so.
Carbon capture isn’t so we can continue to use fossil fuels. It’s because once we get to 0 emissions we still need to draw down the carbon in the atmosphere
'Carbon capture' technology is stupid. Planting trees and not cutting down any more, that is the way to go. They capture carbon, lots of it. That 'technology' has worked for millions of years.
Yes that is a great solution if we had infinite space and time also if we weren't concerned about the natural world and were happy to destroy all the biodiversity and unique biomes by converting into forests. Oh and if it would actually work of course, but that doesn't matter in feelgood fantasy world.
I love trees, I've volunteered planting trees and donates to woodlands and all sorts of things but they are not going to save us from the mess we're in. They're also not as simple as they should be, management is crucial as there's a surprising amount of things that can go wrong on a large scale which would totally fuck the environment - especially with foodweb issues and soil chemistry.
Let's see the technological solutions our top men at Silicon Valley have invented to save the earth
Underground tesla roller coaster
Clean coal
Stop farming food to make fuel instead
More people should just die, also, eugenics
Plot twist: The technological solution requires resources of five earths.
We live much more efficiently than we ever have, there aren't enough trees and wild game for us to live like the Neolithic - the non tech solution is mass genocide or total ecological destruction of the planet. Not really solutions.
They are very much the solutions our „advanced civilization” is heading (and accelerating) towards.
Remember, the ones on top needed us healthy to report to work on monday. Because they wanted a bigger yacht. Once there is no work, or monday we’re all just wasting oxygen and they won’t shudder sending us to wars or letting us all die off.
Hey, why is making everyone use public transit instead of wastefully having everyone have their own private vehicle treated as "lowering living standards," huh?
Especially in a world where there's so many fucking cars that you can get stuck in traffic for hours and hours. We've rounded the bend where actually having serious public transit, that was moving on every public street every ten minutes, you'd suddenly have a lot more freedom of movement than you currently do with hours and hours of traffic. Public transit literally could be faster than a car in many big cities but people are too hung up on having to be around other people.
But nooooo, somehow freeing people from the logistically stupid nightmare of every human having a car and focusing on transit, we have to call that a "reduction in living standards." Get the fuck out of here.
it's just short for living standards that reduce corporate profits.
As someone without a car but with a child let me tell you, cars significantly reduce our living standard.
Most places we go I need to constantly tell my toddler not to walk too much to the left or right or run or slow down, I have to control her like a slave, or suppress her emerging wish for independence by holding her by the hand all the time, or even worse, put her in a stroller. Hell there are so many cars parked here (even on corners) that I often cannot leave the sidewalk safely with a stroller or cross the street safely (so that I would see a coming car or a coming car would see me).
I'd happily be less of a "germophobe" and have my kid run around with dirty hands, pick up dirt, etc. But car dirt is definitely not the "healthy dirt" so no, no dirt for you. Don't touch, don't play.
I want my child to grow up in a city that embraces her existence. I want her to feel like a welcomed member of society. But instead I have to keep telling her so many negative things, this is dangerous, don't go there, don't do this. She still loves being downtown and prefers this often to the playground or nature (which we try to encourage). She loves the tram and trains. But there are so many restrictions of free movement it breaks my heart.
And I am in a privileged position living in a German city. I can't even begin to imagine how devastating it would be in an even more car centric society.
"Clean" coal, corn based ethanol, hydrogen vehicles, plant a tree offsets, planet scale carbon filters, on and on...
If the owners want me to believe technology can solve the climate problem that is caused by their greed so their greed can continue destroying civilization socially unabated, they need to stop selling climate action policy snake oil to world governments for a quick buck.
And also maybe stop forcing workers who can work at a computer at home to drive into work to maintain the capital value of your commercial real estate as you bark orders from the luxury resort tour that is your life.
Until then, we know not living lives powered by burning ridiculous quantities of dead flora/fauna juice wouldn't further destabilize our only, increasingly uncomfortably hot habitat. We also know that simply stopping won't reverse the damage already done on a time scale humans can perceive.
We are literally turning the habitat of any future humans into 🔥Hell🔥. And if we couldn't make it work here, on easy mode, with enough pre-existing water/air/waste recycling to support millions to billions sustainably, we certainly aren't going to thrive on worlds where a single mistake means oops, everybody dead instantly try again. Im glad of that honestly, as the idea of growing/metastasizing into space and exploiting new world's resources almost makes dollar signs pop out of billionaire's eye sockets, and if thats the core reason they're so eager for us to spread out there, may we die on the vine.
Giant strawman. Not everyone advocating for degrowth is a primitivist.
How are those 2 different?
AFAIK, anarcho-primitivism advocates for stopping anything they deem to be "civilizational technology". Live like the amish in the best case, do away with agriculture in the worst case.
Degrowth is a movement away from a growth-at-all-costs economy and towards one where production that benefits the majority of people.
Next you're all gonna say I should use dentures to chew my own food rather than have my underage slave girls chew it and spit in my mouth. You people disgust me.
So why is it that everyone pushing for 'reduced living standards' is also always shilling some new technologies to solve that problem?
If you go through life believing that people are never intentionally doing harm, you are setting yourself up for nefarious characters. Instead, we should behave as it people are not intentionally doing harm (until inculpatory evidence is demonstrated) while reserving judgement on intentions.
Hello, I'm shilling a technology to solve reduced living standards problems. Hear my pitch:
Has this ever happened to you: you want to reduce pollution from your car, but it's so hard to get everywhere without it. Well have I got the solution for you! Introducing the bicycle. This revolutionary transportation method is powered by your own legs, and uses a similar effort to walking while going several times as fast. You can ride a bicycle to work, to the local grocer, or even to the doctor's office. And with my second technology, mixed use zoning, the distances you ride to get where you're going will be even shorter! Interested? Of course you are! If you want to participate, push for mixed use zoning at your local council meetings and buy a bicycle from your nearest retailer.
Stay tuned for further innovations, like our new invention, the "tram"!
the fuck is this shit doing in a solarpunk community lmao, this is just made up nonsense you'd see on facebook
To be fair, I don't know exactly what is meant.
But my mind went to meat consumption, which is higher in the developed world, is considered indicative of a high standard of living, and, in my opinion, is best addressed not by lab-grown meat (or other technological solutions), but by reduced consumption (the reduced living standard).
The idea that eliminating meat reduces your standard of living is a preconceived bias. It is not an accident you believe that. You are being manipulated. If you investigate you will find that people who do it report improvements in their standard of living, not reduction. Meat is simply a way of refining cheap, sustainable, healthy plants into scarce, expensive, toxic and addictive processed food, by abusing the bodies and minds of sentient creatures. It is literally killing you and everyone you know. The more meat you eat, the younger you die and the more diseases you experience. Nearly all the top ten killers of humans on Earth today, and especially in the Western world, is caused by an animal-based diet: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer, and more. Heart disease, diabetes, AND RECENTLY ALZHEIMER'S have all been reversed in massive clinical trials, by doing little more than eliminating toxic animal products from the diet.
I would argue that reduced meat can be either the result of a lower living standard or a higher one. This is the issue a lot of people on each side refuse to see, a higher standard of life can be more efficient with systems either technological or social which make it possible.
Really we need a blend of each, yes the techphobes are right we don't want to live in battery farms where only efficiency matters but also we don't want to live in the drudgery of a Neolithic existence. We need to identify and adopt systems that allow a good quality of life and enables diversity of thought and lifestyle, tech can make this possible but is unlikely to do it alone.
Yes it's difficult but we need social growth, that means people tying new things and demonstrating them to the world. We should be using our absurd luxury and wealth here in the developed nations to help develop solutions everyone can use to live a good life, instead of flexing fast cars and designer clothes we should be spreading knowledge of healthy food, useful educational and organizational tools, community project structures which enable people to work on shared goals and mutually beneficial platforms...
We have a very privileged platform in the world, we should use it to show that even the richest most well educated, traveled and socialised people prefer a low or no meat diet.
The classic fallacy that industries have sold us over the past decades that technology would solve all our problems. So funny. They are doing the same again with AI
The thing is they have solved an endless litany of problems and improved life for everyone on a radical scale thousands of times, but then people get born into the world snd never see those problems - have you ever even had to worry about milk souring let alone storing produce to last the winter? Have you ever even been attacked by a predator? That was a way of life for our ancestors before technology, the concept of clean drinking water didn't even come close to meaning the same thing but their version of it was a daily struggle which often went unmet regardless.
Go back in time before the industrial revolution and ask.a serf what their problems are, I bet.you nor I have ever faced a single one of them. It'd be fun to listen to the conversation you explaining that politicians are corrupt and avocados are expensive, he doesn't know what they are but he says he's thy literal property of a baron that doesn't even pretend to care what he thinks and mice got into his grainstore so some of his kids will starve this winter.
Tech had made your life significantly better and the coming wave of ai tools is going to make it much better again and allow things you never even imagined possible like localized food networks and community based industry, you'll use it all snd move on to complaining asteroid mining is over hyped or whatever comes next
They say this and then reject every technological solution that exists. Like wind or solar energy. Trains. Ebikes. The goalposts always get moved to some not yet existant technology so nothing needs to change.
Oh great, degrowth discourse this should go smoothly
Wait... It's developed countries using up all our resources? Isn't that, like, the opposite of the truth? And technical solutions are a panacea? Is what tech bros have shown us? This seems like a very odd meme
Afaik, Americans use about 20% of the world’s resources with about 4% of the population. China and India both do use a lot of resources, but they’re also a third of the world’s population
TBF there are far, far too many technological solutions that are “science will save us” but haven’t been fully fleshed out, studied, or require some modest form of unobtainium to work in mass deployment. Also, a huge chunk of those solutions would have to have been implemented 20 years ago, yet haven’t even made it off the proverbial drawing board yet.
IMO solutions need to be implemented now, like wind, solar, especially nuclear power, EV, etc. Yeah, nuclear is temporary, and yes, nothing stays in place longer than a temporary solution, but it’s a known and can be built now rather than yet another 5-15 years of waiting for untried tech solutions. Unfortunately the comic isn’t entirely wrong, we are going to need to lose some things if we want to save ourselves.
Yeah, nuclear is temporary, and yes, nothing stays in place longer than a temporary solution, but it’s a known and can be built now rather than yet another 5-15 years of waiting for untried tech solutions.
I guess you could say nuclear power can be built "now". From a certain point of view.
The last nuclear reactor to go online in the United States took 14 years to build - from breaking ground in 2009 to going online in 2023 - at a cost of thirty billion dollars.
And that wasn't even a new nuclear power site, it was a additional reactor added on as an existing site, so planning and permitting and so on were significantly faster then a new nuclear power plant would be.
So yes, we could start the process of building a new nuclear reactor in the United States and commit 30 billion in taxpayer money to it. And after 20 to 30 years that reactor might come online.
Or we could commit 30 billion dollars to subsidizing wind and solar power, and get that power generation online in the next few years, at a significantly lower cost per kilowatt.
Conservatism is a plague that is long overdue for a cure.
I offer myself up for this. I already lowered my living standards years ago and I am quite comfortable with it.
Lol true. They're like communists, but honest.
