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These are specific, modern precedents for large-scale collective action at the scale and speed we’re talking about. There are plenty of lessons. Plenty of understanding of the ugliness and messiness that results from moving this hard and fast and breaking things.
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These are NOT pure “work through market mechanisms” precedents but there’s 10x more market thinking in them than socialists would like. These are NOT pure statist models either, but 10x more statist than pure marketist types would want.
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I think neither side gets this. “Not business as usual” and “not governance as usual” means 10x of *both* mechanisms stressed like crazy. Like trying to run a passenger sedan on rocket fuel while adding more traffic signs.
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Action like this is possible. We have an existence proof. It will just be remarkably unpleasant to everybody despite their favorite mechanism being not just used, but 10x more intensely than they are used to. But there’s good news: there’s one way this is easier than Covid.
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Covid has been a weird collective action problem, one aimed squarely at America’s weakest point: minor constraints on individual freedom that utterly destroy the sense of self of 1/3 of this country 🙄 Fortunately climate action does not call for that type of constraining
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Stopping a virus unfortunately at least for Americans requires individuals to act in highly socially disruptive ways (masks, distancing). Fortunately, decarbonizing the economy largely requires action from institutional leaders on backend matters, not last mile/last inch.
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- Cities electrifying bus fleets - automakers shifting to EVs - Utilities switching to renewables - CEOs okaying WFH, killing commute - Real estate devs, urban planners driving densification All this on a war footing only requires coordination among 1000s, not billions of people
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Calcs like those of David McKay in withouthotair.com show that solutions require consumption cuts which means coordination by regular people (doing less premium mediocre :)). We should make gains where we can of course, but this contradicts your
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BUT... they’re not wrong about one thing. If action is warranted at all, it does mean changing business as usual. There is no gentle acceleration of a non-disruptive current tendency that meets the urgency-of-action constraints. You might as well do nothing if you insist on that.
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Yes, but I strongly suspect they won't happen via voluntary participation but more through upstream forcing of choices. You can't choose to drive a gas-guzzling truck. I can't see "wear a mask" type imperatives bearing more than a tiny fraction of the decision-making load
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I agree that full coordination isn't going to happen, but there is value in moving many people a small way just as there is value in few large movements. They are interconnected too. fwiw, I very much hope that forcing of choices won't happen until we are in actual war conds.
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I think it will, but most will be choices most people won't care about anyway. Drive an EV and fill up at a supercharger vs. drive a gas car and fill up at a gas station is a choice most people won't care about. Otoh, mileage rationing.... yeah that would be trouble.