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Always strikes me as a weird take.

There’s nothing anyone can do about it. As long as someone somewhere in the world keeps mining it will continue to exist.

It would take the equivalent of a world war effort to, maybe, get enough people to stop mining, that a 51% attack could be successfully carried out. At which point the community would just fork and continue on.

The only realistic option is to outcompete it. Build something better, where even the most greedy bad actors want in on the new thing, not because it’s better for the environment, but because it’s better for them (and happens to also be better for the environment).

What people can do though, is try to get gas-powered leaf blowers banned in your neighborhood, and expand from there.




The problem is how energy is produced. You're offering solutions at what I think is the wrong end. Pigouvian tax things causing the problems at the point of extraction and let the free market respond to that. The negative externalities have to be realized by the market.


You’re right. But I think we’d need a world where we don’t have people who would pollute a lake to pocket a million dollars.

At some point you’re fighting human nature.


Would you be surprised to learn that a lot of people live in a neighborhood where there is not a central broker with a power to ban anything?


Yes. And I think anywhere that leaf blowers are noticeable is almost certain to have a central authority with that power.


Ugh this guy was trying to argue that only HOAs can control leaf blowers. Only an American would forget the existence of actual government when talking about central authorities who can enforce rules.


Only a non-American feels constantly compelled to point stupid things like that out.


I was with you up until the last paragraph. Thinking small isn't going to help much imo.


Unless you are a person capable of bringing about systemic change, thinking small is the limit of what most individuals can contribute.

Instead, people typically dismiss the small change they could bring into reality, and take the easier route, like talking about how big change is needed, and change nothing.




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