Item — HN Reader

You share your experience as an (probably rich minority) individual. What about the society you lived in ? How about the society your kids will live in 40 years ?

The movement I describe is “sobriety”. It’s similar to being poor of something (big car) but you’re not lacking it, instead you choose to do without. This difference is a big deal in a psychology point of view and that’s probably why you feel “less fun”.

Totally agree with your point of healthiness of vegan diet, the case was more on quantity than beef/no beef.

1 comments

If you call being Western "rich minority", which is technically true, sure.

I grew up poor in the UK. Poor people in the UK generally have houses and cars unless they're in big cities.

The majority of the people in the society I live in drive cars, live in houses and eat meat.

I could choose to do without these things. I don't because like, I don't need to.

Climate change will not be solved by me moving into a tiny flat. It will be solved by the UK figuring out how not to use natural gas to heat my house.

In 40 years my kids will likely own houses and drive cars too. Unless they choose not to. I'd love them regardless, but would be a bit upset if they were to turn out to be far-left extremists.

I sincerely wish the best for your kids, and that includes nice cars and houses.

Figuring out how to heat a country without gaz will be easier when there’s less volume to heat, and energy crisis in EU drive more non-far-left-extremist to see sobriety as an asset within the solution.

From my own country president (and he his quite right/liberal):

> We are living the end of abundance. […] Our system based on freedom in which we have become used to living, sometimes when we need to defend it, it can entail making sacrifices. [0]

[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2022/08/24/macron...

Thank you. I'll just continue to outcompete others, but yeah, probably a lot of people will be poor I guess?

Macron is famously not doing any of this.