Why arguing is hard: How to agree on a playing field

[@m.f.3347]

My argument is that electric cars are a red herring. They are better for the environment than combustion engines overall, but it's the wrong conversation. We need to change our unsustainable land use policies, build smarter and more effective modes of transport, or otherwise de-center cars as default. I've probably been watching too much urbanist youtube lmao

[@HGModernism]

I think that's a great example of decoupling. I want to include the assumption that people will continue to want to drive cars in the short term and what choices they can make, and you're looking longer term at choices the average person would not be making. Both are valid discussions and I we don't disagree.

[@wlfbck20]

>I've probably been watching too much urbanist youtube Probably ;) The issue is that every other mode of transport (excluding car-sharing models) does not provide convenient door-to-door transport, and is mostly not feasible for thinly spread population.

[@dm9910]

​@@wlfbck20 Well it depends how thinly spread, and how convenient you need it to be. Most people live in towns and cities where a well-designed bus or subway system and railways to link up with other nearby towns/cities is totally sufficient, and the slight increase in convenience (especially considering how much it's offset by the inconvenience to everyone else) is not worth the environmental impact. If you live on a farm in the middle of nowhere then sure, cars are very convenient (and also far less inefficient than in cities where everyone has to sit in traffic idling all the time) and nobody is disputing that. But the vast majority of people are not in that situation: we can afford a few car users in rural areas if the main population centres make the switch to primarily using public transport.

[@dwindle]

You make a good point, this fixes part of a problem that needs to be fixed to begin with.

[@ninjalectualx]

This channel is going places! Don't forget about me when you get one of those plaques

[@nyxpouleson3788]

Another context that I thought up was the lifecycle of the car itself. I'd actually need to learn more of the disposal of the two different types of cars, but safe disposal of batteries seems to be a difficult thing to do. Might still be eclipsed by the impact of the fossil fuels on a combustion engine over its lifetime. Then the other is just a urban planning context, of it would likely be better to have public transit and move away from a car based transit system. Really cool information! Definitely explains how someone in acting in good faith might still pull a straw man

[@HGModernism]

Oh yeah, that's a really good point about lifecycle. I want to do a video on "steel-manning" the opposite of straw-manning.

[@dariusduesentrieb]

@@HGModernism I think steel-manning runs into problems, because you basically need to argue for every possible interpretation of a problem (opposed to a single “wrong” one when someone is straw-manning), which sometimes is not feasible. Especially because naturally, one is not as motivated searching for the strongest possible interpretation for the other side of the argument, compared to making sure that you are not straw-manned yourself.

[@HGModernism]

@@dariusduesentrieb I agree it isn't always feasible but I see it more as a "best practice" to strive to. I think there's a signaling aspect to it as well that shows some humility of conviction?

[@joshsbecker]

@@HGModernism "I see where you are coming from and this is why smarter people who agree with you are also wrong" is a fantastic teaching method. However, use cases and their results depend heavily on context, delivery, and how well a student handles shame. An intelligent and humble student will appreciate being steel-manned.

[@joshsbecker]

@@dariusduesentrieb defeating the strongest case removes the possibility of more straw men. Steel-manning is always a worthwhile exercise because fighting for the other side can generate empathy and revelation. I always do my best to destroy myself before anyone else can so they cannot. Whether or not I succeed, I learn.

[@exavian6]

That blog post was great. The later section about decoupling was particularly insightful.

[@simonmeadows7961]

Two points here: 1) If arguing over facts, can subjective judgements such as 'good' or 'bad' really come into it? You might agree on the effects of electric cars but disagree on what constitutes good or bad, which feels more philosophical than factual. 2) One thing I try for a good faith argument is 'can I reword my opponent's view in my own words, but in a way which they recognise as being a valid alternative wording of their own view'. And vice versa. This can help to minimise straw men arguments.

[@cubonefan3]

I agree with #1, facts contain an objective truth value. In contrast, “good” and “bad” are subjective morality claims.

[@HGModernism]

1) That's a good point, but I find there is still value in digging into the facts that make up people's value judgements. For example, "good for the environment" could mean preserving every extant species, or allowing humans as a species part of the environment to act as we want. People still collect facts to potentially post-rationalize their values and it's interesting to examine them.

[@aznargo]

Argumentation is a skill that takes time & is difficult to develop. IMO, mostly because people tend to take ownership of their opinions, so when disagreements happen, they are taken personally. So a lot of arguments end up being battles of attrition (in my experience). I think this concept of decoupling is a great way to structure an argument because it makes sure that you are having a focused conversation, and not one that's very disparate. The issue is actually getting the conversation focused enough to stay on that track! Enter ADHD! Joking aside, great video, great channel. Thanks for sharing.

[@irSpanxx]

3:05 To say “electric cars are *good* for the environment” would imply that they somehow benefit the environment. My thoughts are that it may be more accurate to say “electric cars are less harmful to the environment” compared to say, for instance a diesel car. I’ve never looked into the issue though so I don’t know if my example is true. That was my first thought upon considering your statement.

[@irSpanxx]

To clarify in broad terms, I look at it as them being ‘the lesser of two evils’ rather than them being good. Or Vaping is good for your body. Well, compared to smoking - maybe.

[@Survivalist_Redo]

@@irSpanxx aiming for the best outcome, not a good outcome

[@HGModernism]

I think that's why dynamic conversations are so important. You need a lot of back and forth to agree on the terms. I agree that "less harmful" is more accurate than "beneficial" so then we would be able to move forward from there.

[@TecHippy]

Electric cars are good for the environment in the sense that cake is good for my health. When compared to enriched uranium, cake is a healthy alternative, but saying it's good for your health only makes sense in a really limited context

[@justforplaylists]

​​@@TecHippy Yellow cake is healthier to eat than yellowcake.

[@blacklinkker5679]

Really good to come back here after a while and seeing that people are enjoying this channel so much

[@sylwesterkukuka3592]

This is actually a very informative and well prepared video. Top of the top of KZbin content. Thank you!

[@corpsinhere]

I just found this channel and love it! Subscribed!

[@BlommaBaumbart]

I watched most of your videos in a row now and am leaving a comment for the algorithm. I'm actually making context and definitions a first step in all arguments / discussions I'm having. 80% of the time it shortens the discussion a lot and leads to good results. 20% it leads to fruitless but interesting debates about where one should source context from in a conversation and how to phrase things.

[@lupusjoe]

Great video on interesting ideas. I did not expect a video on fixing lactose intolerance to lead me down the rabbit hole to cognitive decoupling. After which I'd spend my evening reading about a Race controversy I had never heard of before, the "Motte and Bailey" argument structure and the difference between High decouplers and Low decouplers. Thanks for linking the John Nerst article it was a fascinating read.

[@roskelld]

Oooh a short 4 minute video I can quickly digest... and I'm now fighting my brain to not dive down a rabbit hole of thought about electric cars and whether they might be good for the environment.

[@YoriichiTsugikuni07]

Just loved the explanation. Simple an to the point❤

[@cubonefan3]

I love your plant collection !

[@jamesphillips2285]

I see personal EVs has harm reduction. You don't get order of magnitude reductions in energy use until you abolish R1 zoning (which prohibits multifamily and commercial use in vast Urban areas) and get most (not all!) people walking, cycling, or using mass transit.

[@wesr9258]

one extra argument on the cars: Electric cars might (MIGHT) make you feel more comfortable driving (due to less shame) ON AVERAGE (it might make you less comfortable driving, for a number of reasons, such as living somewhere where electric vehicles might bee seen as a bit bad, or if your EV doesn't have much mileage and you have to use it strategically), making you drive more in turn, and causing higher emissions despite potentially less emissions per hour of driving. (emissions = emissions per hour * hours spent driving.)

[@jamesphillips2285]

I resemble that remark since getting my first EV. Edit: Because I have a very small battery by modern standards (24kWh, 16kWh typically usable) I find I am strategic in my trips though. For example: since my 2011 Leaf lacks active battery cooling: I have been trying to avoid charging it during the recent heatwave. Finally charged it Saturday morning Midnight to 10AM (grid power demand drops a bit on the weekend, outside temperature stayed below 25C during charging).

[@wesr9258]

@@jamesphillips2285 that is a good personal anecdote that DID contribute! I'll edit my original message to reflect this comment.

[@wordsayer19]

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got for logical debate is to be vigilant on what exactly we define as "facts". Specifically, the definition I was given was in order for something to be factual, it has to be *observable*. If something cannot be directly observed, it is either assumption or interpretation at some level. No matter how logical or thorough your conclusion is, if it is not observable, it isn't factual. If we define facts this way, it is impossible for honest, logical parties to disagree on facts (assuming both parties can observe said facts). Thus, what you're *really* disagreeing about is your interpretations of those facts. In the car example, "electric cars are good for the environment" *cannot* be a factual statement, because it requires an *interpretation* of what "good for the environment" even means. A discussion of facts would look more like "The average gas car releases x amount of CO2 vs the average electric car" or "Electric car batteries use x amount of lithium which has x impact on land fills" or "We have measured x change to atmospheric CO2 in the last x years, and we have measured x change in global temperature". Though, even these statements wouldn't be 100% factual, because it requires a certain level of trust in the people collecting and publishing data on these topics. And every human who touches any data will introduce some level of bias, mistakes, and interpretations. Realistically, there are very few things that cannot be doubted at some level, so it ends up being more about degrees of confidence than a black and white "fact or not fact". But if we can limit our assertions of "fact" to things that are observable beyond a reasonable doubt and acknowledge the difference between that and our *interpretations* of facts, we can have much more civil conversations, and we can be much more confident of the conclusions we do make. *Side note:* a fun thought experiment with this approach is the realization that many things can be *true* without being *factual.* For instance, if Van Gogh painted a picture of a dog, decided he didn't like it, burned it, and told no one about it; it could be *true* that he painted the dog, but it wouldn't be *factual* because no one is around anymore who could have observed it.

[@pablogonzalez2009]

2:55 This made me think about something that's been on my mind recently. Does my actions as an individual lead to meaningful, lasting change, or is it just to satisfy my conscience of not wanting to be the guy that doesn't contribute, rather than actually make significant change. Sure, if everyone contributes, even a tiny bit matters because the net result is significant. But in the situation where not a significant amount of people are contributing, then isn't it more effective to put efforts into convincing or making others do it than to contribute yourself. If you make others contribute, you yourself don't need to contribute unless it puts your conscience at ease. So, to me, it is more worth your effort to focus your efforts of gaining power in terms of money and social influence such that your actions are meaningful because they affect the cause significantly, than to quench your need to help the world by only contributing individually, when in reality, that might not contribute significantly to help the cause. So, contributing individually gets rid of you not wanting to be someone who contributes negatively, but if you use this desire as energy to do gain meaningful power/influence, then maybe that is more worthwhile.

[@HGModernism]

This reminds me a lot of the older recommendations of the 80,000 Hours non-profit. They are built around the idea that you spend 80,000 hours over your life at work, so what could you do with those hours to have the most impact on the world. They used to recommend that one of the best things you could do was to become really successful on Wall Street or the like because the money you would make and could then donate to effective charities would be more valuable than, for example, not making much but volunteering as an individual in your spare time. Lately though, they've changed their recommendations to instead find jobs that address "existential risks" such as becoming a biologist working on stopping the next pandemic, or an AI researcher, or a government position that would put you in the room when officials are discussing nuclear options etc.

[@paulohtobias]

If we're talking about facts, I think it's important to define exactly what 'good' means and how to measure it One thing I've been trying to do recently is to offer the counter argument to my point. Something like "My argument will completely fall apart if you can prove that..."

[@__-vb3ht]

We tend to think of "the environment" like it is something external that has nothing to do with us. But emissions don't just pass us by to go on to the poles and melt the ice with adorable baby polar bears on them. Humans in urban areas getting lung cancer and other diseases due to smog is also a problem to consider. Even if you were to go along with electric car haters saying the power just comes from 100% coal and the exact same emissions are just moved elsewhere, I'd still be all for it. The burning of fossil fuels happens outside of population centres now? Good!

[@HGModernism]

Yeah, it also seems like Low Emission Zones may be good for respiratory disease. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095069621000802 I've also read about making them around hospitals to reduce the breathing stress on patients.

[@__-vb3ht]

@@HGModernism I mean eventually you'd like the whole city to be low emission, but setting it up around hosptials might be a cheeky way to get a foot in door, to introduce people who are sceptical to the idea of reshaping our cities

[@__-vb3ht]

With petrol one also has to consider the infratructure necessary for moving it. Once you hang a cable somewhere, using it generates some losses, yes. but with oil you need to drill it, burn fuel to move it to a refinery, refine it, have trucks drive to the service stations every few days etc. I don't rememebr the exact numbers but compared to some electrical resistance in cables, it is enormous!

[@HGModernism]

That's a really good point, I hadn't thought about all the infra around gas. Looks like power line losses are only ~5% en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Losses

[@Tvde1]

My commute to work is a 5 minute bike ride, so I have an entirely different frame of reference

[@benedekkoleszar1299]

"Deciding which contexts are important before we make our arguments" is actually easy enough, we call it maths. You introduce a list of axioms ("contexts"), then construct theorems ("arguments") based on logical consequences of those axioms. In theory, an agent that could collect and process information perfectly (formally referred to as a Bayesian superintelligence) could come to conclusions about everyday topics like the one given as an example in the video based on the same principles, working from the laws of probability theory using mathematical reasoning - and these conclusions would be just as true as 1+1=2. If you agree with the laws of probability theory and logic that processed the information, you'll agree with the results (given the same information to start with*). The problem in regular humans is just that we don't have the ability to get, store and process that much information. *This really is carrying a lot of weight, and is also the reason for the sarcastic "Should be easy, right?" in the video. Humans are quite terrible at handling this part of the task, too.

[@benedekkoleszar1299]

I should probably mention, I'm heavily drawing from the works of Eliezer Yudkowsky with this comment, mainly his book Rationality: From AI to Zombies.

[@HGModernism]

Ah I'm a big Yudkowsky fan. I eventually want to talk about AI alignment but I want to build more of a rapport with viewers before launching off the "deep end" of approachability haha

[@benedekkoleszar1299]

@@HGModernism Oh cool! Yeah that should be nice, can't wait!

[@zy6670]

Another context: Electric cars, while not being green, change the place where the pollution is emitted. For the sake of the argument, even if the planetary environmental effect was equal, it's still better to not produce all the harmful exhaust pollution directly in cities, where people will breathe it in. The same goes for noise pollution.

[@lerondgattenor]

Cars as a concept itself are not good for the enviroment, thus electric cars are still bad.

[@austinshoupe3003]

Existing is potentially bad for the environment. Electric cars are less bad than their alternative, and harmful reduction is important. So, removing pedantry, electric cars are a net positive for the envrionment.

[@MrGoldfish8]

​@@austinshoupe3003Electric cars are less bad than one specific alternative, that is petrol cars, but this is a false dichotomy. You're forgetting about the many other forms of transport that are significantly better for the environment than electric cars.

[@austinshoupe3003]

@@MrGoldfish8 as a former bike commuter, I'm not forgetting about the alternatives. The alternatives are less practical. For example, my wife and I work about 100 miles apart in the farmland. Other than cars, what else can I do for transportation?

[@YEs69th420]

Cars have many uses that no amount of infrastructure change can replace; emergency services are one. The real trick is to disincentivise the use of cars where they simply do not need to be used such that the overall impact of cars is greatly reduced. It is not possible to be 100% environmentally friendly but we sure should try to get as close as we can.

[@cc1drt]

you breathing is also bad for the environment. you should do something to fix that l0ser

[@manso306]

"Should be easy ..right?" I mean, no. Don't know to what degree that was laden with irony, but it's not only far removed from easy, it's in a different realm altogether. Just look at the comments! Many good points about e.g. disagreements often being about implicit value-judgements, not facts per-se, even though this may not be recognized by those involved. And even about actual facts there can be disagreement: Everything comes with some degree of uncertainty, and just because you "know" X doesn't mean there isn't subtle misinterpretations going on. Then there's people's general (near) inability to grasp complexity and accurately assess their own knowledge (or limits thereof), and so on...

[@HGModernism]

Definitely sarcasm, this video was part 2 of a 3 part series and the next video Beyond Reason - Why We Hate leads into a further discussion.

[@KazmirRunik]

Even though the energy conversion is better through electric vehicles, the energy from the electrical grid can still be burning dirtier than gasoline because much of the electrical grid is powered through coal, which burns much dirtier than gas. As a counter to this: even if I give you that the current state of the electrical grid may make electric cars burn dirtier at the moment, they do still use the electric grid, which has much greater potential to provide renewable energy as our infrastructure develops. In the future, these cars will become cleaner & cleaner to run, so putting resources into electric vehicles is an investment for the future so we have the entire learning process frontloaded instead of having to figure this whole thing out in the future. A counter counter would be that cars themselves may not last that long if we're moving toward a greener future and so the "investment" is potentially a waste of resources that just burned dirtier the entire time, counter counter counter would be that we need to think about that transition instead of just assuming that we'll go from having cars to not having cars. This belies how I formulate arguments: I integrate the opposing argument into my own, which both makes it difficult to disagree in good faith and gives me an opportunity to better round out my thoughts about the topic.

[@SpaceMurloc14]

My argument is electric car a good for the environment azs long as they are used by someone using car very regularly. As the environmental costs of battery is huge, it gets smaller and smaller the more we use the car, if we compare it to a regular car. Although is they are found in frequent car accident or replaced to fulfill the desire of the owner to have something knew, then their impact are indeed worse than regular car. I think both of these cars are meant to coexist

[@everettvitols5690]

Great video. High/low decoupling is a powerful concept. For an interesting read about environmentalism and its philosophical underpinnings (including why all environmentalism is ultimately “anthropocentric”) I recommend “Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change” by Joseph Heath. I feel like you’d like it.

[@XXLragequit]

Even if power plants and cars had the same efficiency it would still be better for the environment. Single Point sources are much easier and cheaper to reduce emissions. So immisons from that power plant would still be lower and not directly in your city.

[@dm9910]

It depends what you're comparing electric cars to. Replacing petrol/diesel cars with electric ones is broadly good. Replacing trains, buses and bikes with electric cars is terrible.

[@wizard-pirate]

Here's one argument for "electric cars are bad", but I believe the electrification of land vehicles is something we should continue working on. Electric cars are bad because the batteries use are composed mostly of lithium and rare earth metals. These metals are harvested from the ground in a process that is extremely energy intensive and extremely harmful for the environment in which the metals are found. This kind of metal-rich environment is often found in developing countries lacking in some important environmental policy that would ensure the proper cleanup after mining operations. Finding a better battery technology would be an important step in reducing the harm that electric vehicles cause to the environment.

[@asailijhijr]

Manufacturing electric cars may be bad for the environment because mining the necessary materials creates pollution and emissions.

[@memegazer2523]

"Electric cars are good for the enviroment" I would steel man this by suggesting a better premise is "electric cars are a necessary step to reduce climate/environmental disruption from human industry"

[@Jcewazhere]

Electric cars are bad because they have a high start up cost in materials and money, they're expensive. (Electric cars are great because over time they'll use less non-renewable/recyclable resources, and they're getting cheaper as more manufacturers make them) Electric cars are boring, they make no sound and have no 'soul'. (My Bolt is a blast to drive, and I love the way 'Beverly' sings to me through the switchbacks) Electric cars take forever to recharge. (It takes me 3 seconds to recharge my car, I just plug it in when I get home and it's done the next time I need it) Electric cars and lack of parking don't mix. (Cars and a lack of parking don't mix) Electric cars can't work without infrastructure. (There's electricity in more places than gasoline, you can take solar panels with you to very slowly recharge) Electric cars can't work without home charging. (Public charge once a week, assuming the average 20 miles per day. Charge at work. Charge at one of the restaurants or shopping centers that has public charging so you do two things at once) Yeah, it's hard to steelman the anti-EV crowd.

[@HGModernism]

But... but muh car soul... I need the VROOM VROOM to feel like an alpha of my respective gender. Just imagine an electric motorcycle. Oh wait, you can't, it's a paradox.

[@UnStop4ble]

whats that poster in the back? its so nice

[@youkofoxy]

My counter arguments? because they are cars and cars are bad for the environment. In terms of space, energy, and usage of resources, cars are quite inefficient. While also being pollutants with their wheels (that rubber missing is going somewhere) and having high maintenance infrastructure. So... cars are bad, electric cars are cars, electric cars still bad.

[@istvan.design]

It is not possible to have all the information in the real world. Each argument is hypothetical in a given imagined or real context. As soon as one party has the desire and ability to win the argument can win it without being necessarily right or wrong. In almost all the cases both sides are right and both sides are wrong.

[@jessicaroberts521]

electric cars are good for the environment, but they’re not that good. most places for now, especially in run down or desolate areas likes the appalachia, ghost towns, or rural areas have more gas stations than electric, which means that buying an electric car would only be practical in urbanized areas

[@mortenrl1946]

"Electric cars are good for the environment" half an hour later i'm still reading about rare earth minerals, battery production, car emissions... Only to land on "maybe" cuz.. I mean shit depends, where are we getting the energy, where are we getting the materials, are they replacing other car types or just being added to the pool... etc etc etc

[@HGModernism]

Same... I think the hardest part is deciding on if we're talking about the world as it is or a better version we want to be moving towards.

[@mortenrl1946]

@@HGModernism For me, I think there's also a lesson in the ambiguity I suppose. Sometimes there is an easy answer. It doesn't seem like one exists here. So I guess I learned that absolutists & reductionists tend to be wrong.

[@3kids2cats1dog]

I like Beelzebot. 😆😈🤖

[@AstonishedByTheLackOfCake]

I would argue that electric cars are good for the environment compared to regular cars utilising combustion engines, as the electric ones do not produce any polluting exhausts this with the assumption that the energy being used to charge them does not originate from fossil-fuel based sources such as coal or natural gas I find that assumption to also be a fairly reasonable one, as most of the energy generating capacity _(in my country)_ originates from either nuclear or hydro, with other renewables making up the rest and only a tiny fraction being accounted for by fossile-fuel based sources other methods of transport, like subway/bus/long distance rail are probably better for the environment though, but that's a while other question

[@Buffalo_Soldier]

I would say "Electric cars are bad for environment, because all cars are." Other question is how much do we care, because humans in general are bad for environment... Do we care for our well-being or actually for environment? That's not necessarily hard-coupled with environment doing well. Although for now we don't control environment too well, so it's important to not break it too much.... I'm not denying climate change, nor am I fighting argument that it's dangerous, but we shouldn't focus so much on it in itself, in my opinion. Not everything natural is good for humans. And I (for egzample) don't care for environment as long as we are doing well, while acknowledging that for now we are dependent on environment doing well. By changing focus we can see everything as trade-offs : it's bad for environment but good for us - like farming. Or it's bad for environment and for our lungs and for our food situation and for our politics - like burning fossil fuels... But it's good for economy in short term - so I can still say it was very good idea that we used fossil fuels 150 years ago and maybe reasonably good idea that we used it 50 years ago. Just ... maybe no more, pls.

[@CanalTremocos]

A Discordian is prohibited from believing what he reads so I find facts challenging. Also, stop making giant EVs, stop subsidizing suburbs, stop enforcing single-use single-family zoning, goddammit.

[@ayi_oglu_ayi]

electric cars are bad because hybrids are superior in terms of cost and reducing overall. 10-100 hybrids could be with the same amount of batteries a model s has. Lithium is expensive

[@alexthompson3229]

So here's my argument. First, a technicality, electric cars are not good for the environment as their production and operation still produces harmful outcomes like microplastics from tires, brake dust, the environmental havoc of lithium mining which threatens many plant species endemic to the ultramafic soils, etc. What's good for the environment would be things like restoring grasslands, wetlands, and forests, or animal conservation. The strongest claim you can make is that electric cars are less harmful to the environment than ICE cars, which is true and I agree with. If we are looking for minimum harm though, then substantially increased funding for public transit coupled with changing zoning laws to allow denser cities that minimize peoples distance from their destinations in the first place is far less harmful to the environment than either of these options.

[@HGModernism]

Oh, interesting, is lithium mining only around ultramafic rock deposits?

[@alexthompson3229]

@@HGModernism I think it's often mined from surface deposits, and ultramafic rocks are any that are low in silicon, high in metals. Most plants tend to struggle in ultramafic soils, so you tend to get a lot of endemics there. I may be half remembering some of this though. There was a video by Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't about plants near a possible future lithium mine in the southwest.

[@joshuaperry4112]

A fact is a fact, period. Whether that fact is being interpreted correctly is subjective. People tend to jump to a conclusion without having rendered the idea down to absolute facts which is where disagreement occurs because an absolute fact cannot be denied. If we reduce the facts to actual facts, we never disagree on "the problem", we disagree on "the solution". Determining facts is an exhaustive process that doesn't lend itself towards an agile discussion for debate. For the example used of cars and the environment - finding the factual truth of the question requires determining what a car is, electricity, energy, environment, human-universe hierarchy, blah blah blah. My overall point is this: actual, true facts are impractical for debate - as such, the chief issue with debators is that they conflate winning an argument with having the correct answer and being unwilling to believe that their claims are the wrong answer, even if they're the right choice. That's my personal gripe with political fights - just because you're right doesn't make you correct.

[@ninjalectualx]

Even interpretations can be objective. For instance, Black Americans commit something like 30% of all reported crime while only making up like 15% of the population. But it's objectively wrong to say Black people are more predilected towards crime than other races, I doubt even racists believe that anymore.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

Opening with a misleading tautology, and following up with a bunch of erroneous memes.

[@josefujosta]

imo, cars in general are bad for the environment, so electric cars are still part of the problem. car dependency is still a problem. electric cars only fix a very, very small part of it. i think public transport like buses, trains and such should be more accessible instead, if anything:>

[@SiloGrain]

Cars do nothing to effect the environment 😂 the amount of trees in one Australian state takes in more carbon than every single car omittes, there's a reason the rich are still buying waterfront properties and living luxuriously while you and others are scared 😂

[@josefujosta]

@@SiloGrain i tried adding links to helpful sources here but it deleted my comment. if you want, you can look up national geographic, theworldcounts and ecology . wa . gov (dots are separated to prevent it turning into a link)’s articles on the environmental impact of cars & cat pollution, zerohourclimate and ridecircuit’s articles on car dependency to understand my point of view. :) i understand where you’re coming from, but not every country is like australia, and trees alone aren’t enough to mitigate all the issues with cars & other environmental issues

[@TheTang3rine]

@@SiloGrain boomer energy

[@SiloGrain]

@@TheTang3rineI'm younger than you 😂 keep believing everything you see on tv kid

[@nalla1782]

I put a good 5 minutes or so thinking about the electric car question and the context I use to answer it. I thought about how the answer to the question depends heavily on the assumptions we make beforehand. If we ask the question in a vacuum, the answer is a simple "no", because the least disruptive thing for the environment is not having transit of any kind (no roads, cars, trains, etc.), but obviously we are presupposing that we need to disrupt the environment somewhat as a compromise for transporting ourselves around at a decent speed. After acknowledging this context, I then thought about cars as a mode of transportation, and if there was a better mode for getting around (outside of cities where more public transit makes the most sense). In most cases outside of cities, it seems like the format of road infrastructure is pretty necessary in terms of resource and time cost. Then, also in rural areas, the vehicle is probably best if it's mechanically reliable, cheap, and able to be operated and run by one person to drive wherever they need to drive (mass public transit on a rail system doesn't make sense in the middle of the Great Plains for example, and roads are economical and can be scaled to reach those rural areas). With this requirement, I then thought about the best way to get the energy required to move the vehicle around and maintain its use. I think electricity is the obvious best candidate for the environment, as it can be feasibly be harvested cleanly with wind and solar. The last thing to worry about is the production chain for the cars, roads, charging infrastructure, and energy production. That's a whole can of worms, but the fact that the energy production can come from sources like solar nad wind makes me think that its a better option than fuel energy production. With all that context and information, I came to the answer that EV's are the best option when you factor in the first assumptions (that we have to make some sacrifices for the sake of transport). Insanely pedantic I know, but I like breaking things down like that when I form opinions.

[@HGModernism]

It's not pedantic, just a chain of reasoning. I think the general can of worms aspect is what I'm getting at, that we have to pick what worms to agree on.

[@nalla1782]

@@HGModernism True. I feel like the worms are a bit daunting to tackle for me, since I would need to understand SO much extra stuff about economics and politics and production chains etc. to be informed about it. Maybe one day.

[@dard1515]

Creating an electric car puts more carbon in the atmosphere than creating a roughly equivalent fossil fuel vehicle. However, that electric car will not expend any carbon over its entire life cycle compared to the fossil fuel vehicle which will do so for its entire life cycle. In the long term, the fossil fuel vehicle is responsible for putting more carbon in the air. There's nothing here that shows electric cars benefit the environment. So electric cars are not good for the environment. Electric cars are less bad for the environment.

[@dard1515]

I didn't address that the batteries are probably charged by fossil fuels. This becomes less true over time if we include the increasing use of solar and wind for the power grid, and maybe a renewed interest in nuclear. The electric car still turns out better than fossil fuel vehicles.

[@danwylie-sears1134]

"Electric cars are good for the environment" is neither true nor false: it's a grammatically valid but semantically ill-formed sentence based on a category mistake. It's not things that are good or bad. It's changes, differences. Substituting electric cars for internal-combustion cars is good for the environment. Substituting cars (even electric ones) for walking and mass transit is bad for the environment. Once you split the statement into its well-formed versions, neither of the main ones is particularly controversial. On the Harris Klein Controversy, it shouldn't even be possible to believe that intelligence is one thing. It's obvious that there are multiple relevant skills.

[@joshsbecker]

Context 1: Auditory Electric cars are harmful to anything relying on sound as an alert to the presence of danger. This imperiled group includes me as well as a large range of furrier and even feathered critters. Context 2: Thermal Electric cars are literally bombs, even more so than petroleum-based vehicles. EV's offer greater potential damage to areas surrounding their "gas tanks" because of thermal runaway. My firefighter friend said they need four or five firetrucks worth of water to "maybe" put out a Tesla battery fire. The protocol he was given is to let the battery burn out while spraying the surrounding area to make sure it doesn't spread. If a Tesla catches fire, the car is totaled even if the blaze is close enough for the fire department to hook up to city water. Context 3: Naturalism EV's have shorter range than other vehicles and thus people driving them won't be disturbing as much of our habitat.

[@HGModernism]

2 - Wow... somehow I'm now even more afraid of cybertrucks haha

[@hashemmi24]

You mentioned power generation but didn't production, when considering "well-to-wheel" analysis, their production can result in significant greenhouse gas emissions. Another weird take, is that due to the ease of producing an electric car compared to an internal combustion car or hybrid even, tons of poor quality electric cars are flooding the market, producing more e-waste than ever. Cars are being treated more of an electronic gizmo rather than means of transportation. regarding arguments, you are correct ! I also started realizing sometimes people would argue the same things but different understanding of words fuels the argument. I love arguments that is based on different perspective, both sides win as both have new perspectives to think about

[@user-tc5qc4ql8m]

this is a great video, but i have to criticize the everything studies blog post. the stance it takes on this idea of decoupling is kind of unhinged. maybe i'm reading into it too much, but it seems to suggest that "low-decouplers" are cognitively incapable of decoupling, even relating to IQ scores, which is grimly amusing given the topic of the harris-klein argument. regardless, there is no reason to think that klein is incapable of decoupling. i think the author gets too high on his own supply to realize that the fundamental conflict isn't about "decoupling" or "the nature of facts," but the fact that klein understands that he and harris are media personalities speaking to an audience, while harris thinks his words can exist in a hyper-rational vacuum. klein understands that harris' words will be used by neo-nazis and white supremacists while harris scorns the idea he has some sort of responsibility for his own speech. anyway, all this is to say that i think the way you presented context decoupling is superior, and i don't think this article adds anything of value. if anything, i think it muddies the water because it seems to imply that you getting people to change tack is way harder than it actually is.

[@HGModernism]

That's fair, academics were pretty pissed when the author "created a new field": "Erisology". I'm conflicted, on the one hand he's someone who wants to be a polymath and hasn't delved deeply into enough fields to be able to draw effectively from them, inviting scorn from specialists. On the other hand, the elitism of academics can be pretty off-putting and in some ways his presentation is more approachable with a simpler grounding. I feel like in response he's just created his own "academia with blackjack and hookers" and fallen into the same pitfalls. I linked the blog post because it was the first theory around the arguments that I found compelling back when it came out. I agree this is a tactic anyone can use, and I really want to make these ideas approachable. I'm still trying to figure out how.

[@KareemSherif22]

Beep boop

[@SianaGearz]

Mhm electric cars: good for the environment because we're going to NEED to transition to renewable energy to save the environment, and combustion vehicles are a massive impediment to this transition, they largely need to be replaced. Bad for the environment because it's a big hunk of stuff which takes up a lot of resources to construct to then be used at very low effective occupancy, doesn't last an eternity, burns a lot of energy, and being heavier than combustion vehicles, emit more rubber particulate into the cities, which has a demonstrated horrendous health effect, space inefficient, they still contribute to asphaltisation and sprawl, and are a hazard to pedestrians and cyclists. What we need is a degree of densification and accessibility, where car is one option but a better option is to cycle, to walk, and to take public transit. Both things are true at the same time.

[@matthewtalbot-paine7977]

I think electric cars are probably a part of the climate change solution but the thing people always seem to miss is the manufacturing co2 or equivalent costs. I want to compare lifetime costs when it comes to something like that. There is also the point that cars and electrical power make up a very large portion of the green house gas emissions as I understand it but going electric doesn't actually improve that very much it just changes the break down of those emissions so there is more power generation needed at power plants so you aren't actually decreasing the amount of emissions by much (as you said power plants do the job better although that again could be done on a false comparison because electric cars are heavy and so they need to be efficient as well I'd like to see how many miles a tesla can drive on let's say 1000l of diesel vs how far a similar sized diesel car can go on 1000l of diesel) to me putting solar panels on your house seems to be the best way to actually reduce your emissions. Once the world has enough clean power then electric cars will actually help the environment. But then again it depends what you mean by good for the environment because they aren't emitting other things as well as co2 or equivalent molecules.

[@gur262]

It's been done. There's studies. EVs are better.

[@matthewtalbot-paine7977]

@@gur262 Can you link this evidence?

[@johnbeech]

EVs are bad for the environment... compared to cycling or walking; which is in part based on the design of our cities. EVs are great for the environment, despite the increased manufacturing and emission costs compared to a traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle; in many parts of the world they can run off fully renewal, low carbon energy, such as wind and solar, at the expense of large swathes of land now in use for electricity generation, but a reduction in carbon is generally seen as a good thing, and driving in an EV, powered by the sun, is certainly cheaper and more preferable to burning fuel in almost all cases. ChatGPT would probably say the issue is multifaceted and requires consideration of a wide variety of factors, but would eventually conclude that EVs are generally a good thing. There are lots of ways on how EVs are generally bad for the environment however, starting with the premise that driving and roads are bad for the environment, which takes us down towards an argument of "Industrialised civilisation is bad for the environment", but then also maybe good for the environment in the long run. What is the environment. Was humanity a mistake? Who knows.

[@marijkaauffhammer3016]

Electric vehicles actually severely impact the environment and are generally very unsafe in places that get heavy rainfall or floods. One major issue that is constantly overlooked is their susceptibility to combustion, especially during events like floods, hurricanes, monsoons, etc. Lithium-ion batteries, which power EVs, can short-circuit when exposed to water, leading to thermal runaway-a chemical reaction that generates intense heat and ignites the battery. These fires are extremely difficult to extinguish, as the only thing to take them out is water, the thing that causes it to ignite, reigniting it for days and requiring on average around 8,000 gallons of water in comparison to a couple hundred gallons to a combustion vehicle. Furthermore, producing the batteries that run these vehicles involves mining rare earth elements like lithium, cobalt, and nickel, causing severe environmental degradation and pollution. Not only that, but many of the elements required for them are sourced from regions where mining practices are incredibly environmentally damaging and ethically problematic. For example, much of the cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where unsafe working conditions and even child labor persist. Similarly, lithium mining, which often takes place in South America and Australia, deplete local water resources and harm ecosystems. The refining and processing of these materials are dominated by China, which accounts for the majority of global capacity for lithium, cobalt, manganese, and graphite and utilizes extremely crude oil to operate these productions. While combustion vehicles emit CO2 during use, their production and operation have a smaller environmental impact compared to the life cycle of EVs. Plus, as we further our ability to get cleaner oil, the environmental impact of oil in general constantly gets smaller and smaller. Our focus should only be on getting CLEANER oil, not using ethically and environmentally unsafe products from other countries

[@alanevans5353]

electric cars aren't very good for the environment because the upfront emissions of mining their required minerals is very high, and people don't typically keep the vehicles long enough to offset those emissions. A much better alternative for someone environmentally conscious would be something like a scooter or small motorcycle, which has far lower emissions than a normal vehicle while also requiring far fewer rare materials and being far more financially viable than any other option.

[@janLipija]

electric cars are good for the environment because a combustion car doesn’t get cleaner as cleaner grid electric sources come online how an electric car does electric cars are bad for the environment because cars in general are bad for the environment for more reasons than just the fuel they consume

[@Dooge]

Electric cars are still 80% car. And cars are not good for the environment. Both for urban planning reasons, and the fact most of the materials that electric cars use are also in gas cars, which remain harmful to the environment. Cars are marketed to us as disposable products, made to seem obsolete after only a few years and end up filling landfills. Electric cars often become obsolete even faster due to battery depletion, which adds to landfill waste not only with the same parts as traditional cars but also with the more harmful chemicals used in batteries.

[@deltamico]

Guess what's also irenewable, the metals to build the batteries and we do not recycle them

[@swecreations]

We absolutely do recycle them, thing is most of even the oldest electric car batteries are still on the road, like my 11-year-old Renault Zoe. It's literally a box full of valuable metals, you would be stupid not to recycle them.

[@kevindomenechaliaga8085]

Your eyes look like Linus Torvalds's (This is a compliment)

[@sirlight-ljij]

Electric cars are obviously better than combustion cars, but individual motorised autotransport is fundamentally an unsustainable practice. Means of micromobility like bikes, but of course not limited to bikes; public transport and urban planning not centered on everybody having a car will do incomparably more to decarbonise transportation sector than maintaining the status quo with a new car model

[@MX26_]

Not necessarily related to this video, but i found you through the lactose video (🫡 you are a stronger person than i am for enduring that), and i just love every single video of yours I've watched, great job!