zerakith

I think we would do a disservice if we only talk about this being a North American phenomenon. It is true that North America sets itself apart for the scale of the chasm but quite a lot of Europe suffers from the same problem albeit on a reduced scale. Car culture having reshaped non-city (and city) urban landscapes combined with an international and local capital class that has horded city property as a form of profiteering is sadly a story you could apply to a large swathe of cities across the planet. I do also think that those wealthy people who do fantasize about "the countryside" sadly are winning near me in the sense of moving out and demanding and lobbying for modern infrastructure.

I think, this does demonstrate a key issue with unpicking impacts on climate: accounting for how humans will adjust their behaviour in reaction to a new policy or technology (see also e.g. Jevon's Paradox). This is absolutely vital research that needs to occur but rarely does. The climate doesn't actually care about why the policy made worse impacts only that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than there would otherwise be. I do agree with you: our job is to interpret the facts and try and assess the different situations we can have as much as as we can at the system wide level and compare those to where we need to be. That will likely involve sorting out building and housing as well as measures to decrease the total amount of travel as well.

The reason its not seen as clear cut is when research has been done such a change changes a whole host of other behaviours of people e.g. where they choose to live or even how they travel.

For example, a policy that allows hybrid working or fully remote working might lead a portion of employees to move from a city centre where car ownership is low to a suburb where it is high. So you might replace a 5-day a week short commute by public transport with a 2-day a week long commute by car which would generate more emissions. This is more than just a hypothetical and has been observed in some cases.

It's also worth just noting that whilst digital infrastructure at current levels is usually less carbon intensive than any amount of carbon intensive travel it does have a cost and that the trajectory to more and more intensive technologies is increasing that impact (e.g. blockchain and modern AI techniques)

Lastly, there are efficiencies of scale for heating and cooling that might be achieved in offices which might outweigh the transport costs. This is true where I am partly because offices have been brought up to modern spec by regulation where housing has been let go: being more draughty and less insulated.

Personally, though my take is that whilst these second order effects are super important to look at (since in the short term will be linked to real world emissions) I think they are probably best thought of as ways of showcasing issues in other sectors that need tackling serpately (e.g. the suburbs needing to transition away from carbon intensive travel and land use policies to ensure that we don't lose the necessary density of our urban environments).

The only time I think it would be important as an assessment of a particular policy is when some cost is intrinsic to that change. Say, for example that the only way home working could function for a particular use case was by using some sort of energy intensive block chain system for authenticity and the additional emissions costs outweighed the benefits of avoided travel.

Very cool!

I would add just a few points I think are relevant for the discussion. I think some buildings and areas might need to be actively targets for removal on the basis on a spatial plan that builds in "space for nature" by which I mean letting the land return as much as possible to some form of wilderness. We are sadly quite far down the process of completely shaping the land and its not clear that we will be able to get back but I suspect a serious and sustained attempt will be needed.

On the transport of the materials: nothing wrong with your choice of road vehicles salvaged and converted to a different fuel source but it's also worth considering another solarpunk option. Building before the availability of combustion engines often used temporary, lightweight narrow gauge railways were laid for the duration of construction. This was also used during WW1 for logistics. Once finished the track can be moved onto the next area. I suspect the narrow gauge would limit the speed and weight of any uses but for this purpose I suspect that doesn't strongly matter. I can't find a good source on the internet about this that's but I vagually recall a Tom Scott video which mentioned off hand that a monorail which is now a tourist attraction actually began life as a temporary railway for construction freight. Rail also could be used in conjunction with human power (a hand car) for workers to commute.

Keep up the good work!

It also, I think, centres the ability of drivers to act independently of the visual design of the infrastructure and whilst, that is possible of course, research suggests driving behaviour is more strongly determined by design than conscious choice.

Not to be too negative but begging for drivers to consider us human is so tiresome.

We already know how to nearly eliminate road death. Unbundling the modes (segregation) and treating cars as guests where that's not possible. After that treat infractions by drivers seriously. If you can't drive safely your license should be removed. No more arguing in court that you need to drive to get to work.

I hope Nix sort it out too because technically I think its one of the better options for packaging.

It's not about "satisfying the minorities". It's about ensuring a basic base level of respect and behaviour for people from all backgrounds. The roles you are talking about were specifically to deal with the fact there was an active problem around that minority in that community that needed dealing with. So bringing in that lived experience is absolutely important. Someone can be adequate, sane, have "proper" mindset and judgement and be from a minority that is currently being targeted with lived experience of the problem. Dealing with issues around diversity and inclusion make life easier and better for everyone: it's well evidenced. I benefit daily from work that's been done to make my area easier for people with disabilities despite not having one. Those only came about by people with disabilities challenging and getting in the room where decisions are made.

It's really not that hard! If you don't feel minoritised in your daily life and therefore don't see the importance, fine, but all of us are only one incident or cultural shift to end up being the target so if you aren't motivated by the plight of people you are happy to "other" than do so because one day you might be the other.

You say remove discrimination and then use a discriminatory strawman. No one is suggesting a code contribution must be accepted based on a minority status. They are saying that to get a decent functioning community for everyone you need a diverse range of people in positions that set the behaviour of the community. You can't get the CoC and enforcement of it right unless those affected are in positions that influence it. Your enforced anonymity doesn't work because there are other ways of gendering and racialising people (e.g. based on who people talk). Additionally, what you are saying is that minoritised people have to hide who they are so they don't get discriminated against rather than just deal with those doing the discrimination. They are called communities because that's what's they are: people want to be part of something and that involves sharing a part of themselves too. Open source projects live or die on their communities because they mostly don't have the finances to just pay people to do the work. You need people to beleive in the project and not burn out etc.

You lose nothing by making sure people from all backgrounds have the same opportunity and enjoyment being part of it. If you aren't in a minority and don't care about those that are then just say so!

Others have replied pointing out this is a strawman and that merit doesn't make any sense as a metric if you have discrimination. In practice performance ('merit') is complex interaction between an individual's skills and talent and the environment and support they get to thrive. If you have an environment that structurally and openly discriminates against a certain subclass of people and then chose on "merit" you are just further entrenching that discrimination.

This is a project that seemed to be having specific problems on gender that was causing harm and leading to losing talent. In a voluntary role particularly this is a death spiral for the project as a whole. Without goodwill and passion open source projects of any meaningful size just wouldn't survive.

I'm glad you care enough about diversity and evidence to have worked out how to solve these problems without empowering and listening to those minorities. Please do share it.

I appreciate you are setting up a sort of platonic ideal of what science is but I think its important to deal with the real people and processes that science is performed by and we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we fail to acknowledge how those people and processes have often worked hand in hand with capitalist and colonial projects. We need to be introspective about how those choices have influenced the science (and the methods!) that's been done. We, as scientists, engineers and science appreciators need to do this work so we can make different and better choices.

This is a basic represention and inclusion issue. Unless you are actively seeking out voices of those minorities and addressing their concerns you will have a reinforcing loop where behaviour that puts people off engaging will continue and it will continue to limit people from those minorities being involved (and in the worst case causing active harm to some people who end getting involved). From what I understand the behaviour that has been demonstrated and from who those people leaving it is clear this is active issue within Nix. Having a diverse range of people and perspectives will actually make the outputs (software) and community generally better. It's about recognising the problems in the formal and informal structures you are creating and working to address them.

Additionally, but just to clarify nepotism would be giving positions based on relationships with people in power and not ensuring that your board contains a more representative set of backgrounds and perspectives.

If done right it feels a bit like living with your environment rather than against it. What I was trying to think about is what purposes other than car parking could you use the underspace for. Something that doesn't matter too much if it gets flooded.

Maybe we could say we just shouldn't be living on flood plains but given the other benefits and future with climate change this seems untenable as a position.