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The greatest strength of technology is the exponential gains in capability at constant cost over time, or alternatively the exponential decrease in cost over ti

by zaroth 8y ago

The greatest strength of technology is the exponential gains in capability at constant cost over time, or alternatively the exponential decrease in cost over time for the same capability. Sometimes that exponential gain gets partially squandered to provide for greater productivity or lower cost development or marketing gimmicks or tiny little improvements in the fringe UX which can offer subtle delights. Other times the product is something constant and perfectly standardized like MWs or kWh (generation or storage of energy) and we can sit back as a society and watch the prices fall, fall, fall. The endgame is abundant electricity at a fraction of the ecological cost used pervasively to power every aspect of the economy. Electric cars aren’t sci-fi anymore. Now we dream of flying through electrical power alone, which is about as ostentatious as it gets. It’s perhaps not the popular opinion on HN, and obviously a lot is at stake, but this is the making of the carbon-neutral economy, and it’s being done in a technologically and market driven approach that doesn’t involve trillions of dollars of taxes or regulatory burden. I do not believe it will prove to be too little or too late. I absolutely believe that technologies will continue to evolve and be discovered that allow us to move our global ecological impact from the red (deficit) to the green (surplus) and in the very long term from a political sense, but in the blink of an eye for our planet, this 21st century panic will seem really quite overblown. It’s crucially import for people to care. For people to dream up new ways to stop damaging the planet and even heal the planet. I just think time and again we underestimate human ingenuity and overestimate calamity. Global climate [change] indeed impacts millions of people every year and carries a massive economic cost. I have absolute faith in the scientists and the inventors to constantly push us toward a healthy, clean, efficient, and abundant future.

matthewdgreen 8y ago
I am hopeful the same way you are. But nobody should ignore the fact that current developments in solar panel prices were heavily driven by government policy. Unguided market forces may get there eventually, but we don't have enough time for "eventually". (And we certainly don't have any time for misguided plans that actually try to subsidize carbon emissions, which is a big chunk of our current policy.)
- zaroth 8y ago
  The government subsidies for solar (themselves not without controversy) are great examples of how we can nudge resources to be applied to areas with the greatest positive externalities. Government absolutely has a crucial role to play. Government works best when it can offer $1 of incentive to entice $9 of private investment. We have to be very careful of proposals that work the other way around. For example the EV tax credit offered up to $7,500 tax credit for someone to spend on average let’s say $50k on an electric car. $1 of subsidy incentivized $6.66 of spending. But to make that car someone actually wanted to buy, automakers spent many billions in R&D up front, which was also incentivized by the EV tax. The EV tax credit is estimated to cost about $7.5 billion once all the major automakers have entered the market and sold their share (200,000) of vehicles. I’m not sure if we got a 1:10 ratio, but it’ll be in that ballpark. This credit made particular sense because it leveraged the technology curve by allowing scale-up to occur in the face of the prohibitively high cost of batteries which now have come down to the point where EVs can be sold profitably without the subsidy. I don’t think we’d be looking at $100/kWh for the batteries without that subsidy.
  - achenatx 8y ago
    this model works great and can solve all kinds of problems. Rather than investing directly in companies like solyndra, incentivize public sector investment with tax incentives but also X-prize style awards for achieving major milestones. For example 10 million to whomever can come up with a system to reliably educate inner city kids, reduce homelessness, reduce drug use, violent crime, etc.
- briandear 8y ago
  > but we don't have enough time for "eventually". I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.” And every single time the end of the world failed to arrive as scheduled. The sense of extreme urgency is nothing more than politics: an attempt to scare people into demanding a shift in the ownership of the means of production to fit political goals rather than environmental ones. A thought experiment: if capitalism could solve the climate tomorrow and BP and Exxon were at the forefront of it, would AOC and friends support it? Of course not. The only “solution” that crowd cares about is one that involves pure socialism which calls into question their actual commitment to the environment. It appears that improving the environment is being used as a means rather than an end: our fear of environmental calamity seemingly obfuscates our memory of the lack of freedom under Soviet styles of government. If protecting the environment would stop serving as a dog whistle for anti-capitalism, then we’d could make a lot more progress on actually improving the environment.
the_cat_kittles 8y ago
lol no. read the latest ipcc report
peteradio 8y ago
Perhaps we will stabilize at some point our impact. But will earth be a golf course then with a number of species you can count on your hands?
mrpopo 8y ago
> I do not believe it will prove to be too little or too late. I absolutely believe that technologies will continue to evolve and be discovered that allow us to move our global ecological impact from the red (deficit) to the green (surplus) and in the very long term from a political sense, but in the blink of an eye for our planet, this 21st century panic will seem really quite overblown. But it is too late already, by many metrics. The paths that lead us to 3-4 degrees of warming do take into account technological progress, energy efficiency improvements, petrol price hikes and so forth. There is no "moving from red to green" on the biodiversity loss. That took millions of years to build. Technology might save us from going back to pre-industrial revolution, but won't make the future "abundant", at least not for all of us. There's no denying that a major part of the US population will make it through this century. They are not the ones whose life is at stake here.

by zaroth 8y ago

matthewdgreen 8y ago

I am hopeful the same way you are. But nobody should ignore the fact that current developments in solar panel prices were heavily driven by government policy. Unguided market forces may get there eventually, but we don't have enough time for "eventually". (And we certainly don't have any time for misguided plans that actually try to subsidize carbon emissions, which is a big chunk of our current policy.)

zaroth 8y ago
The government subsidies for solar (themselves not without controversy) are great examples of how we can nudge resources to be applied to areas with the greatest positive externalities. Government absolutely has a crucial role to play. Government works best when it can offer $1 of incentive to entice $9 of private investment. We have to be very careful of proposals that work the other way around. For example the EV tax credit offered up to $7,500 tax credit for someone to spend on average let’s say $50k on an electric car. $1 of subsidy incentivized $6.66 of spending. But to make that car someone actually wanted to buy, automakers spent many billions in R&D up front, which was also incentivized by the EV tax. The EV tax credit is estimated to cost about $7.5 billion once all the major automakers have entered the market and sold their share (200,000) of vehicles. I’m not sure if we got a 1:10 ratio, but it’ll be in that ballpark. This credit made particular sense because it leveraged the technology curve by allowing scale-up to occur in the face of the prohibitively high cost of batteries which now have come down to the point where EVs can be sold profitably without the subsidy. I don’t think we’d be looking at $100/kWh for the batteries without that subsidy.
- achenatx 8y ago
  this model works great and can solve all kinds of problems. Rather than investing directly in companies like solyndra, incentivize public sector investment with tax incentives but also X-prize style awards for achieving major milestones. For example 10 million to whomever can come up with a system to reliably educate inner city kids, reduce homelessness, reduce drug use, violent crime, etc.
briandear 8y ago
> but we don't have enough time for "eventually". I disagree with this. We’ve been told throughout the past 50 years that we “only have 10 more years to fix x.” And every single time the end of the world failed to arrive as scheduled. The sense of extreme urgency is nothing more than politics: an attempt to scare people into demanding a shift in the ownership of the means of production to fit political goals rather than environmental ones. A thought experiment: if capitalism could solve the climate tomorrow and BP and Exxon were at the forefront of it, would AOC and friends support it? Of course not. The only “solution” that crowd cares about is one that involves pure socialism which calls into question their actual commitment to the environment. It appears that improving the environment is being used as a means rather than an end: our fear of environmental calamity seemingly obfuscates our memory of the lack of freedom under Soviet styles of government. If protecting the environment would stop serving as a dog whistle for anti-capitalism, then we’d could make a lot more progress on actually improving the environment.

the_cat_kittles 8y ago

lol no. read the latest ipcc report

peteradio 8y ago

Perhaps we will stabilize at some point our impact. But will earth be a golf course then with a number of species you can count on your hands?

mrpopo 8y ago

> I do not believe it will prove to be too little or too late. I absolutely believe that technologies will continue to evolve and be discovered that allow us to move our global ecological impact from the red (deficit) to the green (surplus) and in the very long term from a political sense, but in the blink of an eye for our planet, this 21st century panic will seem really quite overblown. But it is too late already, by many metrics. The paths that lead us to 3-4 degrees of warming do take into account technological progress, energy efficiency improvements, petrol price hikes and so forth. There is no "moving from red to green" on the biodiversity loss. That took millions of years to build. Technology might save us from going back to pre-industrial revolution, but won't make the future "abundant", at least not for all of us. There's no denying that a major part of the US population will make it through this century. They are not the ones whose life is at stake here.