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> They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history. They’ll be just fine. How are you forecasting that future? Seems strange to read it wit

by sysbin 7y ago

> They’ll be graduating into the strongest economy in American history. They’ll be just fine. How are you forecasting that future? Seems strange to read it with what you see now and as you phrase the lost generation that's struggling from inflation & low wages.. I'm skeptical but I think the worst is yet to come for the next generations. Unless all the young adults that are struggling don't just all commit suicide in the years to follow. It's going to be a disaster when time comes and they need to retire but cannot. The burden will go on the young even more so than what we can imagine today.

siquick 7y ago
And no mention of the elephant in the room - climate change. It feels like we're already seeing it here in Sydney, Australia. We've had dangerously low air quality from bush fires for the last 1.5 months and we now have a serious water shortage. I've been accepting of climate change up until recently - now I'm genuinely worried about the future here.
- moneywoes 7y ago
  Is there any solution in sight?
  - atoav 7y ago
    This interactive MIT tool gives you a feeling for the possible solutions: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/ https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/ I won't spoil it for you, but you could find out that you might want to phrase that question of yours differently..
    - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      I struggle to understand what I'm supposed to get out of this tool. If "new technology" has a "huge breakthrough", global warming will be reduced .3 degrees - but we'd better hope that the breakthrough doesn't cause "economic growth" to become "high growth", since that will increase it by .7 degrees. Doesn't matter what the technology does or how the economic growth happens, we can predict their effects... somehow. I don't think there's much understanding to be gained by attaching sliders with vague, underspecified labels to a graph.
      - TuringTest 7y ago
        That's why they provide a full-blown training course to make sense of the simulator and associated negotiation roleplaying game: https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/the-en-roads-climate-workshop/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/the-en-roa... https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simulation/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simu...
      - atoav 7y ago
        There is a small explaination for each parameter when you click the ⋮ on the top right of each parameter. And on the breakthrough technology question: of course we could discover a unknown technology that will instantly solve everything without even having to honor the inertia of the slow but hard to steer forces that make up climate change. And while I really hope this would happen, I'd rather have more realistic scenarios in the meantime. Suppose we invent free energy. How long will it take for that technology to replace everything on the planet? How much emissions will this distribution of technology produce? Even with fairytale-style-technology overcoming the inertia of the ongoing processes will be anything but easy.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Even if human CO2/CH4 emissions hit zero tomorrow, it's probably too late. Because of positive feedbacks already triggered. So long term, the solution will be collapse of technological society.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia
  - siquick 7y ago
    Australia is a big country...
- mikemotherwell 7y ago
  Why? That's weather and short term. https://aqicn.org/map/sydney https://aqicn.org/map/sydney is the pollution in Sydney. Here is Jakarta https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta Look at the historical data: all red and yellow for Jakarta, almost all green for Sydney, with the last two months an exception. Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the next 50-60 years.
  - andrelaszlo 7y ago
    > Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the next 50-60 years. Can you expand on that statement a bit? What do you base it on? It seems like we are already seeing adverse effects of global heating (eg https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-shows-climate-changes-impact-on-fires/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-sho...) but maybe I'm missing your point.
  - siquick 7y ago
    Not sure why you chose to compare to Jakarta? The two cities haven't historically had similar air quality.
  - abraae 7y ago
    How do you get from a map of the current air quality in Sydney to blithely saying climate change will have "little to no effect" on Sydney for the next 60 years?
    - TuringTest 7y ago
      It is a common trolling strategy, I have seen it applied elsewhere to delegitimise measures against climate change. It doesn't make any sense, but apparently it is enough to satisfy the unsophisticated blind followers of climate denialism. Anything that sounds contrarian and data-based is deemed a sufficient response to distract attention, which is scarce in most online discussion forums.
- gfodor 7y ago
  Climate change is a known problem. Known problems will be solved, since they can be measured and people are (or in this case, will soon be) incentivized to solve them. Climate change is a huge challenge but not one I particularly worry about since it exists in humanity’s collective consciousness as an idea. It’s unknown problems you should worry about, that are unnamable because they are unpredictable and unknowable until they happen.
  - me_me_me 7y ago
    The problem with this thinking is the framing. The climate change is like going out to desert. The further you go out the hotter and harsher environment and once its too dangerous for you its not enough to stop going forward, but you need to walk all the way back home before you are safe. The CO2 and others are in the air already causing all weather changes, its not enough to go carbon neutral to stop it. To survive we need to go significantly negative to cut out greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. And that the biggest problem.
  - sysbin 7y ago
    That's a lot of optimism from labeling a problem as known vs unknown. I'm hesitant thinking there is logic from assuming a problem known will be fixed. Also it's not too far fetched to think climate change can snowball while being irreversible.
    - gfodor 7y ago
      Consider the massive amount of effort, comparatively, between the effort going on and the conversation around mitigating the risk of climate change, and the risk of the flamzboo event, which is destined to quickly destroy humanity in the next decade. I can't call it something other than the flamzboo event, since we don't know what it is. The clearest picture one can have of what this event potentially is is by considering events which would have similar impact but are currently fringe in terms of public consciousness such as: - Supervolcano eruptions - Asteroid impacts - AI takeoff - Engineered bio weapons - Autonomous lethal weapons - Commoditized, small nuclear weapons These are not the things I'm talking about, since they have some level of consciousness, but are the closest examples since they are not top of mind in the public consciousness but are confer high x-risk. The ones I worry about are the ones that we can't know currently, that may be lurking on the horizon. One doesn't have to look far back in history to recognize these problems are typically the ones we get hurt by: surprises.

by sysbin 7y ago

siquick 7y ago

And no mention of the elephant in the room - climate change. It feels like we're already seeing it here in Sydney, Australia. We've had dangerously low air quality from bush fires for the last 1.5 months and we now have a serious water shortage. I've been accepting of climate change up until recently - now I'm genuinely worried about the future here.

moneywoes 7y ago
Is there any solution in sight?
- atoav 7y ago
  This interactive MIT tool gives you a feeling for the possible solutions: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/ https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/ I won't spoil it for you, but you could find out that you might want to phrase that question of yours differently..
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    I struggle to understand what I'm supposed to get out of this tool. If "new technology" has a "huge breakthrough", global warming will be reduced .3 degrees - but we'd better hope that the breakthrough doesn't cause "economic growth" to become "high growth", since that will increase it by .7 degrees. Doesn't matter what the technology does or how the economic growth happens, we can predict their effects... somehow. I don't think there's much understanding to be gained by attaching sliders with vague, underspecified labels to a graph.
    - TuringTest 7y ago
      That's why they provide a full-blown training course to make sense of the simulator and associated negotiation roleplaying game: https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/the-en-roads-climate-workshop/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/en-roads/the-en-roa... https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simulation/ https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simu...
    - atoav 7y ago
      There is a small explaination for each parameter when you click the ⋮ on the top right of each parameter. And on the breakthrough technology question: of course we could discover a unknown technology that will instantly solve everything without even having to honor the inertia of the slow but hard to steer forces that make up climate change. And while I really hope this would happen, I'd rather have more realistic scenarios in the meantime. Suppose we invent free energy. How long will it take for that technology to replace everything on the planet? How much emissions will this distribution of technology produce? Even with fairytale-style-technology overcoming the inertia of the ongoing processes will be anything but easy.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Even if human CO2/CH4 emissions hit zero tomorrow, it's probably too late. Because of positive feedbacks already triggered. So long term, the solution will be collapse of technological society.
microcolonel 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia
- siquick 7y ago
  Australia is a big country...
mikemotherwell 7y ago
Why? That's weather and short term. https://aqicn.org/map/sydney https://aqicn.org/map/sydney is the pollution in Sydney. Here is Jakarta https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta https://aqicn.org/map/jakarta Look at the historical data: all red and yellow for Jakarta, almost all green for Sydney, with the last two months an exception. Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the next 50-60 years.
- andrelaszlo 7y ago
  > Climate change is going to have little to no impact on Sydney now or in the next 50-60 years. Can you expand on that statement a bit? What do you base it on? It seems like we are already seeing adverse effects of global heating (eg https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-shows-climate-changes-impact-on-fires/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2912/satellite-data-record-sho...) but maybe I'm missing your point.
- siquick 7y ago
  Not sure why you chose to compare to Jakarta? The two cities haven't historically had similar air quality.
- abraae 7y ago
  How do you get from a map of the current air quality in Sydney to blithely saying climate change will have "little to no effect" on Sydney for the next 60 years?
  - TuringTest 7y ago
    It is a common trolling strategy, I have seen it applied elsewhere to delegitimise measures against climate change. It doesn't make any sense, but apparently it is enough to satisfy the unsophisticated blind followers of climate denialism. Anything that sounds contrarian and data-based is deemed a sufficient response to distract attention, which is scarce in most online discussion forums.
gfodor 7y ago
Climate change is a known problem. Known problems will be solved, since they can be measured and people are (or in this case, will soon be) incentivized to solve them. Climate change is a huge challenge but not one I particularly worry about since it exists in humanity’s collective consciousness as an idea. It’s unknown problems you should worry about, that are unnamable because they are unpredictable and unknowable until they happen.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  The problem with this thinking is the framing. The climate change is like going out to desert. The further you go out the hotter and harsher environment and once its too dangerous for you its not enough to stop going forward, but you need to walk all the way back home before you are safe. The CO2 and others are in the air already causing all weather changes, its not enough to go carbon neutral to stop it. To survive we need to go significantly negative to cut out greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. And that the biggest problem.
- sysbin 7y ago
  That's a lot of optimism from labeling a problem as known vs unknown. I'm hesitant thinking there is logic from assuming a problem known will be fixed. Also it's not too far fetched to think climate change can snowball while being irreversible.
  - gfodor 7y ago
    Consider the massive amount of effort, comparatively, between the effort going on and the conversation around mitigating the risk of climate change, and the risk of the flamzboo event, which is destined to quickly destroy humanity in the next decade. I can't call it something other than the flamzboo event, since we don't know what it is. The clearest picture one can have of what this event potentially is is by considering events which would have similar impact but are currently fringe in terms of public consciousness such as: - Supervolcano eruptions - Asteroid impacts - AI takeoff - Engineered bio weapons - Autonomous lethal weapons - Commoditized, small nuclear weapons These are not the things I'm talking about, since they have some level of consciousness, but are the closest examples since they are not top of mind in the public consciousness but are confer high x-risk. The ones I worry about are the ones that we can't know currently, that may be lurking on the horizon. One doesn't have to look far back in history to recognize these problems are typically the ones we get hurt by: surprises.