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Which global crisis you are referring to? It can’t be Climate Change because that isn’t a technology problem it’s a political and economic problem. Is it Covid-

Which global crisis you are referring to? It can’t be Climate Change because that isn’t a technology problem it’s a political and economic problem. Is it Covid-19?

mehrdadn 7y ago
Given it says "containment is a tool from the 1920s" I would assume it's the coronavirus.
- vikramkr 7y ago
  How old a tool is has nothing to do with how good it is - we use simple machines and screws and wheels and multi decade old technologies like the internet all the time. Just pick the right tool for the job and keep inventing new ones to expand the opportunity set.
  - buboard 7y ago
    containment is a very ineffective tool, as is the wooden cart wheel. The fact that we don't have a more effective response other than containment should be extremely worrying. What if this was a more dangerous terrorist bioattack? These questions will rise up soon after this initial shock has passed. Unfortunately, fear seems to work better as a motivation for scientific progress
    - andrekandre 7y ago
      what should we be doing instead? we can’t just magic wand our way to a cure/vaccine, so i’m genuinely curious what else we can do...
api 7y ago
I strongly disagree about climate change. It's nothing but a technology problem. The people addressing it are people like Gates with his funding of advanced nuclear and Musk with his driving of EVs, solar power, and grid scale storage. One of the major reasons we've failed at tackling climate change to date is that we've been treating it as a political, economic, or ultimately moral problem and trying to solve it by moralizing. I call this approach "abstinence based environmentalism," making a direct analogy to abstinence based sex-ed. It works about as well. Trying to shame people into using less energy or pursuing less economic activity is going to be about as successful as shaming teens into not having sex. If we try to push abstinence based environmentalism really really hard by legislating it and trying to force people to down-size, we'll get a populist counter-reaction and we'll see the election of explicitly anti-environmentalist candidates. That's worse than nothing. That's going backward. We've already seen some of this. We've been approaching environmental problems as moral and political issues for decades and what do we have to show for it? https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-carbon-ppm-415-co2_1024.jpg https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-ca... Total, absolute failure. To stop CO2 and methane emissions, replace fossil fuels. To stop STDs and unwanted pregnancies, give teens contraceptive pills and rubbers.
- goldenbikeshed 7y ago
  Fossil fuels only account for about 70% of global CO2 emissions. Replacing all of them with renewable energy sources will lower emissions but also bring more emissions (e.g. from cement needed to build those power plants). Our current global economic system is pretty much single mindedly focused on exponential GDP growth. As long as this system persists, all that new clean energy will be used to produce more useless disposable gadgets, driving up more emissions from methane (from all the new trash produced with all that energy). What we need to stop climate change is to lower consumption and to lower production. This is very much possible while also increasing quality of life. Technology can help with getting that into people's head, but a political will has to be there first, and that won't be possible without challenging the current economic system.
  - api 7y ago
    "This is very much possible while also increasing quality of life." I don't disagree. It's in part a framing issue. For decades the message has been "you should feel guilty for wanting things, and to save the world everyone needs to de-industrialize and return to the lifestyle of a medieval peasant." (I'm exaggerating just a little bit, but not much.) The mainstream response has been similar to how people respond to other moral shaming campaigns: pretend to play along and engage in a lot of token signaling gestures (like banning plastic straws or recycled disposable cups) but otherwise ignore it. Actual behavior does not change, but you get this gloss of fake ineffective feel-good junk. The developing world's response has been a bit more pointed: "fuck you, we're poor." They're not going to listen to a bunch of rich westerners tell them they need to stay poor to save the planet.
- petermcneeley 7y ago
  I agree with the thrust of your argument but its actually still totally a social and economic problem and not a problem of technology. First covid19 demonstrates how much of education and work can take place from the home without the need of rushhour style transport. Second your examples of gates and musk are actually examples of the general failure of governments and markets to use existing technologies. Nuclear power, Hydro electric, ocean power, traditional solar ; all of these are existing technologies that dont need innovation what they need is the economic and social Will to construct. Musks EVs ; very expensive direct replacements for existing vehicles to me indicates something very wrong in the approach to solving climate change. The problem is one of Coordination. The sclerosis of western society and our focus on individual incentive prevents anything but the most marginal of improvements. A great example can be seen here in Ontario. Here the government subsidized private individuals to put up their own solar on their homes. Electric prices soared. The result is basically a wealth transfer from poor to rich with very little gained. Again there is some similarity here to the Tesla EV. Not that solar makes much sense in Canada but i am sure the government could have done much better to have run this project itself.
look_lookatme 7y ago
Strange to make a distinction between the two. Saving us from the effects of climate change is only a technology problem at this point, but it's hard and tedious and disincentivized because it's easier to make money right now in the consumer world or, even worse, in the world of quantitative finance and many good minds have drifted to those fields.
- fulafel 7y ago
  Saving us from the effects of climate change if we let it progress far would be a (very difficult) technology problem, but fighting climate change is an economic and political problem.

Which global crisis you are referring to? It can’t be Climate Change because that isn’t a technology problem it’s a political and economic problem. Is it Covid-19?

mehrdadn 7y ago

Given it says "containment is a tool from the 1920s" I would assume it's the coronavirus.

vikramkr 7y ago
How old a tool is has nothing to do with how good it is - we use simple machines and screws and wheels and multi decade old technologies like the internet all the time. Just pick the right tool for the job and keep inventing new ones to expand the opportunity set.
- buboard 7y ago
  containment is a very ineffective tool, as is the wooden cart wheel. The fact that we don't have a more effective response other than containment should be extremely worrying. What if this was a more dangerous terrorist bioattack? These questions will rise up soon after this initial shock has passed. Unfortunately, fear seems to work better as a motivation for scientific progress
  - andrekandre 7y ago
    what should we be doing instead? we can’t just magic wand our way to a cure/vaccine, so i’m genuinely curious what else we can do...

api 7y ago

I strongly disagree about climate change. It's nothing but a technology problem. The people addressing it are people like Gates with his funding of advanced nuclear and Musk with his driving of EVs, solar power, and grid scale storage. One of the major reasons we've failed at tackling climate change to date is that we've been treating it as a political, economic, or ultimately moral problem and trying to solve it by moralizing. I call this approach "abstinence based environmentalism," making a direct analogy to abstinence based sex-ed. It works about as well. Trying to shame people into using less energy or pursuing less economic activity is going to be about as successful as shaming teens into not having sex. If we try to push abstinence based environmentalism really really hard by legislating it and trying to force people to down-size, we'll get a populist counter-reaction and we'll see the election of explicitly anti-environmentalist candidates. That's worse than nothing. That's going backward. We've already seen some of this. We've been approaching environmental problems as moral and political issues for decades and what do we have to show for it? https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-carbon-ppm-415-co2_1024.jpg https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-05/processed/017-ca... Total, absolute failure. To stop CO2 and methane emissions, replace fossil fuels. To stop STDs and unwanted pregnancies, give teens contraceptive pills and rubbers.

goldenbikeshed 7y ago
Fossil fuels only account for about 70% of global CO2 emissions. Replacing all of them with renewable energy sources will lower emissions but also bring more emissions (e.g. from cement needed to build those power plants). Our current global economic system is pretty much single mindedly focused on exponential GDP growth. As long as this system persists, all that new clean energy will be used to produce more useless disposable gadgets, driving up more emissions from methane (from all the new trash produced with all that energy). What we need to stop climate change is to lower consumption and to lower production. This is very much possible while also increasing quality of life. Technology can help with getting that into people's head, but a political will has to be there first, and that won't be possible without challenging the current economic system.
- api 7y ago
  "This is very much possible while also increasing quality of life." I don't disagree. It's in part a framing issue. For decades the message has been "you should feel guilty for wanting things, and to save the world everyone needs to de-industrialize and return to the lifestyle of a medieval peasant." (I'm exaggerating just a little bit, but not much.) The mainstream response has been similar to how people respond to other moral shaming campaigns: pretend to play along and engage in a lot of token signaling gestures (like banning plastic straws or recycled disposable cups) but otherwise ignore it. Actual behavior does not change, but you get this gloss of fake ineffective feel-good junk. The developing world's response has been a bit more pointed: "fuck you, we're poor." They're not going to listen to a bunch of rich westerners tell them they need to stay poor to save the planet.
petermcneeley 7y ago
I agree with the thrust of your argument but its actually still totally a social and economic problem and not a problem of technology. First covid19 demonstrates how much of education and work can take place from the home without the need of rushhour style transport. Second your examples of gates and musk are actually examples of the general failure of governments and markets to use existing technologies. Nuclear power, Hydro electric, ocean power, traditional solar ; all of these are existing technologies that dont need innovation what they need is the economic and social Will to construct. Musks EVs ; very expensive direct replacements for existing vehicles to me indicates something very wrong in the approach to solving climate change. The problem is one of Coordination. The sclerosis of western society and our focus on individual incentive prevents anything but the most marginal of improvements. A great example can be seen here in Ontario. Here the government subsidized private individuals to put up their own solar on their homes. Electric prices soared. The result is basically a wealth transfer from poor to rich with very little gained. Again there is some similarity here to the Tesla EV. Not that solar makes much sense in Canada but i am sure the government could have done much better to have run this project itself.

look_lookatme 7y ago

Strange to make a distinction between the two. Saving us from the effects of climate change is only a technology problem at this point, but it's hard and tedious and disincentivized because it's easier to make money right now in the consumer world or, even worse, in the world of quantitative finance and many good minds have drifted to those fields.

fulafel 7y ago
Saving us from the effects of climate change if we let it progress far would be a (very difficult) technology problem, but fighting climate change is an economic and political problem.