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Thanks for the information. I know there are other things that consume more energy, but this is indicative of Jevons' paradox. When we have the choice between

by lcam84 6y ago

Thanks for the information. I know there are other things that consume more energy, but this is indicative of Jevons' paradox. When we have the choice between efficiency and productivity we choose the second. We could be replacing 4G technology with one with the same speed but less energy consumption, but that would never make economic sense. In my opinion resource efficiency is not an irrelevant goal but a goal contrary to this society. We must always consume more because otherwise there is no growth. Without that there is no creation of jobs and profits. The goals of the economy are opposite to those of ecology. The first is to produce as much as possible. It is no wonder that carbon emissions have only actually been reduced when there has been an economic decline. Now we are going to revitalise the economy with the green new deal, but if it is really efficient it will not generate profits or jobs. So it will only make the situation worse. I think 5G is another desperate measure to maintain this infinite growth in a world of finite resources.

rsynnott 6y ago
Efficiency isn’t irrelevant, but if you’re worried about efficiency, this isn’t worth caring about. A mast that can covers tens of thousands of people uses as much energy per day as driving an SUV for a couple of hours. If that mast lets one person work from home a few days a week, say, it has paid for itself energy-wise. If you’re worried about energy inefficiency, the best things to focus on are probably domestic insulation and reducing car usage. People tend to get hung up on the small stuff. It’s really bizarre to me that THIS is the aspect of consumerism that people go after for energy use. Improved access to the internet has substantial benefits to society; a little energy use is acceptable. SUVs and 5000sqft houses have no obvious benefit to society at all, and use vastly more energy than the telecoms industry could dream of using.
- pg-gadfly 6y ago
  >It’s really bizarre to me that THIS is the aspect of consumerism that people go after for energy use It's more common than you think. In fact it's so common that it has it's own Wikipedia page(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
- lcam84 6y ago
  We shouldn't counter-argument against something by saying there are worse things. Just because there are worse things does not mean that less bad things do not matter, especially since we have to reduce our carbon emissions substantially. Personally I don't have a car and I don't fly. I live in an area that has a climate that allows me not to spend too much on air conditioning (I don't have air conditioning), but again that's not the point [1]. We currently spend 5.6 billion tons of materials on communication equipment 5.6% of all our consumption [2]. These are not figures that we can ignore, especially since in my opinion it is one of the areas that we least need to spend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/22/worlds-consumption-of-materials-hits-record-100bn-tonnes-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/22/worlds-c...
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    The thing is, I don't think it's crazy to imagine that this could be a net benefit. Better comms, especially in rural areas where current comms can be extremely limited, enable people to travel less. Of course, if we had been optimising society purely for energy usage from the start, no-one would live in rural areas anyway. But that's not the world we have.
    - lcam84 6y ago
      I think there are benefits but they don't justify the costs and the associated disadvantages. Ivan Illich said that the faster we can go, the further away things get.For example if we all have cars we will prepare the environment for this reality and instead of having stores close to home we will have a big shopping center miles away. I think the same can happen with information technology. I'm not really familiar with 5G technology, but I have an idea that the stations had less range than 4G although they are faster. If that were the case maybe there would be other better ways to give good network to the rural environment
      - rsynnott 6y ago
        > I'm not really familiar with 5G technology, but I have an idea that the stations had less range than 4G although they are faster. If that were the case maybe there would be other better ways to give good network to the rural environment No, that's not correct. Most countries are looking at 5G on three separate bands. Usually something in the 700MHz area (for use in rural areas, similar range to the longest-range LTE), something in the 2.5GHz area (for use in urban areas, similar range to current shorter range LTE), and ~30GHz (very short range, dense urban areas only).

by lcam84 6y ago

rsynnott 6y ago

Efficiency isn’t irrelevant, but if you’re worried about efficiency, this isn’t worth caring about. A mast that can covers tens of thousands of people uses as much energy per day as driving an SUV for a couple of hours. If that mast lets one person work from home a few days a week, say, it has paid for itself energy-wise. If you’re worried about energy inefficiency, the best things to focus on are probably domestic insulation and reducing car usage. People tend to get hung up on the small stuff. It’s really bizarre to me that THIS is the aspect of consumerism that people go after for energy use. Improved access to the internet has substantial benefits to society; a little energy use is acceptable. SUVs and 5000sqft houses have no obvious benefit to society at all, and use vastly more energy than the telecoms industry could dream of using.

pg-gadfly 6y ago
>It’s really bizarre to me that THIS is the aspect of consumerism that people go after for energy use It's more common than you think. In fact it's so common that it has it's own Wikipedia page(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
lcam84 6y ago
We shouldn't counter-argument against something by saying there are worse things. Just because there are worse things does not mean that less bad things do not matter, especially since we have to reduce our carbon emissions substantially. Personally I don't have a car and I don't fly. I live in an area that has a climate that allows me not to spend too much on air conditioning (I don't have air conditioning), but again that's not the point [1]. We currently spend 5.6 billion tons of materials on communication equipment 5.6% of all our consumption [2]. These are not figures that we can ignore, especially since in my opinion it is one of the areas that we least need to spend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/22/worlds-consumption-of-materials-hits-record-100bn-tonnes-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/22/worlds-c...
- rsynnott 6y ago
  The thing is, I don't think it's crazy to imagine that this could be a net benefit. Better comms, especially in rural areas where current comms can be extremely limited, enable people to travel less. Of course, if we had been optimising society purely for energy usage from the start, no-one would live in rural areas anyway. But that's not the world we have.
  - lcam84 6y ago
    I think there are benefits but they don't justify the costs and the associated disadvantages. Ivan Illich said that the faster we can go, the further away things get.For example if we all have cars we will prepare the environment for this reality and instead of having stores close to home we will have a big shopping center miles away. I think the same can happen with information technology. I'm not really familiar with 5G technology, but I have an idea that the stations had less range than 4G although they are faster. If that were the case maybe there would be other better ways to give good network to the rural environment
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > I'm not really familiar with 5G technology, but I have an idea that the stations had less range than 4G although they are faster. If that were the case maybe there would be other better ways to give good network to the rural environment No, that's not correct. Most countries are looking at 5G on three separate bands. Usually something in the 700MHz area (for use in rural areas, similar range to the longest-range LTE), something in the 2.5GHz area (for use in urban areas, similar range to current shorter range LTE), and ~30GHz (very short range, dense urban areas only).