3 ms·

It is a very American perspective that allows anyone trying to change anything to be blamed. I personally blame the status quo, and think that if fewer people

It is a very American perspective that allows anyone trying to change anything to be blamed. I personally blame the status quo, and think that if fewer people had stayed home and let things be we would be a far better position. Your politics say sit at home and let the world end -- I have never and will never do that. I'm an activist in every part of my life.

option_greek 5y ago
I understand the sentiment. But problem is every new generation thinks they are the only revolutionaries to have suddenly discovered activism. For previous to previous generation it was about stopping wars and killing nuclear power. For the current generation (Greta T) it is climate change and inaction by politicians. Next generation it will be something else. It's like every one below 30 thinks they are the only ones who were ever below 30. Meanwhile neither the wars have stopped nor did the climate change. It is easy to say that is because no one is doing enough and everyone should be an activist. But then if everyone is continuously doing activisty thingies, they are not even expounding the same ideas or even worried about the same things. The result is meaningless placard holding protests and pulling in a million directions. It's difficult to take anyone to take the climate activists seriously when on one hand they say we are heading towards catastrophe and at the same time say Eww to nuclear.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  Or we could live less energy dense lives, take the bus, grow more vegetarian food closer to our homes (food gardens, no suburban lawns!) quit building homes in places that are hostile to humans, etc etc etc. Nuclear Energy powered electric cars only cuts emissions by about 50%, we need a lot more than that. You have an easy solution to a complex problem -- you're as bad as any activist you're bad mouthing now.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
  > It's difficult to take anyone to take the climate activists seriously when on one hand they say we are heading towards catastrophe and at the same time say Eww to nuclear. I think for some of us, it's less about 'eww' and more about how foolish is it have near active fault lines or below sea level (like Fukushima, SONGS, Dablo Canyon etc...) where they KNEW it was an issue but did nothing about it. I've lived through the cluster** that was SONGS refurbishment, and eventual decommissioning, it's not something I'd want anyone to have to go through and it was only possible an unmonitored effluence event (typical for that time in 2011) that coincided with the Fukushima disaster. I've come around the idea that I'm less anti-nuclear and more anti-20th Century Nuclear and it's headlong methods that was backed by GE and it's American Century at all costs type of thinking. Because for years we've been told Thorium reactors were the stopgap between Fusion which was always 'just around the corner' by Nuclear proponents, while many anti-nuclear people (like myself) were helping install PV, smart meters and volunteering where ever possible to decentralize the power grid in order to avoid what has happened in the last 2-3 years in CA with it's repeated outages due to climate change. I've lived in an anti-nuclear border town in Germany along Alsace, where the roofs are covered in state subsidized PV (it's where I got my first experience with installing it) which is still a net importer of French electricity so I'm well aware of the hypocrisy in some of these cases; what I'm afraid is that with agencies like the NRC and it's poor storage solutions (pay to bury in NV, until they refuse and we have leave it on site in decommissioned plants) it's more a repulsion towards the lack of insight when it comes to regulating and maintaining these plants. Just Solar alone is a larger part of the energy market share than nuclear from SONGS and DC combined in CA at it's peak [0], and they are having to turn off production (foolish decision) due to having a larger supply than demand. What I think is needed is an entire paradigm shift as to what and how to utilize the energy sources we do have, and consider Nuclear an option of last resort due to the heavy costs, time, and resources it requires. But it should be an option where coal, gas, or other harmful sources are being used and cannot be recaptured. CA is not one of these places given it's wide array of solar, wind and hopefully soon wave energy like in Scotalnd. 0: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/solar/california-has-too-much-solar-power/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/solar/c...
- JoshCole 5y ago
  TL; DR: I take your general point to be that people are stupid for having a diverse set of activist activities. I think this idea is very wrong. I've addressed a few lines in your comment trying to show the following: 1. That you've overstated the extent to which activism has been ineffective. 2. That your post doesn't have a valid logical structure (in the syllogistic logic sense) and you're not justifying your claims with evidence. 3. That the mathematics of learning combined with the complexity of reality lead to a situation wherein the diversity of ideas and agendas which you're opposing is our chief advantage and the entire reason that we're smarter than other species. The first two points are suggestive that you might want to question your own confidence in your statements or re-word to better support your case. The third though is a direct refutation of the core idea. Getting into things: > Meanwhile neither the wars have stopped nor did the climate change. Yes, there have been wars that have been stopped. To use an example, we are not currently at war with Vietnam. Moreover, there are events like the destruction of the ozone layer which have been stopped. There are currently tax breaks and incentives designed to encourage our market forces to adopt renewable energy. You're trying to make the case that activism is ineffective, but nuclear power adoption isn't widespread as many wish in part due to activism. Slavery isn't legal anymore, but once was. Civil rights are more universally applied than they were in formed years as well. I'm certain there are more examples of activist success. > But problem is every new generation thinks they are the only revolutionaries to have suddenly discovered activism. You seem like you are claiming that new generations are so stupid they know nothing at all about history pertaining to the activities they engage in. but it isn't true hat modern activists don't know about other activists. Modern activists have attended history classes and activist activities, when popular, are more likely to be covered in history classes than events which weren't noteworthy. Education has become more common, not less common, as time has gone on. Moreover, when people are effective, they generally have learned from others. Since former activism is a potential source of learning, effective activists are almost certain to have learned lessons from former efforts. Notice that my first sentence made a claim. Then my following sentences provided justification for that claim. Contrast that with your own post. Lets move to your next sentence: > For previous to previous generation it was about stopping wars and killing nuclear power. This point doesn't logically follow your previous point. Your previous point made the case that you consider activists to be stupid. This statement doesn't build credibility for that claim by providing evidence. It instead switches to a new topic. That new topic, summarized without any sentiment attached is: different people at different times cared about different things. It is perfectly reasonable for different people to care about different things. This is all the more true when you consider you don't even need to have different people in order to have different cares. Time alone is sufficient. Even over the course of a single day time alone can make a person care about different things: a person in the morning cares about getting up out of bed, but the person in the evening flip flops and now cares about getting into bed. Time, even over the course of the day, can completely invert desires. So how much more so is it appropriate for time over the course of a generation to lead to different desires? Especially when the person who is doing the desiring is different? > The result is meaningless placard holding protests and pulling in a million directions. You've failed to establish a link between different people wanting different things and the results of that being a bad thing rather than a good thing. There are many many reasons to expect that different people wanting different things is good. In ML an ensemble of models which are good for different reasons tends to outperform any single model in the ensemble. This reality of mathematics isn't just a reality of mathematics, but manifests in practical ways. There is a phenomenon known to statisticians and referred to as the wisdom of crowds wherein groups of diverse people giving an estimate of an unknown quantity like the number of jelly beans in a jar have a better estimate than any one person. The practical consequence of this most people will see very frequently is that top-performing organizations often prioritize diversity. But let's dig deeper, because you're just wrong here, and I want to drill down into the math so you can see that you're wrong. There is a tension when learning: you have to get data in order to learn but you also have to do the thing that is in your best interest. In literature you'll find this discussed in the context of multi-armed bandit problems. This core tension is discussed in terms of explore versus exploit tradeoffs. Our best ML systems like MuZero are explicitly designed so as to balance these twin concerns. Reality is incredibly complicated. From a logistics perspective it isn't actually possible for a single person to fully explore the solution space. There is a fundamental need to trade off against exploration and exploitation, but the complexity of the world is so exceedingly vast that it isn't actually tractable to do this for a single individual. Since we have to explore and we have to exploit, but we also don't have the capacity to explore everything ourselves we should therefore be very unintelligent. Except we aren't, because we are social. While one person explores one area, another person explores a different area, and the sum of our knowledge is now better than it was before even though we both took different actions because we update our update functions such that the next explorer gets a new plan to build off. So rather than diversity being an example of nothing get done it's actually absolutely essential and one of the most defining and important aspects of what makes humans more intelligent than other species.

option_greek 5y ago

I understand the sentiment. But problem is every new generation thinks they are the only revolutionaries to have suddenly discovered activism. For previous to previous generation it was about stopping wars and killing nuclear power. For the current generation (Greta T) it is climate change and inaction by politicians. Next generation it will be something else. It's like every one below 30 thinks they are the only ones who were ever below 30. Meanwhile neither the wars have stopped nor did the climate change. It is easy to say that is because no one is doing enough and everyone should be an activist. But then if everyone is continuously doing activisty thingies, they are not even expounding the same ideas or even worried about the same things. The result is meaningless placard holding protests and pulling in a million directions. It's difficult to take anyone to take the climate activists seriously when on one hand they say we are heading towards catastrophe and at the same time say Eww to nuclear.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lindseymysse 5y ago
Or we could live less energy dense lives, take the bus, grow more vegetarian food closer to our homes (food gardens, no suburban lawns!) quit building homes in places that are hostile to humans, etc etc etc. Nuclear Energy powered electric cars only cuts emissions by about 50%, we need a lot more than that. You have an easy solution to a complex problem -- you're as bad as any activist you're bad mouthing now.
Melting_Harps 5y ago
> It's difficult to take anyone to take the climate activists seriously when on one hand they say we are heading towards catastrophe and at the same time say Eww to nuclear. I think for some of us, it's less about 'eww' and more about how foolish is it have near active fault lines or below sea level (like Fukushima, SONGS, Dablo Canyon etc...) where they KNEW it was an issue but did nothing about it. I've lived through the cluster** that was SONGS refurbishment, and eventual decommissioning, it's not something I'd want anyone to have to go through and it was only possible an unmonitored effluence event (typical for that time in 2011) that coincided with the Fukushima disaster. I've come around the idea that I'm less anti-nuclear and more anti-20th Century Nuclear and it's headlong methods that was backed by GE and it's American Century at all costs type of thinking. Because for years we've been told Thorium reactors were the stopgap between Fusion which was always 'just around the corner' by Nuclear proponents, while many anti-nuclear people (like myself) were helping install PV, smart meters and volunteering where ever possible to decentralize the power grid in order to avoid what has happened in the last 2-3 years in CA with it's repeated outages due to climate change. I've lived in an anti-nuclear border town in Germany along Alsace, where the roofs are covered in state subsidized PV (it's where I got my first experience with installing it) which is still a net importer of French electricity so I'm well aware of the hypocrisy in some of these cases; what I'm afraid is that with agencies like the NRC and it's poor storage solutions (pay to bury in NV, until they refuse and we have leave it on site in decommissioned plants) it's more a repulsion towards the lack of insight when it comes to regulating and maintaining these plants. Just Solar alone is a larger part of the energy market share than nuclear from SONGS and DC combined in CA at it's peak [0], and they are having to turn off production (foolish decision) due to having a larger supply than demand. What I think is needed is an entire paradigm shift as to what and how to utilize the energy sources we do have, and consider Nuclear an option of last resort due to the heavy costs, time, and resources it requires. But it should be an option where coal, gas, or other harmful sources are being used and cannot be recaptured. CA is not one of these places given it's wide array of solar, wind and hopefully soon wave energy like in Scotalnd. 0: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/solar/california-has-too-much-solar-power/ https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/solar/c...
JoshCole 5y ago
TL; DR: I take your general point to be that people are stupid for having a diverse set of activist activities. I think this idea is very wrong. I've addressed a few lines in your comment trying to show the following: 1. That you've overstated the extent to which activism has been ineffective. 2. That your post doesn't have a valid logical structure (in the syllogistic logic sense) and you're not justifying your claims with evidence. 3. That the mathematics of learning combined with the complexity of reality lead to a situation wherein the diversity of ideas and agendas which you're opposing is our chief advantage and the entire reason that we're smarter than other species. The first two points are suggestive that you might want to question your own confidence in your statements or re-word to better support your case. The third though is a direct refutation of the core idea. Getting into things: > Meanwhile neither the wars have stopped nor did the climate change. Yes, there have been wars that have been stopped. To use an example, we are not currently at war with Vietnam. Moreover, there are events like the destruction of the ozone layer which have been stopped. There are currently tax breaks and incentives designed to encourage our market forces to adopt renewable energy. You're trying to make the case that activism is ineffective, but nuclear power adoption isn't widespread as many wish in part due to activism. Slavery isn't legal anymore, but once was. Civil rights are more universally applied than they were in formed years as well. I'm certain there are more examples of activist success. > But problem is every new generation thinks they are the only revolutionaries to have suddenly discovered activism. You seem like you are claiming that new generations are so stupid they know nothing at all about history pertaining to the activities they engage in. but it isn't true hat modern activists don't know about other activists. Modern activists have attended history classes and activist activities, when popular, are more likely to be covered in history classes than events which weren't noteworthy. Education has become more common, not less common, as time has gone on. Moreover, when people are effective, they generally have learned from others. Since former activism is a potential source of learning, effective activists are almost certain to have learned lessons from former efforts. Notice that my first sentence made a claim. Then my following sentences provided justification for that claim. Contrast that with your own post. Lets move to your next sentence: > For previous to previous generation it was about stopping wars and killing nuclear power. This point doesn't logically follow your previous point. Your previous point made the case that you consider activists to be stupid. This statement doesn't build credibility for that claim by providing evidence. It instead switches to a new topic. That new topic, summarized without any sentiment attached is: different people at different times cared about different things. It is perfectly reasonable for different people to care about different things. This is all the more true when you consider you don't even need to have different people in order to have different cares. Time alone is sufficient. Even over the course of a single day time alone can make a person care about different things: a person in the morning cares about getting up out of bed, but the person in the evening flip flops and now cares about getting into bed. Time, even over the course of the day, can completely invert desires. So how much more so is it appropriate for time over the course of a generation to lead to different desires? Especially when the person who is doing the desiring is different? > The result is meaningless placard holding protests and pulling in a million directions. You've failed to establish a link between different people wanting different things and the results of that being a bad thing rather than a good thing. There are many many reasons to expect that different people wanting different things is good. In ML an ensemble of models which are good for different reasons tends to outperform any single model in the ensemble. This reality of mathematics isn't just a reality of mathematics, but manifests in practical ways. There is a phenomenon known to statisticians and referred to as the wisdom of crowds wherein groups of diverse people giving an estimate of an unknown quantity like the number of jelly beans in a jar have a better estimate than any one person. The practical consequence of this most people will see very frequently is that top-performing organizations often prioritize diversity. But let's dig deeper, because you're just wrong here, and I want to drill down into the math so you can see that you're wrong. There is a tension when learning: you have to get data in order to learn but you also have to do the thing that is in your best interest. In literature you'll find this discussed in the context of multi-armed bandit problems. This core tension is discussed in terms of explore versus exploit tradeoffs. Our best ML systems like MuZero are explicitly designed so as to balance these twin concerns. Reality is incredibly complicated. From a logistics perspective it isn't actually possible for a single person to fully explore the solution space. There is a fundamental need to trade off against exploration and exploitation, but the complexity of the world is so exceedingly vast that it isn't actually tractable to do this for a single individual. Since we have to explore and we have to exploit, but we also don't have the capacity to explore everything ourselves we should therefore be very unintelligent. Except we aren't, because we are social. While one person explores one area, another person explores a different area, and the sum of our knowledge is now better than it was before even though we both took different actions because we update our update functions such that the next explorer gets a new plan to build off. So rather than diversity being an example of nothing get done it's actually absolutely essential and one of the most defining and important aspects of what makes humans more intelligent than other species.