4 ms·

Hello Maddie and Patrick, Cheers! I love what you are doing. Alas, I join in the concerns about deploying that tech here on Earth; even if the science and tec

by dsign 5y ago

Hello Maddie and Patrick, Cheers! I love what you are doing. Alas, I join in the concerns about deploying that tech here on Earth; even if the science and tech were 100% sound (which I think is possible and practical), the public opinion will always be extremely conservative.

civilized 5y ago
People are going to need to do better if we're to avoid frying the planet. It's irresponsible to ignore or downplay climate change. And it's equally irresponsible to fantasize that the world is going to somehow have a magical change of consciousness and stop consuming goods that depend on fossil fuels. It's not like China is going to wake up one day and say, "actually today I'm fine with shutting down all my factories and going back to being poor again!" We need technological solutions, and we need to be thoughtful about costs and benefits. Not knee-jerk reject everything out of blind, unexamined fear. If we don't, we might not recognize the planet we bequeath to our grandchildren.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  Not everyone has come around to the understanding that we're not going to solve this problem by having Meatless Mondays and recycling more. The fact is that even if we turned off all greenhouse gas production today, we'd still be in a lot of trouble, and at this point only a technological solution is going to avert a catastrophe. And we're not going to turn off all greenhouse gas production today, so the need to find a technological solution is even greater. So many of these HN threads turn into people saying "well, this technological solution could go wrong, we should just reduce consumption instead", not realizing the actual level of emergency we're in. It's a bullet everyone is going to have to bite eventually, and (if history is an indication) probably too late.

4 ms·

Hello Maddie and Patrick, Cheers! I love what you are doing. Alas, I join in the concerns about deploying that tech here on Earth; even if the science and tec

by dsign 5y ago

civilized 5y ago
People are going to need to do better if we're to avoid frying the planet. It's irresponsible to ignore or downplay climate change. And it's equally irresponsible to fantasize that the world is going to somehow have a magical change of consciousness and stop consuming goods that depend on fossil fuels. It's not like China is going to wake up one day and say, "actually today I'm fine with shutting down all my factories and going back to being poor again!" We need technological solutions, and we need to be thoughtful about costs and benefits. Not knee-jerk reject everything out of blind, unexamined fear. If we don't, we might not recognize the planet we bequeath to our grandchildren.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  Not everyone has come around to the understanding that we're not going to solve this problem by having Meatless Mondays and recycling more. The fact is that even if we turned off all greenhouse gas production today, we'd still be in a lot of trouble, and at this point only a technological solution is going to avert a catastrophe. And we're not going to turn off all greenhouse gas production today, so the need to find a technological solution is even greater. So many of these HN threads turn into people saying "well, this technological solution could go wrong, we should just reduce consumption instead", not realizing the actual level of emergency we're in. It's a bullet everyone is going to have to bite eventually, and (if history is an indication) probably too late.