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I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progr

by BLanen 4y ago

I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.

pcurve 4y ago
yep.. this and regrowing tooth.
OJFord 4y ago
Yes, I came across this recently and almost submitted, but it seemed like a minor development by the same team on news (discussed here) a couple of years ago, and searching around there was similarly titled stuff from mainstream news going back years. Seems to be one of those things where, if you're not in the field, all the news is the same and sounds like a breakthrough, but it'll be 20y out from actual adoption for a while.
salt-thrower 4y ago
Agreed. I generally assume that any headline with the structure "X new thing could solve Y," where Y is a massive problem that everyone wants a silver bullet for, is clickbait. I've seen too many of them at this point. Everyone wants a quick fix for climate change and pollution because it will absolve us of doing the hard work that the problem really requires. By all means, we should pursue such moonshot ideas - but like you said, it will be used to virtue signal some false idea of "progress" while the problem gets worse.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  This is a bit of a cynical take, if a solution is 1% likely it seems natural that 99% of the time the solutions aren't viable. Implies the 1% is still possible.
  - salt-thrower 4y ago
    Cynicism is warranted for the reason that the other commenter pointed out: the fossil fuel industry (and by extension, any Big Industry) will use moonshot ideas like this as ammo for their PR machine. "Don't worry about our lobbying against viable solutions right now - soon we'll have this new silver bullet idea." That sort of thing. But it's definitely worth exploring those moonshot ideas, so I'm not shutting that idea down. It's just good to be aware of how these sorts of headlines are used in the service of greenwashing.
deleted 4y ago
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by BLanen 4y ago

I've been hearing this for 20 years. I assume nothing will happen while this "news" will be used by fossil fuel companies to virtue signal "technological progress" in the plastic problem.

pcurve 4y ago

yep.. this and regrowing tooth.

OJFord 4y ago

Yes, I came across this recently and almost submitted, but it seemed like a minor development by the same team on news (discussed here) a couple of years ago, and searching around there was similarly titled stuff from mainstream news going back years. Seems to be one of those things where, if you're not in the field, all the news is the same and sounds like a breakthrough, but it'll be 20y out from actual adoption for a while.

salt-thrower 4y ago

Agreed. I generally assume that any headline with the structure "X new thing could solve Y," where Y is a massive problem that everyone wants a silver bullet for, is clickbait. I've seen too many of them at this point. Everyone wants a quick fix for climate change and pollution because it will absolve us of doing the hard work that the problem really requires. By all means, we should pursue such moonshot ideas - but like you said, it will be used to virtue signal some false idea of "progress" while the problem gets worse.

hackernewds 4y ago
This is a bit of a cynical take, if a solution is 1% likely it seems natural that 99% of the time the solutions aren't viable. Implies the 1% is still possible.
- salt-thrower 4y ago
  Cynicism is warranted for the reason that the other commenter pointed out: the fossil fuel industry (and by extension, any Big Industry) will use moonshot ideas like this as ammo for their PR machine. "Don't worry about our lobbying against viable solutions right now - soon we'll have this new silver bullet idea." That sort of thing. But it's definitely worth exploring those moonshot ideas, so I'm not shutting that idea down. It's just good to be aware of how these sorts of headlines are used in the service of greenwashing.

deleted 4y ago

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