5 ms·

What is the evidence for the claim in your first sentence? And what does "come out better" mean? Less covid, but more unemployment, more drug addiction, more su

What is the evidence for the claim in your first sentence? And what does "come out better" mean? Less covid, but more unemployment, more drug addiction, more suicides than the ones that happened? With climate change, what exactly are we optimizing for? That's never been clear to me. We want to destroy the world's economy to keep the climate from changing? How long will the climate "not change"? In other words, the goals have never been clear to me, and the whole point of this line of comments is "are we sure the juice is worth the squeeze?" We largely don't know what the second-order effects of tampering with the climate could be, because complex systems have very weird, very broad, interconnected relationships. There's genuinely no way of knowing whether we'll just make it worse, accelerate rapid cycling, or destabilize a system that is complex.

majormajor 4y ago
How is a desire to invest rapidly in new, less environmentally disruptive, technology development wanting to "destroy the world's economy"? Seems like the opposite to me, unless your personal interests are tied up in legacy monopolistic businesses. It's like being opposed to Apple and Microsoft in the late 70s because you're worried about destroying IBM or mainframes.
- prometheus76 4y ago
  The whole global economy is built around cheap energy sources that also happen to be at least 100 times more efficient than solar, wind, or even nuclear. Petroleum is BY FAR the most efficient way of storing energy. Wind and solar power are both intermittent. That's fine if you live in a coastal city in a temperate zone, but most people in the world do not. So efficient energy storage becomes a huge problem. And we have two main timecycles for which we have to store energy: capturing it during the day and releasing it at night (to charge all those EVs) and also capturing it during the summer and releasing it over the winter. That would require longer-term storage AND while we can capture the most energy during the summer, that's also the highest period of use because the world is now also air-conditioned. If you end petroleum production, that also ends all plastic production. So all the cheap gewgaws from China disappear. Also, did you know that solar panels are made from firing coal and quartz together at high temperatures? Do you know why they're all made in China? Because of much less strict environmental regulations there. Did you also know that solar panels have a lifespan of only 15-20 years, and that they're not recyclable? I could go on and on, but there's no magic "alternative energy source" that even comes close to being able to provide stable power at a cost that comes anywhere close to petroleum, not to mention how portable petroleum is as an energy source. Nuclear power is the only thing that even comes close, but it's fraught with trouble as well. You think there will be solar-powered shipping vessels? Trains are electric, but you know what runs the electric motors on them? The on-board diesel generators! The global economy is based on cheap energy sources. Increase the cost and reduce the availability of the energy sources and yeah, you'll destroy the economy.
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    > Increase the cost and reduce the availability of the energy sources and yeah, you'll destroy the economy. more and more it seems like outright nihilism has led to many people being in the mindset of "And That's A Good Thing!" these people not only think privately but announce publicly that they don't have any interest in having children specifically because they don't think it's Morally Right to produce and raise children in this Intractably Fallen World we live in today. after all, as everyone knows, western civilization is built upon colonial expansionism, slavery, white supremacy, bigotry, etc. etc., and even the good things it's produced like democracy are outweighed by the civilization-ending threat of climate catastrophe that it directly wrought! therefore, let us ignore the civilizational advances our forefathers fought and died for, because on the whole, our entire society is built upon foundations of moral abhorrence! let it all burn, and all of us with it—we deserve it. and all of this nihilistic depression and anxiety about the entire global state of the world we live in all started relatively recently in human history, which makes one wonder what exactly caused it—was it completely organic or subversively intentional? because idk about you but if I was a competing world superpower and I wanted to set out to destroy my competition discretely, these last couple decades of getting the middle to lower rungs of society to turn on itself in every which way imaginable, all while discouraging optimism and exceptionalism in a downright institutional manner, would be exactly how I would go about it. I used to be a fan of Doctorow when I was downloading his free ebooks & converting them to iPod notes format to read in class in high school. it's a bummer to see that he's lining up with the rest of the "we're all gonna die"-types, singing the song of the end of the world to the masses—it's pretty much impossible for me to respect anyone who takes that tack.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    So then how about you get onboard with fighting for what I said, not the other position you're arguing against. The one that's called "technology development." Invest in alternatives, capture solutions, etc so that they get better faster. It's the same thing we've done in wartime, or for a moon mission. The global economy was based on other things than it is today 30, 70, 150, 200, etc years ago. Shit changes. Steer the change instead of sitting back and being defeatist about the side effects of the most recent ones. Plenty of people don't want to destroy the world to save it. Do you think your "let's just do nothing because uncertainty exists, let's just let the world destroy itself without bothering to learn more or try new things" pseudo-concern is better?
jacquesm 4y ago
See map linked in other comment. With climate change we are optimizing for survival of the species and some form of civilization as we know it. If that's all we manage to do then I would consider that a huge win.

majormajor 4y ago

How is a desire to invest rapidly in new, less environmentally disruptive, technology development wanting to "destroy the world's economy"? Seems like the opposite to me, unless your personal interests are tied up in legacy monopolistic businesses. It's like being opposed to Apple and Microsoft in the late 70s because you're worried about destroying IBM or mainframes.

prometheus76 4y ago
The whole global economy is built around cheap energy sources that also happen to be at least 100 times more efficient than solar, wind, or even nuclear. Petroleum is BY FAR the most efficient way of storing energy. Wind and solar power are both intermittent. That's fine if you live in a coastal city in a temperate zone, but most people in the world do not. So efficient energy storage becomes a huge problem. And we have two main timecycles for which we have to store energy: capturing it during the day and releasing it at night (to charge all those EVs) and also capturing it during the summer and releasing it over the winter. That would require longer-term storage AND while we can capture the most energy during the summer, that's also the highest period of use because the world is now also air-conditioned. If you end petroleum production, that also ends all plastic production. So all the cheap gewgaws from China disappear. Also, did you know that solar panels are made from firing coal and quartz together at high temperatures? Do you know why they're all made in China? Because of much less strict environmental regulations there. Did you also know that solar panels have a lifespan of only 15-20 years, and that they're not recyclable? I could go on and on, but there's no magic "alternative energy source" that even comes close to being able to provide stable power at a cost that comes anywhere close to petroleum, not to mention how portable petroleum is as an energy source. Nuclear power is the only thing that even comes close, but it's fraught with trouble as well. You think there will be solar-powered shipping vessels? Trains are electric, but you know what runs the electric motors on them? The on-board diesel generators! The global economy is based on cheap energy sources. Increase the cost and reduce the availability of the energy sources and yeah, you'll destroy the economy.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  > Increase the cost and reduce the availability of the energy sources and yeah, you'll destroy the economy. more and more it seems like outright nihilism has led to many people being in the mindset of "And That's A Good Thing!" these people not only think privately but announce publicly that they don't have any interest in having children specifically because they don't think it's Morally Right to produce and raise children in this Intractably Fallen World we live in today. after all, as everyone knows, western civilization is built upon colonial expansionism, slavery, white supremacy, bigotry, etc. etc., and even the good things it's produced like democracy are outweighed by the civilization-ending threat of climate catastrophe that it directly wrought! therefore, let us ignore the civilizational advances our forefathers fought and died for, because on the whole, our entire society is built upon foundations of moral abhorrence! let it all burn, and all of us with it—we deserve it. and all of this nihilistic depression and anxiety about the entire global state of the world we live in all started relatively recently in human history, which makes one wonder what exactly caused it—was it completely organic or subversively intentional? because idk about you but if I was a competing world superpower and I wanted to set out to destroy my competition discretely, these last couple decades of getting the middle to lower rungs of society to turn on itself in every which way imaginable, all while discouraging optimism and exceptionalism in a downright institutional manner, would be exactly how I would go about it. I used to be a fan of Doctorow when I was downloading his free ebooks & converting them to iPod notes format to read in class in high school. it's a bummer to see that he's lining up with the rest of the "we're all gonna die"-types, singing the song of the end of the world to the masses—it's pretty much impossible for me to respect anyone who takes that tack.
- majormajor 4y ago
  So then how about you get onboard with fighting for what I said, not the other position you're arguing against. The one that's called "technology development." Invest in alternatives, capture solutions, etc so that they get better faster. It's the same thing we've done in wartime, or for a moon mission. The global economy was based on other things than it is today 30, 70, 150, 200, etc years ago. Shit changes. Steer the change instead of sitting back and being defeatist about the side effects of the most recent ones. Plenty of people don't want to destroy the world to save it. Do you think your "let's just do nothing because uncertainty exists, let's just let the world destroy itself without bothering to learn more or try new things" pseudo-concern is better?

jacquesm 4y ago

See map linked in other comment. With climate change we are optimizing for survival of the species and some form of civilization as we know it. If that's all we manage to do then I would consider that a huge win.