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Unpopular opinion of mine: I think that viable fusion energy would be the final nudge to our demise. Our civilisation is an energy-junkie who happened to stumb

Unpopular opinion of mine: I think that viable fusion energy would be the final nudge to our demise. Our civilisation is an energy-junkie who happened to stumble on a huge bag full of cash around 1860 and the discovery of oil distillation. Since then, we have been on a hallucinating trip, burning down our house in the process. Viable fusion is essentially another huge pile of cash being deposited right across the street, just 10 times larger than 2 centuries ago. There is no coming back after that.

penjelly 3y ago
how exactly is oil distillation or its results "burning down our house" and how is that applicable to fusion tech?
- htrp 3y ago
  > how exactly is oil distillation or its results "burning down our house" Likely a call out to global warming. > how is that applicable to fusion tech? One thing that is never really discussed in terms of fusion energy is what you will do with the heat generated from these processes as there is a theoretical maximum for how much heat the planet can dissipate. Whether the poster is correct or not, its widely acknowledged that the ability to transition from gravity powered/wind powered energy to coal combustion fueled a great deal of the economic and technological improvements from the 1700s onward (we call it the Industrial Revolution).
  - jurgenaut23 3y ago
    There are many more planetary limits than just climate change, and many of them are governed by how much natural resources we consume and, incidentally, how much waste we produce. Cheap unlimited energy will just make us push these boundaries even further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
    - eagerpace 3y ago
      We aren't bound to just this planet though. Not everyone has to live here. Not every industry has to operate here. Power doesn't have to be generated, or consumed, here.
      - jurgenaut23 3y ago
        Please. I know lots of folks here live in Silicon Valley and are breastfed with this kind of fantasy, but making our species multi-planetary isn't just a matter of energy availability. Plus, and most importantly, trashing our one and only planet "because we are not bound to it" is just one of the most unethical and most dangerous plan one can think of. And I know that there are plans to become a multi-planetary species without making Earth inhabitable in the first place, but I think the quote "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face" applies beautifully here. And the fist of climate change combined with biological collapse will hurt badly.
elil17 3y ago
So do you think it's the use of energy in and of itself that causes issues?
- jurgenaut23 3y ago
  Not energy in and of itself. Cheap unlimited energy will just make us push planetary boundaries even further. We need a reduction of human impact on our planet, not an increase of it.
  - elil17 3y ago
    How would fusion increase our impact on the planet? Wouldn't it reduce our impact on the planet by decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide we release and eliminating oil extraction?
generalizations 3y ago
I would rather argue that energy consumption is the fundamental metric of the advancement of a civilization - increasing consumption is not of itself bad; whether we know how to clean up after ourselves (or if we're too busy trying not to die out) is a different problem. Limiting our energy consumption is a recipe for civilizational collapse. We have the wolf by the ears, and we can't let go. Best we can do is move forward and try to obtain enough reserve energy and resources to find a way to clean up after ourselves. With the exception of Avatar, is there any advanced fictional civilization that doesn't use vast amounts of energy in proportion to their tech level? I'd also point to the historical record.
- jurgenaut23 3y ago
  Yeah, that's why I said this is an unpopular opinion. Historical records tell us that energy consumption is a great indicator of civilization advancement, but so is territory. Now, the problem is that there is no further territory to acquire for us as we have pretty much exploited our planet to its bones. Free cheap energy will just make the planet crumble under our weight.
  - daveguy 3y ago
    >Free cheap energy will just make the planet crumble under our weight. You've said or implied this twice, but haven't put forward even a plausible mechanism why this would be a crumbling downfall. The fuel is abundant and safe. The byproducts are safe. There are no carbon byproducts to contribute to global warming. I don't see any logic to your statements besides: previous bad, therefore next bad. I believe this is the definition of a non-sequiteur. Please correct me if I am wrong or have missed something.
    - jurgenaut23 3y ago
      The issue with free cheap energy such as fusion isn't its direct byproducts, but its impact on society. It will fuel an economic growth without precedent, which in turn will increase the consumption of material goods, which in turn will increase the extraction of natural resources. Those resources will become rarer and more difficult to extract, thus leading to more destructive extraction strategies. Energy puts a cap to our ability to destroy the planet in order to satisfy our material needs. To top it all off, everyone around here loves to build new stuff, but finding ways to get rid of it without creating waste isn't as trendy. I don't believe one second that our civilization is capable of controlling itself. And don't tell me about multi-planetary scenarios or whatnot. They are neither realistic (regardless of the energy availability) nor desirable.
dotnet00 3y ago
The only sense in which it would be our demise is that it would be an inflection point in how life is lived, similar to how someone from 200+ years ago would find our current lifestyles to be almost entirely alien.

penjelly 3y ago

how exactly is oil distillation or its results "burning down our house" and how is that applicable to fusion tech?

htrp 3y ago
> how exactly is oil distillation or its results "burning down our house" Likely a call out to global warming. > how is that applicable to fusion tech? One thing that is never really discussed in terms of fusion energy is what you will do with the heat generated from these processes as there is a theoretical maximum for how much heat the planet can dissipate. Whether the poster is correct or not, its widely acknowledged that the ability to transition from gravity powered/wind powered energy to coal combustion fueled a great deal of the economic and technological improvements from the 1700s onward (we call it the Industrial Revolution).
- jurgenaut23 3y ago
  There are many more planetary limits than just climate change, and many of them are governed by how much natural resources we consume and, incidentally, how much waste we produce. Cheap unlimited energy will just make us push these boundaries even further. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
  - eagerpace 3y ago
    We aren't bound to just this planet though. Not everyone has to live here. Not every industry has to operate here. Power doesn't have to be generated, or consumed, here.
    - jurgenaut23 3y ago
      Please. I know lots of folks here live in Silicon Valley and are breastfed with this kind of fantasy, but making our species multi-planetary isn't just a matter of energy availability. Plus, and most importantly, trashing our one and only planet "because we are not bound to it" is just one of the most unethical and most dangerous plan one can think of. And I know that there are plans to become a multi-planetary species without making Earth inhabitable in the first place, but I think the quote "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face" applies beautifully here. And the fist of climate change combined with biological collapse will hurt badly.

elil17 3y ago

So do you think it's the use of energy in and of itself that causes issues?

jurgenaut23 3y ago
Not energy in and of itself. Cheap unlimited energy will just make us push planetary boundaries even further. We need a reduction of human impact on our planet, not an increase of it.
- elil17 3y ago
  How would fusion increase our impact on the planet? Wouldn't it reduce our impact on the planet by decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide we release and eliminating oil extraction?

generalizations 3y ago

I would rather argue that energy consumption is the fundamental metric of the advancement of a civilization - increasing consumption is not of itself bad; whether we know how to clean up after ourselves (or if we're too busy trying not to die out) is a different problem. Limiting our energy consumption is a recipe for civilizational collapse. We have the wolf by the ears, and we can't let go. Best we can do is move forward and try to obtain enough reserve energy and resources to find a way to clean up after ourselves. With the exception of Avatar, is there any advanced fictional civilization that doesn't use vast amounts of energy in proportion to their tech level? I'd also point to the historical record.

jurgenaut23 3y ago
Yeah, that's why I said this is an unpopular opinion. Historical records tell us that energy consumption is a great indicator of civilization advancement, but so is territory. Now, the problem is that there is no further territory to acquire for us as we have pretty much exploited our planet to its bones. Free cheap energy will just make the planet crumble under our weight.
- daveguy 3y ago
  >Free cheap energy will just make the planet crumble under our weight. You've said or implied this twice, but haven't put forward even a plausible mechanism why this would be a crumbling downfall. The fuel is abundant and safe. The byproducts are safe. There are no carbon byproducts to contribute to global warming. I don't see any logic to your statements besides: previous bad, therefore next bad. I believe this is the definition of a non-sequiteur. Please correct me if I am wrong or have missed something.
  - jurgenaut23 3y ago
    The issue with free cheap energy such as fusion isn't its direct byproducts, but its impact on society. It will fuel an economic growth without precedent, which in turn will increase the consumption of material goods, which in turn will increase the extraction of natural resources. Those resources will become rarer and more difficult to extract, thus leading to more destructive extraction strategies. Energy puts a cap to our ability to destroy the planet in order to satisfy our material needs. To top it all off, everyone around here loves to build new stuff, but finding ways to get rid of it without creating waste isn't as trendy. I don't believe one second that our civilization is capable of controlling itself. And don't tell me about multi-planetary scenarios or whatnot. They are neither realistic (regardless of the energy availability) nor desirable.

dotnet00 3y ago

The only sense in which it would be our demise is that it would be an inflection point in how life is lived, similar to how someone from 200+ years ago would find our current lifestyles to be almost entirely alien.