4 ms·

Big Tech’s Waste “Solutions” Are a Scam

15 points by myshpa 3y ago

gipp 3y ago
What a headline -- Big tech is not even mentioned in the article. It's literally an article about waste management startups. Neither big nor "tech" (at least as the press uses it)?
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  Maybe actually read the article before commenting? Surely "Paypal's Peter Thiel" counts as "big tech", and that's not the only reference.
  - gipp 3y ago
    Yeah, as one of many investors in a Small Not-Tech company.
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      Peter Thiel's investments have to be viewed in the context of his portfolio. One might, for example, understand that investing in a small, totally ineffective environmental nonprofit would be profitable because it lets you greenwash your larger, environmentally destructive investments at a fraction of the cost of actually making effective progress on the problems your companies cause.
chargingmarmot 3y ago
The editors at the New Republic shouldn't have let this headline go to press. The article has almost nothing to do with "big tech"; it seems like the term is used just to invoke some group we're supposed to dislike.
- kerkeslager 3y ago
  Maybe actually read the article before commenting? Surely "Paypal's Peter Thiel" counts as "big tech", and that's not the only reference.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - chargingmarmot 3y ago
    No. You're referring to the part of the article where it mentions Peter Thiel as a backer of an environmental non-profit started by a Dutch teenager, correct? If environmental non-profit startups count as big tech, then what doesn't? Maybe you're thinking of the part of the article where it mentions Amazon: "We could force modern logistics giants like UPS and Amazon to take the lead on reusability"? (Given the title it's ironic that the author is proposing that big tech be given more responsibility for waste solutions.)
    - kerkeslager 3y ago
      > If environmental non-profit startups count as big tech, then what doesn't? Bro, Peter Thiel is big tech. You literally quoted his name in your post. You know "Paypal's Peter Thiel", like I said? Or perhaps you know him as the chairman of Palantir, or the 10% owner of Facebook, or Y Combinator's most notable partner for a while? > Maybe you're thinking of the part of the article where it mentions Amazon Okay, since you seem to agree that Amazon is big tech, remember when you said "the article has almost nothing to do with 'big tech'"? > "We could force modern logistics giants like UPS and Amazon to take the lead on reusability"? (Given the title it's ironic that the author is proposing that big tech be given more responsibility for waste solutions.) The difference, in context, being that holding Amazon accountable for results is pretty different from accepting their fake solutions, which are intended to make it look like accountability isn't needed.
      - boeingUH60 3y ago
        "Big tech" is Microsoft, Meta, Google, Netflix, Amazon, and other giant companies. Nobody uses the phrase to refer to individual investors like Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, or the many of them out there. Amazon was only mentioned in passing in this article. This headline does not pass the smell test. It is pure clickbait that suckered you.
ggm 3y ago
Tech's waste stream is a classic 'export the externalities' cost problem. That lead which we don't want in our water stream, is exported to poor countries who should be goddamn happy to de-solder our circuit boards for a Graham Cracker. Removing lead helped. But the rest of the tech waste stream remains. If we mandated full cycle recovery the cost per unit would jack up. And, the refresh cycle would take longer as Apple and Dell worked out how to live with a standard component replacement model, and then their bottom line would take a hit as people kept aluminium chassis, and only replaced memory and the M[2,3,4...] chip. Most waste isn't tech waste, but tech waste is a problem. John McCarthy (LISP), on his keyboard libertarian warrior days on USENET would frequently say our future kids will thank us for all the amazing tantalum, germanium, lithium and like product we thoughtfully buried for them to find, rather than having to dig them from complex inorganic matricies elsewhere. ie, the best thing in his mind was to design better clay capped burial methods domestically in the US, and use them. I remain unsure if he was being ironic, sarcastic, or literal.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  I always figured a valuable long-term asset would be to buy mining rights for landfills; in the future, why deal with international issues to get access to low-grade ores scattered within an entire mountain, when there's a vein of discarded appliances just a few metres beneath domestic dumps?
  - ggm 3y ago
    right! thats pretty much his proposition: if you buy a landfill and can handle the costs of methane and leachate management, then in only 200 years it should be worth a lot of money when we run out of cheap <x> for <x> in [things we need]
RetroTechie 3y ago
Article is about waste in general. Single use plastic in particular. And perverse incentives for companies like Big Oil: 1) Dig up fossil & pollute the air by doing so. Profit! 2) Pivot from fuel to producing (more) oil-based plastics, causing pollution of the environmont with that. Profit! 3) Finally, offer 'solutions' to those problems (like carbon capture), which may or may not work, and gobble up taxpayer's money in the process. Profit! Recycling, carbon capture etc are a poor fix, if that. Real solutions must attack the production side of the equation.

15 points by myshpa 3y ago

gipp 3y ago

What a headline -- Big tech is not even mentioned in the article. It's literally an article about waste management startups. Neither big nor "tech" (at least as the press uses it)?

kerkeslager 3y ago
Maybe actually read the article before commenting? Surely "Paypal's Peter Thiel" counts as "big tech", and that's not the only reference.
- gipp 3y ago
  Yeah, as one of many investors in a Small Not-Tech company.
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    Peter Thiel's investments have to be viewed in the context of his portfolio. One might, for example, understand that investing in a small, totally ineffective environmental nonprofit would be profitable because it lets you greenwash your larger, environmentally destructive investments at a fraction of the cost of actually making effective progress on the problems your companies cause.

chargingmarmot 3y ago

The editors at the New Republic shouldn't have let this headline go to press. The article has almost nothing to do with "big tech"; it seems like the term is used just to invoke some group we're supposed to dislike.

kerkeslager 3y ago
Maybe actually read the article before commenting? Surely "Paypal's Peter Thiel" counts as "big tech", and that's not the only reference.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- chargingmarmot 3y ago
  No. You're referring to the part of the article where it mentions Peter Thiel as a backer of an environmental non-profit started by a Dutch teenager, correct? If environmental non-profit startups count as big tech, then what doesn't? Maybe you're thinking of the part of the article where it mentions Amazon: "We could force modern logistics giants like UPS and Amazon to take the lead on reusability"? (Given the title it's ironic that the author is proposing that big tech be given more responsibility for waste solutions.)
  - kerkeslager 3y ago
    > If environmental non-profit startups count as big tech, then what doesn't? Bro, Peter Thiel is big tech. You literally quoted his name in your post. You know "Paypal's Peter Thiel", like I said? Or perhaps you know him as the chairman of Palantir, or the 10% owner of Facebook, or Y Combinator's most notable partner for a while? > Maybe you're thinking of the part of the article where it mentions Amazon Okay, since you seem to agree that Amazon is big tech, remember when you said "the article has almost nothing to do with 'big tech'"? > "We could force modern logistics giants like UPS and Amazon to take the lead on reusability"? (Given the title it's ironic that the author is proposing that big tech be given more responsibility for waste solutions.) The difference, in context, being that holding Amazon accountable for results is pretty different from accepting their fake solutions, which are intended to make it look like accountability isn't needed.
    - boeingUH60 3y ago
      "Big tech" is Microsoft, Meta, Google, Netflix, Amazon, and other giant companies. Nobody uses the phrase to refer to individual investors like Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, or the many of them out there. Amazon was only mentioned in passing in this article. This headline does not pass the smell test. It is pure clickbait that suckered you.

ggm 3y ago

Tech's waste stream is a classic 'export the externalities' cost problem. That lead which we don't want in our water stream, is exported to poor countries who should be goddamn happy to de-solder our circuit boards for a Graham Cracker. Removing lead helped. But the rest of the tech waste stream remains. If we mandated full cycle recovery the cost per unit would jack up. And, the refresh cycle would take longer as Apple and Dell worked out how to live with a standard component replacement model, and then their bottom line would take a hit as people kept aluminium chassis, and only replaced memory and the M[2,3,4...] chip. Most waste isn't tech waste, but tech waste is a problem. John McCarthy (LISP), on his keyboard libertarian warrior days on USENET would frequently say our future kids will thank us for all the amazing tantalum, germanium, lithium and like product we thoughtfully buried for them to find, rather than having to dig them from complex inorganic matricies elsewhere. ie, the best thing in his mind was to design better clay capped burial methods domestically in the US, and use them. I remain unsure if he was being ironic, sarcastic, or literal.

hakfoo 3y ago
I always figured a valuable long-term asset would be to buy mining rights for landfills; in the future, why deal with international issues to get access to low-grade ores scattered within an entire mountain, when there's a vein of discarded appliances just a few metres beneath domestic dumps?
- ggm 3y ago
  right! thats pretty much his proposition: if you buy a landfill and can handle the costs of methane and leachate management, then in only 200 years it should be worth a lot of money when we run out of cheap <x> for <x> in [things we need]

RetroTechie 3y ago

Article is about waste in general. Single use plastic in particular. And perverse incentives for companies like Big Oil: 1) Dig up fossil & pollute the air by doing so. Profit! 2) Pivot from fuel to producing (more) oil-based plastics, causing pollution of the environmont with that. Profit! 3) Finally, offer 'solutions' to those problems (like carbon capture), which may or may not work, and gobble up taxpayer's money in the process. Profit! Recycling, carbon capture etc are a poor fix, if that. Real solutions must attack the production side of the equation.