6 ms·

I don't like those techs because they don't guarantee that they will offset fossil fuel extraction. What's really needed it's culture change on growth and cons

by jokoon 3y ago

I don't like those techs because they don't guarantee that they will offset fossil fuel extraction. What's really needed it's culture change on growth and consumption. The best technology is light technology.

tticvs 3y ago
If the price is competitive the market will guarantee it. Otherwise regulations can. Why would you oppose technological solutions in favor of ideological ones? Unless of course you don't care about solving the problem...
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Energy policy based on being "nice" will never have significant longevity.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - reacharavindh 3y ago
    We(as humanity) has done this several times in the past. If there is an alternative we could regulate our way out of not harming ourselves. It sure takes time but it has happened in the past. Cue. Asbestos, use of Lead pipes, use of CFCs, now ongoing reduction of single use plastics.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    Except it already has. Car emissions regulations are a good example. Not just regulations on manufacturers either. Look at London's ultra low emissions zones quickly pushing folks to go electric.
    - westmeal 3y ago
      Would be nice if instead of using car emissions as a boogeyman they focused on the cargo shipping industry who burn metric fuck tons of bunker oil instead of using alternative fuels. Instead you just get taxes in the guise of 'fixing the environment' by penalizing the working class who in reality contribute very little to co2 and nox emissions.
colechristensen 3y ago
>What's really needed is culture change on growth and consumption. It is not. At no point in the history of human civilization has growth been static. It will not ever be. It will and should be exponential. Figure out how to make that happen or go join one of the religious groups that stop using new technology. We want, need, and benefit from growth. Our energy source just needs to change, and is changing. Plenty of earthbound solar and nuclear to satisfy our growth for a good while. There isn't enough fossil fuel around anyway if we wanted to keep growing with it. By the time we need it we can produce plenty of energy in space. Think square miles of solar arrays in solar orbits fixing energy into whatever passes for a future battery while also colocating with asteroid smelting and refining facilities.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  "Grow, grow, grow", said the obnoxious cancerous tumor... And then it killed its host and died. The. End.
- pkdpic 3y ago
  > There isn't enough fossil fuel around anyway if we wanted to keep growing with it I in all seriousness love this angle and find it super refreshing, the puny amount of oil on this tiny planet isn't enough to satisfy human ambition. We should own the stars.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Very little oil among the stars, though... Very little sunlight or wind on route either.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Fair amount of hydrogen. Get fusion working and you don't need much.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
bawolff 3y ago
Sometimes i think one of the biggest hurdles to environmentalism is greens insisting on wishful, return to edan, thinking instead of practical solution. Convincing everyone in the world to do a massive cultural change involving large standard of living decreases is not happening except at the point of a literal gun. The world can't afford to wait for impractical solutions.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  The most efficent conversion from fossil to green happen in France and it had nothing to do with envoirmentalism. In fact envorionmentalism for most of the 20th century did more to prevent replacment of fossil fuel then it did to reduce it.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  Expecting technology to solve all our problems is just as wishful.
  - sneak 3y ago
    Everyone who made it out of childhood thanks to antibiotics and vaccines should probably reject takes like this. Technology has solved the vast majority of all of the major problems of human beings throughout all of human civilization. Agriculture is technology. Writing is technology. Inks and paper are technology. Pharmaceuticals are technology. Heart surgery is technology. The modern industrial supply chain is technology. Transportation is technology. Seatbelts and blood typing to enable blood transfusions - technology. It is theoretically possible that technology could solve the problem of death itself. To make claims to the contrary, which would be extraordinary, something a great deal more substantial than a handwavey dismissal is required.
    - mdiesel 3y ago
      Sure, we now survive childhood based on vaccines, but remember that there was a time between the disease appearing and the vaccine being developed, and in that time we used simpler methods to try survive. The issue is not what the world will be like in 200 years when the climate crisis is solved, it's how we get there. Tech takes decades to research, design, and develop; we need ways to limit the damage that can be implemented in years to limit the effects we'll see in our lifetimes. I agree tech will be the end solution, but continuing to burn at current rates while we wait for that is going to cause, or already is causing, massive problems.
jskrablin 3y ago
I really fail to understand how you can push "light technology" while using a modern computer connected to the Internet - both are very very far away from being light in terms of technology involved. In fact the technology making both run is incredibly complex/sophisticated with a high environmental impact resulting from production, assembly and shipping of components required to make it work. Wanna go light? Ditch your computer, phone and most of electronic/digital devices you use every day (for a start, then follow up with car and basically anything that depends on "heavy technology" to exist and run). But that is probably not the lifestyle you're imagining ATM.
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  "And yet you live in a society" is such a reddit-tier rebuttal, that's so embarrassing for you.
- jokoon 3y ago
  you're attacking the messenger, not the message im using a low performance computer, and computer have enough power to do things. it's about the ressources spent to make a computer.
hackerlight 3y ago
Even if I believed degrowth was a good solution (I mostly don't), I would still hope for the success of these technologies as a backup plan.
red_admiral 3y ago
The answer to this kind of claim is in the book "The Wizard and the Prophet", which was reviewed on ACX/SSC here [1]. To summarise the review: there are two approaches to solving humanity's big problems, from food production (mostly solved) to climate change. The Prophet approach is to go around saying "we must live within our means!" and "technology bad!", and the Wizard approach is to seek techological solutions. And as the reviewer writes: > Though Mann insists from the start that the book is not meant to advocate for or condemn either side, it was initially difficult for me to read it as anything but two-and-three-quarters cheers for Wizardry. It turns out that Prophets tend to be misanthropes at best, and racists at worst. William Vogt, Mann's archetypal Prophet, founded (according to Mann) much of modern-day environmentalism but also (according to the review, which I personally trust) called people in India "backward populations" who "breed with the irresponsibility of codfish". Says the reviewer: > _Which_ people deserved to live in harmony with nature in the ensuing pastoral utopia and which would be relegated to the dustbin of history was not an exercise they left to the reader. (Meanwhile Norman Borlaug, the Wizard, was busy producing a Green Revolution that ended up raising rice yields in India from 2 to 6 tons/hectare and lowered rice costs from $550 to $200 a ton, according to the Wiki page.) [1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-wizard-and-the https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-w...
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Its simply incomplete. The problem is also that there is the burocrate. And the burocrate in the 60s made society into a car depended nightmare. And most modern prophets are mostly saying "he can we rethink some of the policies adopted".

by jokoon 3y ago

tticvs 3y ago

If the price is competitive the market will guarantee it. Otherwise regulations can. Why would you oppose technological solutions in favor of ideological ones? Unless of course you don't care about solving the problem...

colechristensen 3y ago
Energy policy based on being "nice" will never have significant longevity.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- reacharavindh 3y ago
  We(as humanity) has done this several times in the past. If there is an alternative we could regulate our way out of not harming ourselves. It sure takes time but it has happened in the past. Cue. Asbestos, use of Lead pipes, use of CFCs, now ongoing reduction of single use plastics.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  Except it already has. Car emissions regulations are a good example. Not just regulations on manufacturers either. Look at London's ultra low emissions zones quickly pushing folks to go electric.
  - westmeal 3y ago
    Would be nice if instead of using car emissions as a boogeyman they focused on the cargo shipping industry who burn metric fuck tons of bunker oil instead of using alternative fuels. Instead you just get taxes in the guise of 'fixing the environment' by penalizing the working class who in reality contribute very little to co2 and nox emissions.

colechristensen 3y ago

>What's really needed is culture change on growth and consumption. It is not. At no point in the history of human civilization has growth been static. It will not ever be. It will and should be exponential. Figure out how to make that happen or go join one of the religious groups that stop using new technology. We want, need, and benefit from growth. Our energy source just needs to change, and is changing. Plenty of earthbound solar and nuclear to satisfy our growth for a good while. There isn't enough fossil fuel around anyway if we wanted to keep growing with it. By the time we need it we can produce plenty of energy in space. Think square miles of solar arrays in solar orbits fixing energy into whatever passes for a future battery while also colocating with asteroid smelting and refining facilities.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
"Grow, grow, grow", said the obnoxious cancerous tumor... And then it killed its host and died. The. End.
pkdpic 3y ago
> There isn't enough fossil fuel around anyway if we wanted to keep growing with it I in all seriousness love this angle and find it super refreshing, the puny amount of oil on this tiny planet isn't enough to satisfy human ambition. We should own the stars.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Very little oil among the stars, though... Very little sunlight or wind on route either.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Fair amount of hydrogen. Get fusion working and you don't need much.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago

bawolff 3y ago

Sometimes i think one of the biggest hurdles to environmentalism is greens insisting on wishful, return to edan, thinking instead of practical solution. Convincing everyone in the world to do a massive cultural change involving large standard of living decreases is not happening except at the point of a literal gun. The world can't afford to wait for impractical solutions.

panick21_ 3y ago
The most efficent conversion from fossil to green happen in France and it had nothing to do with envoirmentalism. In fact envorionmentalism for most of the 20th century did more to prevent replacment of fossil fuel then it did to reduce it.
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
Expecting technology to solve all our problems is just as wishful.
- sneak 3y ago
  Everyone who made it out of childhood thanks to antibiotics and vaccines should probably reject takes like this. Technology has solved the vast majority of all of the major problems of human beings throughout all of human civilization. Agriculture is technology. Writing is technology. Inks and paper are technology. Pharmaceuticals are technology. Heart surgery is technology. The modern industrial supply chain is technology. Transportation is technology. Seatbelts and blood typing to enable blood transfusions - technology. It is theoretically possible that technology could solve the problem of death itself. To make claims to the contrary, which would be extraordinary, something a great deal more substantial than a handwavey dismissal is required.
  - mdiesel 3y ago
    Sure, we now survive childhood based on vaccines, but remember that there was a time between the disease appearing and the vaccine being developed, and in that time we used simpler methods to try survive. The issue is not what the world will be like in 200 years when the climate crisis is solved, it's how we get there. Tech takes decades to research, design, and develop; we need ways to limit the damage that can be implemented in years to limit the effects we'll see in our lifetimes. I agree tech will be the end solution, but continuing to burn at current rates while we wait for that is going to cause, or already is causing, massive problems.

jskrablin 3y ago

I really fail to understand how you can push "light technology" while using a modern computer connected to the Internet - both are very very far away from being light in terms of technology involved. In fact the technology making both run is incredibly complex/sophisticated with a high environmental impact resulting from production, assembly and shipping of components required to make it work. Wanna go light? Ditch your computer, phone and most of electronic/digital devices you use every day (for a start, then follow up with car and basically anything that depends on "heavy technology" to exist and run). But that is probably not the lifestyle you're imagining ATM.

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
"And yet you live in a society" is such a reddit-tier rebuttal, that's so embarrassing for you.
jokoon 3y ago
you're attacking the messenger, not the message im using a low performance computer, and computer have enough power to do things. it's about the ressources spent to make a computer.

hackerlight 3y ago

Even if I believed degrowth was a good solution (I mostly don't), I would still hope for the success of these technologies as a backup plan.

red_admiral 3y ago

The answer to this kind of claim is in the book "The Wizard and the Prophet", which was reviewed on ACX/SSC here [1]. To summarise the review: there are two approaches to solving humanity's big problems, from food production (mostly solved) to climate change. The Prophet approach is to go around saying "we must live within our means!" and "technology bad!", and the Wizard approach is to seek techological solutions. And as the reviewer writes: > Though Mann insists from the start that the book is not meant to advocate for or condemn either side, it was initially difficult for me to read it as anything but two-and-three-quarters cheers for Wizardry. It turns out that Prophets tend to be misanthropes at best, and racists at worst. William Vogt, Mann's archetypal Prophet, founded (according to Mann) much of modern-day environmentalism but also (according to the review, which I personally trust) called people in India "backward populations" who "breed with the irresponsibility of codfish". Says the reviewer: > _Which_ people deserved to live in harmony with nature in the ensuing pastoral utopia and which would be relegated to the dustbin of history was not an exercise they left to the reader. (Meanwhile Norman Borlaug, the Wizard, was busy producing a Green Revolution that ended up raising rice yields in India from 2 to 6 tons/hectare and lowered rice costs from $550 to $200 a ton, according to the Wiki page.) [1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-wizard-and-the https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-w...

panick21_ 3y ago
Its simply incomplete. The problem is also that there is the burocrate. And the burocrate in the 60s made society into a car depended nightmare. And most modern prophets are mostly saying "he can we rethink some of the policies adopted".