3 ms·

1) 2°C is quite a big deal, because the increase will not be equal. Much ice will melt, and many regions will lack water because of this. 4) Productivity grow

1) 2°C is quite a big deal, because the increase will not be equal. Much ice will melt, and many regions will lack water because of this. 4) Productivity growth is wonderful, but right now is not used the way it should be. It makes us richer, and make us work less, but those gains are not reasonably distributed, hence poverty and unemployment. (I don't subscribe to the theory which says people mostly deserve their situation —good or bad. The laws of physics are neutral, and the world they spawn is currently unfair.) Currently, I see only 2 ways out of a global collapse or a third world war: (i) start being reasonable, investigate what actually works and do that, simplify and localize the means of production, work less, and produce less (but more durable) stuff. (ii) make tremendous technological progress, up to and including a technological singularity.

link2009 15y ago
Okay, you had me up until > up to and including a technological singularity. Please...please stop this Ray Kurzweil religious BS. This will most likely not happen within our lifetime and I sure hope it doesn't. The Singularity is based on the notion that we will all have access to immortality, knowledge, etc.. the beautiful concepts we are already losing access to (See SOPA, PIPA, freedoms getting taken away, etc..) The 'sheeple' will never get to reap the benefits of 'The Singularity'.
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  This may surprise you, but I think Ray Kurzweil is waay too optimist. Partly because reaching the Singularity will mean messing with forces we barely comprehend, and partly because we may collapse before we even have the time to mess with those forces. If you have some time, I suggest you to take a look at http://facingthesingularity.com/ http://facingthesingularity.com/ In the meantime, just ponder this: we are, in a trivial sense, machines. Machines capable of reasoning about themselves. In principle, there is nothing stopping us from making actual machines that beat us in every domain. Yesterday, Chess. Today, Jeopardy. Tomorrow, driving. And maybe someday, machine building itself. If we ever reach that point, you know enough about recursion to know how this will goes: recursive self-improvements leading to something way more capable than your average Einstein. Now let's hope that our little Skynet is programmed to do good (whatever "good" is), instead of, say, using us as raw material to fill the solar system with paper clips. Because unlike with the fictional Skynet, we won't even stand a fighting chance.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  The core concept is an event we can't predict beyond, so claiming it means any specific benefit (such as immortality) is misunderstanding it, and so is claiming some specific people won't be affected, and so is claiming that the outcome must include 'benefits' for living humans.
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    There are now 3 core concepts that we may call "Singularity". 1) Event horizon: past the point where there are entities smarter than us, we virtually can't predict anything. 2) Accelerating change: things will get bigger/better/smarter at an exponential rate. The "Singularity" is a point somewhere on that exponential curve. (Or something) 3) Intelligence explosion: if it's smarter than us, it will be made by us (whether it is an AI, or brain computer interface, or whatever). Therefore it can recursively improve itsef to super-intelligence very quickly. Taken loosely, those 3 visions are mostly compatible. But taken to their extremes, they are contradictory. It is important to distinguish the 3 to avoid confusion.
- ars 15y ago
  link2009: I suspect your account may have been killed (i.e. everything you post is visible only to you). You should check since your most recent post is dead. (However that can also happen if you post a duplicate, so I can't say for sure.) It's risky for a new member to post something controversial - you have to build up a karma cushion first. (I personally don't approve of downvoting a controversial comment, but I'm fighting a loosing battle on the subject.)
nickik 15y ago
1) Most people in Switzerland will like it 2C warmer. Someplace will benefit (or not suffer) other will suffer. 2) Whats a global collapse? Break down of transportation? Breakdown of communication? I don't think either is like to happen to many people profit. "Productivity growth is wonderful, but right now is not used the way it should be. It makes us richer, and make us work less, but those gains are not reasonably distributed, hence poverty and unemployment." You don't get 10 productivity growth points ever year that you can throw at whatever you want (that would be nice). Its not an equall distribution but people are generally speaking better of then 50 or 10 years ago all this while the world population grows very fast. Economiclly an politiclly speaking things get better slowly. "investigate what actually works and do that, simplify and localize the means of production" Well we clearly see is that what works is to grow the food where it grows the best and bring it to where people want to eat is. If transporation gets much more expensive localization of will be cheaper and it will happen.
- coldarchon 15y ago
  You DO know Switzerland has more than just banks and the tourism will decrease by a huge factor if there is no snow? You DO know the Alps are falling apart because ice that broke rocks kept it together at the same time? You DO know that many water plants will have less water then and energy production will decrease? You DO know that farmers will lose a lot of soil? .. .. ..
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  1) I think overall, the suffering is most likely to outweigh the benefits. 2) Starvation. Our soil is dying. What Acari used to do for free, we now do with chemicals, poorly. Peons have to buy their seed instead of re-using their own (mostly due to the usage of hybrid seeds, which are designed to reproduce very poorly). Plus, the seed is not adapted to the soil which then has to be irrigated, pesticized etc. Not to mention transgenic plants, which are not used to feed the world, but starve it (terminal seeds and patents come to mind). We are already seeing some of the effects now, and it sucks (health, peasant suicide…). But for now it merely sucks. The real danger lies elsewhere. See, we hardly need fertilizers or pesticides. Except when the soil is dead, with no fungus nor acari to provide what the plants need to grow. Or when the soil is compressed by excessive ploughing, and the roots can't set in. Or when the soil is burned by the sun at the end of the summer, and is not protected by weeds (which in this case wouldn't actually be weeds). Most our soil is suffering all three. Therefore, we badly need a heavy industry, mostly based on oil. When there is no oil, we starve. It won't be quick. Oil will get more expensive, and so will food. Add in some random financial crisis, and the industry could halt for a time. This wouldn't be a big deal if our soil was alive. But when it's dead, you can't grow squat on it without a relatively heavy industry. Fortunately, we can revive soils. With hedge wood, actually (systematically cutting hedges was a really bad idea). It takes 3 years however, so we'd better start before we actually need live soils. > You don't get 10 productivity growth points ever year I wasn't clear. I just meant that producing more and more goods in less and less man-hour would be a wonderful thing, and we should basically push for it. I also meant that we do have bit of that kind of growth (if I recall correctly, productivity doubled since the 70s, mostly due to computers and robots). > Economically an politically speaking things get better slowly. Agree. It does get better. My fear is that we are too slow. We need something good enough before we start starving. Because if we do, things will get ugly. Will something good come out of that? Maybe. The French Revolution itself started as an ugly uproar of starving people. But I'd rather avoid it, if at all possible. > Well we clearly see is that what works is to grow the food where it grows the best and bring it to where people want to eat is. It works in the short term, for the West. I think the cost of transportation is vastly underestimated, because the price of fossil fuels is vastly underestimated. The market hardly measures environmental costs, nor does it plan for several decades ahead —classic tragedy of the commons. I have some hopes for a cleaner (and actually cheaper) transportation however. (Airships and self driving cars come to mind.)

link2009 15y ago

Okay, you had me up until > up to and including a technological singularity. Please...please stop this Ray Kurzweil religious BS. This will most likely not happen within our lifetime and I sure hope it doesn't. The Singularity is based on the notion that we will all have access to immortality, knowledge, etc.. the beautiful concepts we are already losing access to (See SOPA, PIPA, freedoms getting taken away, etc..) The 'sheeple' will never get to reap the benefits of 'The Singularity'.

loup-vaillant 15y ago
This may surprise you, but I think Ray Kurzweil is waay too optimist. Partly because reaching the Singularity will mean messing with forces we barely comprehend, and partly because we may collapse before we even have the time to mess with those forces. If you have some time, I suggest you to take a look at http://facingthesingularity.com/ http://facingthesingularity.com/ In the meantime, just ponder this: we are, in a trivial sense, machines. Machines capable of reasoning about themselves. In principle, there is nothing stopping us from making actual machines that beat us in every domain. Yesterday, Chess. Today, Jeopardy. Tomorrow, driving. And maybe someday, machine building itself. If we ever reach that point, you know enough about recursion to know how this will goes: recursive self-improvements leading to something way more capable than your average Einstein. Now let's hope that our little Skynet is programmed to do good (whatever "good" is), instead of, say, using us as raw material to fill the solar system with paper clips. Because unlike with the fictional Skynet, we won't even stand a fighting chance.
jodrellblank 15y ago
The core concept is an event we can't predict beyond, so claiming it means any specific benefit (such as immortality) is misunderstanding it, and so is claiming some specific people won't be affected, and so is claiming that the outcome must include 'benefits' for living humans.
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  There are now 3 core concepts that we may call "Singularity". 1) Event horizon: past the point where there are entities smarter than us, we virtually can't predict anything. 2) Accelerating change: things will get bigger/better/smarter at an exponential rate. The "Singularity" is a point somewhere on that exponential curve. (Or something) 3) Intelligence explosion: if it's smarter than us, it will be made by us (whether it is an AI, or brain computer interface, or whatever). Therefore it can recursively improve itsef to super-intelligence very quickly. Taken loosely, those 3 visions are mostly compatible. But taken to their extremes, they are contradictory. It is important to distinguish the 3 to avoid confusion.
ars 15y ago
link2009: I suspect your account may have been killed (i.e. everything you post is visible only to you). You should check since your most recent post is dead. (However that can also happen if you post a duplicate, so I can't say for sure.) It's risky for a new member to post something controversial - you have to build up a karma cushion first. (I personally don't approve of downvoting a controversial comment, but I'm fighting a loosing battle on the subject.)

nickik 15y ago

1) Most people in Switzerland will like it 2C warmer. Someplace will benefit (or not suffer) other will suffer. 2) Whats a global collapse? Break down of transportation? Breakdown of communication? I don't think either is like to happen to many people profit. "Productivity growth is wonderful, but right now is not used the way it should be. It makes us richer, and make us work less, but those gains are not reasonably distributed, hence poverty and unemployment." You don't get 10 productivity growth points ever year that you can throw at whatever you want (that would be nice). Its not an equall distribution but people are generally speaking better of then 50 or 10 years ago all this while the world population grows very fast. Economiclly an politiclly speaking things get better slowly. "investigate what actually works and do that, simplify and localize the means of production" Well we clearly see is that what works is to grow the food where it grows the best and bring it to where people want to eat is. If transporation gets much more expensive localization of will be cheaper and it will happen.

coldarchon 15y ago
You DO know Switzerland has more than just banks and the tourism will decrease by a huge factor if there is no snow? You DO know the Alps are falling apart because ice that broke rocks kept it together at the same time? You DO know that many water plants will have less water then and energy production will decrease? You DO know that farmers will lose a lot of soil? .. .. ..
loup-vaillant 15y ago
1) I think overall, the suffering is most likely to outweigh the benefits. 2) Starvation. Our soil is dying. What Acari used to do for free, we now do with chemicals, poorly. Peons have to buy their seed instead of re-using their own (mostly due to the usage of hybrid seeds, which are designed to reproduce very poorly). Plus, the seed is not adapted to the soil which then has to be irrigated, pesticized etc. Not to mention transgenic plants, which are not used to feed the world, but starve it (terminal seeds and patents come to mind). We are already seeing some of the effects now, and it sucks (health, peasant suicide…). But for now it merely sucks. The real danger lies elsewhere. See, we hardly need fertilizers or pesticides. Except when the soil is dead, with no fungus nor acari to provide what the plants need to grow. Or when the soil is compressed by excessive ploughing, and the roots can't set in. Or when the soil is burned by the sun at the end of the summer, and is not protected by weeds (which in this case wouldn't actually be weeds). Most our soil is suffering all three. Therefore, we badly need a heavy industry, mostly based on oil. When there is no oil, we starve. It won't be quick. Oil will get more expensive, and so will food. Add in some random financial crisis, and the industry could halt for a time. This wouldn't be a big deal if our soil was alive. But when it's dead, you can't grow squat on it without a relatively heavy industry. Fortunately, we can revive soils. With hedge wood, actually (systematically cutting hedges was a really bad idea). It takes 3 years however, so we'd better start before we actually need live soils. > You don't get 10 productivity growth points ever year I wasn't clear. I just meant that producing more and more goods in less and less man-hour would be a wonderful thing, and we should basically push for it. I also meant that we do have bit of that kind of growth (if I recall correctly, productivity doubled since the 70s, mostly due to computers and robots). > Economically an politically speaking things get better slowly. Agree. It does get better. My fear is that we are too slow. We need something good enough before we start starving. Because if we do, things will get ugly. Will something good come out of that? Maybe. The French Revolution itself started as an ugly uproar of starving people. But I'd rather avoid it, if at all possible. > Well we clearly see is that what works is to grow the food where it grows the best and bring it to where people want to eat is. It works in the short term, for the West. I think the cost of transportation is vastly underestimated, because the price of fossil fuels is vastly underestimated. The market hardly measures environmental costs, nor does it plan for several decades ahead —classic tragedy of the commons. I have some hopes for a cleaner (and actually cheaper) transportation however. (Airships and self driving cars come to mind.)