3 ms·

This is where I normally end up in the software is way too slow today discussion. Everyone claims to care about the environment until it impacts them even slig

by iinnPP 3y ago

This is where I normally end up in the software is way too slow today discussion. Everyone claims to care about the environment until it impacts them even slightly. It's not even hard/time consuming to write good code. People are just overwhelmingly selfish and lazy. Software devs consistently contribute to the environmental problems that many software devs then complain about and pretend is only a redneck issue. The reality is that we have an incredibly serious idiot issue and there isn't a solution due to the scale of the problem and the corruption preventing meaningful change. An article the other day pointed out the problem well as well. Though it was related to the increasing lack of people who understand the code underneath the current flavour of the month bullshit framework.

eastbound 3y ago
> Software devs consistently contribute to the environmental problems It doesn’t help that schwabists try to provide indexes such as “Java consumes more than JS”. This kind of sentences, measuring the immeasurable like a square meter takes more energy than a liter, communicates “We’ll dominate you with power while understanding nothing of what you do, and tax you for using Java”. I bet it’s Facebook’s PHP lobbyists who came up with that. If heating is a problem, then by all means, tax CPU time. But I already know the tax won’t matter because software provides such an immense value to society. We already pay average engineers $800 a day! But we shouldn’t try to get rid of a language. If they knew what they were doing, they’d certainly ban NPM. But of course there are already GitHub actions and Sonar extensions publishing the CO2 consumption index of Java programs...
- agentultra 3y ago
  I wouldn't take the approach of banning languages. But certainly Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to carelessly use a public, scarce resource like freshwater on such a scale as they did during a drought in order to train a model[0] they didn't have a use-case for yet? They should at least pay for the use of that resource to help the local community that now has to deal with the consequences. The company claims it will "replenish more fresh water than it consumes by 2030," some how... but that's too little too late. And whose to say they will keep that promise? There's no consequence to them if everyone forgets about it and they never follow through. No better time than the present to course-correct. Resource-extraction companies are like this too. They'll exploit the environment and pollute like crazy unless they are forced not to. They will fight tooth and nail to avoid regulation since that slows or limits profits. But they don't care about people or the environment. Neither do technology companies. Small gains in efficiency at the level of user-space code has been shown to translate into marginal gains in profits in domains such as ads and securities trading. Data centres also look for efficiency gains here to reduce their operating costs where possible. However I suspect we're getting close to the limit here in terms of gains and motivation. There is still a significant amount of, "throw more machines, air conditioning, and fresh water at the problem until it goes away," kind of thinking since the environmental impacts of those decisions have no consequence to the ones making them. There's no need to measure the energy usage of the JVM if it's doing useful work. However there probably should be more guidelines for where it's appropriate to set up data-centres and taxing them for the resources they use and pollution they create. [0] https://futurism.com/critics-microsoft-water-train-ai-drought https://futurism.com/critics-microsoft-water-train-ai-drough...

by iinnPP 3y ago

eastbound 3y ago

> Software devs consistently contribute to the environmental problems It doesn’t help that schwabists try to provide indexes such as “Java consumes more than JS”. This kind of sentences, measuring the immeasurable like a square meter takes more energy than a liter, communicates “We’ll dominate you with power while understanding nothing of what you do, and tax you for using Java”. I bet it’s Facebook’s PHP lobbyists who came up with that. If heating is a problem, then by all means, tax CPU time. But I already know the tax won’t matter because software provides such an immense value to society. We already pay average engineers $800 a day! But we shouldn’t try to get rid of a language. If they knew what they were doing, they’d certainly ban NPM. But of course there are already GitHub actions and Sonar extensions publishing the CO2 consumption index of Java programs...

agentultra 3y ago
I wouldn't take the approach of banning languages. But certainly Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to carelessly use a public, scarce resource like freshwater on such a scale as they did during a drought in order to train a model[0] they didn't have a use-case for yet? They should at least pay for the use of that resource to help the local community that now has to deal with the consequences. The company claims it will "replenish more fresh water than it consumes by 2030," some how... but that's too little too late. And whose to say they will keep that promise? There's no consequence to them if everyone forgets about it and they never follow through. No better time than the present to course-correct. Resource-extraction companies are like this too. They'll exploit the environment and pollute like crazy unless they are forced not to. They will fight tooth and nail to avoid regulation since that slows or limits profits. But they don't care about people or the environment. Neither do technology companies. Small gains in efficiency at the level of user-space code has been shown to translate into marginal gains in profits in domains such as ads and securities trading. Data centres also look for efficiency gains here to reduce their operating costs where possible. However I suspect we're getting close to the limit here in terms of gains and motivation. There is still a significant amount of, "throw more machines, air conditioning, and fresh water at the problem until it goes away," kind of thinking since the environmental impacts of those decisions have no consequence to the ones making them. There's no need to measure the energy usage of the JVM if it's doing useful work. However there probably should be more guidelines for where it's appropriate to set up data-centres and taxing them for the resources they use and pollution they create. [0] https://futurism.com/critics-microsoft-water-train-ai-drought https://futurism.com/critics-microsoft-water-train-ai-drough...