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I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lo
by atleastoptimal 3y ago
I'm a technological accelerationist simply because I'm certain, with the 30 years of warming baked in from this point + the impossibility of carbon emissions lowering on average anytime soon, the only way to save the world's species, our state and growth of civilization and such is through technological advances, AI, terraforming, etc. There's no hope simply through austerity, things are too screwed already.
- cowpig 3y agoCan you connect the dots a bit more than that? To me this just sounds like self-serving hand-waving.
- atleastoptimal 3y agoTechnological innovation allows the same amount of consumption with far less collateral impact. For example, before AC, electrification required 1000x more wire than it does now. Streets were covered in poles and electrical wire. Cars produced far more and worse pollution. Every technological innovation in the aim of efficiency reduces the negative collateral impact of human civilization. Likewise, more recently, the lowered cost of solar, EV's, etc are all made possible through forward-thinking innovation.
- makeitdouble 3y agoTechnological innovation improved our lives and reduced negative impact on humans, without improving the long term prospect environment wise. Plastics are an example of this: it helps us first and formost, and the rest of the ecosystem is worse for it. Acceleratibg that trend doesn't help IMHO.
- lapcat 3y ago> For example, before AC, electrification required 1000x more wire than it does now. Streets were covered in poles and electrical wire. What do you mean "before AC"? AC was invented more than 100 years ago. The wires are still there. The power companies just tend to bury them underground nowadays. Out of sight, out of mind. In any case, what does this have to do with global warming? > Cars produced far more and worse pollution. The change is due to government regulation of emissions. Good luck getting the auto manufacturers to give a crap on their own. Even EVs are heavily subsidized by government funds. Besides, the primary cause of global warming is manufacturing, not auto emissions, which is why global warming hasn't stopped despite an improved emissions situation. And it's also why accelerationism is not a solution.
- lm28469 3y agoAnd before electricity we required 0 wires. Before cars 0 petrol It was all brought by "technology". We live better than before but not in a sustainable way, replacing every gas car by an EV won't do much, it'll buy us a couple of decades at best, you still need batteries, plastic, steel, energy
- padjo 3y agoHow on earth is AI going to help?
- atleastoptimal 3y agoAGI will make the economy far more efficient, increase the rate of scientific innovation, etc. For example, some ancestor of alphafold could spark a revolution in genetic engineering, creating crops which are far more efficient and resilient, etc.
- r3d0c 3y agohow, be specific & based in objective reality, without VC hype words & cultist like language
- gasparto 3y agoTechnology won't save us. Hoping that someday soon^tm someone will come up with something that makes all the current mess go away is a dangerous path. In germany they call it 'Technologieoffen' - and even some political parties have written it on their flags. 'No need to implement changes now - someday God will decent and absolve us from all of our sins - until then party hard! #yolo' I'm all for accelerating research/tech. But it can't be an excuse to just let sh*t happen. Yet most people will do this - it's expected human behavior.
- hackerlight 3y agoI want to accelerate good stuff (fusion, mRNA cancer vaccines, solar power learning curve, LLMs that help programmers be more productive, housing construction) and decel bad stuff (proof-of-work crypto, deepfakes, new coal mines, microplastics). If we accel/decel the right things, I think we have a shot.
- 52-6F-62 3y agoWell put.
- ted_bunny 3y ago
- micromacrofoot 3y agothis is how we got into this mess in the first place!
- Scarblac 3y agoThe IPCC models require both, so use a lot less energy to get to get to net zero by 2050 and then a period of some decades where we emit net negative CO2 through tech, to keep the planet somewhat liveable. Tech alone takes too long to develop, if it is feasible at all.
- Phenomenit 3y agoYeah doing more of the thing that screwed everything up is usually the best solution. /s
- junek 3y agoThis is magical thinking
- timeon 3y agoNew technologies have not helped yet. Just covered part of increased demand. So it doesn't seem like technology is going to save us. It is all just distraction. Only way is one that will never happen: de-growth.
- gorjusborg 3y agoI agree, except I am pretty sure de-growth will happen, it just will not be under voluntary or controlled conditions.
- vixen99 3y agoIt's happening bit by bit: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/09/green-energies-shattering-german-economyindustrial-production-falls-7th-consecutive-month/ https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/02/09/green-energies-shatte...
- jowea 3y agoDegrowth does seem like a tough sell to general populations, when you say not voluntary or controlled you mean like economic collapse and/or ecoauthoritarianism or something else?
- gorjusborg 3y ago(6 days later...) I meant that the natural outcome will happen, and likely that will negatively affect the planet's carrying capacity, which will have a negative affect on population and economics. Like you, I do not see how the collection of world governments will align on all scaling back their economies together.
- wongarsu 3y agoPer-capita emissions of most developed nations like the US and Germany peaked in the 1970s and 80s. Some of the "improvement" has been the outsourcing of polluting industries, but we are also more efficient today than we were back then. Agriculture evolved a lot, buildings became a lot more energy efficient, waste management improved, etc. Of course for decades this has been offset by population growth even in those nations. And that's not accounting for the parts of the world where populations exploded due to better agriculture, medicine and trade. If we had time to let it play out for another 200 years without climate issues we might be fine. Sadly we don't.
- smokel 3y agoYou might want to read up on Jevons Paradox [1]. Also, be warned that the term "accelerationism" is being used by different parties, with quite opposing intentions. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- gitfan86 3y agoWhy can't humanity survive an increase in 10 degrees? I understand polar bears or other animals that need specific levels of Ice or vegetation in specific areas, but humans are an extremely adaptive species. Edit: I'm getting a lot of responses. It seems like there is a general misunderstanding of what happened during the previous ice age. Humans existed during the previous ice age and humanity survived a major increase in temperature. Obviously any tribe or culture that needed to be able to walk across the bearing straight didn't survive, but humanity did. And without any modern technology. I get that an unknown future is scary, but just giving into the gloom and doom isn't productive. We need to increase out technologies for many reasons, not just climate change and we can survive and thrive, even if the world will be different that doesn't mean it will be terrible.
- lm28469 3y agoIts not like we won't survive, it's more like moving from your New York 100k/month penthouse to a tent under an LA highway ramp. You can still live/eat/sleep/&c. it's just a bit less nice
- blueflow 3y agoIf humans can survive in Australia, Humanity surely will survive the climate change.
- gorjusborg 3y agoThe world isn't just a collection of independent climates. Surviving in one of today's extreme climates doesn't necessarily provide proof of surviving when the previous extreme is now the mildest climate. Even if the human body can take the heat, it still needs to be fed and watered. Those systems currently aren't in your climate, in many cases.
- blueflow 3y agoHumans live anywhere in the world with a average temperature range from -20 to 30 degrees. This is a range of 50 degrees. 10 degrees increase wont kill us.
- gmuslera 3y agoDealing with very complex and large systems is hard, probably harder than our knowledge will be capable of this century, even if we keep accelerating. That is the world system, climate, life, cycles, feedback loops, and many other things that we probably are not aware yet (just check the number of recent discoveries to have a hint) as a very complex and interrelated system. Trying to have an "engineering" there and not just messing with it to see what happens is beyond our capabilities. And our side of messing with it so far has not been preservation or austerity or whatever, just is making profits, and avoid putting a finger on that. Then you have the human system, that is also complex, interrelated and fragile in ways that the many big powers that mess with it doesn't understand. That is not something that you can control in a directed way neither. So you have an accelerating car, a cliff, and a lot of inertia you are not trying to register, and a lot of fragile things inside packed in unsafe ways. No matter the damage that does to start to stop right now, it won't be anything similar to what it will cause to crash, or to try to manoeuvre desperately when you are close enough. With all the consequences on a very complex system that something as dramatic will cause (that, as complex is it, can't be put a safe upper bound) But somewhat you suggest that we keep accelerating that surely that cliff can be jumped over because we will be so fast that we will be flying, or it is not so deep and we will keep going safely on the other side. Is a nice bet for a basically suicidal individual, but not for a civilization with a lot of people that want to have a meaning for their life.
- boxed 3y ago> Trying to have an "engineering" there and not just messing with it to see what happens is beyond our capabilities. That's what we're doing with the CO2 emissions though. So it's not beyond us, we just do it badly.
- jodrellblank 3y agoBut do you have a better idea? If you want meaning for people’s lives that rules out mass death and dictator demanded planet-wide austerity and reduction in lifestyle down to subsistence - even if anyone could enforce that, which is something people would go to war to defend themselves against. If you individually choose to consume less and own less that’s not enough to make a difference. Has there ever been a time in history where the world has deliberately returned to an earlier state in a positive and successful way (not war or disease setbacks) to model such a thing on, and in a way more planned than your “messing with it to see what happens”? If we don’t pursue the same as we have now but less damaging and trying to reverse the damage, what else could we do that’s possible and not awful?
- _Algernon_ 3y agoThis won't work simply due to induced demand. We spend something like 2000x less energy per unit of light now than we did burning whale fat in the 1800s and all the energy saved energy simply goes into producing more light. Hoping for technology to solve this mess is the same as hoping that adding an additional lane to a congested highway will solve traffic. It won't.
- boxed 3y agoThat's just wrong on so many levels. First of all, creating light is irrelevant to the problem at hand. Secondly, LEDs have made your statement outright false as there's no one who lives in a house that packs their home with light enough to spend that energy budget AND KEEPS THEM ON AT NIGHT. Because they would GO BLIND. So that's just the light thing. 100% wrong. Saying technology can't solve the problem is speculative, as technology is a moving target. You just can't know what problems it can solve until it's too late and the problems are already solved.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoThe point, which I can only assume that you intentionally missed, is the following: - Light is only a standin for any economic activity. The same argument holds for manufacturing, steel smelting, and basically any other economic activity you can think of. - We spend ~2000x less per unit of light but create much more than 2000x the amount of total artificial light now compared to the 1800s. Hence greater overall energy consumption. Now read my initial comment again and I will have the utmost - probably misplaced - faith that you'll understand it.
- boxed 3y ago> Light is only a standin for any economic activity And yet for exactly light the entire premise is falsified. It's a hilarious own goal.
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIt's not which I just explained to you. If you are going to keep pretending to be the human embodiment of a brick wall, I won't engage any further. Have a nice day!
- yodsanklai 3y agoThere's no hope simply through technology either. No technology in sight can address this issue, and certainly not in this time frame. And climate change is only one symptom, and maybe not the most worrying on. The root cause is constant growth in a finite world. It can't work.
- thelastgallon 3y agoAI is power hungry, AI will accelerate carbon emissions. Expected ICT projects by 2030, energy demand will be 20%. This paper was before AI. If this is revised with the AI demand growth projections, its quite possibly a lot more. If Sam Altman starts on his $7T chip plan, that alone will add 10 - 20%. [1] Chasing Carbon: The Elusive Environmental Footprint of Computing: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.02839.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2011.02839.pdf [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39310563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39310563
- mcdonje 3y agoWe already have the solutions. We need to act. We can't pin our hopes on future options when the crisis is now and we're not using current options. We need to stop using fossil fuels. Full stop. Nuclear and renewables. Trains and EVs. We need to sequester carbon. Reforest the US east of the Mississippi. Make Ohio look like Vermont. Do the same in all other previously deforested areas. Dense cities and towns, great natural expanses, farms, and nothing else. Sprawl is killing us.