14 ms·
#1 is marketing hype. #2 is very real. #3 is happening and could cause #2 if wars for livable land and water resources break out.
by AlexandrB 2y ago
#1 is marketing hype.
#2 is very real.
#3 is happening and could cause #2 if wars for livable land and water resources break out.
- aurareturn 2y ago#1 is very real #2 is warmongering #3 will be solved by human ingenuity I have a more positive outlook. :)
- tomrod 2y ago#1 is a pipe dream. Oauth2 token TTL expiration alone will limit infiltration :-)
- belter 2y agoUnderrated comment :-)
- IMTDb 2y ago#1 is marketing hype #2 is warmongering #3 will be solved while trying to reach #1
- belter 2y agoRecent "Star Trek Picard" episode... Data: We are going to die. Geordi La Forge: Data...You are being negative again. Say something positive! Data: I hope we die quickly!
- globalnode 2y agoThat should be the slogan for the in-coming climate and viral disasters.
- jeromegv 2y ago> #3 will be solved by human ingenuity It already started, billions of dollars in losses, with no real solution in sight.
- exoverito 2y agoThere will always billions in losses from something, especially when global wealth is estimated to be around 450 trillion. The Dust Bowl was a disastrous incident of climate change, yet it didn't occur because of CO2. The damage caused by the California Wildfires are just as much a function of expanding developments into forests, immediately putting out small fires leading to the accumulation of fuel over time, and opposition to controlled burns. Property damage and deaths from flooding are mostly a function of population growth in the developing world, without sufficient corresponding investment in water management infrastructure. Regarding the solution, stratospheric aerosol injection would be the most immediate and effective solution to rising temperatures. It's been estimated that current increases in CO2 have a radiative forcing effect of about 2 watts per square meter, compared to the total solar irradiance of 1361 W/m2. If CO2 levels doubled to 800 ppm then it's estimated this would have a radiative forcing effect of 6 W/m2. This scenario would require mitigation strategies like stratospheric aerosol injection to reduce solar irradiance by about 0.4%. In the context of plant growth this reduction in sunlight would be negligible given that photosynthesis is only 1 to 2% efficient. If anything we should see significantly accelerated plant growth by about 10 to 50% due to the CO2 fertilization effect at 800ppm.
- silverquiet 2y agoI'd be curious to see the science on enhanced plant growth; my understanding is that the benefits of increased CO2 fade very quickly. I believe we can already see plant pores evolving to be smaller as they were in previous times when the Earth had greater CO2 levels. About the only thing that gives me hope is SRM, but it's a half-assed solution at best. A world with 800ppm CO2 and a dimmed sun via aerosols is not the Earth that I was born to; it is probably not possible to fully understand the affects.
- exoverito 2y agoThe optimal CO2 level for plant growth is between 800 and 1000 ppm, as observed within greenhouses. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.1029901/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/... There is no perfect solution. One of the benefits of stratospheric aerosols is that they only stay suspended for 10 years or so, reducing the risk of long term effects. They are also an exceptionally cheap strategy, on the order of a few billion a year to cool the entire Earth. Compare that with the many trillions needed to just get to carbon neutral, while significantly reducing economic growth and living standards. The world we were born into will not exist in any scenario. As they saying goes, you never step in the same river twice. CO2 emissions show no sign of decreasing, especially as China, India and Africa continue developing. Furthermore, we are on the cusp of AGI within the next decade or so, which will radically change reality far more than the Earth possibly getting a bit warmer in a 100 years or so. The IPCC does not even predict major cataclysm, and expects only sea level rise of a couple feet in the worst case scenario.
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y agoThe idea that we are going to technology our way out of climate change is hilariously naive. That would require us to remove more co2 from the atmopshere each year than we add, which is just a laughable idea to achieve within the required time frame of the next 15 years or so.
- goatlover 2y agoWhat happens in 15 years? It’s not a comet impact. It’s an ongoing problem where technology will help us adapt.
- mrguyorama 2y agoThe problem is that we are adding too much CO2 to the air. In fact, we have already added too much CO2 to the air, to the point that we will have noticable bad effects within the next few decades. More importantly, all this stuff has huge inertia, so if we stopped producing CO2 right this second, we would STILL blow past CO2 goals. If we EVER want to get back to today's climate, you know, "normal", it requires removing gigatons of CO2 from the air. From a pure chemistry energy of reaction standpoint, that will be enormously expensive. There is zero technology that can change the physics fact that combining CO2 with something that will sequester it will take more energy than we ever got out of it. Petroenergy is explicitly a loan. We have to pay that back
- goatlover 2y agoI understand that, but we may have to adapt to new normal with noticeable bad effects. That's where technology can help. Not sure we can remove that much CO2. Maybe if fusion becomes a thing, it would give use enough cheap energy.
- smallerfish 2y agoThere's all kinds of tipping points that are plausible in the next decade that would lead to accelerating warming. Permafrost melting releasing large amounts of methane; gulf stream redirecting; extended drought in climate critical regions; large ice shelves collapsing, etc. It's gradual until it's not.
- gadders 2y ago[flagged]
- andybak 2y agoReally?
- jibe 2y agoWe could be building nuclear power plants instead of shutting them down.
- mrguyorama 2y agoAnd that makes the greenhouse effect not real how?
- andybak 2y agoI have no idea how this comment relates to the previous one.
- gadders 2y agoNot every green advocate wants this, but I think a few would be really upset if a technical solution was found that didn't involve the complete restructuring of society in the name of "fairness".
- daveguy 2y agoOne person can make one command decision and make #2 a reality. That's all it takes. No matter how many people drool over AGI the bandwidth and processing just isn't there. We barely have control systems as intelligent as a bacterium.
- vasco 2y agoAs far as I know no single person on earth can do it all by themselves - all the mechanisms I'm aware of at least.
- somenameforme 2y agoTo my knowledge, this is correct. In theory a command from e.g. the President is authoritative and should legally be carried out. In practice, you'd require every person along the chain to implicitly agree to effectively ending the world. Even at the bottom of the chain, there are likely multi-key requirements so even there you don't have just one person with his hand on the trigger. This makes one of the biggest threats to humanity's survival being buggy software. If a software glitch from one side or the other suggests nuclear weapons are incoming, they will almost certainly retaliate in kind. And once the bombs are away, the other side will definitely respond, and that's pretty much gg humanity. In fact this exact thing very nearly happened in 1983. Soviet instrumentation indicated that the US had attack the USSR with multiple nuclear weapons. The technician on duty, Stanislav Petrov, [correctly] judged that what was happening was an instrumentation error, and disobeyed protocol - refusing to escalate it to his superiors who very well could have ordered retaliatory strikes. For some context this had happened at once of the highest levels of tensions between the US and the USSR. This was in the era of the 'Star Wars program', which was to be a US missile defense shield, leading the Soviet Union to become paranoid about intentions of a preemptive nuclear strike attack. Those tensions had already led to the downing of one 747 that had inadvertently veered into Soviet territory, while carrying a US Congressman at that. Given this context it's highly probable that his superiors would have ordered the retaliation. So he's one of very few people who can be reasonably said to have saved the world. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
- xipix 2y ago#1 will lead to #2 #2 will solve #3
- jonathankoren 2y agoNumber 3 is literally an article of faith. And like all matters of faith, not only is there no evidence for it, the evidence that we do have runs counter to the belief. Let’s be honest here. Climate change was a completely predicable problem with known causes causes and solutions. It was detected early and alarms were raised in a timely manner. Literally nothing happened. In fact, even today, nothing happens. Why? Money. Because the billionaires would rather have us all die than not buy a tenth superyacht. (NB: Go Team Orca!) The problem was not, and is not, science. It’s money and who has it. Now those same folks and their apologists promote quite laughable ideas like carbon capture and geoengineering. Could we have gotten cheaper lithium batteries earlier with more investment? Probably, but what did we get instead? Fracking. Literally the opposite of what was needed. Science is not magic. Even if it was, the nature of the problem means it gets exponentially more difficult every day that passes. You mange to repeal the second law of thermodynamics and somehow got the carbon pollution industry to spend enough money to make it viable? Great! Oh, oops! The permafrost melted and now 10x more powerful methane has been released, so… yeah. Too late! It’s just Pollyanna talk that actively harmful as it not only directs resources from mitigation and migration to wasteful handouts while simultaneously giving cover for just staying the course. But hey. Maybe I’m just a doomer, and those Titanic passengers should have just sciences up more lifeboats instead of drown. Maybe all of this just… “needs more study”.
- tim333 2y agoOr optimistically AGI will solve #2 and #3
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- admissionsguy 2y ago#1 is marketing hype #2 is a remote possibility #3 is a non-threat
- alex_duf 2y agoplease explain how #3 is a non-threat?
- admissionsguy 2y agoUnlike race, the fear of global warming is a social construct. Logically, if you are worried about humans, you should be worried about aging, cancer, heart disease. And if you are worried about the rest of nature, you should be worried about geology and human influence (of which climate is a minor part and self-limiting if significant).
- jonwinstanley 2y agoYou can’t think of any circumstances where climate change might cause a threat to human life on the planet?
- eterps 2y agoI also think it's bewildering when people say things like that. Are they thinking that humans are incapable of causing climate change no matter what they do? Or that we are currently not in trouble and fine for decades/centuries to come?
- admissionsguy 2y agoI think you are <strike>crazy</strike> unreasonable if you think we are not fine for decades or centuries to come, climate-wise. Barring big volcanic eruptions.
- vbezhenar 2y agoAnd how hypothetical global warming is a threat? So let's assume it's happening. Let's assume some ices melt and ocean level rises. Let's assume some coastal cities gets flooded. Just move to higher places, eh? Why do you live in coast anyway, what a weird thing. I'd welcome global warming, I tired of paying $50/month every winter just to keep my house warm.
- sharpshadow 2y agoThat’s a difficult one, securing livable land and water with nuclear fallout.
- cheschire 2y agoI think the implication is that the nuclear war would exist between sovereign rulers, not necessarily between the physical spaces themselves. Wipe out a capital city in an attempt to behead a sovereign government so that their land is available for take over. Apparently though, the bombs that landed on hiroshima and nagasaki did not create much fallout, making the space livable relatively quickly. It seems less destructive long term than a nuclear reactor meltdown which may be a tempting but misleading proxy.
- thijson 2y agoChernobyl had tonnes of radioactive material, a nuclear bomb has much less material, in the kilograms. After Chernobyl blew its lid off, the reactor core was laid open. Witnesses said they could see a beam of light going into the sky. It was the radiation ionizing the air. A helicopter that was trying to drop sand onto the reactor accidently flew too close over it, giving the pilot a lethal dose.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoMaybe not "accidentally". That pilot may have known the danger, and done it anyway. I seem to recall reading that he did, but I can't point you to a source.
- thijson 2y agoA very real danger is a nuclear power that has a deranged person in charge. They know they don't have much time left, they don't care what happens after they are gone, they decide to fire off all their nukes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi,_le_d%C3%A9luge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi,_le_d%C3%A9luge
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
- _yb2s 2y agoRegardless of how realistic you think AGI risk is, it’s not marketing hype- it has been a human fear and central in scifi for a long time. Movies like 2001, Terminator, and the Matrix were hugely popular long before AI was profitable. Arguably ancient myths about golems and genies are essentially the same fear and concept. AI companies are afraid of public fear over AI as it might lead to regulating them out of existence…. They are actively creating marketing hype in the opposite direction, to convince people that AI is safe and useful.
- daveguy 2y agoFear of AGI is very real. But our proximity to AGI is marketing hype. In terms of existential crisis #2 and #3 are serious and already worth investing in mitigation. But #1 (AGI) is science fiction.
- _yb2s 2y agoFiction is much more than just entertainment... science fiction has been pivotal in both shaping and preparing our society for changes caused by technology. Much of the best science fiction has been so prescient that it's hard for modern audiences to even understand that these things were written before the world was like this. When I share a lot of old sci-fi with my young son, he finds it unremarkable, as they seem to simply be mundane stories about our present reality. Authors like Vernor Vinge wrote about AGI risk in stories because they were personally worried about it, and trying to share something they felt was important with others. You can easily disagree with the warnings and fears shared in particular sci-fi, but to dismiss fiction as categorically irrelevant to our reality is just ignorant. There is some important history here your comments suggest you are unaware of. One reason AI companies talk so much about AI risk despite it being bad for their bottom line isn't marketing hype, it's because many people in those companies are genuinely afraid. One could argue that this is because many of them have been exposed to the rationalist community- which could be (uncharitably?) seen as a doomsday cult obsessed with AGI risk. The founders of many AI startups including OpenAI were heavily influenced and active in this community.
- 2y ago
- Delmololo 2y agoWe have now chips with 20petaflops. The weekly news regarding AI are always adding new things to ai. We started pouring billions into ai. The amount of new research papers regarding AI are exploding. I would argue that it is not marketing hype or aluminum hat thinking to take that serious
- rafaelmn 2y agoYou could give similar numbers for crypto (powerplants, custom chips, billions invested, R&D) and yet it amounted to nothing. Not saying it's the same - just that your argument isn't very strong. Ironically Nvidia is riding both waves. A few people in the tech scene know how to fuel a hype train.
- throwmeaball 2y agoCrypto is crunching random meaningless numbers. AI is crunching real world data. They are not the same. But AI should not be viewed as a problem. The real problem is that some people don't want others to have the same stuff as they. They want to work 1 hour while the other guy has to work 100. Interest on interest.
- Delmololo 2y agoOn the surface perhaps. Btw hype is defined as exaggerated claims but the ai 'hype' train is not hype. We already use all those tools daily. It has real impact and makes real money
- lliamander 2y ago> #3 is happening and could cause #2 if wars for livable land and water resources break out. Seems more likely to me that attempts to solve #3 will lead to #2. If we actually attempted to curtail fossil fuel consumption as much activists claim we should, there would be such a drop in agricultural and industrial productivity that there would be mass starvation, particularly in the developing world. I don't think those countries would peacefully go along with that plan.
- user90131313 2y ago2 is the real hype
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]