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Thank you for your curiosity! Decentralization is a very long term effort -- Grothendieck said it would take generations, we can't expect immediate results. So

Thank you for your curiosity! Decentralization is a very long term effort -- Grothendieck said it would take generations, we can't expect immediate results. So while 100R certainly can't survive without relying on industry, it does do research into technologies that may be easier to "deindustrialize". See the "off-grid" and "sustainability" pages on their site. Finer point: even before the industrial revolution, humans have had access to supercomputers -- their own brains! It's conceivable that in the not so far future we will be able to grow computers of our own design, from just air and water. See promising efforts in this direction, it's not an empty dream! https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw https://youtu.be/bEXefdbQDjw I guess the moral of the day with regards to banks and finance is, don't jump the gun! We will need them until we can grow raspberry pies on a tree!

gvicino 2y ago
I understand your point of view, but I'm not sure we're that far ahead in progress. It seems very solar punk science fiction if we're talking about the near future. If we're talking about a more distant future, then I can still hope for it.
- vinnyvichy 2y ago
  I wouldn't say the horizon is 100 years, but 250 years. Mainly to re-architect finance to support relevant research. You know how psychological obstacles are the hardest! The first milestone is to minimize the use of metals in our society, use as dopants or catalysts only. Second milestone is alumina. (Money OTOH will probably always be necessary!) What I wanted to explain above is that for computing, arguably our most advanced tech, metals are not strictly needed. You would also probably be surprised at the true state of our solarpunk tech. There are water antennas, solar-pumped lasers.. that's almost 1950 already.
  - gvicino 2y ago
    Thank you. It seems like you have a clear path for this transition. Do you have any reading suggestions that explain this transition?
    - Bluestein 2y ago
      Seconded, appreciated. Would love any materials to peruse ...
    - vinnyvichy 2y ago
      For the research portion, there are (unfortunately) lower impact journals like where the following paper -- about replacing aeronautical alloys with alumina-- is from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214993721001184 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22149... For organoid intelligence, more hyped so you have higher impact, free journals https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.338... Japan has a lot of interesting not-quite-industrial family run high tech businesses. Solar pumped lasers I mentioned, but there's also crystal growing, small scale almost cottage level hightech paper and wood makers. Few reading materials though. Some of this "movement" will eventually diffuse to China, Korea and finally India. These are about nearer term substitutes, a lot of them still involve industrial processes, but it is much easier to tweak industrial processes to turn them solarpunk than to replace entire classes of materials. For the finance angle, I'm afraid I won't be able to direct you to any good free roadmap for Year 50 to Year 250, but for Year 0 to 50 I recommend studying how governments in the asia-pacific are funding decarbonization R&D, especially in SMEs. (Although we might be more interested in Africa or India?) Pay attention to IP law reform. E.g. japanese gov report here (I was especially interested in the optoelectronics, for reasons of "demetallization", but Japan has small very localizable optics firms, think Thor but localized). https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/jgbs/topics/JapanClimateTransitionBonds/jcr_climate_transition_bond_framework_spo_eng.pdf https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/jgbs/topics/JapanClimat... R & D expenditures for optoelectronic fusion technology that is expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 40 per cent in data centers. Optoelectronic fusion is a technology that fuses circuits that handle electrical signals and optical signals. Calculations have been performed with "binary numbers" by switching on and off of the electricity in conventional computers.Electricity however generates heat when it flows through circuits, and energy is used to generate heat that is not originally necessary, and when it generates heat, the resistance of the electric paths increases,leading to decreases in the calculation speeds. Therefore, research is underway to replace calculation using electricity with processing using light.Power saving and low latency are achieved by connecting internal circuits in computers with light without using electricity as much as possible. The aim is to gradually introduce light into computing chips or peripheral equipment in computers that have been processed by electricity.The aims are ﴾1﴿ to establish a technology that connects chips used for calculation and peripheral equipment with light in 2024, ﴾2﴿ to connect between chips with light in 2024 and ﴾3﴿ to practically realize a photoelectric fusion chip that calculates with light in the final stage in 2030. There are some estimation that the spread of optoelectronic fusion technology will save more than 40 per cent of energy by 2030 compared to the current state-of-the-art data centers. EDIT: found this: https://youtu.be/lzHqhNoyx2o https://youtu.be/lzHqhNoyx2o This is at commercial scale, but the process is very simple, you can even do it at home! (And of course, barely hinted in the video many mom and pop shops in Japan doing it. It's not very far from samurai just making swords from beach sand.) used to be many small town companies in the US doing this, you can imagine, IF THERE WAS DEMAND from your cow rearing neighbours..

gvicino 2y ago

I understand your point of view, but I'm not sure we're that far ahead in progress. It seems very solar punk science fiction if we're talking about the near future. If we're talking about a more distant future, then I can still hope for it.

vinnyvichy 2y ago
I wouldn't say the horizon is 100 years, but 250 years. Mainly to re-architect finance to support relevant research. You know how psychological obstacles are the hardest! The first milestone is to minimize the use of metals in our society, use as dopants or catalysts only. Second milestone is alumina. (Money OTOH will probably always be necessary!) What I wanted to explain above is that for computing, arguably our most advanced tech, metals are not strictly needed. You would also probably be surprised at the true state of our solarpunk tech. There are water antennas, solar-pumped lasers.. that's almost 1950 already.
- gvicino 2y ago
  Thank you. It seems like you have a clear path for this transition. Do you have any reading suggestions that explain this transition?
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    Seconded, appreciated. Would love any materials to peruse ...
  - vinnyvichy 2y ago
    For the research portion, there are (unfortunately) lower impact journals like where the following paper -- about replacing aeronautical alloys with alumina-- is from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214993721001184 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22149... For organoid intelligence, more hyped so you have higher impact, free journals https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/science/articles/10.338... Japan has a lot of interesting not-quite-industrial family run high tech businesses. Solar pumped lasers I mentioned, but there's also crystal growing, small scale almost cottage level hightech paper and wood makers. Few reading materials though. Some of this "movement" will eventually diffuse to China, Korea and finally India. These are about nearer term substitutes, a lot of them still involve industrial processes, but it is much easier to tweak industrial processes to turn them solarpunk than to replace entire classes of materials. For the finance angle, I'm afraid I won't be able to direct you to any good free roadmap for Year 50 to Year 250, but for Year 0 to 50 I recommend studying how governments in the asia-pacific are funding decarbonization R&D, especially in SMEs. (Although we might be more interested in Africa or India?) Pay attention to IP law reform. E.g. japanese gov report here (I was especially interested in the optoelectronics, for reasons of "demetallization", but Japan has small very localizable optics firms, think Thor but localized). https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/jgbs/topics/JapanClimateTransitionBonds/jcr_climate_transition_bond_framework_spo_eng.pdf https://www.mof.go.jp/english/policy/jgbs/topics/JapanClimat... R & D expenditures for optoelectronic fusion technology that is expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 40 per cent in data centers. Optoelectronic fusion is a technology that fuses circuits that handle electrical signals and optical signals. Calculations have been performed with "binary numbers" by switching on and off of the electricity in conventional computers.Electricity however generates heat when it flows through circuits, and energy is used to generate heat that is not originally necessary, and when it generates heat, the resistance of the electric paths increases,leading to decreases in the calculation speeds. Therefore, research is underway to replace calculation using electricity with processing using light.Power saving and low latency are achieved by connecting internal circuits in computers with light without using electricity as much as possible. The aim is to gradually introduce light into computing chips or peripheral equipment in computers that have been processed by electricity.The aims are ﴾1﴿ to establish a technology that connects chips used for calculation and peripheral equipment with light in 2024, ﴾2﴿ to connect between chips with light in 2024 and ﴾3﴿ to practically realize a photoelectric fusion chip that calculates with light in the final stage in 2030. There are some estimation that the spread of optoelectronic fusion technology will save more than 40 per cent of energy by 2030 compared to the current state-of-the-art data centers. EDIT: found this: https://youtu.be/lzHqhNoyx2o https://youtu.be/lzHqhNoyx2o This is at commercial scale, but the process is very simple, you can even do it at home! (And of course, barely hinted in the video many mom and pop shops in Japan doing it. It's not very far from samurai just making swords from beach sand.) used to be many small town companies in the US doing this, you can imagine, IF THERE WAS DEMAND from your cow rearing neighbours..