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Solving CO2 output by reducing power usage never made any sense. Anyone with a zoomed out view on human history and technology trajectories would have had an in

Solving CO2 output by reducing power usage never made any sense. Anyone with a zoomed out view on human history and technology trajectories would have had an intuition that our energy needs will continue to grow on an exponential curve indefinitely. And before anyone says it can't grow forever, it's unsustainable, etc... you're not thinking big enough. Just google kardashev scales. If your point is that "they used to say x, now they say y", my rebuttal is that 1) the exact same person/people? 2) it's common for people to be mistaken and then learn something new, and change their opinion. It might not happen in the middle of an internet argument, but it does happen, a lot.

logicchains 2y ago
>Solving CO2 output by reducing power usage never made any sense. Exactly. Any society that seriously adopted it and deliberately deindustralised would eventually just get taken over by a more industrialised neighbour.
kjkjadksj 2y ago
The thing is the human experience regarding tech is not very linear in this regard. Take my life, strip out the smartphone and it is the exact same experience as the 90s in regards to what I experience and my quality of life. Strip out the desktop and its the same as the 1950s perhaps. Car, home, grocery store, basically all the same and encompasses all of life right there. So it seems to me, given that much of life outside that distracting cellphone in your pocket is the same in terms of amenities affordances and available goods as it was in the 1950s, that there ought to be some efficiency gains made along the 75 years since. Then again maybe those efficiency gains are swallowed by more people globally being elevated from that great depression sort of desperate life we saw in this country in the 1930s and elsewhere today globally, into the prototypical 1950s lifestyle where a job begets housing, transport in some form, and the modern experience of stocked grocery stores of all goods instead of having to homestead or contribute to a village system for limited goods.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  This seems way off. Medical advancements have grown significantly since the 90s. Minimally invasive surgery was just starting. We've made huge progress at eradicating several diseases. HIV treatment and prevention has advanced leaps and bounds. Outside the US traffic fatalities dropped significantly (somehow in the US they went back up). In general the level of assistance and safety features you get in a modern car would have blown everyone's mind in the 90s. Fuel efficiency is way up. Induction stoves are so much better than electric stoves from the 90s without messing up your house's air like a gas stove. Medical imaging has made incredible breakthroughs. Innovations in shipping and logistics have enabled us to get more interesting food items like third wave coffee. We can watch the movies and tv shows we want and when we want rather than VHS recordings or whatever is on tv right now. Due to higher resolution we can actually have sports broadcasts with useful data. Many houses now have solar cells and batteries and pay little or nothing for their electricity. Amenities in houses are much nicer now. I'm sure I could go on and on with this for much longer. It's easy to not see our progress over time even though it's tremendous.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
I just invented a scale that goes three stages further than the Kardashev scale, so we're in an even better position than you think!
hulitu 2y ago
I love management speeches. /s
ben_w 2y ago
> And before anyone says it can't grow forever, it's unsustainable, etc... you're not thinking big enough. Just google kardashev scales. log((mass universe * c^2)/(20 TW * 1 year)) / log(1.025) = 4600 years for 2.5% power consumption growth to exceed the rest mass of the universe per year: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%28%28mass%20universe%20%2A%20c%5E2%29%2F%2820%20TW%20%2A%201%20year%29%29%20%2F%20log%281.025%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%28%28mass%20univers... Even if we had a warp drive (which may be impossible), we'd have to invent a free energy machine to sustain 2.5% growth for as long into the future as the earliest Egyptian pyramid construction was into the past, and also an infinite dark energy source to keep the universe from then collapsing into a black hole.

logicchains 2y ago

>Solving CO2 output by reducing power usage never made any sense. Exactly. Any society that seriously adopted it and deliberately deindustralised would eventually just get taken over by a more industrialised neighbour.

kjkjadksj 2y ago

The thing is the human experience regarding tech is not very linear in this regard. Take my life, strip out the smartphone and it is the exact same experience as the 90s in regards to what I experience and my quality of life. Strip out the desktop and its the same as the 1950s perhaps. Car, home, grocery store, basically all the same and encompasses all of life right there. So it seems to me, given that much of life outside that distracting cellphone in your pocket is the same in terms of amenities affordances and available goods as it was in the 1950s, that there ought to be some efficiency gains made along the 75 years since. Then again maybe those efficiency gains are swallowed by more people globally being elevated from that great depression sort of desperate life we saw in this country in the 1930s and elsewhere today globally, into the prototypical 1950s lifestyle where a job begets housing, transport in some form, and the modern experience of stocked grocery stores of all goods instead of having to homestead or contribute to a village system for limited goods.

ajmurmann 2y ago
This seems way off. Medical advancements have grown significantly since the 90s. Minimally invasive surgery was just starting. We've made huge progress at eradicating several diseases. HIV treatment and prevention has advanced leaps and bounds. Outside the US traffic fatalities dropped significantly (somehow in the US they went back up). In general the level of assistance and safety features you get in a modern car would have blown everyone's mind in the 90s. Fuel efficiency is way up. Induction stoves are so much better than electric stoves from the 90s without messing up your house's air like a gas stove. Medical imaging has made incredible breakthroughs. Innovations in shipping and logistics have enabled us to get more interesting food items like third wave coffee. We can watch the movies and tv shows we want and when we want rather than VHS recordings or whatever is on tv right now. Due to higher resolution we can actually have sports broadcasts with useful data. Many houses now have solar cells and batteries and pay little or nothing for their electricity. Amenities in houses are much nicer now. I'm sure I could go on and on with this for much longer. It's easy to not see our progress over time even though it's tremendous.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

I just invented a scale that goes three stages further than the Kardashev scale, so we're in an even better position than you think!

hulitu 2y ago

I love management speeches. /s

ben_w 2y ago

> And before anyone says it can't grow forever, it's unsustainable, etc... you're not thinking big enough. Just google kardashev scales. log((mass universe * c^2)/(20 TW * 1 year)) / log(1.025) = 4600 years for 2.5% power consumption growth to exceed the rest mass of the universe per year: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%28%28mass%20universe%20%2A%20c%5E2%29%2F%2820%20TW%20%2A%201%20year%29%29%20%2F%20log%281.025%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%28%28mass%20univers... Even if we had a warp drive (which may be impossible), we'd have to invent a free energy machine to sustain 2.5% growth for as long into the future as the earliest Egyptian pyramid construction was into the past, and also an infinite dark energy source to keep the universe from then collapsing into a black hole.