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Yeah, the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant. Are you seriously telling me now that if my we

Yeah, the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant. Are you seriously telling me now that if my website is 256k or 1024k I'm responsible for destroying the planet? Take it out on your masters. And no, reducing resource use to the minimum in the name of sustainability does not scale down the same way it scales up. You're just pushing the idea that all human activity is some sort of disease that's best disposed of. That's essentially just wishing the worst on your own species for being successful. It's never clear to me whether people who push this line are doing so because they're bitter and want to punish other humans, or because they hate themselves. Either way, it evinces a system of thought that has already relegated humankind to the dustbin of history. If, in the long run, that's what happens, you're right and everyone else is wrong. Congratulations. It will make little difference in that case to you if the rest of us move on for a few hundred years to colonize the planets and revive the biosphere. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that this will all end in 10 or 20 thousand years, and the world will go back to being a hot hive of insects and reptiles. But what glory we wrought in our time.

simgt 1y ago
> the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant Whataboutism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > You're just pushing the idea that all human activity is some sort of disease that's best disposed of. That's essentially just wishing the worst on your own species for being successful. Strawmaning. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man Every bloody mention of the environmental impact of our activities gets at least a reply like yours that ticks one of these boxes.
- noduerme 1y ago
  > the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant (this was actually stated in agreement with the original poster, who you clearly misunderstood, so there's no "what-about" involved here. They were condemning all kinds of consumption, including the frivolous ones I mentioned). But I'm afraid you've missed both my small point and my wider point. My small point was to argue against the parent's comment that >>reducing ressources consumption to the minimum required should always be a concern if we intend to have a sustainable future I disagree with this concept on the basis that nothing can be accomplished on a large scale if the primary concern is simply to reduce resource consumption to a minimum. If you care to disagree with that, then please address it. The larger point was that this theory leads inexorably to the idea that humans should just kill themselves or disappear; and it almost always comes from people who themselves want to kill themselves or disappear.
  - simgt 1y ago
    > if the primary concern is simply to reduce resource consumption to a minimum ..."required". That allows you to fit pretty much everything in that requirement. Which actually makes my initial point a bit weak, as some would put "delivering 4K quality tiktok videos" as a requirement. Point is that energy consumption and broad environmental impact has to be a constraint in how we design our systems (and businesses). I stand by my accusations of whataboutism and strawmaning, though.
    - noduerme 1y ago
      carelessly thrown about accusations of whataboutism and strawmaning are an excellent example of whataboutism and strawmaning. I was making a specific point, directly to the topic, without either putting words in their mouth or addressing an unrelated issue. I'll stand by my retort.
- noduerme 1y ago
  >> Every bloody mention of the environmental impact of our activities gets at least a reply like yours that ticks one of these boxes. That's a sweeping misunderstanding of what I wrote, so I'd ask that you re-read what I said in response to the specific quote.
- Capricorn2481 1y ago
  Wow, are low-effort comments like this really welcome here? Why don't you read this comment and see if you have the same energy for hamburger eaters that you do for people with websites over 14kb. Because if you don't, it's obvious you're looking to sweat people who actually care about their environmental impact over absolutely nothing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44614291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44614291 FYI, it's not Whataboutism to say there are more effective things to focus on.

simgt 1y ago

> the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant Whataboutism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism > You're just pushing the idea that all human activity is some sort of disease that's best disposed of. That's essentially just wishing the worst on your own species for being successful. Strawmaning. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man Every bloody mention of the environmental impact of our activities gets at least a reply like yours that ticks one of these boxes.

noduerme 1y ago
> the environmental impact of jackasses mining jackass coin, or jackasses training LLMs is not insignificant (this was actually stated in agreement with the original poster, who you clearly misunderstood, so there's no "what-about" involved here. They were condemning all kinds of consumption, including the frivolous ones I mentioned). But I'm afraid you've missed both my small point and my wider point. My small point was to argue against the parent's comment that >>reducing ressources consumption to the minimum required should always be a concern if we intend to have a sustainable future I disagree with this concept on the basis that nothing can be accomplished on a large scale if the primary concern is simply to reduce resource consumption to a minimum. If you care to disagree with that, then please address it. The larger point was that this theory leads inexorably to the idea that humans should just kill themselves or disappear; and it almost always comes from people who themselves want to kill themselves or disappear.
- simgt 1y ago
  > if the primary concern is simply to reduce resource consumption to a minimum ..."required". That allows you to fit pretty much everything in that requirement. Which actually makes my initial point a bit weak, as some would put "delivering 4K quality tiktok videos" as a requirement. Point is that energy consumption and broad environmental impact has to be a constraint in how we design our systems (and businesses). I stand by my accusations of whataboutism and strawmaning, though.
  - noduerme 1y ago
    carelessly thrown about accusations of whataboutism and strawmaning are an excellent example of whataboutism and strawmaning. I was making a specific point, directly to the topic, without either putting words in their mouth or addressing an unrelated issue. I'll stand by my retort.
noduerme 1y ago
>> Every bloody mention of the environmental impact of our activities gets at least a reply like yours that ticks one of these boxes. That's a sweeping misunderstanding of what I wrote, so I'd ask that you re-read what I said in response to the specific quote.
Capricorn2481 1y ago
Wow, are low-effort comments like this really welcome here? Why don't you read this comment and see if you have the same energy for hamburger eaters that you do for people with websites over 14kb. Because if you don't, it's obvious you're looking to sweat people who actually care about their environmental impact over absolutely nothing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44614291 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44614291 FYI, it's not Whataboutism to say there are more effective things to focus on.