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> Look at fossil fuels WHAT?! Do you think we as humanity would have gotten to all the modern inventions we have today like the internet, space travel, atomic

> Look at fossil fuels WHAT?! Do you think we as humanity would have gotten to all the modern inventions we have today like the internet, space travel, atomic energy, if we had skipped the fossil fuel era by preemptively regulating it? How do you imagine that? Unless you invent a time machine, go to the past, and give inventors schematics of modern tech achievable without fossil fuels.

TFYS 1y ago
Maybe not as fast as we did, but eventually we would have. Maybe more research would have been put into other forms of energy if the effects of fossil fuels were considered more thoroughly and usage was limited to a degree that didn't have a chance cause such fast climate change. And so what if the rate of progress would have been slower and we'd be 50 years behind current tech? At least we wouldn't have to worry about all the damage we've caused now, and the costs associated with that. Due to that damage our future progress might halt while a slower, more careful society would continue advancing far into the future.
- rpdillon 1y ago
  I think it's an open question whether we can reboot society without the use of fossil fuels. I'm personally of the opinion that we wouldn't be able to. Simply taking away some giant precursor for the advancements we enjoy today and then assuming it all would have worked out somehow is a bit naive. I would need to see a very detailed pipeline from growing wheat in an agrarian society to the development of a microprocessor without fossil fuels to understand the point you're making. The mining, the transport, the manufacture, the packaging, the incredible number of supply chains, and the ability to give people time to spend on jobs like that rather than trying to grow their own food are all major barriers I see to the scenario you're suggesting. The whole other aspect of this discussion that I think is not being explored is that technology is fundamentally competitive, and so it's very difficult to control the rate at which technology advances because we do not have a global government (and if we did have a global government, we'd have even more problems than we do now). As a comment I read yesterday said, technology concentrates gains towards those who can deploy it. And so there's going to be competition to deploy new technologies. Country-level regulation that tries to prevent this locally is only going to lead to other countries gaining the lead.
  - TFYS 1y ago
    You might be right, but I'm wasn't saying we should ban all use of any technology that has any negative effects, but that we should at least try to understand all the effects before taking it into use, and try to avoid the worst outcomes by regulating how to use the tech. If it turns out that fossil fuels are the only way to achieve modern technology then we should decide to take the risk of the negative effects knowing that there's such a risk. We shouldn't just blindly rush into any direction that might give us some benefit. Regarding competition, yes you're right. Effective regulation is impossible before we learn global co-operation, and that's probably never going to happen.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Very naive take that's not based in reality but would only work in fiction. Historically, all nations that developed and deployed new tech, new sources of energy and new weapons, have gained economic and military superiority over nations who did not, which ended up being conquered/enslaved. UK would not have managed to be the world power before the US, without their coal fueled industrial era. So as history goes, if you refuse to take part in, or cannot keep up in the international tech, energy and weapons race, you'll be subjugated by those who win that race. That's why the US lifted all brakes on AI, to make sure they'll win and not China. What EU is doing, self regulating itself to death, is ensuring its future will be at the mercy of US and China. I'm not the one saying this, history proves it.
  - TFYS 1y ago
    You're right, in a system based on competition it's not possible to prevent these technologies from being used as soon as they're invented if there's some advantage to be gained. We need to figure out global co-operation before such a thing is realistic. But if such co-operation was possible, it would make sense to progress more carefully.
    - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
      There is no such thing as "global cooperation" in our reality for things beyond platitudes. That's only a fantasy for sci-fi novels. Every tribe wants to rule the others, because if you don't, the other tribes will rule you. It's been the case since our caveman days. That's why tribes that don't focus on conquest end up removed form the gene pool. Now extend tribe to nation to make it relevant to current day.
1718627440 1y ago
The internet was created in the military at the start of the fossil era, there is no reason, why it should be affected by the oil era. If we wouldn't travel that much, because we don't use cars and planes that much, the internet would be even more important. Space travel does need a lot of oil, so it might be affected, but the beginning of it were in the 40s so the research idea was already there. Atomic energy is also from the 40s and might have been the alternative to oil, so it would thrive more if we haven't used oil that much. Also all 3 ARE heavily regulated and mostly done by nation states.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  How would you have won the world wars without oil? Your augment only work in a fictional world where oil does not exist and you have the hindsight of today. But when oil does exist and if you would have chosen not to use it, you will have long been steamrolled by industrialized nations powers who used their superior oil fueled economy and military to destroy or enslave your nation and you wouldn't be writing this today.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    I thought we are arguing about regulating oil not to not use oil at all. > How would you have won the world wars without oil? You don't need to win world wars to have technological advancement, in fact my country didn't. I think the problem with this discussion, is that we all disagree what to regulate, that's how we ended up with the current situation after all. I interpreted it to mean that we wouldn't use plastic for everything. I think we would be fine having glass bottles and paper, carton, wood for grocery wrapping. It wouldn't be so individual per company, but this not important for the economy and consumers, and also would result in a more competitive market. I also interpreted it to mean that we wouldn't have so much cars and don't use planes beside really important stuff (i.e. international politics). The cities simply expand to the travel speed of the primary means of transportation. We would simply have more walkable cities and would use more trains. Amazon probably wouldn't be possible and we would have more local producers. In fact this is what we currently aim for and it is hard, because transition means that we have larger cities then we can support with the primary means of transportation. As for your example inventions: we did have computers in the 40s and the need for networking would arise. Space travel is in danger, but you can use oil for space travel without using it for everyday consumer products. As I already wrote, we would have more atomic energy, not sure if that would be good though.

TFYS 1y ago

Maybe not as fast as we did, but eventually we would have. Maybe more research would have been put into other forms of energy if the effects of fossil fuels were considered more thoroughly and usage was limited to a degree that didn't have a chance cause such fast climate change. And so what if the rate of progress would have been slower and we'd be 50 years behind current tech? At least we wouldn't have to worry about all the damage we've caused now, and the costs associated with that. Due to that damage our future progress might halt while a slower, more careful society would continue advancing far into the future.

rpdillon 1y ago
I think it's an open question whether we can reboot society without the use of fossil fuels. I'm personally of the opinion that we wouldn't be able to. Simply taking away some giant precursor for the advancements we enjoy today and then assuming it all would have worked out somehow is a bit naive. I would need to see a very detailed pipeline from growing wheat in an agrarian society to the development of a microprocessor without fossil fuels to understand the point you're making. The mining, the transport, the manufacture, the packaging, the incredible number of supply chains, and the ability to give people time to spend on jobs like that rather than trying to grow their own food are all major barriers I see to the scenario you're suggesting. The whole other aspect of this discussion that I think is not being explored is that technology is fundamentally competitive, and so it's very difficult to control the rate at which technology advances because we do not have a global government (and if we did have a global government, we'd have even more problems than we do now). As a comment I read yesterday said, technology concentrates gains towards those who can deploy it. And so there's going to be competition to deploy new technologies. Country-level regulation that tries to prevent this locally is only going to lead to other countries gaining the lead.
- TFYS 1y ago
  You might be right, but I'm wasn't saying we should ban all use of any technology that has any negative effects, but that we should at least try to understand all the effects before taking it into use, and try to avoid the worst outcomes by regulating how to use the tech. If it turns out that fossil fuels are the only way to achieve modern technology then we should decide to take the risk of the negative effects knowing that there's such a risk. We shouldn't just blindly rush into any direction that might give us some benefit. Regarding competition, yes you're right. Effective regulation is impossible before we learn global co-operation, and that's probably never going to happen.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
Very naive take that's not based in reality but would only work in fiction. Historically, all nations that developed and deployed new tech, new sources of energy and new weapons, have gained economic and military superiority over nations who did not, which ended up being conquered/enslaved. UK would not have managed to be the world power before the US, without their coal fueled industrial era. So as history goes, if you refuse to take part in, or cannot keep up in the international tech, energy and weapons race, you'll be subjugated by those who win that race. That's why the US lifted all brakes on AI, to make sure they'll win and not China. What EU is doing, self regulating itself to death, is ensuring its future will be at the mercy of US and China. I'm not the one saying this, history proves it.
- TFYS 1y ago
  You're right, in a system based on competition it's not possible to prevent these technologies from being used as soon as they're invented if there's some advantage to be gained. We need to figure out global co-operation before such a thing is realistic. But if such co-operation was possible, it would make sense to progress more carefully.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    There is no such thing as "global cooperation" in our reality for things beyond platitudes. That's only a fantasy for sci-fi novels. Every tribe wants to rule the others, because if you don't, the other tribes will rule you. It's been the case since our caveman days. That's why tribes that don't focus on conquest end up removed form the gene pool. Now extend tribe to nation to make it relevant to current day.

1718627440 1y ago

The internet was created in the military at the start of the fossil era, there is no reason, why it should be affected by the oil era. If we wouldn't travel that much, because we don't use cars and planes that much, the internet would be even more important. Space travel does need a lot of oil, so it might be affected, but the beginning of it were in the 40s so the research idea was already there. Atomic energy is also from the 40s and might have been the alternative to oil, so it would thrive more if we haven't used oil that much. Also all 3 ARE heavily regulated and mostly done by nation states.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
How would you have won the world wars without oil? Your augment only work in a fictional world where oil does not exist and you have the hindsight of today. But when oil does exist and if you would have chosen not to use it, you will have long been steamrolled by industrialized nations powers who used their superior oil fueled economy and military to destroy or enslave your nation and you wouldn't be writing this today.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  I thought we are arguing about regulating oil not to not use oil at all. > How would you have won the world wars without oil? You don't need to win world wars to have technological advancement, in fact my country didn't. I think the problem with this discussion, is that we all disagree what to regulate, that's how we ended up with the current situation after all. I interpreted it to mean that we wouldn't use plastic for everything. I think we would be fine having glass bottles and paper, carton, wood for grocery wrapping. It wouldn't be so individual per company, but this not important for the economy and consumers, and also would result in a more competitive market. I also interpreted it to mean that we wouldn't have so much cars and don't use planes beside really important stuff (i.e. international politics). The cities simply expand to the travel speed of the primary means of transportation. We would simply have more walkable cities and would use more trains. Amazon probably wouldn't be possible and we would have more local producers. In fact this is what we currently aim for and it is hard, because transition means that we have larger cities then we can support with the primary means of transportation. As for your example inventions: we did have computers in the 40s and the need for networking would arise. Space travel is in danger, but you can use oil for space travel without using it for everyday consumer products. As I already wrote, we would have more atomic energy, not sure if that would be good though.