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You have literally no idea what you are talking about but that's OK because technology doesn't care about what you think - it just happens (cf. computer adoptio

You have literally no idea what you are talking about but that's OK because technology doesn't care about what you think - it just happens (cf. computer adoption, robotic automation, AI automation, cars, trains, trucks, looms, engines, planes, ships). ICE vehicles are relatively complex and not actually cheap going forwards. We're past peak oil and emissions are now being priced (CO2 pollution is no longer free). That means the only way prices are going for ICE vehicles is up. Electric cars on the other hand don't care what fuel source powers them, are riding the battery-cost curve down, are highly efficient, are relatively simple in operation/maintenance, cheap to run and have no emissions that need to be priced. Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. Warren Buffett has a famous saying: Don't make statements outside your field of competence - lest you look accidentally foolish.

pirateking 14y ago
I agree with your post and general outlook on electric vehicles - they are definitely the future. However, I do not agree with Mr. Buffett's statement - if it were the case, no one would ever make a single statement.
- confluence 14y ago
  > no one would ever make a single statement Maybe that would be a good thing. Most people don't know jack about economics, physics, finance, engineering, artificial intelligence, the future, technology or pretty much anything outside of their day to day job. You'll notice that whenever someone like that does open their mouth in your field without knowing jack about it - you immediately understand that he has no idea what he is talking about. The real problem comes when he's talking about an industry you don't know - because for all intents and purposes you won't know either. > You can bullshit all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot bullshit all the people all the time. This is how MBAs (or Master Bullshit Artists) can exist. If you don't know much about tech, he can say pretty much whatever he wants and you will have no idea as to whether he is telling the truth unless you yourself have knowledge of the relevant area. > Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. -- Tao Te Ching Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of a complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. Bullshit is everywhere.
  - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
    "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." ... Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. If those who know do not speak, how could we ever listen to any other type of discussion?
    - confluence 14y ago
      It's a heuristic not a law. Use it to protect yourself from the adverse selection of stated data in complex fields from highly incentivised agents (including me). Follow it, or don't at your own peril/gain.
      - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
        I get it. And like most cute little sayings designed to make the speaker sound like they're dispensing sage advice, it's almost worthless as a heuristic. It tells you virtually nothing about the credibility of the person speaking, or the strength of their position.
  - pirateking 14y ago
    I have my own philosophy for information processing. After thinking about it, it boils down to these 5 steps. 1. Consume liberally. 2. Process rigorously. 3. Store cautiously. 4. Modify frequently. 5. Express freely. Step 5 feeds back into Step 1, and is the step that puts me at odds with Buffett's statement. I think it is an important one though, even if the expressed ideas are incorrect or incomplete, because it keeps the information cycle flowing. Bullshit of some form will always exist until everyone is an omniscient deity and all truth in the Universe is known. To me, the much more worrisome issue is the lack of emphasis on Steps 2, 3, 4: asking questions, questioning answers, answering questions. Encouraging people to try Steps 2, 3, and 4 is a more widely beneficial solution than telling them to just avoid Step 5 unless they are God.
abhimishra 14y ago
> Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. No, it is expensive _today_. Which is different from saying it would be expensive at scale.
- confluence 14y ago
  Oh for the love of all that is Science! > According to former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: "Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never." The Los Angeles Times wrote, in February 2009, "Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars. ... Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars." A 2007 article in Technology Review stated, "In the context of the overall energy economy, a car like the BMW Hydrogen 7 would probably produce far more carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline-powered cars available today. And changing this calculation would take multiple breakthroughs – which study after study has predicted will take decades, if they arrive at all. In fact, the Hydrogen 7 and its hydrogen-fuel-cell cousins are, in many ways, simply flashy distractions produced by automakers who should be taking stronger immediate action to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of their cars." The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that "Top executives from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. Tuesday expressed doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass-market production in the near term and suggested their companies are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale." The Economist magazine, in September 2008, quoted Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory, as saying: "Hydrogen is 'just about the worst possible vehicle fuel'". The magazine noted the withdrawal of California from earlier goals: "In March [2008] the California Air Resources Board, an agency of California's state government and a bellwether for state governments across America, changed its requirement for the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) to be built and sold in California between 2012 and 2014. The revised mandate allows manufacturers to comply with the rules by building more battery-electric cars instead of fuel-cell vehicles." The magazine also noted that most hydrogen is produced through steam reformation, which creates at least as much emission of carbon per mile as some of today's gasoline cars. On the other hand, if the hydrogen could be produced using renewable energy, "it would surely be easier simply to use this energy to charge the batteries of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles." The Washington Post asked in November 2009, "But why would you want to store energy in the form of hydrogen and then use that hydrogen to produce electricity for a motor, when electrical energy is already waiting to be sucked out of sockets all over America and stored in auto batteries"? The paper concluded that commercializing hydrogen cars is "stupendously difficult and probably pointless. That's why, for the foreseeable future, the hydrogen car will remain a tailpipe dream". A December 2009 study at UC Davis, published in the Journal of Power Sources, found that, over their lifetimes, hydrogen vehicles will emit more carbon than gasoline vehicles. In July 2011, the Chairman and CEO of General Motors, Daniel Akerson, stated that while the cost of hydrogen fuel cell cars is decreasing: "The car is still too expensive and probably won't be practical until the 2020-plus period, I don't know." GM's Vauxhall Motors spokesman Bill Parfitt expects the HydroGen4 in 2016. The Obama Administration sought to reduce funding for the development of fuel cell vehicles, concluding that other vehicle technologies will lead to quicker reduction in emissions in a shorter time. Steven Chu, the US Secretary of Energy, stated in 2009 that hydrogen vehicles "will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years". In 2012, however, Chu stated that he sees fuel cell cars as more economically feasible as natural gas prices have fallen and hydrogen reforming technologies have improved. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Criticism Boom headshot. Hydrogen/fuel cells were and are DOA.

pirateking 14y ago

I agree with your post and general outlook on electric vehicles - they are definitely the future. However, I do not agree with Mr. Buffett's statement - if it were the case, no one would ever make a single statement.

confluence 14y ago
> no one would ever make a single statement Maybe that would be a good thing. Most people don't know jack about economics, physics, finance, engineering, artificial intelligence, the future, technology or pretty much anything outside of their day to day job. You'll notice that whenever someone like that does open their mouth in your field without knowing jack about it - you immediately understand that he has no idea what he is talking about. The real problem comes when he's talking about an industry you don't know - because for all intents and purposes you won't know either. > You can bullshit all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot bullshit all the people all the time. This is how MBAs (or Master Bullshit Artists) can exist. If you don't know much about tech, he can say pretty much whatever he wants and you will have no idea as to whether he is telling the truth unless you yourself have knowledge of the relevant area. > Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. -- Tao Te Ching Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of a complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. Bullshit is everywhere.
- ryanwaggoner 14y ago
  "Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know." ... Remember that the next time you are listening to a discussion of complex field - where none of the participants have degrees, industry experience or in depth on the ground knowledge of said fields. If those who know do not speak, how could we ever listen to any other type of discussion?
  - confluence 14y ago
    It's a heuristic not a law. Use it to protect yourself from the adverse selection of stated data in complex fields from highly incentivised agents (including me). Follow it, or don't at your own peril/gain.
    - ryanwaggoner 14y ago
      I get it. And like most cute little sayings designed to make the speaker sound like they're dispensing sage advice, it's almost worthless as a heuristic. It tells you virtually nothing about the credibility of the person speaking, or the strength of their position.
- pirateking 14y ago
  I have my own philosophy for information processing. After thinking about it, it boils down to these 5 steps. 1. Consume liberally. 2. Process rigorously. 3. Store cautiously. 4. Modify frequently. 5. Express freely. Step 5 feeds back into Step 1, and is the step that puts me at odds with Buffett's statement. I think it is an important one though, even if the expressed ideas are incorrect or incomplete, because it keeps the information cycle flowing. Bullshit of some form will always exist until everyone is an omniscient deity and all truth in the Universe is known. To me, the much more worrisome issue is the lack of emphasis on Steps 2, 3, 4: asking questions, questioning answers, answering questions. Encouraging people to try Steps 2, 3, and 4 is a more widely beneficial solution than telling them to just avoid Step 5 unless they are God.

abhimishra 14y ago

> Hydrogen vehicles are just plain stupid from an efficiency stand point - where are you going to get the hydrogen exactly? Purifying it is too expensive - and since it's lighter than air - there is no economical source of hydrogen on earth. It'd be cheaper to fuel your car with coal. No, it is expensive _today_. Which is different from saying it would be expensive at scale.

confluence 14y ago
Oh for the love of all that is Science! > According to former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: "Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never." The Los Angeles Times wrote, in February 2009, "Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars. ... Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars." A 2007 article in Technology Review stated, "In the context of the overall energy economy, a car like the BMW Hydrogen 7 would probably produce far more carbon dioxide emissions than gasoline-powered cars available today. And changing this calculation would take multiple breakthroughs – which study after study has predicted will take decades, if they arrive at all. In fact, the Hydrogen 7 and its hydrogen-fuel-cell cousins are, in many ways, simply flashy distractions produced by automakers who should be taking stronger immediate action to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions of their cars." The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that "Top executives from General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. Tuesday expressed doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass-market production in the near term and suggested their companies are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale." The Economist magazine, in September 2008, quoted Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory, as saying: "Hydrogen is 'just about the worst possible vehicle fuel'". The magazine noted the withdrawal of California from earlier goals: "In March [2008] the California Air Resources Board, an agency of California's state government and a bellwether for state governments across America, changed its requirement for the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) to be built and sold in California between 2012 and 2014. The revised mandate allows manufacturers to comply with the rules by building more battery-electric cars instead of fuel-cell vehicles." The magazine also noted that most hydrogen is produced through steam reformation, which creates at least as much emission of carbon per mile as some of today's gasoline cars. On the other hand, if the hydrogen could be produced using renewable energy, "it would surely be easier simply to use this energy to charge the batteries of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles." The Washington Post asked in November 2009, "But why would you want to store energy in the form of hydrogen and then use that hydrogen to produce electricity for a motor, when electrical energy is already waiting to be sucked out of sockets all over America and stored in auto batteries"? The paper concluded that commercializing hydrogen cars is "stupendously difficult and probably pointless. That's why, for the foreseeable future, the hydrogen car will remain a tailpipe dream". A December 2009 study at UC Davis, published in the Journal of Power Sources, found that, over their lifetimes, hydrogen vehicles will emit more carbon than gasoline vehicles. In July 2011, the Chairman and CEO of General Motors, Daniel Akerson, stated that while the cost of hydrogen fuel cell cars is decreasing: "The car is still too expensive and probably won't be practical until the 2020-plus period, I don't know." GM's Vauxhall Motors spokesman Bill Parfitt expects the HydroGen4 in 2016. The Obama Administration sought to reduce funding for the development of fuel cell vehicles, concluding that other vehicle technologies will lead to quicker reduction in emissions in a shorter time. Steven Chu, the US Secretary of Energy, stated in 2009 that hydrogen vehicles "will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years". In 2012, however, Chu stated that he sees fuel cell cars as more economically feasible as natural gas prices have fallen and hydrogen reforming technologies have improved. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Criticism Boom headshot. Hydrogen/fuel cells were and are DOA.