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Not at all. I'm pointing out that whatever process you assume to get carbon out of the atmosphere, you should plug the inputs and outputs of that process into y

Not at all. I'm pointing out that whatever process you assume to get carbon out of the atmosphere, you should plug the inputs and outputs of that process into your calculation. Speaking of circular processes though... does this one look familiar? a) Angrily and dismissively state flawed views b) Have flaws in views pointed out c) goto a) Of course it's not purely circular as with every iteration there's more anger and less substance. But whatever.

stcredzero 12y ago
Not at all. I'm pointing out that whatever process you assume to get carbon out of the atmosphere Yeah, you don't know what it is, do you? you should plug the inputs and outputs of that process into your calculation. It's powered by the sun and all of the carbon gets pulled out of the atmosphere by nanomachines. As the mass of carbon used for the reaction is only 1/10th the mass of aluminum produced, the mass of the carbon needed for the current world production of aluminum would constitute a fraction of a percent of the world's total current agricultural output. Some additional energy would be needed to carbonize the material, but this fuel could be drawn from the same feedstock, and still amount to a fraction of a percent of the world's agricultural output. a-c Not at all. My position is that there is a kind of commenter who thinks themselves "smart" for being able to recite facts about the current world, but can't see when they are applying the facts in ways that show they can't think a few steps ahead from first principles. Instead they rigidly apply the current situation and present it in arguments as if they had actually refuted something. Any escalation is merely due to the level of annoyance from repeatedly missed hints. The same sort of "logic" you present could be used in the Napoleonic era to "prove" that aluminum smelting would forever be impossible. (And you probably don't recognize the trap inherent in that one, or the other two traps above.)
- dojomouse 12y ago
  Oh, of course. Nanomachines. So basically we should celebrate this contemporary not-really-an-innovation because some future speculative innovation might make it useful... and ignore the fact that it's much more likely that the future speculative innovation would make it entirely redundant. I love it that your future sees us pulling CO2 directly from the atmosphere with nanomachines, but still driving around in cars that run on blocks of aluminium taken from aluminium oxide through smelting. If I use your logic then I can just say "There's no issue with everyone running their cars on diesel". After all, one day we'll have nanomachines which can pull the soot, sulphur dioxide, CO2 and water vapour from the atmosphere and convert it all back into diesel again for a squeaky clean closed loop system running off the clean energy technology I have also implemented at massive scale. I don't know why we're even bothering with clean diesel. Or any pollution controls at all for that matter. Nanomachines will sort that right out! How're they coming along by the way? Oh, they're not ready? In the meantime then we should probably stick with assessing merit based on near term available technology, rather than saying "this thing is great, because I will solve all the things you don't like about it with my nanotech magic wand which I'm sure I'll have access to on a suitable timeframe".

stcredzero 12y ago

Not at all. I'm pointing out that whatever process you assume to get carbon out of the atmosphere Yeah, you don't know what it is, do you? you should plug the inputs and outputs of that process into your calculation. It's powered by the sun and all of the carbon gets pulled out of the atmosphere by nanomachines. As the mass of carbon used for the reaction is only 1/10th the mass of aluminum produced, the mass of the carbon needed for the current world production of aluminum would constitute a fraction of a percent of the world's total current agricultural output. Some additional energy would be needed to carbonize the material, but this fuel could be drawn from the same feedstock, and still amount to a fraction of a percent of the world's agricultural output. a-c Not at all. My position is that there is a kind of commenter who thinks themselves "smart" for being able to recite facts about the current world, but can't see when they are applying the facts in ways that show they can't think a few steps ahead from first principles. Instead they rigidly apply the current situation and present it in arguments as if they had actually refuted something. Any escalation is merely due to the level of annoyance from repeatedly missed hints. The same sort of "logic" you present could be used in the Napoleonic era to "prove" that aluminum smelting would forever be impossible. (And you probably don't recognize the trap inherent in that one, or the other two traps above.)

dojomouse 12y ago
Oh, of course. Nanomachines. So basically we should celebrate this contemporary not-really-an-innovation because some future speculative innovation might make it useful... and ignore the fact that it's much more likely that the future speculative innovation would make it entirely redundant. I love it that your future sees us pulling CO2 directly from the atmosphere with nanomachines, but still driving around in cars that run on blocks of aluminium taken from aluminium oxide through smelting. If I use your logic then I can just say "There's no issue with everyone running their cars on diesel". After all, one day we'll have nanomachines which can pull the soot, sulphur dioxide, CO2 and water vapour from the atmosphere and convert it all back into diesel again for a squeaky clean closed loop system running off the clean energy technology I have also implemented at massive scale. I don't know why we're even bothering with clean diesel. Or any pollution controls at all for that matter. Nanomachines will sort that right out! How're they coming along by the way? Oh, they're not ready? In the meantime then we should probably stick with assessing merit based on near term available technology, rather than saying "this thing is great, because I will solve all the things you don't like about it with my nanotech magic wand which I'm sure I'll have access to on a suitable timeframe".