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TildeATH posted:Oh sweet Jesus that's the most precious thing I've ever read. I will print this out in enormous font and laminate it and put it on the sail of my ecomutant catamaran. An example I saw recently and really liked is that people were really scared copper would run out from all the copper wiring we use. And then fiber optic cables were invented, which are made from sand.
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May 8, 2017 20:58
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Accretionist posted:And there's financial and human costs. If we have to abandon a city, does the associated timeline impact said costs? It's almost certainly going to be less immediately disruptive and less costly (both in human and economic terms) over the long run to abandon at-risk communities sooner rather than later. The ideal situation is to pressure people to leave these areas rather than to deal with the aftermath of a community devastated by an unexpectedly serious storm. It's not actually a good thing to push back mitigation efforts for problems that we know are going to be unavoidable. Edit- The point I'm getting at is that this isn't a problem where we can easily make predictions like "oh, the worst effects will be noticeable by 2040 unless we do x, y, and z in which case we've got at least another two decades." The effects of climate change are probabilistic. There are already communities here in the US that are hosed if we get a string of unlucky weather events. As we go on the probability of more frequent and more severe events is going to increase, but our timetable for dealing with these areas is always going to be "as soon as we possibly can" regardless of what mitigation efforts we undertake. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 21:26 on May 8, 2017 |
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May 8, 2017 21:17
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Billzasilver posted:An example I saw recently and really liked is that people were really scared copper would run out from all the copper wiring we use. And then fiber optic cables were invented, which are made from sand. Peak mineral extraction is still a very real and present threat, unless we develop asteroid mining really fast or you're one of those insufferable fucks who thinks that reducing the entire surface of the earth to a stripmine is the acceptable cost for keeping billions of useless mouths alive.
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May 8, 2017 21:27
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Rime posted:Peak mineral extraction is still a very real and present threat, unless we develop asteroid mining really fast or you're one of those insufferable fucks who thinks that reducing the entire surface of the earth to a stripmine is the acceptable cost for keeping billions of useless mouths alive. We're already likely at the point where if current civilization collapses, a future one (be it human descendants or a new sapient species) won't have a chance at developing comparable tech and infrastructure levels due to our exploitation of fossil fuels and rare earths.
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May 8, 2017 21:52
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It's good to stop climate change. It's bad not to stop climate change.
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May 8, 2017 21:56
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Asteroid/moon/Mars mining is one great potential in the future, yes. The replacement and refinement of what we already do with metals could be great too. Molten salt energy storage is one imaginative technology I'm particularly excited about. I don't know much about artificial diamonds (which might still be industry secrets) but that might marginalize one sector of mining too. But these aren't directly related to climate change. They're more about new ideas changing the carrying capacity of the planet. I don't need to tell you how much science is discovered accidentally. Last month's 'worms that can digest plastic' story is a good example. I think that climate change is more happening when people are pretty okay with poisoning themselves to have fun and convenience. It reminds me of when ancient Rome gave itself lead poisoning for tastier drinks.
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May 8, 2017 21:59
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Arglebargle III posted:It's good to stop climate change. It's bad not to stop climate change. 
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May 8, 2017 22:02
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Arglebargle III posted:It's good to stop climate change. It's bad not to stop climate change. Too controversial.
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May 8, 2017 22:04
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But what if I'm making the world a better place for no reason?
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May 8, 2017 22:09
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Arglebargle III posted:It's good to stop climate change. It's bad not to stop climate change. Counterpoint: Life... finds... a way.
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May 8, 2017 22:11
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tsa posted:Well at the end of the day this really is the issue, or rather the number of people trying to live a modern lifestyle. Our problems aren't really that we eat too much meat, it's that too many people are eating meat. It's not like fish are going extinct because we're worse at managing them than we were 150 years ago, just the opposite in fact. It's because we are trying to feed 8 billion people instead of 1. At the end of the day this problem is very malthusian, it's just that the resource ended up not being food but the energy required to sustain billions of more people trying to live a modern lifestyle. I was making a bad joke and I don't even remember what it was about or in response to anymore. But I agree, there are too many people on the planet with the resources that are available. It's just that the only way to reduce it without resorting to violence, epidemic, or famine is to just let people die of natural causes and growth should only be controlled by encouraging birth control and having fewer children instead of by force.
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May 8, 2017 22:15
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Billzasilver posted:I've believed more people allows for more potential solutions, far out weighing the problems. Your concept only works if an additional X billion people can create a breakthrough that can support more than X billion people at the current standard if living. But it is unlikely that technological discovery scales linearly; more likely, we have found much of the low hanging fruit, and are mostly tinkering around the margins at this point. We have passed the point where Newton or Galileo could make revolutionary discoveries in room sized labs. The remaining fundamental science research is occurring in a few top flight research complexes, staffed by teams of dozens or hundreds of highly educated professionals. Educating a person to the point where they fully understand the state of the art in, for example, physics, is an expensive undertaking that the majority of people will lack the intelligence or discipline to successfully complete. If you add a billion people to the planet, one of them might be the next Einstein, and he or she might lucky enough to be born into circumstances that give them access to world class education and research facilities, but the far more likely outcome is that most of them will turn out to be militants, Kardashians, or Palins, who will compete for and consume limited resources while sometimes actively working or voting against attempts to fix global scale problems. The benefits of additional people have not been proven, but the problems have been, rather irrefutably. Star Man posted:It's just that the only way to reduce it without resorting to violence, epidemic, or famine is to just let people die of natural causes and growth should only be controlled by encouraging birth control and having fewer children instead of by force. I don't have an easy answer here, but there is no indication that encouraging birth control and voluntary population reduction will have any meaningful effect.
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May 8, 2017 22:58
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Dead Reckoning posted:Your concept only works if an additional X billion people can create a breakthrough that can support more than X billion people at the current standard if living. But it is unlikely that technological discovery scales linearly; more likely, we have found much of the low hanging fruit, and are mostly tinkering around the margins at this point. Geoffrey West specifically has a talk about how this is wrong-headed thinking, which if I summarize a renowned scientist who runs SFI is basically "Even if it's true, you're talking about an exponential feedback system, which inevitably becomes an infinite slope.
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May 8, 2017 23:20
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NewForumSoftware posted:Personally my favorite is people sharing articles for the past 30 years that are titled "we have to act now or it's too late" being unable to accept that it is in fact, too late. When I was a kid I felt a glimmer of hope from our response to the hole in the ozone layer, then we didn't do much of anything else for twenty or thirty years.
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May 8, 2017 23:32
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Shifty Nipples posted:When I was a kid I felt a glimmer of hope from our response to the hole in the ozone layer, then we didn't do much of anything else for twenty or thirty years. I don't know how you can forget when the ozone success is brought up every six minutes to remind us not to lose hope.
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May 8, 2017 23:48
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Shifty Nipples posted:When I was a kid I felt a glimmer of hope from our response to the hole in the ozone layer, then we didn't do much of anything else for twenty or thirty years. The 90s practically dislocated its arms patting itself on the back for giving up big hair
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May 9, 2017 00:14
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MiddleOne posted:Too controversial. Sometimes this thread needs a reminder.
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May 9, 2017 00:40
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Dead Reckoning posted:Why do you believe this? Do you really think our rate of technological development was less in the 60s, when computer networking was being pioneered, we were putting people on the moon, and the global population was less than half of what it is now? I believe it because most human progress is serendipitous. What we call black swans. Watt's steam engine was invented in a stupid way. Penicillin was invented in a stupid way. Last month, a powerful enzyme for digesting plastic was discovered in a stupid way. But I think there is no possible example I could give to make you abandon this way of thinking. You also add some weird stuff about standards of living, that I've never said. There's no technology that just "improves life" as a nebulous term. One will improve metal recycling. A decade later, a different technology will clean water. A century later, computers will be made of ceramic. Or something like that. A famous physicist from the 60s said "Would you like me to tell you what we know tomorrow? I can't!" So it's weird you said we did all the great discoveries already in the Enlightenment. And then somehow we did all the great discoveries in the 60s. But now all the great discoveries are finished forever. Your lack of imagination doesn't get to decide what I'll do tomorrow, or decide what those billions of new people will do, or decide Earth's carrying capacity.
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May 9, 2017 01:29
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Billzasilver posted:I believe it because most human progress is serendipitous. What we call black swans. Watt's steam engine was invented in a stupid way. Penicillin was invented in a stupid way. Last month, a powerful enzyme for digesting plastic was discovered in a stupid way. On the one hand, there's no evidence I'm aware of that the rate and/or chances of world-changing scientific breakthroughs increases as a function of population in the modern era, and overhauling our cities will be a lot harder if there are more people in them. On the other hand, your arguments are mostly irrelevant anyways considering that Peak Baby happened in 1963.
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May 9, 2017 01:42
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Paradoxish posted:It's almost certainly going to be less immediately disruptive and less costly (both in human and economic terms) over the long run to abandon at-risk communities sooner rather than later. The ideal situation is to pressure people to leave these areas rather than to deal with the aftermath of a community devastated by an unexpectedly serious storm. It's not actually a good thing to push back mitigation efforts for problems that we know are going to be unavoidable. That's all true enough, but doesn't most of humanity live on the coast? Like, where access to that water and fishing and trade is vital for living? It seems like trying to move them all inland early would be a different disaster. If it was more gradual, would it start with the richest people from each city? Would it be one city at a time, just staying ahead of those weather events you mentioned? If anyone has information, id love to see it. I'm only aware of one small town that's relocated due to ocean levels rising so far. I'm also seeing the refugee crisis in America right now, and coastal relocation will absolutely be a refugee situation. I'm wondering what a well ordered refugee migration could possibly look like. Edit: Forever_Peace posted:. That's fine by me too, tyvm Billzasilver fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 9, 2017 |
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May 9, 2017 01:42
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Billzasilver posted:I believe it because most human progress is serendipitous. What we call black swans. Watt's steam engine was invented in a stupid way. Penicillin was invented in a stupid way. Last month, a powerful enzyme for digesting plastic was discovered in a stupid way. This is the most cornucopian post I've read this year.
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May 9, 2017 01:50
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Billzasilver posted:I believe it because most human progress is serendipitous. What we call black swans. Watt's steam engine was invented in a stupid way. Penicillin was invented in a stupid way. Last month, a powerful enzyme for digesting plastic was discovered in a stupid way. technology is highly specialized that heavily relies on globalized resources. I'm sure there are some amazing discoveries still be made, but not much can be done when the world around you is falling apart.
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May 9, 2017 01:55
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To actually engage the idea, giving Billzasilver the benefit of being myopic rather than willfully ignorant: While most scientific discoveries are indeed be serendipitous, can occur anywhere, and there's much to discover still in this fashion, when it comes to the fields of material sciences, information technologies, molecular biology, high-energy physics etc - that is, the fields whose breakthroughs usher true revolutions across a wide if not the complete range of scientific endeavor - the only way to test theories lies in limited and highly specialized laboratories. As in teams of scientists, experts in their fields, have to fight each other for time/money in order to get a chance to prove whether all their fancy research papers are right or wrong. The idea that more people == more science output therefore we should encourage more people to be born despite how problematic that is, is a laughably simplistic take on the tenets of futurists, who worship Technology and believe all problems of the human condition can eventually be solved through Technology and therefore doing everything in mankind's power to encourage more Technology is the moral imperative, and it's just as loving wrong.
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May 9, 2017 02:09
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Forever_Peace posted:On the one hand, there's no evidence I'm aware of that the rate and/or chances of world-changing scientific breakthroughs increases as a function of population in the modern era, and overhauling our cities will be a lot harder if there are more people in them. I don't know how many times I have to reference Geoffrey West in this thread but there's lots of research done on population density and innovation. Here's a paper from ten years ago: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/17/7301.abstract
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May 9, 2017 02:14
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By far the limiting factor in technology advancement is money and funding. Scientists tend to have families and other things that require having a salary to support, and most fields of science also require expensive tools. Climate science requires very expensive super computers. Fusion power requires absurd funding in building test reactors and prototypes. Its utterly irrelevant if the next einstein is born in the third without access to an education. Funding for climate science has been gutted in Canada, USA and Australia.
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May 9, 2017 02:25
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Man, the developing world has money and computers and labs and teams of scientists too. It's very odd how often you guys have brought up the idea of a poor Einstein being born. Minge Binge posted:technology is highly specialized that heavily relies on globalized resources. I'm sure there are some amazing discoveries still be made, but not much can be done when the world around you is falling apart. Agreed. Climate change and limited resources are not the same topic, although they tend to be brought up together. For dealing with climate change, I think the effects will hit soon enough that technologies won't have any real effect at all. It's much more of a social dilemma, and really needs to be marketed to politicians, corporations, and the masses. To that end, does a change in lifestyle to reduce pollution have any short term benefits? I'm pretty sure it's just more expensive and requires more exercise that Americans hate.
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May 9, 2017 03:00
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Lifestyle changes to reduce carbon footprint are only more expensive when they involve not actually giving up creature comforts. Buying less poo poo, consuming less electricity, and driving less can only reduce your expenses.
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May 9, 2017 03:11
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Conspiratiorist posted:We're already likely at the point where if current civilization collapses, a future one (be it human descendants or a new sapient species) won't have a chance at developing comparable tech and infrastructure levels due to our exploitation of fossil fuels and rare earths. I never understood that argument. Wouldn't they just be digging most of their resources out of the old crap we left lying around? Sure, the fossil fuels are gone, but the rare-earth minerals aren't actually destroyed.
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May 9, 2017 04:12
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Wanderer posted:I never understood that argument. Wouldn't they just be digging most of their resources out of the old crap we left lying around? Sure, the fossil fuels are gone, but the rare-earth minerals aren't actually destroyed. Like most ideas on this topic, it's just a common sci-fi trope and not really deep enough to be justified or explained.
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May 9, 2017 04:46
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Billzasilver posted:Man, the developing world has money and computers and labs and teams of scientists too. It's very odd how often you guys have brought up the idea of a poor Einstein being born. None of our global climate change models come from the developing world. None of our fusion reactors are in the developing world. Nuclear, solar or wind technological developments are not coming from the developing world. Nor are battery technological innovations or developments in self driving cars. Its fundamentally a shortage of capital and to be honest, developing countries typically have very pressing needs for what funds they have.
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May 9, 2017 06:23
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Conspiratiorist posted:Lifestyle changes to reduce carbon footprint are only more expensive when they involve not actually giving up creature comforts. Well yeah, more expensive to do a similar thing. Like eating or having light. I guess I was asking if that's universally true, or if there's some instances that can be less expensive. (Of course, avoiding exercise should still be top priority)
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May 9, 2017 14:24
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Billzasilver posted:Man, the developing world has money and computers and labs and teams of scientists too. It's very odd how often you guys have brought up the idea of a poor Einstein being born. climate change and limited resources are absolutely the same topic. Climate change is a problem because it limits our access to resources.
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May 9, 2017 18:53
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Not true! It's opening up all sorts of Artic oil drilling!
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May 9, 2017 21:01
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https://twitter.com/KHayhoe/status/862146882679836672
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May 10, 2017 05:25
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That is good news, but I'd be more interested in seeing a poll on how many people would be willing to make material sacrifices (even small ones) to do something about it. Are people willing to elect politicians who will raise taxes to fund green initiatives? Are people willing to change their buying or travel habits? Not trying to be a downer, but this always feels like a major hard/soft support issue. It's easy to say that you're concerned, but it's harder to support specific policies.
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May 10, 2017 05:30
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People are thrilled to make sacrifices when given a shared goal and a strong leader. This is 100% a failure of our leadership system. Look at Kennedy or Churchill or Hitler promising toil and service to cheering crowds. We could be fixing this right now. It is insane that a major crisis coincides with low labor participation. People would get behind a climate change Apollo program if our leadership wanted to do one. Instead our leaders appear to have decided to continue enriching themselves in the short term and, if they've thought this far, relying on the power of state repression in the future when the consequences come around. History will not be kind to the leaders of the early 21st century. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 05:53 on May 10, 2017 |
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May 10, 2017 05:48
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Nah, America got behind the Apollo program because it was a Cold War space race with Russia as the opponent. If Kennedy was president today and made a similar appeal with regards to climate change, it would basically be ignored. The scale is also vastly different. Climate change is a global problem. Even if America took its emissions all the way down to zero tomorrow, we would still be hosed. As humanity we simply have not developed the mechanisms to deal with problems of this magnitude. In fact many of our existing mechanisms (e.g. existence of different nation states) are actively counterproductive. We need a single unified world government to tackle planetary scale issues and that is simply not gonna happen.
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May 10, 2017 06:42
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Oh good, people are starting to believe 60 years of scientific understanding. It's about 30 years too late, though.
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May 10, 2017 06:45
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One of the questions should be if global warning would pose a threat to your children's lifetime.
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May 10, 2017 07:27
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Is there a website/study that details what a carbon neutral humanity would have to look like? If all seven billion people had the same resources/lifestyle and we weren't going to gently caress up the future in any catastrophic way, what would our lives be like? Preferably one that doesn't presume fusion power or asteroid mining or any such other currently only-in-Elon-Musk's-head type tech.
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May 10, 2017 09:15
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