Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
They were chrome or brushed steel, not silver.
Is technology developing too slowly?
- Thread starter On Fire
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maomao
普費斯
You can read can't you? I'm arguing that tackling consumption should be the priority.
maomao
普費斯
Hardly. You're the one urging the human race on to further consumption because you cant envisage a world where people can't spend their money on whatever they want. I'm arguing for less consumption, less work and better quality of life for all.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Money? I don't give a shit about money. I've been talking about energy. Societies need a plentiful source of energy, regardless of whether or not they use money. If we want to get any significant amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere, that's going to need a lot of energy too.
bcuster
Well-Known Member
fusion, preferably...
maomao
普費斯
Energy costs money. You accuse others of being wed to 'neoliberal individualism' because you can only imagine cutting consumption as personal choice.
I'm in favour of as many cheap or free energy sources as possible. But betting the future of the human race on them becoming available any time soon is a bit like setting off for alpha centauri in a rocket ship because you reckon ftl travel is possible in the future.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Energy can also make money. But to do shit we need energy, and there's a lot of shit we need to do. Cutting consumption is always framed as a personal choice, it's inherent in the word much as it is in the word "consumer". If by "cutting consumption" people mean improving efficiency and reducing the massive amounts of waste inherent to current way of doing things, then they should just say as much. Maybe that way they might get less pushback from ordinary folks.
There's nothing hypothetical about it. My point is that we already have a mature technology capable of providing a dense non-carbon energy source. Between nuclear fission and cheap solar, the problem has already been technologically licked. It's a political issue, so going on about "reducing consumption" is not only unnecessary, it gives ammunition to the antis.
maomao
普費斯
Your framing it as that because you can't conceive of anything except neoliberal individualism. It's not inherent in the word consumer at all, it's a connotation it gained in the last 2-3 decades of the twentieth century.
You've solved the waste problem then?
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
And it's the connotation it still has now, which I am not responsible for.
I didn't solve it, other people already did, see my post on the previous page. The waste problem of nuclear fission is massively oversold.
maomao
普費斯
You're responsible for being deliberately obtuse. All you've proved is that you're the one glued to neoliberalism.
You mean the content that you edited in after I'd already replied to it? There's a lot of bollocks on Youtube and I'm unable to watch videos right now. A quick Google suggests it's still widely considered a problem. You okay with one of these concrete waste repositories being built under your house?
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Go on then, ignore the contemporary connotations of the words you choose. Ideology trumps reality after all, doesn't it?
Actually, I am. For the same reasons that I'd be OK with living in an area with natural uranium deposits. When you say it's a problem, what do you mean exactly? Because someone with an unreasonable position on the matter will find insurmountable problems no matter what. So what specific issue has you so convinced?
maomao
普費斯
At some point this winter, European countries, faced with a shortage of natural gas, will have to make the choice of whether they are going to limit consumption of gas by letting the price go so high that some of us won't be able to keep warm or by rationing and targetting supplies. If this can only ever be a 'consumer' issue for you then there's only really one possibility isn't there.
It causes childhood cancers. In low numbers but we currently have relatively few nuclear power stations. I'm aware that burning fossil fuels causes lots of diseases including cancer too.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Your dichotomy is a false one. "Rationing and targeting supplies" could mean entirely different things, depending on who's making those decisions and who or what exactly is being prioritised to receive the limited supply.
That's debatable and the risk is small (1 2 3 4 ). Also, there is no reason to assume that any risks that are indeed present cannot be reduced any further. Incidence of childhood cancers is relatively low, with them being 1,838 cases out of the 375,400 of all cancer incidences in the UK during the period 2016-2018. The survival rates for childhood leukaemia are pretty good relatively speaking, with 90% five year survival rates for the most common form of childhood leukaemia. Deaths for all childhood cancers totalled 253 in the UK for the period 2017-2019.
On the other hand, fuel poverty creates misery for millions and ends lives. During the 2019-2020 winter nearly 8500 people died due to living in a cold home. No doubt better insulation could have saved a lot of those lives, but you've gotta input at least some energy into a home at some point in order to keep it warm. Would be nice if we could make use of a relatively compact source of energy that isn't significantly impacted by winter conditions.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
There is an energy crisis now. Not sure waiting 20-25 years to build a new nuclear power station will solve that and using cowboy builders isn't a good idea either.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
There is an energy crisis now. Not sure waiting 20-25 years to build a new nuclear power station will solve that and using cowboy builders isn't a good idea either.
It's going to take just as long to do the same with renewables, because of their lower energy density means you need to build more square footage, plus the greater need for energy storage in make up for discrepancies between when and where renewables are most productive, versus when people actually need to use the energy they produce. It would perhaps be nice if we made more use of pumped water storage in this country like at Dinorwig (assuming of course that such hydroelectric schemes don't have too high an environmental footprint on those nice high valleys that they're constructed in), but that kinda stuff isn't going to come quickly either.
Irony surely?
The anarchy of capital's technological development will likely wipe out humanity. It is horrifying to know, for example, that billionaire parasite Elon Musk is ploughing investment into the insertion of computer chips into animal brains - just because he has the power and wealth and control to do so. No democratic input, absence of proper democratic debate. Fuckin disgusts me just to think of the ethics of such an adventure. Capitalism and inequality is rapidly creating a society of purest evil.
www.manchester.ac.uk
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There is no money or control of the population in actually solving global warming.
Why on Earth would they let anyone impliment a solution?
Please stop being so naive.
There was already a Canadian research study re solving global warming using iron ore.
When the Canadian government realised it would actually work for just a few million, they promptly sent in a swat team to confiscate all the assets that the project had.
The thought of people being able to go back to the good old days of doing what they want and all of those green solutions that the rich are already invested in becoming worthless, really did scare the shit of out the Canadian establishment.
No no no no no, those scrapped ships can rust on the coasts of developing countries rather than actually be dumped at sea to help regrow coral reefs.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
no, carbon emissions are too high for the world to keep to 1.5 degrees and governments have done
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
there's all the money in the world in actually solving global warming - it's very hard to spend money in a world in which it has no value as the system behind it has collapsed
Wrong. There is all the money in the world making money.
They'd sooner spunk billions on controlling us rather than eating carbon.
Politicians got in on "green technology" before the rest of us.
There's a reason why there's such a thing as "qualified investors". They get in early, while the rest of us make them rich when pension funds buy their shite.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh which doesn't address what happens when in about 18 years civilisation collapses or in about 4 years after the great war of 2025, where we can expect some striking changes to the geopolitical realities of today
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I doubt if a problem created by the use of technology can be solved with more technology. At the same time, we've reached a point where we probably won't avoid the worst effects without it. I think we're toast, for the simple reason that we won't do anything meaningful, with or without technology. We just don't have the will to make the necessary changes.
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