311–320 of 443 posts
Wow, I'm glad this was posted. I think the way we use technology today will be looked back on the same way we look back at naive cigarette smoking in the 1950s. Modern app design isn't about creating things that are good for the user, but about creating want in the user. This is a problem. For example, there are several studies showing that using Facebook in general makes people less happy. User happiness just happen…
I enjoyed the article. The most important takeaway for me was " now companies have a responsibility to reduce these effects by converting intermittent variable rewards into less addictive, more predictable ones with better design" I think most of the techniques listed actually cause pain for users, the same way addictions do. I think a lot of people are aware at some level that they are giving up to temptation and it…
I realized that it is through apparent unpredictability of my actions that I perceive my own free will (or at least the illusion of it, depending on one's philosophy). If a computer can acurately predict my actions, it feels like my free will is taken away from me. And free will is one of the few things that truly sets us apart from mere automatons. (At least IMHO.)
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Actually, the Roman pipe store is a bit of an urban legend. According to this PNAS [0] paper: "Lead pollution of “tap water” in Roman times is clearly measurable, but unlikely to have been truly harmful." [0] http://www.pnas.org/content/111/18/6594.full
I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
Apparently google has an Ethicist. Ctrl-F: Ad Huh. Zero mentions of the thing that manipulates people by design. I guess I don't blame him, because even with a blind spot to ads it would seem Google still doesn't give two shits about his input. He explicitly calls out a problem YouTube feature, which he certainly would have voiced internally before externally. And he doesn't work at Google anymore. Google must want r…
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The car analogy isn't very solid because most drivers are invested in their own safety as opposed to the fracking industry which only cares about environmental damage insomuch as it represents a financial liability. You claim that fracking can be done safely with good regulations, and I appreciate the nuance in your response, but for the most part, fracking proponents tend to be categorically opposed to regulation be…
Then I would argue the biggest threat to safe and effective fracking is Saudi Arabia. As long as fuel prices are low, people are more willing to cut corners to make a profit. If prices are high, the added costs of effective regulation are an easier sell. Otherwise, you make a great point.
Your claim on the other hand is just an opinion at this point as I have seen nothing that indicates low oil prices lead to worse practices and procedures among domestic fracking firms.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/07/opec-plan-k...
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Dangerous doesn't mean too dangerous. Nuclear energy is dangerous but any projection of energy use that accommodates growing population and energy usage AND expects carbon reductions AND doesn't include growing nuclear use is simply impossible. EDIT: Also worth noting that there is a clear correlation between the increase of electronics/battery recycling in the West and lead poisoning cases in Kenyan children where t…
Nuclear power can be done safe, but we also have many examples of it not being done safe. Saying, "well it will be different this time. We will build systems to make corruption, laziness, and dangerous actions impossible!" is believing in a pipe dream.
We don't have to do it differently in the future ("this time"), we just need to do it marginally better over time. Every new power plant built, whether goal or gas or nuclear, or solar / wind, is marginally better than the previous design because of what we've learned.
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I don't know if that shows what you suggest it does. Using lead tainted water for irrigation is also harmful because plants will transmit that lead to people though their diet. Further, lead sticks around in contaminated soils and accumulates over time. In that context, every lead source ends up becoming increasingly important.
If plants transmit the lead to those who eat them how can it also accumulate in the soil? The plants would bioremediate the soil.
Note, you would really get a differential equation with several terms, but more or less the same idea just after more time and balanced with water that overflows the field etc.
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What about leaks (almost common in old plants) and the nuclear waste storage problem? There is plenty of energy out there. Recent advances in solar and wind technology make it within reach. Nuclear is simply not an economical solution.
Exactly as you said: old plants. We don't update them as we should to make them as safe as they can be. That's not an engineering problem, that's a political problem. Waste storage? Same story. We have plenty of useless desert in the US, but people don't want to be anywhere remotely near them. Recent advances in solar and wind technology might make it within reach...if we were dealing with 1-2 billion people, not clo…
More concerning would be the chemical toxicity hazard, but that is void because nuclear waste is vitrified (turned in to glass), which makes it extremely chemically inert.
Then there's the possibility of recycling the spent fuel (waste?) in fast spectrum reactors, if we can work out how to do that reliably / economically.