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What Will Happen in the 2020s

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Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#441

Post by brlewis »

cletus wrote: post #416

So, I have a problem with a large number of these points. Each point alone requires a long rebuttal that no one would read. I think Fred is way off here. The bullet points: 1. There will be no global change in human behaviour and activity that is against the short term interests of those people. Period. The way to replace fossil fuels with renewables is by them being a cheaper source of power. We're well on the way h…

> Each point alone requires a long rebuttal that no one would read

I'd like to sell you a solution for that. Brief bullet points like the one you made are readable, but when people disagree you need hypertext links to your supporting arguments. I made a web app for creating such trees of arguments. Here's an example in which you'll see I think the dangers of nuclear waste are debatable: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_is_a_crucial_comp...

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#442

Post by fnord77 »

opportune wrote: post #236

I don’t really buy into 4-6. I don’t see any benefit for a country to turn its currency into a crypto asset. Either they are relinquishing a great deal of control in democratizing their financial system (also exposing themselves to attack), or it’s a crypto in name only that doesn’t seem any better than digital cash through banks except for a buzzword. Decentralization is hit or miss. You get economies of scale with…

the trend of the world has been to decrease transaction friction and costs. Crypto increases both.

And moving to crypto is like going back on the gold standard. No way to expand or contract monetary supply.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#443

Post by mrfusion »

andrewem wrote: post #286
Spooky23 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPS thing is a no-brainer, as we need it to replace fuel excise taxes. As for the rest, no way. The GOP has pivoted to being the rural party, and rural folks can not afford drone cars and will be paralyzed without them.

I recall a discussion of this point on HN a long time ago, but GPS is only one way to charge taxes based on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) - another, which is less invasive, is just to read the vehicle's odometer on some regular basis, either by hand when doing an annual vehicle safety inspection, or automatically by having the vehicle transmit the data. Certainly those have risks of tampering, but so does GPS.

Or report your odometer reading every time you renew your registration with steep fines for lying.

Or simply add a tax on new cars. Those who drive a lot will have to replace their vehicles more often and pay more tax.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#444

Post by brlewis »

zik wrote: post #404
brlewis wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar wrecking the economics for nuclear looks unlikely to me: https://en.howtruthful.com/o/nuclear_power_can_replace_coal_...

Check the rate of nuclear power plants being built. It's fallen off a cliff. The people who finance nuclear reactors already think that nuclear power will be uneconomic in the lifetime of any new plants.

I looked that up. There are 450 plants in operation worldwide and 50 under construction. That sounds like healthy growth. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-an...

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#445

Post by wongarsu »

henrikschroder wrote: post #423
cletus wrote: post #416

So, I have a problem with a large number of these points. Each point alone requires a long rebuttal that no one would read. I think Fred is way off here. The bullet points: 1. There will be no global change in human behaviour and activity that is against the short term interests of those people. Period. The way to replace fossil fuels with renewables is by them being a cheaper source of power. We're well on the way h…

Actually, one more significant problem with nuclear power is that there isn't enough manufacturing capability to build reactor cores. Most existing reactors are decades old, and although we have a lot of theoretical knowledge on how to build reactors, how to build more modern reactors than the existing ones, we globally lack the practical know-how, there's no assembly line that we can just pick up reactors from. So t…

"Modern" reactor designs would indeed solve many problems with nuclear energy. But nuclear reactors are for the most part extremely expensive projects with high risks, so only conservative designs that are well tested are actually being built. This has been a problem for the last four decades, and I don't see why it would suddenly change. If anything risk appetite probably decreases as civilian nuclear reactors stop making financial sense.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#446

Post by mrfusion »

dionidium wrote: post #401
mymythisisthis wrote: post #126

All cars will be required to have dashcams. Either by insurance companies or by governments. All cars will be required to have GPS, and be tracked in real time. This is already the case with the majority of commercial vehicles. Incremental steps in autonomous cars, first starting with 'drone' cars. Cars and trucks that are operated from a remote location. This will be piggy backed on existing technology. Cheap camera…

Why limit it to tracking? Why do we put these powerful machines in the hands of users that we know with certainty will kill themselves and others at a predictable rate and then just ask them nicely not to do harm? The technology required to geofence, speed-regulate, and otherwise control where, when, and how fast cars can go already exists. Why aren't we using it? We don't need fully autonomous cars. There are all ki…

Good point but could get tricky for edge cases. Medical emergencies where every second counts for example or escaping violence.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#447

Post by aaron695 »

These are realy realy awful predictions.

> We will see real estate values collapse in some of the most affected regions and we will see real estate values increase in regions that benefit from the warming climate.

What happens this decade is the same as the last decade.

The difference is small for any measure. Seas rise at about the same rate, climate changes at the same rate. wtf? If anything technology is improving and long term implementations are starting to be implemented to reduce the issues we saw from the last decade.

> Plant based diets will dominate the world

Meat will rise and continue to rise. The world is getting richer, this stats are undeniable. It's like they look at the fad at McDonalds down the road and extrapolate across the world. Once lab based meat becomes normal (perhaps this decade) it will increase even faster.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#448

Post by anonytrary »

augustt wrote: post #93
anonytrary wrote: post #64

The climate crisis will be exacerbated by the increasing centralization of large cities. Humans are tending towards centralized population hubs, and away from rural areas. This will be the main catalyst for adopting greener infrastructure. Fear of permanent climate change will not be the catalyst, as that is a long term repercussion of not solving the pollution problem, and humans have never been good about preparing…

I thought it was the other way around? Don't people in cities have a lower carbon footprint because of public transportation, smaller homes, and other things that can be shared?

Yes it seems people were confused by my first sentence. I should have said "the perception of the climate crisis will increase, leading to faster adoption of green policies".

There's a reason why people in rural areas are less aware of climate change due to human pollution. The effects of pollution are much less apparent in rural areas due to the far lower human density. Rural areas are "clean" to the human eye, so we have large swaths of the population that simply don't care about long term effects of pollution, because to them, even the short-term effects are almost indiscernible.

People are moving to cities at a faster rate despite the proliferation of the internet. As such, we'll eventually reach a critical mass of the population that eventually leads us to adopting greener policies. All because people are moving into cities from rural areas. I get that it sounds counterintuitive.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#449

Post by mekster »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #61
neonate wrote: post #45

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Why do they need 150 people to run a non interactive site?

I'm not against anything about them but if they want donations, their way of expense should be clearer.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#450

Post by spodek »

jtr1 wrote: post #425
spodek wrote: post #418

Climate left out many other environmental issues: pollution, plastic, extinctions, etc Most of all Overpopulation. People fear discussing it now because they only know of China's policy and eugenics. I predict that the successful, non-coercive policies of Thailand, Iran, Mexico, etc that increased peace, prosperity, and stability will become better known. Those models will lead us to realize that we can peacefully an…

I'm intrigued by this and definitely open to learning more about de-growth models. Would you mind providing some examples of the policies implemented in these countries?

Alan Weisman's book Countdown revealed to me about countries that lowered birth rates without coercion. Before reading it I only know about the one-child policy and some eugenics attempts. I highly recommend the book. I just recorded a conversation with him for my podcast. Fascinating conversation but it's still in the editing queue.

Off the top of my head, his main examples were Thailand, Iran, and Mexico. Here's a piece on Thailand https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer. Wikipedia covers Iran between 1989 and 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_planning_in_Iran. Cultures including Japan and Italy saw dramatic decreases in birthrates without focused efforts.

Here are videos of him: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alan+weisman&oq.... I haven't watched them, but probably will give you a jump start on the book.

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