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Oh, 2022

antipope.org

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Re: Oh, 2022

#471

Post by mekkkkkk »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #443
beambot wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the irony in SFBA of major tech companies building their new HQs right on the water's edge. They'll be the first to acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, yet I've never been able to get a satisfactory justification for their realestate decisions.

Maybe because Silicon Valley is the ultimate location for maximizing race and class exclusion. It is a de-facto exclusionary zone with minimal accessibility for Black workers and Black families, often by designs, covenants, zoning, and hostility going back 100 years. In order for those entities to opportunity hoard for their own children they need a class exclusive, car-dependent community with low access for 'others…

How did you manage to get a race angle into this? And which "designs" and "covenants" are you talking about?

Re: Oh, 2022

#472

Post by nottorp »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #299
Apocryphon wrote: post #198

YMMV, but feels to me that cstross's Cassandra pessimism has increased rapidly each year, with good reason, but some of these pieces are overly-sensationalist. I still remember his whole bit in 2017 about how Hurricane Harvey was going to destroy Houston - how'd that turn out? http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/08/houston-... But I will say his 2015 piece, "A different cluetrain", still holds up with gr…

The trouble with blogs like antipope is that more often than not they read like GPT-3, or a more advanced GPT-4, where every sentence seems coherently linked with every surrounding sentence but there’s something that doesn’t seem quite right upon reflection. And so quite a lot of readers think there is some super duper smart guy offering this cool hidden insight that they can easily use, only to forget it by the next…

> And so quite a lot of readers think there is some super duper smart guy offering this cool hidden insight that they can easily use

Most "cool hidden insight" can be attributed more to the autor's writing skill (and acting skill if it's youtube talking heads) than to any actual useful info inside. Do not let yourself be mislead by Mr Stross' profession, most internet "experts" are even worse than that. And they don't even admit they're fiction writers.

Re: Oh, 2022

#473

Post by bdsa »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #375
ehsankia wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of my favorite "true but hard to believe" fact. Imagine you have a string wrapped tightly around the earth, how much more string to you need to raise the string 10cm above the ground everywhere? The answer just feels so hard to believe, but it indeed only depends on pi and 10cm.

For someone like me, who's ability to do math stops when they run out of fingers and toes, what's the answer?

2pi multiplied by how much you want to raise the string, I believe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_girdling_Earth

Re: Oh, 2022

#474

Post by Kye »

arethuza wrote: post #424
ineedasername wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, in Accelerando the ability by meat people to even vaguely understand Economics 2.0 required something like a literal bolt-on addition to the human cognition system.

Reading most stuff on "crypto" I tend to feel I need a bolt on to my cognition system - but then again I'm probably just getting old. :-)

Nine times out of ten, when something new seems too complex to understand, it's not. It's just been obfuscated to make it seem complicated to sell you something.

Most genuinely new things haven't had time to get too complicated for one person to get a functional understanding of the whole situation. You could talk to web servers in telnet and make the most complex web page anyone had ever made in Notepad long before starting a new web thing from a guide required a half gigabyte download.

Cryptocurrency is a small step forward with some potential to make online transactions easier. That's it. That's cryptocurrencies. Anyone making it more complicated is trying to fleece you. The most complicated thing is smart contracts, and what they are and what they do is right there in the name.

Re: Oh, 2022

#475

Post by h0nd »

gmuslera wrote: post #19

Should be be worried that the author of Accelerando complains about things going too fast? Future is complex, and not only "good" developments happens and start changing everything faster than ever before, bad ones does too. And we aren't rational enough to avoid the bad ones. Anyway, I'm more worried about the consequences of climate change that are not the slow rise of the global sea level than about COVID. That is…

I am definitely not worried about the consequences of climate change. I am ready to deal with it. What I am worried about are politicians forcing us to do things justified by climate change.

Re: Oh, 2022

#476

Post by matt_the_bass »

cstross wrote: post #78
gmuslera wrote: post #19

Should be be worried that the author of Accelerando complains about things going too fast? Future is complex, and not only "good" developments happens and start changing everything faster than ever before, bad ones does too. And we aren't rational enough to avoid the bad ones. Anyway, I'm more worried about the consequences of climate change that are not the slow rise of the global sea level than about COVID. That is…

I wrote Accelerando from 1998-2004. That's a third of a lifetime ago. It's normal to slow down as you grow older!

Wow! I just stumbled across your novels a month ago (recommendation by my library) and am currently reading my 4th novel of yours. Small world! Thanks for chiming in.

Re: Oh, 2022

#477

Post by krageon »

erosenbe0 wrote: post #428
elihu wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think EVs will quickly overtake ICE vehicles once they're price competitive and battery manufacturing scales up to the levels needed, but that's a separate issue from government bans. My point is that several governments now have policies in place that say they're going to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles after a certain date. But they aren't going to disallow the use of ICE vehicles in their country or on their ro…

The total cost of ownership for an EV is still pathetic in a certain sense if I need to allot even 10 extra minutes waiting for a charge somewhere on a weekly basis. Especially a small business owner like Joe Plumber -- that's around 10k in lost job time over the life of the vehicle. If I'm well-off with thousands of watts wired to my garage then great but that's not so many people especially in denser cities as well…

> business fleets

In every case that I am aware of, a business takes care of this (i.e. I've seen it done). It's not exactly complicated - it's just a bit of work.

Re: Oh, 2022

#478

Post by mekkkkkk »

stickfigure wrote: post #208
coldtea wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since space debris in the satellite zone is already a problem, that's not a solution.

There isn't just one satellite zone. Starlink satellites are about 4 times closer to earth than than they are to the geosynchronous Hughesnet satellites. The starlink satellites are close enough that even after full Gravity -style Kessler syndrome, you could just wait several years and start over from scratch. Obviously that is something to avoid, but it's not like we're filling up a non-renewable resource in low ear…

Sorry if this a stupid question, but in the event of mass collisions a la Kessler, wouldn't some percentage of the debris get stuck in higher orbits? The kinetic force of collisions at those speeds seems pretty significant.

Re: Oh, 2022

#479

Post by krageon »

sulam wrote: post #456
erosenbe0 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recharge time needs to be under 10 minutes or you have a pipe dream. 5-7 minutes would be better. Too many renters, condo owners, and small businesses with fleets don't have time to deal charging.

The only time charging is a hassle is long road trips. And honestly the really fast chargers make that only marginally painful.

Even on a long road trip most stops will be for peeing, a drink and maybe snacks. The times you actually need gas are few and far between (obviously, because cars are efficient these days and the tanks are quite big).

If you're going to pee and get a sandwich with a meatball (or a hamburger, a sack of carrots or whatever it is counts as a snack for you) anyway, you may as well do so while charging your car. Given that even the really cheap ones can charge to a pretty significant level (80+%) in 20 minutes or so, these activities are compatible.

Re: Oh, 2022

#480

Post by Maakuth »

tm-guimaraes wrote: post #465
JulianMorrison wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the comments on Charlie's site, and not by me: Wyvernsridge | January 9, 2022 19:06 | Reply 8: I love these kinds of posts! I would, however, caution about thinking that the end of ICE car manufacturing will be dictated solely by government diktat. It will most likely come earlier and more chaotically because of manufacturers being unable to source parts and components to continue making those cars. The auto ind…

ICE cars are still needed because battery tech is not good enough. There are plenty of studies showing that an hybrid car is much better for the environment on the long term than the current state of lithium battery electric cars. Long range EV are a pest. Lithium mining is way worse for the environment than people believe, and there is the whole other issues related to mining in general. We still need ice cars

Source? This sounds awfully lot like the ICE manufacturer backed FUD about EVs.
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