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United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

cnbc.com

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Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#61

Post by Kerb_ »

ashildr wrote: post #57
barbazoo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to ChatGPT it takes at least 3 kWh to desalinate 1000l of salt-water. Following that math and its estimates on solar panels that would come down to 0.003 m^2 of solar panels per liters. UAE is about 83.6 billion m^2, lets assume half of that can be covered in solar panels, so that would be enough to desalinate 13 trillion liters of water. That sounds like it could be enough for a country like UAE by a facto…

So your reference is “According to ChatGPT”. Did you feel anything when typing this?

So, your argument is "you used ChatGPT for this". They didn't even write the comment with GPT, they just used it as a starting point for some napkin math. The other commenter not only dismissed the idea, but also emphasized how unrealistic and poorly planned it is by responding to the contents of the content, including how absurd it would be to implement that much solar coverage. I'm sure it's fun to make fun of the large language model, but at least it provided some drive to the conversation, even if its value was in being corrected. Did you feel like your addition was significant?

Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#62

Post by ch4s3 »

genman wrote: post #60
ch4s3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that simply giving people sex ed, ample forms of birth control, and women's rights leads to a self selection of fewer children. The devil is in the details here, and programs focused on contraceptives in developing nations have a very checkered recent history. > the earth can easily, EASILY, support more than ten billion humans if we stop being so damn stupid about resource utilization This is sort of what I'm driv…

You better give some references about this "checkered recent history" because for example the programs US had for Africa were removed by GWB in the beginning of century when there was still less then billion of people in Africa. Now there is close to twice as that and Africa is not able to feed itself because population is growing faster than its capacity to produce food. Normally those who stand against birth contro…

I'm not making an argument against birth control.

So as an example of checkered history, I'm referring to things like the push for circumcision as a measure to fight AIDs which has counterintuitively lead to a drop in condom usage in some places[1]. This is a great example of well meaning people from Europe and the US intervening in a way that makes things worse.

There have been concerns around HIV risk with DMPA[1] and ethical concerns about around the initial trials of the drug[3].

There were forced sterilizations in South Africa as recently as 2005[4].

There were similar issues in Kenya in the early 2010s[5].

My point was that people should look upon population alarmists with some skepticism, and when they talk about birth control in Africa I think it merits extra scrutiny.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3362967/

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7232639/

[3]https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2019.1...

[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51637751

[5] https://www.hhrjournal.org/2015/07/kenya-forced-sterilizatio...

Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#63

Post by genman »

ch4s3 wrote: post #62
genman wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You better give some references about this "checkered recent history" because for example the programs US had for Africa were removed by GWB in the beginning of century when there was still less then billion of people in Africa. Now there is close to twice as that and Africa is not able to feed itself because population is growing faster than its capacity to produce food. Normally those who stand against birth contro…

I'm not making an argument against birth control. So as an example of checkered history, I'm referring to things like the push for circumcision as a measure to fight AIDs which has counterintuitively lead to a drop in condom usage in some places[1]. This is a great example of well meaning people from Europe and the US intervening in a way that makes things worse. There have been concerns around HIV risk with DMPA[1]…

I don't see how any of this is relevant to the issue. I'm talking about birth control that is family planning, programs that provide contraceptives and these incidence are something completely different.

Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#64

Post by ch4s3 »

genman wrote: post #63
ch4s3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making an argument against birth control. So as an example of checkered history, I'm referring to things like the push for circumcision as a measure to fight AIDs which has counterintuitively lead to a drop in condom usage in some places[1]. This is a great example of well meaning people from Europe and the US intervening in a way that makes things worse. There have been concerns around HIV risk with DMPA[1]…

I don't see how any of this is relevant to the issue. I'm talking about birth control that is family planning, programs that provide contraceptives and these incidence are something completely different.

My original statement was "programs focused on contraceptives in developing nations have a very checkered recent history.".

Forced sterilization falls neatly in that category.

Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#65

Post by ashildr »

Kerb_ wrote: post #61
ashildr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your reference is “According to ChatGPT”. Did you feel anything when typing this?

So, your argument is "you used ChatGPT for this". They didn't even write the comment with GPT, they just used it as a starting point for some napkin math. The other commenter not only dismissed the idea, but also emphasized how unrealistic and poorly planned it is by responding to the contents of the content, including how absurd it would be to implement that much solar coverage. I'm sure it's fun to make fun of the…

No, I didn‘t intend to make an argument, I was asking a genuine question because I‘m trying to understand the perspective on the world of people who consider LLM a kind of „source“. To me OP reads like “according to my Ouija board” and I’m frightened by the idea that people on HN are using the output of LLM as “quotable facts” (and not as a tool to start further research outside of it, which would be fine IMO.) I’d like to know if the poster had any doubts using ChatGPT as a source of fact to base their calculations on, when they obviously had access to the internet with all necessary sources to properlt calculate an answer for this basic question.

Re: United Arab Emirates is using cloud seeding tech to make it rain

#66

Post by genman »

ch4s3 wrote: post #64
genman wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how any of this is relevant to the issue. I'm talking about birth control that is family planning, programs that provide contraceptives and these incidence are something completely different.

My original statement was "programs focused on contraceptives in developing nations have a very checkered recent history.". Forced sterilization falls neatly in that category.

These examples are about infectious disease control and not about family planning.
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