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Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

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Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#111

Post by joeyo »

fleitz wrote: post #102
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if a vaccine for a deadly disease is not 100% safe then you wouldn't use it at all as actively killing 1% is worse than passively allowing 80% (say) to die? When making considerations of the well being of whole populations one has to consider the whole population not the individual. A decision to withhold food aid now might kill 10%, but supplying that food and buoying up the population until the next big crisis i…

I would provide access to the vaccine and individuals could choose whether they wanted to take it. It actually doesn't lead us to overpopulation. Once wealth & education increases to a certain point cultures change and people have fewer children. Paul Ehrlich went over this in the 60s and then made the famous wager with Simon over resources. I think this Malthusian argument has been thoroughly debunked. The best resu…

I would provide access to the vaccine and individuals could choose whether they wanted to take it.

That actually is a really bad idea from a public health perspective. Generally you need well in excess of 50% of the population to be vaccinated before it starts to provide protection to non-vaccinated individuals.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infec...

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#112

Post by LiveTheDream »

wazoox wrote: post #57
mhartl wrote: post #37

Before people freak out about exponential growth, please consider John McCarthy's Slogan. (Yes, that John McCarthy; Lisp isn't the only thing he's done.) He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense. http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/index.html Based on reactions to this video (among other things), I'd add Hartl's Counterpoint: Just because you're willing to do arithmetic doesn't mean you're n…

Huh. This guy is simply making the very basic point that politicians, economists and bankers selling us "growth" as a solution to unemployment, debt, etc are plainly lying. Growth (population, GDP, energy availability, etc) will stop at some point. An economy that relies entirely on growth to merely function is doomed to fail spectacularly at some point in time.

Is it still lying if you don't know that you are wrong?

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#113

Post by Daniel_Newby »

wazoox wrote: post #104
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We aren't building enough nuclear plants now to compensate for the future closing of the old ones." Which is an intentional choice, arising from a combination of ennui, defeatism, and witch hunting. Those political movements seem to have run their course. "Fusion research is blooming, but it didn't make much progress, particularly compared to the huge effort (see ITER)." Most of the tokamak megaprojects were done to…

> The barrier to space activity is heavy lift capability to get there at all. Pipe dreaming. The barrier to space is the _tremendous_ amount of energy required to get anything to low-earth orbit, let alone getting raw material going back from Jupiter's vicinity. Even with 1000 times better technology (which won't arrive soon), your asteroid iron still will be costlier than platinum. Science-fiction is mostly fiction,…

Nope. The energy cost is trivial. The cost of joules for a vacation to Europa is within upper middle class aspirations. It only costs so much because our lifters are hideously inefficient.

The reason rockets are so inefficient is that we don't know how to keep cracks from spreading through our structural materials, so we have to derate their strength by huge factors to get reliability. Nano- and micro-composite materials look like they will be able to vastly improve this situation (and indeed already are in the latest jetliners), and the rocket equation gives big big cost savings for weight savings. High strength materials are also good for rotovators and other semi-passive lifters.

Another big opportunity is to shift some of the propulsion to the ground. It should be straightforward to shine launch lasers up the tail of a standard rocket and reduce its propellant requirement by many percent, which the rocket equation then multiplies into a large cost savings. Exclusively laser launched vehicles are also possible but speculative at this point (they need visible light lasers to get range but those are still too inefficient). Most of the necessary technology exists or can easily be built. All we lack is the optimism to make the investment.

As for getting metal back, the asteroid belt is energetically close despite the distance. A small nuclear reactor and patience will do the job.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#114

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ihodes wrote: post #21
jackowayed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as easy as giving them contraceptives. Culture and pragmatism both frequently encourage large families. For example, farming families have major incentives to have large families so that the kids can help with the farming tasks. So you'll need a China-like child limit or some other way to incentivize them to actually use the contraception you provide.

I didn't say "just give them contraceptives." That's why education is key as well. People who are well-educated have less children, on average. Look at the US, for example. So educate them, and enable them to become wealthy. Right now, they can't.

>People who are well-educated have less children

But that doesn't mean that a well educated farmer will have less children. He can be as educated as you like but unless he can increase productivity in some way (access to loans for equipment say, like through Fairtrade) then he still has as much work to do and still needs to provide the labour.

Suppose the education increase yields, unless we're on top of the trading practices then the value falls - everyone's yield has increased, if this means the market saturates he might make less money (perhaps none). If the market hasn't saturated he still needs more labour to gather the increased yield but gets the same income to share amongst the labourers - increasing the pressure to provide cheap labour by expanding his family.

In short the problem is more complex and IMO is not due to lack of education. What you're saying is that a poor agricultural labourer should sacrifice there own ability to earn more in order to stave off over-population - why is it down to them.

I'll go with the converse though. If you ensure that workers get a fair wage (Fairtrade again), one that can pay basic healthcare and education costs and ensure they have healthy food intake and a reasonable dwelling, then there is less pressure to reproduce (but possibly more opportunity to choose to? again it's complex).

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#115

Post by ericb »

effn wrote: post #86
ericb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly the best thing that could be done for humanity in the next hundred years is to solve the lack of empathy for individuals and groups of people we have not met . I think if you had some friends in Africa that would be affected by your solution, you would feel very differently. I am not picking on you here--I think this is a failing in the way we're wired that some part of us (including me) can consider tragedy…

Do you seriously believe that subsidies of western farmers is helping people in Africa? What is the "tragedy as a possible solution" you are speaking of?

Honestly, my mistake.

I read something that made sense to me which was that OP was objecting to subsidies to African countries--not subsidies for Western farmers. My objection makes no sense in the context of what OP actually said.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#116

Post by madair »

In part three he brilliantly draws a distinction between the objective sciences and others and subtly, if I'm understanding correctly, critiques a proponent of uncontrolled population grown by pointing out that the proponents degree from the same university is not a degree in "mathematics, in science, nor in engineering".

Feynman made explicit observations on this topic, quite critical ones, if I remember right.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#117

Post by pjscott »

wazoox wrote: post #71
dagw wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that population growth cannot go on forever (although I consider doubling the current number quite likely). However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Things like solar energy in all its variations is also a source we basically aren't using at all. Give us 50-100 years…

> However I see no reason why energy availability can't keep growing for many many centuries to come. We aren't tapping the full potential of nuclear fission, to say nothing about fusion. Nuclear fission is currently on decline. We aren't even building enough power plants to maintain its output, nor are we likely to do so in the next 20 to 30 years. Industrial nuclear fusion is decades away, probably a century. From…

> Nuclear fission is currently on decline. We aren't even building enough power plants to maintain its output, nor are we likely to do so in the next 20 to 30 years.

Define "we". Take a look at China's nuclear power program sometime; they've brought the cost of their CPR1000 plants down to where they're cheaper to build than coal plants of the same size, and they're well on their way to do the same for the more modern AP1000 reactor design. They've got a bunch of new nuclear plants under construction, with more on the way as they pick up momentum. We're talking about 10-15 large reactors coming on line every year, with the production rate increasing as they ramp up.

Also, they've got their first commercial-scale pebble-bed reactors being built right now. If I remember correctly, they're also looking at incorporating thorium into the fuel mix.

Also, they're working on 40% and 70% more powerful versions of the AP1000 that will not add much to the cost. Nuclear power in China is going to be seriously cheap.

Also, they're working on fast breeder reactors, which use uranium much more efficiently. They're building two BN-800 reactors, working together with Russia, since Russia has been profitably operating fast breeder reactors in the BN series for decades.

If you're only looking at the US and Europe, then sure, the Nuclear Renaissance is looking a little feeble. But the US and Europe are not the whole world.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#118

Post by pjscott »

wazoox wrote: post #105
dagw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Thorium reactors are cool and all, they aren't necessary. It's not like we're about to run out of uranium any time soon. Hell, you can take your basic 1970's uranium reactor, incorporate everything we've learned about nuclear safety over the past 40 years, throw in some generic improvements to basic turbine technology and have a fully functional power plant that will do a splendid job for decades to come.

And still no proper way to manage nuclear waste.

Here are some options. Forgive my brevity, but I'm tired of people simply asserting that there's no way of managing nuclear waste.

* Throw it away. Deep-sea subduction zones work nicely for this. Tremendously wasteful, though; that "waste" is valuable fuel.

* Recycle the waste to decrease its volume. This isn't a full solution, but it makes the waste cheaper to store for a while.

* Store the waste for a while, and later we can use it in breeder reactors or fusion/fission hybrids. There's so much useful U-238 in that slightly-used fuel. After this, the waste is pretty much dead.

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#119

Post by CamperBob »

wazoox wrote: post #105
dagw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Thorium reactors are cool and all, they aren't necessary. It's not like we're about to run out of uranium any time soon. Hell, you can take your basic 1970's uranium reactor, incorporate everything we've learned about nuclear safety over the past 40 years, throw in some generic improvements to basic turbine technology and have a fully functional power plant that will do a splendid job for decades to come.

And still no proper way to manage nuclear waste.

I know! We can vaporize it and spew it into the air, like the coal industry already does with their radioactive waste!

Re: Our greatest shortcoming is our inability to understand the exponential function

#120

Post by wazoox »

pjscott wrote: post #118
wazoox wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still no proper way to manage nuclear waste.

Here are some options. Forgive my brevity, but I'm tired of people simply asserting that there's no way of managing nuclear waste. * Throw it away. Deep-sea subduction zones work nicely for this. Tremendously wasteful, though; that "waste" is valuable fuel. * Recycle the waste to decrease its volume. This isn't a full solution, but it makes the waste cheaper to store for a while. * Store the waste for a while, and la…

I'm tired of this toon and particularly of the general political atmosphere on HN (technology will solve all problems! yay!).

If it's so easy to get rid of nuclear waste, why didn't we do it yet?

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