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I Choose Optimism

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Re: I Choose Optimism

#141

Post by boxed »

notahacker wrote: post #97
boxed wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is a text book case of projection. Everything written above is 100% true of the comment itself. Critical but without substance. Looks down their nose but not realizing they are lying on their back and actually lookup UP. The original article and Pinker are quite clear: there are HUGE problems to be solved. Theirs is not a philosophy of complacency, but of hard work. REAL hard work that can actually SUCCE…

> Pinker are quite clear: there are HUGE problems to be solved That's... not the impression I get from reading Pinker. On the contrary, he has an infuriating habit of presenting "x is getting better" shortly after bashing a straw man version of the groups working hardest to make x better. Everyone from civil rights activists to software developers who worked on on the Millennium Bug were, in Pinker's eyes, committing…

Source?

Re: I Choose Optimism

#142

Post by boxed »

orang2tang wrote: post #126
boxed wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole point is that God loves his people enough to save them, the Church will expand, and Christ will return in glory. ish. It also promises that not even death is an escape, but that God will raise all the dead and judge an enormous majority to be literally thrown into a valley of fire. Reading the Bible I see more of a threat, than a promise.

But just as sin entered the world through one man, it was defeated through one man as well, Jesus Christ. There is no condemnation for anyone who believes in Jesus. So being saved from hell is quite simple, which is why it's called "the good news" or the gospel. And that's God's plan for humanity, and he's begging you to simply seek this man named Jesus. God's wisdom is made that much more powerful in what some might…

Btw, if you are honestly trying to sell christianity, don't say stuff like "realize their very nature offends God (because he is perfect so anything less than perfect is an offense to him)" or "the circumcision of the heart" (lol!).

> So for you I would say you're blinded by the problem of hell.

I'm "blinded" by the threat of torture for the majority of humans? I don't think you can be "blinded" by such an atrocity that makes Hitler look like a total wimp. You are LITERALLY claiming that ALL jews that were killed by Hitler will be reincarnated by God and then tortured. And of course all other Jews, past and present. And all atheists, muslims, sheiks, hindus.

And somehow you can't see the problem...

Re: I Choose Optimism

#143

Post by Mezzie »

pochekailov wrote: post #51

I am commenting in support of optimism and to counterweight pessimistic outlook. Humanity indeed faces a lot of problems. Each of them have many possible solutions (The only one unsolvable is a heat death of the universe). Thing is, the solutions usually may be divided into two categories: technical and societal. For example, for the horse manure problem in big cities there were two possible solutions: invent a car,…

I'm not sure if I agree on the dichotomy of technical vs. social solutions.

Where would you place something like efforts to increase a population literacy rates? It's not a new technical advantage, but it doesn't suck or limit possibilities. If anything, it creates them, since a literate population is one you can teach to drive, where employers can assume literacy for training purposes, where governments can give information to their people in writing, where people can read their own religious texts without intermediaries, etc.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#144

Post by _benedict »

wizofaus wrote: post #132
_benedict wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of years of what? We have maybe a few hundred years of helium if we’re generous with our assumptions and we’re literally squirting that into balloons and letting it float away into the atmosphere and off into space . It’s literally an unrecoverable loss. This is just one of the many resource limits we’re facing as a species, and this is how we address it today.

Has anyone actually seriously worked out how much party balloons contribute to the loss of helium from the atmosphere? And isn't helium an expected waste product from fusion reactors? Not saying it's not an issue but I'm not convinced it's worth getting too upset over just yet.

https://www.helium-one.com/helium-market/

Apparently 8%. But all of these industries waste it unnecessarily, due to our failing to price in or consider the future scarcity.

Helium as a waste product of fusion reactors is such a pipe dream, and will produce such tiny volumes should that ever happen, that it is not a remotely realistic solution to the problem.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#145

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

goodpoint wrote: post #137
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen would also help with re-using all the ICE cars we have (and will continue to have) on the roads. Definitely not a panacaea, and super-inefficient, but that's OK if we're just using it for storage/transportation.

super-inefficient?

as in it's only worth doing if you have nothing else to do with the energy (like when you have too much wind/sun etc)

Re: I Choose Optimism

#146

Post by robertlagrant »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #131
thrown_22 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we just stop pretending that nuclear is bad and build the plants to keep an industrial base going past 2050. Hell at this point whoever does will just conquer whoever doesn't. Just like the industrial revolution let whoever burn coal take over the rest. I'm hoping to be in a country that isn't conquered, but the west seems to have entered a death spiral of self delusion.

Well in theory, yes. In practice, the Russians have captured a large nuclear reactor and may use it as a dirty bomb if things don't go their way. Can't turn a solar panel or windmill into a weapon like that. You could turn a hydroelectric dam in a weapon though, I believe that's the plot of a few films. And solar heat collectors are impractical death rays.

> In practice, the Russians have captured a large nuclear reactor and may use it as a dirty bomb if things don't go their way

This is still theory unless they actually use it for that.

Also, Russia's own Kursk 2 isn't very far from the captured one. They could turn that into a dirty bomb too. Recency bias on a threat shouldn't overwhelm normal analysis.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#147

Post by peteradio »

neilwilson wrote: post #108
NovaVeles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I have to remind people of all the time - usually I just get blank stares. Forget the dollars and cents tokens on wealth, they can and are manipulated but intentionally and unintentionally. How much energy and resources that gets us do we have? That is the real currency we have to work with. All the debt in the world means nothing if we cannot produce the goods with the token we produced assuming th…

If I have a debt of £50 and you have the corresponding £50 asset that you like to look at, then you don't need any material amount of energy to get to that state of happiness. I have to remind people all the time of a simple truth - there isn't a one to one relationship between money and stuff. And money isn't real. It's largely an illusion. At best a social relation.

If I mortgage the singular life supporting planet we are aware of and don't pay back the debt...

Re: I Choose Optimism

#148

Post by taink »

goatlover wrote: post #45
salt-thrower wrote: post #18

This article comes across as extremely tone-deaf, and the author seems unaware of the existential scale of the problems humanity is facing. The fact that the phrase "climate change" only appears once - at the beginning, as a throwaway line - really speaks volumes. If the only problems we face were war and rising Christian fascism, I would also be optimistic, because those things can and have been fought successfully…

Does the IPCC report anywhere claim that climate change is an existential threat? What does a "code red" actually entail for the next century? Where in the climate science does it actually say that large ares of Earth will become functionally uninhabitable and the biosphere will collapse? Outside of hothouse Earth scenarios, which are deemed unlikely at this point within the 2.5-3.7 degrees warming scenarios, I'm not…

IPCC AR6 (2022)'s summary for policymakers [1] makes such a claim.

Here is the last paragraph:

"The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health. Any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all. (very high confidence)"

You can find more information here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-g...

[1]: https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg2/pdf/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPo...

Re: I Choose Optimism

#149

Post by goodpoint »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #145
goodpoint wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

super-inefficient?

as in it's only worth doing if you have nothing else to do with the energy (like when you have too much wind/sun etc)

That's just the concept of energy storage. And even if we lose a significant fraction it's often not an issue given how cheap solar is.

Re: I Choose Optimism

#150

Post by notahacker »

boxed wrote: post #141
notahacker wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pinker are quite clear: there are HUGE problems to be solved That's... not the impression I get from reading Pinker. On the contrary, he has an infuriating habit of presenting "x is getting better" shortly after bashing a straw man version of the groups working hardest to make x better. Everyone from civil rights activists to software developers who worked on on the Millennium Bug were, in Pinker's eyes, committing…

Source?

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