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The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

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Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#211

Post by mym1990 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #118
mym1990 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are a planet of 8 billion people, interest will vary widely. Expecting everyone to swarm on the same issue at the same time is simply not how humanity has worked in the past. Innovation often happens because many people go different directions, testing what works and what doesn't. Getting AI to play SimCity may be a stepping stone to real life urban planning, or it may be nothing, who knows?

> Getting AI to play SimCity may be a stepping stone to real life urban planning Urban planning of the SimCity sort isn't particularly difficult. The associated politics are the issue.

Hence the "or it may be nothing"...

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#212

Post by filoeleven »

ctoth wrote: post #127
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not capital Capital, and by relation the system that centers the idea of Capital as a method for moving around resources is at the very center of this. Since Capital follows near-term incentive, if the "pollute the world" path has a greater near-term incentive, that's where the market will follow. If a single member of the system goes for long-term incentive(not cooking the earth), other near-term incentive chasers…

What you've done here is called a fully-general counterargument. You should be suspicious of these! If capital inevitably follows destructive local maxima and defectors get eaten, then no coordination problem has ever been solved, right? But we banned CFCs! We got lead out of gasoline! The Montreal Protocol exists and worked. What you're describing is the default behavior of uncoordinated markets, not a physical law.…

The government is failing to control the problem because it got bought out by the capitalists who run the companies that continue to cause the damage. The law in the US explicitly allows this, though it's "decent" enough to hide it in a paper bag.

It's certainly a governance failure, but I'm not sure what the fix for it is, and I don't see how capitalism gets off scot-free.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#213

Post by timschmidt »

usrnm wrote: post #194
timschmidt wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s not like companies are making a bunch of product just to throw them in the trash Sure they do. You even mention one in the venerable plastic bag. Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not. Is it the cheapest bag to produce? You betcha. Consumers are often presented the least expensive option with the worst outcomes. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

> Is it the best bag? No, of course not. Is it a good bag? Absolutely not Plastic is absolutely the best packaging material ever created, it's so good, it feels like magic. It's light, it's cheap, it's waterproof, it's durable and doesn't just decompose, it comes in a miriad shapes and forms and so on. There is a reason it's everywhere

> it's cheap, it's waterproof, it's durable

One of those adjectives describes the plastic bag I'm familiar with. Sometimes it lasts long enough to get the food in the house without spilling through a hole which spontaneously appeared in the bag.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#214

Post by hackyhacky »

davidw wrote: post #203
hackyhacky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual habits will not be decisive in fighting climate change. Telling people to follow this advice will (a) inconvenience them in the short term (b) lull them to a false sense of security that they are fighting climate change (c) set them up for disappointment when climate change happens anyway, and (d) worst of all, these suggestions let the real perpetrators off the hook. If you want to see real progress on th…

None of this "lulls" involved people, nor lets anyone off the hook. These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on today in a country like, say, the US, where the federal government is in the hands of evil people and is not going to be doing much in terms of climate change in the near future. The federal government may be a lost cause for the moment, but your city or state might pro…

> These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on toda

I agree: people can work on this individually. And it won't make a lick of difference.

How many items on this list require government action? How many require corporations' cooperation. What am I going to do, build the bike lanes myself as a hobby?

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#215

Post by yongjik »

aleda145 wrote: post #9

Very alarming. I feel like especially the West is regressing on climate change with the rise of the far right ( https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-lambrou-alternative-f... ) I don't know what to do.

If you are a US citizen, voting Trump out might be unironically the most significant decision your country could make for the next 100 years of mankind.

Not because the alternative is so great, but because Trump is so horrible that it's not even a question. We really don't need someone who doesn't even acknowledge climate change in charge of the world's biggest economy.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#216

Post by davidw »

hackyhacky wrote: post #199
dbdr wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

> Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits. Exactly. That's why it's ineffective to evangelize this as individual effort. If you want to live in a multifamily home, they have to be zoned, funded, and built. That requires lobbying the government, moral rectitude.

I did not write 'individual habits' - you did. Things like zoning are not individual choices at all. But they are something that you and a few friends might be able to influence at city hall.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#217

Post by maybelsyrup »

akramachamarei wrote: post #168
maybelsyrup wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it the "far right"? Yes, it is. They're committed to "Every molecule of hydrocarbon will come out". [0]. They keep saying this to us, and we don't seem to believe them. I like your optimism, and I'm not denying a lot of what you're saying -- renewables fast becoming the cheapest energy. But that's not deterring people: the far right here in the US are about to dismantle the government's legal rationale for regul…

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the "far-right", but you seem to be implying this 'every molecule' quote (or more charitably, the goal) is of the "far-right" in the U.S. In reality the quote is from Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. I mean, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Saudi Arabia is considered far-right governed but I doubt your wording is giving the correct impression to readers.

Yes, I know it's a Saudi quote. They're also far right. They're bosom buddies with the same right-wing (Democratic) and far-right (Republican) US economic and governmental elites for decades. I don't think anyone would dispute this. In fact, it's so humdrum a set of facts that I think the burden would be on someone else to show that "no, actually, US elites are not into the whole 'every molecule of hydrocarbon' thing". But their behavior doesn't indicate that they disagree.

It's thus, yes, the correct impression for readers.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#218

Post by davidw »

hackyhacky wrote: post #214
davidw wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this "lulls" involved people, nor lets anyone off the hook. These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on today in a country like, say, the US, where the federal government is in the hands of evil people and is not going to be doing much in terms of climate change in the near future. The federal government may be a lost cause for the moment, but your city or state might pro…

> These are things that ordinary people without a lot of money or power can work on toda I agree: people can work on this individually. And it won't make a lick of difference. How many items on this list require government action? How many require corporations' cooperation. What am I going to do, build the bike lanes myself as a hobby?

The work is getting your local or state government to do the things. I thought that was quite obvious.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#219

Post by hackyhacky »

davidw wrote: post #164
dbdr wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from eating less beef, every single suggestion in the post your are responding to is about infrastructure and advocacy, not individual habits.

And almost all of them have plenty of other benefits too: Multifamily housing is generally cheaper in high land cost areas. It helps solve the housing shortage. More bikes and transit and fewer cars means cleaner air and fewer traffic deaths. Less fossil fuel usage in general means less pollution. Cities that use land more efficiently tend to be more walkable, pleasant, and don't gobble up things like farmland or for…

> less beef is probably better for your health, too.

Won't matter when it's 120 degrees F every day.

Re: The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory

#220

Post by blibble »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #71

Meanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs Not realizing we’re gonna go extinct here in the next thousand years unless something solves it Since humans are incapable of doing this there’s only one possible option: To create something smarter than us and give it the power to solve it because we cannot

> Meanwhile all these other AI threads everybody’s worried about losing their jobs

don't worry

AI will cause both losing your job AND climate change

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