271–280 of 351 posts
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It’s not fantasy. I’m working on a startup to enable this technology. It’s a hard problem, but not impossible. And the energy needs are not as great as you think. A relatively small patch of the Sahara or Gobi desert or open ocean would be sufficient.
You might need to panel over the whole Sahara: https://www.wired.com/story/the-stupendous-energy-cost-of-di...
At least hypothetically, I think there's an approach which is not "the right thing" or "worse is better" but rather more like "the right foundations".
Most interface complexity in my experience seems to be inherited from underlying interface complexity, and it takes a lot of work to fix that underlying interface complexity. This, I think is where "worse is better" shines. If you try to apply a "the right thing" approach to a system where you're dealing with shitty underlying interfaces (i.e. every popular operating system out there including every unix, and NT system) you end up with endless complexity and performance loss. So obviously nobody will want to do "the right thing" and everyone who takes the "worse is better" approach will end up way ahead of you in terms of delivering something. People will be happy (because people are almost always happy regardless of how crap your product is).
On the other hand, designing something with "the right foundations" means that "the right thing" no longer needs to involve "sacrifice implementation simplicity in favour of interface simplicity" to anywhere near the same extent because your implementation can focus on implementing whatever interface you want rather than first paving over a crappy underlying interface.
But the difficulty of "the right foundations" is that nobody knows what the right foundations are the first 10 times they implement them. This approach requires being able to rip the foundations up a few times. And nobody wants that, so "worse is better" wins again.
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Why not? Really, why not? If we had a profitable way to extract CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, to deacidify the oceans, clean up toxic waste, etc., what would be left? How would that not solve the problem?
Because it's a distraction. Global warming and other environmental crises are unfolding right now. While exploring possible future technological advances which would make coping with it easier is certainly a positive and useful pursuit - it cannot be the _main_ pursuit when facing those crises and challenges. That is: 1. We should not divert the discussion from present to possible fortuitous futures. 2. We must not c…
We don’t NEED to reduce emissions. So long as we clean up as much or more than we pollute, what’s the problem?
There was an article posted on here[1] a while back that I only just found again, introducing the term "expedience." The idea was that we think we live in a world where people have to have "the best" sweater, be on "the best" social network, drive "the best" car, etc. But when you look at what really WINS, it's not the best, it's the most "expedient" - i.e. sufficiently good, with built-in social proof, inoculated of…
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I myself am convinced that man-made global warming can't be stopped without changing the way our political economies work, and I happen to believe that Palestinians are people and therefore deserve basic human rights (which they do not currently have). I'm also a researcher. I _would_ be thrilled if there was an expedient way to solve climate change. But the best systems models for the earth all tell us that there's…
The motivations of regular participants vs. leaders may be rather different. Only a specific type of person is attracted to leading crowds.
There was an article posted on here[1] a while back that I only just found again, introducing the term "expedience." The idea was that we think we live in a world where people have to have "the best" sweater, be on "the best" social network, drive "the best" car, etc. But when you look at what really WINS, it's not the best, it's the most "expedient" - i.e. sufficiently good, with built-in social proof, inoculated of…
"Expedient" is a common (or at least not rare) English word that means something like "practical and effective even if not directly attending to higher or deeper considerations." For example, if two students in a class are having frequent confrontations that bring learning in the class to a halt, and attempts by teachers and counselors to address their conflict directly haven't been effective, the expedient solution…
> "Expedient" is a common (or at least not rare) English word that means something like "practical and effective even if not directly attending to higher or deeper considerations."
I was not aware of the word "Expedient" before. From your example I conclude, that it has the same meaning as "pragmatic", i.e. if I sed i/expedient/pragmatic/g then your comment still makes perfect sense to me. A quick google search also seems to support this conclusion.
--> is there a nuance of the word "expedient", that I am missing here?
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The motivations of regular participants vs. leaders may be rather different. Only a specific type of person is attracted to leading crowds.
You can apply the same cynicism to any political or protest movement. Not sure that it tells us very much.
And I think it is actually useful. People will try to manipulate other people through emotions, and mobs are easy to manipulate. One should have fairly high barriers before joining a street mob, because its potential destructive power is enormous, and it also tends to elevate unsavory characters to positions of power.
I am not saying that those barriers should be infinitely high, but fairly high.
For us humans, it is easy to succumb to "righteousness in numbers".
There was an article posted on here[1] a while back that I only just found again, introducing the term "expedience." The idea was that we think we live in a world where people have to have "the best" sweater, be on "the best" social network, drive "the best" car, etc. But when you look at what really WINS, it's not the best, it's the most "expedient" - i.e. sufficiently good, with built-in social proof, inoculated of…
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Are you sure? No offence, but I don't think there's anything to understand here. If we could solve climate change without "addressing thoughtless consumerism, corporate impunity, and lack of international accountability" we would all be f'ing _thrilled_. As I type this Hurricane Helene just destroyed a good chunk of inland North Carolina (!!!) and Hurricane Wilton was just upgraded to a "category 5" storm. If we coul…
"we would all be f'ing _thrilled_." I think the argument is pretty much the opposite: not everyone would be thrilled. The wannabe priest class (think of Greta and her How dare you! ), which is always with us, would be frustrated from the lack of something to preach about. Of course there is always Israel vs. Palestine.
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You can apply the same cynicism to any political or protest movement. Not sure that it tells us very much.
I agree with your first sentence, only I would replace the word "cynicism" with "skepticism". And I think it is actually useful. People will try to manipulate other people through emotions, and mobs are easy to manipulate. One should have fairly high barriers before joining a street mob, because its potential destructive power is enormous, and it also tends to elevate unsavory characters to positions of power. I am n…