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Oh, 2022

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Re: Oh, 2022

#421

Post by neuronic »

beambot wrote: post #396
j0057 wrote: post #61

> low-lying coastal nations like Bangladesh And lots of other places. About 1 billion people live along coastlines at 20 meters or less above sea level, and 200 million at 5 meters or less. I live in a wealthy country but well within the 5 meters range and am already having to think about whether it wouldn't be more prudent to sell my house today, now that it's still worth something, and emigrate to somewhere with a…

I love the irony in SFBA of major tech companies building their new HQs right on the water's edge. They'll be the first to acknowledge anthropogenic climate change, yet I've never been able to get a satisfactory justification for their realestate decisions.

That might be because they still believe every single problem on Earth is solvable by technology - their technology in the optimal case.

Re: Oh, 2022

#422

Post by WA »

drewm1980 wrote: post #419

I stopped reading when the author listed chicken pox alongside much more lethal childhood diseases. That said, I'm still pro vaccination for chicken pox, and went out of my way to get my child vaccinated even though it is extremely uncommon here in Belgium.

Please take a guess why chicken pox is uncommon in Belgium.

Re: Oh, 2022

#423

Post by ncmncm »

fy20 wrote: post #399
j0057 wrote: post #61

> low-lying coastal nations like Bangladesh And lots of other places. About 1 billion people live along coastlines at 20 meters or less above sea level, and 200 million at 5 meters or less. I live in a wealthy country but well within the 5 meters range and am already having to think about whether it wouldn't be more prudent to sell my house today, now that it's still worth something, and emigrate to somewhere with a…

There's also the option of migration within the country. If we take an elevation map of Bangladesh and compare it to a climate map, there are areas that are higher and still have good climates for crops. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karar-Ahsan/publication... https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolas-Guilpart-2/publ... People aren't going to migrate unless there is infrastructure and job opportunities ther…

People will leave anyplace they cannot live in anymore, no matter what the situation is wherever they are obliged to go.

It is easy to say people can move someplace else in their own country, but other people already live in those places you suggest they move to.

People obliged to move out with just what they can carry are generally not equipped to build new cities. People already in places they hope to move to are generally ill-disposed to building them a place to live for free.

Re: Oh, 2022

#424

Post by arethuza »

ineedasername wrote: post #293
rhaps0dy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should be be worried that the author of Accelerando complains about things going too fast? I think Accelerando itself is precisely complaining that things are going too fast. In the specific scenario in the novel, the incomprehensibly fast automation of capitalism is going to eat us all.

IIRC, in Accelerando the ability by meat people to even vaguely understand Economics 2.0 required something like a literal bolt-on addition to the human cognition system.

Reading most stuff on "crypto" I tend to feel I need a bolt on to my cognition system - but then again I'm probably just getting old. :-)

Re: Oh, 2022

#425

Post by erosenbe0 »

elihu wrote: post #123

> "Looking further afield: it seems likely that the end of internal combustion engines will be in sight. Some countries are already scheduling a ban on IC engines to come in after 2030—electric cars are now a maturing technology with clear advantages in every respect except recharge time. Once those IC cars are no longer manufactured, we can expect a very rapid ramp-down of extraction and distribution industries for…

Recharge time needs to be under 10 minutes or you have a pipe dream. 5-7 minutes would be better. Too many renters, condo owners, and small businesses with fleets don't have time to deal charging.

Re: Oh, 2022

#426

Post by neuronic »

drewm1980 wrote: post #419

I stopped reading when the author listed chicken pox alongside much more lethal childhood diseases. That said, I'm still pro vaccination for chicken pox, and went out of my way to get my child vaccinated even though it is extremely uncommon here in Belgium.

> Varicella is highly communicable, with an infection rate of 90% in close contacts. [1]

Good call on the vaccination, chickenpox is no joke at all. The prognosis combined with the massive rate of infection if left unchecked is unsettling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenpox#Prognosis

Re: Oh, 2022

#427

Post by pjerem »

kenneth wrote: post #402
kxrm wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ICE cars will see a retro use period like many nostalgic things, so while I agree the daily driver will change, it's very likely that fuel will be seen as some sort of luxury product. Right now fuel is a loss leader for most gas stations, that dynamic will definitely change as ICE vehicles become a toy or status symbol for upper middle class and wealthy people.

Huh, you're saying that gas station sell their main product at a loss and then make back the difference on what… tictacs and slim jims?

I don't know how it is in the US, but in France, yes, most gas stations are owned by adjacent stores and they make really little margins (actually, there are frequent sales of gasoline at cost price).

In fact, when buying gasoline in those stations, it's common to receive some voucher for the owner's store.

Other stations are owned by petrol corporations but they are in direct competition when they are near stores or they are very expensive when they are located on our highways, which are privatized(and it's a shame), so they are in some sort of closed market since you cannot leave the highway without paying.

Re: Oh, 2022

#428

Post by erosenbe0 »

elihu wrote: post #246
ip26 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars don’t last as long as you’d think, on average. There will also be a knee in the curve where the ICE fleet drops below critical mass and gas stations start shutting down - and the harder it becomes to find a station, the faster people will switch.

I think EVs will quickly overtake ICE vehicles once they're price competitive and battery manufacturing scales up to the levels needed, but that's a separate issue from government bans. My point is that several governments now have policies in place that say they're going to ban the sale of new ICE vehicles after a certain date. But they aren't going to disallow the use of ICE vehicles in their country or on their ro…

The total cost of ownership for an EV is still pathetic in a certain sense if I need to allot even 10 extra minutes waiting for a charge somewhere on a weekly basis. Especially a small business owner like Joe Plumber -- that's around 10k in lost job time over the life of the vehicle. If I'm well-off with thousands of watts wired to my garage then great but that's not so many people especially in denser cities as well as plenty of business fleets.

It's like the reverse of switching from coal to natural gas heating. Coal required delivering and shoveling a bunch of dirty fuel and ash around frequently, which was a waste of time, so the switch to gas was welcomed as time-saving and much much cleaner. EVs are so much cleaner and quieter than ICE but the convenience factor is not solved yet

Re: Oh, 2022

#429

Post by ncmncm »

barry-cotter wrote: post #294
csomar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying a pandemic could potentially collapse a civilization, but the flu was not serious enough to do that? The Inca should be a cautionary tale. The human race is unlikely to go away unless we have a dinosaurs-like extinction event. However, civilizations are much more delicate.

> However, civilizations are much more delicate. But they're really not. Civilization in Norway survived the Black Death killing 60% of the population. We could regress a great deal in terms of the technology we could apply with large enough fatality rates but if we can still feed large numbers of people and maintain things at all we can keep civilization going. If one third of the US population dropped dead it would…

That assume the people remaining actually choose to retain civilization. That seems like an easy choice, but it should by now be clear it is not necessarily a majority choice.

Re: Oh, 2022

#430

Post by ncmncm »

trinovantes wrote: post #387
BlueTemplar wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extinction part is hyperbole though - with 7 billion humans out there it would need to hit fatality rates of 99.9...% for a decent chance of the human species to be completely wiped out. And also assuming that it would persist and/or spread well enough to also wipe out the various uncontacted tribes on 2-3 continents.

At that fatality rate, the virus would probably struggle to spread as its carriers would all die first. The sweet spot is probably around 40-50% like the bubonic plague

It all depends on incubation period. A 100% fatal disease with a 3-week infectious incubation period could take out a whole populationvin only a little longer than that, save isolated pockets.
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