uziq
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Jay wrote:

uziq wrote:

humans have resiliency to radiation? have you seen the hospitals full of deformed children in ukraine?
Yes, it's not like you get exposed and it's a 100% guarantee you get cancer. There is a threshold past which your exposure increases your likelihood of cancer, but humans deal with a certain amount of background radiation every day. There is natural uranium, boron, etc in the soil which decays and releases radiation. The amount released to say, Stockholm, wasn't enough to cause even a single case of cancer, but it sure looks scary in a gif.

A few years ago people were posting stuff about Fukushina radiation reaching the west coast of the US and freaking out about it, but the amount of new radiation wasn't anywhere near even the natural background radiation. People get scared easily, and it's usually nothing.
except chernobyl and fukushima are hardly comparable in scale and sheer fuck-up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_o … l_disaster

It has still been approximated that about four hundred times more radioactive material was released from Chernobyl than by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... Approximately 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi) of land was significantly contaminated with fallout, with the worst hit regions being in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia
https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/i/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/ss-110421-chernobyl/ss-110425-chernobyl-021.jpg

a bit more than bougie moms in california worrying about their health-food store bought salmon. but sure, 'people get scared easily' and ayn rand-toting jay is here to impart a bit of rationality to the matter. i don't think anyone was denying the existence of natural background radiation, boron in rocks, potassium in bananas, or your grandpa's tooth x-rays.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019072 … death-toll

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-22 02:12:29)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
This is why we should invest more in renewable energy and cut back on our overall energy consumption.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
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However many technological fixes we come up with the basic problem is population growth.

What we need is a one child policy for three generations.

People who want kids should pay a fee, people who don't should be paid a bonus.
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uziq
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we can hardly convince people to cycle to work or swap out plastic for paper straws. good luck telling them to keep their seed to themselves.
Dilbert_X
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OK, let people compete in a Hunger Games type arena for the right to reproduce.
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uziq
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not sure anyone is going to disagree with you that the population explosion is the main driver of all sorts of shortage and climate change. the point is that your solution and scaremongering is about as dated as your phrenology and racial hierarchies — it’s the malthusian alarm that’s about as useful now as it was then.

were you born in 1865 dilbert? it’s really like you came to intellectual maturity and then stopped developing with the victorians. eugenics, population control, the natural right of the white man to take and act as he pleases... there’s a very vast and complicated world-system out there that i’m afraid cannot be solved by your ‘daily mail comment section’ perorations.

we can hardly agree on global economic or legal frameworks, on supranational taxation ... how are we going to get together to enforce global population control? especially with the asymmetries in power and wealth between northern and southern hemispheres, occident and orient?

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-23 03:03:33)

Dilbert_X
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Why are people worried about climate change if its not a Malthusian problem? Did Greta Thunberg make all this stiff up to get a free sailing holiday?

My point stands though, doesn't really matter if everyone halves their carbon emissions - which isn't going to happen - if the population then triples.

We still have the bulk of the worlds population well below western consumption levels, Leonardo Dicaprio chartering a jet and circumnavigating the globe to tell the Indians they can't have refrigerators is unlikely to work.

So really westerners need to cut their carbon emissions by 90% if everyone is going to be equal - can't really see that happening.

As a technologist I'm seeing that technological solutions are futile without population reduction, or lets start work on the Dyson sphere now.
I'm hoping for a superbug which renders 70+% of people infertile. Maybe I'll make one.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-09-23 04:07:40)

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uziq
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greta is not proposing that she doesn't want any more younger siblings; she's not talking about people having reproductive rights taken away. the climate change protests are generally focussing on, you know, fossil fuels, the petro-economy, plastics, waste, the whole non-renewable gamut. how are you looking at a bunch of fucking SCHOOLCHILDREN protesting and concluding that their message is 'no more children!'.

well done for mentioning that celebrities still charter private jets though. i guess that settles it. green light the alberta pipeline, boys! we've caught the hypocrites in a hot fix. meanwhile the child-less man-child who spends all his money on subaru's or whatever is encouraging mass infertility and arguing against reducing his own emissions. how perfectly fucking quaint

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-23 04:15:13)

Dilbert_X
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I didn't suggest that was Ms Thunberg's message, it was mine.

I think you've misread everything else I said also.
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uziq
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why are people worried about it if it's not malthusian? i'd say it's pretty idiosyncratic for you to jump from a series of short-term, solvable technological solutions which can mitigate the issue to 'we need 3 generations of 1 child per family, globally'. ah yes, let's not protest the use of fossil fuels or encourage lifestyle changes. we need a global government imposing fertility treatment on everyone for a century! very feasible.
Dilbert_X
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Whatever technological solutions the west adopts - and it won't - will be more than swallowed by India, Africa and most of Asia lifting themselves out of poverty.

Most people don't care, and those few that say they do aren't willing to compromise on their lifestyles much. For every hipster knitting his own broccoli there's three numbskulls buying Ford Rangers for the urban commute.

I can't see the Instagram generation cutting back on travel either. Most people I know use air travel an absurd amount.
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uziq
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i'm equally as pessimistic as you are but i think starting out by replacing non-renewables and fossil fuel with cleaner alternatives is a deliverable target. pointing out that people are essentially selfish, short-sighted and inconsiderate is not exactly a revelation. i don't expect people to stop flying to bali for instagram holidays, just like i don't think celebrities or G20 leaders taking private jets everywhere is an 'aha! gotcha!' moment. structural change to our energy and economy is deliverable by law and politics – they are the big questions that law and politics are there to address – whereas telling someone how many kids to have or how many holidays to take is a harder proposition.

we've declared low-emission zones in inner cities. we've taxed wasteful diesel vehicles out of affordable existence for consumers. these are concrete steps that can be extended to shape human behaviour on a wide scale. implementing fertility treatment and global population controls, not so much.

china is the world's biggest market for solar panels. i don't necessarily buy your argument that the developing world can only develop through 50 years of incredibly messy, wasteful, coal-fired infrastructure, as if it's still the 1800s and asia is due for a period of 'dark satanic mills'. though i agree that, politically at least, places like brazil and india right now are hard on the right-wing nationalist train and have little interest in global-ecological issues. the amazon being chopped down for short-term economic gain and india having zero regulations on, well, anything, is a depressing situation. those are things that require a wider paradigm shift away from rapacious capitalism and market competition. still, easier to prescribe marx than to prescribe infertility pills.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
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Maybe saddling kids with university debt is part of the plan - so they can't afford families.
Except it means only the stupid kids will reproduce sending us hurtling towards idiocracy.

Every technological fix seems to backfire, here we have dumps full of failed solar panels which probably never recouped their initial energy investment and which no-one has a clue how to recycle or get the rare-earth dopants out of.
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uziq
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if only we could have free universities and the freedom to spend our lives without children, eh? it's almost like all that socialistic, state-democratic stuff of the 1970s and 80s was a good idea, eh dilbert? sure you know a lot about it.

solar cells are in their relative infancy. i publish a lot of papers about PVs. a lot of great work is being done with graphene and perovskite that rivals carbon efficiencies. i don't really get your naysaying: is it better to just not bother and continue burning fossil fuels? and what about wind and tidal? hydroelectric schemes? i am yet to read a really convincing rebuttal of renewable energy. except, of course, that our entire global economy is based on oil, and all the biggest corporations and vested interests in the world are reliant on it. it's a political question, not a technological one: the entire global order and the way power rests is based around oil and nations' control/access to it.

fortunately it seems even saudi princes are now pouring tonnes of money into solar and wind schemes. when people as short-sighted and oil-reliant as them are planning contingencies, it's cause for some small hope.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-23 04:55:47)

Dilbert_X
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I can't think of many advances in energy production and energy efficiency which haven't been instantly burned up and exceeded so we are worse off than if they'd never happened.

Advances in aircraft and aircraft engine efficiency have not reduced fuel use, there's no question they've dramatically increased it by orders of magnitude for example, allowing the receptionist to take her family to Bali four times a year.

There are whole system solutions eg Zero Carbon Australia - and Australia could go zero carbon quite easily, but generally if you give people cheap energy they'll just find new ways to burn it up.
And no-one gives a fuck - the two most popular vehicle purchases here (bearing in mind 90% of people rarely leave the city and would be fine with a Prius)

https://carsguide-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto,t_default/v1/editorial/2017-Toyota-HiLux-SR5-dual-cab-TRD-kit-black-ute-press-image-1001x595-%282%29.jpg

https://image.iol.co.za/image/1/process/620x349?source=https://inm-baobab-prod-eu-west-1.s3.amazonaws.com/public/inm/iol/media/image/2019/05/13/23160798/IOLmot13may_Raptor_c.jpg&operation=CROP&offset=445x390&resize=1240x697

Exactly what you need to pick up the kids from kindy.

Pretty well any improvement in renewables will just offset oil which drives the price down and means people find new ways to waste it.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-09-23 05:09:43)

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Larssen
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Dilbert_X wrote:

Whatever technological solutions the west adopts - and it won't - will be more than swallowed by India, Africa and most of Asia lifting themselves out of poverty.
For once I kind of agree with Dilbert. While I do hold the opinion that pushing for emission reduction and cleaner forms of energy production in the west are achievable goals, on the whole we're not going to stop global warming.

China may be the world's biggest market for solar panels but it also accounts for about 25% of global pollution (just referencing co2 numbers here). In the west renewables can succeed because of subsidies, taxation and a cultural shift, but is the same true for the rest of the world? Among the general public in many developing countries global warming is either an unknown or just regarded as a western political issue. Or worse, a western ploy against the economic development of poorer countries by pressuring them to abandon cheap means of energy production (Ive heard this argument...).

And strip away legal requirements, taxation & subsidies and diesel powered engines & coal plants are extremely cost effective.

Last edited by Larssen (2019-09-23 05:22:54)

uziq
Member
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very apropos debate for the latter half of the above video.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-23 13:47:16)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
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Such an angry child. This is child abuse. Her parents should not have forced such negativity into her life.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England
She really is an idiot. This whole worshipping of children's opinions as if they are some founts of Truth is disgusting. The parade of kids on tv telling adults how to live their lives after every tragedy makes me want to shoot the activists using them.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
Because old white boomers have done so well for us all.
We should stop funding their end of life care and let them die.

https://i.imgur.com/1Ei0DT6.jpg

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-09-23 17:23:41)

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Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX
I think what we need is to change the definition of success, this would be more effective than forcibly denying people what they want.

https://i.imgur.com/coKJ4Vt.jpg

Lets start now:

Days since I last bought something from Amazon: 963

Air miles fewer than Harry Hewitt flown this year: 5342

Kgs beef less than Jay eaten this year: 476

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2019-09-23 18:05:28)

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uziq
Member
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SuperJail Warden wrote:

Such an angry child. This is child abuse. Her parents should not have forced such negativity into her life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMrtLsQbaok
it is sad that we’re thrusting a child forward as some symbol for a cause. children should be left alone to be children, not become symbols for our mass pieties - whether it’s climate change or being shot in the head by the taliban.

this will have the same distorting effect on her personality as famous child-actors in hollywood. it’s not healthy.

with that said, seeing someone taking the issue very seriously, without smiles or bonhomie or the usual cracking of jokes that happens at these big self-congratulatory ‘summits’, is refreshing. she is bringing a new tone to the debate and calling out official hypocrisy and ineffectuality for what it is.

people who hate her really puzzle me. why? she is a child, one with asperger’s, at that. they’re allowed to be loud and opinionated and possibly outspoken about things. the adults need to do the growing up in this situation.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

Jay wrote:

She really is an idiot. This whole worshipping of children's opinions as if they are some founts of Truth is disgusting. The parade of kids on tv telling adults how to live their lives after every tragedy makes me want to shoot the activists using them.
Why is she 'an idiot'?
The adults seem to be doing fuck all, in other times we've had 12 year olds sitting on thrones and she's 16 so barely a 'child'.
And bear in mind Scandinavians are better educated and more mature than your average American kid. What were you doing when you were 16?
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Jay
Bork! Bork! Bork!
+2,006|5328|London, England

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

She really is an idiot. This whole worshipping of children's opinions as if they are some founts of Truth is disgusting. The parade of kids on tv telling adults how to live their lives after every tragedy makes me want to shoot the activists using them.
Why is she 'an idiot'?
The adults seem to be doing fuck all, in other times we've had 12 year olds sitting on thrones and she's 16 so barely a 'child'.
And bear in mind Scandinavians are better educated and more mature than your average American kid. What were you doing when you were 16?
Adults thrust forward children when the child's idealism can be used as a tool. Children don't understand consequences. They lack wisdom. Activists take this lack of wisdom as a sign of purity in Truth and as an antidote to the realists that tut tut them when they make wild claims and express their fantasies. It is the inverse of rationalism.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
uziq
Member
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what wild and idealistic claims is she making? she’s not exactly pushing a political ideology, jay.

politicising her and thereby dismissing her as some tool of the ‘progressives’ (whatever that shadowy cabal is in the states) is just a cheap trick to dismiss her arguments. the political football around climate change has clearly grown very tiresome to the younger generations.

Last edited by uziq (2019-09-24 04:48:15)

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