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this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2024
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The memes of the climate
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Planet is on fire!
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I do, but like most other people, I'm preoccupied with short term crises since, well, I need to survive those in order to be ready for the long-term ones.
In my opinion though, we don't stand a snowball's chance in hell. The elite will manage to hang just a bit longer, but eventually they'll cook and burn with the rest of us, or in their bunkers.
Anyways, shit's already fucked to the point that I've given up. Just sit back, relax and take whatever life gives ya.
This is exactly the messaging of the oil companies and others who oppose climate action now that it’s too hard to deny. They want us to think it’s hopeless and give up trying to change anything. It’s not too late. Green energy is growing exponentially and has been possibly the fastest technological adoption in history. Millions of people are working on the science and technology to solve these problems. We just need some more collective action at the local and national levels. Carbon taxes, funding for green initiatives, local agriculture, and support for alternative transportation like e-bikes or other PEVs to start
Did you miss the memo that current AI is already using more power than everything we've managed to save with green energy in the last decade? We ARE fucked, the only thing we're still debating is the exact timespan. Which is asinine, the result will remain the same either way.
The only way I see to a path to salvation is a huge pandemic or world war, becausing nothing else will convince people. We've been trying (and failing) for decades.
Good news! The odds are looking pretty high for both of those!
Carbon taxes fix the problem of using energy for dumb things. Climate change isn't caused by us using energy, it's caused by the fact that carbon pollution is free.
Bingo. Power usage isn't the central problem, it's the sources of power.
I need some anon to write me a virus that will wipe out all datacenters in one go, something that will irrevocably fry all enterprise hardware beyond repair. Let's start over, with decent trust busting and without the plastic this time.
(edit: I guess it's not entirely clear but I'm expecting such a virus to hit the reset button on civilisation. Mass death, yes, but we won't fuck the world beyond being liveable.)
The world will be fine
It will take a long time in our timespan, and we won’t be fine, but the world will. Just a minor blip in the history of this marble
The world will be fine.
People are fucked.
And with ipv6!
This but for humans.
12 monkeys were right
We had a pandemic already and war in Ukraine is raging on - and both only served right wing extremists to rise and ignore climate problems even harder. We are fucked. I don't give up hope but it's tiny
If the power is renewable, who cares how much it uses? Things are far from hopeless.
Because that power could have been used by someone else who's depending on coal instead. You cannot separate power sources when on the grid.
That's why we're working to get rid of fossil fuel power generation entirely.
You got a source on that? Cause that sounds fake
Here's one:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.02243v1
Below is an article on crypto mining, not AI, but I'd wager a guess and say you certainly can draw parallels from it:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023EF003871
Also, whatever the source of green/renewable energy is, it takes a couple years to offset the manufacturing of said energy source:
https://www.cooleffect.org/solar-carbon-footprint
So even if there's no direct source on that 10 year claim, it probably isn't too farfetched!
The article you linked doesn't support your claims, is unpublished and reads like the homework of some undergrads.
Training AI models, while computationally expensive, cannot compare to crypto farms the size of warehouses everywhere around the world.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and new technology is only going to continue to use more and more energy. Conservation is not the answer.
Should i kill myself before all that unravels?
No, there’s always a shimmer of hope and the non zero chance that we mean something for someone that could make a difference, or help make the difference ourselves. Even sometimes the tiniest good-hearted gesture will do it.
I keep saying, if Putin starts a nuclear war, we might save humanity. A nuclear winter will cool the planet. And with most of us dying of radiation poisoning, we won’t have the ability to start pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere. Yay!
If solving the problem becomes impossible, the backup plan should be retribution, not complacency. That way they have an incentive to work with us.
I never had kids of my own, because I didn't want any, but the last 15 years or so I've becoming increasingly grateful that I made that decision. It at least allows me to sit back and contemplate doom without worrying about what my kids' life on this planet is going to be like after I'm gone.
I've always done the reducing, reusing, and recycling, because it's the right thing to do. Cut waaaaay back on dairy and beef purchases, I eat a lot of plant protein and use plant milk now. But it's all a drop in the bucket. Only the governments can actually fix this, and they won't because they are owned. I just sit around hoping it won't get TOO bad before I'm dead.
The fiduciary responsibility scene from the new Fallout show hit hard.
S1E6
"Morton played a rancher who owned half of Missouri.""And what happens when the cattle ranchers have more power than the sheriff?"
"The whole town burns down."
"Right, the whole town burns down. Vault-Tec is a trillion dollar company that owns half of everything. And after ten years of war, the U.S. gov't is broker than a joke. The cattle ranchers are in charge, Coop."
I agree and I am not even preoccupied, but there simply hasn't been any chance for me to make a dent in this. Hasn't been for a long time, at least since 1900 (!!) where we basically already knew where everything was headed.
Humanity is just going to go through a culling. There will definitely be humans and there will definitely be habitable areas of the planet but there won't be room for all 8 billion of us and depending on how much we actually do right now will determine how big the actual final number is
And honestly, would that be such a bad thing? 8 freaking billion of us is at least 7.5B too many.
People who say this imagine themselves and their families in the 0.5B but will end up in the 7.5B, suffering immeasurably in the process.
Nah I tried to get as close to the cities I think would be bombed so that I can go out in a puff of ozone
Nope, there's nothing special about me or my family. We're just insignificant eurotrash. Odds we'd be among the survivors are very low.
"Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature."
Yeah, fuck that Bircher Bullshit from "The Guidestones."
And you'll be first in line to be a member of the 7.5B that gets culled, right?
You can kill me right now if you want.
I dunno why the assumption is that everyone who makes the observation on overpopulation is so self-interested that they can't imagine their own demise as part of it. We'll all die in the approaching climate disaster, including you and me. The difference between now and later is small on a geological timescale.
Spare your self-contempt for somebody that cares.
You asked.
I did, unfortunately.
Actually yes, but that has more to do with 20 years of crippling depression and chronic pain than the coming climate disasters.
I do what I can. It's certainly not as much as I could be doing, but it's what I have the mental and emotional capacity to handle. I don't have a ton of hope either, and it's a big reason I decided not to have children, but I wouldn't say I've given up completely.
We deserve it. Let the insects have their turn.
Speak for yourself.
Actually, no! Once the really BIG human die-offs start, the hyperwealthy will 'bunker up' for a while and once the population shrinks back down, we won't be putting out all that greenhouse gas anymore, and the earth will cool back down. They'll keep a few cities in places like Norway or what have you around to keep providing food and fuel for their choppers and parties.
New Zealand and Hawaii. They're already doing it.
I know several billionaires are already doing this in Hawaii. I feel like Hawaii is a bad choice. But I suppose if you have a giant yacht it’s not a problem.
But I feel like you’d want land with slaves under armed guard that till fields and raise livestock.
And shock collars to keep your security team "loyal."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
I was thinking you keep your security as part of the elite class, they would live basically as well as you and your other elites family / friend class. Maybe even with arranged marriages to ensure their offspring will be part of this same class, like royalty. You could build this into your society/culture. Maybe serving as a guard is like something every royal does for five or ten years.
The problem is it's human nature to feel envy, and anger, towards people hoarding resources if you're not one of those people. It's all fun and games until the peasants revolt and take your wife and children hostage. And if you don't share, they eventually will.
That’s why I was thinking you somehow make them a part of the hoarding class, disincentivizing them from mutiny, as they are also benefitting from those hoarded resources in the same way as you and your family. But yeah it’s a hard problem to solve for the hoarder.