Are they, though? Last time I checked, CO2 is going up without any "flattening of the curve". And whenever mainstream environmentalists annonce X megawatts added to the grid, a tech company announces that they need Y > X megawatts for AI. Plastic production goes up steadily without cessation every year, and there's still immense amounts of deforestation.
No, people "working" on it are intellectually amusing themselves with technology that could be a workable solution if only everyone actually took action and reduced their consumption, which doesn't need that technology in the first place. Pretty much all mainstream solutions are just psychological salves to make us think we are doing something.
Working on it, yeah right. We simply need to make significant reductions in CO2 output and no one is doing that.
Furthermore, technologies like this will make people less likely to do something about the root problem because it ameliorates it.
There is and always will be sizeable work on it. Current work has been termed "greenhushing" by the economist due to the need to be discreet in America due to a pretty intellectually lacking voterbase. Over a billion will likely starve and that is a moral failure that we will all carry for the rest of our lives but 3 people dying in a car crash is better than 4 people dying in a car crash.
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Ok. The point was that this drone solution by individuals at one university doesn’t detract from other people’s work and it’s a non sequitur to suggest otherwise.
Well, that point itself is invalid. Because ameliorations such as the mapping solution actually makes it less likely that people will do something about the root cause – same as air conditioning makes it less likely that the rich will care about a warming climate.
It's not difficult, we know what to do, and we know how to do it. We simply don't want to do it.
It's incredibly difficult in the same sense that it's "incredibly difficult" for a teenager to clean their bedroom. They could do it, and they will if forced to, but they'll drag their feet as much as possible.
That is right. Worldwide quarantine was also an even more difficult task in some ways if you really think about it but the world was much better at that (even if some countries lagged behind) because there was an immediate pain felt, not unlike a parent threatening the immediate revocation of priveleges. With climate change, there is no such immediate threat to the average high-consumption individual.
A rather sarcastic reply, but I never intended to be original nor surprising. I'm afraid I had to point out the obvious, and for that I apologize as it is almost painful, but the OP statement of "people are working on it" is also equally painful in how obviously ineffectual it is.
It's ineffectual because the task is impossible under current governance. We'll need to hit rock bottom before anything moves, because all the systems we have in place work against any economically hurtful policies.
Well that is true. No argument there. We do need to hit rock bottom, because humans only respond to immediate pain. We are too stupid to collectively work together.
It's typical of tech companies to unveil technology that could have very scary implications for the freedom of human beings and shroud it under the guise of helping those with accessibility issues so that no one can challenge it easily. Their appeal of helping the weak doesn't fool me, though, and I think in this case the benefits do not outweight the costs.
It's a two-way street: technologies tend to create power imbalances and that in turn creates culture over a long term, especially if innovation also becomes central to culture.
I think it makes sense. Europe and other countries need to boycott the US based on how the US is negatively affecting the world and driving consumption. Similar to how many countries boycotted Russia.
Not at all but it seems reasonable to set some standards for the game (e.g supporting free trade) and stop playing with those that do not respect the rules.
Unfortunately with both China and America not respecting the rules that's not realistic for Europe at the moment but one can dream.
Absolutely, yes. In terms of encouraging environmental degradation, which to me is even worse than genocide in some ways (because it destroys our home, often permanently), it's up at the top!
The U.S. should pull out of NATO and leave Europe to deal with Russia, and the inevitable World War 3 that would ensue. The U.S. isn't driving consumption, we plateaued on that basis years ago. However, we're not so suicidal as the Europeans, who have resigned themselves to wring their hands and mock Americans as they get leapfrogged by China, India, and the rest of the rapidly developing world while contributing little but feckless regulatory edicts.
I don't understand this resentment you Americans have with Europe, there's plenty of technologies you depend on that have been developed by European countries and companies. Semi-conductors, advanced optics for military and scientific use, high-precision machinery for manufacturing of advanced materials (physically and chemically), pharmaceuticals, the list goes on and on.
European countries have been your allies for over 70 years, they've been molded by your policies on trade, to consume and to provide what you consumed.
And now you (and quite many others) come back to complain that you're being mocked? Yes, you are being mocked because your country behaves like a spoiled brat, a fickle-minded nation which only manages to measure "progress" through "how much money you make", a nation who decided to spread the motto "greed is good" without caring about your own citizens for the past 40+ years.
You do not survive alone, you cannot sustain your level of development without allies, and even adversaries, participating in the game you created to become a supremacy, and you are choosing to destroy this out of a sense of entitlement?
Your kind of comment is exactly why Americans are losing respect outside of your own borders, you are behaving as if the world was the same as in the 1980s.
The more I see this kind of comment the more I wish for the USA to meet its reckoning, to lose its status and meet reality. You're not what you once were, the greed game has eroded your society, your businesses, your infrastructure. Yes you are wealthy with some of the highest market cap companies in the world while having a sick, divided society, you fight amongst each other because unlimited greed will cause that: fractures, anger, and immense wealth for a lucky few.
You could be better yet you choose not to, repeatedly, and for what? More money? At some point that ends, it always ends...
This kind of threat that we would suffer without the US help is so infuriating.
When Russia started the war with Ukraine, they we're saying that it would be a blitzkrieg. It wasn't. And we're talking about a country which doesn't have any nuclear weapons, who's fighting with shitty FPV drones.
And you're here, telling us that Russia would even dare to set a single foot in any of the European country ? While they're in reach of French nuclear arsenal ? Without the ability to even know where "Le Terrible" is on earth ?
It's true that screens are helpful. But at least in many cases, they are making life worse. It's not that there aren't benefits, but in many specific domains, the negatives outweight the positives. This is true for children because they no longer have mental space to think for themselves, and it is true for many adults as well who spend 8+ hours in front of them. It might make the enterprises they work for more efficient, but it doesn't necessarily make the work enviroment better.
So I think there is sense to use "screens" in the pejorative sense. They are quite irritiating.
The misattribution to screens instead of antisocial behavior is what's making things worse. My children are fine despite having basically unlimited "screen" time. It's not my fault other parent's are incapable of parenting and rely on heavy handed legislation to protect their children from themselves. My children's lives are richer for having those "screens". They are far more curious and explore more than many of their peers do thanks to them. I think the pejorative of "screens" is far better spelled as "bad parents". But bad parents won't ever acknowledge that. Especially bad parents on HN thanks to Dunning-Kruger.
It's quite frankly ridiculous that people who associate with "hackers" want to isolate their children socially and technologically until some magical time that their mind is ready for controversy. As if the generations most capable of "hacking" weren't doing things far beyond their parent's understanding. Half the "hackers" here wouldn't be a fraction as successful if the censorship and restricted access they wanted were present when they were kids. Ladder pullers are some of the worst people in society.
> The misattribution to screens instead of antisocial behavior is what's making things worse. My children are fine despite having basically unlimited "screen" time
Technically it's only your word that your children are fine. Who's to say? Not really a datapoint in that regard.
1. Spend less time on the internet - I spend 2 days of the week without internet access so I can finish my projects in peace
2. Use as little technology as possible to finish them. I find having a limited tool-set actually lets me think about the creative part instead of working with too many tools and being distracted learning more tools.
3. Don't become attached to projects. If it doesn't feel natural, discard it and work on a new one. I regularly finish projects, but I also have a large pile of discarded ones.
1. This also helps ppl better understand the crave for chat/social and generally getting high on internet info. now with local models being like pocket archives of most all that you can think of, it is also possible to do very accelerated coding with zero net connectivity.
2. prototyping is often about allowing oneself to stitch things in the ugliest possible way.
If our world is one where people are writing so many "mindless" emails to other real, live people because that's the way things get done, then I think there's something wrong with the world and an automatic tool won't make things better.
I only learned this in the last five years: do less, automate less, do more by hand, and use the limited capability of the manual method to really choose projects that are worthwile, rather than aim for maximum efficiency.
Similar to this: if you want to optimize your productivity*, do so on a timescale of at least weeks if not months or years.
Simple example: Can you get more done working 12 hours a day than 8? Sure, for the first day. Second day maybe. But after weeks, you're worse off in one way or another.
It's easy to chase imaginary gains like automating repetitive tasks that don't actually materialize, but some basics like sleep, nutrition, happiness, etc are 100% going to affect you going forward.
* I actually hate that word, and prefer saying "effectiveness". Productivity implies the only objective is more, more, more, endlessly. Effectiveness opens up the possibility that you achieve better results with less.
In Finland we have flex hours or "working hours bank", basically you can do extra work now and get free time later. You can also go into negatives.
Usually the recommended range is -20 to +40
Some People(tm) go into the negatives and think it's easy to "just" do an extra few hours every day. It's not.
What I do is work ~15 minutes more every day so I bank about a hour a week, sometimes a bit more. It's a LOT easier and more manageable. Just sit on my computer 15 minutes earlier or if I'm at the office I take the later train back home.
This way I tend to have a day or two of flex hours banked if I need to take some quick time off.
Finland is a "high trust" country, isn't it? I can't see this concept working working when > 10% of the population would game the system to get more "off-the-record" free time.
The flex hours are usually only for office workers where performance can be measured - sometimes it replaces overtime.
So the employer can "suggest" you work longer hours now when there's a ton of stuff to do (like end of year rush in accounting or payroll) and then you take days off when it slows down.
But yea, it's not something that's easy to police.
No, people "working" on it are intellectually amusing themselves with technology that could be a workable solution if only everyone actually took action and reduced their consumption, which doesn't need that technology in the first place. Pretty much all mainstream solutions are just psychological salves to make us think we are doing something.
Working on it, yeah right. We simply need to make significant reductions in CO2 output and no one is doing that.
Furthermore, technologies like this will make people less likely to do something about the root problem because it ameliorates it.