troyzer wrote: » This is an area I work in, there really isn't a shortage. Uranium is similar to other commodities like potash where we are aware of supergiant deposits that can never be mined properly because they'd destroy the market. But we know they're there. And like I said, extracting uranium from seawater is already possible. If your point was more about the strategic reliance on imports, well that's no different to any other energy source.
troyzer wrote: » Constructing nuclear power plants gives you a net gain though, solar panels don't. They require enormous amounts of energy to build, they last 20-30 years and never break even and then they're dumped in Ghana.
Clegg wrote: » Watched a few documentaries about climate change. This is a real and observable phenomenon which governments are ignoring. Even if the latest measurements are off and we have more than 10 years to begin changing economic and environmental policy, I worry we've done too much damage. These new eco protest marches are a start, but until we have proper environmentally conscious regimes in place we're just kicking the can down the road.
Neil3030 wrote: » This is actually where we can make the most immediate impact. A hamburger creates approximately as much CO2 equivalent gas as burning half a gallon of gasoline. Another way to look at this - approximately six times as much energy goes into creating the hamburger as comes out of it (if you normalise everything in terms calories). For context, fish farms in Norway are getting their ratios down closer to 1:1. .
Zzippy wrote: » This claim about salmon farming is industry spin. It's complete hogwash. They refer to 1kg dry weight. This requires several kg input of fish harvested from wild fisheries.. It is physiologically impossible for an animal to convert 1:1 input to growth. Not to mention the huge (20-50% average) mortality rate which is not factored in to that claimed efficiency ratio. Fish are cold-blooded animals so they are naturally more efficient at converting feed than cows, but sustainably managed wild fisheries would be a far better use of the ocean resources. I won't even go into the long list of damaging environmental impacts of salmon farming here, we could be here a very long time!
stephen_n wrote: » And according to this Electric cars are more environmentally damaging than Diesel. Though I think reading it, that the research is flawed, in that it takes into account the sourcing of the raw materials of electric cars, and the Co2 involved in that. Yet ignores the Co2 emissions involved in recovering and processing crude oil. Only focusing on the actual emissions from the engine.
Rigor Mortis wrote: » The underlying point is interesting though. We tend not to think where our energy solutions come from. Electric batteries rely on copper. Copper is found through an extractive and not great process. Also, there hasnt been a significant copper find in years. There is a big push on biomass, but we dont and are unlikely to ever have the resources required to supply our domestic needs. Even the push for heat pumps through the SEAI, ignores the fact that to make them work in an older home (most of our housing stock) is completely uneconomical when compared to an efficient gas boiler which is tooled for renewable gas.
stephen_n wrote: » Yep it’s all back to my original point, deck chairs on the Titanic. It seems that every change we make to be more environmentally friendly. Is either no better or possibly worse than what it’s replacing. In the end, everything we do consumes more and more of our natural resources. In the end it’s a very simple problem, too many people, not enough resources. We need to be thinking in terms of radical population control. Though that would be economic suicide for corporations who require consumers. Which I think is very much the reason we aren’t having that conversation.
irishbucsfan wrote: » Thanos is a rugby fan, it turns out
troyzer wrote: » It would be economic suicide for everyone.
errlloyd wrote: » It's a pretty niche debate, but with AI potentially about to make a chunk of the workforce redundant we should be able to maintain current levels of economic output with fewer people. Perhaps a classic luddit fallacy kicks in and jobs are displaced rather than replaced by AI, but I think this period of skills redeployment has less headroom for job creation than the industrial revolution did. The biggest problem with being reliant on AI replacing workforce is the tax taking. In theory a taxi driver will pay around 35% income tax, VAT, plus a bunch of other taxes associated with owning a car (I am not sure how many of those he can write off tbh). A self driving UBER will pay VAT and Corporate tax at whatever the lowest rate some tax haven (let's face it probably us) is offering.
troyzer wrote: » You're describing communism by the way. Not that I have an issue with that, I just find it ironic that people are coming to the realisation Marx had 170 years ago about a post scarcity world. He didn't quite grapple with automation obviously but Keynes recycled the idea and thought that we'd eventually become so productive individually that scarcity would be abolished and boredom would be the main concern of day to day life. Both of them underestimated our voracious appetites for consumerist ****. Either way, we do need to seriously start talking about societal dividends and robot taxes.
Rigor Mortis wrote: » There is a big push on biomass, but we dont and are unlikely to ever have the resources required to supply our domestic needs.
Neil3030 wrote: » I filed my taxes this year with an app, I'll still be calling a human plumber for some time to come.
errlloyd wrote: » For argument's sake - will you be calling a plumber, or will smart pressure sensors and humidity sensors enabled by IOT identify a problem earlier and call the plumber on your behalf. The plumber may well still be human but his / her job may become significantly easier (but also more technical) as less / no damage will have been done before the problem was identified and sorted out? Plumbers charge inflated rates because they respond to emergencies, what if they're simply responding to maintenance issues. This doesn't necessarily mean fewer jobs, those sensors have to be made somewhere, programmed somewhere, monitored somewhere. Someone above suggested my robot taxes were communism, they're really not. We do have to increase taxes on corporations and the owners of corporations. But we don't have to redistribute it to their peers in society. The greater tax taking is just to offset the greater proportion of society that is going to be above the retirement age, and unfortunately the greater costs we will incur as we find more complex ways to keep them alive. There was a suggestion above that deviating from the normal population pyramid to a reduction in population model would cause economic catastrophe, but it doesn't have to if we just make the working populace more efficient. AI should do that.
troyzer wrote: » Your robot taxes perse aren't communism. But the future you describe in general where automation and post scarcity would allow us to live better lives with less time spent at work is straight from Marx.
errlloyd wrote: » I already live a better life with less time spent at work than my ancestors right? Has that trend been going down consistently or did it stop reducing some time in the forties when we formalised what a working week should be?
stephen_n wrote: » Call me a nerd, but that thing google did with thanos and clicking the gauntlet made me laugh out loud. Very cool.
