My point was that your scheme of distinctions seemed somewhat artificial, and I'm explaining why I thought that. This observation is reflected in my latter point that 'science' makes up for the incommensurability and/or methodological anarchism of the individual scientist - for which these artificial distinctions make elbow room. In reality, all three are important to scientific theory; and logically, they imply each other. If you're now taking a pop at logic and math; you're reaching beyond the purview of your thesis - and that can't be good! For want of mechanism, Newton was in the same boat - assaulted by ye olde twitter mob of Cartesian subjectivist science deniers, and forced to defend his thesis. He said what he said, apparently - but that doesn't mean that it is so, and therefore science is akin to hurling shit at the fan and observing what sticks!
Solving Climate Change.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
-
FlashDangerpants
- Posts: 8815
- Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm
Re: Solving Climate Change.
One thing to note here is that THAT is what the result of a feasibility study actually looks like. Those guys know how much water they would put into what size hole to get what amount of energy back out of the system. You haven't got feasibility until you have something equivalent, what you have is pretty much a daydream.Vitruvius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:30 am"The deepest, reached 12,262 metres (40,230 ft; 7.619 mi) in 1989, the deepest artificial point on Earth."FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am
You can't use a drill to make the holes in the ground to those depths,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole
"This necessitates drilling to depths of greater than 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) in order to tap the temperatures of more than 400 °C (750 °F). The drilling is at a rifted plate margin on the mid-oceanic ridge. Producing steam from a well in a reservoir hotter than 450 °C (840 °F)—at a proposed rate of around 0.67 cubic metres per second (24 cu ft/s) should be sufficient to generate around 45 MW. If this is correct, then the project could be a major step towards developing high-temperature geothermal resources."FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am the combined heat of the rocks and the friction would break the drill bit unless you deliver significant quantitites of coldness to a location that doesn't really allow for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_D ... ng_Project
That thing broke down very quickly because it wasn't designed for maintenance, but that's fine because it was just a test hole. This raises further questions because you want to create an environment that would be much more challenging from a mainetnance perspective, and you propose to pump vast quantities of sea water into that environment even though sea water is a notorious source of systems damage everywhere that we expose systems to it.Vitruvius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:30 amApparently not. The Kola Borehole is 7.6 miles deep, and I don't propose drilling nearly that deep. There are plenty of places in the world where magma is within a mile of the surface. Admittedly, the temperatures I'm looking for are higher than current high temperature - high pressure (HTHP) drilling operations routinely allow for, but the problems that stopped the Kola Borehole have been overcome by IDDP:FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am Also the extreme length and heat of the shaft would buckle the thing that is supposed to deliver torque to it.
Kola: "Because of higher-than-expected temperatures at this depth and location, 180 °C (356 °F) instead of the expected 100 °C (212 °F), drilling deeper was deemed unfeasible. The unexpected decrease in density, the greater porosity, and the unexpectedly high temperatures caused the rock to behave somewhat like a plastic, making drilling nearly impossible."
What was "impossible" in 1989, is now possible - and the technology continues to advance.
"In IDDP-1 the decision was made to continue the experimental well, ...which was over 900 °C (1,650 °F)"
You mark your own homework very leniently. You dismiss wind solar and geothermal as insufficient and incapable and limited by technologocial hurdles that could never be overcome, while having no accurate assesment of what are teh hurdles that your thing needs to overcome at all.Vitruvius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:30 amAs I said, as far as I can tell, my plans are feasible. Challenging, certainly - on the cutting edge of what's possible, but by no means impossible.FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am So your magma mining plan requires an sci-fi tunnel boring machine that can operate in heat equivalent to a sustained orbital re-entry, piping in tremendous quantitities of coolant, somehow maintaining cutting blades that neither gum up nor break when eating through super-hot rock. Or else you need a mechanism to maintain your boring machine when it is two miles below ground and in need of new cutting gear.
I work for a medical devices company that has so far burned around half a billion dollars over the last 10 years on a project to do a fancy sci-fi thing I can't describe here. That investment has brought them almost to the end of the feasibility stage, probably an equal amount of money and 5 more years is needed to reach production. I know of three other UK companies working on the same problem with equally sci-fi yet utterly dissimilar techniques, I have no idea how many international competitors there are. Whoever wins the race will have a license to print money becasue they will give hospitals a quick way to address several of the scariest and most expensive ailments out there all in one hit. Most of the others probably get acquired, shut down and used to pad out a patent warchest. If it were viable to accelerate development in a project so complex as this by just adding a hundred more bioinformaticians and electrochemists into the team we would have done that already, but it's not like that. If you have a project that requires a series of small scientific and engineering advances across multiple disciplines, time is required, and you can't do anything about that with more money or manpower.Vitruvius wrote: ↑Thu Aug 12, 2021 5:30 amThere are innovative elements to the design I've suggested, particularly, lining the bore-hole with pipes, and pumping water through to produce steam - but it's merely an extension of borehole lining techniques developed by the fracking industry. Again, the basic technology exists. None of this is science fiction. It all needs to be put together for the particular purpose I have in mind, but it's all technologically feasible.FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am If a workable device could even be designed using the ceramics and metallurgy of the early 21st C it would take more than just money to do what you describe. You need probably about 20 years of R&D, which is something the solar and wind industries already had.
You need to devlop a way to drill something much more impressive than a 5 inch borehole, to a depth and temperature that exceeds the specification of any existing equipment. You need to contain huge explosions of steam and make sure they only ever point in the correct direction. You need to maintain pipes, pumps and valves that have carried cold sea water into the bowels of the Earth and contained a substance that wouold have turned to a gas too soon unless you subjected it to immense pressure and which expands with heat. And you don't yet know how much of it you are even going to put into the hole. You would have years of R&D before you were ready to begin a feasibility study.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Still, probably work though!FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 12:56 am . You would have years of R&D before you were ready to begin a feasibility study.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
What I have, actually, is the answer to the question, is it possible for humankind to continue to exist? The answer is yes, because the earth is a big ball of molten rock containing a limitless amount of energy. It is necessary to harness this energy to secure a prosperous sustainable future. Is it impossible? No. It's feasible! It's already being done to some degree - and it's entirely reasonable to argue it could be done better, and on a much larger scale - on a philosophy forum, without having blue prints, a business plan and significant funding already in place to prove it. Given a common sense understanding of the term feasible, and an overview of the technologies and current practices, there would seem no obvious reason it's not feasible to drill at that temperature, that deep - and so forth.FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:32 am One thing to note here is that THAT is what the result of a feasibility study actually looks like. Those guys know how much water they would put into what size hole to get what amount of energy back out of the system. You haven't got feasibility until you have something equivalent, what you have is pretty much a daydream.
Your heart warming personal story aside, the office politics of a small to medium sized enterprise are no measure of, what I hope might emerge as a plan from COP 26 - and be developed and applied as a global approach to climate change. Rather taking home a basket of difficult to deliver promises, I hope this idea might be adopted as a plan of action; to develop magma energy on a very large scale, and use that energy initially to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I think it's the only way around the conflict of national perspectives and interests; and so one might expect a few rubber stamps on zoning permits and the like!
I will gladly admit the limits of my knowledge, and have done so throughout - I've stated repeatedly, I'm not an engineer. I have a lifelong interest in, and good general knowledge of science, related to practical experience of construction, I know how things work. I know how I would approach this project. I have thought about a great many things I've not discussed, even while I've divulged enough to show I've thought quite a lot about it - I could say more, but suffice to say, still, probably work though!
Re: Solving Climate Change.
US lab stands on threshold of key nuclear fusion goal
By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website
A US science institute is on the verge of achieving a longstanding goal in nuclear fusion research.
The National Ignition Facility uses a powerful laser to heat and compress hydrogen fuel, initiating fusion.
An experiment suggests the goal of "ignition", where the energy released by fusion exceeds that delivered by the laser, is now within touching distance.
Harnessing fusion, the process that powers the Sun, could provide a limitless, clean energy source.
In a process called inertial confinement fusion, 192 beams from NIF's laser - the highest-energy example in the world - are directed towards a peppercorn-sized capsule containing deuterium and tritium, which are different forms of the element hydrogen.
This compresses the fuel to 100 times the density of lead and heats it to 100 million degrees Celsius - hotter than the centre of the Sun. These conditions help kickstart thermonuclear fusion.
An experiment carried out on 8 August yielded 1.35 megajoules (MJ) of energy - around 70% of the laser energy delivered to the fuel capsule. Reaching ignition means getting a fusion yield that's greater than the 1.9 MJ put in by the laser.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58252784
My layman's impression of the field is that fusion cannot work in earth gravity. It's the enormous gravitational force of the sun that overcomes the Exclusion Principle and allows for sustained fusion reactions. Simply pumping in massive amounts of energy, to create pressure, to, effectively crash atoms into each other and fuse - is not the same as atoms being crushed together by the gravity of the sun. In each case, the Exclusion Principle is overcome - but only under gravity is there a sustained reaction. After any single fusion event in an 'energy forced' system, it returns, mathematically - to the same probabilistic state that two atoms will crash randomly together, whereas, under massive gravity, the occurrence of fusion increases the probability of fusion. In gravitationally induced fusion, atoms are packed tightly together, then crushed further by ongoing fusion energy events - to overcome Exclusion. They are not excited by absurd temperatures, costing vast amounts of energy - as if to cause sufficient random collisions to sustain fusion. Ergo, fusion can be made to occur, but it cannot be sustained, nor produce more energy than it consumes in earth gravity.
I have no way of checking whether these impressions are correct. What I do know is that after 90 years - holding out the promise of limitless clean energy, it might be wise to also look elsewhere - and isn't the earth a massive ball of molten rock? I thought so - but admittedly, I'm no scientist! I'm just interested in science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... ch%20other.
By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website
A US science institute is on the verge of achieving a longstanding goal in nuclear fusion research.
The National Ignition Facility uses a powerful laser to heat and compress hydrogen fuel, initiating fusion.
An experiment suggests the goal of "ignition", where the energy released by fusion exceeds that delivered by the laser, is now within touching distance.
Harnessing fusion, the process that powers the Sun, could provide a limitless, clean energy source.
In a process called inertial confinement fusion, 192 beams from NIF's laser - the highest-energy example in the world - are directed towards a peppercorn-sized capsule containing deuterium and tritium, which are different forms of the element hydrogen.
This compresses the fuel to 100 times the density of lead and heats it to 100 million degrees Celsius - hotter than the centre of the Sun. These conditions help kickstart thermonuclear fusion.
An experiment carried out on 8 August yielded 1.35 megajoules (MJ) of energy - around 70% of the laser energy delivered to the fuel capsule. Reaching ignition means getting a fusion yield that's greater than the 1.9 MJ put in by the laser.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58252784
What's interesting is the degree to which intellectual curiosity informs research agendas - as opposed to practical goals, for it would seem, strangely in the case of fusion - there's a co-incidence of a scientific challenge inherent to nuclear physics, and national security interests, vis a vis energy policy, that has kept the project alive - like some oft reanimated corpse. Nuclear fusion has held out the promise of limitless clean energy since 1932 - and it still doesn't work. Nonetheless, governments are still funding research into fusion on the basis fusion promises limitless clean energy.FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 12:56 am
You mark your own homework very leniently...
that's what a feasibility study looks like...
what you've got is pretty much a daydream!
You would have years of R&D before you were ready to begin a feasibility study.
My layman's impression of the field is that fusion cannot work in earth gravity. It's the enormous gravitational force of the sun that overcomes the Exclusion Principle and allows for sustained fusion reactions. Simply pumping in massive amounts of energy, to create pressure, to, effectively crash atoms into each other and fuse - is not the same as atoms being crushed together by the gravity of the sun. In each case, the Exclusion Principle is overcome - but only under gravity is there a sustained reaction. After any single fusion event in an 'energy forced' system, it returns, mathematically - to the same probabilistic state that two atoms will crash randomly together, whereas, under massive gravity, the occurrence of fusion increases the probability of fusion. In gravitationally induced fusion, atoms are packed tightly together, then crushed further by ongoing fusion energy events - to overcome Exclusion. They are not excited by absurd temperatures, costing vast amounts of energy - as if to cause sufficient random collisions to sustain fusion. Ergo, fusion can be made to occur, but it cannot be sustained, nor produce more energy than it consumes in earth gravity.
I have no way of checking whether these impressions are correct. What I do know is that after 90 years - holding out the promise of limitless clean energy, it might be wise to also look elsewhere - and isn't the earth a massive ball of molten rock? I thought so - but admittedly, I'm no scientist! I'm just interested in science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... ch%20other.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Will I ever be able to fly without feeling guilty again?
By Lucy Hooker
Business reporter, BBC News
"For Maggie Robertson, it was a long-haul flight to Texas that changed her mind about flying. It was 2017 and she was having a great holiday. But then Hurricane Harvey came along - and she and her family narrowly sidestepped floods that cost more than 100 lives. "That brush with natural disaster helped put things in perspective," she says. Previously a regular flyer, visiting friends in Scotland and holidaying abroad, she says the penny dropped during that trip. And in the end, the decision was easy. "It was a relief to say I'm not doing it any more," she says. "I knew that what I was doing wasn't consistent with what I thought was right." She is one of a small band of people who have found flying just too uncomfortable to contemplate any more."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57917193
For me it's the tumble dryer. I feel guilty whenever I put it on, and so I say to myself: "It could be renewable energy. It's not! I know it's not, but it could be!" Same thing with Maggie Robertson - she could be flying on a hydrogen powered jet. She can't, but technologically, she could be, so it's not her fault. Taking it upon herself to unilaterally stop flying is seemingly virtuous, but ultimately, it's a counter productive strategy in that - artificially supressing demand creates an appearance of reform that doesn't address the bad practice. Just as hanging my clothes around the house going mouldy would not encourage my energy company to go green, stopping flying will not encourage airlines to build hydrogen powered jets.
By Lucy Hooker
Business reporter, BBC News
"For Maggie Robertson, it was a long-haul flight to Texas that changed her mind about flying. It was 2017 and she was having a great holiday. But then Hurricane Harvey came along - and she and her family narrowly sidestepped floods that cost more than 100 lives. "That brush with natural disaster helped put things in perspective," she says. Previously a regular flyer, visiting friends in Scotland and holidaying abroad, she says the penny dropped during that trip. And in the end, the decision was easy. "It was a relief to say I'm not doing it any more," she says. "I knew that what I was doing wasn't consistent with what I thought was right." She is one of a small band of people who have found flying just too uncomfortable to contemplate any more."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57917193
For me it's the tumble dryer. I feel guilty whenever I put it on, and so I say to myself: "It could be renewable energy. It's not! I know it's not, but it could be!" Same thing with Maggie Robertson - she could be flying on a hydrogen powered jet. She can't, but technologically, she could be, so it's not her fault. Taking it upon herself to unilaterally stop flying is seemingly virtuous, but ultimately, it's a counter productive strategy in that - artificially supressing demand creates an appearance of reform that doesn't address the bad practice. Just as hanging my clothes around the house going mouldy would not encourage my energy company to go green, stopping flying will not encourage airlines to build hydrogen powered jets.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
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Last edited by Vitruvius on Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
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Last edited by Vitruvius on Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Extinction Rebellion erects table near Leicester Square
Extinction Rebellion has built a huge table near Leicester Square as part of its fifth mass protest to demand the government stops using fossil fuels. The protesters put up a 13ft (4m) tall table and chained themselves to its legs to highlight "that climate breakdown is here now". Police cordons surround the "Impossible Rebellion" protest, which is set to disrupt London for several days. Road closures mean traffic around Trafalgar Square is at a standstill. ...
"We are inviting everyone in Britain to come to the table and have the kind of grown-up conversations government, industry and the media are refusing. When those in positions of power are incapable, it is the responsibility of the people to step up. We are in the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, and Extinction Rebellion are calling crisis talks."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58306278
Extinction Rebellion are in town and I'm conflicted. On the one hand I share their concerns about climate change, but on the other - I disagree with their philosophy, politics and approach to sustainability. I maintain we need to press forward technologically, develop limitless clean energy from magma, and use that to sequester carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle - and so sustain continued economic growth.
ExR's approach is informed by the left wing dominated narrative on the environment, based on Malthus and Limits to Growth, viewed through the lens of anti-capitalist politics.
Malthus was wrong. Food production far outpaced population growth through the application of technology; like trains, tractors and fertilisers. Similarly, Limits to Growth is factually wrong. Resources are a function of the energy available to develop them. Hence we need to apply the technology to produce massive amounts of clean energy - to balance human welfare and environmental sustainability, not encourage authoritarian government imposing taxes and prices rises to supress demand, that will fall most heavily on those least well off.
I'd go there and explain this to them - but I doubt I'd be welcome. They say they want adult talks, but I doubt that their morally self righteous anti-capitalist assumptions are open for debate!
Extinction Rebellion has built a huge table near Leicester Square as part of its fifth mass protest to demand the government stops using fossil fuels. The protesters put up a 13ft (4m) tall table and chained themselves to its legs to highlight "that climate breakdown is here now". Police cordons surround the "Impossible Rebellion" protest, which is set to disrupt London for several days. Road closures mean traffic around Trafalgar Square is at a standstill. ...
"We are inviting everyone in Britain to come to the table and have the kind of grown-up conversations government, industry and the media are refusing. When those in positions of power are incapable, it is the responsibility of the people to step up. We are in the greatest crisis humanity has ever faced, and Extinction Rebellion are calling crisis talks."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58306278
Extinction Rebellion are in town and I'm conflicted. On the one hand I share their concerns about climate change, but on the other - I disagree with their philosophy, politics and approach to sustainability. I maintain we need to press forward technologically, develop limitless clean energy from magma, and use that to sequester carbon, desalinate, irrigate and recycle - and so sustain continued economic growth.
ExR's approach is informed by the left wing dominated narrative on the environment, based on Malthus and Limits to Growth, viewed through the lens of anti-capitalist politics.
Malthus was wrong. Food production far outpaced population growth through the application of technology; like trains, tractors and fertilisers. Similarly, Limits to Growth is factually wrong. Resources are a function of the energy available to develop them. Hence we need to apply the technology to produce massive amounts of clean energy - to balance human welfare and environmental sustainability, not encourage authoritarian government imposing taxes and prices rises to supress demand, that will fall most heavily on those least well off.
I'd go there and explain this to them - but I doubt I'd be welcome. They say they want adult talks, but I doubt that their morally self righteous anti-capitalist assumptions are open for debate!
Re: Solving Climate Change.
re-platforming tactics!
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Fire at Mexican offshore oil platform kills five
At least five people have been killed and six injured in a fire at an offshore oil platform owned by Mexico's state-run company Pemex. Rescue workers are still searching for two people who are missing. The fire also caused work to be halted at 125 oil wells for which the platform provides gas and electricity. The incident comes six weeks after a gas leak in an underwater Pemex pipeline triggered a fire on the ocean's surface in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both that blaze and the one which broke out on Sunday were linked to Pemex's most important oil development, Ku-Maloob-Zaap located in the Gulf of Mexico. The company's chief executive, Octavio Romero, denied that a lack of investment was to blame for the incidents. "There is not a problem of lack of resources. The oil industry is a risky industry..."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58315356
At least five people have been killed and six injured in a fire at an offshore oil platform owned by Mexico's state-run company Pemex. Rescue workers are still searching for two people who are missing. The fire also caused work to be halted at 125 oil wells for which the platform provides gas and electricity. The incident comes six weeks after a gas leak in an underwater Pemex pipeline triggered a fire on the ocean's surface in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both that blaze and the one which broke out on Sunday were linked to Pemex's most important oil development, Ku-Maloob-Zaap located in the Gulf of Mexico. The company's chief executive, Octavio Romero, denied that a lack of investment was to blame for the incidents. "There is not a problem of lack of resources. The oil industry is a risky industry..."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58315356
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Extinction Rebellion: Giant table erected in London street dismantled
Published 41 minutes ago
A table which was erected by Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters in a central London street has been dismantled. Demonstrators put up the 13ft (4m) tall table on Monday at the start of XR's fifth mass protest to demand that the government stops using fossil fuels. The Met issued a dispersal order on Monday night before erecting scaffolding around the giant pink table on Tuesday morning and taking it apart.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48607989
Stop the world I wanna get off ...on how morally self righteous I am, is not a solution to climate change. Climate change is a global problem and needs to be addressed as such. The right approach is developing an adequate alternate energy source first, and transitioning away from fossil fuels after - with as little disruption as possible.
Considering ExR aims are:
The government must declare a climate "emergency"
The UK must legally commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2025
A citizens' assembly must be formed to "oversee the changes"
What do they think they're protesting against?
Democracy? Capitalism? The UK?
Trying to address climate change in the least disruptive, least expensive and most effective manner, I suggest a global cooperative effort to develop magma energy! The earth is a big ball of molten rock, 4000 miles deep, and 26000 miles around. The energy it contains is high grade, huge and constant, and the basic technologies exist to turn that into limitless amounts of clean electricity. (Even then however, assuming the most optimistic timetable possible - the world could not reach net zero before 2045.)
Published 41 minutes ago
A table which was erected by Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters in a central London street has been dismantled. Demonstrators put up the 13ft (4m) tall table on Monday at the start of XR's fifth mass protest to demand that the government stops using fossil fuels. The Met issued a dispersal order on Monday night before erecting scaffolding around the giant pink table on Tuesday morning and taking it apart.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48607989
Stop the world I wanna get off ...on how morally self righteous I am, is not a solution to climate change. Climate change is a global problem and needs to be addressed as such. The right approach is developing an adequate alternate energy source first, and transitioning away from fossil fuels after - with as little disruption as possible.
Considering ExR aims are:
The government must declare a climate "emergency"
The UK must legally commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2025
A citizens' assembly must be formed to "oversee the changes"
What do they think they're protesting against?
Democracy? Capitalism? The UK?
Trying to address climate change in the least disruptive, least expensive and most effective manner, I suggest a global cooperative effort to develop magma energy! The earth is a big ball of molten rock, 4000 miles deep, and 26000 miles around. The energy it contains is high grade, huge and constant, and the basic technologies exist to turn that into limitless amounts of clean electricity. (Even then however, assuming the most optimistic timetable possible - the world could not reach net zero before 2045.)
Re: Solving Climate Change.
I applaud their creative efforts. It's hard to be heard against the deafening drone of profitable and intoxicated patterns. It seems that extremes can only be shaken by other extremes. And sometimes collapsing of all into dust is the inevitable result, from which we can only hope to survive (hopefully with a more balanced awareness).
To me, fighting against systems often seems futile... and perhaps the most enduring value comes from the way it might raise or add to greater awareness. If enough people say "Hey, this is really stupid"... then they clearly won't be reliable as long-term consumers or supporters for those who aim to perpetuate such stupidity.
Personally, I'm more intrigued by the territory of new ideas than in fighting old battles on a worn-out field, which end up being more about feeding and preserving egos than anything else. It shouldn't be that hard to see with more clarity about what seems right on a broader scale, and to realize much more potential, if we weren't so immobilized by the small-minded self-serving nature of primitive egos. I'm hoping that we're on our way to evolving beyond that. People don't need to die for it -- they only need to shift.
To me, fighting against systems often seems futile... and perhaps the most enduring value comes from the way it might raise or add to greater awareness. If enough people say "Hey, this is really stupid"... then they clearly won't be reliable as long-term consumers or supporters for those who aim to perpetuate such stupidity.
Personally, I'm more intrigued by the territory of new ideas than in fighting old battles on a worn-out field, which end up being more about feeding and preserving egos than anything else. It shouldn't be that hard to see with more clarity about what seems right on a broader scale, and to realize much more potential, if we weren't so immobilized by the small-minded self-serving nature of primitive egos. I'm hoping that we're on our way to evolving beyond that. People don't need to die for it -- they only need to shift.
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Then why bother solving climate change at all? If you want to see society collapse, just wait!Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:21 pm I applaud their creative efforts. It's hard to be heard against the deafening drone of profitable and intoxicated patterns. It seems that extremes can only be shaken by other extremes. And sometimes collapsing of all into dust is the inevitable result, from which we can only hope to survive (hopefully with a more balanced awareness).
I don't know. One of the papers noted the irony of a huge queue of ExR supporters outside Pret a Manger- wolfing down coffee and prawn sandwiches, and bemoaning capitalism! As human beings, we have needs and wants that capitalism provides for, and what's more - does so without totalitarian political control, allowing for personal and political freedom. The validity of their concerns, and undoubted creative talents aside, communism has failed every country that ever adopted it, and frequently committed genocides that make Hitler look like an amateur murderous lunatic.Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:21 pmTo me, fighting against systems often seems futile... and perhaps the most enduring value comes from the way it might raise or add to greater awareness. If enough people say "Hey, this is really stupid"... then they clearly won't be reliable as long-term consumers or supporters for those who aim to perpetuate such stupidity.
I suggest a global approach, I hope will emerge at COP 26 in November. It's an approach based on looking first to a scientific understanding of reality, solving the problem in those terms, and then dealing with the ideological consequences in the way the technology is developed and applied. When everything is duly considered, the answer is magma energy - and I'm hoping fossil fuel companies will buy in - because a great many allied industries; allied to - and developed by the fossil fuel industry, would be involved in developing magma energy - drilling, generation, transmission, distribution, etc.Lacewing wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:21 pmPersonally, I'm more intrigued by the territory of new ideas than in fighting old battles on a worn-out field, which end up being more about feeding and preserving egos than anything else. It shouldn't be that hard to see with more clarity about what seems right on a broader scale, and to realize much more potential, if we weren't so immobilized by the small-minded self-serving nature of primitive egos. I'm hoping that we're on our way to evolving beyond that. People don't need to die for it -- they only need to shift.
An interesting question is whether ExR supporters would advocate for a feasible solution? My guess is no, because they're a bunch of virtue signalling neo Marxists - using sustainability as an anti-capitalist battering ram, who have a greater interest in the problem than they do in solutions. Indeed, this is true of the whole left wing dominated narrative on the environment since the 1960's - pitched by the left against society. If it's available to me to see that Limits to Growth is factually incorrect - that as a matter of physical fact, resources are a function of the energy available to develop them, there's no excuse now for suggesting policies that would impose massively on individuals, business and society. If they would put their own empowerment before the interests of sustainability - how are they any better than the oil barons? They're just mining for a different kind of power! At least oil is useful!
Re: Solving Climate Change.
Having said all that, it is difficult to keep these issues in the public eye. It's almost as if people prefer thinking about trivial matters of little mass or moment, rather than these huge, complex and terrifying things. Weird!