I think it’s obviously a mix, however, an algorithm that maximizes purely for attention or time on site causes a lot of issues.
Sometimes people are seeking something that is beneficial, and maximizing that is fine. Lots more times, people are mostly responding to angry posts, or falling down a conspiracy rabbit hole that they cannot critically think their way out of. Maximizing the attention of those people is clearly negative.
So does society share some blame? Sure. Does an algorithm that maximizes some people into very bad places share some blame? Absolutely.
I think the main problem of all these “alternative” sites is that there really are just a fuckton of shitty people waiting to go in at the very beginning. So even if people have legitimate concerns and the desire to build fresh, they are quickly pushed out by real cesspool denizens.
The problem is we incorrectly assume that if we build something other cultures will just use it. Really we would need to build a good waste system in a really fucked area, then use that system to clean the area up over 2-5 years. Let the example show a better or improved way.
This example stage is something we often fail at when attempting to export solutions.
Re-using glass containers is actually an extremely low chance of contamination. We have had easy glass sterilization techniques for a long time (most dishwashers have a sanitization cycle). Further, your shelf life won’t be significantly reduced, unless you just don’t clean your containers.
The underlying argument you were responding to wasn’t really greenhouse gas focused. The discussion was mostly about plastic waste in the oceans and our environment. While it is possible the greenhouse gas budget is better with plastic, this doesn’t address the problem of accumulating forever waste within our environment.
It isn’t exactly victim blaming when the HOA wouldn’t authorize the repairs (several articles looked into this). You can’t just go do the repairs without approval in these buildings.
I think a lot of people are doing this same thing (I know several personally). Getting 2 hrs back a day is amazing, and after having it for a year it is really hard to give up.
> I don't mind meeting up with other employees on the occasional fun team-building outing, but I really don't want to work in an office again.
I think this is probably where a lot of companies will settle out; wfh, but with monthly or quarterly workshops/meetups for teams.
The problem is that the req to live within 100mi doesn’t allow workers to fully engage in location arbitrage in the way the workers would like.
I think most people want a better work/life balance, which is what all this ultimately represents. I imagine the eventual long term settle is somewhere more in the “wfh, but with team gatherings for a few days once a month” in a lot of industries.
It came to fruition because it’s creating vast new wealth in a fashion that is directly competitive to old wealth. It’s also easy because climate change is a real, pressing existential crisis. Take this with the caveat that most people won’t think past the headline, so lots of people don’t get to the obvious conclusion of “the way we generate power is the root problem”
Lowering to zero doesn’t solve the problem, but it would help give us a longer runway.
But should we focus our efforts banning things that won’t change the way people have to live? That seems like an easy way to fail.
Further, Bitcoin is not the main issue. BTC being clean or dirty is based on the underlying issue of dirty power generation. How about we ban dirty power generation instead? Attack the actual, underlying problem.
The main argument against crypto is actually an argument against the way we generate power. If our power generation wasn’t so dirty, this argument against crypto goes away.
I fully agree. Philosophy is full of irregular thinkers whose only common trait seems to be the willingness to go into absurd depth about an idea.
What is always interesting to me is how you can spend a large amount of study in the subject and still end up finding out about a new philosopher (I’m going to read some Deleuze now.). For me, David Lewis has been the most interesting philosopher in the last 50 years. Maybe Thomas Nagel as well.
Pain (among other experiences) exists as a gradient compared against both your average experience and any outlier experiences (good or bad). A result of living in a more comfortable, advanced society is that things that seem smaller to someone on the outside are bigger on the personal level. These people aren't inherently weak or soft, it's just that the worst thing or day they have experienced is pretty good in a global sense, but pretty bad in a personal subjective sense.
Two things;
Adding more energy to a system doesn’t tend to produce (calm, sunny, scattered showers). I believe mild weather is a low energy outcome.
Also, humans like predictable weather. Weather becoming less so, good or bad, will make things harder.
The 1.4 to 2.0C range is where we are going to start seeing large scale crop failures. Also massive fish die offs in the ocean. Unless we drastically change trajectories, this will occur during the lifetime of your children.
You hope you and they will be able to handle these changes, but there are going to be a lot of downstream effects from warming and sea level change.
Effectively this is going to require massive and coordinated action. We are going to have to rapidly develop and share the tech, and scale it quickly.
It is also insane how long humanity has ignored this issue. At least we have seemingly moved from ‘12 years left for real action? Hah!’ To ‘Oh shit this is happening and maybe we have that 11 years’
While the co2 levels and temps have been higher in the past, rate of change is the most important factor here. You incorrectly assess the risk by ignoring the fact that it took tens of thousands of years to move those numbers.
The problem is that most of our food chain is going to have major issues adapting at a speed that matches the rate of change. Pesticides and chemicals are certainly problematic as well, but moving the global needle so much over a 100-250 year timeline is a huge issue.
Sometimes people are seeking something that is beneficial, and maximizing that is fine. Lots more times, people are mostly responding to angry posts, or falling down a conspiracy rabbit hole that they cannot critically think their way out of. Maximizing the attention of those people is clearly negative.
So does society share some blame? Sure. Does an algorithm that maximizes some people into very bad places share some blame? Absolutely.