Overall US Energy production has been expanding, faster, each recent year. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/. This is all before you factor in the recent attention to Nuclear, which could come online within the next decade.
The ice caps may be worse off for it, but there's little reason to think the USA will cease to "lead in energy" anytime soon.
The US has long since exhausted it's "easy" oil/gas reserves. Yes, there's tons more down there, but it's increasingly hard to get to. Lots of extraction methods only make sense when the price for oil is above some amount.
If the rest of the world standardizes on solar+battery, demand for oil goes down, and so will the price. Which in turn makes US-produced oil not cost effective to extract, and domestic energy production collapses in favor of cheap foreign imports.
And then we're worse off in several different ways.
The quick answer is yes, today. But there are battery technologies that require less and less in development.
Also, rare earth elements are not that rare. But they are not concentrated, and finding concentrations of them is kinda rare. Event then, you have to mine a lot of area to get them, which is not great for the environment. And since Americans (and everyone ex-China) has not been doing it for decades, only China has advanced the technology to extract and refine it for decades.
This lack of refining is similar to our lack of working on solar which will but us behind potentially forever, or until there is a big enough disruption to overcome the decade of experience. You can look at chipmaking and see that such things are not easy.
The answer depends on the kind of battery chemistry and how literally you mean "rare earth". If you take some slack on the definition and just mean "metal stuff in limited supply", then many battery chemistries have limited supplies.
There are, however, some chemistries with really nice supply chains. The Iron Redox Flow Battery (IRFB) really only needs iron and iron chloride as reactants. Those batteries are being commercialized, but they aren't common (yet?).
There are a great many assumptions in this argument, and I'm not sure they stand up well to examination.
1) "We're out of easily extractable oil" maybe, but I've heard it before and technology does have a way of marching forward.
2) "Rest of world's oil demand will drop" is possible but certainly not happening today and far from certain.
3) "Then Oil prices will plummet in the US Domestic market" is far from a sure thing even if 2) comes to pass. How do the other producers - who don't have large domestic markets! - react? What happens to global petrochemical demand? And what sort of Industrial policy could shield our markets, even if this happens globally?
At the end of the day, we have a continent full of oil (and Uranium! which I prefer!) and an energy-hungry population.
> 1) "We're out of easily extractable oil" maybe, but I've heard it before and technology does have a way of marching forward.
You've heard it before because it's been true for a long time. Technology marches forwards, yes, but technology is expensive, and like I said, a lot of domestic production has fairly high price levels below which they will not operate.
> 2) "Rest of world's oil demand will drop" is possible but certainly not happening today and far from certain.
That's totally fair.
> 3) "Then Oil prices will plummet in the US Domestic market" is far from a sure thing even if 2) comes to pass. How do the other producers - who don't have large domestic markets! - react? What happens to global petrochemical demand? And what sort of Industrial policy could shield our markets, even if this happens globally?
Assuming (2) does happen, then I think this follows naturally. The cost to produce a barrel of oil varies wildly by country. If global demand drops, then the cheapest producers eat the market that they currently cannot fully supply.
Could industrial policy shield this? Sure, but at great cost to the US; that would have the side effect of pushing down energy prices for the rest of the world even more, making it even harder for us to keep up.
Uranium absolutely could save us, but I think we're a couple decades out from the political will being there to really get a lot of nuclear online.
Fracking was a brilliant invention, but may be reaching inherent limits---there are lawsuits between oil companies about fracking fluids from one well flooding and disabling other wells.
Increased Mortality: Projections indicate an additional 14.5 million deaths by 2050 due to climate-related impacts like floods, droughts, heatwaves, and climate-sensitive diseases (e.g., malaria and dengue).
Economic Losses: Global economic losses are predicted to reach $12.5 trillion by 2050, with an additional $1.1 trillion burden on healthcare systems due to climate-induced impacts. One study estimates that climate change will cost the global economy $38 trillion a year within the next 25 years.
Displacement and Migration: Over 200 million people may be displaced by climate change by 2050, with an estimated 21.5 million displaced annually since 2008 by weather-related events. In a worst-case scenario, the World Bank suggests this figure could reach 216 million people moving internally due to water scarcity and threats to agricultural livelihoods. Some researchers predict that 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 in the worst-case scenario due to natural disasters and other ecological threats.
Food and Water Insecurity: Climate change exacerbates food and water insecurity, leading to malnutrition and increased disease burden, especially in vulnerable populations. For example, a significant increase in drought in certain regions could cause 3.2 million deaths from malnutrition by 2050. An estimated 183 million additional people could go hungry by 2050, even if warming is held below 1.6°C.
Mental Health Impacts: Climate change contributes to mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and PTSD, particularly in vulnerable populations and those experiencing climate disasters or chronic changes like drought. Extreme heat has been linked to increased aggression and suicide risk. Studies also indicate that children born today will experience a significantly higher number of climate extremes than previous generations, potentially impacting their mental well-being and sense of future security.
Inequality and Vulnerability: Climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, including low-income individuals, people of color, outdoor workers, and those with existing health conditions, worsening existing health inequities and hindering poverty reduction efforts.
I specifically refer to the question of who will own the IP and economic might to lead in the clean energy market. Who will innovate? Who will build industrial capacity and know how, etc. It seems we’ve ceded the field
Not just strict energy production. Especially when it comes from sources of energy increasingly infeasible and unpopular.
> One thing I (in general) miss from those days, was how easy it was to get into modding.
I'm generally skeptical about the use cases for current-gen AI, but very hopeful that it can help us get back to this golden age of game Modding.
I think many people, like me, got lost in all the polygons and shaders soon after Half-Life 1. But if AI tools can make it easier to express Modern game outcomes, the way we could make a funky HL1 mod with the IDEs back then; it could be swing things back.
No, we have not even scratched the surface of what current-gen LLMs can do for an organization which puts the correct data into them.
If indeed the "GPT 5!" Arms race has calmed down, it should help everyone focus on the possible, their own goals, and thus what AI capabilities to deploy.
Just as there won't be a "Silver Bullet" next gen model, the point about Correct Data In is also crucial. Nothing is 'free' not even if you pay a vendor or integrator. You, the decision making organization, must dedicate focus to putting data into your new AI systems or not.
It will look like the dawn of original IBM, and mechanical data tabulation, in retrospect once we learn how to leverage this pattern to its full potential.
I took about 60 credits - ~8 hours per week each school semester - of Computer Science courses back in the mid 00's at a top state school. Besides the 101 Course, heavy on Java syntax; and Software Architecture where one learns the dark art of Swing, we used pencil, paper, and white boards (even a few chalk boards!) for the rest.
I use concepts like Dijkstra's algorithm and the Turing machine regularly in my job. They are very real to me - more real than any programming language - because I sat for hours taking paper notes off a whiteboard while some OG Computer guru discussed the topic.
If I didn't need tech to learn Computer Science, kids definitely don't need it to learn Algebra.
I didn't even own a computer for my first year of computer science (couldn't afford it), and had a 1½-2 hour commute to school. I did everything with paper and pencil, because when I had to actually turn in something, it involved staying in a giant, crowded computer lab and getting home well after dark after having left well before dawn. I still have notebooks filled with C.
That being said, my mother learned how to program when they were still using punchcard decks. My ordeal wasn't special. Don't know if I learned any better than others, but I think the need to not have bugs on the first iteration was more important for me than for other people. I did not just tweak things until it worked.
What if it is possible to spend a lot less time learning that with newer classroom methods (ed tech doesn't have to mean whiteboards and apps, teaching methods are technology too).
We can make a good house without metal fasteners using hand tools and nothing but muscles. But that doesn't mean that a house built using brushless power tools in 1/4 the time isn't also a good house.
More directly: I conceptually understand a lot of algorithms that I read about. For me though, the ones that I learned by coding them and running them are the ones I understand much better. Hand written notes on a lecture do not guarantee complete or correct understanding, and there is no mechanism for checking.
This isn't true. Harris has talked about fighting inflation many, many times. The issue is nobody listens, ultimately republicans have been able to support the lie that they are the "party of economics". Past that propaganda piece, nobody cares.
As I tried to imply in my original post: Harris' talk about low inflation or fighting inflation loses on a technicality, which is that people tend to experience inflation as the current price not the rate of change in the current price. Thus, when Harris is talking about inflation fighting and inflation cooling down, you have a bunch of people who look at the price of eggs/pizza/houses and say, "this shit is still expensive, Dems are full of shit." They are not looking at the CPI, and calculating the year-over-year change.
Let me share an anecdote: I worked on a project to estimate household-level price sensitivities to the market basket of goods commonly used in CPI calculations. (My employer had shopper-card/upc/transaction-level data from tons of major grocery chains across the USA with which to attempt this project.) I tried to read through the docs on how CPI is calculated, and let me tell you: major snoozefest, and I consider myself "a numbers guy."
I doubt the run-of-the-mill American can accurately define inflation. Consequently, "look at how we fought inflation" is the wrong campaign slogan.
"The Rent is too Damn High" is still a well-recognized meme. I doubt many people remember the gentleman's name or what he was running for. But the message worked! It's got to be simple and focused.
Clinton's was I'm With Her, wasn't it? Not sure about the others off the top of my head. TBF I'm With Her isn't nearly as compelling as Make America Great Again.
People are suffering and the Dems ran on 'things are going great'. To the people suffering that feelz/vibez like 'our version of great DNGAF about you'. It's easy to see how that could be a less than optimal message for a candidate for election.
The issue is that she's part of the current administration and the current dominant party. That's all people care about. They look at who's in charge and vote the other way. It's really that simple.
Oh, they will get worse, much worse. But the simpletons who think the president is in charge of egg prices or whatever will never comprehend that. Maybe if it gets bad enough people will learn then.
> Harris has talked about fighting inflation many, many times.
There was this Biden admin. push to not call things a "recession" due to technicalities that probably pissed people off? "Inflation" means 'higher prices' and "recession" means 'economy things suck right now'.
I did not hear this, and neither did the median voter. Perhaps that is down to our choice of media diets, but we should take such things as constants when considering political outcomes.
I did hear Trump loudly, constantly, inaccurately talking about Grocery prices.
To beat a dead horse, the working class cannot afford grocery or rent. If you say that inflation is not that bad, in their mind you dismiss their suffering and dismiss them entirely.
I'm saying that because inflation is what we're discussing.
I have no trouble believing many people are worse off, which sucks. And many politicians should care more and try to do more.
But: 1) I would attribute that to low wage increases for several decades, not the last 4 years. 2) there's no easy fix for these things. 3) Putting inflation in a global perspective is meant to show how this is not mainly Biden's fault, since he doesn't control the rest of the world.
What if Women, on average, prefer to take more time away from work due to having a child than their male partners? And what if "Black" people are, on average, younger than other groups and so are more likely to be in early-career roles?
More broadly, once we start dividing "People" up into groups like "Black" "White" "Man" "Woman"; isn't a bit silly to think the groups won't expect and want and do different things? Like even if we assign people literally at random (and 'Race' isn't much different than this); wouldn't differences emerge?
Now, imagine you enslave one of those groups for ~400 years, prevent them from voting or getting an equal education for another ~100+. Might differences emerge in how society treats that population?
Yes. Do you agree that my point is also correct? Different groups want different things, and have different demographics, and excel in different areas.
If we defined the "groups" in a less historically informed way, we'd still have differences.
> Different groups want different things, and have different demographics, and excel in different areas.
I think it's very easy to overstate how much those things are genuine differences in preference/ability. Allowing no-fault divorce dropped female suicide rates by 20%; were they happy in those marriages, or enduring them? Would they choose differently if offered the same opportunity?
Eye color, unlike Race or Gender, is pretty evenly distributed over the obvious confounding variables like "Age" or "Preference of staying home with children". I'd expect it to be +/- 10%, though probably not "equal" enough to keep "disparate impact" folks from calling it out.
"Patching" is the fundamental reason airgapping isn't a sound solution, IMO. If you're a TLA you can probably find some secure, verifiable, write-only way to transfer patches to your air gapped machines. But for any normal person/organization; you'll very likely end up less secure due to how hard this is.
You can use DVD-Rs to load a WSUS server for Windows or a package mirror for Linux, I’d just be surprised if many airgapped operators were keeping on top of this.
The TikTok ban story deserves more coverage than it's gotten so far, though today might be a turning point. I strongly expect that they will disappear from the main US App stores on 19th January 2025; whether or not I think this is just.
I saw a lot of people dismiss the ban bill out of hand after it was signed. However, I see a lot lining up against them:
1) Flat out refusal by the parent company to sell both strengthens the USG's case and cuts off a major 'win-win' outcome that could otherwise save them
2) The fact that they're the only major foreign owned social media company in the whole pool. This means that USG has far more latitude, legally and politically, to go after them then any other major platform.
3) The zeitgeist shifting away from Social Media in general, as seen in these lawsuits and just in... the world lately.
> seems wrong to be able to force people to sell a company because they're foreign
Forced sale to stay in the country is the same as forced JV to enter. Most media markets have, historically, been regulated with respect to foreign ownership.
Right or wrong, the USG can do more stuff to inhibit foreign corporations operating here than it can to domestically owned ones. I expect we will see that play out as the deadline approaches here.
For sure, and I'm glad that the Government's powers don't go any further to truly "censoring" the content regardless of the platform. Even this current order is borderline, hence why I dance around the morality of it as I comment.
I do think that an App Store ban would be an effective tool. I don't think that average consumers would use the .com, over YT shorts or threads or whatever.
Legitimately great product idea, I think? Just the idea of a personalized (truly! by you! Not by MSN or whomever), off-screen news feed every morning is cool. The idea that I could *also replace my alarm clock with a dot matrix printer* is even cooler.
I could easily customize the php to hit my own news sources, but wouldn't know where to begin doing the hardware side on my own. Probably many others in this spot.
I'd buy it, for way more than the cost of an old printer, if it was available on the market!
As someone who did something similar back in the day - it is actually pretty easy since you literally have to connect the printer (hardest part, as you will need adaptor cables) and then write to a dev output, which is just a file (assuming you want to run this on Linux).
If you're in DOS (not NT/XP+, not sure about 9x), you can use the debug command to write to the serial and parallel ports. You can also use `ECHO > COM1` for serial, or for the parallel port `ECHO > LPT1`
A big reason for my imminent-AGI Skepticism is the fact that our understanding of the currently existing, Biological intelligence is so, so shallow.
We're here at "Systems level sketch of a fruit fly brain". It's incredible work! But as other comments detail, there is far more to the function of a fly brain than this "map". It's quite a long way from "Deep understanding of a Human Brain, to the point where we can begin engineering a replica".
Maybe we'll get lucky, and find that "Neural Network" techniques really are a pathway to Intelligence in a broad sense. But without some mechanistic understanding of Biological Intelligence, it seems no better than betting on the Numbers in roulette.
AGI does not need to be based on biological intelligence.
it is analogous to human will to fly, and our models were birds, but eventually we came up with something else (airplanes), that are much better at flying than birds (in some regards), and much there is nothing in nature so big, that can fly (nothing that we know of).
IMO AGI could be similar.. despite its dissimilarities with biological brains, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, then it probably is duck (and perhaps better than duck in some ways).
I don't think you need to fully understand how the brain works to be able to create AGI. Did the invention of the wheel/cart/car require us to fully understand how we walk? Did we need to fully understand how fish swim before we could make a boat? The only caveat would be that the AGI we build would be entirely unlike human minds. In the sane way a car going 100 kph is different from a running person.
It's surprising in a way how similar some generative AI seems to be to human parts of human minds like the dream like images produced some times and the reasoning in o1 being kind of human like.
The ice caps may be worse off for it, but there's little reason to think the USA will cease to "lead in energy" anytime soon.