I'm old enough to remember the Obama Admin's support for the nascent battery and PV industries.
Ditto Biden Admin's support for our transition to renewables (IIJA, IRA). Unprecedented. The type of Keynesian investment in the USA (industrial policy, pro-labor) unseen since FDR's New Deal.
> don't forget that Joe Manchin
No one on the left ever will.
That said, it's important to note that the Democratic (center-left) coalition is wicked hard to hold together.
Have you read Caro's (epic) biographies of LBJ? It's amazing how much skill, subterfuge, and manipulation was required to pass progressive legislation over the objections of the die-hard reactionaries.
Everything about politics sucks. Chaos, apathy, nihilism, grifting are the default. It's absolutely amazing that anything gets done at all. So we should celebrate, and learn from, the occasional success.
> So we should celebrate, and learn from, the occasional success.
What success? It's too late. The time for decisive action was decades ago. The worst case scenario is occurring now. Humanity totally failed to avert a disaster. We've already blown past the global temperature thresholds that scientists warned about. Now we're going to have to deal with the consequences. There's no going back in time to prevent it. This was never a problem that we could wait on for "the occasional success."
Methinks our current path has been determined since ~1980, with ~2000 probably being the last chance we had to stay under 1.5C.
So, well, whaddya gonna do?
The trick is deluding oneself that we can somehow muddle thru this. (Humanity has in fact survived worse.) Otherwise I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Is that reasonable? If not, then I might as well soldier on.
> Methinks our current path has been determined since ~1980, with ~2000 probably being the last chance we had to stay under 1.5C.
That's why I said "I realized this back in the 1990s" and was later complaining about Al Gore.
> Otherwise I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Is that reasonable?
This is not like nuclear war—which could still happen, because we still have the weapons, and the madmen to use them—where we're all going to die tomorrow. We're already seeing the effects—as the submitted article shows—but the worst is yet to come. We're cursing our descendants with a world much more hostile than the one we were born into, for no other reason than greed and selfishness. It's the ultimate betrayal of the future. (By the way, I'm a human and deliberately chose to use em dashes, because I felt like it.)
The best thing to happen for global warming in recent years was not the Biden administration but actually the pandemic, because it significantly cut industrial output for an extended time.
Yaya. Sorry. I didn't state my assumptions, am mixing issues.
To me, Kia/Hyundai is an example of a foreign manufacturer successively building EVs in North America for North America. Satisfying American standards, tastes, regulations, etc.
I expect the larger Chinese competitors to do the same.
Decades ago, European and then Japanese competitors did as well.
This is BMW's clever attack on Tesla's overvaluation, partially based on Optimus hype.
The use of (general purpose) humanoid robots in manufacturing will fail. BMW is just accelerating that outcome.
Then Tesla's market cap will implode.
Note that Tesla's business is pivoting to batteries. Demand is basically infinite. They'll kill it, basically printing money, if they survive the transition.
Terrific if it happens. I may even ignore the AI (valuation) bubble for the duration.
David Roberts (https://volts.wtf) has repeatedly noted that AI companies need the power, need it now, and have the capital to get it. So he (and others) advocate that Big Tech fund the grid improvements and new power generation.
Point #1 Virtual Power Plants
Roberts advocates adopting virtual power plants (VPPs). Think grid of grids, like the internet is a network of networks. Think peer-to-peer energy sharing. VPPs unlock dynamic load shifting, two-way energy sharing (think of all those roof top solar panels and powerwalls), and therefore -- most importantly -- reduces peak demand on a grid which will allow greater utilitization.
IIRC: our grids currently operate at 30% capacity (to accommodate rare peak demand events). Grid enhancement techs plus VPPs can boost that to 80% or higher. Reducing the urgency for building more transmission and distribution infra. (In the short term; we still need to greatly embiggen our grid(s).)
It'd be kinda amazing if the urgency to build more data centers mooted the incumbent's (utilities, regulators) opposition to improving our grid(s), thereby benefiting everyone everywhere.
Tangent: there's a backlog of grid enhancing technologies available, just waiting for funding and incentives to line up.
Tangent: VPPs also enable new financial products, which will further accelerate electrification (of All The Things).
Point #2 Solar + Battery
Solar + battery is the fastest, cheapest way to get new power generation. More so every year.
Yes, we still need to massively invest in All The Things to reach Net Zero and beyond. Wind, geothermal, nuclear (fission and fusion), hydro, every flavor of storage, de-carbonize industry and agriculture, conservation, rewilding, and everything else.
But at this moment in time, today, we need gigawatts of new generation and the grid that can support it. That means solar + battery.
Aside, IIRC, data centers are projected to demand just 5% our electricity supply. So society will be the net beneficiaries (on this axis).
Were Big Tech to fund the generation and grid that we need, maybe society will indulge some of Big Tech's less egregious offenses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence
Important Point: the rising costs of transmission, distribution, and fuel costs account for electricity's higher prices. New renewable power generation is now the cheapest option, and getting cheaper. The challenge is delivering that cheap electricity to customers.
> "Democracy" is when "bad actors" (as defined by the establishment) are shut out of all online discourse.
The point of ID laws is not to stop "bots" or "sockpuppets", it's to enable governments to shut down the speech of their political adversaries by painting them as dangerous. That is not democracy, that is authoritarianism, even if you absolutely hate the people that are being shut up.
Western countries are not in the midst of polarized political crises because of "external bad actors" or "sockpuppets". They're in these crises because of fundamental contradictions in values and desired policies between different segments of the populace.
The Europeans are currently full steam ahead in attempting to "fix" the situation by criminalizing dissent, which will, in the end, only exacerbate the political crisis by making the democratic system illegitimate.
The Internet is already all but dead. We could fix it (as I propose). Or we let it die.
I'm fine with either outcome.
> criminalizing dissent
When has that not been true? Serious question.
Socrates was compelled to commit suicide. Jesus was nailed to a cross. Journalist and activists are routinely murdered. How many political prisoners are there right now?
Probably the lack of pictures. Maybe the moderation. Maybe the slight niche.
It could die if it becomes profitable to spamers. Or maybe it's dead now and one or both of us are llms.
But as long as the content quality meets my personal utility threshold, it makes sense for me to visit it, regardless of whether it is a victim of DIT. Ultimately it's probably up to webmasters to understand if the traffic on their site is either profitable or of a high enough quality to justify the operating costs of a hobby.
No ads. No algorithmic hate machine. Active moderation.
Two other fine examples of thriving online communities are metafilter and ravelry.
I'm sure there's many more on the web. I just don't get out much.
And many, many not on the web. Using discord, telegram, old school BBSes, etc. But, as dead Internet theory notes, they're not publicly visible and therefore not discoverable, not being indexed.
I've come full circle to appreciating the current durability of culture.
Last summer, I played Pokémon with my neice's kid. I got to relive the pure joy of playing Pokémon with my neice, nephews, and own son. So now three generations are nerding out together. I love it.
Both our Senate and SCOTUS are anti-democratic. I daresay they've proven reactionary, with a few notable exceptions.
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