You have either failed or not even tried to get to grips with my ideas. — karl stone
My argument is difficult to understand. It suggests a mistake made 400 years ago, in our relationship to science, has had lasting consequences. It requires bearing in mind a distinction between science as truth, and science merely as a basis for technology. Understanding what I'm saying actually requires doing philosophy - that is, holding a set of premises in mind to compare to the current situation to suggest an alternate rationale and course of action. But you haven't understood, or even remembered those premises. Indeed, it's difficult to believe you even read them. — karl stone
Understanding all that is necessary to understanding why technology should be applied as directed by science; a principle we can prove by considering the very nature of life — karl stone
To dismiss my argument again and again as some simplistic 'more is better' approach is insulting — karl stone
Karl, you are obsessed with hydrogen! Take the simplest possible approach. Your plan is too complicated, too rococo, too many parts, processes, and potential problems. — Bitter Crank
There is sun enough and land which is now, and will remain in the future unproductive. These locations are often near or are the same places that a lot of people live. Put the square kms of solar panels there, and supply the needs for energy at hand. For instance, California (39 million people) has desert land near their large population centers. Texas (28 million) has both sunshine and consistently windy highlands. — Bitter Crank
There are good reasons for the particular application of technologies I suggested. — karl stone
Here's an analogy which may help explain my focus in this thread. Let's say a religious person starts a thread where they want to debate Bible verse interpretations. — Jake
You could join them in debating the real meaning of all the verses in the Bible, a process likely to take the rest of your life. Or, you could efficiently end run around all that unnecessary work by asking them to prove the Bible is the word of God. — Jake
In this thread you're like the religious person who wants us to limit our focus to the level you're comfortable with. You want us to accept as a matter of faith as you do that technology is the solution, and then discuss/debate your particular technology idea. — Jake
Again, you seem to be suffering from the consistent illusion that this thread belongs to you personally. It actually belongs to the forum owner and his team of mods, who are the sole authority on what is appropriate in any thread. — Jake
How do we mortgage an asset which can never be used, and thus has no value? — Jake
How do we protect large scale solar array installations on the surface of stormy oceans? — Jake
Which specific human beings will save the world by implementing your vision of "science as truth"? — Jake
It's rude and off topic. Crashing into someone else's thread with a vaguely related idea - contrary to the stated aim of the thread, is exactly what I'd call that - and it's exactly what you're doing here. — karl stone
Who says it can never be used? There may come a time in the future when it will be necessary to burn fossil fuels to regulate the climate in the opposite way — karl stone
Beyond that, I don't know what you're asking for. Names and addresses? — karl stone
I just want to discuss the proposal I started this thread to discuss - something you've refused to do. — karl stone
The premise of this thread which does not belong to you is that this is a technical problem requiring a technical solution. You appear to accept this premise as a matter of faith. You appear to be demanding that we do as well. But not all of us are actually members of the science religion. Some of us may decline to accept the premise "this is a technical problem" as a matter of faith. Some of us may wish to challenge that premise. — Jake
Whenever I attempt to inspect those specific ideas with specific questions, you find the inspection inconvenient and either ignore the questions completely, or blow them off with a quick sentence. I think it just might be you who is refusing to discuss your ideas. — Jake
So, let us say you produce energy from solar power in the desert. How do you utilize it? It has to be transmitted for many miles, and transmission loss can be significant - up to 10% of power per kilometer. — karl stone
The premise of this thread is - the particular approach I argue is necessary to save the world, and I want to talk about it. — karl stone
It's a philosophical problem - i.e. a failure to recognize scientific method as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality. — karl stone
This explains the subsequent misapplication of technology; explains how and why we have created these problems, and why, despite availability of better technologies, we refuse to deploy them. — karl stone
When I explain that's not what I'm saying, you flat out contradict me, insist that what you think I'm saying is what I'm saying, and then repeat yourself. — karl stone
Not at all. I'm quite happy to discuss what I've actually proposed — karl stone
Okay, Jake, do I want my neighbor to create a life form in his garage that will rapidly decompose plastic into environmentaly beneficial material? Yes. — praxis
I was an English major, so this is way out of my field, but I think you are referencing losses at low voltage. Transmission across long distances is at very high voltage, and losses are low -- less than 10% over a thousand km. The very high voltage of long distance transmission is stepped way down for distribution to consumers, and the stepping-down occurs in substations not very far from users. In much of the world, there would be no need to locate solar plants far from users. Indeed, if the solar panels are on one's roof, or near one's urban area, transmission won't be a problem. — Bitter Crank
In much of the world, there would be no need to locate solar plants far from users. Indeed, if the solar panels are on one's roof, or near one's urban area, transmission won't be a problem. — Bitter Crank
Yes, that's it. I understand what you're saying better than you do. I get that having this revealed to the world in print is annoying to you, and I do regret the dent your ego is experiencing, but again, this is a philosophy forum, and that's what happens in such places. — Jake
You don't even understand your own argument implies there's nothing anyone can do. — karl stone
How are you going to fund what you've actually proposed?
You give sound bite answers to this, while investing post after post after post in expressing how dented your ego feels etc. — Jake
That's not the case at all. There's nothing stopping us from updating our relationship with knowledge to adapt to the new environment that's been created by science. Well, nothing except grasping that the environment has profoundly changed, thus creating a need to adapt. But, your point is taken that we're not ready yet to do anything. Reason isn't enough, we're going to need some kind of big crisis to awake us from our philosophical slumbers. — Jake
The issue of scale. Focus on that. — Jake
If your neighbor can do something that impressive, what could a team of well-funded terrorists do with the same technology? If they wipe out the human race or collapse civilization, either with intent or by mistake, do you still care about what's happening with plastic? — Jake
Your focus appears to be skewed to fit your belief that knowledge needs to be regulated and this is an expression of intellectual dishonesty. — praxis
If my neighbor could do something that impressive it would mean that biotechnology had advanced to a degree that more things are possible than we could imagine. For example, with that advanced biotech, we might have modified our immune systems to withstand any biohazard that a terrorist could unleash, or that we modified our neurology so that we had less fear and aggression and more cooperativeness so that terrorists would no longer exist, or we might have wiped ourselves out with the tech long before my neighbor could get his grubby little hands on it. — praxis
Mortgage fossil fuels to the world to monetize without extracting them, and use the money raised to fund fossil fuel infrastructure. What is it about that answer do you not understand? — karl stone
The argument from evolution is that life is 'correct to reality' from the atom up, through its DNA, its physiology, its behavior - all crafted by the function or die algorithm of evolution. The implication is that we have to be intellectually correct to reality or be rendered extinct. — karl stone
Like I've asked about a dozen times now, how do we mortgage an asset which can't be used in any realistic manner or time frame, and thus has no value? Are you going to lend YOUR money to such a hair brained project? No, you're not. Neither is anybody else. — Jake
Yes, so for instance, if the environment changes we have to change too. Or we can ignore the need to change, and die.
Your plan for change appears to be that humans will become Super Rational. But you offer no explanation of how that will happen, and blatantly ignore thousands of years of evidence which points in the opposite direction.
To be intellectually correct to reality we either have to scale ourselves up (become Super Rational!) to meet the new power rich environment created by science, or scale down the powers we give to the quite flawed creatures we actually are.
If you have a plan for how we become Super Rational it might be helpful if you'd like to present it. — Jake
If my neighbor could do something that impressive it would mean that biotechnology had advanced to a degree that more things are possible than we could imagine. For example, with that advanced biotech, we might have modified our immune systems to withstand any biohazard that a terrorist could unleash, or that we modified our neurology so that we had less fear and aggression and more cooperativeness so that terrorists would no longer exist, or we might have wiped ourselves out with the tech long before my neighbor could get his grubby little hands on it.
— praxis
Or a million things. Or your neighbor might crash the ecosystem before any of that happens. — Jake
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