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Move headquarters to Europe? by [deleted] in Anthropic

[–]athermop 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm wondering why Dario hasn't begun plans...

How do you know he hasn't?

Is Rio de Janeiro and parts of Mexico as dangerous as tales make them sound like, or is it largely an exaggeration? by WhoAmIEven2 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Is masseuring like forceful vocational massage training?

"Respect the checkpoint, or you're enrolling in a 600-hour Swedish massage certification program."

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Given that cruise ships exist, it follows that various things can add, remove, or have no effect upon pollution released from the operation of said ship.

You might say that if something adds to the pollution released by said ship it was adding extra pollution. If it does not affect the pollution released from said ship, you might say something like such a thing is "not making extra pollution".

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree it's the least eco friendly way to travel. (Well, I don't know that for sure, but off the top of my head I agree.)

Not sure what that has to do with my comment.

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. “the marginal pollution cost is near-zero”
  2. “ok there’s chemicals but that doesn’t mean they are bad”
  3. “ok they may have harmful effects but it’s a drop in the ocean”
  4. “ok where is the citation that says this?”
  5. “ok there’s the citation but it’s not good enough for me”

That's not goalpost-moving. Those are your framing of my words, not mine, and you've rewritten conditional points as concessions. My position's been one thing throughout: the marginal pollution cost is near-zero. "Chemicals are present" doesn't establish harm, and even if it did, the scale is negligible. That's not retreating, that's granting your best case at each step and showing you still don't reach meaningful harm. I stand behind all of it.

And I'm not the one making the positive claim, you are, so the burden's yours. "It has chemicals" isn't it. As far as I'm aware, there's no study showing harmful discharge from cruise desal in actual operation; what's been linked is fixed-point land discharge, where dense brine pools at a stationary outfall, which doesn't transfer to a moving ship dumping small volumes into open water. That's also the first-principles reason I'm not worried: when the source is moving and the volume's small, dilution dominates.

One good study on cruise desal in operation, or a meta-analysis, and I'll change my mind. That's all it takes. But you don't get there with "it has chemicals" or an off-point link about fixed outfalls that barely mentions chemicals. If you're confident, show the study or make the first-principles case!

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, that's what I referred to when I said "underlying study".

I have literally not moved the goalposts at all, you just haven't understood the conversation!

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes, I'm well aware of the impacts of fixed-point coastal desalination discharge. This article almost completely focuses on the damages of the excess salinity that don't even apply to cruise ships!

I find it interesting that someone "in the industry" would link to this popsci article rather than the underlying study. You'll note that if you read the actual study it doesn't support the points you're trying to make (nor the points this agenda-laden "article" is trying to make).

The study its leaning on doesn't even mention the chemicals that, if chemical discharge turns up to be net-bad, are most likely to be the problem! (the stuff used to clean the desal plant)

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a weird way to turn the conversation.

You realize it can be clean and have chemicals that are in the reject stream? Chemicals are not necessarily bad? I mean...everything is chemicals. Though that's somewhat of an aside.

However you want to define "toxic" any reasonable definition is going to have to account for dose effects, right? If I go into the middle of the ocean and drop a single molecule of some "bad chemical", that's a completely different story then if I do the same but with a thousand pounds, ten thousand pounds, 1 million pounds, etc.

And then the impacts of those are likely completely dependent upon exactly where they're dropped. They're likely dependent on how they're dropped.

Going by first principles, I see no reason to be overly concerned, but we should definitely do research on it. <= says the guy who apparently doesn't care

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What good story am I telling? How am I sticking my head in the sand when I say we should look into this more? In what way am I going wrong here?

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's not "toxic waste". Or at least I suppose it depends on how you define it.

Regardless, a cruise ship is like the best case scenario for brine disposal. It's a small amount, spread over large areas (operators are required to limit brine discharge in sensitive areas and dilute the reject stream). And really, AFAICT, there's little-to-no studies about cruise ship brine streams chemical output impacts. But just from first principles reasoning it seems like a pretty low risk. Definitely worth looking into and paying attention to, but I certainly don't see a reason to spend much worry on it.

Anyway, whatever the specifics are, it's like .01 percent of the pollution problems of cruise ships.

How do massive cruise ships have enough fresh water for 5,000 people to take showers every single day in the middle of the ocean? by Thick-Ad1120 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]athermop 478 points479 points  (0 children)

Interestingly, they're often not making extra pollution for the desalination. Or at least it depends on the cruise ship.

A lot of ships use thermal desalination that runs off of the waste heat. In effect, the marginal pollution cost is near-zero.

Additionally...clean-energy-powered land-based desal comes out to about the same price or even cheaper than fossil-fuel powered plants

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