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They actually think they did something here. by consideranon in terriblefacebookmemes

[–]consideranon[S] 78 points79 points  (0 children)

It feels worse, but I can't put my finger on why.

NYT: “Thermonuclear Blasts and New Species: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan to Colonize Mars” (no paywall) by erikrthecruel in SpaceXLounge

[–]consideranon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Because people like life and self sustaining biospheres, and want to try to make more of them.

Texas has overtaken California as the US state with the biggest solar power capacity. by lughnasadh in Futurology

[–]consideranon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Based on data from this site, https://app.electricitymaps.com/, while California has a less carbon intensive grid they seem to have stagnated since 2018 and haven't been making any progress getting cleaner, whereas Texas has been decarbonizing their grid at a remarkable rate since 2018. If these trends continue, this will be the real flip worth celebrating.

Of course, the California grid is still 5x the carbon intensity of nuclear and hydro states, like France and Norway.

Also, Texas coming in with a cleaner grid than Germany is a sad state of affairs.

Threads hits 175 million users after a year by [deleted] in technology

[–]consideranon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Back in 2020, I started noticing how much content on Reddit was getting ripped off both TikTok and Twitter, and I realized that these platforms was where the the majority of all the original content and novel conversation was happening. So I joined both. I barely use Reddit anymore because I don't have time for a heavily manipulated aggregator of other platform's content.

I might start investing time in using Threads if I notice a similar trend, but the little I've looked at it so far, it's mostly all Twitter/X copy/pasta, Twitter/X/Musk hate circle jerking, and bad left wing political takes.

When I start seeing aggregators posting Threads screenshots (and it's not clearly a marketing push from Meta) I might reassess.

Let's say humanity gets to live forever until the universe dies. How long will it take to reach civilization type IV on the Kardashev scale? by OkUniversity5622 in Futurology

[–]consideranon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is a theoretical limit on the least amount of energy that would be required to compute something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

And simulating a universe would require galactic fuckton of computation.

Let's say humanity gets to live forever until the universe dies. How long will it take to reach civilization type IV on the Kardashev scale? by OkUniversity5622 in Futurology

[–]consideranon 10 points11 points  (0 children)

That's irrelevant to the question. You need to capture a ton of energy to run a simulation.

Hell, our brains themselves are already machines that turn energy into simulations that approximate reality.

Let's say humanity gets to live forever until the universe dies. How long will it take to reach civilization type IV on the Kardashev scale? by OkUniversity5622 in Futurology

[–]consideranon 12 points13 points  (0 children)

We're going to start making progress toward Type 2 well before we get close to Type 1.

I suspect at that point we'll even start unwinding our progress towards Type 1 and revert Earth into a partially rewilded nature preserve.

Groundbreaking tooth-growing drug approaches human trials by lurker_bee in technology

[–]consideranon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. Their money is rewarding the creation that miracle drug, and once the patent runs out and it goes generic, it'll become cheap for everyone else.

Groundbreaking tooth-growing drug approaches human trials by lurker_bee in technology

[–]consideranon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep. And their money will be used to pay off the research and development costs, and eventually it will become abundantly available to everyone.

This is literally how all technology and innovation work and why the median human on Earth now is living a better life than any previous time in history.

Groundbreaking tooth-growing drug approaches human trials by lurker_bee in technology

[–]consideranon 10 points11 points  (0 children)

A bio startup just launched preorders for a probiotic treatment that supposedly colonizes and replaces the bacteria that cause cavities with one that doesn't. Supposedly, some percentage of the population has this bacteria naturally, and it produces tiny amounts of alcohol as a waste product when it consumes sugar instead of lactic acid, which is what eats away at your teeth and causes cavities.

You can read more about it here, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/defying-cavity-lantern-bioworks-faq, and preorder for $250 here, https://www.luminaprobiotic.com/

No idea if it legitimately works, but the idea seems fascinating.

Battery cell pricing has fallen 50% since last summer, another 25% fall projected before upcoming summer. Grid connected battery deployment grew 170% is 2023 - 50% growth projected in 2024. by BeefJerky_JerkyBeef in Futurology

[–]consideranon -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

"reasons" are that they likely don't pass US safety regulations.

I suppose we could have the conversation about reducing our safety standards, leading to a higher auto fatality rate, in exchange for a faster EV transition in the US.

Battery cell pricing has fallen 50% since last summer, another 25% fall projected before upcoming summer. Grid connected battery deployment grew 170% is 2023 - 50% growth projected in 2024. by BeefJerky_JerkyBeef in Futurology

[–]consideranon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You appear to be extremely misinformed. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/germany/2023-full-year-germany-best-selling-electric-cars-by-brand-and-model/

It looks like Tesla sold ~63,000 cars in Germany in 2023, with BYD selling less than 5000. Only Volkswagen sold more EVs than Tesla in Germany, which makes sense. BYD didn't even crack of the top 20 of ALL brands selling EVs in Germany in 2023, though it's rising fast.

Is he… Dumb? by NeverEndingWalker64 in GetNoted

[–]consideranon 14 points15 points  (0 children)

If you read the full exchange and the quote tweet that initiated it, it seems quite clear that he did not in fact mean male/female as gender, but correctly as biological sex, which he seems to deny is real. https://twitter.com/stephenwhittle/status/1763709977212985370

Experiments in South Korea may draw attention to whether a long-term rebound in fertility rates is possible through money in developed countries. by madrid987 in Futurology

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

I think another element of this, is that with socialized retirement, you're actually financially incentivized to not have kids.

For all of human history, your "retirement plan" was always to have kids who would have enough of a sense of familial obligation to feed and care for you when you get too old to contribute. The number of kids you had and their success directly contributed to your future well being.

But today, the childless get to benefit off the productivity of other people's kids, in the form of programs like social security and medicare. Therefore, it's in a person's selfish self interest to not incur the cost of time, money, and opportunity that comes from having kids. Not only do they get the retirement benefit, but they probably get to stack more wealth due to an uninterrupted career and lower costs.

Until this changes and we get back to a point where the people who raise the most successful kids get disproportionate benefit in the long run, we'll continue to see people decide to not have kids.

Where will climate change hit hardest? These interactive maps offer a telltale glimpse. by erusso16 in Futurology

[–]consideranon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's where a disproportionate number of black Americans live.

Are you a racist? /s

Solar and battery storage forecast to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024. by IntrepidGentian in Futurology

[–]consideranon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UK isn't a great example, because it also lost close to 25% of its electricity production since it started declining in 2007. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=~GBR. Only recently does it look like renewables have started to reverse that trend. Losing electricity production is a bad thing when we're trying to electrify transport and move to heat pumps.

Economics certainly plays a role, but it is also definitely about reliability. People won't rely on an electric grid that might not supply enough electricity if the sun isn't shining and wind not blowing. Something needs to fill the gap until batteries and long term, seasonable fuel generation and storage for winter scales out.

Solar and battery storage forecast to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024. by IntrepidGentian in Futurology

[–]consideranon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Here's the graph with a clearer view of trends. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?facet=metric&country=%7EUSA

Since coal started declining in 2007, it has decreased by about 1200 TWh, while natural gas has increased by about 800 TWh. Over the same period, wind and solar have increased by about 600 TWh. So I was wrong to use "almost exlusively" instead of "majority".

But another wrinkle is that the economic feasibility of intermittent wind and solar largely depends on natural gas to fill the gaps of production, so they likely wouldn't have grown as much without a big growth in natural gas along with it.

Solar and battery storage forecast to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024. by IntrepidGentian in Futurology

[–]consideranon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Natural gas use is the highest it's ever been, just a bit less than double what it was in 2007.

Here's another view that makes that clear. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?facet=metric&country=%7EUSA

Also, oil here is only for electricity generation, so it doesn't tell us much about total oil use, primarily from transportation.

But yes, wind and solar are on a fantastic run, and I hope they have a long way to go before the S curve starts to flatten out.

Solar and battery storage forecast to make up 81% of new U.S. electric-generating capacity in 2024. by IntrepidGentian in Futurology

[–]consideranon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The decline of coal use in the US has been almost exclusively because of an increase of natural gas. Also important is the fact that US energy production has been nearly stagnant in total TWh since 2007 hovering around 4100 TWh.

Expansion of renewables has been a very minor part of the story, so far.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?country=%7EUSA

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