In case of Germany, it's anti-science anti-nuclear "environmentalists" that are destroying it. Energy is needed regardless of the economic structure of society. Now which kind of energy will it be? Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.
> Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.
Heh, nope, everyone does reap the consequences... That said, nuclear power is no viable long term solution and if we imported uranium from Russia, everybody would start to cry again.
Being anti-nuclear isn't necessarily anti-scientific. It is a risk assessment. While I tend to have favored nuclear power, especially towards the current energy setup, I don't think it was a catastrophic decision.
Nuclear was always less than 15% of Germany's primary power consumption. Renewables something like 5%. We need to get to 100% carbon neutral. Whether we have to replace 80 or 100% with wind and solar shouldn't make that much of a difference.
I think you need to qualify that first statement with a timeframe. Otherwise, it is clearly untrue. 100% supply is realistically possible with only renewable energy -- within a few years by investing in storage, local wind power in South Germany where the main demand is etc.
Build enough batteries and hydro to last for a few hours to a few days and use power-to-gas for longer periods of low generation (e.g. winter and no wind). There is already infrastructure in place for strategic gas reserves. We just need to build additional gas plants to meet demand when wind and solar are at production minimums.
All of those, plus "smart grid" stuff to get better control over demand, plus Power to Gas (electricity to methane) and gas turbines (very inefficient, but existing infrastructure can store huge amounts of energy, and efficiency isn't the primary concern for the exceptional case).
Being anti-nuclear (fission as we use it today) is not per se anti-science. If you do some research on how humanity has dealt with nuclear waste in the past and how it is still dealing with it, you may come to a different conclusion.
Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here? They ask you not to use this site for ideological battle, nor to post in the flamewar style. Downvotes of such comments are correct on HN.
Yes, someone else started it, but users here are asked to follow the guidelines whether someone else is or not.
Sorry I don't understand your criticism. Is it not allowed to discuss capitalism or socialism, it is automatically an "ideological battle"? That doesn't make sense imo.
It's not allowed to foment generic ideological tangents with indignant rhetoric.
"Socialism starved a couple million people" is a classic example. All of that has been repeated countless times. It is predictable, therefore it does not gratify curiosity, therefore it's not what HN is for, and that means it's off topic.
If you have something genuinely new to say, that might be ok—but then an internet forum is not a good medium for that; you should write a book or a scholarly essay instead, and maybe link to it here.
It seems to be news for the person blaming capitalism for the woes of the world, though. So discussion is not welcome? Why can't people just ignore threads they are not interested in?
Afaik a lot of stories repeat on HN, so the "newsworthiness" criterion seems a bit arbitrary. Also, shouldn't it make a difference if it is a top level thread? I wouldn't submit a story about "socialism starving millions of people".
I know, your "new" policies have been in place for a while, but I think you really kind of destroyed Hacker News. I don't understand why you worry about curbing discussions in deeply nested threads, as they would be easy to ignore by people who don't care. I don't think you worry about SEO or anything like that, so really, what is your incentive?
Also, there are lots of "boring" and repetitive threads on HN (like on global warming), I think you may actually single out "capitalism vs socialism" for ideological reasons. I don't believe you that nobody is curious about capitalism vs socialism anymore. On the contrary, the "battle" is more relevant than ever, with socialist having a real shot at the US elections. It is a question that affects most of us a lot more than most topics would.
That's like saying a gardener shouldn't worry about weeds because those who don't like them needn't look at them. The trouble is that if one allows such discussion, it spreads and takes over. It doesn't just stay static. Worse, it has feedback effects. For example it drives away users who find such rhetoric boring and lame, and attracts users who enjoy heated repetition. We want the first group here more than the second, because the first makes HN more interesting (higher signal) while the second makes it less interesting (higher noise).
We can't be passive about such effects. They can quickly develop into a vicious circle that destroys the site. HN will only survive as an interesting place for thoughtful people if it avoids that, so this is an existential issue and why I (we) moderate that way. I'm sad you think I've destroyed Hacker News, but would submit that if moderation doesn't evolve as a community grows, one ends up with the default dynamic of internet forums: decay followed by heat death. HN was actually started as an experiment in avoiding that dynamic [1], so in my view we're aligned with its original spirit when we do this. "Our hypothesis is that by making a conscious effort to resist decline, we can keep it from happening." [2]
You're right that the threads about global warming are almost as repetitive. The same logic applies to those.
Can you give a citation? Where does this happen? Is it really just capitalist unwillingness to deliver food, or are these people in the hands of dictators, and it is capitalist unwillingness to sacrifice soldiers to topple them? And do capitalists start wars, or governments?
That’s quite the Malthusian viewpoint. Alternatively: “Malthus theory, which holds that since the world’s resources are more or less fixed, population growth must be restricted or all of us will descend into bottomless misery.
Malthusianism is scientifically bankrupt — all predictions made upon it have been wrong, because human beings are not mere consumers of resources. Rather, we create resources by the development of new technologies that find use for them. The more people, the faster the rate of innovation. This is why (contrary to Malthus) as the world’s population has increased, the standard of living has increased, and at an accelerating rate.“
Also, from your linked article from random space cadets: "Unless people can see broad vistas of unused resources in front of them, the belief in limited resources tends to follow as a matter of course."
Sorry, but O(2^n) is going to grow faster than O(n^3), which is the fundamental limitation of the speed of light for a space-faring civilization expanding in a shell from its origin.
*At the cost of catastrophic ecological destruction.
This specific strawman comes up so often that it ought to have its own name. Just because one guy underestimated the carrying capacity of the Earth a long time ago, and failed to predict farming practices that would eventually wreak havoc on the environment, doesn't make the population variable off-limits for discussion. Is it any more realistic to expect billions of people to voluntarily revert to an ascetic lifestyle?
Really the two are in feedback loops that may correlate and require certain strategization and working smarter instead of harder. Improved agricultural yields produce surplus food per person which allows a shift to industrialization which enables more secondary tertiary areas of specialization which can boost yields and give other benefits.
This dates back to the bronze age even and technically stone age in mesoamerican and neighboring southern native american cultures.
Capitalism saved the planet if not the people on it and has will continue to improve the lives of everyone it touches?
why, because it an economic system based on private ownership over means of production and profit. by that reasoning it implies your right to your own person is guaranteed.
how is that important, well the easiest way to understand it is that anywhere in the world where private and personal property rights are not respected by the government the people are put at risk. go look where the greatest tragedies of our current world are and you will see that.
can capitalism lead to some bad outcomes, yes, but overall it is the basis for many forms of governments with good outcomes. it has reduced death by starvation and disease simply by the abundances created.
when you respect the rights of your people it is far easier to respect the rights of the Earth you live on.
Please do review and follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.