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[Il Palazzo]

One problem is said solar shade will lower the efficiency of all the solar panels, meaning you need to increase power production from other means.

It's the same with aerosols. The point about crops applies here as well.

but that's actually a selling point. a short lived effect would be much easier to control and fine-tune.

And of course the goal is that you take steps to reduce the amount of CO2 in the mean time.

Only if you can guarantee a sustained global political will to keep it going. A global economic downturn, a 'Trump' in the office of a major contributor, a widespread 'we're not gonna pay for China's/India's/Africa's pollution' attitude among voters, and the whole thing gets suspended. This rapidly unmasks the build-up of the greenhouse effect, and shit hits the fan.

It's easy to think of other problems with the idea. For example, once it's in place, some countries might decide that they don't have to work on reducing CO2 emissions, since problem is solved. Oh, they'll get to it, just not right now, not before the elections, not when the economy is weak, not while others contribute more to the problem. There's no rush, amirite?

The short life means you need to keep adding more and more of the stuff to the atmosphere, which then settles down >everywhere<, so in short order you have the whole earth covered in a layer of whatever you used for the job, and the bodies of water polluted with the same. Some places will get more of the stuff than others, due to how air and water masses move, so you'll end up with some countries vehemently opposed to the whole thing.

And since it's not hard to think of such issues, I wager it would be extremely hard to convince the global community to move forward with it.

Pretty much the only saving grace of the idea is that - unlike solar shade or moving the planet - it's actually feasible using current technology.
For those reasons I see it as something that could get employed as an emergency, not a sustainable solution. It's a pain killer that doesn't cure the sickness and has some serious side effects.

[wierd]

The best solution is to move to technologies that do not produce greenhouse gasses, and to impose actual penalties that have some goddamn teeth on polluting businesses, no matter how fucking big and important to the economy they are.

Then, introduce some kind of incentive to collect and process atmospheric CO2 into something economically useful, to get it out of the atmosphere.

However, both of those problems run foul of "Another Trump gets into office".  I don't thing anything short of space aliens aiming a death-ray at the planet and saying "Fix it OR ELSE" will get around that problem-- Perhaps not even then.

[pisskop]

"I am a very intelligent man.  I see these aliens, they are scams, they are cowards.  We will not be bullied by them, we will build a space-wall to stop them.  I have top minds working on building a ring of asteroids to protect earth.  I call it -and wait for it- API."

[Reelya]

I don't think you 100% got the Trumpian voice down with that.

"I'm very intelligent. Everyone says so. The other day I got a phone call from Einstein, yes that Einstein, to tell me how smart I am. Much smarter than Dr Fauci. He's low-energy. Albert Einstein didn't call him."

That would be the first bit "i am a very intelligent man".

[Naturegirl1999]

God dammit, why can’t humans band together to a global problem? WHy? WHY ARE WE STILL FIGHTING AMONGST OURSELVES? WHY CAN’T WE WORK TOGETHER TO SOLVE A PROBLEM THAT LITERALLY AFFECT US ALL?

[wierd]

Gimme a D, Gimme an E, Gimme an N, I, A, L--

DEEEEENIAL!!

*waves pompoms*


Basically, people do *NOT* want to do anything that is HARDER than what they are currently doing. Only EASIER.  It does not get easier than just dumping your trash into an inconspicuous area. That's why people do it-- Taking it for proper disposal is harder, and "nnnnggg.... I could be watching sportsball or something..." They will go through fucking mental gymnastics, to justify any kind of bullshit rationale for not doing the harder, but objectively correct thing to do, so that they can then excuse themselves for doing the easier, but objectively wrong thing to do. (See for instance, all the people abusing the fuck out of the "intended for severe asthmatic people who really cannot wear a mask" rules, to claim that their privileged and pampered little asses don't have to wear one in public, despite a fucking lethal pandemic going on. This does not even get into the higher-order denialism that happens, where they convince themselves that this is overhyped, is just the flu, or some other piss poor mental bullshit they tell themselves so that they dont feel like they are killing innocent people with their laziness.)

Doubly so if there is a money opportunity cost associated with it. "Dumping it in an inconspicuous place is WAY CHEAPER than proper disposition! We saved %foo_Million_Dollars last year by dumping it into a sinkhole near a mountain ravine!"

Then there is the whole nationalistic WhatAbout-ism bullshit.  "What about China, and THEIR emissions!! You should make THEM reduce THEIR emissions FIRST before you go after AMERICAN companies!" (which is of course, fully reciprocal.)


This is why you have to impose artificial penalties to protect the commons. There is no way around it. No, your lassaize-faire bullshit can go get shafted with a pineapple. You are not owed the maximal theoretical profit. END OF DISCUSSION.

Sadly, none of the world's leaders want to put their foot down like that, because it needs all of them to do it at the same time, otherwise the one(s) that does not, has a natural advantage economically.  Prisoner's dilemma, and all that bullshit.

That's why I said it probably needs something as obscenely external and in-your-face as a fucking alien death ray aimed at the planet, highly visible in orbit.  And maybe not even then, because "BUT MUH PROFITS!!"

[Naturegirl1999]

For those leaders that can be elected, how do we gauge their deniability comparison, to determine which of them is least likely to deny these problems, and will thus do something about them?

[wierd]

You would need a politician that is not interested in re-election.  Such a rare thing is unheard of.

[Naturegirl1999]

I’m sorry, why would a person who sees the reality of a situation instead of denying it, and tries to solve said problems, not be re-elected?

[wierd]

Citizen's United, et al.
See also, "Let me get this straight-- Prices for common goods WILL GO UP. Taxes, WILL GO UP, Administrative overhead WILL GO UP--- What exactly Do *I* as the tax payer get again?"


Nevermind that what they get is a planet that is still livable.  See also, the denialism about climate change, despite it being fucking obvious as fuck now.

[Reelya]

Naturegirl you've come across one of the great conundrums but it has a simple explanation

(1) "my internal model says <thing X> shouldn't happen"

(2) thing X does happen

...

(3) "my internal model is wrong" is the right answer.

The answer to your question is that each election that's already happened is like a science experiment on how elections work. And the type of politicians we have now are those who succeeded in the re-election stakes. So saying that a different type of politician "should" be elected is clearly wrong, because such people are not, in fact, elected.

I’m sorry, why would a person who sees the reality of a situation instead of denying it, and tries to solve said problems, not be re-elected?

You're assuming here that the people doing the voting also see the reality of the situation instead of denying it. That is where the flaw in the logic was. If people are agitate by zombies coming for them you can elect either the guy who says the zombies are a bad threat and everyone needs to get guns or the guy who claims the zombies are over-stated and there's nothing to worry about. People ultimately don't want to worry so they'll elect whoever gives them the message they want to hear, self-serving as it is.

[pisskop]

Morganites for the win

[wierd]

Morganites for the win

Planet created brain worms for a reason.  Earth was destroyed by Morganite thinking.

You don't need to get all Gaia's stepdaughter, and for the love of gawd, stay away from Miriam's bullshit.  Some kind of balance between Peacekeeper and University is the ideal path, IMO, with just enough gaian philosophy to keep planet healthy and happy.


It's a shame we don't have real brain worms. 

[Naturegirl1999]

So, people who don’t deny the problems need to somehow get the deniers to stop their denials of the problem? Have any Neural Network AIs  denied problems? No. They figured out how to solve them, (usually by finding exploits in the world we made for them) but they’ve never denied problems existed, they worked past them

[Reelya]

That's just word salad now NG

NN AI are only as good as the inputs and outputs you give them. They're not magic sauce. If you don't tell an AI car it's a bad thing to run over dogs they'll just run over dogs without caring in the slightest.

As for figuring out how to solve problems, all they do is figure out how to optimize the equation you give them, either implicitly or explicitly. It's entirely up to us humans to make sure we give them the right equation to solve. They don't solve problems, they solve equations and then we try and apply the equations to real life.

This is where it keeps fucking up. Neural Networks are not in fact solving "problems" in the sense that you mean. We give them some numbers and they solve an equation related to those numbers. But the equations are not in fact reality. The computer worked it out so it must be right, since the computer isn't biased, right? The problem is it just doesn't work like that. data sets can have systematic biases in them, and the computer can rightfully determine that it's more efficient to be biased, even if you give it complete and accurate data.

For example, being black is correlated with a number of negative things, such as crime rate, so a neural network could easily determine that it makes sense to deny black people tenancy in a house, in order to minimize the chance of crime occurring. The computer was in fact correct from a statistical / probabilistic viewpoint, but we would see that as not being acceptable.

Or what if the computer decided that certain people were inefficient and it determined that just selectively murdering certain people wih gas while they sleep would improve overall social efficiency? It's certainly a true statement that getting rid of some people would make resource allocation more efficient. Why not let the neural network make all the decisions and just optimize for efficiency, after all? What could go wrong?

Should Computers Run the World? - with Hannah Fry