What could governments do to encourage a real transition?

[UndercoverElephant]

I can't take LENR seriously. Not yet, anyway. And I think that as times get harder, people will probably act less like saints and more like wild animals.

Well that doesn't surprise me UE. Let me guess you will only take LENR serious when mainstream science does yes? What exactly don't you take serious?

LENR is a real proven phenomenon, that's a fact, its been proved thousands of times. The only question still open is can it be controlled thus allowing successful commercialisation.

More than likely yes, but humans can be a surprising lot. When every one finally realises, that every single person in this world is facing a serious crisis and there and there children's lives are at risk, we may be surprised how quickly humans can come together. I have seen arch enemies come together many times in a crisis that affects both of them. Obviously it could quite easily go the other way but as i said when humans are faced with a crisis, nothing is certain.

Hey Hodson...let's agree to disagree. I don't want to squash every last ounce of optimism out of you.

[hodson2k9]

Haha fair enough, but over the next year or 2, i reckon you will definately start to take LENR seriously you will have no choice

[UndercoverElephant]

Haha fair enough, but over the next year or 2, i reckon you will definately start to take LENR seriously you will have no choice

Hodson,

I hope you are right. I doubt even LENR would save humanity from catastrophe, but it would certainly provide us with some important new possibilities, and help us to avoid the worst of possible outcomes. It's not "The Solution", but I'd like to hope that the invention of such a technology would lead to an overall improvement of our prospects rather than making them worse. Some people may argue that it's better to get the crash over with.

UE

[Snail]

"The Solution"

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/q ... ution.html

[hodson2k9]

Some people may argue that it's better to get the crash over with.

UE

How about them same people, volunteer there selves and family to be the first ones to starve to death or better yet help with the over population problem and go jump off a cliff!

[Little John]

Haha fair enough, but over the next year or 2, i reckon you will definately start to take LENR seriously you will have no choice

Hodson,

I hope you are right. I doubt even LENR would save humanity from catastrophe, but it would certainly provide us with some important new possibilities, and help us to avoid the worst of possible outcomes. It's not "The Solution", but I'd like to hope that the invention of such a technology would lead to an overall improvement of our prospects rather than making them worse. Some people may argue that it's better to get the crash over with.

UE

I didn't used to think so. But now, a population crash seems to me to be pretty much inevitable and so I wonder if would "better" if it is large and early as opposed to slow and drawn out over a long time period, thus extending and deepening the misery for billions.

That's a terrible conclusion to make I admit. But, it logically follows from an assumption that if a crash is inevitable whatever we do, that there would be less misery involved overall to just get it over with. I am speaking here from the position of being a concerned member of the human race and not from the position of being an individual human being with my own narrow agenda. As an individual, I am just as likely to be one of those who would not make it out the other side of a crash as anyone else and so, as an individual, I naturally don't want to see a quick and early crash.

[extractorfan]

"The Solution"

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/q ... ution.html

That's a good blog post and I agree that we (as in humanity) have a misconceived notion of "solution".

There are plenty of solutions to the problem of peak energy, peak water, peak raw materials, over population. Pick your problem and there are many solutions. Anyone who believes that the way we live in the west is a normal or even acceptable way to live is going to find any of the solutions unbarably gloomy, even appocoliptic of which one solution is.

I go along with those who want to see politicans say it as it is, be brave enough to end their career by being ridiculed but thay will get support from me. When people hear it enough times, whilst experiencing a declining standard of living, they will at some point listen and maybe even *deep breath* read a book or two about something rather than Katy Perry's love life or incredibly exciting career.

Hell, people might realise that finding something interesting is tantamount to "fun", and is cheap, even free. As long as they have time to do it between earning enough to put food on the table.

Any look at these problems must start with the aim of minimising misery in a world of declining resources and population. Anything that does that, to any extent, can be counted as one of the solutions to the problem of misery.

Or of course we could just fight over the last remaining scraps of industrial civilazation, disregarding the suffering of the many, as some people would be happy with this outcome, that would be a solution for them.

[UndercoverElephant]

"The Solution"

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/q ... ution.html

Fascinating. Might have been written by myself in a parallel universe....

It might even work, apart from one important flaw, IMVHO: "Sapience", or wisdom, is neither heritable trait nor a measurable property of humans.

No amount of genetic research is going to allow us to link wisdom with genetics because genes can't impart wisdom at all. Genes determine intelligence to some extent, but high intelligence is no guarantee that you'll end up wise, and some people who are very wise aren't all that specially intelligent - they just have a lot of experience and are the sort of people who can learn from that experience.

And no amount of science is going to be able to measure wisdom.

I also think the author has underestimated the importance of group selection in deciding who will survive the die-off to give rise to the new member of the genus Homo. It will be no use being the fittest individuals in a group that doesn't co-operate effectively when you find yourselves up against a tribe that has worked out a better way to get things done in the new ecological environment.

So I don't think we need to intervene on a hopeless mission to ensure the survival of the wisest. We are going to have to let nature decide which group of humans is the fittest. Evolution tends to be quite good at that...

[UndercoverElephant]

Haha fair enough, but over the next year or 2, i reckon you will definately start to take LENR seriously you will have no choice

Hodson,

I hope you are right. I doubt even LENR would save humanity from catastrophe, but it would certainly provide us with some important new possibilities, and help us to avoid the worst of possible outcomes. It's not "The Solution", but I'd like to hope that the invention of such a technology would lead to an overall improvement of our prospects rather than making them worse. Some people may argue that it's better to get the crash over with.

UE

I didn't used to think so. But now, a population crash seems to me to be pretty much inevitable and so I wonder if would "better" if it is large and early as opposed to slow and drawn out over a long time period, thus extending and deepening the misery for billions.

Yep, that's why some people may argue it...

That's a terrible conclusion to make I admit. But, it logically follows from an assumption that if a crash is inevitable whatever we do, that there would be less misery involved overall to just get it over with. I am speaking here from the position of being a concerned member of the human race and not from the position of being an individual human being with my own narrow agenda. As an individual, I am just as likely to be one of those who would not make it out the other side of a crash as anyone else and so, as an individual, I naturally don't want to see a quick and early crash.

Well, then the thought experiment goes like this:

There is a button in front of you. If you press it, 999 out of every 1000 human beings vanishes into thin air, at random, and you're included in the lottery. Do you press the button?

You can make the experiment more realistic by adding a time limit. You've got 24 hours to decide, or the button disappears and the opportunity is gone.

And I truly do not know what decision I'd end up making, nor which is the most moral decision (i.e. it's not just my own personal fate that matters - I'm not even sure whether pressing the button is morally right or wrong.)

[emordnilap]

I understood that TEQs were to be internationally tradeable.

One of the beauties of TEQs/C&S is that they can be implemented on a single small country scale or multilaterally.

An advantage of a country (naturally I'm thinking of Ireland here) going it alone is the experience of early transition to low-CO2 living (saving vast amounts of money on fuel imports amongst many, many other things).

Fuel is easy to deal with under TEQs/C&S. Imported goods would have to be tagged with CO2 content and levied accordingly - which is where other countries could quickly gain advantage, because low-CO2-made items from country X would be cheaper in Ireland than high-CO2-made items from country Y.

This might go against some EU regs. Well, feck 'em. TEQs/C&S trumps BAU.

[biffvernon]

Certainly TEQs gives an early adopter advantage.

[Little John]

Hodson,

I hope you are right. I doubt even LENR would save humanity from catastrophe, but it would certainly provide us with some important new possibilities, and help us to avoid the worst of possible outcomes. It's not "The Solution", but I'd like to hope that the invention of such a technology would lead to an overall improvement of our prospects rather than making them worse. Some people may argue that it's better to get the crash over with.

UE

I didn't used to think so. But now, a population crash seems to me to be pretty much inevitable and so I wonder if would "better" if it is large and early as opposed to slow and drawn out over a long time period, thus extending and deepening the misery for billions.

Yep, that's why some people may argue it...

That's a terrible conclusion to make I admit. But, it logically follows from an assumption that if a crash is inevitable whatever we do, that there would be less misery involved overall to just get it over with. I am speaking here from the position of being a concerned member of the human race and not from the position of being an individual human being with my own narrow agenda. As an individual, I am just as likely to be one of those who would not make it out the other side of a crash as anyone else and so, as an individual, I naturally don't want to see a quick and early crash.

Well, then the thought experiment goes like this:

There is a button in front of you. If you press it, 999 out of every 1000 human beings vanishes into thin air, at random, and you're included in the lottery. Do you press the button?

You can make the experiment more realistic by adding a time limit. You've got 24 hours to decide, or the button disappears and the opportunity is gone.

And I truly do not know what decision I'd end up making, nor which is the most moral decision (i.e. it's not just my own personal fate that matters - I'm not even sure whether pressing the button is morally right or wrong.)

Would I push the button?

No

Why?

Because I am a hypocrite...


...and a coward

Reminds me of another moral dilemma I used to teach to my year 7 form kids

You are a fireman and you are called to a fire at a hospital

You arrive at the scene and are informed that there are two women trapped on the ground floor. Each is at opposite ends of a long corridor trapped in their respective rooms.

It is clear you only have time to rescue one of them but not the other.

One of them is a research doctor at the hospital, is in her early thirties, has two small children still to raise to adulthood and, furthermore, she is clutching under her arm her PHD thesis which has contained within it the cure for cancer.

The other woman is a cleaner at the hospital, is in her early sixties, has led a full and happy life, her children have all grown up and she is a widow.

Who would you rescue?
















Oh,and by the way, the older woman is your mother......

[emordnilap]

The real issue is not whether TEQs are theoretically implementable and useful. Of course they are, otherwise they wouldn't fool anybody. The issue is the intentions of those who suggested and implement them, and those intentions are entirely cynical.

Eh??!!??

But it's us that are doing the suggesting!!! TEQs are our baby - not something that came out of the dark side.

Ah, sorry... that will teach me to skim-read.

Your admission here, Ludwig, makes me despair for the rest of the species. If you of all people...

There's a saying, "Better to be uninformed than misinformed".

What's that other one...something like, "one's knowledge is finite; ignorance is infinite."

[emordnilap]

You are a fireman and you are called to a fire at a hospital

You arrive at the scene and are informed that there are two women trapped on the ground floor. Each is at opposite ends of a long corridor trapped in their respective rooms.

It is clear you only have time to rescue one of them but not the other.

One of them is a research doctor at the hospital, is in her early thirties, has two small children still to raise to adulthood and, furthermore, she is clutching under her arm her PHD thesis which has contained within it the cure for cancer.

The other woman is a cleaner at the hospital, is in her early sixties, has led a full and happy life, her children have all grown up and she is a widow.

Who would you rescue?
















Oh,and by the way, the older woman is your mother......

Good one. There is no 'right' answer, though you'd probably rescue the younger one, as your mother might well insist, were she able.

[Ludwig]

Eh??!!??

But it's us that are doing the suggesting!!! TEQs are our baby - not something that came out of the dark side.

Ah, sorry... that will teach me to skim-read.

Your admission here, Ludwig, makes me despair for the rest of the species. If you of all people...

There's a saying, "Better to be uninformed than misinformed".

I know - I don't normally offer such uninformed opinions but I was in the middle of doing something else at the time and just popped into PS for a break and a pick-me-up... I was also feeling grouchy, so apologies - I do this occasionally.

What's that other one...something like, "one's knowledge is finite; ignorance is infinite."

Indeed. The more I learn, the more ignorant I feel. It can cause problems when you're discussing things with people who know less than you, and therefore feel they know more.