Nah, it will be worse. Tesla will start selling a hybrid model with a generator onboard that can charge the battery as you go. That generator will be designed to be fueled by ground-up burning tires, unrecycleable plastic, and human hair. .
Sure. But those many works have affected the discipline of AI development. There's an entire field of study on AI ethics and alignment. But those are affected by the combined effects of many works and authors. Planet of the Apes really is unique in that it is really the sole example anyone would bring up of why you shouldn't experiment on apes to try to make them more intelligent.
And to my knowledge, no one has attempted to engineer apes to be more intelligent. Obviously there is simply less economic drive to do so; it's easier to be concerned about ethics when there's not a ready path to profitability. But if some geneticist tomorrow puts out a paper proposing that we tinker with chimp DNA to make smarter chimps, I can guarantee you every single headline will reference Planet of the Apes. It's similar to how you can't right an article about resurrecting the woolly mammoth without throwing in a reference to Jurassic Park. Some singular works of fiction really do have a substantial effect on how the public understands an entire field of research.
To my knowledge, no one has ever actually tried to engineer smarter chimps, though I assume there might actually be a lot to be gained in terms of scientific knowledge by doing so. We could probably learn quite a lot about the evolution of language and human evolution in general by trying to experiment with engineering smarter apes. But to my knowledge, no one has ever done so. The lack of profit is obviously a big factor, but I guarantee you, accidentally creating Planet of the Apes would be on the mind of anyone seriously contemplating that sort of scientific endeavor.
That's why it's c/showerthoughts on c/academiccriticcalhistoricalanalyses
MSPaint. Paint is King.
Between the fire and the ice, that is where you may find home.
There are places on the planet Mercury that, if you were to find a lava tube of sufficient depth, would be the perfect temperature for human habitation. Some of the craters on Mercury's poles are never exposed to sunlight and actually have ice in them. Most of the planet is of course boiling hot when the Sun is overhead. But there should be some choice areas where you could skirt the balance of the two, and find lava tubes that, with proper sealing, would be quite comfortable for humans to occupy.
On balance, I think it’s within the realm of possibility that these laws do more harm than good. Honestly, just tax plastic producers and see how quickly producers using plastic to package their products magically fine innovative new alternatives.
Seriously. The way to solve this is to simply put a tax on all plastic packaging. Use those funds to subsidize plastic recycling. Set the tax at whatever level is necessary to make recycling viable. And if the most viable 'recycling' method is to just burn the plastic in an incinerator, so be it. Yeah, it's expensive to build an industrial incinerator that can properly scrub and filter out all the nasty fumes plastic gives off when it's burned. But it can be done. It's more expensive than just stuffing the plastic in a landfill, but by burning it, we solve our plastic problem in the here and now, rather than letting it slowly leach out into the environment for future generations to deal with.
Recycling plastic will always be difficult, and it may never be practical for some cases. But all plastics burn. And if you have the right incinerator, they can be burned without releasing toxic fumes into the air. Tax plastic packaging, all of it. Tax it, and use the funds to subsidize plastic waste incineration. Plastic is made from oil, and it still can be used as a fuel. Burn it and be done with it.
Meanwhile in Alabama, things are so backwards there they haven't even figured out shoes yet! It's not like they prefer sandals or they're too poor to afford shoes. They all go around barefoot, because the idea of shoes just has never occured to any of them. Most buildings instead have special brush ledges so you can scrape the dirt and blood off your feet before you walk in. Again, they're just a hopelessly backwards people. So backwards, they haven't even figured out shoes yet. Their cousins over in Mississippi are a bit further along. MSU currently has a study going where they're experimenting with wrapping feet in ziplock bags, secured with rubber bands.
All real men spring forth, fully formed, from Zeus's brow.
We are currently undergoing the greatest transformation in energy infrastructure since the start of the industrial revolution. Solar power and batteries are not only growing, but absolutely exploding.
Solar has become so cheap so fast that it's going to fundamentally change the very way we use power and energy as a civilization. Seriously, look at new power generation by source. It's almost all solar and wind, with a bit of nuclear and natural gas as a rounding error. And really, new power generation is majority solar.
The key thing is that solar is a technology that can be mass produced in absurd quantities. And the more we produce, the cheaper we can produce it. It appears now that solar is this epochal leviathan, a glacier sweeping across the energy landscape that will grind everything else to powder before it.
We have a very clear path to a grid that is almost entirely solar and wind. There's nothing wrong with nuclear, but it cannot even begin to compete economically against the tsunami that is the solar revolution. Hell, I expect the grid to be almost entirely solar in the future.
Obviously the Sun doesn't shine all the time, but panels have gotten so cheap, so fast, that a lot of these problems are just being carried away by the solar tsunami. For swings over the course of a day, batteries are getting so stupid cheap that we're going to have no problem making enough power during the day to meet our needs at night. But the bigger concern was always seasonal variation. How can we possibly store enough energy to last through a winter? In years prior, this was seen as the Achilles' heel of a largely solar grid. To store that much energy in batteries would seem completely impossible.
But it seems the seasonal problem is going to solve itself. You see, if solar power gets cheap enough, you can start doing really wild things with it. Even on a snowy day in winter, solar panels still generate some electricity. They may only generate 10-20% of what they do on a clear summer day, but they still generate power. And if solar is cheap enough, you can simply size your system so stupidly large that you can meet even your winter's need without any seasonal energy storage. If you spam enough solar panels, you can meet your needs in the winter and then have dirt cheap, essentially free power the rest of the year. And it really looks like this is where we're headed.
I foresee that many of our most energy-intensive industries will adopt a seasonal or semi-seasonal schedule to take advantage of the dirt cheap power in the warmer months of the year. We have a crop growing season, why not an aluminum smelting season or an AI-model training season? Or that free summertime power could be used to desalinate vast quantities of seawater affordably. Or, such a low-cost energy source is exactly what we need to make bulk atmospheric carbon removal a real possibility.
We used to live in tune with the cycle of the seasons. We lived according to the cycle of the Sun. So important was the Sun to our ancestors that we named our greatest deities after it. Amun. Aten. Ra. Huītzilōpōchtli. Ba'al. Aryaman. Mithra. Apollo. Helios. Sol Invictus. These were but a handful of the thousand names we gave to the mighty Sun upon which we so depended. We rose to its light and slept in its absence. We worked when it shone brightest and in the winter, invented elaborate holidays and rituals to encourage its return. We built our entire calendars and organized our entire civilizations around its cycles.
With the Industrial Revolution, we abandoned this close relationship with the Sun. We learned to draw upon bottled remnants of old rotted sunlight, and for a time learned to live apart from the mighty Sun. And those energies in fossil fuels improved our lives so greatly; they raised us up from the mud. We improved our standard of living so much, that we would rather burn the world to ashes than give up the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to. And so, the great challenge of our age is to find a way to keep our lives and comforts going, without destroying the Earth in the process. Millions of people have dedicated their lives to this one central challenge of our age. All our efforts. All our sciences. All of our industry. Our brightest minds and every tool of finance and government at our disposal. All of it searching, seeking, trying to desperately to find a way out of this horrible trap that we have built for ourselves.
And now, after all this yearning. After all this wondering. After all this wandering. The solution was in front of us this entire time. A ray of Sunlight has been cast down into the cave that we are so lost in. And it is leading us back to the light. We will cast off these shackles and leave the fossil fuels in the dust where we found them. We will once organize our entire civilization around the infinite bounty that the Sun freely gives in such abundance. And we will continue to enjoy the fruits that science has given us, but in a way that not only does not damage the Earth, but allows it to heal. That is the future ahead of us. That is the light in the darkness. As our ancestors did from time immemorial, we will once again live in the endless generosity of the star that birthed us. And we will rejoice. And we will sing.
Sol Invictus. We are coming home.
SOL INVICTUS!