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Hello Teamliquid,
I suppose I've been encouraged to write this blog due to a university class I am taking which is outside my field of specialty, and I've found quite interesting. I come from a mathematical and science background, which I feel is the case with a majority of users present. This Science, Technology, and Society course named "Technology Within Contemporary Society" I've found very eye opening. The roots of the course are a mixture of history, sociology, and philosophy, which I know to most science/engineering majors appear dry at first sight. However, what this course really addresses - and the reading along with it (listed at the end of the blog post)... Is what the entire cyberspace body doesn't think about, and something that media has extreme bias towards.
The topic is astounds me, and new ideas that can challenge your complete worldviews are presented. It boils down to what relationships exist between the social and technological world. Does technology control us, or do we have technology under control? Or maybe it's in between? In today's world, we are out of tune with nature, when we are born we are surrounded by televisions, electricity, domestic heating, hot water, things that feel natural, and take for granted. It's quite interesting that when a new technology is new, we praise it, however after a certain time frame we assume it's normal that is runs perfectly 100% of the time. Take airplanes, when we first took to the skies, we simply praised the engineers, and were proud of human kind. Nowadays, we will complain about the smallest things on an airplane not being perfect; airline food, not enough leg space?
I'm sure many scholars have taken like classes, but I feel like the average netizen is not too familiar with these concepts, and I think it's important to understand what roles technology plays in society and what interactions are present. The text presents some powerful questions in the names of the chapters, and tries to explore many viewpoints, while asking more questions in the process. This text is structured much like a novel, but it must be approached very differently, because there is a lot of powerful information tightly packed in each paragraph. The names of the chapters are as follows:
Can We Define "Technology"?
Does Technology Control Us?
Is Technology Predictable?
How Do Historians Understand Technology?
Cultural Uniformity or Diversity?
Sustainable Abundance, or Ecological Crisis?
Work: More, or Less? Better, or Worse?
Should "the Market" Select Technologies?
More Security, or Escalating Dangers?
Expanding Consciousness, or Encapsulation?
The book is Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, by David Nye. David Nye is a Professor of American History at the University of Southern Denmark, has had all his writings published by the MIT Press, and received 2009 Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology for the following book.
In the end, I think it's a very interesting book, that covers important topics in one of the most unbiased ways I've seen, by initially showing the two extremes to all problems, explores some middle-grounds, and allows you to construct your position and worldview by presenting information, and philosophies of previous thinkers in history. I just have the need to say that I am not affiliated with this book in any way, and therefore do not profit at all, I am simply a student who found this course essential for gaining understanding of the world we live in. This book can easily be torrented, found in a public library near you, or purchased online if you wish to divulge yourself in this topic further.
I will also attach download links to short 5~ page papers that address some of these topics below, which if you found any interest in anything I discussed, check out to see if you wish to educate yourself further by giving the David Nye book a chance.
Rethinking Technology, Revitalizing Ethics <-- Nice introductory read.
Actor-Network Theory <-- Quite an advanced piece of writing, I recommend this as something you check out after you do some reading with the Technology Matters book.
Anyway, Teamliquid doesn't usually have many education forums, and I wanted to keep this one short as I can't begin to predict what reception this will receive. What I really wanted to emphasize is the importance of the topics covered in these readings, and how they were quite revolutionary to me, and that I truly hope that some fellow TLers will give these topics a chance, because I promise with the proper effort, you will find them enlightening, engaging, and build an appreciation for the importance of these questions. Not only will it teach you how to answer questions, it will teach you which questions to ask, and answering questions with further questions is important in critical analysis of the sociotechnical system and problems relating to all other aspects of life.
Poll: How interesting does this sound to you?Wow, so neat! ^__^ (8) 35% Appears useful and stuff. (: (0) 0% Hmm, I dunno, not really my cup of tea though... (3) 13% How about... I... Don't. Sounds useless ): (6) 26% I'd rather count bird poops. Most uninteresting useless thing ever. -_- (6) 26% 23 total votes Your vote: How interesting does this sound to you? (Vote): Wow, so neat! ^__^
(Vote): Appears useful and stuff. (:
(Vote): Hmm, I dunno, not really my cup of tea though...
(Vote): How about... I... Don't. Sounds useless ):
(Vote): I'd rather count bird poops. Most uninteresting useless thing ever. -_-
Cheers!
 
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Could you elaborate on the major ideas and theories? Otherwise, having to download something will surely limit participation in this topic.
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This sounds interesting. I will try to give that book a read. Meanwhile, I can recommend "Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think". It's a book that argues that thanks to technological advancement, in a not-so-distant future nine billion people will live healthy lives with access to food, clean water, education, health care etc.
The book's four main points are:
*Technologies in computing, energy, medicine and many other areas are improving at an exponential rate and will soon enable breakthroughs that today seem impossible.
*These technologies have allowed independent innovators to achieve startling advances in many areas of technology with little money or manpower.
*Technology has created a generation of "techno-philanthropists" (such as Bill Gates) who are using their billions to try to solve seemingly unsolvable problems such as hunger and disease.
*The lives of the world's poorest people are being improved substantially because of technology.
Check out this lengthy review to get the general idea of what it's about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/books/review/abundance-by-peter-h-diamandis-and-steven-kotler.html
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You'll forgive me if this sounds rude, but my perspective on this topic is that you used quite a lot of words but didn't say much. I'm one of those science/engineering people, but I'm not bored by sociology or philosophy.
I'm not actually seeing the utility of this topic along the lines of the questions posed. This may be because you didn't touch on the underlying themes, you just presented a very vague description of the topic. Allow me to demonstrate.
Does Technology Control Us? [1]
Sustainable Abundance, or Ecological Crisis? [2]
Work: More, or Less? Better, or Worse? [3]
Should "the Market" Select Technologies? [4]
[1] This seems a bit like asking "Does Democracy Control Us?" or "Does Capitalism Control Us?" and given that analogy, I hope you can see the the utility of the discussion seems (from my perspective) quite low - more than that it seems silly. What is there that's interesting to mention about this topic? What kinds of lessons can we learn from looking into this topic?
[2] Ecological crises and the matter of abundance and scarcity have a whole lot less to do with technology and more to do with the steadily rising population of the planet and all the economic utility (i.e. money) being tied up in the profit motive instead of being reserved for the Greater Good or what have you. Of course, we have the means (and then some) to be sustainable in most of our activities but choose not to do so as a society (because of ignorance [burning coal vs. nuclear power], profit motive [what incentive do I have to replant those trees this financial quarter?] etc.). And the reason we have those means is because of "technology" or rather our advanced scientific understanding of the ecology of the planet and the concept of efficient use of energy and resources. How does technology inform this line of inquiry?
[3] Once again, I feel this has more to do with economics than with technology. Karl Marx outlined long ago that the essential unit of value in a human society is the man-hour and that machines can produce work at a rate more than one man-hour per hour. Our economies these days runs on the profit motive, and if everyone could run their businesses more profitably with robots, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Our scientific understanding (and thus, level of technology) advances faster than we can disseminate information to "the masses", so our economy ends up becoming specialized more quickly than "the masses" can specialize in knowledge - thus there are tons of people waiting in line to replace the poor bugger working at McDonald's - and these days that's true even for office workers and jobs that used to be considered more specialized. The employer is holding significantly more cards than the employee in that kind of society - and we've seen wages and benefits diminish to pathetic levels in the United States in particular (many other countries haven't caught up to that point yet).
[4] Should the market select anything? This is a weird kind of question to even ask, and may just be one of those wispy "imagine a universe where..." kind of things - but it stood out to me as not belonging to any kind of focused discussion on the topic of technology. A huge amount of research worldwide is funded by governments because their societies have adopted the idea that it's part of the responsibilities of a government to do so. Thus, a lot of technology is very insulated from the market. However, most technology comes around these days because of the profit motive, which again is more of an economics discussion than a technology discussion (or so it seems to me).
There are certainly missteps in our history where we "chose" the wrong technologies (like VHS vs. Betamax or the aforementioned coal vs. nuclear) because of ignorance. But that's a market property too - people that are ill-informed will decide based on their bad information rather than on good information they don't readily have access to, and that is an issue with education rather than technology (as it seems to me).
As hinted at in [3], it's becoming more and more impossible to educate people to fully utilize the world they live in. A hundred thousand years ago, the average person understood quite a lot about "technology". Sticks poke into people. Fire is very hot and creates light. A hundred years ago, people understood quite a lot about "technology" too, apart from the more advanced realms of chemistry etc. Probably nearly any person could explain to you how various mechanical devices functioned (at least in a simple sense). These days, people have no fucking clue how 90% of the things they use every day work. You have to understand quantum mechanics to even get how a transistor works - forget figuring out how complicated circuits work or how semiconductor physics makes silicon desirable etc. etc. The answer to this question is definitely "no" for the reasons I've outlined, but what is the point in coming to this answer? Will the market suddenly stop and realize "its" mistake and stop "choosing" technology? Where does this question arrive such that it brings us some kind of insight?
Hopefully that didn't come off too antagonistic, and it explained what's missing for me from your topic.
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On June 11 2014 16:30 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
As hinted at in [3], it's becoming more and more impossible to educate people to fully utilize the world they live in. A hundred thousand years ago, the average person understood quite a lot about "technology". Sticks poke into people. Fire is very hot and creates light. A hundred years ago, people understood quite a lot about "technology" too, apart from the more advanced realms of chemistry etc. Probably nearly any person could explain to you how various mechanical devices functioned (at least in a simple sense). These days, people have no fucking clue how 90% of the things they use every day work. You have to understand quantum mechanics to even get how a transistor works - forget figuring out how complicated circuits work or how semiconductor physics makes silicon desirable etc. etc. The answer to this question is definitely "no" for the reasons I've outlined, but what is the point in coming to this answer? Will the market suddenly stop and realize "its" mistake and stop "choosing" technology? Where does this question arrive such that it brings us some kind of insight?
Hopefully that didn't come off too antagonistic, and it explained what's missing for me from your topic.
People seem to accept this as a given but it has huge implications on our democracy. How can there be democratic oversight if we don't understand the underlying issues? Mayor areas from energy policy to medical drug regulation or IP legislation, privacy vis-a-vis commercial actors and governments depend on a large number of very specific technical details. Details that even experts disagree on or can be biased to disagree on anyway.
As an example I happen to disagree with your point on nuclear vs coal. For various reasons I think solar PV and wind coupled with storage are much more likely solve global warming and mitigate the negative health effects of coal fired power plants. Note the tacit assumption in that statement: That global warming is real and that there's no way to operate coal fired power plants in a way that doesn't cause respiratory disease but is still economical. And that's just the part we agree on.
Evaluating nuclear vs solar PV requires looking at technology curves as well as evaluating alternative reactor types for viability and cost. You need to trust experts on issues of nuclear safety, and the example of Japan shows that experts can be biased as a group. There are other issues like looking at the supply chain of the most promising solar PV technologies to see if they can be scaled or not and others I don't even want to mention because I think the point is made already.
TBH, I don't have a clear point with this post. There's value in learning and teaching more about the world, but I doubt we'll ever be informed well enough as a society to make effective choices. If anything technology will continue developing faster than our understanding of it.
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I tend to agree with defmatrix.
Thinking about these kind of things can be a nice mental exercise, but won't lead to a whole lot.
I had studied philosophy for one year alongside my normal studies and and my conclusion after all that was that it's just a huge waste of time.
Will there be downsides along with technological progress?
Most certainly.
What are we gonna do about it?
Create more technology.
Will people trade their freedom for technological convenience?
Most certainly.
What are they gonna do about it?
Not a whole lot (as can already be seen).
Technological progress is the result of a basic human craving to better their world.
It is as unavoidable as the bloating of the global economic system.
Could we in theory all work 10 hours a week and have the same amenities?
Most certainly.
Then why don't we do it?
Because!
Nuff said.
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I'm actually interested in the first question, what is technology. It pissed me off when people refer to iPads and such as "tech". IMO that's not tech, that's application, and it doesn't even further the capabilities of humanity as a whole by any significant degree.
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I'm not entirely sure if you had a specific question in mind, but as a general response I would say I do find it interesting and noted that in your poll.
I got to half of page 4 on the actor-network theory document, after that I think it gets too complicated for a layman like me. But I feel like its really important to clearly understand the definitions, and for the most part I think the author assumes intuitive definitions of the words or otherwise expects us to have some understanding like from the Technology Matters book you talked about.
I think I agree with the idea that our social interactions must include technological components as well, and as far as the core aspect of the actor network theory goes, I can agree with what its trying to do which is essentially just an organizational scheme for how we can look at networks as single actors (which we already, naturally do):
This, then, is the core of the actor-network approach: a concern with how actors and organisations mobilise, juxtapose and hold together the bits and pieces out of which they are composed; how they are sometimes able to prevent those bits and pieces from following their own inclinations and making off; and how they manage, as a result, to conceal for a time the process of translation itself and so turn a network from a heterogeneous set of bits and pieces each with its own inclinations, into something that passes as a punctualised actor.
But on page 3 when he discusses actor network theory, he writes:
Let me be clear. Actor-network theory is analytically radical in part because it treads on a set of ethical, epistemological and ontological toes. In particular, it does not celebrate the idea that there is a difference in kind between people on the one hand, and objects on the other. It denies that people are necessarily special. Indeed it raises a basic question about what we mean when we talk of people. Necessarily then, it sets the alarm bells of ethical and epistemological humanism ringing. What should we make of this?
I have a hard time understanding how you can come to the conclusion that objects are different from people. I think its clear that people have free will and can act, while objects can at most enable or shape our interactions. I'm fine with combining objects and people into networks and representing them as agents as he wrote previously, but if we were to break things down, eventually you would see a cause and effect chain.
And in the previous paragraph he states that these are all questions that can be answered empirically, but I don't see any answer for that in the document; though maybe that isn't his main focus here. After page 4 all he talks about are strategies of translation, but I don't think that does anything to explain how humans and objects are the same (as he puts it, there is "no difference in kind").
Ultimately though, when you read the conclusion I feel like its just a very complex way of writing, that actor-network theory is an attempt to understand how all of the elements in an organization come together to create some final product or service. And that's something that I feel is a bit strange, that after all of this analysis you end up with something that an average corporate employee would be trying to do as part of his job description as a human resources worker; analyzing the system to try to find ways to better manage resources.
The more I read these documents the more I am concerned that they don't really supply anyone with a meaningful insight into things. Even the commentary that material things or technology should be included in our definition of the word social is kind of useless. Yes twitter and forums and powerpoint presentations allow us to communicate in ways we couldn't before, yes they shape our ability to interact with each other and enable us to do things we couldn't before...but is this really something revolutionary or useful to understand?
Anyway it was still a nice read. I guess I like how he writes about things, I like that he tries to make it comprehensible unlike some authors 
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"Actor Network Theory" is a bunch of sophistic bullshit, don't think it's "too complicated to understand." I'm qualified to understand this stuff and I guarantee you there's nothing to understand. It's just a bunch of fancy-sounding nonsense combined with a generic pomo skepticism. It makes some methodological suppositions, meanders through some clever nonsense, and then trumpets the original suppositions as daring, radical conclusions (it's a bit like "feminist philosophy" in this regard). Fuck Bruno Latour.
I think it's important to note that under the postulates of Actor Network Theory, the general acceptance of Actor Network Theory in certain sectors of the academy has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO with the truth or falsity of anything about Actor Network Theory.
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On June 11 2014 18:40 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2014 16:30 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
As hinted at in [3], it's becoming more and more impossible to educate people to fully utilize the world they live in. A hundred thousand years ago, the average person understood quite a lot about "technology". Sticks poke into people. Fire is very hot and creates light. A hundred years ago, people understood quite a lot about "technology" too, apart from the more advanced realms of chemistry etc. Probably nearly any person could explain to you how various mechanical devices functioned (at least in a simple sense). These days, people have no fucking clue how 90% of the things they use every day work. You have to understand quantum mechanics to even get how a transistor works - forget figuring out how complicated circuits work or how semiconductor physics makes silicon desirable etc. etc. The answer to this question is definitely "no" for the reasons I've outlined, but what is the point in coming to this answer? Will the market suddenly stop and realize "its" mistake and stop "choosing" technology? Where does this question arrive such that it brings us some kind of insight?
Hopefully that didn't come off too antagonistic, and it explained what's missing for me from your topic. People seem to accept this as a given but it has huge implications on our democracy. How can there be democratic oversight if we don't understand the underlying issues? Mayor areas from energy policy to medical drug regulation or IP legislation, privacy vis-a-vis commercial actors and governments depend on a large number of very specific technical details. Details that even experts disagree on or can be biased to disagree on anyway. [1] As an example I happen to disagree with your point on nuclear vs coal. For various reasons I think solar PV and wind coupled with storage are much more likely solve global warming and mitigate the negative health effects of coal fired power plants. Note the tacit assumption in that statement: That global warming is real and that there's no way to operate coal fired power plants in a way that doesn't cause respiratory disease but is still economical. And that's just the part we agree on. [2] Evaluating nuclear vs solar PV requires looking at technology curves as well as evaluating alternative reactor types for viability and cost. You need to trust experts on issues of nuclear safety, and the example of Japan shows that experts can be biased as a group. There are other issues like looking at the supply chain of the most promising solar PV technologies to see if they can be scaled or not and others I don't even want to mention because I think the point is made already. [3] TBH, I don't have a clear point with this post. There's value in learning and teaching more about the world, but I doubt we'll ever be informed well enough as a society to make effective choices. If anything technology will continue developing faster than our understanding of it. [4]
[1] A "real" democracy (i.e. people voting on everything) would just turn out like Reddit - a huge mass of misinformed people misinforming even more people. Republic-style democracies theoretically can deal with this issue by having everyone vote for people that are better/smarter than them. But in vacuum (in studies), people tend to vote for people "like them" i.e. the candidate appears to exert the same kinds of ignorant biases that the voter holds. In real practice, it's been "proven" (or at least demonstrated strongly) that the candidates with the most money behind them are most likely to win.
With that said, the problem of ignorance in democracy seems relatively small by comparison.
More importantly (at least in our current world), ignorance of finance and economics is far more crippling than that of technology since we run on the wheels of capitalism. A very tiny number of people control ~90% of the economic utility of the planet. No one voted for them, no one vouched for them, no one asked for them to take the reigns. But they are the gatekeepers to the real power that runs a world dominated by capitalism. Once again this makes the problem of ignorance in democracy seem small.
[2] + Show Spoiler [A Bit Off-topic] +
My example wasn't really counting out so-called alternative energy sources or trying to solve any particular problem. I was just saying that, essentially, nuclear power is a direct and practical replacement for coal that is waaay more resource-efficient (i.e. it's far more economical).
I feel that your attitude of "nuclear isn't the way to, we should look at X" is very questionable. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most efficient source of energy we currently have available. I know you're not saying we should do this, but as an example, you'd have to cover the US from coast to coast with wind turbines to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. Really, we shouldn't discount any source of energy that is better than coal - because coal is really fucking bad all around.
Nuclear energy will be the backbone (the huge industrial-sized vat of energy) of any kind of new energy foundation. The other sources will be localized (they don't produce enough power to efficiently move it across large countries, for example), particularly wind and solar power. Should we put solar panels everywhere? We sure as hell should, there's hardly any drawback and many gains to be had - but it's not very effective everywhere, and it's limited (by physics) in the sheer amount of power it can deliver. Some years from now, it will begin to be economical to do so, but don't let that give you any illusion that it will replace the need for "industrial-sized" energy outputs like nuclear power.
I feel that the safety concerns over nuclear energy are overwrought, even in the face of stone-age disasters like Chernobyl. Nuclear energy has caused fewer casualties and less ecological damage than coal over the same time period even if you decide it would be fun to include atomic bomb tests and such. The numbers are so far in favor of nuclear energy that it's laughable that we as a society have not dropped coal altogether. The other sources of energy are just as necessary, but they cannot form a backbone of energy like mass-produced coal or nuclear power can.
[3] Since we're bringing up Fukushima:
The scary thing about Fukushima was not the nuclear plant. The scary thing about it was there was an earthquake and a tsunami.
You can read a UN report about the effects and after-effects of the incident ( http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/fukushima.html ). Just to be clear, this report was compiled by 80 scientists from 18 different countries and no money exchanged any hands (the countries volunteered these experts at no cost).
The Japanese typically take a dosage of 2.1 millisieverts (mSv) a year. As a reference, other parts of the world are known to take between 10 msV and 20mSv a year, and the nuclear industry in the West generally regulates that nuclear plant workers are not allowed to take more than 20 mSv a year (although flight crews on civilian airliners have been shown to take higher doses on average than nuclear plant workers). Quoting from the report itself:
The districts with the highest average estimated doses for members of the public were within the 20-km evacuation zone and the deliberate evacuation area. For adults, the effective dose estimated to have been received before and during theevacuation was, on average, less than 10 mSv...
So people within 20km of the event received, on average, 10 mSv. So if they continued their lives as normal without being exposed to some other large output nuclear event that year, their yearly dosage would go up from 2.1 mSv to about 12.1 mSv on average. These are clearly not levels beyond what is safe for humans. And this was the event itself, the biggest single contributor. What about the after-effects?
Adults living in the city of Fukushima were estimated to have received, on average, an effective dose of about 4 mSv in the first year following the accident...
So they received 6.1 mSv that year rather than 2.1 mSv - again this is well within safe ranges for humans.
No radiation-related deaths or acute diseases have been observed among the workers and general public exposed to radiation from the accident.
The doses to the general public, both those incurred during the first year and estimated for their lifetimes, are generally low or very low. No discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants. The most important health effect is on mental and social well-being, related to the enormous impact of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, and the fear and stigma related to the perceived risk of exposure to ionizing radiation. Effects such as depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms have already been reported.
Not a single person to this day has died of radiation exposure, even the people that were working inside the plant at the time. No one has contracted any disease or other long-term effects of radiation exposure either, though this report expected a very small (<5%) increase in the likelihood that heavily-exposed small children would develop thyroid cancer over their lifetime. I believe the final number they settled on was just above 1%. As they stated in the report, people's terror at the prospect of dying to radiation is more harmful than the radiation itself.
I hope you'll agree that it's tiresome that well-informed people have to "defend" nuclear power when thousands upon thousands of people die in an earthquake/tsunami and all the media can talk about is a nuclear plant that leaked some of the water it uses as a coolant (nothing interesting even happened at the reactor). The amount of fear and the strength of prejudice against nuclear energy seems to be overwhelming, but it's another one of those problems of ignorance in democracy.
[4] Really, humanity will destroy itself and eat the planet alive unless we keep marching on towards more radical technological change to combat it. It's seemingly too difficult to educate people about the technology that does exist (nuclear power being the perfect example) so our only hope in the long run is to find that jackpot that appeals to everyone and is best for everyone.
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I'll write a more detailed answer later, but I just want to point something out:
On June 12 2014 07:42 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
I feel that your attitude of "nuclear isn't the way to, we should look at X" is very questionable. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most efficient source of energy we currently have available. I know you're not saying we should do this, but as an example, you'd have to cover the US from coast to coast with wind turbines to get the same energy as one nuclear plant.
Wind is already a major source of energy, producing 167TWh of energy in 2013 in the US or about 4% of the total electricity consumption of the US. It's the equivalent of about 20 nuclear reactors. So no, you certainly don't need to cover the US coast-to-coast to get the same energy as one nuclear plant.
EIA Monthly Energy Review [PDF, long] see p. 105.
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On June 12 2014 20:15 hypercube wrote:I'll write a more detailed answer later, but I just want to point something out: Show nested quote +On June 12 2014 07:42 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
I feel that your attitude of "nuclear isn't the way to, we should look at X" is very questionable. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most efficient source of energy we currently have available. I know you're not saying we should do this, but as an example, you'd have to cover the US from coast to coast with wind turbines to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. Wind is already a major source of energy, producing 167TWh of energy in 2013 in the US or about 4% of the total electricity consumption of the US. It's the equivalent of about 20 nuclear reactors. So no, you certainly don't need to cover the US coast-to-coast to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. EIA Monthly Energy Review [PDF, long] see p. 105.
You'll have to forgive the hyperbole. Given a typical nuclear reactor and a typical wind turbine and being generous, there is a conversion factor of several hundred (i.e. several hundred wind turbines vs. one nuclear plant). Using the best nuclear plants and the best wind turbine tech (that I know of), the conversion factor is roughly a thousand.
I appreciate the idea of taking the time to post a large response, but please don't make it a "debate" about wind vs. other power sources. That's off topic, and more to the point, we are on the same side. Wind is obviously a perfectly usable power source, and everyone should use it where it's sensible - you'll get no disagreement from me. My point was that in terms of economics, it simply doesn't scale to nuclear plants - nothing does because the numbers are too far in the plant's favor, has nothing to do with wind in particular. That was the only point I was trying to make. Can you run a land mass off wind power? Sure, you can. But it's more resource-efficient efficient and less ecologically disturbing to do it with nuclear plants. The country that you're currently in runs some ridiculous amount (30% or more) of its power needs off four nuclear plants. That's four warehouse-sized installations. Compare that with the prospect of putting up roughly a thousand wind turbines.
Either way, you don't have to convince me that wind power isn't a pipe dream or whatever. (But if you're trying to convince me we should replace nuclear plants with wind turbines, we can have some words.)
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On June 13 2014 03:41 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2014 20:15 hypercube wrote:I'll write a more detailed answer later, but I just want to point something out: On June 12 2014 07:42 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
I feel that your attitude of "nuclear isn't the way to, we should look at X" is very questionable. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most efficient source of energy we currently have available. I know you're not saying we should do this, but as an example, you'd have to cover the US from coast to coast with wind turbines to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. Wind is already a major source of energy, producing 167TWh of energy in 2013 in the US or about 4% of the total electricity consumption of the US. It's the equivalent of about 20 nuclear reactors. So no, you certainly don't need to cover the US coast-to-coast to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. EIA Monthly Energy Review [PDF, long] see p. 105. You'll have to forgive the hyperbole. Given a typical nuclear reactor and a typical wind turbine and being generous, there is a conversion factor of several hundred (i.e. several hundred wind turbines vs. one nuclear plant). Using the best nuclear plants and the best wind turbine tech (that I know of), the conversion factor is roughly a thousand. I appreciate the idea of taking the time to post a large response, but please don't make it a "debate" about wind vs. other power sources. That's off topic, and more to the point, we are on the same side. Wind is obviously a perfectly usable power source, and everyone should use it where it's sensible - you'll get no disagreement from me. My point was that in terms of economics, it simply doesn't scale to nuclear plants - nothing does because the numbers are too far in the plant's favor, has nothing to do with wind in particular. That was the only point I was trying to make. Can you run a land mass off wind power? Sure, you can. But it's more resource-efficient efficient and less ecologically disturbing to do it with nuclear plants. The country that you're currently in runs some ridiculous amount (30% or more) of its power needs off four nuclear plants. That's four warehouse-sized installations. Compare that with the prospect of putting up roughly a thousand wind turbines. Either way, you don't have to convince me that wind power isn't a pipe dream or whatever. (But if you're trying to convince me we should replace nuclear plants with wind turbines, we can have some words.)
Meh, land-use is not the limiting resource, capital is. There's more than enough land-mass in most regions to cover energy needs using wind and solar. That's true for most Europe too, and it's certainly true for the US and Canada that has lower population densities, even in the more densely populated regions. But sure, if you think we'll need 10-20 times as much energy as we use today then you have to think about alternatives that use as little land as possible.
Regardless of what I really think though a massive roll-out of new reactors in time to significantly impact climate-change is unlikely. The main reason is simply lack of political support. Whether rightly or wrongly people don't trust nuclear power. I think the level unease is underestimated because there were so few new reactors built in developed countries in the last 20 years. I know the UK is planning to build a bunch of new reactors a few years from now. But they'll require long consultations with local communities and will invite lawsuits from environmental groups. I fully expect most of them to slip by years due to popular opposition and many of them not to be built at all.
Anyway, I picked on energy policy because I understand just enough about it to realize how hard it is for the public to keep on eye on their policymakers. Especially when a lot of the policy is buried in misleadingly-titled thousand-page laws or regulations by local public utility commissions, etc.
FWIW, I don't think republics were ever about electing "better" men to positions of power. It was about powerful men coaxing legitimacy from the population as a whole for in exchange for some (but usually not much) influence. It's not so much that the current generation of worse at leading. They are just worse at convincing people that they are doing a good job.
Bottom line is that increased complexity comes with a cost. That's why you refactor your code or build stuff using as few parts as possible. But it has been allowed to fester in our political landscape as well as in the multitude of technologies we are using. Which leads to inefficient solutions to problems that we already have as well unintended consequences.
It's not unreasonable to suppose that unless we get a better grip on how we use new technology to negative consequences we'll outweigh the positives. Some would argue they already have.
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On June 13 2014 07:27 hypercube wrote:
FWIW, I don't think republics were ever about electing "better" men to positions of power. It was about powerful men coaxing legitimacy from the population as a whole for in exchange for some (but usually not much) influence. It's not so much that the current generation of worse at leading. They are just worse at convincing people that they are doing a good job.
James MacDonald argues very convincingly in a book called _A Free Nation Deep in Debt_ that the rise of Republicanism in Europe is basically tied to the emergence of bond markets - that is, when the state has a large number of creditors, the creditors start to demand representation and political power over the mechanisms by which the state pays them back (otherwise they refuse to buy bonds). So Republicanism is not really about "coaxing legitimacy from the population" (since, at the time of the rise of Republicanism, what the population thinks is irrelevant) - it's about the creditor class exercising increasing power over the state apparatus as a result of their growing importance due to the development of "modern" forms of public finance. The stuff about "popular sovereignty" and all that bs you learn in school was just the propaganda - whenever you read those documents you should substitute "the Creditors" for "the People"
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On June 13 2014 07:27 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2014 03:41 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On June 12 2014 20:15 hypercube wrote:I'll write a more detailed answer later, but I just want to point something out: On June 12 2014 07:42 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
I feel that your attitude of "nuclear isn't the way to, we should look at X" is very questionable. Nuclear energy is, by far, the most efficient source of energy we currently have available. I know you're not saying we should do this, but as an example, you'd have to cover the US from coast to coast with wind turbines to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. Wind is already a major source of energy, producing 167TWh of energy in 2013 in the US or about 4% of the total electricity consumption of the US. It's the equivalent of about 20 nuclear reactors. So no, you certainly don't need to cover the US coast-to-coast to get the same energy as one nuclear plant. EIA Monthly Energy Review [PDF, long] see p. 105. You'll have to forgive the hyperbole. Given a typical nuclear reactor and a typical wind turbine and being generous, there is a conversion factor of several hundred (i.e. several hundred wind turbines vs. one nuclear plant). Using the best nuclear plants and the best wind turbine tech (that I know of), the conversion factor is roughly a thousand. I appreciate the idea of taking the time to post a large response, but please don't make it a "debate" about wind vs. other power sources. That's off topic, and more to the point, we are on the same side. Wind is obviously a perfectly usable power source, and everyone should use it where it's sensible - you'll get no disagreement from me. My point was that in terms of economics, it simply doesn't scale to nuclear plants - nothing does because the numbers are too far in the plant's favor, has nothing to do with wind in particular. That was the only point I was trying to make. Can you run a land mass off wind power? Sure, you can. But it's more resource-efficient efficient and less ecologically disturbing to do it with nuclear plants. The country that you're currently in runs some ridiculous amount (30% or more) of its power needs off four nuclear plants. That's four warehouse-sized installations. Compare that with the prospect of putting up roughly a thousand wind turbines. Either way, you don't have to convince me that wind power isn't a pipe dream or whatever. (But if you're trying to convince me we should replace nuclear plants with wind turbines, we can have some words.) There's more than enough land-mass in most regions to cover energy needs using wind and solar. [1] That's true for most Europe too, and it's certainly true for the US and Canada that has lower population densities, even in the more densely populated regions. [2] Regardless of what I really think though a massive roll-out of new reactors in time to significantly impact climate-change is unlikely. The main reason is simply lack of political support. Whether rightly or wrongly people don't trust nuclear power. [3] FWIW, I don't think republics were ever about electing "better" men to positions of power. [4] It's not unreasonable to suppose that unless we get a better grip on how we use new technology to negative consequences we'll outweigh the positives. Some would argue they already have. [5]
[1] Land is not free nor does it come easy. This is one of those subtle problems with non-coal power generation apart from nuclear. You have to have a properly zoned strip of land which is going to cost X amount of dollars to purchase and pay for municipal fees and pay Y property taxes etc. This is true for any kind of power generation system apart from arguably solar. If I was being generous, I'd say you could fit 3 wind turbines in the space that one nuclear plant takes up (in reality, they take up very nearly the same space). That means you'd have to get 66 times more land, pay 66 times more taxes etc. to get equivalent power generation to one nuclear plant that is paying fees and taxes on one strip of land. This is just money - it gets hairy when you consider the ecological impact of using so much land.
[2] Again, this is a subtle point, but the ideal place to put a stack of wind turbines is in a low population density area (cheaper land, less invasive [at least, to humans]). The problem is their lower power output creates a practical difficulty in getting that power to the grid (there is power loss over distance, just an unavoidable fact of physics [unless we can figure out how to do e.g. room-temperature super-conductors]). This means, the farther away you are from a population center (where the power is actually desired), the less effective your turbines are and thus the more you have to build to generate the desired energy. Nuclear would have this problem, assuming you would have built it in the same remote area. But that's not as necessary with a nuclear plant. One warehouse-sized strip of land outside a population center works just fine.
As I've tried to stress, non-nuclear alternative energy is context-sensitive. There are some really good places to use turbines, but you can't just place 10,000 dots on a map and say "look, energy infrastructure". Wind turbines are great for serving local populations but do not have the capacity or the convenient generation characteristics (i.e. interaction with the grid, where do you dump the power and when? etc.) that nuclear plants have that gives them the edge in acting as a more macro-oriented solution.
[3] I don't disagree with you. I want to make that very clear. However, what you're essentially saying is "nuclear is bad because people who don't know any better think it's bad." It is true, but it is a ludicrous and silly kind of problem that we shouldn't have to deal with. People in insane asylums think they're Napoleon, but we shouldn't doom humanity to satisfy their misapprehension. Really, if we could teach children what radiation is, 30 years later you'd have a generation of people who don't go totally monkey-brained when they hear the R word. I just wanted to point this out so we're all clear.
[4] I didn't comment on their purpose, only on their theoretical utility.
[5] I don't follow this point. Technology has, throughout history, been a net positive to every generation.
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EPT
