site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30112 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

5
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Build it and they will come. If we want electric vehicle - and they are superior to ICE cars in every way but the charging speed and range - which I think will be solved in a decade or so - talking in principle - why current. Removing friction for buyers is good strategy. Putting solar panels on every roof in sunny area is also a good idea. In my corner in europe - we cook and dry and very often heat water with electricity. So once again - a good idea.

Natural gas is incredibly efficient when used for heating building - the real thermal energy we capture from the potential is 90% or so. So this is not a good policy if gas is readily available.

Energy storage for buildings will arrive 12 months after room temperature superconducters and 6 months after nuclear fusion. Whatever solution we come up with for grid storage and balancing will have one thing in common - will be incredibly bulky. Putting it on prime and expensive land makes no sense for a commodity that travels at the speed of light

I don't think it was culture war - probably just well meaning people with tentative grasp of current tech and the normal bureaucratic tendency to expand your authority.

which I think will be solved in a decade or so

Yeah I said the same thing in 1995.

If we want electric vehicle - and they are superior to ICE cars in every way but the charging speed and range

Also robustness vs. power grid destruction. Remember that a hot nuclear war almost certainly means the power grid is gone because of E3 EMP burning out all the transformers, and you can't use local solar either because E1 will destroy photovoltaics. Another Carrington event is another potential issue, although there's no E1 from that and we can probably get most of the transformers unplugged in time to save them.

Trucks are more important than cars in this scenario, but if you live rurally I can see a car still being pretty personally important.

I think that the pipelines are more vulnerable than the grid. The liquid fuel distribution system is quite fragile. And modern cars are terrible maintenance wise - the last real engines were the turbodiesels from the 80s - everything afterwards have too many electrical parts, black boxes and what not to also require a quite fragile distribution chain.

Trucks are more important than cars in this scenario, but if you live rurally I can see a car still being pretty personally important.

Trucks are probably the last vehicles to be electrified, though.

I don't think it was culture war - probably just well meaning people with tentative grasp of current tech and the normal bureaucratic tendency to expand your authority.

This does seem to match much of normal culture war behavior, though, just without the step of demonizing the people who oppose one's naive overreach.

and they are superior to ICE cars in every way except for the ways that actually matter

If the charging speed and range problems are solved (i.e. electric cars charge as fast as normal cars do, on the same schedule normal cars require it) at-home charging becomes a moot point for the same reasons people don't recharge their normal cars in the garage right now. So that requirement is just added expense for zero benefit.

FWIW, Gas stations suck. The ability to home charge an EV daily driver is literally the only reason I would consider getting a near term EV.

(i.e. electric cars charge as fast as normal cars do, on the same schedule normal cars require it)

It isn't possible.

Consider that the biggest battery you can get on a Tesla Model 3 has a capacity of 100 kWh. They claim it'll do 362 miles on a full charge. Which is indeed nearly as far as small European hatchbacks will generally make it on their 9-gallon tanks, except of course that in the case of the hatchbacks that's the real-world figure and in Tesla's case it's the marketing figure.

If you wanted to charge that battery in six minutes (for easy math), you would need to supply a megawatt of power continuously for those six minutes (in reality even more than that, accounting for losses). Even assuming you could find battery tech that could withstand that, where are you going to get that power? A big, modern, new American house will generally have a 44kW connection (200A at 220v). Charging the one Tesla in 6 minutes works out to the equivalent of the maximum allowed power draw of about 23 houses.

An electric charging station with 10 chargers would need a 10MW grid connection, as much as 227 houses, that is to say as much as a whole neighbourhood. And again, even more, as residential power networks are generally quite a bit undersized on the (for now correct) assumption that not everyone will be drawing the maximum amount all at once.

If you wanted to charge it in three minutes (at which point it would actually approach the time it takes to fill up) you can go and double all of that again.

You've given reasons it wouldn't be possible in a residential setting. But supplying megawatts to commercial charging stations should be quite practical.

Assuming you can figure out a way to deliver megawatts to the battery without melting it or otherwise damaging the vehicle, yes.

at-home charging becomes a moot point

Only if we assume that gas station electricity per kwh will be lower than the one in the outlet at home. And the time it takes to charge is also free. Because I have a habbit to always start a journey with the tank full - those 20-sh minute detour to charge at the begging or end of trip are quite annoying - the 15 min breaks in the middle of the trips are not bad. So I could see the value. And anyway american homes consumes more and more electricity and are still stuck with feeble 110v outlets that can't deliver 2kw, using a hack (two phases ) to get something decent, so it is nigh time to update that part. I have often expressed desire to bump the power in EU homes to 7-10kw at the breaker.

for the same reasons people don't recharge their normal cars in the garage right now

I'd assume the reason people don't do that is because they don't have gasoline piped into their houses. If I did I absolutely would never visit a gas station again if I could help it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats