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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Aside from the question of how long that state would persist if we run out of alternatives, there's also the question of "so what?". Let's imagine that the government will have to subsidize energy production until the end of time, how is that not sustainable?
Generating power at a profit sans subsidies means that it produces energy at a price that society can reasonably pay and continue to support. If the power plant needs government subsidies to continue as a going concern then there's a decent chance that it isn't actually a net positive in terms of energy once you factor in maintenance, having to pay for nuclear scientists etc. The point of stressing profitability is to make sure that you don't have government money disguising what is actually a net energy loss (like encouraging farmers to burn oil growing corn, then turn the corn into a less efficient and less convenient fuel).
Money is not an energy unit, though. Aren't you the guy explaining how energy inefficient modern farming is? But it's perfectly profitable. I see no reason to assume lack of profits means energy inefficiency.
Obviously a financial system can be distorted, but I'm assuming a financial system that's somewhat accurate and not being gamed for the purpose of this exercise. The main reason profit matters here is that a power generation system should be able to support more economic activity than it requires to keep itself running. If you have a powerplant that produces 50 dollars worth of power after you feed it 100 dollars of raw inputs/labour, you're either going to be running it for some other reason (isotopes maybe) or not at all.
Generally I agree that energy efficiency would mean profits, this is why I mentioned that I doubt profitability will remain a problem, once the alternatives are exhausted. That said, it's not impossible that due to some market funkiness the two metrics will become uncorrelated. If it turns out you have to pay everyone in the nuclear industry at least a 7 figure salary, so they don't fuck off to do high-frequency trading, or something else that's short-term profitable, but ultimately pointless, I say bite the bullet, and subsidize their salaries. What you're addressing with that move is income distribution, not energy efficiency.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link