I think you're right, and I also wonder: Considering how hard it is for us to engineer a fusion plant that merely "breaks even" in terms of energy made usable to us, will fusion plants ever be competitive with fission plants? Like, I understand that hydrogen is a lot cheaper than plutonium or enriched uranium, but iirc we never had an issue getting fission plants to break even. As far as I'm aware, the technology for exploiting fission was obvious as soon as they realized that radioactive decay could be hot enough to boil water, and at risk of sounding glib, everything else about it is just safety measures. Whereas there is no fusion equivalent of "The Pile"[1] from Fermi et al.
I do expect fusion to some day be the dominant source of energy, at least if we intend to continue to increase our energy consumption, instead of going all Amish.
But that MAY be after we spent all the easily extractable uranium and (unfortunately) fossil fuels.
When looking at costs for almost anything, there tends to be 3 main components:
1) Raw materials for construction. (Edit: + energy consumed)
2) Raw materials for fuel/operations. (Edit: + energy consumed)
3) Labor
Fusion may require very significant amount of raw materials for construction, and also (with today's technology) a lot of labor. But it is nearly free in terms of fuel costs.
Now, let's assume (as a thought experiment) that AI will make labor virtually free within 100 years, we're down to fuel costs vs the materials needed for construction.
As long as we live in a world where we expect capital to yield some kind of significant/exponential "return on investment", we can calculate a "present day value" based on what we expect that return on investment to be.
But it's not a given that the assumption of exponential growth will hold true in the future Or rather, it's almost certain that SOME DAY it will cease to hold true. In particular, when we run out of other fuels (and we've covered Earth in solar panels), stagnation is inevitable. That means the natural interest is basically 0.
In such a world, and with the assumption that labor is free, fusion would give "free" energy, since capital costs no longer matter compared to the present day value of a permanent revenue stream.
So, given enough time, it seems clear that fusion will almost certainly take over as the dominant energy source. The question is when.
If our energy needs remain moderate for quite a long time or if we get a 300 year AI winter, it could take 100s of years for fusion to become dominant.
On the other hand, if AI makes labor virtually free 50 years from now (or makes labor only slightly more expensive than the energy used), and we continue to need more and more power to drive our data centers, manufacturing and every other need we may have, we may need it sooner.
Also, if we're not able to progress beyond barely breaking even in terms of energy produced vs energy consumed in the process, that will make progress slow.
But if we continue to make progress in terms of energy efficiency, and especially if we're able to scale fusion power to generate very large outputs (10's, 100s or 100s of GW), it may take over relatively quickly.
If I were to bet, I would guess it will take somewhere between 50-300 years for it to generate more than 50% of our power requirements.
And where will this person sleep? What will they eat? How will they speak all the local languages from Portuguese to Turkish? What if their bike gets stolen?
The people who spend their youth partying and not worrying about the future or are
> more risk-taking
(per the op)
are the people who will not bother asking themselves these questions or will simply shrug and say "i dunno we'll get through it" and just do it
It's a mindset of just doing things without worrying about them or their consequences. Of course there's ups and downs. Like the poster above said
> the same social limitations that prevented you from partying as a younger person, probably also prevent you from enjoying your nice stable life to the fullest
It's a mindset of how to live life. You don't care about these questions, which you pay for later, but that's future you's problem
One thing that eased a lot of my anxiety while transitioning to an independent adult was the knowledge that I could survive even without a home or job. My parents did a real good job teaching me how to live on my own and how to focus on the basics. Camping was a real good introduction to this.
As long as I have a $20 tent, an okay sleeping bag, and the clothes on my back I'll be okay. The real shame of our society is that so many people have been forced to live that way because of the greedy few.
They will sleep in a tent in whatever field or forest they find near sunset. They can stop at a campground or hostel every few days to shower and meet other travelers.
They will eat food bought from grocery stores and cooked on their camp stove or at the hostel.
They will speak English to most of the people they meet. Or use their phone to translate where required.
They will buy a used bike and continue on if it gets stolen.
Yes! There are alternatives to Github, people! Diversify! Switch to Sourcehut or Gitea or Gitlab or even DIY with Gitolite. git is a decentralized peer-to-peer system, we shouldn't let Microsoft have a monopoly on its use.
> Just adding variety reduces the chance of having all the important repos up at the same time.
this, sadly, is correct, and the solution you propose is also correct.
The only other option would be for the NixOS Foundation to mirror the git repo of _every single important package_, and I know they're already struggling with the prohibitive cloud costs of hosting just the build objects. :/
I think this attitude really underrates the network effects of GitHub.
I personally am okay making an account on another forge to submit a bug report or patch, but most people aren't. And so I keep my repos on GitHub.
I do plan to soon set up mirroring to another service though. I haven't found a great zero-effort solution to mirror repos from an entire organization though, including ones that are created after mirroring was initially set up. Do you know of any tools which have that functionality? (If not I might write my own at some point.)
Ah, so of course you yourself, or someone you care about, would never be a guilty person, right? You would never find yourself, say, breaking a law that you didn't know about, or doing something that's technically a criminal act but seemed innocent enough at the time (the classic insider trader's lament), nor would you ever have a close family member who is charged with a serious crime. Or if you did, you would bravely accept the judgement of the court without taking exception.
You know, it would be terrible if I was found guilty of willful copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which carries "A fine of not more than $500,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both, for the first offense"[1]. If I had committed such a terrible act as torrenting seven movies, the insult to my conscience would surely move me to accept the felony penalties with civic stoicism - after such twisted malice from myself, the additional moral consequences of pleading "Not Guilty" would be too great to bear.
You can't design a justice system around making it easy for you to escape responsibility for complying with laws you disagree with.
I'm not expressing an opinion on whether throwing someone in jail for torrenting movies is the right moral outcome. What I am saying is that a system which officially says "Yes, lying in court is legally permissible as long as you're lying about something related to a bullshit law" is not exactly sustainable.
I think the DMCA is a stupid and unfair law. The mafia probably thinks RICO is a stupid and unfair law. Someone who is a habitual drunk driver (but is convinced they can 'handle their liquor' better than the general public) probably thinks drunk driving laws are stupid and unfair. What of it?
Taking psilocybin in a corporate setting sounds like a bad time imo, even at a low dose. Plus, there's always that one guy at the office Christmas party...
Please try to do some actual math here. What annual UBI are you targeting, and how much could be funded from pillaging existing spending vs. new taxes?
We did this during the pandemic and it resulted in inflation that we're still trying to deal with. Exactly the kind of inflation that detractors claim would happen.
Safety net, yes. UBI and other redistributionist fantasies, no.
The systemic racism in the public and private economic sectors of American society is of a subtler character than the individual racism promoted by the kinds of people who run explicitly pro-fascist websites. Unlike those people, most US companies and government agencies are deeply concerned with appearing to not be racist, because racism is very unpopular with most American consumers and voters.
Well yes and no. A large fraction of law professors don't have academic degrees past JD which despite having 'Doctor' in its name, is not the equivalent of a Phd. On the other hand they likely would have a large number of publications or a significant body of work as a clerk for an important court.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1