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Sebastian Jones

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Re: A must read
« Reply #100 on: May 01, 2018, 06:23:57 PM »
After reading the intro and the chapter headings, it appears to me that the consultancy that produced this report is primarily convened with constraints on growth.
Considering that growth is at the root of our ecological crisises, this is no bad thing.
I concur with Terry that the "lost decades" in Japan should be viewed as a potential roadmap for how to navigate a post growth future. I'll take a deeper look tonight.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2018, 04:23:44 PM by Sebastian Jones »

JimD

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Re: A must read
« Reply #101 on: May 02, 2018, 06:31:00 PM »
Terry

I dropped this link in the Cafe topic for Neven a few days ago.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/08/wave-of-agriculture-robotics-holds-potential-to-ease-farm-labor-crunch.html

It describes advances in agricultural automation/robots. Note the strawberry picker will eliminate 30 workers for each machine.  The automation in ag is astonishing.  These types of advances will stongly orient towards much larger farming operations as they are perfect for the use of capital to buy the equipment and then use it efficiently.

These trends are exactly the opposite of what most of us think ag should be doing as we fly straight into the storm of climate change.

Surviving climate change absolutely requires we dramatically reduce population. Automation/robots dramatically change the demand for low skilled workers.
Declining carrying capacity means we will be short of food for everyone.
Rich people have no intention of giving up their lifestyles.

So.  If our policies, cultural desires, and technological trends are left to themselves the above leads to a straightforward solution does it not?  I for one have been saying for years here that, if we are unable to adjust civilizational practices to deal with climate change in a manner which takes care of everyone (as we are clearly not able to do) then we will take the opposite approach.  And that approach is to allow the situation to 'prune' the excess growth.  That is, we can't feed everyone, we have no pressing need for people with no skills or who are in excess to needs so it is just easier to 'arrange' for them to not be able to find viable ways to survive.

A harsh argument.  But also a rational and logical one.  TPTB seem to be making this choice to me.
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

TerryM

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Re: A must read
« Reply #102 on: May 03, 2018, 12:26:55 PM »
  And that approach is to allow the situation to 'prune' the excess growth.  That is, we can't feed everyone, we have no pressing need for people with no skills or who are in excess to needs so it is just easier to 'arrange' for them to not be able to find viable ways to survive.

A harsh argument.  But also a rational and logical one.  TPTB seem to be making this choice to me.
Jim
Ramping up eugenics is more than just harsh. "Letting nature take it's course" may sound more humane than lining the "deplorables" against the wall and shooting, but to my mind it's no more acceptable.
Is surviving for an additional generation or two at a cost like this really worth it?


Somehow an effort has to be made.
 A world wide one child policy?
 Enforced vegan diets?


TPTB need to be reigned in, not encouraged.
Terry

TerryM

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Re: A must read
« Reply #103 on: May 04, 2018, 01:19:29 AM »
Ontario is apparently experimenting with cash payments to the less well off. $24,000/year per couple.
When I've more information I'll post it.
Terry

JimD

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Re: A must read
« Reply #104 on: May 08, 2018, 08:52:01 PM »
Are you in a BS job?  Most likely.

Quote
...For a number of years now, I have been conducting research on forms of employment seen as utterly pointless by those who perform them. The proportion of these jobs is startlingly high. Surveys in Britain and Holland reveal that 37 to 40 percent of all workers there are convinced that their jobs make no meaningful contribution to the world. And there seems every reason to believe that numbers in other wealthy countries are much the same. There would appear to be whole industries — telemarketing, corporate law, financial or management consulting, lobbying — in which almost everyone involved finds the enterprise a waste of time, and believes that if their jobs disappeared it would either make no difference or make the world a better place....

...If one includes the work of those who unwittingly perform real labor in support of all this — for instance, the cleaners, guards, and mechanics who maintain the office buildings where people perform bullshit jobs — it’s clear that 50 percent of all work could be eliminated with no downside. (I am assuming here that provision is made such that those whose jobs were eliminated continue to be supported.) If nothing else, this would have immediate salutary effects on carbon emissions, not to mention overall social happiness and well-being.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Are-You-in-a-BS-Job-In/243318?key=17K21y7n_SjUZ04t4-9d7tInUaJwcLDdV_QpNsCZfqsG3f961B4gZ2-LQanQQNUSTHpDSl9ZMUdlWmNRZTZzX0g4eTAydXgwRTRPc0R2WG1RZDdqcWx0SnlZZw

It would figure that an article like this would have the longest link in history.
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

JimD

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Re: A must read
« Reply #105 on: May 20, 2018, 05:03:39 PM »
A Pulitzer prize winner.

Quote
Charlie LeDuff anticipated all the problems that Trump’s election made plain to the rest of us—then he fell into the Hole himself.

https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/anticipating-trumps-america-charlie-leduff-gets-a-little-bit-of-real-people-in-detroit
We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

How is it conceivable that all our technological progress - our very civilization - is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal? Albert Einstein

sidd

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Re: A must read
« Reply #106 on: May 20, 2018, 08:31:21 PM »
Another along the same lines was (requiescat in pace) Joe Bageant.

http://www.joebageant.org/

sidd

sidd

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Re: A must read
« Reply #107 on: June 04, 2018, 11:39:13 PM »
Looks like I must read this book. And the next one he is working on.

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/seymour-hersh-monday-interview.php/

sidd

oren

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Re: A must read
« Reply #108 on: June 24, 2018, 06:45:37 PM »
Are you in a BS job?  Most likely.
Kind of late but thank you JimD, that was an interersting read.

NevB

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Re: A must read
« Reply #109 on: June 25, 2018, 01:26:56 PM »
A Pulitzer prize winner.

Quote
Charlie LeDuff anticipated all the problems that Trump’s election made plain to the rest of us—then he fell into the Hole himself.

https://www.weeklystandard.com/matt-labash/anticipating-trumps-america-charlie-leduff-gets-a-little-bit-of-real-people-in-detroit

Thanks Jim. I don't have time to read all the links but I'm glad I read this one.

jacksmith4tx

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Re: A must read
« Reply #110 on: July 07, 2018, 09:52:07 PM »
I am reading a new book by Carlos Rovelli - The Order of Time. The book combines physics, philosophy, neurology and psychology to explain how time is integrated into our perceptions of reality and why it may be the key to the grand 'Theory of Everything' by reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Search for his name and book title and there are several videos where he explains the book and some of the topics it explores.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

jacksmith4tx

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Re: A must read
« Reply #111 on: July 16, 2018, 08:05:52 PM »
I found this new book (Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect) by Judea Pearl very interesting and relevant to the discussion of using AI and machine learning to analyzing large data sets. Deep into the book (about chapter 10 I think) he mentioned using these new techniques with climate models by adding causal reasoning algorithms.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-build-truly-intelligent-machines-teach-them-cause-and-effect-20180515/

Quote
In his new book, Pearl elaborates a vision for how truly intelligent machines would think. The key, he argues, is to replace reasoning by association with causal reasoning. Instead of the mere ability to correlate fever and malaria, machines need the capacity to reason that malaria causes fever. Once this kind of causal framework is in place, it becomes possible for machines to ask counterfactual questions — to inquire how the causal relationships would change given some kind of intervention — which Pearl views as the cornerstone of scientific thought. Pearl also proposes a formal language in which to make this kind of thinking possible — a 21st-century version of the Bayesian framework that allowed machines to think probabilistically.

Pearl expects that causal reasoning could provide machines with human-level intelligence.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

TerryM

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Re: A must read
« Reply #112 on: July 17, 2018, 05:30:11 PM »
jack
Doesn't the BASIC if - then - else structure assure that cause and effect are built into all but the simplest of algorithms?
AFAIK similar logic gates are present in all digital or analogue computers, so I'm unsure what new framework Pearl is proposing.
Terry

jacksmith4tx

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Re: A must read
« Reply #113 on: July 17, 2018, 06:12:51 PM »
TerryM,
I think he is proposing a non-Boolean approach to conditional branching. If you have been following all the hoopla about the new AI chips from Nvidia, Intel and Samsung it's because they are doing this in hardware too.
If you know where to look on the internet you can download a copy and read it (wink,wink). Alternately you can setup some custom filters on Google and read what other computer scientist have to say about his approach.
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

jacksmith4tx

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Re: A must read
« Reply #114 on: July 20, 2018, 02:24:18 PM »
This news ties in to both the books I recommended. "The Order of Time" and "Why".
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-reversing-effect-quantum.html

The work has some profound implications. "The most exciting thing for us is the possible connection with the arrow of time," says Thompson, first author on the work. "If causal asymmetry is only found in classical models, it suggests our perception of cause and effect, and thus time, can emerge from enforcing a classical explanation on events in a fundamentally quantum world," she says.

Next, the team wants to understand how this connects to other ideas of time. "Every community has their own arrow of time, and everybody wants to explain where they come from," says Vedral. Crutchfield and Mahoney called causal asymmetry an example of time's "barbed arrow."

Most iconic is the thermodynamic arrow. It comes from the idea that disorder, or entropy, will always increase—a little here and there, in everything that happens, until the universe ends as one big, hot mess. While causal asymmetry is not the same as the thermodynamic arrow, they could be interrelated. Classical models that track more information also generate more disorder. "This hints that causal asymmetry can have entropic consequence," says Thompson.

The results may also have practical value. Doing away with the classical overhead for reversing cause and effect could help quantum simulation. "Like a movie playing in reverse, sometimes we may be required to make sense of things that are presented in an order that is intrinsically difficult to model. In such cases, quantum methods could prove vastly more efficient than their classical counterparts," says Gu.

On a related note I see the Chinese have a new world record in quantum computing by entangling 18 QBits.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinese-researchers-achieve-stunning-quantum-entanglement-record/
Science is a thought process, technology will change reality.

iamlsd

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Re: A must read
« Reply #115 on: July 22, 2018, 09:01:55 AM »
Does any know what has happend to https://robertscribbler.com/ which is giving a domain expired message?

Not sure if this is the right spot to ask this but Robert Scribbler is "a must read" for me along with this site of course.

Neven

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Re: A must read
« Reply #116 on: July 22, 2018, 11:44:12 AM »
That doesn't look good. I hope Robert will be back soon.
The enemy is within
Don't confuse me with him

E. Smith

Reallybigbunny

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Re: A must read
« Reply #117 on: July 22, 2018, 12:43:55 PM »
I have been trying to access his site for some time since his somewhat erratic last post. Please come back Robertscribler!

Telihod

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Re: A must read
« Reply #118 on: July 22, 2018, 12:49:59 PM »
His youtube channel is very active. He has posted 5 videos yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/user/LuthielV/videos

gerontocrat

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Re: A must read
« Reply #119 on: July 22, 2018, 04:30:35 PM »
His youtube channel is very active. He has posted 5 videos yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/user/LuthielV/videos

Message on the domain reads:-
Quote
This domain expired, and it has to be renewed before it is lost.

We already notified this site’s owners. However, renewing expired domains becomes more costly and complicated as time goes by. We want to make sure they got the message.

If you know this site’s owners, please get in touch and remind them to renew this domain before it’s too late.
Sounds a bit final to me. Perhaps he has decided the well-written word just won't reach the audience he is looking for, that perhaps only react to videos and tweets?

So I plonked a query on the comments thing on youtube.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

ritter

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Re: A must read
« Reply #120 on: July 23, 2018, 06:14:11 PM »
Up and working this morning.

sidd

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Re: A must read
« Reply #121 on: September 20, 2018, 08:56:48 PM »
Sanders has a reflection on Merton in the Orion:

“The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.”

 “We equate sanity with a sense of justice, with humaneness, with prudence, with the capacity to love and understand other people. We rely on the sane people of the world to preserve it from barbarism, madness, destruction. And now it begins to dawn on us that it is precisely the sane ones who are the most dangerous.”

"Merton did not live to witness how thoroughly we have tainted the rain."

" “We believe that any end can be achieved from the moment one possesses the right instruments, the right machines, the right technique.” The hubris that has led us to devastate our home planet now prompts us to imagine we can continue our plundering and pollution by employing even more grandiose technology ... "

" We abuse and exploit Earth for the same reason we abuse and exploit one another: because we have lost a sense of kinship with our fellow human beings, with other species, and with our planetary home."

https://orionmagazine.org/article/conscience-and-resistance/

sidd

Red

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Re: A must read
« Reply #122 on: November 14, 2018, 11:23:39 AM »
I'm unsure how Vaclav Smil is viewed here or Alice Friedemann for that matter but here is a book review posted over at:
 http://energyskeptic.com/2018/book-review-of-vaclav-smils-energy-transitions-history-requirements-prospects/

Preface.  In my extract of the 178 pages in the book below, Smil explains why renewables can’t possibly replace fossil fuels, and appears to be exasperated that people believe this can be done when he writes “Common expectations of energy futures, shared not only by poorly informed enthusiasts and careless politicians but, inexplicably, by too many uncritical professionals, have been, for decades, resembling more science fiction than unbiased engineering, economic, and environmental appraisals.”

Yet Smil makes the same “leap of faith” as the “uncritical professionals” he criticizes.  He remains “hopeful in the long run because we can’t predict the future.” And because the past transitions “created more productive and richer economies and improved the overall quality of life—and this experience should be eventually replicated by the coming energy transition.”

Huh? After all the trouble he’s taken to explain why we can’t possibly transition from fossil fuels to anything else he ends on a note of happy optimism with no possible solution?



ASILurker

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Re: A must read
« Reply #123 on: December 07, 2018, 01:47:43 PM »
What Lies Beneath

THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK

BY DAVID SPRATT & IAN DUNLOP | FOREWORD BY HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER
Revised and updated August 2018

From the introduction:

In his book 1984 , George Orwell describes a
double-think totalitarian state where most of  the
population accepts “the most flagrant violations
of  reality, because they never fully grasped the
enormity of  what was demanded of  them,
and were not sufficiently interested in public
events to notice what was happening. By lack of 
understanding they remained sane.”

Orwell could have been writing about climate
change and policymaking. International
agreements talk of  limiting global warming to
1.5–2 degrees Celsius (°C), but in reality they set
the world on a path of  3–5°C of  warming. Goals
are reaffirmed, only to be abandoned. Coal is
“clean”. Just 1°C of  warming is already dangerous,
but this cannot be admitted. The planetary future
is hostage to myopic national self-interest. Action
is delayed on the assumption that as yet unproven
technologies will save the day, decades hence. The
risks are existential, but it is “alarmist”  to say so.

http://climateextremes.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf


Lurk369:Best of Bookmarks
« Last Edit: December 11, 2018, 02:36:14 AM by Lurk »

vox_mundi

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Re: A must read
« Reply #124 on: January 23, 2019, 11:24:14 AM »
Chris Hedges goes full-on 'medieval' with the climate denying 'Christian right' and corporate rape of the planet.

Confronting the Culture of Death
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-hedges/83130/confronting-the-culture-of-death
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

b_lumenkraft

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Re: A must read
« Reply #125 on: January 23, 2019, 01:11:34 PM »
Why? To bring on the end of days, Armageddon and the Second Coming.

Holy moly! I bet the same people think Muslims are dangerous ...

gerontocrat

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Re: A must read
« Reply #126 on: January 23, 2019, 01:31:16 PM »
Whoops  - pressed remove instead of modify

Quote
Quote from: vox_mundi on Today at 11:24:14 AM
Chris Hedges goes full-on 'medieval' with the climate denying 'Christian right' and corporate rape of the planet.

Confronting the Culture of Death
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-hedges/83130/confronting-the-culture-of-death
the climate denying 'Christian right'

I am personally convinced that many evangelical Christians (perhaps especially in the USA) are sure that climate change exists, hope that it will happen very quickly, and hope that we will accelerate our burning of fossil fuels.

Why? To bring on the end of days, Armageddon and the Second Coming.

The narrative has many strands. It was reported that amongst many evangelicals, the movement of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and worsening of relations between Israel and Palestine combined with the US's unconditional support to Israel are welcomed. In their view this is part of the process of creating Greater Israel (from the Med to the Red Sea) with all of Jerusalem as its undisputed capital. This is also a necessary condition for Armageddon and the second coming.

There is a concern amongst some commentators that there are some weirdos surrounding Trump who encourage policies that contribute to political instability, populism and conflict either through this religious conviction and / or belief that such actions will help Trump to maintain popularity with his voter base. "4 more years!!"

Perhaps I will be asked for links. I will not provide. Life is depressing enough already. Poking around in those places in the www I will no longer do.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

gerontocrat

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Re: A must read
« Reply #127 on: January 23, 2019, 01:39:40 PM »
Why? To bring on the end of days, Armageddon and the Second Coming.

Holy moly! I bet the same people think Muslims are dangerous ...

You are wrong according to those who are true to their beliefs.. Muslims and Jews are regarded are necessary tools as part of the slide to war, plagues, fire, floods etc etc etc. that presage the Second Coming.

Of course, come the Second Coming, they perish as do all (including most Christians) except the "True Believer" Evangelicals. The concern is when such weird loonie beliefs move out from the murky shadows on the fringe towards the centre of power.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

vox_mundi

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Re: A must read
« Reply #128 on: January 23, 2019, 02:58:28 PM »
It doesn't seem like neither of you actually read the short piece at the link.

Edit: But this part is correct ...
Quote
... The concern is when such weird loonie beliefs move out from the murky shadows on the fringe towards the centre of power.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 03:07:46 PM by vox_mundi »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

johnm33

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Re: A must read
« Reply #129 on: March 15, 2020, 09:21:25 PM »
Michael Hudson with Ellen Brown on the urgent need for a public banking sector.
https://michael-hudson.com/2020/03/the-importance-of-neighborhood-banks/
a transcript of this conversation
" For the stock market’s Dow Jones average, they’ll contract to buy all its stocks or those in the S&P 500 in one month, or one week or whatever the timeframe is, for X amount – say, 2% over what they’re selling today. Well, once the plunge protection team issues a guarantee to buy, the market is going to raise the bid prices for these stocks up to what the Fed and the Treasury have promised to pay for them. By the time the prices go up, the Fed doesn’t actually have to buy these stocks, because everybody’s anticipated that the Fed would buy them at this 2 percent gain. So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. "

johnm33

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Re: A must read
« Reply #130 on: May 02, 2021, 10:41:14 PM »
This should be a part of everyones education
https://theethicalskeptic.com/the-tree-of-knowledge-obfuscation/