5/21/2026 at 12:06:19 PM
We may lose stable seasons for growing crops, but at least the chat bot can embed an ad into your question while you wait for your burrito taxi.What is the point of this convenience when it really seems to just be making people miserable and isolated?
We're driving off a cliff, and our elected government has a death drive.
by MSFT_Edging
5/21/2026 at 12:24:49 PM
Worse, they have a "i want to flee responsibility" drive. You can see it in there eyes, when they hold press conferences, while having on the paper the verbose "you are absolutely right". They want the perks, not the responsibility that comes with power.by 21asdffdsa12
5/21/2026 at 5:21:59 PM
Also the terminally online crowd blaming rising prices on greedy billionaires, and global warming on the same billionaires. Tell them about carbon tax and they will non-ironically ask "Why should I pay more when it's the billionaires' fault?"I'm not saying billionaires are victims, but everybody wants it to be someone else's fault and none of their own fault. It's exhausting.
by yongjik
5/21/2026 at 6:02:00 PM
But maybe perhaps the billionaires should be the ones driving the progress, as the power they wield is very much disproportionate?by karmakurtisaani
5/21/2026 at 7:03:11 PM
This person thinks the ants should be pushing the plow instead of the horse pulling it.by BizarroLand
5/21/2026 at 3:33:22 PM
"This is AI's fault"- People in automobiles.
by scoofy
5/21/2026 at 12:30:33 PM
> your burrito taxiWhich you are financing through a BNPL platform.
by otikik
5/21/2026 at 1:23:05 PM
I just introduced a negligible, but non-zero amount, of carbon in the atmosphere to expand your unnecessary acronym into "Buy Now, Pay Later."by sph
5/21/2026 at 2:49:45 PM
But later you'll save mental tokens when reading "BNPL" instead of "Buy now, pay later".by iamalizard
5/21/2026 at 1:15:14 PM
The financing for the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel got stolen to build a bridge.by selimthegrim
5/21/2026 at 1:06:36 PM
Which burrito? The one which couldn't be mad because there is not food?by motbus3
5/21/2026 at 2:28:08 PM
That's why it has to come by taxi.by alnwlsn
5/21/2026 at 2:23:14 PM
Also our unelected culture.by andai
5/21/2026 at 6:01:18 PM
Hearts and mindsby MSFT_Edging
5/21/2026 at 2:10:10 PM
2 more weeks til "stable seasons" collapse. Good thing greenhouses have existed for millenia.by casey2
5/21/2026 at 5:34:23 PM
Better start building them then, gonna need a ton of them. Also doesn't help against heatwaves and during droughts.by whatevaa
5/21/2026 at 2:22:14 PM
Who’s paying to build them?by secretsatan
5/21/2026 at 3:00:14 PM
if you are using that chatbot, you are also a part of the problem, just sayingtheir product wouldnt run if they had 0 users
by vivzkestrel
5/21/2026 at 3:39:17 PM
Unfortunately in this real life iterated prisoner's dilemma, half of everyone is vocally defecting, so you not using the chatbot is hurting you whilst others get ahead.by fragmede
5/21/2026 at 3:41:28 PM
jesus will save usby modzu
5/21/2026 at 7:39:08 PM
Gabriel Jesus is not a goal keeper.by mbfg
5/21/2026 at 3:28:25 PM
[dead]by cindyllm
5/21/2026 at 12:23:39 PM
[dead]by cindyllm
5/21/2026 at 12:13:30 PM
Stop focusing on energy usage and start focusing on energy generation. It doesn't matter how much energy we consume if it comes from renewables.by stavros
5/21/2026 at 12:31:07 PM
Which is why we have just paid billions of dollars to cancel a renewable power project. And are imposing extra fees on cars that can be driven on renewable energy.So, now I'm focused. I'm very focused.
by jfengel
5/21/2026 at 2:01:58 PM
> weMaybe America, not many countries on earth, especially in Asia which are full steam ahead on renewables, pun intended.
by satvikpendem
5/21/2026 at 12:34:44 PM
OP did not say this is what we were doing. Said this is what we should do.What we are doing is attempting to hold back progress on generation while subsidizing demand, which is literally the absolute dumbest possible thing.
Unless you are the fossil fuel industry. Then it’s great.
by api
5/21/2026 at 12:38:33 PM
It's also great if boiling the planet is your actual goal.I wouldn't have thought that it would be so popular, but apparently it is, and people can't get t done fast enough.
I'm kind of a misanthrope so philosophically I'm good with working on wiping ourselves out. The fact that we're doing it in the dumbest possible way should feel poetic. Instead it's just kind of embarrassing.
by jfengel
5/21/2026 at 12:51:42 PM
I mean, it's not a hard conspiracy theory to fabricate that space-focused billionaires like Elmo and Butthead would want Earth to become increasingly uninhabitable to justify more outside investment in their "solutions" of space race-ing to Mars or colonies that they can then rule over.It's a conspiracy theory, but the best ones are always rooted in some morsel of truth (Elon/Bezos wanting more investment in their space firms).
by stego-tech
5/21/2026 at 1:18:50 PM
Hyperbole does not help. Many countries are retreating from renewable promises. Make an argument for them and for instance, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam who are all turning their backs on renewables and increasing fossil fuel use. The Philippines are already using 60% coal and are making easier to increase production.Indonesian Energy Minister: "I decided, let coal continue for now. This is about survival mode and efficiency. We must not sacrifice our people with high electricity prices.”. Fair to say that, given some of the highest electricity prices in the world, a popular wish in the UK is for Miliband to do likewise.
Show a route to renewables plus survival and there will be progress.
https://climatecosmos.com/blog/10-countries-dropping-their-n...
by vixen99
5/21/2026 at 1:13:30 PM
> I'm kind of a misanthrope so philosophically I'm good with working on wiping ourselves out. The fact that we're doing it in the dumbest possible way should feel poetic. Instead it's just kind of embarrassing.There is something tragic about the human potential being wasted in the most retarded of endeavors, but I wouldn't be able to imagine of a more apt way for the horde of morons that inhabit this planet to go extinct.
by surgical_fire
5/21/2026 at 12:17:01 PM
It does matter because of the side effects (pollution, etc.). The environment and how it affects humanity is a complex system with many variables. Both generation and consumption are in there.by mathgeek
5/21/2026 at 12:21:23 PM
We're talking about global warming specifically here, though. Cars and planes should be a much bigger worry than AI power usage.by stavros
5/21/2026 at 12:41:46 PM
Not when AI is directly resulting in increased greenhouse gas pollution. It's all of the above. Any source of greenhouse gas pollution is bad. Cars, planes, ships, AI data centers running on fossil fuel energy. It's all bad.by breakyerself
5/21/2026 at 12:53:48 PM
No. This is disingenuous. Something that consumes electricity doesn't care where the electricity comes from. Fix the power source, and you automatically fix every single consumer in existence at once.by stavros
5/21/2026 at 1:17:44 PM
I think your comment is the disingenuous one. We have no time left and "Fix the power source" is happening way too slowly in the real non-theoretical world. But what can happen in zero time is to not build another data center for something that nobody really needs.by discreteevent
5/21/2026 at 1:03:19 PM
narrowing the topic, that is exactly the quality that energy transition theorists are leaning on. The electrical grid is uniquely able to maintain a stable engineered and market place while inputs and loads change quite a bit.by mistrial9
5/21/2026 at 12:36:39 PM
There's an easy 19th century solution to cars and planes - public transport. It could reduce the usage significantly, save people lots of time, reduce pollution, make people healthier through making the environment more walkable, reduce crime. We don't do it not because the technology isn't there, but because it's more profitable for people to induce consumption by planning our cities and suburbs around cars.There's lots of rotting low hanging fruits ignored for decades because politicians are paid by the ladder-sellers.
by ajuc
5/21/2026 at 3:27:07 PM
> save people lots of timePublic transit is rarely a time saver for people who give up their cars in favor of public transit.
> reduce crime
In what way? Car break-ins presumably go down when there when fewer cars, but does overall crime drop? Doubtful.
by dpark
5/21/2026 at 6:54:26 PM
> Public transit is rarely a time saver for people who give up their cars in favor of public transit.It saves time when you don't put 10-lane motorways and in your cities nor turn them into parking lot wasteland.
> In what way? Car break-ins presumably go down when there when fewer cars, but does overall crime drop?
Public transport reduces inequality, which is the main cause of crime. If you have whole groups in society that cannot get what they need working within the system - some of them will work outside the system. Public transport makes working within the system easier (barrier to entry to work/study in the good places gets lower). It also smooths around the strict urban class divisions (it makes sense for rich people to live in the city, which makes the elites more likely to invest in the city, which makes it more likely for non-elites to be able to work with the system).
The opposite is car-dependand suburbs + crime-ridden inner cities with no way out other than crime.
by ajuc
5/21/2026 at 1:13:10 PM
Renewables are not without impact. We shouldn't consume mindlessly just because we might eliminate fossil fuels some day.by goda90
5/21/2026 at 12:25:42 PM
What good does PV generated energy make if all that energy is used to generate heat and evaporating water?by agilob
5/21/2026 at 12:35:09 PM
Those are less of a problem. The heat was coming from the sun anyway. The water condenses out, so long as you haven't also increased the overall temperature in other ways.The CO2, by contrast, is the gift that keeps on giving. It absorbs extra heat every day and hangs onto it. It doesn't condense or break down.
If that PV went to displacing sources of greenhouse gas, it would be a benefit. If all it's doing is running the plagiarism machine while we burn more and more "clean" coal, then we are in deep, deep trouble.
by jfengel
5/21/2026 at 1:19:47 PM
Not all heat from the sun stays in the atmosphere though. How much does photovoltaic impact albedo and radiance through the atmosphere compared to natural landscapes? Of course that's infinitely better than GHG emissions and we have a lot of opportunity to put PV over asphalt and such, but it should give us pause in the pursuit of more and more consumption.by goda90
5/21/2026 at 12:38:39 PM
That’s what solar energy does when it hits the ground or the oceans. It turns into heat or evaporated water. The latter is why it rains.Harnessing it and piping it through extra steps only to end up as heat does nothing to the planet’s heat balance. All human energy use is tiny compared to total global solar flux. Like not even 1%.
The data center water issue is a municipal management problem. The problem is that evaporative cooling is cheaper. If data centers are using too much water to the point that it’s causing problems for homes or agriculture, it means they are not being charged enough for that water. Charge them more and they will suddenly shift toward more closed loop cooling.
by api
5/21/2026 at 12:43:10 PM
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008EO28...Waste heat from human energy use is a real problem, it does influence Earth's temperature, minimally for now, but it will only grow. And it will be MUCH harder to solve than global warming.
by ajuc
5/21/2026 at 12:49:40 PM
If we tame fusion at scale this could become an actual issue in the far future. As it stands we have nothing that can out-scale solar or wind. Fission maybe if we went all in on breeders and stuff but that would not be cost competitive with renewables plus batteries. Breeder cycle fission is complex and expensive.Hopefully if we get really good at fusion we will go LARP The Expanse with it instead of boiling the ocean.
by api
5/21/2026 at 1:24:24 PM
It will become an issue in 150-200 years even if we just continue on our current trajectory.by ajuc
5/21/2026 at 6:31:27 PM
Only if exponential growth continues, but population growth is already falling off a cliff and that is the ultimate driver.If population stabilizes or contracts, then the only way this could happen is if per capita energy use continued to increase exponentially to the point that we were radiating enough heat to do this. That seems unlikely.
The only scenario I can imagine where per capita energy use goes that high is the "The Expanse LARP" scenario where people are rocketing around on fusion rockets, and that's not on Earth anymore so it doesn't matter.
What terrestrial products or services would demand power use per capita across the whole population that high?
by api
5/21/2026 at 6:56:09 PM
AI will consume any amout of energy if you have enough demand.by ajuc
5/21/2026 at 1:19:42 PM
[dead]by dopesoap
5/21/2026 at 12:18:56 PM
It does matter because for now renewables are manufactured mostly with coal and oilEDIT: I'm not a renewable skeptic, answers bellow
by simgt
5/21/2026 at 12:28:30 PM
All of the cradle-to-grave studies I've seen about greenhouse gas emissions for renewables versus coal/oil still indicate massive improvements.This government meta study of 3,000 such studies puts PV solar at roughly 20x less emissions than coal.
by michaelbuckbee
5/21/2026 at 12:32:20 PM
Yes, but you're missing the point, I'm not debating that. Renewables aren't free, we should care about consumption just as much as production, and we don't know (yet) how to sustain the current consumption with renewables only, that includes being able to manufacture renewables.by simgt
5/21/2026 at 12:38:21 PM
That's fair and fwiw something I'm in firm agreement with you, but also just not what I took from your comment.by michaelbuckbee
5/21/2026 at 12:31:16 PM
This doesn’t matter that much. Solar and batteries will last for decades with minimal maintenance and no input.Any kind of fossil fuel generation means constantly going out and digging up new oil sources, shipping them around the world, and then burning them. So you invest a lot of time & money into something that disappears immediately and also heats up the environment.
Meanwhile, a solar panel just sits there for decades passively making energy with very few externalities.
Not to mention, recycling solar panels & batteries is getting cheaper & more effective by the day. The metal (and even oil!) you dug out of the ground to build them didn’t get burned up; a lot of it is still usable.
by anon7000
5/21/2026 at 12:39:47 PM
Imagine if all the vehicles that run of fossil fules is converted into EV. What are the incentives in place to properly recycle the batteries? Does a new battery technology go into production before the technology to recycle it is production grade/economically viable? What happens when we are getting like a million EV batteries, globally per day, to dispose off? What happens when these batteries use vastly different chemical composition (because they are from various stages of battery evolution) and need vastly different methods to process? What happens when these things pile up and poison the land? dumped in ocean or rivers? burned up releasing god-knows-what into air?How long before the regulation (often times toothless) kicks in to handle these things?
I am all for getting rid of pollution, but there should be some caution in rushing onto new things, which is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.
by qsera
5/21/2026 at 1:21:43 PM
“Caution” does nothing except ensure we keep spewing more co2 for longer and cooking the planet. There is no practical alternative to EVs. So let’s go all in as fast as possible pleaseby dalyons
5/21/2026 at 3:50:14 PM
There is no practical alternative to air, water and earth as well...So let us please consider the possibility of pollution of those that could be caused by a global dumping of EV batteriesby qsera
5/21/2026 at 12:44:35 PM
Everything you wrote is plain obvious to anyone who looked into the topic. But come on, we don't have to change anything about our consumption because we'll eventually reach some solar punk utopia? That's the comment I was replying to.Nothing for now tells us we can power our current needs with renewables only, however we know we can drive around in much lighter vehicles, fly much less, eat more local, buy less clothes, use compute for less stupid things in data centers.
by simgt
5/21/2026 at 12:26:10 PM
They're manufactured once and then generate way more energy than was used to make them.by speed_spread
5/21/2026 at 12:28:39 PM
Of course, but pretending consumption doesn't matter in that situation is just sillyby simgt
5/21/2026 at 12:20:47 PM
Which is a tiny CO2 spend compared to the benefit, unless you dishonestly factor in manufacturing energy costs as coming from oil.by stavros