tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post1402196650925559871..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: "Google, Please Solve Death!"Dale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-32452575054186957282014-03-07T08:49:59.023-08:002014-03-07T08:49:59.023-08:00> "Google, Please Solve Death!"
And ...> "Google, Please Solve Death!"<br /><br />And while you're at it, Google, please solve the energy<br />crisis and global warming! (Maybe you can get Amazon and<br />Wikipedia to help.)<br /><br />http://www.softmachines.org/wordpress/<br />----------------<br />What should we do about climate change?<br />Two opposing views, and they’re both wrong<br />March 6th, 2014<br /><br />In the last 250 years, humanity has become completely<br />dependent on fossil fuel energy. . . While uncertainty<br />remains about the future extent and consequences of<br />climate change, there is no uncertainty about the causal<br />link between burning fossil fuel, increasing carbon dioxide<br />concentrations in the atmosphere, and a warming world. . .<br />What should we do about it? From two ends of the political<br />spectrum, there are two views, and I think they are<br />both wrong. . .<br /><br />The “environmentalists” are right about the urgency of<br />the problem, but they underestimate the degree to which<br />society currently depends on cheap energy, and they<br />overestimate the capacity of current renewable energy<br />technologies to provide cheap enough energy at scale.<br />The “realists”, on the hand, are right about the degree<br />of our dependence on cheap energy, and on the shortcomings<br />of current renewable technologies. But they underplay<br />the risks of climate change, and their neglect of the<br />small but significant chance of much worse outcomes than<br />the consensus forecasts takes wishful thinking to the<br />point of recklessness.<br /><br />But the biggest failure of the “realists” is that they don’t<br />appreciate how slowly innovation in energy technology is<br />currently proceeding. This arises from two errors.<br />Firstly, there’s a tendency to believe that technology<br />is a single thing that is accelerating at a uniform rate,<br />so that from the very visible rapid rate of innovation<br />in information and communication technologies we can<br />conclude that new energy technologies will be developed<br />similarly quickly. But this is a mistake: innovation<br />in the realm of materials, of the kind that’s needed<br />for new energy technologies, is much more difficult,<br />slower and takes more resources than innovation in the<br />realm of information. While we have accelerating innovation<br />in some domains, in others we have innovation stagnation. . .<br />====<br /><br /><br />Hey, no problem! Materials science is moving too slowly?<br />Just rename it "nanotechnology" and watch it take off!<br /><br />http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/nano-nonsense-25-years-of-charlatanry/<br />----------------<br />I used to work next to the center for nanotechnology. The first<br />indication I had that there was something wrong with the<br />discipline of “nanotechnology” is I noticed that the people<br />who worked there were the same people who used to do<br />chemistry and material science. It appeared to be a more<br />fashionable label for these subjects. Really “material science”<br />was a sort of fancy label for the chemistry of things we<br />use to build other things. OK, new name for “chemist.”<br />Hopefully it ups the funding. Good for you guys. . .<br />====<br />jimfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04975754342950063440noreply@blogger.com