Honestly, I need a ditch dug on my property. Trench really. Sure, I'll rent a ditch witch (a trencher), but those are hard work so I'll end up paying some guys to do it for me instead, probably the same ones who dug my last ditch. So yes, the world does need ditch diggers.
What happens when Atlas gets good enough to do it for you? (Atlas, Boston Dynamic's robot)
Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?
Me: Computer! Cancel simulation!
Answer: access denied!
I know you're trying to be funny... and I guess in a Star Trek geek sort of way, it is... but of course the reality is the computer simply wouldn't respond.:)
Let me put this another way... you're not a human in a holodeck, you're one of the holograms. But does the hologram know that it is one? Or that the program was started 30 min ago?
Actually, nuclear requires a great deal of grid adjustment and accommodation, in fact, a plant can be shut down for weeks just because it doesn't have anywhere to dump its power.
Nuclear power simply runs resistors to turn that energy into heat if needed.
You can scale up and down the power output as needed by spinning large resistors.
Of course, that is wasteful, you could likely find a business that would be willing to take wildly swining power, such as a electrolysis plant.
Similar thinking works WRT timeframe, can the simulator survive for long enough that the simulated universe can evolve? A factor of 1000 slowdown means that the simulator's universe is going to evolve a great deal in the time it takes the simulated universe to have humans on earth. Is it really reasonable to imagine a simulation running for that long? We can't even maintain a consistent computing system for decades.
How do you know this simulation wasn't started 30 minutes ago?
If anyone is going to argue that we're "very likely" living in a simulation, then they're going to have to show that simulating a brain creates the same consciousness that a real brain does (i.e., that simulating a brain is the same as duplicating a brain). We don't know a lot about consciousness, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that executing instructions on a CPU would do this.
If anything this is more testable than a lot of theoretical physics.
Just a quick follow up... you think this is testable, but you're not opening your mind wide enough...
Ask yourself, how long have you been here? How long has this world been here?
Thousands of years? Millions of years? Billions?
What if it has been here for 2 hours? Perhaps the goal is to simulate 1 year, over and over, with various start points.
Without admin rights and uptime counter, you don't actually know how long you've been here. It is completely untestable unless the simulation wants you to be able to test it.
Because you have no control to test against, and because the simulation may well change the rules on you without you knowing it.
There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence.
You can only guess at what they might be, and an intelligent computer running the simulation may catch that and alter the conditions as needed. Keep in mind, you're just a simulation as well in this example, so the computer can alter you as well.:)
It's definitely a testable hypotheses.
Not without a control it isn't... you have no way of knowing what any proper behavior should be, or if the simulation is adjusting the conditions on the fly...
And I'll repeat... if this IS a simulation, then so are you, and frankly you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway.:)
The flaw is that you are vastly vastly underestimating how much computing power is needed to simulate the universe, and/or vastly vastly overestimating the amount of computing power available in the universe.
What makes you think that universe above our heads is really there?
We have been to the moon, beyond that, everything else could be a fairly flat simulation that only returns what we are supposed to see.
If you're playing Call of Duty, does the next level exist before it is loaded? Does the computer have to run all maps and all levels at the same time? Very simple world of course, but do you think YOUR computer could run all maps, all levels, and all enemies at the same time?
Why is there any reason to assign equivalent probabilities to random hypothetical cases? We have a single example of intelligent life, and all our other candidates share almost all the same genetic code, so we have no basis to even make estimates.
That is a fair point, if we're in the unsimulated universe.
If we're in the simulated version, then that information doesn't actually tell us anything, since the simulation might only have us in it, or it might be presenting us with false information.
Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?
It is starting to happen, and with solar, wind, and nat gas becoming cheaper than coal, it will happen quicker.
Everyone keeps saying that, but until it shows up in the power bill, it just isn't true.
Wind is about 30% more expensive than coal, at least in Texas. Granted, it may be otherwise somewhere else, but Texas has more wind power than any other state and it STILL is expensive.
Worse, that wind power is subsidized by all of us to the tune of about 30%, so actually wind is 60% more expensive than coal.
---
You are correct that natural gas prices have dropped to the point where it indeed is cheaper than coal, at least in new power plants.
Solar on the other hand, isn't remotely close, being about twice the price of coal/natural gas and about 50% more expensive than wind.
Now that China is on board as well, maybe some real change will happen.
China approved construction of 155 coal-fired power plants in the first 9 months of 2015.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense. The real reason to increase the gas tax is to properly fund the transportation system. Highway and bridge repairs, etc.
The next generation won't notice a difference, it isn't enough of one.
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
Your failure to understand why it would doesn't make it untrue.
Read up on the broken window fallacy.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
First, you're talking about an i7 920 (4 core, 2.7GHz). The 980X is an entirely different class of processor with 6 cores and 3.45GHz stock, plus it's unlocked.
Sure, but the OP was comparing the i7-6700k to the i7-980x, equally unfair, I was trying to even it out.
Compare the i7-980x to Haswell-E and you'll see the gains.
WOW - just, WOW. You make the Third Reich's final solution look silly. That you even mention such a thing speaks volumes about how selfish you really are. That's psychopath talk there.
Right, because you've never heard of triage before...
Sometimes you have to pick who lives and who dies, or everyone may die.
It is quite possible that given the way humans live today, Earth simply won't support 7.4 billion people. Or 10 billion.
If that turns out to be true, then the outcome will be the same regardless of what you WANT to happen or not.
---
But I understand your response, you're thinking from a narrow point of view, rather than considering all sides. You also assume that your point of view must be the correct one.
However, the person in Iowa is polluting the air of the African. That means the Iowan owes the African. Wether you like it or not.
According to whom? Serious reply to what I consider to be a serious point you've made. You seem to think that it is a given, settled, the the Iowan owes the African something. I don't agree with you. More to the point, I doubt the Iowan agrees with you and likely doesn't care much what someone in Europe thinks about him/her. The more names you call them, the less they'll listen.
Nothing? You must be kidding. Capping the CO2 at current levels would accomplish a lot.
No, actually it wouldn't accomplish anything. You think it would, because you're been sold the lie that there is some safe CO2 level that we can keep emitting. There might have been in the past, but now we're so far past it, we simply need to stop.
Do you know how much CO2 the world can emit and still remind under 2C temp rise? At this point it is about 500 gigatons. The proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are about 3,000 gigatons (and we're hunting for MORE!). You think slowing the burn will matter, but it actually won't. It has to stop, completely. Or to put it more simply, it has to become carbon neutral.
It doesn't matter if we take 35 years to burn 3,000 gigatons or 70 years or 150 years... the effect from the planet's point of view is largely the same. You're thinking human lifetime, not planet scale. Yes, CO2 does slowly get burned away and absorbed, but not in our human lifetime scale, it takes thousands of years in the volumes we're talking about.
While it is true that slowing the CO2 output buys time for our OWN lifetimes, it doesn't do squat for our kids. The climate change will accelerate and while humanity won't become extinct, we may have an unpleasant ride and many people may not survive it.
By "we" I assume you mean the US. Other developed countries already tax gas far more.
The interesting thing is that I believe it is common for Americans to look at the taxes of Europe and shake their heads. When people hear what it costs to buy gas over there, they just mutter something and carry on.
I get the sense that you feel that your ideas are better than ours. Maybe, maybe not, but you won't convince anyone with such an attitude.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I don't agree with that premise. That is probably why we're having such a hard time with this one...
Whatever is spent to obtain a 10% reduction is likely better spent adapting to the changes that are coming, because that 10% won't much a serious difference in the long term outcome.
Also, even if I were asking for a 80% cut, I am not asking it to everyone, only to the big polluters.
That won't be enough... The experts says it needs to be 80% of industrial nations and 60% for everyone else... that is what it will take to hold to 2C.
Look, let me tell you this straight. You are an idiot if you think the only two possible outcomes are either a 80% cut or the status quo (a big increase over the next decades).
Now, now, no need to call me names. I don't think I've called you any.
I don't think any future big increases are happening, all major parties get the problem, changes are being made. I think a 10-20% cut per PERSON will happen regardless, just because of better technology and improved laws about fuel economy, plus wind and solar, while not super cheap, are indeed much cheaper, so they'll be used more.
I'm simply saying it won't remotely be enough to stop run away warming and that the changes that the experts say will be required... aren't going to happen.
---
Let me put this another way. If you're on the Titanic, 10 min after it hits the iceberg... you can talk all day long about small changes to try and keep the ship afloat. A bucket brigade, sailing it in reverse, counter flooding... None of it would have changed the outcome...
You know what WOULD have helped? All hands on deck, ripping up the decks and turning them into lifeboats. They had one mission, keep 1,500 people out of the freezing water for 100 minutes. They had, from the time it hit the iceberg, 2 hours and 40 min. In that time, they could have built makeshift lifeboats out of decking and other materials.
Would it have saved everyone? No, but it would almost certainly have saved someone...
What stopped them from doing it? They spent half the time the ship was sinking refusing to believe it could sink, then even after the crew told the passengers that the ship would sink, many refused to believe it anyway.
The point is, you think cutting 10-20% will help, but it won't. Even the experts say it won't. Cut big, or adapt to a new world...
---
Side note: Counter flooding actually might have bought the ship another 30-60 min, give or take. It wouldn't have saved the ship and it likely wouldn't have bought 1 hour, 40 min, but it would have kept it more level making it easier to build life rafts.
The only point I'm making here is that solitary confinement is nowhere near as bad a moral crime as multiple murder.
I'm not convinced that is true...
The idea of being locked in a box for the rest of my life, deprived of all human contact, might well drive me insane. I may wish to die in such a situation, and not even have the ability to do that...
The idea that I could never again hug my children or wife good night, that I could never again be among people. I think I'd rather die. Killing me might be far more humane...
---
I've never done either, so I can only guess, but I suspect that locking someone up in a box for 40 years may well actually be worse than killing someone.
Slashdot Mirror
https://youtu.be/rVlhMGQgDkY
You might be right, or not, depending on what happens...
But frankly, how far is that from being able to run a trencher?
The improvements made in the past 3-5 years are impressive.
Honestly, I need a ditch dug on my property. Trench really. Sure, I'll rent a ditch witch (a trencher), but those are hard work so I'll end up paying some guys to do it for me instead, probably the same ones who dug my last ditch. So yes, the world does need ditch diggers.
What happens when Atlas gets good enough to do it for you? (Atlas, Boston Dynamic's robot)
Then the world really won't need them.
Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?
Me: Computer! Cancel simulation!
Answer: access denied!
I know you're trying to be funny... and I guess in a Star Trek geek sort of way, it is... but of course the reality is the computer simply wouldn't respond. :)
Let me put this another way... you're not a human in a holodeck, you're one of the holograms. But does the hologram know that it is one? Or that the program was started 30 min ago?
How do you suppose cars will work on nuclear energy without storage ?
That has nothing to do with it...
The storage on cars is required regardless of power source, otherwise the cars run on gas.
The storage is needed for fixed locations such as homes and businesses.
Nuclear doesn't require this, it can run 24/7 without complaint, but wind and solar cannot.
Actually, nuclear requires a great deal of grid adjustment and accommodation, in fact, a plant can be shut down for weeks just because it doesn't have anywhere to dump its power.
Nuclear power simply runs resistors to turn that energy into heat if needed.
You can scale up and down the power output as needed by spinning large resistors.
Of course, that is wasteful, you could likely find a business that would be willing to take wildly swining power, such as a electrolysis plant.
Similar thinking works WRT timeframe, can the simulator survive for long enough that the simulated universe can evolve? A factor of 1000 slowdown means that the simulator's universe is going to evolve a great deal in the time it takes the simulated universe to have humans on earth. Is it really reasonable to imagine a simulation running for that long? We can't even maintain a consistent computing system for decades.
How do you know this simulation wasn't started 30 minutes ago?
Or, you install renewables which are cheaper at every stage and much lower risk.
Solar isn't, but wind is about even with nuclear now, at least in the US...
But the real issue is that those costs don't include storage, which wind/solar will require, but nuclear will not...
Perhaps one day we'll have mass scale storage at cheap prices, but until that day, the choices are burn dead dinos or build nuclear.
If anyone is going to argue that we're "very likely" living in a simulation, then they're going to have to show that simulating a brain creates the same consciousness that a real brain does (i.e., that simulating a brain is the same as duplicating a brain). We don't know a lot about consciousness, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that executing instructions on a CPU would do this.
Can you prove that you are conscious?
I don't think I could prove that I am.
If anything this is more testable than a lot of theoretical physics.
Just a quick follow up... you think this is testable, but you're not opening your mind wide enough...
Ask yourself, how long have you been here? How long has this world been here?
Thousands of years? Millions of years? Billions?
What if it has been here for 2 hours? Perhaps the goal is to simulate 1 year, over and over, with various start points.
Without admin rights and uptime counter, you don't actually know how long you've been here. It is completely untestable unless the simulation wants you to be able to test it.
Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups
Or 2 hour old backups...
The interesting thing about the idea of our world being a simulation is that everyone assumes it must be very old...
It might have booted up 2 hours ago, how would you know?
Why not.
Because you have no control to test against, and because the simulation may well change the rules on you without you knowing it.
There are certain characteristics a simulated universe is likely to have - you can test for their presence.
You can only guess at what they might be, and an intelligent computer running the simulation may catch that and alter the conditions as needed. Keep in mind, you're just a simulation as well in this example, so the computer can alter you as well. :)
It's definitely a testable hypotheses.
Not without a control it isn't... you have no way of knowing what any proper behavior should be, or if the simulation is adjusting the conditions on the fly...
And I'll repeat... if this IS a simulation, then so are you, and frankly you won't be able to accomplish anything the computer doesn't want you to anyway. :)
The flaw is that you are vastly vastly underestimating how much computing power is needed to simulate the universe, and/or vastly vastly overestimating the amount of computing power available in the universe.
What makes you think that universe above our heads is really there?
We have been to the moon, beyond that, everything else could be a fairly flat simulation that only returns what we are supposed to see.
If you're playing Call of Duty, does the next level exist before it is loaded? Does the computer have to run all maps and all levels at the same time? Very simple world of course, but do you think YOUR computer could run all maps, all levels, and all enemies at the same time?
Why is there any reason to assign equivalent probabilities to random hypothetical cases? We have a single example of intelligent life, and all our other candidates share almost all the same genetic code, so we have no basis to even make estimates.
That is a fair point, if we're in the unsimulated universe.
If we're in the simulated version, then that information doesn't actually tell us anything, since the simulation might only have us in it, or it might be presenting us with false information.
Example: If you were in a Holodeck without admin rights, how would you know?
There was one experiment a few years that attempted to show that time was quantized, but it showed the opposite IIRC.
If you're inside a simulation, then you can't run any tests to find out, now can you?
It is starting to happen, and with solar, wind, and nat gas becoming cheaper than coal, it will happen quicker.
Everyone keeps saying that, but until it shows up in the power bill, it just isn't true.
Wind is about 30% more expensive than coal, at least in Texas. Granted, it may be otherwise somewhere else, but Texas has more wind power than any other state and it STILL is expensive.
Worse, that wind power is subsidized by all of us to the tune of about 30%, so actually wind is 60% more expensive than coal.
---
You are correct that natural gas prices have dropped to the point where it indeed is cheaper than coal, at least in new power plants.
Solar on the other hand, isn't remotely close, being about twice the price of coal/natural gas and about 50% more expensive than wind.
Now that China is on board as well, maybe some real change will happen.
China approved construction of 155 coal-fired power plants in the first 9 months of 2015.
http://energydesk.greenpeace.o...
The "clean China" message is nice propaganda, but the reality doesn't seem to match that.
From the government standpoint they can still start spending the money ahead of time because they know it's coming regardless.
The government has already done that... to the tune of nearly $20 trillion dollars...
This will allow the next generation to benefit from action taking today and paid for over 20-30 years.
Meh, it is a minor benefit for a huge expense. The real reason to increase the gas tax is to properly fund the transportation system. Highway and bridge repairs, etc.
The next generation won't notice a difference, it isn't enough of one.
Why would it crush the economy? All your doing moving the money towards a problem that is costing the country lots of money. Shift the money towards updated power solution. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro... This means tones of new construction which equal jobs and continued growth.
Your failure to understand why it would doesn't make it untrue.
Read up on the broken window fallacy.
The US only has 12% of it's energy as renewable. Canada has 64%. You don't think there's change needed? Only the public can fund it and it must come from the tax payers pockets.
You fail to understand the global financial economy. Nations like Denmark and Canada can do that because they are a minor part of the overall picture. The US and China can't do it because someone has to buy all that coal, oil, and natural gas.
You might consider what the effects of a $20 trillion dollar write off would be if we decided to keep 80% of the fossil fuels in the ground, before you get in such a hurry to do it.
There is more to this than what is technically possible.
I have thought the gas tax could use an increase for some time now...
I don't think it should be $8/gal, but it should probably get a schedule of increases.
Perhaps 5 cents, per gallon, per year, for the next 33 years.
That would raise it to about $2/gal by 2050.
By planning such a long roadmap, it gives consumers, car makers, and everyone else time to plan for the change.
What would be a disaster would be to raise it to $2/gal tomorrow, which I imagine some people would like to see.
Haswell-E is a two year old processor, and I think on many situations the gain is better than 40%.
I also think the poster picker perhaps the worst example he could find. You could pick AMD and see similar bad results.
Compare an i3 from 2010 to the i3-6100 from 2015. That is closer to double the difference at the same price point.
This is also comparing consumer desktop chips, look at the Xeon line, which has often had a lower TDP.
What is the performance per watt of the new 18 core Xeon chip compared to the best Xeon that existed in 2010?
First, you're talking about an i7 920 (4 core, 2.7GHz). The 980X is an entirely different class of processor with 6 cores and 3.45GHz stock, plus it's unlocked.
Sure, but the OP was comparing the i7-6700k to the i7-980x, equally unfair, I was trying to even it out.
Compare the i7-980x to Haswell-E and you'll see the gains.
They'd still suffer from your pollution, so I don't see your point.
It was snark, you were supposed to laugh. :)
Sometimes humor doesn't translate on the Interwebs... I was just trying to be funny...
WOW - just, WOW. You make the Third Reich's final solution look silly. That you even mention such a thing speaks volumes about how selfish you really are. That's psychopath talk there.
Right, because you've never heard of triage before...
Sometimes you have to pick who lives and who dies, or everyone may die.
It is quite possible that given the way humans live today, Earth simply won't support 7.4 billion people. Or 10 billion.
If that turns out to be true, then the outcome will be the same regardless of what you WANT to happen or not.
---
But I understand your response, you're thinking from a narrow point of view, rather than considering all sides. You also assume that your point of view must be the correct one.
However, the person in Iowa is polluting the air of the African. That means the Iowan owes the African. Wether you like it or not.
According to whom? Serious reply to what I consider to be a serious point you've made. You seem to think that it is a given, settled, the the Iowan owes the African something. I don't agree with you. More to the point, I doubt the Iowan agrees with you and likely doesn't care much what someone in Europe thinks about him/her. The more names you call them, the less they'll listen.
Nothing? You must be kidding. Capping the CO2 at current levels would accomplish a lot.
No, actually it wouldn't accomplish anything. You think it would, because you're been sold the lie that there is some safe CO2 level that we can keep emitting. There might have been in the past, but now we're so far past it, we simply need to stop.
Do you know how much CO2 the world can emit and still remind under 2C temp rise? At this point it is about 500 gigatons. The proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas are about 3,000 gigatons (and we're hunting for MORE!). You think slowing the burn will matter, but it actually won't. It has to stop, completely. Or to put it more simply, it has to become carbon neutral.
It doesn't matter if we take 35 years to burn 3,000 gigatons or 70 years or 150 years... the effect from the planet's point of view is largely the same. You're thinking human lifetime, not planet scale. Yes, CO2 does slowly get burned away and absorbed, but not in our human lifetime scale, it takes thousands of years in the volumes we're talking about.
While it is true that slowing the CO2 output buys time for our OWN lifetimes, it doesn't do squat for our kids. The climate change will accelerate and while humanity won't become extinct, we may have an unpleasant ride and many people may not survive it.
By "we" I assume you mean the US. Other developed countries already tax gas far more.
The interesting thing is that I believe it is common for Americans to look at the taxes of Europe and shake their heads. When people hear what it costs to buy gas over there, they just mutter something and carry on.
I get the sense that you feel that your ideas are better than ours. Maybe, maybe not, but you won't convince anyone with such an attitude.
Again, you are using the same fallacy. Even a reduction of 10% is better than not doing anything.
I don't agree with that premise. That is probably why we're having such a hard time with this one...
Whatever is spent to obtain a 10% reduction is likely better spent adapting to the changes that are coming, because that 10% won't much a serious difference in the long term outcome.
Also, even if I were asking for a 80% cut, I am not asking it to everyone, only to the big polluters.
That won't be enough... The experts says it needs to be 80% of industrial nations and 60% for everyone else... that is what it will take to hold to 2C.
Look, let me tell you this straight. You are an idiot if you think the only two possible outcomes are either a 80% cut or the status quo (a big increase over the next decades).
Now, now, no need to call me names. I don't think I've called you any.
I don't think any future big increases are happening, all major parties get the problem, changes are being made. I think a 10-20% cut per PERSON will happen regardless, just because of better technology and improved laws about fuel economy, plus wind and solar, while not super cheap, are indeed much cheaper, so they'll be used more.
I'm simply saying it won't remotely be enough to stop run away warming and that the changes that the experts say will be required... aren't going to happen.
---
Let me put this another way. If you're on the Titanic, 10 min after it hits the iceberg... you can talk all day long about small changes to try and keep the ship afloat. A bucket brigade, sailing it in reverse, counter flooding... None of it would have changed the outcome...
You know what WOULD have helped? All hands on deck, ripping up the decks and turning them into lifeboats. They had one mission, keep 1,500 people out of the freezing water for 100 minutes. They had, from the time it hit the iceberg, 2 hours and 40 min. In that time, they could have built makeshift lifeboats out of decking and other materials.
Would it have saved everyone? No, but it would almost certainly have saved someone...
What stopped them from doing it? They spent half the time the ship was sinking refusing to believe it could sink, then even after the crew told the passengers that the ship would sink, many refused to believe it anyway.
The point is, you think cutting 10-20% will help, but it won't. Even the experts say it won't. Cut big, or adapt to a new world...
---
Side note: Counter flooding actually might have bought the ship another 30-60 min, give or take. It wouldn't have saved the ship and it likely wouldn't have bought 1 hour, 40 min, but it would have kept it more level making it easier to build life rafts.
The only point I'm making here is that solitary confinement is nowhere near as bad a moral crime as multiple murder.
I'm not convinced that is true...
The idea of being locked in a box for the rest of my life, deprived of all human contact, might well drive me insane. I may wish to die in such a situation, and not even have the ability to do that...
The idea that I could never again hug my children or wife good night, that I could never again be among people. I think I'd rather die. Killing me might be far more humane...
---
I've never done either, so I can only guess, but I suspect that locking someone up in a box for 40 years may well actually be worse than killing someone.