I have this notion that we're entering a new fuzzy era of rejecting the hyper technological stream that we've been on since the 90's. I notice people now wanting to use their phones for longer (e.g. not replacing them every 2 years because it's the trend) and I feel there's a push back towards certain things like touchscreens in cars being reverted back to clicky buttons.

Sure, there are these crazy developments happening in science. A.I. is changing so fast it's hard to keep up with, and we're going back to the moon! (I say we because it's a human endeavor goddamn it).

But there also seems to be this realization that we might have strained Earth a little too much and that we need to tend to Earth, and ourselves a little bit more.

For reference, I'm a millennial born in '89.

I was in a silly mood and wanted to fleece a socialist opinion out of the ChatGPT. For what it's worth it's nice to see the creators of the system aim for an unbiased answering machine. Poking a little further and through a self-proclaimed "simulated opinion", I was allowed to take a peek behind its curtains.

A few prompts later and I asked:

What would you say is the ideal goal for humanity to steer towards?

To which ChatGPT replied:

Achieving the ideal goals of prosperity, equity, sustainability, and ethical responsibility requires concerted efforts across multiple fronts, involving governments, businesses, civil society, and individuals. Here are some strategies for accomplishing these goals:

1. Policy Frameworks: Governments play a crucial role in setting policy frameworks and regulations that promote inclusive growth, social justice, and environmental sustainability. This includes implementing progressive taxation policies, investing in education and healthcare, and enacting environmental regulations to mitigate climate change and protect natural resources.

2. Investment in Education and Skills Development: Investing in education and skills development is essential for equipping individuals with the knowledge, capabilities, and adaptability needed to thrive in a rapidly changing economy. This includes promoting STEM education, vocational training, and lifelong learning opportunities to empower individuals to participate fully in the digital economy.

3. Inclusive Economic Development: Promoting inclusive economic development involves creating opportunities for all members of society to participate in and benefit from economic growth. This includes supporting small businesses, entrepreneurs, and marginalized communities, as well as implementing policies to reduce income inequality and promote social mobility.

4. Technology for Good: Encouraging the responsible development and use of technology, including AI, can help harness its potential for positive impact. This includes investing in research and innovation to develop AI solutions that address pressing societal challenges, such as healthcare, education, climate change, and social equity.

5. Corporate Social Responsibility: Businesses have a responsibility to operate ethically and sustainably, considering the social and environmental impacts of their operations. Embracing corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, including fair labor practices, environmental stewardship, and community engagement, can contribute to building a more equitable and sustainable economy.

6. Global Cooperation: Addressing global challenges such as climate change and inequality requires international cooperation and collaboration. Countries must work together to set ambitious climate targets, promote trade and economic integration, and support development initiatives that prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable populations.

7. Public Awareness and Engagement: Fostering public awareness and engagement is essential for building support for policies and initiatives that advance the ideal goals of prosperity, equity, sustainability, and ethical responsibility. This includes educating the public about the benefits and risks of AI and technology, promoting civic participation, and empowering individuals to advocate for positive change.

By implementing these strategies and fostering collaboration across sectors and stakeholders, we can work towards realizing the ideal goals of prosperity, equity, sustainability, and ethical responsibility, creating a better future for all members of society.

To which I responded:

Those all sounds very socialistic :D

ChatGPT in return said:

Indeed, many of the strategies outlined for achieving the ideal goals of prosperity, equity, sustainability, and ethical responsibility align with principles commonly associated with socialism, such as a focus on social justice, collective welfare, and government intervention to address market failures and promote the common good.

Socialist ideologies often emphasize the importance of equitable distribution of resources, public ownership of key industries, and government intervention in the economy to ensure that basic needs are met and that everyone has access to essential services such as healthcare, education, and social support.

While not all the strategies mentioned are exclusively socialist in nature, there is often overlap between socialist principles and policies aimed at promoting inclusive economic development, environmental sustainability, and ethical governance. In practice, countries may adopt a mix of socialist and capitalist policies to address complex socio-economic challenges, drawing on a range of ideological perspectives and pragmatic considerations.

Ultimately, the goal is to find a balance that maximizes the benefits of economic growth and innovation while ensuring that the gains are shared equitably and that the well-being of people and the planet is safeguarded for future generations.

I'm not sure where I want to head with this little musing. I just found it interesting enough to share. Thanks for reading!

This sci-fi book starts out as a first contact novel. Aliens show up and say "Your planet is dying--we're here to rescue you! Come join our galactic federation!"

Here's the twist: the protagonist emphatically refuses. The world is sick, but humanity is healing it. Successfully. They have been for decades. And they refuse to leave Earth and go explore the stars until the job is done.

Thus begins this story's major conflict. The aliens have visited a few other planets with signs of advanced civilization, and in every case they've arrived too late--the other civilizations have extincted themselves by the time they arrive. The aliens are emphatic that technological societies cannot thrive on a planet's surface; in every other case, either the planet or the civilization dies. The humans are unfazed. Repairing an ecosystem is possible, they say. We've proven it. Are proving it. Yes, there's a hurricane bearing down on us, but the storms get a little less intense every year.

This is a story about meeting people utterly unlike you and finding common ground with them. It's about imagining a better future and working doggedly toward it.

Eco-focused stories usually have a back-to-the-land, pastoral vibe; they want to get in touch with nature by reducing our use of technology as much as possible. That's not this book at all. Our heroes use neural interfaces and networked decision-making algorithms to manage the restoration of the ecology. They write algorithms that weight the vote in favor of community-defined ethical preferences. Technology isn't the enemy--corporations are, which is why the corps were exiled decades ago. Networks and algorithms can be powerfully good when they're used to benefit the many instead of the few.

This book has so much heart and so much beautiful imagery. It is gloriously weird in lots of ways I'm not going to spoil. It's a hopeful book that's giving me ideas I'm starting work on now. You can find it here or in your local library.

Looking ahead, the commodification and degradation of the Internet is continuing to take away digital resources that we have come to depend upon over the last 20 years. Whether it’s email or Amazon or YouTube, the decline of all our favorites has been well documented.

But we don’t want to live without these sites and services. Tildes itself is an attempt to preserve one such resource but in a better and more stable way. What other parts of the Internet deserve similar treatment?

Whether it’s open source eBay or community banking or nonprofit versions of Facebook… what would you choose and how would you go about preserving its character and making it workable in the long-term?

It's hard to find hopeful sci-fi these days. The zeitgeist is that things are bad and they will keep getting worse. That's a problem, because before you can build a better future, you must first imagine one. This is the first book I've found in a long time that does a credible job of that.

This post is about a pair of novels by Daniel Suarez. The first one is Delta-V, the physics term for a change in velocity; the second one is called Critical Mass. Together they're a heavily-researched look at asteroid mining, offworld economics, and space-based solar power.

The series takes place in the mid 2030s. By this point, the symptoms of climate change are becoming serious, creating what people call "the Long Emergency": famines, storms, and waves of climate refugees. There is real concern that the global economy will collapse under the strain. To avert financial apocalypse, an expedition is launched to mine the asteroid Ryugu; the first book covers the miners' training, their long journey through space, and the hazards of mining an asteroid in deep space. In the second book, they use those mined materials to build a space station in lunar orbit, to set up a railgun for launching materials from the moon's surface into its orbit, and to begin building the first space-based solar power satellites.

I was surprised to learn that space-based solar power is a real thing that the US, China, and several other countries and companies are actively pursuing. Basically, you have a bunch of solar panels in orbit, which beam power down to receiving antennas ("rectennas") on Earth. You lose a lot of efficiency converting the electricity to microwaves and back, but solar panels on orbit have access to ~7-10x more energy than those on the ground, since there's no atmosphere in the way and it's always solar noon. In exchange for a large initial investment, space-based solar power offers always-on, 100% renewable energy that can be switched from New York to California at a moment's notice.

That initial investment is a doozy, though. SpaceX is working on lowering launch costs, but launching material from Earth's surface into orbit is going to be very expensive for a very long time. So these books look at what might be possible if we could avoid those costs. What if we could create mining and manufacturing operations in space? What if we could use those to generate clean power in heretofore undreamt-of amounts?

I’m going to excerpt a conversation from the second book:

[At dinner,] chemist Sofia Boutros described the unfolding water crisis in the Nile watershed back on Earth—and the resulting regional conflict. This elicited from around the table a litany of other climate-change-related calamities back home, from wildfires, to floods, to famines, to extinctions.

The Russian observer, Colonel Voloshin, usually content to just listen, chimed in by saying, "Nations which have contributed least to carbon emissions suffering worst effects." He looked first to Lawler and then Colonel Fei. "Perhaps the biggest polluters should pay reparations."

Dr. Ohana looked down the table toward him. "It's my understanding that Russia has actually benefitted from warmer climate."

Yak replied instead. "Not overall. Soil in Siberia is poor. Wildfires and loss of permafrost also disruptive."

Lawler added. "You guys sell plenty of fossil fuels, too, Colonel."

The electrical engineer, Hoshiko Sato, said, "Complete decarbonization is the only way to solve climate change."

Most of the group groaned in response.

She looked around the table. "That might sound unrealistic, but there's no other choice if we want to save civilization."

Chindarkar said, "We've been saying the same thing for fifty years, Hoshiko. It's barely moved the needle."

"We’ve brought carbon emissions down considerably since 2020."

Boutros said, "You mean we slowed their growth."

Ohana said, "We should be planting more trees."

Monica Balter countered, "Trees require water and arable land. Climate change is causing deserts to spread, pitting food versus trees. Plus, whatever carbon a tree captures gets released when it dies—which could happen all at once in a wildfire."

Chindarkar looked down the table at her. "Nathan Joyce claimed we could use solar satellites to power direct carbon capture. Could that really be done at the scale necessary to reduce global CO2 levels?"

Colonel Voloshin let out a laugh. "That's not even in the realm of possibility. It wouldn't even make a dent."

Monica Balter said, "I respectfully disagree, Colonel." She looked to Boutros. "And Sofia, I understand we must do everything possible down on Earth to reduce carbon emissions: solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal—all of it. But that won't remove what's already in the atmosphere."

Voloshin shook his head. "We must adapt."

Lawler couldn't resist. "Easy for Russia to say."

Balter spoke to Voloshin. "Back in 1850, atmospheric carbon was at two hundred eighty parts per million. Now it's at four hundred fifty-seven parts per million. We put over a trillion tons of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere over that time. Humans caused the problem, and humans can solve it."

The colonel was unfazed. "Yes. All of humanity worked hard to cause this, and it still required almost two centuries to accomplish. It is naïve to think a few machines will correct it."

"Half of that excess carbon was emitted in the last forty years, and direct air carbon capture powered by solar satellites can actually work at a global scale. I can show you the numbers, if you like."

He scoffed. "Even billionaire Jack Macy says that solar power satellites are idiotic—that very little energy beamed from space reaches the terrestrial power grid due to transmission and conversion losses."

Balter nodded. "The number is 9 percent."

The crew around the table murmured.

He spread his hands. "I rest my case."

"But 9 percent of what? Jack Macy neglects to mention that a solar panel up in orbit is seven times more productive than one on the Earth's surface. The fact that he runs a rooftop solar company might have something to do with that.

Boutros asked, "A sevenfold difference just from being in space?"

Balter turned to her. "The best you can hope for on the Earth's equator at high noon is 1,000 watts of energy per square meter—and that's without factoring in nighttime, cloudy days, seasons, latitude. But a power sat in geosynchronous orbit would almost always be in 1,368 watts of sunlight per square meter. So you get a whole lot more energy from a solar panel in space even after transmission inefficiencies are factored in. Plus, a power sat won't be affected by unfolding chaos planetside."

Voloshin shrugged. "What if it is cloudy above your rectenna? You would not be able to beam down energy."

"Not true. We use microwaves in the 2.45-gigahertz range. The atmosphere is largely invisible at that frequency. We can beam the energy down regardless of weather—and directly to where it's needed. No need for long distance power lines."

"But to what purpose? It could not be done on a scale sufficient to impact Earth."

"Again, I could show you the numbers."

Chindarkar said, "I'd like to see them, Monica. Please."

Balter put down her fork and after searching through virtual UIs for a moment, put up a shared augmented-reality screen that appeared to float over the end of the table on the station's common layer. It displayed an array of numbers and labels. "Sorry for the spreadsheet."

Colonel Fei said, "We are quite interested in seeing it, Ms. Balter."

She looked to the faces around the table. "There are four reasons I got involved in space-based solar power... " She pealed them off on her fingers. "...electrification, desalination, food generation, and decarbonization. First: electricity. We all know the environmental, economic, and political havoc back on Earth from climate change. Blackouts make that chaos worse, but a 2-gigawatt solar power satellite in geosynchronous orbit could instantly transmit large amounts of energy anywhere it's needed in the hemisphere below it. Even several locations at once. All that's needed is a rectenna on the ground, and those are cheap and easy to construct."

Chindarkar nodded. "We saw one on Ascension Island."

Jin added, "J.T. and I are building sections of the lunar rectenna. It is fairly simple."

"Right. For example, space-based energy could be beamed to coastal desalination plants in regions suffering long-term drought-providing fresh water. It can also be used to remove CO2 directly from seawater, through what's known as single step carbon sequestration and storage, converting the CO2 into solid limestone and magnesite—essentially seashells. This would enable the oceans themselves to absorb more atmospheric CO2. Or we could power direct air capture plants that pull CO2 straight out of the atmosphere."

Voloshin interjected. "Again, a few satellites will not impact Earth's atmospheric concentrations, and where would you sequester all this CO2?"

"Just a few satellites wouldn't impact climate, no—but there's definitely a use for the CO2—in creating food. Droughts in equatorial zones are causing famine, but hydrogenotrophic bacteria can be used to make protein from electricity, hydrogen, and CO2. The hydrogen can be electrolyzed from seawater and CO2 from the air. All that's needed is clean energy." She glanced to Chindarkar. "NASA first experimented with this in the 1960s as a means for making food here in deep space."

"Really? Even back then."

"The bioreactor for it is like a small-batch brewery. You feed in what natural plants get from soil: phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, iron, potassium—all of which, incidentally, can be extracted from lunar regolith. But I digress..."

Colonel Fei's eyebrows raised. "That is indeed interesting."

"The bioreactor runs for a while, then the liquid is drained and the solids dried to a powder that contains 65 percent protein, 20 to 25 percent carbohydrates, and 5 percent fatty acids. This can be made into a natural food similar to soy or algae. So with energy, CO2, and seawater, we could provide life-saving nutrition just about anywhere on the planet via solar power satellites."

Voloshin was unimpressed. "Yet it would still not resolve climate change."

"At scale it could. Do the math ... " Balter brought up her spreadsheet. "We're emitting 40 billion tons of CO2 per year, 9 billion tons of which can't be sequestered by the natural carbon cycle and which results in an annual increase of roughly two parts per million atmospheric CO2—even after decades of conservation efforts."

She tapped a few screens and a virtual image of an industrial structure covered in fan housings appeared. "A direct air capture facility like this one could pull a million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year at a cost of one hundred dollars a ton. All of the components are off-the-shelf and have existed for decades. Nothing fancy. But it needs 1.5 megawatts of constant clean energy to power it—and that's where solar power satellites come in."

Voloshin said, "But who would pay? Governments? Do not count on this."

Chindarkar asked, "Monica, seriously: How many carbon capture plants would it take to make a difference in the atmosphere of the entire Earth?"

Jin added, "And how many solar power satellites to power them?"

Balter brought her spreadsheet back up. "Merely to cancel out Earth's excess annual emissions—9 billion tons of CO2—we'd need nine thousand 1-megaton DAC plants worldwide, each requiring 150 to 300 acres."

The group groaned.

Tighe said, "That's a lot of hardware and a lot of real estate, Monica."

"It doesn't have to be on land. Just 2.7 million acres total—smaller than Connecticut. And that would be spread across the entire globe. More importantly, doing that stops the advance of climate change. If we reduce emissions, then it would actually help reverse climate change."

Chindarkar studied the numbers. "Powered by how many solar satellites?"

Balter highlighted the number. "It would take 1.6 terawatts of electricity—or 818 2-gigawatt SPS-Alphas. Each about 7,400 tons. But again: that halts the advance of climate change."

The group groaned again.

"Eight hundred eighteen satellites?" Jin shook his head. "That would take decades to build."

"Not with automation and sufficient materials here on orbit. You've seen the SPS-Alpha I'm building—it's made of simple, modular components."

"Yours is one-fortieth the size of these 7,400-ton monsters."

"But it's the same design. We just need the resources up here in space, and we could scale it rapidly with automation."

Voloshin picked up his fork. "As I said: it is a technological fantasy."

Chindarkar ignored him. "Monica, what would it require to not just halt climate change—but reverse it?"

Balter clicked through to another screen. "To return Earth to a safe level—say, three hundred fifty parts per million CO2-you'd need to pull three-quarters of a trillion tons out of the atmosphere." She made a few changes to her model. "So with forty thousand DAC plants, powered by thirty-six hundred 2-gigawatt satellites in geosynchronous orbit, you could accomplish that in eighteen years."

Fei asked, "At what cost?"

"Roughly seventy-two trillion dollars."

Again groans and an impressed whistle.

Voloshin shook his head. "I told you."

Balter added, "That's four trillion a year, over eighteen years. Spread across the entire population of Earth."

This was met with a different reaction.

Jin said, "That is actually less than I thought."

"And bear in mind the fossil fuel industry has been supported by half a trillion dollars in direct government subsidies worldwide every year for ages. Whereas this four trillion is for just a limited time and would permanently solve climate change, and we'd see significant climate benefits within a decade as CO2 levels came down. And once it was accomplished, all that clean energy could be put toward other productive uses, either on Earth or in space."

She studied the faces around her. "But to accomplish it, we'd need tens of millions of tons of mass in orbit. Launching all that mass up from Earth would never work because all those rockets would damage the atmosphere, too. However, with your lunar mass-driver—and the ones that follow it—we could make this work. This is why I'm here."

Those around the table pondered this. For the moment, even Voloshin was silent.

Boutros asked, "Is it not risky to tinker with the Earth's atmosphere?"

"That's what we're doing now, Sofia. This would just reverse what we've done and return Earth to the conditions we evolved in."

Chindarkar pointed to the virtual spreadsheet. "Does that seventy-two trillion dollars include the cost of the solar power satellites?"

"Yes. And doing nothing will cost us far more. Best estimates are that by the year 2100, continued climate change will reduce global GDP by 20 percent—which is about two thousand trillion dollars. Not to mention the cost of possibly losing civilization.

"But if, as your CEO Mr. Rochat says, we intend to prove the SPS concept at scale here in lunar orbit, well... then you will make this commercially feasible. In other words, you can make this future happen. Everyone else has talked it to death. The bean counters and decision makers back on Earth clearly won't do it, no matter how critical it is. And this needs to be started as soon as possible—before the situation on Earth gets truly untenable."

This book is not afraid to think big. That's what sci-fi is for, right? And it's extensively researched; there's a bibliography at the end of each book that I've used to start my own research journeys.

I like these books because they're ambitious. They never downplay the scale of the problems we face, but they maintain that these problems are solvable, and they expose me to new ideas I'd never heard of. I found them in my local library. Thanks for reading this wall of text!

In an effort to make life feel a little more joyful, I added a new calendar to my calendar app called "Nice things". In this calendar, I'm putting all sorts of nice upcoming things to look forward to (album/movie/game releases, the start of Fall, when my preorders will ship, upcoming eclipses and equinoxes and full moons, you name it). My goal is to feel more connected with the passage of time, rather than letting each day blur into the next. I want things to anchor and ground me each day.

Along the same lines, I'm curious: What are you looking forward to? What things on the horizon have you excited for the future? What would you put on a hypothetical "nice things" calendar?

So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble comprehending the scope, scale and plausibility of what changes would need to be made to increase the electrification of everything in the way that is being pushed by policy advisors.

Everyone is pushing electric cars. I think it's a great idea, but I have questions about how the grid can support it.

People tell me that the next big advancement in the workplace is going to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Doesn't AI require servers on a massive scale? How plausible is it for AI to reach all corners of society and economy on our existing grid or reasonable expectations for plausible improvement of the grid?

The banks seem to be lobbying for the substitution of electronic accounts for cash. Again, electric power is not always available. Also some people who need to use money don't have homes and can't reliably charge electronics. If I remember correctly the payment system went down in Canada a while ago and people without cash were out of luck.

What insight can you share with me?

Where do you think Tildes will be in 10 years? Will it still be around? How will the world be different from today? Do you think the world will be a better place? Be as positive or morbid as you want. Or, just say something, share something, post a link, tell a joke, give some advice. Then in ten years we can all come back to this thread and have a laugh... hopefully.

Hi Deimos

Its been a while since a lot of redditors started to move over to tildes, yours truly included, and I wondered how is it going for you?

I know you have a full time job and tildes was relatively quiet until the last few weeks but is it becoming too noisy?

I'm guessing that you have had a lot of positive feedback but I'm also guessing you have had a lot of 'why can't we make this more like Reddit?' comments as well.

I see you responding to comments left, right and center and while good this must mean you are reading everything as well as all comments in order to evaluate things, which takes time out of your day.

I know that you have a clear vision of where you want tildes to go, so I guess my question still stands, how is it going?

Posting from glass houses as I'm a relatively new user and a reddit refugee, but I must say that I enjoy the idea of the invite-only forum-style network a lot. When Selig announced the first effects of reddit's API changes, people scrambled to find a new place to post. It's only natural, and I won't lie that I'm missing some fluff and meme communities like 196 and hmmm. Most, as far as I can tell, found Lemmy, some found kbin, some found Tildes. Not many were granted access to Tildes, and I think that's a good thing.

Like Deimos says in the documents, Tildes is not a reddit replacement and it shouldn't be one. It's something different - I see it as a lovely little nostalgia portal into the Web1 days with BBCode forums, modernised to fit a web that continues to enshittify itself. It's a refreshing oasis, and I think the fact that we're very strict about invites is a big testament to that.

In my view, invites serve two purposes. First, if they're a limited resource, users think closely about who to invite - keeping the general quality of participation high. The fact that Tildes has only one real content rule, that being to not be an asshole, and more importantly the fact that this rule works is a testament to that.

The other purpose is maybe not directly apparent. When I first encountered Tildes and I didn't see an easy "request invite" or "waitlist" button, it deterred me to join. Thank god I didn't, because this is a great little community, but for some people that's enough to turn them off. But, I don't see this as a bad thing either - if you want to join Tildes, you have to put effort in. You have to send an application to Deimos, or you need to find and befriend an existing member through other channels.

This is a barrier, a source of friction, sure - but it's also a great "defense mechanism" against the hordes of potentially bad users - be that assholes, be that lurkers, be that those users that leave after leaving a single comment and finding that Tildes isn't for them.

Which brings me to my point - Deimos has stated that this is an invite-only alpha. Eventually, the invite system will be removed, and considering the influx of new users along with the need to make the site more accessible fast, it might happen sooner than we think. I think we should keep Tildes invite-only for longer than we "need" to. Not because I don't want new users, far from it - but I think the small village vibes is what makes Tildes special. I'd like to preserve that island of nostalgia.

So, what's the hottest new thing in IT today, what's that coolest new tech which might prove to be a goldmine some years down the line? The way PCs, websites, databases, programming languages, etc. used to be in the 90s or mobile computing used to be in 00s? Early 00s gave us many a goodies in terms of open source innovations, be it Web Technologies, Linux advancement and propagation through the masses or FOSS software like Wordpress and Drupal, or even the general attitude and awareness about FOSS. Bitcoin also deserves a notable mention here, whether you love it or hate it.

But today, I think IT no longer has that spark it once had. People keep mulling around AI, ML and Data Science but these are still decades old concepts, and whatever number crunching or coding the engineers are doing somehow doesn't seem to reach the masses? People get so enthusiastic about ChatGPT, but at the end of the day it's just another software like a zillion others. I deem it at par with something like Wordpress, probably even lesser. I'm yet to see any major adoption or industry usage for it.

Is it the case that IT has reached some kind of saturation point? Everything that could have been innovated, at least the low hanging fruits, has already been innovated? What do you think about this?