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> but they’re much more common than enthusiastic internet commenters would suggest

How do you know this?


Lots of remote opportunities at both https://www.workatastartup.com/ and https://angel.co/ I imagine a mid-to-senior dev would be able to find work at a company listed there fairly quickly.


These are the same kind of listings you can find on LinkedIn or many other job sites, not really answering the question of finding especially available jobs.


I think employers might have a hard time convincing their entire remote workforce to sell their house / break their lease and move to entirely new city.


Why aren't environmental activists more vocal about the potential for nuclear war? Seems like a very real threat to humanity, as much as global warming seems to be, but I've seen and heard almost nothing from them.


Because it's not environmental problem. Secondly, environmental problems are immediately actionable and surprisingly some of the easiest things to address. The threat of nuclear war lies in the domain of human power dynamics and organization, areas that are not understood in the slightest. Despite this, we still don't address the environmental problems or do so at a glacial pace. There's no hope for power dynamics.


Aren't environmentalists ultimately motivated by their interest in preventing some sort humanitarian catastrophe? We don't want to make the earth uninhabitable as it would result in the death and suffering of millions of people. Nuclear war would also result in death and suffering. There seems to be some common ground here.

Both issues require a change in public opinion.


Environmentalism and humanitarianism are two different things. I consider myself an environmentalist, and I wouldn't say the focus is so human-centric as you mention or even human-centric at all aside from understanding humans are nearly the sole source of problems in the environment. Environmentalism, to me at least, is to gain empathy for the environment and all its inhabitants and to take a holistic approach. Also to me, humanitarianism is about addressing solvable problems to end immediate suffering of humans.

Nuclear threats are rather abstract at present and basically not preventable in any remotely deterministic way. We could focus on it for a century, only for a hardware failure, software bug, or a simple accident to launch a nuclear missile. That doesn't even take into consideration the power dynamics I mentioned or terrorism. Do we have any clue whatsoever as to how Putin, Jinping, and Trump came to power and stayed in power? Or any clue of terrorism. We don't. If we do in some cases, the cause is not a solvable problem. It's super complex.

So, nuclear threats are abstract, opaque, but yet simultaneously can materialize out of thin air at a moment's notice. However, there are environmental and humanitarian problems that we can start working on and solving today, with actionable solutions.


You may be a minority in that group. What should most readily be understood when the word environmentalism is invoked is an existential question with regards to humanity as a whole and what impacts the well being of all people on the planet anything other than is a twisted interpretation to fit one's own agenda.


That’s doubtful. The word environmentalism has a definition and it quite simply is not a human-centric one, so there’s no agenda, whatever that was supposed to mean. Stretching it to mean something else, for whatever reason the original commenter wanted to, doesn’t really make sense other than to apparently place blame on environmentalists.

Environmentalism is a question of balance and sustainability of entire ecosystems and environments. The idea is that by restoring balance, everyone benefits, including humans. How nuclear threats apply to that other than yet another source of environmental pollution or how it’s supposedly on environmentalists is beyond me.


Anything that happens to the environment can absolutely be good for some species and ecosystems including the entire planet turning into a giant ocean, in that case for the fish. So it's bizarre to somehow surgically remove humans from the discussion and have a twisted conversation about balance and sustainability as if those things are absolute.


I didn’t remove humans from the discussion. I said humans are not the sole focus of environmentalism, which they aren’t.


Joe Biden said last Thursday the risk of nuclear Armageddon is the highest it has been for 60 years. Advocating for a deescalation of the conflict in Ukraine and a diplomatic end to the war seems like an easy way to lessen the probability of nuclear bomb being dropped.


It's bizarre for people living in a democracy to consider an elected president's possible use of nuclear weapons "not preventable in any remotely deterministic way" when said president goes on TV and openly calls for nuclear escalation.


Sure it does, but I also don’t know why you’re randomly placing blame on environmentalists.


It sounds like both issues require public education.


Why aren't you being more vocal about the potential for nuclear war? Seems like a very real threat to you, as much as global warming seems to be, but I've seen and heard almost nothing from you.


Why isn't there outrage from environmentalists? Because you are incentivized and encouraged to make "green" choices and speak out on unethical fossil fuel consumption. You are disincentived to speak out against the continued funding of arms to Ukraine. Advocate for a diplomatic end to the war and you will be denounced as puppet for Putin.

Which leads one to believe that many of these activists are not actually motivated to protect humanity from an environmental disaster, but because they want to improve their social standing.


I'm surprised and disappointed that you would try to foist your responsibility for averting nuclear war off onto environmentalists. Please do better, step up, speak out, and do more to stave off this global disaster. Everyone is wondering where you are on this. Why aren't you doing more?

We're left to assume the worst, that you are not actually motivated to protect humanity from an environmental disaster, you just want to improve your social standing by posting here on HN.


nuclear war is the ultimate geoengineering solution to global warming


A true environmental activist should be advocating for nuclear war. The resulting explosions should launch enough material into the atmosphere to help cool the planet a bit and hold off climate change a while longer. And once vast regions of the earth are blanketed in nuclear radiation, it would allow for lush greenery and human abandoned landscapes to thrive, where animals can roam free, albeit with some mutations but most of which should calm down after a few generations of breeding and natural selection.


Because nuclear war would ultimately have net positives for the environment in the long term


The nuclear apocalypse would require a confluence of political events that are (1) pretty unlikely, and (2) almost impossible formally prevent (unless we suddenly achieve world peace).

This is in contrast to climate change, which is ongoing and very difficult but not impossible to stop, at least in its worst forms.

In other words, it's a category error. Being worried about climate change doesn't commit one to every way that humanity can extinguish itself (nuclear holocaust, global pandemics, &c.).


Isn't the intermittency of the energy source the issue? And there's currently no scalable solution to efficiently store excess energy generated from solar panels?


It's rather amazing that you think that people haven't already thought of this issue and addressed it.

In fact, it's long been addressed, and the cost of dealing with intermittency of renewable sources appears acceptable.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9837910

> Even former critics must admit that adding e-fuels through PtX makes 100% RE possible at costs similar to fossil fuels. These critics are still questioning whether 100% RE is the cheapest solution but no longer claim it would be unfeasible or prohibitively expensive.


Sure, that's why no one proposes only solar, nor do they propose solar in only one place at a time.


Intermittency means you need storage too. So, you build out storage too. The observation is vacuous.

A renewable grid includes storage. Storage is cheap and getting cheaper.


Currently working at smallish startup (~20 people) that gives every other Monday off. Been enjoying it, especially during summer.


Where will they get the energy to power all these new electric cars? Is the grid capable of handling the demand necessary to charge everyones car?


Short answer is yes, current grid is capable of handling demand of everyone getting electric cars. It will add around 10% extra demand during off peak hours so no new generation/transmission capacity is necessary.

Obviously there could be local needs (like old apartment building with original electric wires from 1930) but nothing major.


When do most people charge their cars? If it's when they get home from work, they'd be adding to grid load at peak times. Although maybe cars are smart enough to wait until 5am to start charging


Demand response EV charging is already widespread.

The general rule for most people with EVs and a place to charge at home is just to always plug it in when they get home, with charge settings (battery charge limit, scheduled departure time etc.) set on the car or using the car's app.

In addition, utilities in almost every grid that has capacity issues - Texas, California, downstate NY - offer heavily subsidized or free 240v Level 2 smart chargers that are enrolled in demand response programs.

So you get home at 5pm in July, plugin to your utility provided charger. Demand response will prevent charging until 7pm when the peak passes. You can override it, but if you observe the curtailment you receive either a credit on your bill or a reduced rate for off-peak charging.


Cars are smart enough. My 2022 Mini Cooper SE lets you set or schedule departure time. Most new electric cars let you set desired charge level as well, and will delay charging until it's needed.


Most vehicles/chargers have the ability to optimize for using off-peak hours (and if a utility financially incentivizes using power in those hours, users tend to use that capability).


There are options to set your charge time in the cars so you can choose your times. They can also do it intelligently too, like start charging at a time so that it's full by 7AM.


Almost all EVs come with built in charging schedule settings and people use them because the alternative is throwing money at your utility company to charge during peak hours for no reason. You just plug it in and wake up charged in the morning.


This study [0] suggests that depending on adoption rates, the induced demand from commuting alone would be closer to 35-45%. The authors don't address how challenging scaling generation by that much would be, however.

Another article [1] suggests that it's not actually raw generation that will be the constraining factor, but actually power quality -- the authors suggest that cleaning and converting the power for high-voltage DC charging could be a much bigger task than scaling generation.

[0]: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=883...

[1]: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=933...



You think Europe is setup to handle this? Have you seen the electricity prices in Germany??? They are barely able to keep the street lights on, and struggling with the current EV usage. Not only that most Europeans are not rich and they would struggle with even more power being spent on EV charging.


Short answer is yes, current grid is capable of handling demand of everyone getting electric cars.

Horseshit. At current adoption rates states will have no troubles expanding power generation to keep up but instantly transforming every vehicle into a BeV would require nearly 50% more generational capability than we currently have.


A lot of these replies certainly amaze me. The infrastructure for gasoline is under constant maintenance and construction: rail cars spill oil, trucks have to be driven by humans, pipelines take maintenance, gasoline has to be refined at a small number of places, gas pumps at stations have to be constantly inspected etc. etc. Electricity also has maintenance, but the grid already exists and will continue to, and access exists almost everywhere. High speed car chargers require a fair amount of investment, but for apartment dwellers etc. slower speed chargers where parking exists would be fairly easy to add. Cars are also interesting in that they store power in a battery, so can be charged whenever electricity is most available or cheapest.

I suppose there are people who regularly drive more than the long-range vehicles currently available, but last time I took a long road trip I rented a car instead of taking one of my ICE vehicles. For me the future is definitely electric, and I'll have a charger at my house, and probably solar.

The interesting point will be when gasoline is less available, as a kid I lived in BFE and my parents had like a 300 gallon gas tank they had to buy and maintain and get refilled from a tanker truck. Places where selling gas already has thin or negative margins will no doubt stop at some point, and ICE will become even more expensive in a lot of places.


No, we already have rolling blackouts and they keep shutting down power plants (San Onofre, Klamath River).

California is restricting water usage but they refuse permission for private companies to build desalination plants (Huntington Beach).

I could see banning gas-powered cars, but after 90% of the people have already switched to electric and it's working great.


Even the very smallest Tesla Solar (21 KW/day) setup can generate x3 times more electricity than needed by a moderate commute. Most EVs use roughly 3 miles per KW. So, 7 KW would allow you to travel 20 miles per day 7 days a week or about 45 miles per day 3 days a week.

there's more than enough electricity to go around.


That doesn’t seem very far. My commute is 20 miles per day and I live quite close to where I work by most standards. How are the people that commute for 45 minutes each way going to fair? There are a good number of people that drive further than that too.


45 minutes in traffic or 45 minutes of actually driving 80mph on the highway?

The average commute from home to work is about 15 miles each way, or ~26 minutes.


Yeah my concern was for the people who make up the right hand side of that distribution.


California already mandates that all new home construction include solar. This both increases power generation and reduces stress on the grid since power is used where it is generated.


They'll probably upgrade it over the next decade.


Because California has a "great" track record with energy management?

The infrastructure needs to be ensured before the mandate kicks in. Could be conditional on infrastructure targets, like X charging station within Y miles for all Californians


So the answer is... do nothing? Aim for nothing? Just give up?


Maybe 50 million people won't notice when the power stops working.


Because that's the only possible outcome?


Crack seems to be a product people gravitate towards, but that doesn't mean it's a good product or beneficial for the user.


Nobody said good product or beneficial to the user - the discussion is about people's preferences. Many people have very strong preferences for crack over not crack.


Since we’re discussing preferences, drug sellers have a strong preference for people choosing crack over not crack.

Furthermore, their preference is the one that is consequential. Once you are addicted and chemically compelled to choose crack over what is more or less torture, the amount of agency you have is relatively insignificant.


(Crack) consumers like crack. Nobody likes news feeds filled with ads.


> news feeds filled with ads.

The OP's point wasn't about ads but about the algorithmic newsfeed. The newsfeed is designed and optimized to make you like scrolling. So, yes people do like to scrolling but hate it when they realize that it might take you 20 minutes instead of 2 minutes to get to your best friends new baby announcement. Sure, ads contribute to that frustration, but they aren't the sole reason for it.


The key distinction is that news feeds' customers are advertisers, not the audience. News feeds were not built to maximize the audience's experience: it's an inherently consumer-adversarial technology.


> However, your right to privacy ends where money laundering and fraud begin. These are real problems that get in the way of catching criminals, and not just simple fraudsters and other non-violent liars.

Should gov also scan every photo on your phone for criminal activity? Install cameras in your home? If your right to privacy ends when there is potential for crime then you'll have no privacy at all.


Urbit.


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