I really struggle to understand the direction of today’s society.
For years, we’ve been saying we need to reduce emissions and consumption, removing chargers from smartphone boxes “to pollute less,” then the “AI” comes along and we reopen fossil fuel power plants, increasing consumption and emissions for… well, who knows why!
We make people feel guilty for not switching to an electric car (or one with high energy efficiency), yet we fly for pure leisure, just to get “a few more likes” on YouTube.
We create increasingly efficient electronic devices, focus on the consumption and emissions of data centers (local or remote), and then stop optimizing code and dependencies because “there’s autoscaling” and “resources are cheap.”
To me, these are ideological short circuits.
#Sustainability
@stefano@bsd.cafe There’s no “we”, no collective will and nothing of that sort.
There are just:
- individuals making decisions unaligned with each other, or generally misaligned decisions;
- individuals who don’t see the contradiction between their actions, which is the human default.
@stefano@bsd.cafe
For cars, what’s best should be aware of “Well to wheel”, including manufacturing processes. If electricity is generated with 100% carbon free way, and batteries, magnets, and so on (excluding common parts with ICE cars) are manufactured with lower carbon way than ICEs, BEV is clearly the only way to go.
But how are the “real world?”Something alike should be applicable to other areas. What’s most efficient throughout “total life cycle” is most important to judge the way to go. This is quite often forgotten.
I’ve been saying this forever.
We have to look at end-to-end. This includes keeping what’s currently being used going as long as makes sense given the embedded energy.
This requires a lot of deep analysis, and people don’t like to think that hard. We want easy solutions: “just do this and you’re a better person than the next”.
It’s hard to convince people something is a better approach using hyperbole and assumptions. When questioned about how much less energy/carbon/oil a hybrid or electric vehicle uses over its lifespan, and all you have is “it’s better”, people stop listening.
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@stefano@bsd.cafe 💯
@stefano@bsd.cafe that’s why #righttorepair
and Open Source is very important imho
A computer is supposed to be compliant for 36 months now where i work.
Insane, i could still rock my Powerbook G3
If i could understand computer software more.
M$ Teams take more resources then that machine has 😆😆@joany@bsd.cafe I understand this. Today I was in a Zoom call - and I’m not using Zoom that much. After some minutes, my Macbook Pro M1 Pro (Apple Silicon) was getting hot.
I can’t believe how this machine can process audio and video “at the speed of light” (not exactly, but it’s really fast) and becomes hot just for a call with 4 parties.
We need to concentrate more on software efficiency.
@stefano@bsd.cafe I think most of us are in a similar situation.
I am completely fatigued by it and at this point I don’t give a **** anymore. Probably what big corp wants.
I think there’s good will and effort going on, but also a LOT veil pulled on our eyes.@stefano@bsd.cafe paper straws FTW!
@stefano@bsd.cafe
A nice excerpt (especially the last question) from UNIX: A History and a Memoir, by Brian W. Kernighan (2020).
“As an example of how computing hardware has become cheaper and more powerful over the years, a 1978 PWB paper by Ted Dolotta and Mashey described the development environment, which supported over a thousand users: “By most measures, it is the largest known Unix installation in the world.” It ran on a network of 7 PDP-11’s with a total of 3.3 megabytes of primary memory and 2 gigabytes of disk. That’s about one thousandth of a typical laptop of today. Would your laptop support a population of a million users?”
(million = thousand times thousand)
@havarpan@bsd.cafe how true!
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@stefano@bsd.cafe I’m not part of this “we”.
@stefano@bsd.cafe "Environmentalism without class struggle is gardening” Chico Mendes. Capitalism isn’t good for sustainability. Rich people with private jets are polluting in hours what i’m polluting in years. Private property is the reason behind the ideological short circuits. Private property is unnatural so no surprise that our system, that is based fiercely on private property has brought us towards environmental disaster.
