Posts by cian@post.lurk.org
(DIR) Post #AVaBVRRk1dRSi22Y9w by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-05-10T23:13:45Z
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I just finished 'We are all degrowthers' and it is excellent.An important project for the left is to dethrone GDP so nobody (at least on our side) takes it seriously.I'm not sure what you'd replace it with, but maybe the instinct to try and measure it is a mistaken one.https://www.academia.edu/40975347/We_Are_All_Degrowthers_We_Are_All_Ecomodernists_Analysis_of_a_Debate
(DIR) Post #AVaBVTCvTgmOAf7kLQ by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-05-10T23:20:12Z
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Written by @KevinCarson1 who should be better known.
(DIR) Post #AVuswTgPsPc8u3gaMy by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-05-22T14:57:19Z
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@galdor @ramin_hal9001 https://github.com/40ants/lem-paretoThis looks really interesting. Particularly as I mostly use Emacs these days for LISP.
(DIR) Post #AWCCQWxJ0D31RXrMOG by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-05-30T23:01:13Z
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Resisted getting this because of the name, but its actually excellent. Its really a book on LISP, with AI examples.https://www.amazon.com/Paradigms-Artificial-Intelligence-Programming-Studies/dp/1558601910#CommonLisp
(DIR) Post #AWHjzvvQQTeFIZGjGy by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-06-02T15:34:03Z
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@clive What you've described her, along with a flood of SEO bait, is I suspect all we'll get.
(DIR) Post #AWIZPMkOvylnO6zsGG by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-06-02T15:39:09Z
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This article by @clive is obviously correct, but it misses that a huge amount of energy will be expended in the process. This will accelerate the climate apocalypse.Removing this kind of idiocy is really what #degrowth is about. Western societies use vast amounts of energy on really pointless bullshit and it's (literally) killing us.https://clivethompson.medium.com/the-boring-apocalypse-of-todays-ai-6365345444a8?sk=d3fc1a0c86c558e0bf22dcfdbdcead52
(DIR) Post #AkI8T6Gj4aN94MNukK by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-07-25T14:18:33Z
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@aral Will this be integrated with Mastodon, or is it something else?
(DIR) Post #AlSoWkBlIFoJCgb6oK by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-14T19:05:28Z
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Reading Leigh Phillip's astonishingly bad jeremiad against de-growthers.I was going to write a review/critique of it - but given he spends chunks of the book arguing against his own arguments, I'm wondering if there's any point.
(DIR) Post #AlSoWl5lw0c60Onq76 by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-14T19:10:00Z
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The book mostly seems to be an excuse to punch hippies, abuse Naomi Klein and take swipes at fashionable communists.I'd like to read a strong critique of degrowth - but this book has all the intellectual seriousness of Thomas Friedman.
(DIR) Post #AlSoWlhLgIffswNqgS by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-14T20:44:42Z
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The books gets worse. Now he's criticizing Malthus for not predicting the green revolution (Malthus, who nobody has apparently read, actually assumed something similar in his essay. He's an idiot, but not for the reason that pro-growth idiots seem to assume).
(DIR) Post #AlSoXBZnT04y933BWS by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-14T21:33:30Z
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This might be one of the stupidest things I've ever read. I'm only on chapter 3. Apparently there are 9 more to go.
(DIR) Post #AlSoXNd4edpZWgfyIS by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-14T23:44:22Z
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Chapter 4 is mostly a defence of ecocide. It's a convincing argument if you're a human supremacist, or if you think that it's okay to commit genocide given that plenty of humans have been killed by earth quakes in the past.Otherwise, not so much.Apparently because I think it's bad that we're killing other species so we can have more treats - that I'm a race traitor. Which is certainly an argument I can imagine being made in the 1860s.
(DIR) Post #AlSoXWaDMdtJIQPJaa by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-16T20:46:08Z
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Chapter 5 seems to mostly be a rant about how much Leigh Phillips hates Naomi Klein and anarchist students. I feel he should have just written a book about how much he hates Naomi Klein, given that's about a third of this book.
(DIR) Post #AlSoXi4kdRqywJmMDI by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-16T20:48:20Z
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It's supposed to be a defense of stuff, but it's mostly a defense of poor people against class based snobbery (don't disagree, but not hugely relevant). He does seem to make the case that we should be relaxed about Coltan being used to make iPhones, because disabled people and more iPhones means we'll soon have the medical diagnosis devices from Star Trek. I wish I was joking.
(DIR) Post #AlSoY7vQWjqN6vcHI0 by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-16T21:36:03Z
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Curious about where Leigh Phillips got his data for the claim that our ecological footprint has been declining since the 1970s, I tracked it down. A 2002 Economist article, which quoted Bjorn Lomborg to make this case.
(DIR) Post #AlSoY98w00F6t6wZyy by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-08-16T22:20:32Z
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"It is the _production_ of food that that has the largest energy appetite, rather than transportation. Again, it is simply more efficient to have the roses grown where flower production depends almost entirely on the warmth of the sun in equatorial Kenya rather than on the heating and lighting systems of the temperate Netherlands."Apparently Leigh Phillips thinks roses are food. Yes I'm being snarky, but the whole book is this careless. He's like a magpie with his arguments - so long as it's bashing the hippies, he doesn't care where it comes from, or whether it makes sense.
(DIR) Post #AlSocvFD6N8nEI9lrM by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-05-24T20:37:47Z
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Permacomputing seems like a solution searching for a problem. I really don't see how it helps, except in the vague sense of maybe reducing consumption.TBH, the older I get, the more I think we need fewer computers rather than more. In fact less stuff generally.#permacomputing
(DIR) Post #AlSogKCglBUpVZbEiu by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-05-25T23:40:51Z
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@320x200 @permacomputer @jakintosh @praxeology Sure, and part of the reason for posting this was in the hope people would post counter-examples so I could learn from, or even join, them. I greatly appreciate the recommendations. Thank you.I like that manifesto, I guess my (unfair) complaint is more about the realization in categories 2 and 3. Most of what I've seen has either been toys, or stuff that feels more like play (CollapseOS is cool - but I'm not sure we need it). Solar powered websites are fun, but we don't need them. What do we need? I'm not sure - I was hoping someone had done the hardwork so I don't have to ;)But I also think we need to rethink what computing can even be if we're living in a post-industrial society with energy and resource constraints (which I think is the plausible outcome). Without fab factories, what do computers even look like. Maybe we need to be looking further afield to Cybernetics, biological computing or even something like Dune's mentats.
(DIR) Post #AlSogLpihYJOYurvCS by cian@post.lurk.org
2024-05-25T23:41:02Z
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@320x200 @permacomputer @jakintosh @praxeology Or maybe we need to be more practical. In the future we will have less energy, farming will be more important and we'll probably need to get better at repairing and reusing things. What part can computers play in this. Do we need low energy weather prediction, more robust (and energy efficient) libraries of information, low density networks for long distance info sharing, etc.And also, what does a positive vision of computing look like. Modern computing is mostly (I suspect we agree) incredibly negative. Maybe that's inevitable because of screens. Maybe we need to change social practices around computers. Place them in temples. Or return to timeshare practices. Maybe the solution to staring at screens is to bring back punchcards.Does that make sense, and are there people thinking this way?
(DIR) Post #AlSoxYlhrU5tbSCHa4 by cian@post.lurk.org
2023-05-25T13:16:11Z
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Well this is cool:https://damaged.bleu255.com/I need more resources like this in my life.#permaculture #permacomputing