Silicon Valley is obsessed with talking about the end of the world. They’re largely full of sh*t. But it’s still worth taking AI seriously and asking why we can’t think about moving beyond it (and capitalism.)
Capitalism enables Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists who make up this apocalyptic alliance to fuel the fire that is AI as we know it
00:00 - it’s easier to imagine AI ending humanity than the end of capitalism
06:19 - What’s so scary about AI?
09:52 - So why is everyone taking AI so seriously?
11:40 - Why the end times discourse?
17:19 - The logic / theology of disruption
19:47 - Why can’t we disrupt capitalism tho
22:19 - The computer as salvation
24:44 - We don’t need AI. We need to end capitalism
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It was a false peak, actually. Oil picked back up thanks to fracking and deep water drilling.
Climate has always been more of a limiting factor than actual physical oil, though. If we burn all the oil, we die.
Yeah and if we switch to gasification with coal, climate change will accelerate to a degree or two per year
And that’s the only other option, no other alternatives to oil exist. 😜
If you want the world economy powered at even a remote fraction of what it is today, you are correct that oil is the only choice. Oil is also heavily used in the mining and distribution of the materials used in renewables. Nothing else comes close to its EROEI or ubiquity.
We should be strictly rationing oil for only what really needs it, and not wasting it on things which can be electrified.
This idea that we have to just drill for every drop of oil because we need it to run mining equipment or make lubricants is absurd.
Electricity doesn’t just come out of thin air though (well I mean technically it can). It still relies (for the vast majority) on underlying fossil fuels to be created. And the amount of energy needed to create the electricity needed to do mining vs. the amount needed just to use oil to do the same job is much higher.
The real solution is to just end civilization.
We can also generate electricity without using fossil fuels. In fact, it’s now cheaper to do so in many places.
Also required for some lubrication, high density rocket fuel, plastics, etc.
And food production!
Duh, how could I forget 🤦?
In terms of energy density, correct.
And you don’t need maximum energy density for every task. In fact, you don’t need it for most tasks.
Just the most important industrial tasks like farming and metallurgy, lol.
Did you know that one barrel of oil contains the human energy equivalent of 5 years of intense physical labor? There is simply no energy density equivalent on this planet.
I’m all in favor of degrowth because this level of living standard is unsustainable for the planet and literally impossible without fossil fuels.
That’s why we should be using oil only for tasks which require high energy density. Transportation specifically needs to be electrified so we can stop wasting oil on it.
Couldn’t agree more, it should be treated as the miracle substance it is. It took like hundreds of millions of years for it to form and we’re using it all up in 300 years at the cost of most forms of life on the planet