site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

12
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

the known uranium supply will be depleted within 5 years.

It's more like 10,000 years. The 5 year thing is how much is currently mined and stockpiled in warehouses. You might as well say civilization can't continue because we only have so many months of oil and coal already extracted, in warehouses. This article is hilariously bad. Furthermore, current technology would allow us to get significantly more energy from uranium, however poor regulations (to fight nuclear proliferation) prevent us from doing that. Check out breeder reactors. Beyond that, we can use a lot more than just uranium.

But that's even what the article says next:

Theoretically, that amount would last for 5,700 years using conventional reactors to supply 15 TW of power. (In fast breeder reactors, which extend the use of uranium by a factor of 60, the uranium could last for 300,000 years.

To your next point, yes, (traditional) peak oil was true and we have resorted to non-traditional methods to continue extracting it, which require huge energy commitments. Notably, frack wells quickly lose most of their production - instead of a decades long curve, they're barely producing after 2-3 years.

Beyond this, we do have other forms of energy production. Solar and wind are effective. As currently implemented, we have a lot of problems (re: the grid, stupid placement etc.) but they're both eroi positive - especially if you put solar panels in the desert (eroi of 20, unbuffered) instead of on people's rooves to make them feel good. Nuclear has an eroi above 70, generally speaking, over 2x coal's.