~10 GWH of batteries were produced in 2010

~600 GWH of batteries will be produced this year. That is an order of magnitude in a little over a decade (with primarily venture back companies investing and less governments).

It will take ~10 TWH (transport) and ~20 TWH (grid), per year to transition to full renewable. So yes, 2 orders of magnitude off is about right.

Definitely within reach and cleaner non-renewables (like nuclear) can help bridge the gap sooner. But its coming. And that's just with the current generation of tech, if we think a decade or more into the future, additional material advancements can accelerate this further.

The best part is that batteries at the end of life are high grade ore. So recycling valuable materials will close the loop. After the transition, very little additional mining will be needed to maintain the world's battery supply. Unlike oil, which for generations has to be constantly replenished as the material nearly fully turns over every few months. So much waste.

This reminds me of Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “thought terminating cliché.” The Holocaust by bullets on the eastern front could be rationalized by the Germans through simplistic statements such as “It’s awful and inhuman, but such is the way of war.” Similarly, the concept of racial Darwinism appeals to nature to justify atrocities. In both cases, an appeal to a deeper, unchangeable logic lets the perpetrators make the appeal that they’re morally impotent.

> Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution. after increasing the number of states by 5x.

FTFY.

And regarding "how on earth people still think":

See also: https://ml4a.github.io/ml4a/how_neural_networks_are_trained/

> Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient.

The entire structure of the systems seems rather convenient. And archaic. And...some other things.

Nothing strategically planted heuristics can't paper over though!

> In general the US population gets most things right over time.

I suspect knowing this would require access to a counterfactual reality machine. No such machine is required to believe it though!

> Nearly all our problems can be fixed by more democracy and giving the people a greater influence.

Perhaps, but maybe only for very specific definitions of "nearly", "can", "fixed", "democracy", "giving", and "influence". People tend to have strong aversions to complexity/accuracy though, so maybe best avoid such styles of thinking - leave that up to The Experts, and of course, Democracy (our most sacred institution)!

I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

The way I am starting to think is this: the suffering of another Will may not necessarily be something that affects me but if I am the cause of that suffering or did nothing to alleviate it I have created a precedent for the me-Will; meaning that the me-Will was either not strong enough to do something about the suffering of the other-Will or I had the need to cause said suffering. As such, I have made the suffering of the other-Will part of what the me-Will is. The question then becomes: is what I am getting from the suffering of the other-Will worth my dependence on it or not? The answer to this question is always no because I do not want the me-Will to become dependent on something as weakening and debilitating as the suffering of the other-Will.

Exceptions to this become the suffering of other-Wills that may come from my stopping of said other-Will's attempts to cause suffering to the me-Will.

Tl:dr Causing suffering or failing to prevent the preventable suffering of others makes my identity weaker, as such it is always a bad idea unless the other person tried to cause me harm.

Sounds like he would support veganism today tbh

> Actually batteries have come a very long way in just the past decade

Still a couple orders of magnitude off.

"resist desires" really that's like a very common knowledge to be anything of an insightful philosophy lols

Hopefully it works. We don't need 1 solution, we need 50 and to pursue them all aggressively.

Its ok if some ideas don't pan out, the cost of not getting at least some to succeed is basically everything.

Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution after increasing the number of states by 5x. Many of which have minuscule populations. Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient

In general the US population gets most things right over time.

But our current system is designed to constrain the will of the people at many key points. Then the people can be blamed for failures even as the people are basically ignored.

Nearly all our problems can be fixed by more democracy and giving the people a greater influence.

1. Removing money and bribes from political elections
2. Ranked choice to remove the 2 party duopoly
3. Anti-gerrymandering protections and 2 winner districts to reduce polarization

Just a few basic things we have to do. Deeper changes come from questioning how on earth people still think the senate is a reasonable institution after increasing the number of states by 5x. Many of which have minuscule populations. Of course the Senate is the only body that can approve Supreme Court appointments. How convenient 🙄

Actually batteries have come a very long way in just the past decade!

The really bad materials have been basically entirely phased out (cobalt/cadmium).

The main materials have all mature supply chains and batteries will use relatively little of them (compared to other uses, like construction). The main materials are iron/aluminum/manganese/carbon/silicon. All super easy.

Lithium was basically economically useless until recently. So its supply chain is very immature. But the material itself is extremely abundant and shortages are only in the near term.

Nickle is the final material that will be expensive and batteries will stress this supply chain. But they are only needed for the most dense applications (like high performance auto). But grid batteries and most commuter cars won't bother.

The economics of current gird batteries (compared to gas peaker plants) is amazing. The grid battery in southern Australia returned its investment costs in 6 months. That is an insane return for infrastructure.

The only reason its not the dominate form of grid management is because the whole supply chain and factories are taking some years to build. But that is just temporary. Its coming like a train.

>morality is objective (like gravity) or subjective (like art).

Your false dichotomy strikes at the core of the conundrum. Morality is objective like consciousness, undeniable regardless of whether it is quantifiable. It is fashionable to assume and insist that gravity is absolutely objective and art is entirely subjective, but the truth is not that simplistic.

>Morality is a process now? How does that track with the gravity analogy?

It shows your reaaoning to be a matter of assuming a conclusion, namely, that if morality cannot be simplistically quantified then we should presume it doesn't exist. As if works of art stop existing for those who proclaim "that isn't art!"

I could belabor the point further, identifying how gravity is not directly quantifiable, but can only be measured in terms of mass and acceleration. Does this mean gravity is not real? In some ways, it actually does, in some ways, it doesn't.

>I never said morality was quantitative,

Is there some other way of interpreting "gravity can be measured" that I'm not aware of? Perhaps you don't want to admit it, but the premise that morality must be quantitative like gravity in order to exist is clearly the foundation of your contention.

>but you compared it to a phenomenon that could be.

I used an analogy. It is a kind of comparison, but relies on a level of engagement you haven't provided.

>"Recognizing" morality suggests that, like physics, it exists independent from "moral agents."

It does more than suggest that, it declares it directly. It is a necessary presumption that anything we percieve exists independently of our perceptions if it exists at all. Some people believe that they can be amoral intellectual agents without being moral agents, and if they try hard enough they can refuse to recognize morality at all. It is an easy assumption to make, because of the nature of morality (including the ways it differs from time, mass, velocity, momentum, and gravity, though all of these things can be considered useful analogies for understanding what morality is) but it is a mistake nevertheless. To be conscious is to recognize moral truths, despite any difficulty we might have expressing, describing, or comparing them.

>If we agree that the existence of moral agents is a necessary precondition of the existence of morality,

We don't. In fact, you have it backwards, that is the opposite of what I directly said. The existence of moral agents is a necessary precondition for observing the existence of morality, but not for that existence to occur. The existence of morality is a necessary precondition for the existence of moral agents, but recognizing morality is not a precondition for its existence, just as recognizing gravity as gravity is not a precondition for gravity. Gravity is quantifiable even when it isn't quantified.

>are you saying that there is some universal standard of morality

Apart from "morality exists", no standard, universal or otherwise, is necessary for morality to exist.

>but that did not exist until human evolution passed the "moral agent" threshold?

You keep repeating the same error. Morality exists independently of moral agents, but can only be observed by moral agents. Perhaps "time" would have been a better analogy than gravity? Any analogy would suffice if you were interested in understanding it, but no analogy could suffice if you are not.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

If everything extends from Will, in Schopenhauer's view, then 'denial of the will' is itself a willful act. Which is fine, I mean, matter acts upon matter in the same way. I think a better term of description though is not the act of denial of will, but instead, the refinement and harmonization of Will. It would seem that what Will ought to strive for is a discernment that depends on the level of consciousness that's been achieved. In other words, we are at a level where we ought to strive towards reducing suffering, as we humans define it. We ought to refine our own desires so that they are more harmonious with each other.

Thanks for sharing this! Likely this is a pretty basic primer for anyone who has read Schopenhauer, but as someone who has not - it was an enjoyable and concise read. The idea that humans alone enjoy this special liberty of self-reflection and thus the ability to suppress our desires to relieve ourselves from suffering is interesting and in historically good company. The solution's implementation seems a little flat, but maybe there's only so much you can go into in a little blog post.

One thought that comes to mind is that the author states Schopenhauer finds this system of self-consumption to be sort of depressing, repugnant, and saddening. If an animal (basically a being driven and defined by Will) kills another animal, then arguably the only thing that was lost is another being of Will. So why should this suffering be regrettable, if the being that suffered was effectively just a manifestation of this thing we don't like anyway?

I also find it profoundly sad personally, but wonder what he (or you!) might say in response to this question. Maybe it's only a problem because it affects humans who have the ability to see outside of the law of Will? Maybe many beings have this capacity to varying extent?

Even if you don't find the endless cycle of suffering to be problematic, I guess it would not necessarily detract from the potential benefits of stepping out of this cycle.

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This seems to have a whole lot of thoughts that go from point A to point C without any B putting them together. And makes a few just straight up faulty analogies...

The entire point about evolution is based on a foundation of not seeming to understand how evolution works. Fish didn't will legs on themselves. Carnivorous plants didn't will the ability to trap flies on themselves. The author is attributing desire and action to raw happenstance on that front...

Then as things relate to people they make a fairly massive leap between "people have a will to live and have things they want" and "this IA inherently combative/violent/etc, and they always want to do so at someone else's expense"... And the part about optimism being a moral outrage just seems like someone being petty and wanting the rest if the world to be as miserable as they are.

I think that is too gloomy of a lens. Maybe you are correct with regards to maintenance schedules. But there is so much more then that.

If an organization is too rigid, it won't be able to respond effectively to newly arising problems. A lot of it comes down to a few basic principles (they are just hard to do consistently).

One major piece is empowering the low-level employees that are actually doing the real work and day to day interactions with the equipment. That means sometimes they are going to raise problematic issues at inconvenient times.

Are these individuals punished or ignored? Or are they taken seriously and allowed to make consequential decisions, like stopping work until a problem is solved? The Toyota Production System is famous for this feature. A line worker can shut down a whole production train if they find a defect at great cost to the company. Yet, over time the company understands that solving defects early on is overall far far cheaper then allowing them to accumulate silently.

But that means a specific plant can't only be judged on total output at any given time, so the incentives and directives given to middle management have to align with longer term company goals. The work culture has to incorporate these ideas into everyday operations, not just tacked on as an afterthought.

A second major piece involves looking at top level design and revisit periodically as time goes by. Etc...

The analogy strikes at the core of the debate: whether morality is objective (like gravity) or subjective (like art).

Morality is a process now? How does that track with the gravity analogy?

I never said morality was quantitative, but you compared it to a phenomenon that could be.

"Recognizing" morality suggests that, like physics, it exists independent from "moral agents."

If we agree that the existence of moral agents is a necessary precondition of the existence of morality, are you saying that there is some universal standard of morality that applied at the dawn of man, remains the same today, but that did not exist until human evolution passed the "moral agent" threshold?

Your contentiousness fails to provide a rebuttal to my comment.

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I have. But humility does not require undo reverence for the less humble, and the possibility remains that you are making a mistake rather than that I am.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

Unless and until you can more clearly and comprehensively explain the results of the two slit experiment, rather than merely that the results occur, there is no reason to believe your thought experiments have any validity. Knowing there is such a thing as wave/particle duality is not the same as resolving that conundrum. If you actually understood why cows can be considered spherical but are not, you would understand why it makes no difference if you use sheep instead. So a better analogy would be that you are saying "Because we assume spherical cows, there is no reason not to assume spherical cubes."

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

>Morality cannot be compared to gravity.

It's an analogy. Deal with it.

>It can predict outcomes. It exists regardless of humanity.

Hmmm...

>You've simply presumed the concept of morality

I've observed the process of morality. Your assumptions (or my presumptions) about what it is or how it works can be quite inaccurate, and are certainly imprecise, without shedding any doubt on the existence of that process.

>can exist independently of the only species which qualifies as a "moral agent."

Indeed, the presumption that morality would be observed by any other species (not in result but in process) which are moral agents (experience consciousness) is a necessary reflection of what morality is. The fact that we know of no other such species does not preclude their existence, and does not change the nature of morality. You may, if you wish, demand that this uncertainty limit your notions of what morality is, but I am not required to join you.

>Your argument begs the question in that it presumes that which it seeks to prove.

My argument seeks to explain, not to prove. Morality isn't quantitative, as you've mentioned, and cannot be 'proved' in the way you are suggesting, it can only be recognized by other moral agents. The truth is, however, that all moral agents (consciousness) does recognize it, even when they seek to avoid it by claiming blindness to it.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.