Comment by gdubs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gdubs | Hacker News Reader

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I read Stewart Brand's 'Whole Earth Discipline' about five years ago, and came away pretty convinced by his pro-nuclear arguments. The price situation has definitely changed dramatically in the last few years, with solar dropping remarkably. So some of it may be worth revisiting.

But that said, something else has happened in the last five years that has made me a bit ... cautious about being decisive on nuclear. And that is general global instability. E.g., things sure feel like they've come off the rails recently and things I used to take for granted: that competent people would generally be in charge, has been challenged.

So to me, the biggest risk with nuclear isn't the technology itself. In isolation I see it as a great solution to one of the key challenges of climate change. To me, the biggest risk is political stability. It's a technology that requires constant competence.

All that said – I aim to be open-minded. If the new breed of reactors can safely shutdown under neglect, if they can't be weaponized if society breaks down – awesome. I'd love to hear more about it.

>And that is general global instability. E.g., things sure feel like they've come off the rails recently and things I used to take for granted: that competent people would generally be in charge, has been challenged.

There's almost never been a safer time to be alive, and there have been incompetent leaders since time immemorial.

Not even a lifetime ago incompetent leadership caused tens of millions of people to perish because they thought killing all the birds would save more of their crops, among other things.

You've been living in a bubble and/or have been ignoring history, even recent history.

I read Pinker’s book — I’m familiar with the argument. I also think it looks at a data point (now) and compares it to the long tail of history, and says, “things are great!” I’m not sure if you look at the curve’s derivative since, say, 1995, it’s clear we’re heading in a good direction. And I’m an optimist.

There have been warning signs flashing “systems failure” for a little while now, like a “check engine light” people just learn to ignore. I don’t think there’s been a year in modern history like 2020 since 1968, and even that pales in comparison.

We’re in the midst of a global pandemic with nearly 500k dead in America alone. We’ve suffered two deep, major financial crises in roughly a decade. The entire west coast was on fire this fall, and not in the gentle way it was when Native American’s used to do controlled burns every year. Texas completely fell apart this week.

Living in a bubble?

>I'm not sure if you look at the curve’s derivative since, say, 1995, it’s clear we’re heading in a good direction.

Crime was near all-time highs in the US, Europe's deadliest war since WWII was raging, numerous civil wars in Africa and elsewhere were claiming millions... It's clear it's way better, and definitely got better since your arbitrary timeline.

>I don’t think there’s been a year in modern history like 2020 since 1968, and even that pales in comparison.

Of course 2020 was a weird year, but to compare that to the height of the Vietnam and Cold War, with nuclear mutually assured destruction just inches away, among the many other things boiling is just naivete. 2020 was NOTHING like 1968, not even a close comparison.

>We’re in the midst of a global pandemic with nearly 500k dead in America alone.

Indeed, but we're rounding it out, things are slowly opening back up, and vaccines are out.

>We’ve suffered two deep, major financial crises in roughly a decade.

And mostly recovered.

>The entire west coast was on fire this fall

Objectively false. Less than 50 people died. If the entire coast was on fire, that number would be several orders of magnitude larger.

>Texas completely fell apart this week.

And recovered this week.

>Living in a bubble?

Correct, you're not living in reality. You're living in a constructed delusion that doesn't match with facts, has no context for history, and is just neurotic/alarmist.

> Less than 50 people died.

The number of people dying in a wildfire is not a good measure of its impact in the life or properties of everybody living in the area.

San Francisco, LA, Seattle, etc. are all still magically there. Those "properties", where most of the GDP and people are, were relatively untouched.

So to say that "the entire West coast" was burning is objectively false, alarmist dribble.

And here I was thinking we were having an honest debate and not just hurling insults behind a throwaway account.

It was an honest debate. Your naivete just got called out by a throwaway account, and you then proceeded to throw in the towel.

Well the parent comment is simply arguing against nuclear, and given that no civilization before 1940 had to think about nuclear, it’s not a bad take...

Despite being somewhat of a subjective political position, Its not crazy to think late era Obama administration was more competent than Trump administration.

In the past, bad leader + nuclear = Chernobyl

So you completely missed his point, (s)he’s not saying “times are bad now”, they are saying “I see now that times are not good enough”

>Well the parent comment is simply arguing against nuclear, and given that no civilization before 1940 had to think about nuclear, it’s not a bad take...

No civilization had to think about electric generation at all 60 years before that.

>Its not crazy to think late era Obama administration was more competent than Trump administration.

It's not, it's a fact. Obama's administration was absolutely more competent than Trump's.

>So you completely missed his point, (s)he’s not saying “times are bad now”, they are saying “I see now that times are not good enough”

Except I didn't. Even accounting for Trump's blip, times are more than good enough for new nuclear plants now.

I suppose you could see it the other way. A nuclear plant in everyone's backyard might be incentive to put competent people in charge?

Respectfully, i think this is a naïve position, given the Zeitgeist of the last few years

Yes the question mark should be read with hesitancy. I suppose you are right. Too hopeful.

That sounds ready made for a monkey's paw situation with intelligence agency intervention. Sort of like this joke of mine which probably isn't original despite thinking it up myself. "Sure everyone says they want world peace but when you take steps towards it suddently you're 'illegally proliferating nuclear weaponry and launch capability to rogue nations'!".

I don't think people would be more inventivized in a practical sense than they already are.

> And that is general global instability. E.g., things sure feel like they've come off the rails recently and things I used to take for granted: that competent people would generally be in charge, has been challenged.

You must have lead a charmed life. :-)

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