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Comment by alex_duf | Hacker News Reader

We seem to have the same attitude with all technologies. Be it a social network, a new type of AI, chemicals, fossil fuels or anything else really.

First we release the product because we can make money, then problems appear as adoption ramps up. I find it wonderful we're still around to be honest.

Now balancing progress with safety is something we're going to be debating for a few more centuries because no company can afford a thirty year study on a product to understand its long term effects on a population before production. So we're all the experiment.

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Fossil fuels provide us with cheap energy and the drawback (C02 emmissions) can be dealt with via carbon sequestration.

Social media is alcohol for narcissists. It provides very little utility or value, and the drawbacks (depression, FOMO, etc) far outweigh any "benefit".

Don't compare apples and oranges.

Ah yes, the famous carbon sequestration technologies we are efficiently applying all over the world right now which have entirely prevented any effects of climate change. Amazing job everyone! /s

Literally billions of lives have been lifted out of poverty due to fossil fuels providing cheap energy. As long as we continue to have an abundance of energy, the effects of climate change will be successfully mitigated.

People love to harp on fossil fuels but don't seem to want to admit that without it, everyone on the planet would still be suffering pre-industrial living standards and there would be vastly fewer of us.

I love how as soon as a technology appears which will allow us to keep using a cheap, dense, portable, reliable form of energy, the left-wing zealots come out of the woodwork to bitch and moan because it goes against their narrative and special interests.

If you study sequestration at all, you’ll find that it’s not going to be a silver bullet. It’ll be a small contributor, but reduction to zero is going to have to do most of the heavy lifting.

If you study renewables at all, you’ll find that it’s not going to be a silver bullet.

I agree, it'll take a combination of of things. But sequestration looks like it will be a much smaller part of the equation than renewables.

That seems self contradictory as you're telling us this via a social network. If there really is very little utility or value that would suggest your comment to be of the same nature, which should then prompt a question as to why you posted it. Ironically, narcissism could explain that, but the alternative explanation is that there is value there, we just need to be more careful with it than we have been.

>That seems self contradictory as you're telling us this via a social network

HN does not equal TikTok. You don't have an actual argument, you're just buttmad because you don't like the fact that I'm correct.

I'm going to correct myself and go with narcissism as the reason for your comments, which, again ironically, gives them some value.

Fuck you too buddy.

Both were produced because there was money to be made, both have at least some negative effect on society.

Granted, the scale of the problems are different, and the axis onto which they act is also different. But I stand by my comparison.

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