He was clumsily trying to equate the development of nuclear technology - bombs in particular - with what he perceives as the "secularism" of the United States. He's saying that WWII changed everything (well, of course it did - for one thing, about 80 million people died), and that secularism arose after 1945, as a result of the war. The decline in US church attendance didn't really happen until much later, and it certainly had nothing to do with nuclear technology.
He's talking about weapons. All the "nobody knows" stuff is nonsense but he's right: they're demonic. Evil. Then he goes back into his religionuttery but if that message is delivered, that nukes (weapons) are evil incarnate, I'm okay with that. If using them is portrayed as a crime against Christianity, then great.
"Nobody knows"?!!?!? JFC that clown is seriously uneducated. Apparently he's never heard of the Manhattan Project or Christopher Nolan's movie "Oppenheimer." The two bombs dropped on Japan were awful and destructive but they were the product of a small town of dedicated, brilliant people.
We could argue all day about whether it was militarily necessary to drop the bombs, esp. on largely civilian populations. IIRC the US Army and government believed that fighting Japan to defeat with only non-nuclear weapons would lead to a death toll in the millions. It's my understanding that they dramatically under-estimated the number of deaths and casualties from the resulting nuclear fallout.
I don't have much interest in studying nuclear weapons. At best AFAICT they act as a deterrent and contain warfare within certain "rules" or accepted conventions of military action.
If we're going to re-commit to nuclear power plants, my guess is that we'll have to take a long, hard look at how the Chinese build their plants and get them online. I haven't checked out what's going with GA's Vogtle plants but those were massively over-budget and late.
yeah, i think he may be speaking to their use on innocent civilians
the diaries of japanese survivors was pretty horrific
nuclear power? done correctly is a good thing
He was clumsily trying to equate the development of nuclear technology - bombs in particular - with what he perceives as the "secularism" of the United States. He's saying that WWII changed everything (well, of course it did - for one thing, about 80 million people died), and that secularism arose after 1945, as a result of the war. The decline in US church attendance didn't really happen until much later, and it certainly had nothing to do with nuclear technology.
He's talking about weapons. All the "nobody knows" stuff is nonsense but he's right: they're demonic. Evil. Then he goes back into his religionuttery but if that message is delivered, that nukes (weapons) are evil incarnate, I'm okay with that. If using them is portrayed as a crime against Christianity, then great.
The context is nuclear weapons, but he segues into the "unknown origin of nuclear technology." His argument about being used on Xians is bogus too. Xians are and always have been a tiny minority in Japan. Also tiny, in comparison, are the US POWs killed in the Nagasaki explosion.
BTW, firebombing Japanese cities wasn't any less "demonic."
He's talking about weapons. All the "nobody knows" stuff is nonsense but he's right: they're demonic. Evil. Then he goes back into his religionuttery but if that message is delivered, that nukes (weapons) are evil incarnate, I'm okay with that. If using them is portrayed as a crime against Christianity, then great.
yeah, i think he may be speaking to their use on innocent civilians
the diaries of japanese survivors was pretty horrific
nuclear power? done correctly is a good thing
Shades of âTide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You canât explain that. You canât explain why the tide goes in.â
He's talking about weapons. All the "nobody knows" stuff is nonsense but he's right: they're demonic. Evil. Then he goes back into his religionuttery but if that message is delivered, that nukes (weapons) are evil incarnate, I'm okay with that. If using them is portrayed as a crime against Christianity, then great.
i think he wrote a bestseller about avoiding climate disaster
a how to i suppose
i think he is concerned
is he going about it in a way that we all approve?
i doubt it/unlikely
overall i think he is a force for good
I think he genuinely wants to be a force for good, unlike many other uber rich. I think there is a fundamental disconnect between developing technology that requires a huge increase in energy use, requiring dedication of significant amounts of nuclear power so that he is resurrecting a power plant with a lot of bad press rather than putting the nuclear energy towards reducing fossil fuel use.
People were writing about the limits to growth back when I was an undergrad. Global warming is one aspect of that issue but not the only one.
ai? that genie is not going back into the bottle
will it help with nuclear power?
my magic 8 ball says yes
yes to that, but do we believe that MS/Google/Meta/X can be trusted to self regulate the production of energy from a nuclear reactor? Magic 8 ball says
Yeah, nuclear power is an answer to our power budget problem. But AI and bitcoin are heroin and crack to our power dependency issues.
We are making great strides on conservation and alternative generation, and still nuclear is the only realistic option. Then you add AI compute to the mix... it's not going to end well. Also, I don't trust most (any?) of these groups to self regulate their AI, I really don't trust them to run a nuclear power plant to sustain them.
ai? that genie is not going back into the bottle
will it help with nuclear power?
my magic 8 ball says yes
Gates doesn't want to reduce CO2, he wants to minimise the increase in CO2 from the massive amount of computing power for his AI plans. There is a difference. I feel about it the way I feel about bitcoin, the product isn't worth the computing power used. Although with AI, I think there are more potential negatives to society.
i think he wrote a bestseller about avoiding climate disaster
a how to i suppose
i think he is concerned
is he going about it in a way that we all approve?
i doubt it/unlikely
overall i think he is a force for good
Gates doesn't want to reduce CO2, he wants to minimise the increase in CO2 from the massive amount of computing power for his AI plans. There is a difference. I feel about it the way I feel about bitcoin, the product isn't worth the computing power used. Although with AI, I think there are more potential negatives to society.
Yeah, nuclear power is an answer to our power budget problem. But AI and bitcoin are heroin and crack to our power dependency issues.
We are making great strides on conservation and alternative generation, and still nuclear is the only realistic option. Then you add AI compute to the mix... it's not going to end well. Also, I don't trust most (any?) of these groups to self regulate their AI, I really don't trust them to run a nuclear power plant to sustain them.
could be
gates has made it clear he believes nuclear is a huge part of reducing co2
he has a few bets/investments with nuclear power/energy research
i was going to mention something about tax write-offs, but decided not to
Gates doesn't want to reduce CO2, he wants to minimise the increase in CO2 from the massive amount of computing power for his AI plans. There is a difference. I feel about it the way I feel about bitcoin, the product isn't worth the computing power used. Although with AI, I think there are more potential negatives to society.
I haven't followed Gates' investment in nuclear power research lately, but I'd be very interested to see ANY near-term design offer realistic construction cost projections. The Vogtle plant in GA went massively over budget and was years late.
could be
gates has made it clear he believes nuclear is a huge part of reducing co2
he has a few bets/investments with nuclear power/energy research
i was going to mention something about tax write-offs, but decided not to
I haven't followed Gates' investment in nuclear power research lately, but I'd be very interested to see ANY near-term design offer realistic construction cost projections. The Vogtle plant in GA went massively over budget and was years late.
I used to be in Data Centers and we looked at this ~7 years ago. At the time it really made a lot more sense to locate in a high sunshine area with cheap land and do big solar arrays with some wind as well if the geography worked. Nuclear has a lot of potential, but only if your scale is larger than a massive array can handle or scale to. I recall the break point was around 200-250 megawatts.
you are also making a tradeoff on if it more cost effective to move power over a distance or data over a distance. Data is generally easier (light or microwave), but takes time (measured in milliseconds). Normally that's not a big deal, but financial guys will spend millions (multiple / hundreds) for a few milliseconds. So this makes me think that a lot of what is going on is financial. Or this is just PR / Buzzword bingo.
could be
gates has made it clear he believes nuclear is a huge part of reducing co2
he has a few bets/investments with nuclear power/energy research
i was going to mention something about tax write-offs, but decided not to
I used to be in Data Centers and we looked at this ~7 years ago. At the time it really made a lot more sense to locate in a high sunshine area with cheap land and do big solar arrays with some wind as well if the geography worked. Nuclear has a lot of potential, but only if your scale is larger than a massive array can handle or scale to. I recall the break point was around 200-250 megawatts.
you are also making a tradeoff on if it more cost effective to move power over a distance or data over a distance. Data is generally easier (light or microwave), but takes time (measured in milliseconds). Normally that's not a big deal, but financial guys will spend millions (multiple / hundreds) for a few milliseconds. So this makes me think that a lot of what is going on is financial. Or this is just PR / Buzzword bingo.
