Terra Ignota is one of the most unique and extraordinary series I've ever read. It's so rare to find something that combines meticulous and expansive worldbuilding, deep exploration of big ideas, strong emotional resonance and finely crafted prose.
Yeah, and you have to keep in mind that "human" in the Culture is an extremely broad category. A Klingon or a Ferengi or even something substantially weirder would count as human to the Culture.
When they visit 1970s Earth in State of the Art, they have to be very selective about who they send because many of them would stick out like a sore thumb even after cosmetic surgery.
It's not explicitly stated, but I get the impression that Culture citizens are generally very pro-social and willing to sacrifice for others' benefits and may well have been engineered with that aim.
They were willing to sacrifice nearly a trillion lives in the Idiran war, which was voted on by the entire population. Even after that vote, it was very easy to opt-out and I get the sense that most of those who did were motivated by genuine pacifism rather than personal fear.
The most dangerous and uncomfortable jobs like Special Circumstances and Contact seem to have an enormous surplus of volunteers and it's even hinted that there might not be any need for humans to do most of those jobs; they exist just because humans want to do them.
This is more about the trajectory. China is all-in on building renewables while the current US administration is pushing hard for more coal even when it doesn't make economic sense.
The past is the past. I think it's more important what choices they are making now. China is aggressively replacing fossil fuels with renewables. The US should be doing the same but instead is actively trying to increase fossil fuel usage.
When the crossover will happen is impossible to say because future US administrations probably won't pursue such mindbogglingly stupid policies.
China's coal use has fallen below 50%, and at their current low carbon deployment rates, renewables share of total electricity generated increases ~10%/year. They account for half of all solar deployed globally. They potentially reach net zero as it relates to electricity generation in the next 5-10 years, and are expected to reach low carbon energy generation being ~70% of their total electrical generation in 2027.
"If China maintains expansion at the 430-gigawatt-per-year level, installed wind and solar capacity would reach roughly 2,700 gigawatts by 2027. That would be more than five times the entire wind and solar capacity in the EU. Whether this value is realistic depends mainly on two factors: expansion of high-voltage transmission lines connecting generation and consumption regions, and political will to actually decommission the coal power plant fleet."
The US could replace all of it's coal fired generation in a year if they went as fast as China (even accounting for capacity factor of solar vs coal). They choose not to.
Estimates are tricky but it seems like there is a rough consensus that CCP cumulative carbon emissions will pass the US between 2035 and 2050. The calculation that matters for global impact is total emission levels. We only have one atmosphere. While decision making that affects the total is a mix of individual and governmental, in a totalitarian state government decisions outweigh individual ones by orders or magnitude.
Why is it relevant? It doesn't matter, except to perhaps the US consumers who will have to pay billions of dollars more as ratepayers for coal generated power versus renewables over the remaining life of these generators. There is only one coal plant, in Dry Forks, WY, where coal is still cheaper than renewables.
> The cost of running existing coal power plants in the United States continues rising while new wind and solar costs keep falling. Our first Coal Cost Crossover report (2019) found 62 percent of U.S. coal capacity was more expensive to run than to replace with renewables, while our second (2021) found 72 percent of capacity more expensive than renewables. Our latest Coal Cost Crossover research finds incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act accelerate this trend – 99 percent of all U.S. coal plants (209 out of 210) are now more expensive to run than replacement by new local solar, wind, or energy storage.
> This report finds 99 percent of the existing U.S. coal fleet is more expensive to run compared to replacement by new solar or wind. Replacing coal plants with local wind and solar would also save enough to finance nearly 150 gigawatts of four-hour battery storage, over 60 percent of the coal fleet’s capacity, and generate $589 billion in new investment across the U.S. Our report provides policy recommendations to facilitate a just transition through the Coal Cost Crossover.
I did not realize your primary concern was saving US consumers money. If that's the case then my question is irrelevant. The original article was focused on global carbon emissions, which was the context for my question.
Nuclear made a lot more sense back when solar panels and batteries were less mature.
With how insanely cheap solar and batteries are getting, it doesn't make much financial sense to build new nuclear plants anymore (for grid generation, they're still great for things like military ships).
Genuine question: I think making things worse to motivate later making them better is a relatively common idea. Are there any historical examples of it actually working well?
To me, it seems more likely to concentrate power among people who don't want to make things better and make it easier for them to resist ever changing.
Yeah, you have to conjure a really weird scenario for there to be any advantage.
Something like waiting until male puberty is already pretty far along and doing extensive strength training and then transitioning and competing immediately in a sport that puts a heavy premium on strength. I think most sports already have rules that would prevent this.
For someone following a more normal transitioning trajectory, there would be zero advantage; probably a significant disadvantage.
A blanket ban is just pure bullying, especially for childrens' sports (which are primarily a social activity, not a consequential competition). Individual sports can have rules to prevent the (primarily hypothetical) abusive cases without preventing children from participating in normal social activities. No one is saying that someone who's 200 lb of solid muscle and started HRT a month ago should be able to compete against girls in football or powerlifting, but pickleball, sure go for it.
> A blanket ban is just pure bullying, especially for childrens' sports (which are primarily a social activity, not a consequential competition).
That I think is the core issue. Way too many people try to live way too hard through their children. Wherever you look, either in the US or (where I'm from) Germany... you'll find absolutely absurd behavior from completely unhinged parents. Just yesterday, that was a topic discussed here [1].
Do you know that some US utility companies have geo IP + VPN bans, so that when you leave the US without setting up end of service and stuff, you can't even log into your account again to do that? What about google accounts etc that's implicitly tied to a US phone number?
If you imagine you can leave one country, that you have lived in for a somewhat extended period of time, for another one within a week just because you are heading home, I'm sorry but have you ever moved across borders for something other than tourism.
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