World Without End

What Hacker News says

1. palataMar 2025
   > There isn’t a “maybe” human extinction within known parameters. There isn’t even an end to industrial civilisation without nukes

   What the hell? Let's completely put climate change and mass extinction (which are huge problems on their own) aside for a moment.

   Do you know what threatens the collapse of the industrial civilisation? The end of fossil fuels. That's a very real problem right here right now. Without the climate change and mass extinction problems, that would still be a reason for our industrial civilisation to collapse soon.

   Luckily, the solution to all of those 3 problems is the same: cut down emissions, do less with less. A good introduction to the problem, I find, is here: https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Illustrated-Climate...

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2. palataSep 2023
   > Are you saying people need to give up AC and die in the summer?

   I am precisely saying that we need to prioritize. I would rather survive the summer and not fly far away on holiday than die in the summer.

   > Is the plan that everybody becomes a peasant?

   Well big cities are a problem, and people working in services definitely rely on a society built on abundant energy.

   I don't know exactly what the solution is. What I know is that our society is built on fossil fuel, and not only those are limited, but they are killing us. So we need to remove fossil fuels. Then looking at the numbers, it appears that we can't reasonably hope to replace fossil fuels entirely. Hence we have to use less energy, hence we have to degrow.

   I hardly advise reading https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb..., that's from a well-known french engineer.

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3. palataSep 2023
   There are two french persons who have really had a big impact on how I see the energy crisis (climate is a consequence of fossil fuels, hence energy).

   One is Aurelien Barrau, astrophysicist and philosopher, who made me realize that CO2 is not the problem. If we changed fossil fuels with fusion, we would still be living a mass extinction. We are destroying biodiversity because of our way of life.

   The other one is Jean-Marc Jancovici, who explains that the root cause is fossil fuels. Climate is just a consequence (a very bad one, hence we need to solve the energy problem even faster).

   I strongly recommend his book, which explains his ideas really well. Probably works better if you know Europe a bit, but I think that the English edition is modified a bit for US citizen: https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

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4. palataSep 2023
   You completely miss my point. You are the arrogant want saying "don't worry, we can solve it, we know". I am the one with humility saying "guys, I have seen how engineering works, it's always harder than we think". Tell me: how do you make plastic with solar energy? Because last time I checked, plastic was made of oil. There are tons of engineering problems (from the fact that nobody has ever produced that much solar energy to the fact that you can't control solar energy - what do you do when there is no sun? Happens at least every night...).

   Plus, if your only reference is the price of solar power today, then you are highly uninformed on the subject at hand. Of course solar power is cheap: in many places it is subsidized, and it is built with cheap, abundant fossil fuels. But make no mistake: solar today is absolutely marginal. So you are extrapolating from the current marginal energy production of solar to 100% of the world, with the only argument that "last you checked, solar today is very cheap" and "those who believe they know slightly more than me are arrogant, I won't listen to them".

   > while not having any desire to learn.

   Let me take you on that. I will share with you my favorite introduction book on the subject (it is cheap, from a really respected french engineer, and it took me 5h to read). If you do have any desire to learn, read it seriously. Now in all fairness, if you share with me the title of a serious book that explains why degrowth is "arrogant and stupid", I commit to reading it.

   Do we have a deal?

   My choice is "World without end" (in French: "Le monde sans fin"):

   https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

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5. palataSep 2023
   With all due respect, what I read sounds like there is a lot of faith and not enough science. For instance:

   > Now, you can choose to be a techno-pessimist about all this if you want. You can assume, if you like, [... adds an incomplete list of stuff that could prevent technology from solving the problem ...]. Yes, with enough mental effort, you can ignore a technological revolution in progress. > > But ignoring a technological revolution in progress will accomplish nothing.

   Let's be real: this article does not prove that solar can replace fossil fuels. It has faith that it can, and believes that "anyway if that doesn't work, we're screwed, so we have to believe in it".

   It merely extrapolates from the growth of solar in the last few years. That is not enough.

   My turn to suggest a different view: https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

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6. palataJun 2023
   Before denying the energy problem (and I am not saying that philosophically, I think we should go back to horses because it is nicer, I am just saying that we are facing a big energy problem), I would encourage you to read this book, which was a huge success in France last year:

   https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

   Written by a true expert, Jean-Marc Jancovici. Just check who he is, usually engineers like him, even if they don't like the conclusion (which is that engineers tend to be part of the problem, not the solution).

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