[ExI] The Futurism of Elon Musk

Tue Sep 8 14:37:30 UTC 2020

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of John Grigg via extropy-chat
Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 6:12 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Futurism of Elon Musk

"Thanks John and Adrian!  John good to see you back, me lad." 

>…Spike, thank you!  : )  I thought that YT video would catch the interest of the list members. I suppose the young intellectual, Tom Nicholas, is a bit of a European socialist at heart, to dare criticise the darling of our transhumanist hearts, Elon Musk! Lol

…

>…I was thrown initially by your usage of the term "coal burners." But yes, the power for those electric cars has to come from somewhere. I was recently on an online forum when a racist fellow said he would never date a woman who was a "coal burner." I brought down the house by saying I understood where he was coming from, and that I also would never date a woman who was not into renewable energy resources such as solar, geo-thermal and wind.  ; ) 

John

Hi John,

I was not aware of the British use of the term until it was pointed out to me by a kindhearted British lad hoping to save me from embarrassment, and have since decided to come up with an alternative which is really more descriptive anyway, the hotwatt, since the Tesla is a racy little rig with no rods.

The Brits have a funny way of speaking, which is why I had to stop referring to my own favorite distraction of amateur entomology as buggery.  I am told they have an alternative definition.

On the other hand… if we nuke greens get our way, then the Teslas can be referred to as atom burners.

Regarding the power shortages: California bet long on renewable energy.  Hot dry breezy day, skies are clear, solar farms and wind farms churn out the watts, air conditioners grind away in the city, life is good, Ja?

Wellll… we have standards for power line capacity, but under certain conditions they can temporarily overdrive them, and do, such as on a clear sunny breezy day for instance.  This combines crackly powerlines, strained transmission towers and smoking hot transformers, everything that moves power from out there to in here, with… ideal conditions for wildfire.

Result: forests burn, homes burn, lives are lost.  Power company sued.  Power company agrees to not overdrive those lines and transformers, and suddenly….we no longer lack renewable power, we have too much of it, at least under optimal conditions for renewable power generation.

So… while one faction of green is demanding more renewable energy, another faction is demanding less of it.  

We nuke greens don’t have all the answers either: any nuke plant needs to be way to heck and gone away from population centers (the faceless masses won’t even allow hyperbolic cooling towers even for a natural gas peaker plant) so that sets up reliance on long transmission lines, which sometimes cause fires, and those fires start under conditions which transform them from an inconvenience into a horrifying nightmare.

Meanwhile… people come from all over the planet to live in Nerdvana where we have all this cool high-tech gee-whiz while we struggle to supply the electrical power to run it.

spike

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