Geoengineering is an Awesome Life Purpose

[aurum]

If you're an engineering type and passionate about the environment, I would be looking to get into geoengineering whatever way I could:

Eventually, there comes a time to dry your tears about environmental problems and instead get solution-oriented. Hippie ideas about everyone just living with less or not interfering with Earth aren't going to cut it. 

We are going to engineer the planet.

Imagine getting to work on a geoengineering project that helps ensure the survival of the entire species, including all your loved ones. You would be rewarded extremely well by society.

[Carl-Richard]

56 minutes ago, aurum said:

Hippie ideas about everyone just living with less or not interfering with Earth aren't going to cut it. 

Sometimes I feel like being this guy though:

 

[Natasha Tori Maru]

@aurum Preaaaaaach man!

I have been talking to the engineers we work with for a while about this topic.

I am very hopeful - will check out the link after work

[aurum]

26 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

@aurum Preaaaaaach man!

I have been talking to the engineers we work with for a while about this topic.

I am very hopeful - will check out the link after work

Very cool!

If you want to share, where are you working that's involved with engineers?

[Wilhelm44]

When humans actually change, things can change quite quickly for the earth. For example, when all the people living next to a river stop their polluting at the same time, it just takes one new flow cycle from the source for the river to get clean again.

[aurum]

40 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Sometimes I feel like being this guy though:

 

Omg.

I can't even listen to people like this anymore. 

[aurum]

13 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

When humans actually change, things can change quite quickly for the earth. For example, when all the people living next to a river stop their polluting at the same time, it just takes one new flow cycle from the source for the river to get clean again.

Yeah but you can't wait for that to happen.

You need a developed minority to generate solutions for everyone else.

[Wilhelm44]

4 minutes ago, aurum said:

Yeah but you can't wait for that to happen.

You need a developed minority to generate solutions for everyone else.

Of course, I hear you, I just hope we dont see living on a planet with a bunch of mechanical trees as the actual solution.

[Natasha Tori Maru]

4 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Of course, I hear you, I just hope we dont see living on a planet with a bunch of mechanical trees as the actual solution.

Nah its more like, techniques to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, solar radiation management.

A lot is focused on leveraging current systems to clean shit out of the environment. Using the current systems that work in an organic way as a piggy back.

There are some issues in the field, like unpredictable side effects, moral (distracting from cutting emission) & governance nightmares.

[ted73104]

I don't see this trend occurring anytime soon unfortunately, just like green energy this stuff is very expensive. I think the current administrations around the world would rather go nuclear.

[Wilhelm44]

7 hours ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

Nah its more like, techniques to suck carbon out of the atmosphere, solar radiation management.

A lot is focused on leveraging current systems to clean shit out of the environment. Using the current systems that work in an organic way as a piggy back.

There are some issues in the field, like unpredictable side effects, moral (distracting from cutting emission) & governance nightmares.

Cool, I'm curious what is the best technique to remove carbon from the atmosphere ?

Edited June 4 by Wilhelm44

[Cireeric]

You havent been seriously blackpilled on the progress narrative then: https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/

The best we can do is to get more humble and acknowledge the vast complexity and that we are nowhere close to fully understand and steer this thing and then find a more harmonious relatioship to this complexity. 

[aurum]

11 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Of course, I hear you, I just hope we dont see living on a planet with a bunch of mechanical trees as the actual solution.

What don't you like about mechanical trees?

[aurum]

2 hours ago, Cireeric said:

You havent been seriously blackpilled on the progress narrative then: https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/

The best we can do is to get more humble and acknowledge the vast complexity and that we are nowhere close to fully understand and steer this thing and then find a more harmonious relatioship to this complexity. 

This is exactly the kind of thinking I want to challenge.

Yes, we often create externalities. I agree with Consilience that we need to understand those betters.

But we are in our infancy around geoengineering. Mistakes will get made, and that is how we will collectively learn.

Imagine if humanity stopped practicing medicine the first time we created some externalities in the body. That's what "blackpilled" on progress leads too.

Even Consilience in this article is not strictly against progress, they just are calling for more holistic accounting. Which is fair.

[Wilhelm44]

6 minutes ago, aurum said:

What don't you like about mechanical trees?

I didnt say i dont like them, never seen one to be honest. But i cant imagine that sitting in a mechanical tree forrest would be as magical as sitting in an actual forrest.

[aurum]

9 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I didnt say i dont like them, never seen one to be honest. But i cant imagine that sitting in a mechanical tree forrest would be as magical as sitting in an actual forrest.

Why do you think it couldn't be as magical?

These are the kind of questions this thread is meant to bring up.

[Wilhelm44]

2 hours ago, aurum said:

Why do you think it couldn't be as magical?

These are the kind of questions this thread is meant to bring up.

I think my answer is obvious. We're talking about mother nature here. But let me ask you rather, how do you see a mechanical tree forrest being just as magical as an actual forrest ?

[aurum]

18 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I think my answer is obvious. We're talking about mother nature here. But let me ask you rather, how do you see a mechanical tree forrest being just as magical as an actual forrest ?

Ultimately, I don't make a distinction between machines and mother nature

Machines are mother nature.

[Wilhelm44]

19 minutes ago, aurum said:

Ultimately, I don't make a distinction between machines and mother nature

Machines are mother nature.

But you didnt really answer the question, how will a mechanical immitation of a forrest be just as magical as an actual forrest ?

[aurum]

5 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

But you didnt really answer the question, how will a mechanical immitation of a forrest be just as magical as an actual forrest ?

I did give you an answer. Think about it.

 Why can electronic music be just as magical as natural music?

Or a painting of a face be just as magical as a face?

All art is imitation.

When you look at a mechanical forrest, you are looking at mother nature. It is its own creation, with potential for beauty and magic the same way an "actual" forest does.

Edited June 5 by aurum