The Age of Social Media Is Ending

“Social media turned you, me, and everyone into broadcasters (if aspirational ones). The results have been disastrous but also highly pleasurable, not to mention massively profitable—a catastrophic combination.

The terms social network and social media are used interchangeably now, but they shouldn’t be. A social network is an idle, inactive system—a Rolodex of contacts, a notebook of sales targets, a yearbook of possible soul mates. But social media is active—hyperactive, really—spewing material across those networks instead of leaving them alone until needed.”

The Age of Social Media Is Ending
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/twitter-facebook-social-media-decline/672074/
via Instapaper

‘Like Vegas, but worse’: Sharm el-Sheikh fails to charm Cop27 delegates

“There have been some notable rhetorical flourishes, not least from António Guterres, the UN secretary general, who has turned climate speeches into something of an art form. The world is on a “highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator”, he warned. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish.””

‘Like Vegas, but worse’: Sharm el-Sheikh fails to charm Cop27 delegates
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/11/like-vegas-but-worse-bemusement-week-one-cop27-sharm-el-sheikh
via Instapaper

🤔 Can the clean transition happen?

“Let’s just focus on the future demands of minerals needed for the clean transition — the demand is set to grow exponentially. That is as daunting as moving a hunter-gathering species of 10 million from foraging to domestication.

We have an existence proof which suggests that this rationale is flawed.

We did scale agriculture all over the globe, band by band, in parallel, in similar ways and in different ways. In fact, we have gotten so good at it, we can adequately feed six billion people, and overfeed a further one billion of them. And we even need less land than before.


To believe that it is impossible to decarbonise the global economy quickly because we won’t be able to scale up clean energy requires the same flawed rationale to argue that agriculture never happened.”

🤔 Can the clean transition happen?
https://www.exponentialview.co/p/weekly-commentary-can-clean-transition-happen
via Instapaper


From nuclear power to bamboo: The climate solutions at COP27

“Green hydrogen is a zero-emissions hydrogen fuel capable of powering planes, cars and homes. It’s produced using wind and solar power, along with a high-tech electrolysis process. By 2050, cleanly made hydrogen could remove seven gigatons of CO2 emissions annually if scaled successfully, roughly 20 percent of human-caused emissions, according to McKinsey.”

From nuclear power to bamboo: The climate solutions at COP27
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/cop27-climate-change-solutions/
via Instapaper

The EU wants to put companies on the hook for harmful AI

“Powerful AI technologies are increasingly shaping our lives, relationships, and societies, and their harms are well documented. Social media algorithms boost misinformation, facial recognition systems are often highly discriminatory, and predictive AI systems that are used to approve or reject loans can be less accurate for minorities.”

The EU wants to put companies on the hook for harmful AI
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/01/1060539/eu-tech-policy-harmful-ai-liability/
via Instapaper

Yeah, We're Gonna Need to Leave That Shit in the Ground


A new report from climate research organization Oil Change International has found that almost half of the fossil fuels that could come out of existing coal mines and oil and gas fields need to stay untouched, if we’re going to stop warming at less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Oil Change International researchers added estimates of already developed oil, gas, and coal projects and how much carbon they would emit and calculated that 40% of those fossil fuels need to stay in the ground to avoid blowing past our carbon budget. This work helps expand on the International Energy Agency’s report, which found that no new oil and gas fields or coal mines can be developed if the world plants on staying within 1.5 degrees C warming.

“That’s where we get the conclusion that we’ve already developed too much,” Kelly Trout, co-author of the study and research co-director of Oil Change, told Earther. “If policymakers wanted to aim for a higher certainty of staying below that limit, there would actually need to be more fossil fuels that would need to stay in the ground.””

Yeah, We're Gonna Need to Leave That Shit in the Ground
https://gizmodo.com/leave-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground-1848943187
via Instapaper

The pleasure, the pain and the politics of a digital detox | Psyche Ideas

“While large parts of the world still lack access, unplugging is often seen as a luxury for the internet-rich. A search in Factiva, the international media database, shows that the United Kingdom tops the list of countries referring to ‘digital detox’, followed by Germany, the United States, India and Australia. While many struggle to connect, others struggle to disconnect. What people disconnect from varies, but some digital irritants are worse than others. The most mentioned industries in connection with digital detox are, by far, social media and smartphones, and Mark Zuckerberg is the most referenced individual.”

The pleasure, the pain and the politics of a digital detox | Psyche Ideas
https://psyche.co/ideas/the-pleasure-the-pain-and-the-politics-of-a-digital-detox
via Instapaper

Can a frequent flyer tax could solve aviation’s carbon challenge?

“The global aviation industry is responsible for about 2.5 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions – a bigger contribution than Australia - and if the aviation industry was a country, it would be one of the world’s 10 worst polluters.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines were scrambling to adopt various measures to combat emissions and soothe growing guilt among passengers about travelling, including voluntary carbon offset schemes and investing in sustainable jet fuel.

But now, with travellers again flocking to the skies after two years of on and off lockdowns, sustainability experts believe the best way for the sector to meaningfully cut emissions is by taxing frequent flyers. That could be good news for carbon-conscious travellers, but also a problem for Australian airlines and passengers.”

Can a frequent flyer tax could solve aviation’s carbon challenge?
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/can-a-frequent-flyer-tax-could-solve-aviation-s-carbon-challenge-20220928-p5blne.html
via Instapaper

Where simulation ends and reality begins: an interview with David Chalmers - Prospect Magazine

“We know that everything goes through sense perception and the exact form of how it appears to us is constructed in the brain: all perception is mediated. So the only meaningful sense in which I really do see or hear you, even in real life, is that what I am seeing and hearing is in some importantly truthful way causally related to you.”

Where simulation ends and reality begins: an interview with David Chalmers - Prospect Magazine
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/where-simulation-ends-and-reality-begins-an-interview-with-david-chalmers
via Instapaper