Please don't post unsubstantive comments, or flamebait, or take HN threads into ideological battle.

Please do review and follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

In case of Germany, it's anti-science anti-nuclear "environmentalists" that are destroying it. Energy is needed regardless of the economic structure of society. Now which kind of energy will it be? Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.

> Germany chose coal and now they're reaping the consequences.

Heh, nope, everyone does reap the consequences... That said, nuclear power is no viable long term solution and if we imported uranium from Russia, everybody would start to cry again.

Being anti-nuclear isn't necessarily anti-scientific. It is a risk assessment. While I tend to have favored nuclear power, especially towards the current energy setup, I don't think it was a catastrophic decision.

Nuclear was always less than 15% of Germany's primary power consumption. Renewables something like 5%. We need to get to 100% carbon neutral. Whether we have to replace 80 or 100% with wind and solar shouldn't make that much of a difference.

Nuclear fission is the only non-carbon technology that could realistically get to 100% supply. Ending its generation in Germany was a mistake.

I think you need to qualify that first statement with a timeframe. Otherwise, it is clearly untrue. 100% supply is realistically possible with only renewable energy -- within a few years by investing in storage, local wind power in South Germany where the main demand is etc.

I agree that it was a mistake, but there are several studies showing how Germany can switch to ~100% wind+solar.

What do they propose to deal with massive swings in generation and demand? Hydroelectric pumping? Batteries?

Build enough batteries and hydro to last for a few hours to a few days and use power-to-gas for longer periods of low generation (e.g. winter and no wind). There is already infrastructure in place for strategic gas reserves. We just need to build additional gas plants to meet demand when wind and solar are at production minimums.

But batteries and hydro are extremely expensive at grid-scale. How economically uncompetitive are you willing to make Germany in exchange for not using nuclear?

Nuclear is also extremely expensive. Personally I see opportunities in being an early adopter of technologies that have to become quite popular over the next few years if we want to prevent catastrophic climate change, but I'm not enough of an economist to have a strong opinion.

I would also be okay with building some nuclear, put nuclear and renewables don't go very well together, and I believe it's much harder to build enough nuclear plants quickly enough to replace all fossil energy consumption than it is to build enough wind turbines.

All of those, plus "smart grid" stuff to get better control over demand, plus Power to Gas (electricity to methane) and gas turbines (very inefficient, but existing infrastructure can store huge amounts of energy, and efficiency isn't the primary concern for the exceptional case).

I highly doubt about it considering how much they already spent and how (very) far they are from that goal.

Being anti-nuclear (fission as we use it today) is not per se anti-science. If you do some research on how humanity has dealt with nuclear waste in the past and how it is still dealing with it, you may come to a different conclusion.

Socialism has destroyed quite a bit of nature. (look at the Aral sea, for example). What exactly would you is it about capitalism that supposedly destroys the planet?

And how would you propose to remedy the problem?

I mean by starving a couple of million people, as it is wont to do, Socialism could help curb the consumption of resources. I give you that.

And again, lols for the downvotes. You are ridiculous.

Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here? They ask you not to use this site for ideological battle, nor to post in the flamewar style. Downvotes of such comments are correct on HN.

Yes, someone else started it, but users here are asked to follow the guidelines whether someone else is or not.

Sorry I don't understand your criticism. Is it not allowed to discuss capitalism or socialism, it is automatically an "ideological battle"? That doesn't make sense imo.

It's not allowed to foment generic ideological tangents with indignant rhetoric. "Socialism starved a couple million people" is a classic example. All of that has been repeated countless times. It is predictable, therefore it does not gratify curiosity, therefore it's not what HN is for, and that means it's off topic.

If you have something genuinely new to say, that might be ok—but then an internet forum is not a good medium for that; you should write a book or a scholarly essay instead, and maybe link to it here.

It seems to be news for the person blaming capitalism for the woes of the world, though. So discussion is not welcome? Why can't people just ignore threads they are not interested in?

Afaik a lot of stories repeat on HN, so the "newsworthiness" criterion seems a bit arbitrary. Also, shouldn't it make a difference if it is a top level thread? I wouldn't submit a story about "socialism starving millions of people".

I know, your "new" policies have been in place for a while, but I think you really kind of destroyed Hacker News. I don't understand why you worry about curbing discussions in deeply nested threads, as they would be easy to ignore by people who don't care. I don't think you worry about SEO or anything like that, so really, what is your incentive?

Also, there are lots of "boring" and repetitive threads on HN (like on global warming), I think you may actually single out "capitalism vs socialism" for ideological reasons. I don't believe you that nobody is curious about capitalism vs socialism anymore. On the contrary, the "battle" is more relevant than ever, with socialist having a real shot at the US elections. It is a question that affects most of us a lot more than most topics would.

That's like saying a gardener shouldn't worry about weeds because those who don't like them needn't look at them. The trouble is that if one allows such discussion, it spreads and takes over. It doesn't just stay static. Worse, it has feedback effects. For example it drives away users who find such rhetoric boring and lame, and attracts users who enjoy heated repetition. We want the first group here more than the second, because the first makes HN more interesting (higher signal) while the second makes it less interesting (higher noise).

We can't be passive about such effects. They can quickly develop into a vicious circle that destroys the site. HN will only survive as an interesting place for thoughtful people if it avoids that, so this is an existential issue and why I (we) moderate that way. I'm sad you think I've destroyed Hacker News, but would submit that if moderation doesn't evolve as a community grows, one ends up with the default dynamic of internet forums: decay followed by heat death. HN was actually started as an experiment in avoiding that dynamic [1], so in my view we're aligned with its original spirit when we do this. "Our hypothesis is that by making a conscious effort to resist decline, we can keep it from happening." [2]

You're right that the threads about global warming are almost as repetitive. The same logic applies to those.

Really though, if you want to make a case about the quality of the site, you shouldn't be posting things like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20419652.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

I still don't quite see the issue you have with my comment. I personally find it a good argument against Socialism, or at least a good reminder that Socialism is not an automatic solution to the world's problems. And is it really common knowledge how the Russians destroyed the Aral sea? I know it wasn't always known to me, and I haven't read about it that often. If it is common knowledge, why do people propose Socialism as a solution to environmental problems?

What would be a good comment on Socialism, in your opinion?

I know you have a policy against politics, or used to have it. It doesn't seem to be strictly enforced, though (see global warming, feminism and so on).

I know why you have your policies, but I am not convinced that they are optimal. Have you ever even tested them against alternatives?

I've been on HN since it was called Startup News. I actually almost hate it now, because of some of the policies. Sure, maybe you don't want people like me on the site. Your call. I know several oldtimers feel the same, though.

You have actually found some ways to make users hate you, which is an achievement in itself. For starters, how about a warning that you are beyond your posting limit BEFORE people spend time and effort to write comments?

And it feels very one sided now, so not as interesting as it used to be (is it really the quality of my comment, or just criticism of Socialism that is the issue?). Still, I keep coming back, admittedly. But grudgingly so.

Edit: looking through the policies again, I still don't see how my comment is supposed to break the rules: "Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads.". It's not a crap link, and it is not rude or dumb. Imo, of course. That the same argument has been made before can hardly be a deciding factor, because then you'd have to shut down the site right now.

~20 million people die every year, because it is not profitable to feed them, and give them clean water and medicine.

So please think about that number. Deaths solely due to a lack of profitability.

Can you give a citation? Where does this happen? Is it really just capitalist unwillingness to deliver food, or are these people in the hands of dictators, and it is capitalist unwillingness to sacrifice soldiers to topple them? And do capitalists start wars, or governments?

It's people and exponential growth. Doesn't matter what -ism you put on the end of your shovels.

That’s quite the Malthusian viewpoint. Alternatively: “Malthus theory, which holds that since the world’s resources are more or less fixed, population growth must be restricted or all of us will descend into bottomless misery. Malthusianism is scientifically bankrupt — all predictions made upon it have been wrong, because human beings are not mere consumers of resources. Rather, we create resources by the development of new technologies that find use for them. The more people, the faster the rate of innovation. This is why (contrary to Malthus) as the world’s population has increased, the standard of living has increased, and at an accelerating rate.“

https://space.nss.org/the-significance-of-the-martian-fronti...

I'll take your Malthus and raise you a Bartlett. https://bollocks2012.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/the-greatest-s...

Also, from your linked article from random space cadets: "Unless people can see broad vistas of unused resources in front of them, the belief in limited resources tends to follow as a matter of course."

Sorry, but O(2^n) is going to grow faster than O(n^3), which is the fundamental limitation of the speed of light for a space-faring civilization expanding in a shell from its origin.

Exponential growth just does not scale.

*At the cost of catastrophic ecological destruction.

This specific strawman comes up so often that it ought to have its own name. Just because one guy underestimated the carrying capacity of the Earth a long time ago, and failed to predict farming practices that would eventually wreak havoc on the environment, doesn't make the population variable off-limits for discussion. Is it any more realistic to expect billions of people to voluntarily revert to an ascetic lifestyle?

Really the two are in feedback loops that may correlate and require certain strategization and working smarter instead of harder. Improved agricultural yields produce surplus food per person which allows a shift to industrialization which enables more secondary tertiary areas of specialization which can boost yields and give other benefits.

This dates back to the bronze age even and technically stone age in mesoamerican and neighboring southern native american cultures.

Sure - so the problem with capitalism is that it allows populations to grow too much? Or in what sense is capitalism to blame?

Capitalism is the best solution to manage our greed without killing ourselves while preserving our freedom.

I don't like it either, but I never trust anyone who says he had no self-interest.

And the current growth fetish isn't innate to capitalism.

I am asking for it, I know it.

Capitalism saved the planet if not the people on it and has will continue to improve the lives of everyone it touches?

why, because it an economic system based on private ownership over means of production and profit. by that reasoning it implies your right to your own person is guaranteed.

how is that important, well the easiest way to understand it is that anywhere in the world where private and personal property rights are not respected by the government the people are put at risk. go look where the greatest tragedies of our current world are and you will see that.

can capitalism lead to some bad outcomes, yes, but overall it is the basis for many forms of governments with good outcomes. it has reduced death by starvation and disease simply by the abundances created.

when you respect the rights of your people it is far easier to respect the rights of the Earth you live on.