Extracting energy from the environment is a prerequisite for living.

“Extracting” information must be among the lowest energy level consumptions. In many cases it’s a (lossy) copy action rather than a subtraction.

The point is not quantitative, but philosophical. The attitude is the problem, not the absolute cost. The attitude is what propagates more serious problems, and that is what engineer types often fail to understand.

What makes me sad is people spending more time commenting on Hackernews, but not as much time helping starving kids in Africa.

If it does, that's your right. And I agree that in part spending so much time with technology is senseless.

Not the same people

It doesn't matter. We are all responsible for propagating a respectful attitude towards nature.

Consider that this work may contribute to us being able to take better care of nature. Live our lives with a lower negative impact. Sometimes study or work tangential to a goal leads to greater discovery in service to the goal.

We already know clearly what to do, and we are not doing it.

Would people be better equipped to take care of nature if no one were studying mathematics?

Whoa! Destruction of the natural world is saddening enough. Also being saddened by people enjoying things rather taking-care-of-nature-all-the-time is a very slippery emotional slope that you should try very hard to get off of

I'm not saddened by people enjoying things, and a slope being slippery does not imply that it's not worth investigating. I'm sad at the lack of respect being shown to nature sometimes, and it comes across in these articles. I will say what I like.