• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Come on, man.

This fight is for everything.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / What Better G(r)ift Than Invisible Garbage?

What Better G(r)ift Than Invisible Garbage?

by Major Major Major Major|  December 9, 202112:12 pm| 173 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Science & Technology, Tech News and Issues

FacebookTweetEmail

I’m sure you’ve noticed that NFTs are ‘in’ right now, among a certain set. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this means that they may also be in some of our stockings. The WSJ, naturally, has included them in their “cash gift guide“, which also includes sections such as “meme stocks” (remember GameStop?) and “financial products for children”, because of course it does. Bloomberg, ever the more serious financial publication, merely has a trend piece about this.

(What is an NFT, anyway?)

This is just depressing. As an art lover, I’d be pretty mad if somebody gave me a certificate of authenticity for an ugly doodle of a smoking monkey, instead of like, a piece of art. And how do you even wrap an NFT? You’re essentially giving them the private key to an online wallet, i.e. a long string of nonsense characters. Maybe you give them a slip of paper with login instructions? I doubt many givers will include the instructions the recipient will actually want: how to dump this crap immediately upon receipt so they can convert it into actual money–you know, something fungible.

This is my favorite part of the Bloomberg piece, though. The woman they interview isn’t even pretending this is something people want; she just wants to proselytize, and will spend a good chunk of change doing it:

Educating family about NFTs is part of Jessica Walker’s motivation for giving the tokens as gifts this year for Christmas. […] Her budget is about one Ethereum, or $4,100 U.S. dollars. […] “My brother will look at me slightly disappointed that I have not bought him food or alcohol.”

This Christmas, why not spend thousands to give your loved ones the gift of disappointment?

Open thread!

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: «Interest in a Weekly Book Club to Read & Discuss Adam Schiff's Book Midnight In Washington? Book Club Information for Adam Schiff’s Midnight In Washington
Next Post: Open Thread: Hey Lurkers! (Holiday Post) Open Thread:  Hey Lurkers!  (Holiday Post)»

Reader Interactions

173Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    December 9, 2021 at 12:15 pm

    Bad news everyone – MMMM isn’t going to like the gift we got him.

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    December 9, 2021 at 12:18 pm

    The bubble isn’t going to inflate itself!

  3. 3.

    Nora Lenderbee

    December 9, 2021 at 12:19 pm

    Totally OT, but better news: Josh Duggar was convicted on child porn charges.

  4. 4.

    guachi

    December 9, 2021 at 12:21 pm

    I mean, I could how see someone like John Cole might enjoy having someone buy him an in-game pet or mount for WoW. But an NFT of something stupid for someone who doesn’t even want it is madness.

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 9, 2021 at 12:22 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee:

    My surprised face, let me find it.

  6. 6.

    TeezySkeezy

    December 9, 2021 at 12:23 pm

    I feel like the NFT concept is a cute gimmick that could let you support a struggling artist by paying a little more to essentially get their digital signature (I’d def want a physical print with it, though). But that just amounts to a nice gesture, not much more. However, the idea that NFTs should somehow be lucrative is a bunch of stupidity. I’m sure some grifters are going to make a lot of money off the idea though for a long time, sadly. Speculative bubbles on worthless things are nothing new.

  7. 7.

    Brantl

    December 9, 2021 at 12:23 pm

    I think NFTs are an intelligence test that the human race is failing spectacularly.

  8. 8.

    Fair Economist

    December 9, 2021 at 12:24 pm

    If I got an NFT as a gift I’d sell it on the spot.

    And yeah, why are they all so ugly?

  9. 9.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    December 9, 2021 at 12:27 pm

    The “Financial products for children” probably include one of those rip off credit cards which pretend to teach kids about money but are just a sneaky way for credit card companies to get hold of kids pocket money.  I had a twitter argument with one of them when they first came out and accused them of that very thing and they responded “no we’re not, the parents pay the fees not the children” as if that was some sort of redeeming quality on their part.  Damn monsters.

  10. 10.

    Poe Larity

    December 9, 2021 at 12:28 pm

    Well, I guess that throws my LilyCoin idea out the window with the mustard.

  11. 11.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    December 9, 2021 at 12:29 pm

    @Brantl:  Tulips! Beanie Babies!

  12. 12.

    TeezySkeezy

    December 9, 2021 at 12:30 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Humans are awful.  So much of our mathematical talent is just used to extract wealth from each other under shady pretenses.

  13. 13.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 12:33 pm

    And how do you even wrap an NFT?

    Put the NFT on a USB drive, then print a copy of the underlying GIF,  blowing it up or tiling it to fill an 8.5×11 sheet, and wrap the USB drive in that.

    Plus this way, the recipient at least gets a USB drive.

  14. 14.

    matt

    December 9, 2021 at 12:35 pm

    Kind of like someone into birdwatching giving all of their relatives bird guides. It’s about you, not about them.

  15. 15.

    Tim C

    December 9, 2021 at 12:35 pm

    Generally speaking,  this kind of crap is why I hate getting presents and the obligatory wealth exchange aspect of this holiday.

    Festivus would be better at this point.

  16. 16.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 12:36 pm

    @Brantl: I think NFTs are an intelligence test that the human race is failing spectacularly.

    There was a science-fiction short story where the aliens were testing us, so scattered a few million matter duplicators around the planet with the warning “each use is a chip at the foundations of your society”.  Much of the story was set in a department store, and how they adjusted to the machine. No cash purchases, for one….

    EDIT: Thank you, internet: Ralph Williams’ “Business as Usual, During Alterations”, Astounding July 1958.

  17. 17.

    Princess

    December 9, 2021 at 12:46 pm

    Aren’t NFTs just a big tax dodge?

  18. 18.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 12:47 pm

    @Fair Economist:

    And yeah, why are they all so ugly?

    I don’t know it’s so weird!! Maybe because real artists with talent won’t touch this with a ten foot pole?

    I would, personally. Money is money.

  19. 19.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    December 9, 2021 at 12:49 pm

    NFTs? No thank you. Dumbest speculation ever. I shall continue to invest in Tulip Bulbs

  20. 20.

    Brachiator

    December 9, 2021 at 12:49 pm

    Educating family about NFTs is part of Jessica Walker’s motivation for giving the tokens as gifts this year for Christmas. […] Her budget is about one Ethereum, or $4,100 U.S. dollars. […] “My brother will look at me slightly disappointed that I have not bought him food or alcohol.”

    Ethereum. Jeez. I can’t keep up with this crap.

    Actually, I can, I just don’t want to. I have to keep up on the IRS regulations for this stuff.

    Thanks for the interesting post.

  21. 21.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 12:50 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee:  Very good news.  Thank you.

  22. 22.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:   You never know with juries.

    How is your brother?  Apologies if I missed an update.

  23. 23.

    Leto

    December 9, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    Considering most artists see this as simply another way to steal their artwork (which it is), it’s not surprising that only grifters are engaging with this. It’s also not surprising that most “financial” magazines are also starting to push the grift to the masses. As with everything regarding the internet, it’s just another turd in the punch bowl.

  24. 24.

    Miss Bianca

    December 9, 2021 at 12:52 pm

    This Christmas, why not spend thousands to give your loved ones the gift of disappointment?

    Oh, M4, you got me good with this one! LOL! Ah, if only I actually had enough money to Make It So!

  25. 25.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    @Tim C:   Airing of grievances?  Check.  Now on to Feats of Strength!

    J/k…totally agree.

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    @Tim C:

    Generally speaking,  this kind of crap is why I hate getting presents and the obligatory wealth exchange aspect of this holiday.

    Ten or fifteen years back, my family decided it was time for us to stop buying presents for each other, as we were likely to have already bought anything we wanted to have.

    The kids still got presents, but even most of them have grown up now, so basically we get together at Christmas for socialization, drinks, and dinner.

  27. 27.

    JCJ

    December 9, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    I hope this isn’t a duplicate

    For fans of DS9 Quark and Odo explain things well

     

    https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_r2ppe8tl8w1qgz7mu_720.mp4

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    December 9, 2021 at 12:54 pm

    I’d like my food and alcohol now, please.

    Heard a BBC interview of someone’s time in one of the Uighur prison camps. After an extended “reeducation” and slave labor stint, he somehow emerged, scarred and starved nearly to death. Horrid, simply horrid. Naturally, China’s UK embassy had the usual “FAKE NEWS and also HOW DARE YOU INTERFERE WITH OUR INTERNAL AFFAIRS?” responses. They truly have run out of fucks to give and I have zero ideas on what effective pushback might be. Once the Uighers are dispersed and the region repopulated with Han Chinese, they’ll effectively cease as a culture.

  29. 29.

    Ksmiami

    December 9, 2021 at 12:55 pm

    At least tulips are pretty and smell nice in your vase…

  30. 30.

    Kent

    December 9, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    @matt: Yep.  Same thing as when you make donations to YOUR favorite charities in someone else’s name and give them a card to that effect

    In our clan we long ago stopped giving gifts to adults or anyone in the extended family that isn’t your on children.  Makes Christmas so much easier.

  31. 31.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 12:56 pm

    @Brachiator: I have to keep up on the IRS regulations for this stuff.

    SKEPTIC: How can you call it a currency, when it doesn’t meet any of the three functional properties required of a currency?

    CRYPTO ENTHUSIAST: That’s an old definition! It’s a currency even without those three properties!

    SKEPTIC: So transactions are taxable like any other currency transaction?

    ENTHUSIAST: … Four, those four properties.

  32. 32.

    TheOtherHank

    December 9, 2021 at 12:57 pm

    I keep saying that if you send me $100, I will enter your name on a world-readable Google spreadsheet saying that you own the jpeg of your choice. It’s just as good as an NFT without the massive carbon footprint of blockchain bullshit.

  33. 33.

    Jeffro

    December 9, 2021 at 1:00 pm

    @Brantl: I think NFTs are an intelligence test that the human race is failing spectacularly

    Along with bitcoin, the pandemic, and the failure to shift to a carbon-neutral society.

    We just aren’t going to make it to the next level.  Sorry, fellow Milky Way Galaxy civilizations…you’ll just have to stumble across the occasional Voyager and other space detrius and wonder what that was all about…

  34. 34.

    Kent

    December 9, 2021 at 1:01 pm

    @Princess: I thought they were essentially a way to mint more free bitcoin without needing a server farm the size of a Wal-Mart and nuclear reactor to power it.

  35. 35.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    December 9, 2021 at 1:03 pm

    If one of our Republican relatives gives us an NFT for Christmas, all I want to know is how to turn it into cash before it turns into a pumpkin. Most of them are getting packets of seeds from us this year, which we hope do not disappoint too much.

  36. 36.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    December 9, 2021 at 1:05 pm

    @trollhattan:

    I’d like my food and alcohol now, please.

    I just listened to a podcast about early (Medieval and Tudor) Christmas feasts in England, and it all sounded pretty gross, actually, but I could cheerfully sit down at the Ghost of Christmas Present’s magic table and go to town on some Victorian roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and a tunne of good claret.

    @Kent:

    Same thing as when you make donations to YOUR favorite charities in someone else’s name and give them a card to that effect

    So I should cancel your donation to The Human Fund: Money For People?

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 1:06 pm

    @Ksmiami: And in a pinch, you can eat tulip bulbs. Dutch people ate them during the hard winter of 1944-45.

  38. 38.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 1:06 pm

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: It occurs to me that giving away seeds and receiving NFTs in return is practically goading every trickster god in the multiverse to bring about the collapse of society, so we see which keeps its value.  (Hint: Not the NFTs.)

  39. 39.

    Kent

    December 9, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: 

    As always, Seinfeld was ahead of its time. I can’t imagine what those writers would have done with Trump and all this new stupidity.

  40. 40.

    Leto

    December 9, 2021 at 1:09 pm

    @JCJ: Hahahaha

  41. 41.

    delk

    December 9, 2021 at 1:10 pm

    You can wrap mine in a maxed out Mac Pro ($50,000+ yikes!).

  42. 42.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 9, 2021 at 1:11 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee: He was the dad on A Bazillion Kids And Counting, right?

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    December 9, 2021 at 1:11 pm

    @Ken:

    SKEPTIC: So transactions are taxable like any other currency transaction?

    Morons and libertarians (but I repeat myself) think that they are creating untraceable and nontaxable free money.

    But the IRS already has a long detailed FAQ on this stuff.

  44. 44.

    Kent

    December 9, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Christmas Caroling back in the ancient times was an excuse for the lower classes to get rip roaring drunk and then march around town to the higher class neighborhoods belting out songs to annoy and antagonize.  That is one reason the Puritans banned Christmas Carols and much of Christmas.

  45. 45.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    December 9, 2021 at 1:12 pm

    @Jeffro:

    What do you mean “failure”?

  46. 46.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 9, 2021 at 1:15 pm

    @guachi:

    I mean, I could how see someone like John Cole might enjoy having someone buy him an in-game pet or mount for WoW. But an NFT of something stupid for someone who doesn’t even want it is madness. 

    So many unnecessary words!  FTFY ?

  47. 47.

    scav

    December 9, 2021 at 1:15 pm

    At least no one in Jessica Walker’s family will have any lingering ambiguity in future as to her a) giving a shit about their pleasure / enjoyment / happiness and b) basic sanity.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 1:16 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: No, the son. The one who started molesting younger girls when he was 14. So the child pornography conviction isn’t exactly a surprise…

  49. 49.

    Xavier

    December 9, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    I’ll take a picture of my butt and call it an NFT. I have a certain relative in mind who is most deserving.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    @Kent: The Puritans would go around Christmas Day and confiscate roasted geese. Too celebratory. People were happy to see the easy going Charles II restored to the throne.

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    December 9, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee: ​ shockedfry.gif

  52. 52.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 1:17 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, the idea that we’ve failed at 100-year plans in year, ah, twenty? Kinda weird.
    We’ll be geoengineering our way out of climate change in 30-50 years anyway.​
    Which is the plot of the new Neal Stephenson book, saw him speak on it last week, was interesting. Excited to read it!​

  53. 53.

    delk

    December 9, 2021 at 1:18 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: Tony Perkins hired him to be the Executive Director at Family Research Council even though he had zero qualifications. Every major republican politician rushed to get their pictures taken with him to show their “family values”.

  54. 54.

    eldorado

    December 9, 2021 at 1:18 pm

    jokes on you. i don’t need to spend money to disappoint my friends and family

  55. 55.

    mrmoshpotato

    December 9, 2021 at 1:19 pm

    @Poe Larity: The mustard broke.  Go get the mop.

  56. 56.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 1:21 pm

    @eldorado: lol

  57. 57.

    tom

    December 9, 2021 at 1:22 pm

    At least if you get a lump of coal in your stocking, it has some utility.

  58. 58.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 1:24 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: We’ll be geoengineering our way out of climate change in 30-50 years anyway.​

    I’m particularly excited by the plans to fill the stratosphere with fine dust to block sunlight. True, the last time this happened the dinosaurs went extinct. But this time for sure!

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    December 9, 2021 at 1:24 pm

    OT. This is wild. From BBC News

     

    New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.
    Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.
    “We want to make sure young people never start smoking,” Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

  60. 60.

    cmorenc

    December 9, 2021 at 1:24 pm

    My 4yo grandson will no doubt be delighted Christmas morning with the NFT I’ve wrapped up for him in a pretty box.  There’s nothing tangible I can put in the Xmas gift box, but if I could enclose a piece of paper telling him he’s got e.g. 10 units of NFT – since he can’t read yet, I’ll have to tell him it’s 10 NFTs, I just hope he doesn’t know a four-letter word starting with the ‘F’.  His parents might not be pleased with either him or me.

  61. 61.

    Sure Lurkalot

    December 9, 2021 at 1:25 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: My niece and her spouse worked for Tyco and rode the beanie baby wave. They made quite a bit of cash and bought big houses and fancy cars with it.

    Knowing when to get out is key.

    The downside…still has a couple of trashbags filled with all sorts of worthless plush.

  62. 62.

    RepubAnon

    December 9, 2021 at 1:26 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Great idea: NFTs of tulips, beanie babies – and lollipops.

  63. 63.

    Brachiator

    December 9, 2021 at 1:28 pm

    @Xavier:

    I’ll take a picture of my butt and call it an NFT. I have a certain relative in mind who is most deserving.

    I think that only the butt crack, not the entire butt, qualifies as an NFT.

  64. 64.

    geg6

    December 9, 2021 at 1:30 pm

    @mrmoshpotato:

    No, eldest son.  The one who molested his sisters.

  65. 65.

    H.E.Wolf

    December 9, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    @Ken:

    Ken
    December 9, 2021 at 1:16 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: No, the son. The one who started molesting younger girls when he was 14.

     His sisters were 4 of the 5 “younger girls”, per news reports at the time. [insert 27 doctoral dissertations’ worth of commentary on the sickness of authoritarian religiosity]

  66. 66.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 1:32 pm

    @Ken: when I saw Stephenson speak he went over all the times it’s happened in recorded history and how the world responded, was very interesting. Hopefully we’ll go recapture, but even the nuclear autumn option might be better than where we’re headed.

  67. 67.

    cain

    December 9, 2021 at 1:33 pm

    I might be willing to do NFTs as long as I am the content creator – if I’m creating art and people want to pay me big bucks for a scribbling something – I’m game!

  68. 68.

    senyordave

    December 9, 2021 at 1:37 pm

    If I received an NFT as a gift my first thought would be “how can I get rid of this piece of shit”.

    My second though would be “what asshole gave me this piece of shit”.

  69. 69.

    Gravenstone

    December 9, 2021 at 1:38 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: the parents pay the fees not the children

    That’s only because the children would be too young to legally enter into the contract, and thus incur the fees themselves. You know damn well those companies would hook the kids into lifelong debt right from the womb, if they could manage it.

  70. 70.

    cain

    December 9, 2021 at 1:39 pm

    @Ken: hey just launch a few nukes – we’re done!

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    @Ken: Putting dust in the atmosphere to reduce surface temperatures is a non-starter. But there are more promising avenues to use geoengineering to reduce CO 2 in the atmosphere. They aren’t talked about much by climate scientists, I think because that might detract from the urgency of reducing carbon emmissions. In the meantime, there will be a lot of afforestation, and a little bit of direct air capture.

  72. 72.

    Gravenstone

    December 9, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    @White & Gold Purgatorian: Most of them are getting packets of seeds from us this year, which we hope do not disappoint too much

    With the proper branding (survival cache!) even seeds can be made appealing to the conservative mind.

  73. 73.

    topclimber

    December 9, 2021 at 1:43 pm

    @Jeffro: ​
     

    Yeah, I was already pissed that I PROBABLY won’t be around when Star Fleet Academy opens. But now my backup plan to go into cyrogenic sleep looks like a bust too. Thanks for giving us all that damn oil, dinosaurs!

  74. 74.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 1:46 pm

    @Geminid: one concern is a single trillionaire deciding to build a particle cannon or do a giant algae bloom.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    December 9, 2021 at 1:47 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    @Major Major Major Major: yes…my bad…we certainly look like we’re on track to pull this off, absolutely, you bet.

  76. 76.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 1:49 pm

    @Jeffro: what are we trying to ‘pull off’ though? As a species we’ll be okay. Scientific progress will continue. Even losing half the population, which won’t happen, is in no way an impediment to Starfleet. Star Trek starts in 2151 following a horrible nuclear war. Yes, it’s fiction, but that’s all I have to work with since I don’t know what you think we’re trying to pull off.

    We already know how to make carbon-free energy that’s too cheap to meter. Agricultural tech is good. Medical tech will see huge advances in the next twenty years. Nanomachines are already here. I’m very skeptical of artificial general intelligence, at least with the current paradigm, thanks to the curse of dimensionality, but either way, shit’s gonna get weird.

  77. 77.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 1:58 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    We already know how to make carbon-free energy that’s too cheap to meter.

    We do??  Please enlighten us ignorant masses.

  78. 78.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 1:58 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: one concern is a single trillionaire deciding to build a particle cannon or do a giant algae bloom.

    And for that we have Batman.

  79. 79.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:00 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: It all started with a pile of hot rocks underneath Chicago…

  80. 80.

    yellowdog

    December 9, 2021 at 2:00 pm

    @mrmoshpotato: No, the oldest son.

  81. 81.

    JoyceH

    December 9, 2021 at 2:01 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Morons and libertarians (but I repeat myself) think that they are creating untraceable and nontaxable free money.

    I had always thought that was the whole point of cryptocurrency, to have secret and untraceable money for Nefarious Doings. But a while back, I read an article about some indictment or other (can’t even remember what the crime was), and feds detailed a very clear trail of the cryptocurrency involved. So – since it IS easily traceable by law enforcement, and it doesn’t have any central bank type protection from wild value swings, what IS it good for?

  82. 82.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It all started with a pile of hot rocks underneath Chicago…

    Now that’s a cogent explanation of how we’ll get to “too cheap to meter” nuclear power.

    IOW, you don’t know nothing, but you’ve been taken in by other people’s fantasies, and you’re spreading them.  Better than ivermectin, I suppose, but still, what a pile of crap.

  83. 83.

    Brachiator

    December 9, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    @JoyceH:

    So – since it IS easily traceable by law enforcement, and it doesn’t have any central bank type protection from wild value swings, what IS it good for?

    Absolutely nothing.

  84. 84.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:10 pm

    @Ken: Whoa, that is one *prescient* SF story.  Wowsers.  Well-worth the read.  Thank you!

  85. 85.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:10 pm

    @JoyceH: smart contracts are pretty interesting. Of course, the first big modern one had some… implementation difficulties…

    Decentraland and other toys, while undergoing bubbles right now, are also interesting.

    There are various other legal and financial concepts that lend themselves to blockchains, such as international money transfers.

  86. 86.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:11 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Yeah, put something out there that actually explains how we’ll get to “too cheap to meter” nuclear power.

    You can get it with this One Weird Trick: building lots of nuclear reactors.

    ETA: Might as well ask how we can get to “too cheap to meter” solar. Here’s a hint: there’s One Weird Trick.

  87. 87.

    guachi

    December 9, 2021 at 2:12 pm

    Starbucks workers in Buffalo unionized. That’s pretty exciting.

  88. 88.

    Peale

    December 9, 2021 at 2:12 pm

    Note: if you find yourself spending $4,100 on gifts you know the recipient won’t like, you’re failing as a gift giver. You might as well give them socks from the corporate swag box.

  89. 89.

    Sure Lurkalot

    December 9, 2021 at 2:14 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Have you read Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything? She devotes a section of the book to various market and tech/science solutions to climate change. The section is called Magical Thinking.

  90. 90.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: uh, as long as the government takes all the long-term spillover costs, sure.  I mean, if what you say were true, then there’d be companies lining up to build them.  And if they really were so cheap, they’d buy up enough acreage around each site, that nobody could complain.  But somehow it never works out that way …..

  91. 91.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 2:15 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: You can get it with this One Weird Trick: building lots of current-generation nuclear reactors.

    So we’re losing money on every nuclear reactor, but making it up in volume.

    You’re trolling now.  You can keep on spinning out cryptic bullshit phrases like this until the cows come home, without saying anything solid enough to verify or refute.

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    December 9, 2021 at 2:16 pm

    @guachi: That’s crazy awesome. I wonder what corporate is going to do here.

  93. 93.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:18 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    uh, as long as the government takes all the long-term spillover costs, sure.

    Right, which is sort of what governments are for. France just decided to start building plants again. China is planning 150. India is doing exciting things with thorium. This is a political issue, not a technological one.

  94. 94.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Ok, so you really are saying “lose money on every sale, make it up in volume”.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 2:19 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I think that’s why the U.N. banned ocean fertilization, and no one is even doing it for research. Scientists  will get plenty of data from of volcanic eruptions anyway. I don’t have my notes with me, but I read an article in Physics.org that reviewed a paper by a Columbia University Carbon Lab researcher and a Scripps Oceanography Institute researcher, about the Mt. Pinautubo eruption. They found a considerable effect on CO2 levels caused by the fertilizing effect of the ash.

  96. 96.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    India is doing exciting things with thorium. This is a political issue, not a technological one.

    Oh, bollocks to both.  We’ve know how to do this thorium thing for fifty years, and yet nobody has done it.  You should be enough of an engineer to know that when people talk about how something is a sure-fire thing, can’t-miss, for decades, and nobody does it, that means that there’s a snag, and nobody wants to talk about it.

    You should also be enough of an engineer to know that actually doing a thing at scale is very different from sketching it out on engineer’s paper.

  97. 97.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot: ​Extrapolating current political trends to how technology will be used in fifty years is a fun fiction exercise, but that’s about it.

  98. 98.

    Leto

    December 9, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @cain: Here’s how most of the “content” is being created: NFTs are generating huge paydays for some artists, others feel under siege

    Artists are reporting that their work is being stolen and sold on NFT sites without their knowledge or permission. Automated services can instantly “tokenize” a tweet or an image, and while artists can file takedown requests, that’s still irritating legwork. Add in the environmental concerns, and a lot of artists on social media are distrustful at best of NFTs, while many are refusing to engage with the concept at any level on principle.

    “Surviving the Twitter landscape is already a freaking hellscape right now, and the fact that this is making so many artists I follow lock their accounts makes me so sad,” said Clarfy, a hobbyist artist, in an email to Polygon.

    Clarfy noted that fighting the Twitter algorithm to get posts out to as many viewers as possible is already an issue for most artists. “The fact that a lot of people who struggle to sell commissions at all are now getting targeted, and their stuff is being sold for TONS more than what they usually get is extremely worrying.”

    “Content creator” = “I stole this from you, am making tons of money, go fuck yourself”

  99. 99.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:22 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: I think I don’t understand your thesis here?

  100. 100.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:23 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: So you think the current generation reactors that large countries are beginning to build out at scale are… what exactly?

  101. 101.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:25 pm

    seeing now why cheryl had a rule against writing anything about nuclear power here

  102. 102.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 2:28 pm

    @JoyceH: The crypto ledgers are publicly readable and everyone, including the Feds, can inspect every transaction. That’s how the system works, and the crypto enthusiasts even brag about it sometimes, apparently under the impression that we’re all fine with everyone being able to see our MasterCard bills.

  103. 103.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: While energy generated by photovoltaic and wind generation is certainly not too cheap to meter, it’s now cheaper than natural gas generation. Those technologies reached cost parity a few years ago, but natural gas prices have gone up a lot since. That’s the important thing. Decarbonizing the electrical grid is now just a matter of financing, not cost or technology.

    That’s the lowhanging fruit. Heavy transort and industrial sources of CO2 emmissions like concrete production* are soluble problems, just tougher.

    * some estimates are that concrete production accounts for 8% of worldwide CO2 emmissions. There is promising work being done in that field.

  104. 104.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Right, which is sort of what governments are for.

    There’s a standard story about how, when you have a competitive market for a product that has very high fixed costs, but very low variable costs (let’s say, a movie that costs $100m to make, but you can copy the MP4 for nearly-free) then it makes sense for the government to award a monopoly (“copright”) so that the producer can amortize their fixed cost across all the units sold.

    That make perfect sense.  Moving now to power production, we see that this is already how it works: utilities typically get monopolies, b/c of their massive fixed costs.  But even on top of that, for nuclear power, utilities want the government to take on massive spillovers.  And why?  Because nobody actually knows what those costs will be — everybody is just guessing.  If you actually knew what those costs would be, then you could price that into the price per kWh.

    That is the problem: you don’t actually know what the cost is, b/c you don’t know what future liability you’re incurring.  Which is why companies what the government to take that bit on.

  105. 105.

    Tony Gerace

    December 9, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    I’m old enough to remember the very-short-lived Pet Rock craze almost a half-century ago.  These goddamn NFTs are a couple of orders of magnitude stupider.

  106. 106.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @Geminid: My parents in Denver have rooftop solar and it even offsets their gas bill. The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed.

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    December 9, 2021 at 2:33 pm

    @JCJ: Very well done.  Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:33 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    a rule against writing anything about nuclear power here

    Either you can put a fair price on nuclear power (in which case, any monopoly utility [that is to say, all of them] can build and sell it without government subsidy) or you cannot.  This is a simple matter of economics.

  109. 109.

    geg6

    December 9, 2021 at 2:34 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m no expert on nuclear power, but I am an expert on living next door (not quite, but close enough that we are required to have iodine doses on hand and the state/county provide new ones every year).  It’s being decommissioned now, but I never want to live near another one.  We basically had a military occupation here for several weeks after 9/11, just as one drawback I’ve had to live with.  Fuck nuclear power.

  110. 110.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:38 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: I’ve been curious about what the navy is doing these days, but haven’t actually looked it up yet.

    The fact remains that we have the technology–and I will happily include renewables, especially distributed solar, especially with upcoming leaps in battery technology. It’s a complicated engineering challenge, but one that we’re perfectly capable of figuring out, and that I’m confident we will.

    Climate change will happen, it will suck, fortunately we’re on a glide path to avoid total cataclysm, and we will get through this.

  111. 111.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 2:38 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:  The public utility that I used to work for had two gen plants.  It priced the power

    And when you go before a public utility commission, be prepared to justify every penny of that rate.

  112. 112.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:42 pm

    @eclare: yes, but they are able to do so, only because the government covers all long-term costs.  It has been well-documented that power companies refuse to build nuclear plants without that long-term open-ended subsidy.

  113. 113.

    Leto

    December 9, 2021 at 2:42 pm

    @geg6: we lived within 4 miles of the Limerick Power Station, now live within an hour of 3 Mile Island, and spent multiple years working within 15ft of the most destructive weapons ever created, which essentially we’ll never be able to get rid of (much like the leftovers of the above two). I share your sentiment.

  114. 114.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 2:42 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: France just decided to start building plants again. China is planning 150. India is doing exciting things with thorium. This is a political issue, not a technological one.

    I’m missing the ‘too cheap to meter’ part.

    You’re still just bullshitting.  I could spout a bunch of equally meaningless and non-refutable statements about some other magical-thinking solution if I cared to.

    @Major Major Major Major:

    seeing now why cheryl had a rule against writing anything about nuclear power here

    The problem isn’t about nuclear power.  The problem is you’re spinning fantasies about it in meaningless little dribs and drabs of hints and suggestions that there’s some actual substance behind what you’re saying, while keeping at a distance the point at which you might have to provide any.  “It all started with a pile of hot rocks underneath Chicago…” Yeah, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.

  115. 115.

    Oklahomo

    December 9, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    This morning on my commute the AR Lottery was running ads telling one and all that scratch off tickets make great stocking stuffers (but only if the recipient is over 18!).  So basically give your loved ones a few useless pieces of card stock.

  116. 116.

    trollhattan

    December 9, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    @Brachiator: Heard a Beeb interview with the NZ health minister and was amused at how quickly she swatted down the, “And what would you say to the libertarians who maintain…” question.

    They’re doing this smartly: freezing new tobacco addictions at an age group and younger means smoking should age out of the population permanently. Good for you, government actually working to make people’s lives better.

  117. 117.

    Marc

    December 9, 2021 at 2:45 pm

    @trollhattan: They truly have run out of fucks to give and I have zero ideas on what effective pushback might be. Once the Uighers are dispersed and the region repopulated with Han Chinese, they’ll effectively cease as a culture.

    This is, of course, the entire point of what they’re doing, they’re just not bothering to be hypocritical about it. Just as it was the entire point of the decimation, dispersal, and cultural destruction of numerous indigenous American cultures.  We just like to pretend that those horrid acts are long-dead past history, that we’ve somehow repaid the debt by acknowledging that we once did bad things, ceremonially returning bits of land, and remembering to send some federal money to the reservations.

  118. 118.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:47 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: It’s my understanding–and I am not a power grid person–that you’ll want constant-output/surgeable plants at your disposal in case something goes wrong with your renewables+batteries smart grid. This can be gas, it can be nukes, it can be a combination, but it has to be something.

    I actually think gas is a better compromise here given the overall political infeasibility of nuclear power. Zero carbon is a nice dream, but recapture is a more likely way to get there than zero-emission generation, IMO. We have some decent proof of concept sinks operating now in Iceland. And a very long time horizon.

  119. 119.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 2:48 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Climate change will happen, it will suck, fortunately we’re on a glide path to avoid total cataclysm

    A glide path?  More fairytales.  I already have the complete Brothers Grimm, thanks.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot: British climate scientist Miles Allen wrote a good overview of the challenge of meeting the UN’s IPCC goal of reaching a carbon neutral world economy by 2050 in his article “The Green New Deal: a View from Across the Atlantic,” published by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists February 2019. Allen helped write the IPCC’s October 2018 report.

    Allen says that technological initiatives by the developed countries were probably essential to reach that goal. He speaks generally and does not detail them, but Allen does not seem like a magical thinker. His article is not long and anyone interested in climate change can read it and decide for themselves how serious Allen is.

  121. 121.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:49 pm

    @Marc: We did it to Native Americans, alright.  We’ve had no news of Tibet for over a decade.  I wonder if the Han-ization is sufficiently complete, that it’s a dead letter.

  122. 122.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 2:52 pm

    @Geminid: I also recommend the recent NYMag article “After Alarmism”

    But for a climate alarmist like me, seeing clearly the state of the planet’s future now requires a conspicuous kind of double vision, in which a guarded optimism seems perhaps as reasonable as panic. Given how long we’ve waited to move, what counts now as a best-case outcome remains grim. It also appears, miraculously, within reach.

  123. 123.

    topclimber

    December 9, 2021 at 2:53 pm

    @Geminid: Does nuke power do anything about generating heat rather than just electricity? I mean, short of what bombs do within  a given radius of where they explode.

  124. 124.

    geg6

    December 9, 2021 at 2:54 pm

    @Leto:

    Shippingport for me.  The first nuke.  We were the guinea pigs.

  125. 125.

    randy khan

    December 9, 2021 at 2:54 pm

    I posted recently on a social media thread in which a friend asked for a simple explanation of NFTs, and then had some follow-up discussion, so I’ve actually given this some thought recently.

    For me, as someone who collects art (although not remotely at the scale of the people you read about in the news), I think a big part of the idea of NFTs is to solve the problem of what’s an original when the art is digital.  In the regular art world, the original is the thing that has value, and all of the copies (of whatever kind, and there are lots of kinds) don’t have the value.  In the digital world, where every copy is the same as the original, the NFT marks one thing as the actual original, the unique work of art.  (This, by the way, is not at that different from the problem of what’s an original photograph or print.)

    So far, so good, but in the analog world the copies necessarily are imperfect in one way or another, so there is an actual difference to the viewer between the original and the copy.  (For me, this really was driven home the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock drip painting in person – photos simply don’t give you an understanding of what the work is about.)  In the digital world, the NFT signature – which you can’t see at all – is in fact the only difference, so literally the value they create is staking out one copy as the origin of all of the others.

    In the long run, I have no idea whether this will be enough for people to continue to value NFTs.  I do know that in the more traditional art world, 99.999% (and maybe add some 9s there) of all art has its highest value on the day it’s first purchased, and I’m pretty confident we’ll see the same thing with NFTs.  Nearly all of them will decline sharply in value, and only a few will end up being worth what people pay for them.  So as an investment, they’re likely to be not so hot.  Whether the aesthetic value of owning the original is sufficient for people to keep buying them seems like, at best an open question to me.

  126. 126.

    Another Scott

    December 9, 2021 at 2:56 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    India is doing exciting things with thorium.

    Hmm…

    TheBulletin (from 2018):

    In 1980, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) observed that protactinium, a chemical element generated in thorium reactors, could be separated and allowed to decay to isotopically pure uranium 233—suitable material for making nuclear weapons. The IAEA report, titled “Advanced Fuel Cycle and Reactor Concepts,” concluded that the proliferation resistance of thorium fuel cycles “would be equivalent to” the uranium/plutonium fuel cycles of conventional civilian nuclear reactors, assuming both included spent fuel reprocessing to isolate fissile material.

    Decades later, the story changed. “Th[orium]-based fuels and fuel cycles have intrinsic proliferation resistance,” according to the IAEA in 2005. Mainstream media have repeated this view ever since, often without caveat. Several scholars have recognized the inherent proliferation risk of protactinium separations in the thorium fuel cycle, but the perception that thorium reactors cannot be used to make weapons persists. While technology has advanced, the fundamental radiochemistry that governs nuclear fuel reprocessing remains unchanged. Thus, this shift in perspective is puzzling and reflects a failure to recognize the importance of protactinium radiochemistry in thorium fuel cycles.

    […]

    TANSTAAFL.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  127. 127.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    December 9, 2021 at 2:56 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  I have decided that all my adult relatives will be getting gift cards for their favourite restaurants .  I will buy toys for the grand nieces and nephew but nothing fancy supplemented by very nice chocolate selection boxes.   I simply do not want to spend money on “things” that they will not use for more than a few hours on Christmas morning.

  128. 128.

    Chetan Murthy

    December 9, 2021 at 2:56 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    we’re on a glide path to avoid total cataclysm, and we will get through this.

    I’m not as optimistic as you are, but I do agree that we have a chance of getting thru this with modern industrial civilization intact.  I agree we have the technologies in development.  To my mind, the problem is the coordination problem.  We’re relying on “markets”, without neither providing proper pricing to reflect the actual state of spillover harms, nor proper incentives to reflect our desired end-state.  It’s all completely haphazard, and that means it all happens much slower than it needs to.

    And meanwhile, the world’s manufacturing systems are spread all over; if we don’t get the conversion going far enough and thorough enough in a large-enough region, we don’t get the chance to do it at all, b/c long-range transport networks *will* break down under climate and energy pressures.

    Again, I’m merely less optimistic than you: there is a massive distance between ‘we have the tech in the lab’ (or even ‘we have the tech deployed in small quantities’) and ‘we have the tech deployed at nation-scale and it’s replaced fossil fuels’.

    I guess other people’s kids will see (I haven’t reproduced and don’t plan to).

  129. 129.

    geg6

    December 9, 2021 at 2:56 pm

    @Marc:

    Yep.

  130. 130.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 2:57 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:   I know.  Haven’t worked in the industry for a while, but when I did Yucca Mtn was proposed to hold the rods.  Don’t know what the present status is.

  131. 131.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 3:00 pm

    @Oklahomo:   To be fair a relative none of us knew very well used to drop by every Christmas day and give everyone around $5 worth of scratchers.  It’s innocuous, and at least in my state, don’t know about AR, supports higher ed.

  132. 132.

    lowtechcyclist

    December 9, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    And meanwhile, the world’s manufacturing systems are spread all over; if we don’t get the conversion going far enough and thorough enough in a large-enough region, we don’t get the chance to do it at all, b/c long-range transport networks *will* break down under climate and energy pressures.

    Yeah, this is the part that worries me.  We’ve seen how supply chains have held up under the much less stressful circumstances of this pandemic.  When we have substantial areas of agricultural land becoming too arid to cultivate, or too hot and humid for humans to survive in, it’s gonna make 2020-2021 look like a walk in the park.

    I’m sure that the human race will survive, given all the harsh environments our Neolithic ancestors survived in.  But in terms of a technologically advanced civilization surviving, I’m a lot less sure.  Once things start breaking down, it could be cascade failure from then on.

  133. 133.

    Fair Economist

    December 9, 2021 at 3:08 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Oh, bollocks to both. We’ve know how to do this thorium thing for fifty years, and yet nobody has done it. You should be enough of an engineer to know that when people talk about how something is a sure-fire thing, can’t-miss, for decades, and nobody does it, that means that there’s a snag, and nobody wants to talk about it.

    There’s no secret to why Thorium isn’t used. Processing it to U233 produces significant U232 contamination, which decays producing hard gamma rays. As a result, unlike U235 or P239, which can be handled with moderate shielding and contamination control, no living thing can be anywhere near U233 processing, fuel, or waste. It’s a nuclear system where everything involved is the nastiest kind of radwaste. Super costly, super dangerous. I’d think the secondary waste produced by everything getting irradiated by all those hard gammas would just add to the fun.

    This is in Wikipedia. Like I said, hardly a secret.

  134. 134.

    eclare

    December 9, 2021 at 3:11 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:   Water resources worry me.  I partially chose to move where I did in 2004 due to the water supply.

  135. 135.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 3:13 pm

    @eclare: Harry Reid made sure to shitcan our best bet for waste disposal on his way out.

  136. 136.

    Fair Economist

    December 9, 2021 at 3:13 pm

    @randy khan:

    For me, as someone who collects art (although not remotely at the scale of the people you read about in the news), I think a big part of the idea of NFTs is to solve the problem of what’s an original when the art is digital. In the regular art world, the original is the thing that has value, and all of the copies (of whatever kind, and there are lots of kinds) don’t have the value. In the digital world, where every copy is the same as the original, the NFT marks one thing as the actual original, the unique work of art. (This, by the way, is not at that different from the problem of what’s an original photograph or print.)

    An NFT used to prove authenticity and establish a chain of custody could be quite useful. A great system to prevent counterfeiting of branded merchandise. But just the NFT by itself? Worthless.

  137. 137.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Chetan Murthy: manufacturing worries me a lot too, not particularly due to climate change, but because the modern supply chain is just so susceptible to disruptions, of which climate change is just one. (See semiconductors.) Like, there’s the popular fact that only a few places on earth can make ballpoint pens. Modernity is fragile in so many ways. Things will definitely go wrong, and the worse climate change is the wronger they’ll go.

    But I also think framing it as an existential threat isn’t especially helpful. It’s inducing a lot of despair and doesn’t lend itself to thinking about realistic interventions.

    Humanity will muddle on through, intact. Politics will dictate just how intact. I hold no illusions that this is easy or simple—but neither have been any of our other astounding accomplishments.

  138. 138.

    Major Major Major Major

    December 9, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    @Fair Economist: one thing some artists are doing is including with the NFT a copy of the underling Illustrator file/whatever layers/sketches/etc. so that you do actually have something unique to collect.

    If the purchaser decides to put that up online for free, idk that’s their right I guess.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    @topclimber: I am not sure why you are asking me this question. I have no special  knowledge about nuclear energy, and have not mentioned it in this thread.

    I do know that the two North Anna, Virginia nuclear plants forty miles from me have a cooling tower for their water, so I guess it is recycled. And I know the operators like to keep the plants going at a constant rate. There is a pumped water storage plant in Bath Clunty, Virginia that pumps water uphill from one lake to another at night with excess power, then runs turbines to generate power during the day. All this stuff was built in the 1960’s and 70’s.

  140. 140.

    Sure Lurkalot

    December 9, 2021 at 3:55 pm

    @Geminid: Thanks, that was an interesting article. I agree that we shouldn’t limit solutions by conventional wisdom and that ingenuity and invention can and perhaps should be relied upon in addressing long term problems. Just not sure I want to live in a dark world covered in volcanic ash.

  141. 141.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 3:59 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: I liked the Miles Allen article I referenced above because it gave a good general view of the global challenge, and quantified it, that is, a requirement that we reduce carbon emissions by 2 billion tons year over year. And like I say, Allen helped write the IPCC report and knows what went into it.

    The year 2050 seems like an arbitrary target for a carbon neutral world economy. But it’s a nice round number, and I get the impression that Allen and the other experts on the panel thought it was practical.

    I’m hoping that once the Build Back Better bill finally is passed, this forum will have regular threads on the clean energy transition and the environment, and what the Biden administration is doing in these areas. There are many other climate change initiatives by various Departments including Energy, Agriculture and Defense, as well as in the physical infrastructure bill passed last month. They’ll be worth discussing too.

    Generally, I find that the I more research this area, the more realistically positive I am about the issue. And it’s easy to look up clean energy, or afforestation, or decarbonizing transport. But I’m not sure the pessimists want to know more. It’s like they are happy to persevere in a pity party.

  142. 142.

    JoyceH

    December 9, 2021 at 3:59 pm

    @Chetan Murthy:

    I’m merely less optimistic than you: there is a massive distance between ‘we have the tech in the lab’ (or even ‘we have the tech deployed in small quantities’) and ‘we have the tech deployed at nation-scale and it’s replaced fossil fuels’.

    I think that’s happening already. I just learned recently that the coal power plant near me had shut down several years ago and is currently being converted to a solar power plant. Just due to the nature of how long these things take, that means that creating a solar power plant in rural Virginia started during a Republican administration with very clear hostility to renewables, so that government assistance was off the boards. If that got started during the Trump administration, and I’m sure there are other projects elsewhere, I think the abandonment of fossil fuels for renewables is picking up a head of steam that will be unstoppable.

  143. 143.

    Ksmiami

    December 9, 2021 at 4:04 pm

    @Geminid: I look forward to the collapse and the whining to Congress to save the suckers from their own stupidity

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    December 9, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @Old School: 
    Ok that was good for a hardy laugh.
    Thank You

  145. 145.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @Sure Lurkalot: No one is talking about accelerating volcano activity. I only said that we don’t need to research man made ocean fertilization when volcanoes periodically spread a lot of ash onto the oceans, and we can study that

    But now I see you were referencing the Miles Allen article. Another good one in the Bulletin focuses more on the clean energy transition in the U.S.That one is “We Need a Better Green New Deal,” by Robert Pollin, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March 2019. Pollin is a U. Mass. economist who has worked on clean power plans for several states.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    December 9, 2021 at 4:09 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee:

    better news: Josh Duggar was convicted on child porn charges.

    I saw that too. Two counts, each one good for up to 20 years, in Federal court, so the fact that he’s formerly part of an evangelistic Arkansas family won’t cut him any slack. There’s a big old thick Federal Sentencing Guideline book which is required to be thrown at him!

    Since he’s been molesting little girls (his sisters!) since forever, he will probably get two consecutive 20 year sentences, which is less than he deserves.

  147. 147.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:13 pm

    I’m sure you’ve noticed that NFTs are ‘in’ right now, among a certain set.

    I believe that would be the “more money than sense” set, yes?

    When I think about the things I need that I don’t have the money for… >:-E

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    December 9, 2021 at 4:16 pm

    @TeezySkeezy:

    So much of our mathematical talent is just used to extract wealth from each other under shady pretenses.

    I’ve often wondered which came first the concept that we fight to be the richest person in some terms, in your own home town or in a state, or a country or the world. And that being that person, or just stomping on others to attempt to reach the goal was admirable.

  149. 149.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:16 pm

    I USED THE C-WORD AT WHAT WILL BE 148. WHEN YOU SEE THE COMMENT, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY!!!

  150. 150.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:17 pm

    @Nora Lenderbee: ​
      Well, it’s not like he shot someone at a protest or anything…

  151. 151.

    Roger Moore

    December 9, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @Kent:

    Christmas Caroling back in the ancient times was an excuse for the lower classes to get rip roaring drunk and then march around town to the higher class neighborhoods belting out songs to annoy and antagonize.

    It’s all part of Ye Grande Olde English holiday tradition of blackmail.  Just check the traditional lyrics to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and try to tell me it isn’t blackmail as blatant as “trick or treat”.

  152. 152.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @Brantl:

    I think NFTs are an intelligence test that the human race is failing spectacularly.

    Nominating for comment of the year.

  153. 153.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:21 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: 

    fortunately we’re on a glide path to avoid total cataclysm

    We are? When did this happen?

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    December 9, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    You are too dumb to know who you’re talking about! Much less what you are talking about.

  155. 155.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:28 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: ​
      But enough about your time in The Smashing Pumpkins…

  156. 156.

    J R in WV

    December 9, 2021 at 4:35 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’ve been curious about what the navy is doing these days, but haven’t actually looked it up yet.

    My nephew is a LT in the USN and runs the nuke plant on a fast attack boat. He can’t say a word about the boat and esp. not a word about the power plant. They disappear for months at a time on spooky missions. He has visited the North Pole once, don’t recall if they surfaced thru the ice pack or not, but he was there.

    I’m pretty anti-war liberal Democrat so he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, he takes after my brother (his dad) who can barely speak to me once a year on my birthday.

    I’m actually glad about that, bro is a RWNJ, NRA life member, loves living in TX. Thinks shooting a deer from a blind with corn bait 45 yards away is hunting. Naw, bro, that’s harvesting, not hunting. Illegal in WV to bait game…

  157. 157.

    Roger Moore

    December 9, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    @JoyceH:

    As I understand it, cryptocurrency is best described as pseudonymous.  Every transaction is recorded for everyone to see, but the parties to the transaction are opaque.  That sounds really cool, but it breaks down as soon as you create interactions between the cryptocurrency and the rest of the world.  Each one of those transactions is a potential place for the authorities to unmask one of the parties.  If you’re only dealing with a black marketeer, maybe you can keep your identity secret, since they’ll do their best to hide everything from the authorities.  But if you ever deal with a legitimate business, the authorities can get them to divulge who was involved in the transaction, and the jig is up.

  158. 158.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:43 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    That sounds really cool, but it breaks down as soon as…

    I JUST WANT TO BUY COFFEE WITHOUT INVOLVING COMMUNICATION SATELLITES OR A SIX HUNDRED DOLLAR POCKET COMPUTER AND NOBODY WILL LET ME!!1!

  159. 159.

    different-church-lady

    December 9, 2021 at 4:45 pm

    @Ken: All of modern technology is amounting to Porky Pig saying, “Now I gotta get me a d-d-d-dog!” halfway through the cartoon.

  160. 160.

    J R in WV

    December 9, 2021 at 4:45 pm

    @Geminid: ​

    the two North Anna, Virginia nuclear plants forty miles from me have a cooling tower for their water, so I guess it is recycled.

    Nope, that just cools the water down enough so that it doesn’t cook the fish when discharged. I may be a little off on temps, but regulators won’t let them discharge hot water into a stream, it has to be near stream temp to be discharged. Same as chemistry, needs to not be acid or base, poison is right out, etc. In theory anyway.

  161. 161.

    Ken

    December 9, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    @Roger Moore: So as long as I’m careful to anonymize my internet traffic, the Feds won’t know I’m behind all those numerous shady QuarkCoin transactions with Uzbekistan, because they’ve got no way to connect me with the wallet that’s visible on the crypto ledger. But the instant I realize that QuarkCoins can’t be spent on anything and convert some of them to unexciting but useful currency, they’ll be able to connect the sale of 14.8 QuarkCoins from that wallet with the appearance of $13,280 dollars in my bank account, and the jig is up.

  162. 162.

    Roger Moore

    December 9, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    @randy khan: ​
     
    Shorter: the point of NFTs is to create artificial scarcity for digital objects.

  163. 163.

    topclimber

    December 9, 2021 at 4:51 pm

    @JoyceH: ​
     
    I wonder if the economics work differently in China. They are the ones Manchin is probably deferring to, not the handful of rich coal operators in dinky WV.

    A coal-burning China looks like part of the mix for the next 10 years, amirite?

  164. 164.

    Villago Delenda Est

    December 9, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    Phillip K. Dick nailed this idiocy 59 years ago with Man In The High Castle. What utter garbage. And the vile parasites of the Wall Street Journal are in on the grift, it seems.

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 5:07 pm

    @J R in WV: Interesting. Now I am reminded that people like to fish the lake near the reactor, on account of the warmer water. When the plant was built, it was thought that the area had little seismological risk. Then there was an earthquake ten years or so ago, and it turned out there was a fault fairly close to the plant. But the earthquake did little damage to the plant. I think a couple of those big concrete spent fuel casks had to be put back up on their blocks.

    But up in DC, that same earthquake did damage to the National Cathedral that took millions to repeir. I think it knocked a couple pieces off of the Washington Monument too.

  166. 166.

    Marshall Eubanks

    December 9, 2021 at 5:16 pm

    @Grumpy Old Railroader: At least, if times get really rough, you can eat tulips (prepare like onions).

    In the “hungerwinter” (1944-45) almost all the tulip bulbs in Northern Holland were eaten.

  167. 167.

    Geminid

    December 9, 2021 at 5:26 pm

    @JoyceH: The Obama administration did what it could to accelerate the clean energy transition. Economist Robert Pollin described these efforts as “Green New Deal 1.0.”* A lot was done by shifting money within the vast Department of Defense budget. I traveled west a couple years ago, and I saw as many solar panels at Monaghan Air Base, near Tuscon, as I saw on the rest of the trip.

    The DOD also did work on biofuels. Now I read that the Union Pacific Railroad intends to make biodiesel 10% of their fuel by 2025.

    *Robert Pollin, “We Need a Better Green New Deal, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 2019. An excellent, short read.

  168. 168.

    Ruckus

    December 9, 2021 at 5:54 pm

    @Brachiator:

    On a similar note, on my walk yesterday I passed a 76 station with a sign below the gas price sign that a pack of cigs is $8.69 per if you buy 2. I think taxing the crap out of them is intended to achieve a similar result.

  169. 169.

    Ruckus

    December 9, 2021 at 5:59 pm

    @JoyceH:

    Well it gave rise to an entire post on BJ…..

  170. 170.

    billcinsd

    December 9, 2021 at 6:58 pm

    @JoyceH:So – since it IS easily traceable by law enforcement, and it doesn’t have any central bank type protection from wild value swings, what IS it good for?

    Washing drug money, grifting rubes

  171. 171.

    Procopius

    December 9, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    @Jeffro:

    There was a period during the late 1950s when SETI (Search for Extra Terrestial Intelligence) was a big deal. Among science fiction fans there was discussion of possible reasons why we did not detect radio traffic. My favorite explanation, an intelligent species is most likely to evolve from a predator. Predators are territorial, aggressive, and violent. The argument was if an entity with such characteristics reached a level of civilization where they could develop nuclear fission, they would inevitably destroy themselves. We see this working out with the lunatics in our foreign policy establishment apparently trying to start wars with the other two biggest possessors of nuclear weapons.

  172. 172.

    HarlequinGnoll

    December 10, 2021 at 3:13 am

    actually  when the tulip crash hit most people just ignored their “debts” because no court would enforce payment of a contract, since judges regarded the debts as contracted through gambling, and thus not enforceable by law.

  173. 173.

    xjmuellerlurks

    December 10, 2021 at 10:27 am

    This Christmas, why not spend thousands to give your loved ones the gift of disappointment?

    I can give my grandkids books for way less money and still achieve this goal.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Image by MomSense (5/21.25)

Recent Comments

  • AlaskaReader on War for Ukraine Day 1,182: The G7-1 (May 22, 2025 @ 12:24am)
  • Sister Golden Bear on Wednesday Night Open Thread (May 22, 2025 @ 12:21am)
  • prostratedragon on Wednesday Night Open Thread (May 22, 2025 @ 12:20am)
  • Trivia Man on Wednesday Night Open Thread (May 22, 2025 @ 12:16am)
  • Gloria DryGarden on Wednesday Evening Open Thread: An Exemplar for Our Global Embarrassment (May 22, 2025 @ 12:14am)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!