That will do approximately jack shit for climate change because the problem isn't simply that we're using too many resources, it's that we're using the wrong kinds of resources. There are issues lessened by population reduction but climate change is not very sensitive to it. We got ourselves most of the way into this mess with just a fraction of the people using the wrong kinds of resources.

The biggest climate benefit to come out of this might be the emissions reductions caused by future avoidable pandemic lockdowns and the remote work that comes with them. Still not much in the grand scheme of things, but you'd have to kill something like 1/6th of humanity to match those reductions. And we already know that Trumpkins would rather take their chances with India-style 24/7 public cremations than suffer a pandemic lockdown like responsible adults.

Meanwhile, Trump's pro-fossil-fuel anti-renewable policies and anti-EV policies will make climate change far worse. Pro-cryptocurrency and pro-AI policies certainly don't help either. The only factor limiting the full disaster potential of his policies is that fossil fuels are more expensive these days, so Trump is fighting against the market forces pushing for new energy capacity to be built as renewables instead of fossil fuels.

A socialist pharma lab could work quite well while paying the scientists who do the actual work good money, it would just have sane pay for executive management and a nonexistent marketing budget. That's what pharma companies spend most of their money on, marketing and executive pay:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarylandmatters.org%2F20...

But the proof is in the pudding:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fwo...

I think that the amount of investment directly controlled by total fuckwits in today's economy is a big part of the problem. In the past if you were a wealthy fuckwit and wanted to invest in some stocks, you were almost certain to hire someone who knew what the hell they were doing to manage your investments just because that was the easiest way to buy stock at all. Today the path of least resistance to buying stocks is to do it directly through some sort of app where nobody who knows a damn is in sight to guide you, and that's how we ended up with Tesla being worth more than every big automaker combined at one point and other epic stupidities.

It certainly doesn't help that glorified gambling schemes like cryptocurrency have been minting more wealthy fuckwits at an unprecedented rate. Putting most of humanity's wealth under the control of know-nothings has consequences.

This. The only reason we don't have a 24 hour workweek with no loss in annual pay right now is because we allowed inequality to worsen for half a century.

And anecdotally, it seems that we're backsliding from the 40 hour workweek too. It's seems to be becoming the norm to see jobs that require long hours, weekend and holiday work.

Do you think any member of the proletariat has a 3D printer big enough to print a house just waiting for the software to run it autonomously? And presumably unmanned trucks and construction vehicles to go along with it? How many do you even think have a computer that could run a powerful LLM decently?

The only way we get a Star Trek economy is if workers band together and fight ownership-class interests tooth and nail to make it happen. Otherwise, we get an Elysium economy (Amodei's latter scenario).

Will a pitch droplet refuse to detach while being observed? Just how long can it be held suspended due to observation? Are quantum effects involved? :-P

This. I've said it before, "hedging" wih BTC or other cryptocurrency is like installing guardrails made of tannerite.

Recently I saw the first job post in many years that asked for a bachelor's degree, nothing specific just some degree, for a job that had no need for it. That Great Recession-era shit is coming back and it'll give the graduates a leg up again.

Sure it's elitist opportunity hoarding and a handy way to bake classism into the job requirements with plausible deniability, but it's also a way to cut down the number of job applications for an HR drone to who doesn't know what the hell they're doing to sort through without having to print out a stack of resumes, shuffle and cut the deck and toss part of it into a trash bin, and that's what counts.

Maybe if we tell Microslop they can have agentic AI do the testing they'll do some. The agentic LLMs will probably mess up half the testing but it's better than nothing...I think...

Salesforce are the most prolific liars about AI's effects on productivity, it's bad enough that it will probably earn them a lawsuit from their shareholders after the AI bubble pops.

Depends, If the car has a longitudinal engine layout it can be very easy to change an alternator belt, which is usually a single serpentine belt that runs all the engine accessories these days. If it's a lateral engine layout and there's barely enough room between the pulleys and the side of the engine bay to slip the belt through, it can be a lot more difficult but I wouldn't say impossible as a roadside repair.

Powertrain internals are where you get closer to roadside repairs being categorically impossible due to the need for specialized tools, fluid handling equipment (and fresh fluids) and a clean work environment. I'm sure someone's going to pipe in about giving an air-cooled VW Beetle a full engine rebuild on the roadside now :-)

AI is pretty useless so I don't have a use for it no matter how private it is.

Granting legal personhood to inanimate objects and imaginary concepts is a minefield of trouble and has already gone too far. We should remove legal personhood from corporations.

The VC system actually appears to be worse. China's trying supercritical CO2 as a working fluid and flying wind turbines while the West is in its second round within a decade of "make a small handful of people stupendously rich chasing a plainly stupid idea that makes most people's lives worse" (Currently AI, previously blockchain nonsense). And that's aside from the undercurrents of SaaS and uber-ization among other aspects of enshittification. We can only look on at China's gambles with envy.

Oooh interesting theory, we should make sure managers everywhere hear it :-)