While I don't know how one might operationalize the view, it does fit in to how I've begun to start framing the current world state. Basically we have a choice. We can all start looking for reason not to start/keep killing one another or keep on making reason that we need to kill others.
Not my understanding. The diesel just drives the "generator" that then powers electric motors that drive the wheels. These trains are supposed to be able to move a ton about 450-500 miles on a gallon of fuel. I do agree that conversion would be fairly straightforward but you'll have a lot of polluting activities, and destruction of carbon consuming flora. So just how much of a gain are we getting for the conversion compared to the increased pollution during the infrastructure build out. There is also the ongoing maintenance on the routes to keep the trains powered. Seems to me that unless one makes the unrealistic assumption that all that activity is non-polluting it has to be considered in the argument.
With regard to the cars, EV and hybrid I was extrapolating on the fuel consumption for the trains. I using a small ICE to drive a generator for an electric vehicle would reduce the initial carbon output in making everything for the EV. That all comes down to battery life and that seems to come down to miles driven. Generally EVs get driven fewer miles than ICE cars but as more people drive the EVs that might change. Tesla gives an 8 year warranty on the batteries. Looking around a bit seems that existing hybrids are just crappy design so from that perspective was a poor suggestion. But a car modeled off the diesel-electric train that is even a quarter as efficient (just 100 mpg) then the carbon curve shifts way down on the those gas-electric cars and the cross over point for EVs shifts much farther out -- perhaps to the point of battery replacement. Perhaps there as some scale factors, I'm not a power engineer, so maybe that 100 mpg is never possible.
I am pretty sure that most trains in the USA are diesel-electric not just diesel. So the real question is would converting those trains to pure electric actually reduce the total carbon footprint of rail? I suspect not given some have argued that EV car have a higher carbon footprint that cars they replace, and those cars use gas, run at variable speeds and so are much less efficient that the train diesel engine's use of diesel fuel.
Are the very least you'd need to start calculating the conversion timeline for recouping the pollution from building out all the electric infrastructure and the additional maintenance of that infrastructure. Given the goal now is to reduce carbon output you might be adding at the margin when marginal increases are most damaging.
I think if you want to think about power innovations for trains things like hydrogen are probably a better way forward.
Heavy earth-moving equipment mist be a better target, and perhaps should be the target before cars. Cars should probably go to hybrid systems as they will be better. Side observation, a few years ago I read something that claimed the these days the bigger source of pollution (probably in suburban, and metro but not pure urban) was lawn mowers. Getting rid of the gas mowers and converting to electric might be both an easy target and good bang for the buck.
My comment is a bit tangent and I'll be the first to admit I'm far from well informed in the area my question touches on. Maybe should have put this as it's own comment but honestly was not going to voice the thought until I read quetzal_rainbow's comment (and noted the karma and agreement).
A while back the EA community seemed to be really shocked by the FTX and Bankman-Fried fiasco (my word clearly). In the news story I saw related to the OpenAI situtation seems to be closely related to EA.
With two pretty big events fairly close temporally to one another should one update a bit regarding just how effective one might expect an EA approach to work, or perhaps at what scale it can work? Of should both be somewhat viewed as just one off events that really don't touch the core?
Is DAE a terms that is often uses withing some community or is that something you made to formulate your thinking here?
If it's a unique term of your for this analysis I'm curious as to why you chose that approach rather than using an existing term, like sociopath/sociopathic which seems to be both more broadly known and applied. (Not just how sure Healthline is in terms of definitional rigor here but https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/sociopath#signs) They seem to cover what you include as well as some other aspect.
I kind of understand where that sentiment comes from but I do think it is "wrong". Wrong in the sense that it is neither a necessary position to hold nor a healthy one. There are plenty of things I do today in which I get a lot of satisfaction even though existing machines, or just other people, can do them much better than I can. The satisfaction comes from the challenge to my own ability level rather than some comparison to something outside me -- be it machine, environment or another person.
When the next weapon with planetary-scale destructive capabilities is developed, as it inevitably will be, we need far more robust mechanisms preventing it from being deployed.
Just a small clarification for me. When you day "deployed" is that saying not used or not actually produced? Using atomic weapons as the example, would the theory to build a bomb be known but somehow we prevent anyone from building one or the bomb gets built but somehow we can prevent it from ever being used?
That makes sense to me and I had not really though about it in that way. That said, and I have not clue as to where to find the data, of if such data even exists, I would love to see if under a racked voting structure once might have predicted the results that did emerge.
I think some of your concern about lacking a genuine majority hangs on how people understand the different voting processes. I think most in Congress would actually get the implication of the rank voting and see the winner as actually having majority support.
But the observation that if the Speaker cannot be effective then the type of "business continuity plan" I was waving my hand at probably would not improve anything.
I'll try one more time and shutup as it sees to me people are focusing on semantics rather that the actual question.
If electro-diesel trains are transporting a ton about 450 mile on a gallon of diesel then just how much will it cost, in terms of carbon output to electrify a mile of rail in comparison to the average train loading?
How much will it cost in terms of carbon output to maintain that electrification per year annually?
How many years will it take to reach a carbon neutral position?
What are the expected costs of, assuming you agree there will be increased carbon output, the marginal increase in carbon output during the transition period compared to the current impact of electro-diesel transportation?
If you don't agree that the infrastructure build out will increase carbon output how is that accomplished?