I think that is maybe a slightly overblown concern. The Soviet union did 715 nuclear tests, of which 219 were atmospheric. The US did 215 atmospheric tests.
This is going to be damaging and incredibly stupid, but probably not that very numerous.
But yes, of course it will be terribly bad. I am just trying to set it in perspective on a macro scale, not trying to say it’s not awful.
But I think it’s likely we may look at a few US tests, a few Chinese, approx same number of Russian and then a few North Korean ones (we are still waiting for their first atmospheric test).
There are very few reasons for an actual nuclear arms race. Not logically speaking anyway.
But maybe I am wrong, but I don’t see the geopolitical “point” in an arms race for anyone. Several states would like to test a few weapons, sadly, though. And US now sets that precedent and allows this at no exense of Russian or Chinese political capital.
As I posted in another topic, US tech bros and their AI /AGI dream/nightmare wanting more minerals, energy, clean water for their hyper-scaled server farms/data centres, emitting more heat, wastes. Our planet is truly fucked.
With the tech bros in bed with government, especially the current US government, it is literally saying “screw the beneficial outcome for humanity”.
I read a book (I think it’s “Empire of AI” by Karen Hao), mentioning that using OpenAI for simple crap uses 10x to 100x more energy than traditional internet search.
To follow up that digression, one of the biggest new environmental issues today, is actually Crypto Mining and the crypto currency. It requires an obscene amount of completely unecessary energy expenditure. So, so easy to deal with. This is not oil or plastic that is hard to replace, but 100% unecessary.
I wouldnt call it wholly unnecessary,…if you look at it from the perspective of someone that wants to move a large sum of money anonymously to anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds.
I’ve watched the order book of bitcoin in the past and some if the cash value flowing through there is insane.
But it’s an obscene waste of energy. It’s just so unecessary an environmental problem.
Because we still need oil and plastic and will need it for a long time, to produce completely necessary products. This, we really don’t need. So seems extra bad to me.
Some may consider me an AI skeptic, but my position is we are not just in a huge AI bubble, but it is on one that has been made worse by a very unusual combination of self dealing relationships among the mega players that just sees them move financial commitments around the board in a way that looks like additional money but isnt. It’s sort of how you can turn the same $1 into a GDP of $1000 if three of us just keep passing among ourselves often enough. It has the effect of increasing stock prices without actually having had real returns producing them. That is unsustainable and the political side of this is how the people at the top, the Altmans and the Amodeis are now positioning themselves they so come out of the bubble popping with their wealth intact while everyone else gets fucked.
It’s only natural that when someone says A), someone else follows up with B). That is the nature of conversations. If I post something about US restarting nucler tests, it’s natural that it digress for 2-4 posts a bit as it’s embroidered with debate involving other countries.
Your post is about US tech bros wasting energy, this is driven by US policies. It’s on topic or close enough. Your post had value, so don’t apologice.
Yeah, I’ve done a bit of reading/listening on the whole topic in the last year or so and the more you delve into it, the more depressing it becomes. Train wreck you can see happening from miles away, but no one is stopping it, the wreckers are driving the whole thing.
I have mentioned him before and he is probably bit too shouty and performatively angry for some, but Ed Zintron has covered this better than anyone. Its the lack of viable business case to fuel this level of investment, and the fuckery the main players are doing to cover their outrageous expenses with no actual revenue streams
If nuclear testing resumes, China will benefit the most. Russia will perfect some sleek new models, but will still have the old school models that can bludgeon any opponent back to the stone age if it goes that way. Ditto America, they will test some sleek new weapons, and their old school stuff is more updated than Russia’s.
That will be a bit of a tit-for-tat for two old adversaries, to give them new and more efficient ways to reach mutually assured destruction.
China is some way behind. They have the money, the economy, and realistic near-future prospects of being the global top dog. They did not ‘benefit’ from being a main player in the time of the cold war as their economy was nowhere. But in recent times China has come to the fore, and if nuclear testing resumes, they will get to be just as capable as America or Russia, even without the numbers of weapons, to ensure a 3-way mutually assured destruction.
As if that wasn’t bad enough for the future of humanity, presumably other states will want to test their own weapons. North Korea is an obvious one. But for all we know, maybe the Saudis would like to get into this game? They have the dough, and they probably have the technology (paid for in light of the break up of the USSR; maybe even some secrets sold by Trump) and with testing back on the global agenda, the Saudis will probably fill their boots enough to make sure no-one ever messes with them.
Which will make Iran all the more desperate to get the bomb.
India and Pakistan might feel the need to test, to try to keep each other in check. In reality, India will probably want to test more advanced weapons due to their relationship with China. They will be two of the three biggest economies in the world soon enough, so India will want nukes that are commensurate with its new status.
None of this really new, but it does seem like a meaningful escalation in their willingness to embrace their anti semitism without the usual need to worry about the plausible deniability or pretending the comments have been mischaracterized
