The solution to most of these problems lies in policy, not in new tech advancements.

Maybe if our biggest companies did something other than suck up to science denying wackos, some progress could be made in these areas.

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zahlman 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Making progress requires first not dismissing your ideological outgroup along such lines, and instead trying to understand what actually motivates them.

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Marha01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The solution to most of these problems lies in policy, not in new tech advancements.

That is not mutually exclusive. If technological advances result in a given technology becoming cheaper, more scalable, and easier to deploy, they also make it easier to advocate for and implement the relevant policies.

You can think of it like this: our "political technology" is not good enough to use solar energy at its current prices to replace fossil fuels as fast as we would like. Well, what about if we cut the price of solar by a factor of five? Perhaps it will be good enough then.

	▲	qwertygnu an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That sounds like just playing further and further into the game of the corrupt leaders. Who do you think would profit off that 5x margin? Would that margin come more likely from a scientific breakthrough of via some new exploitation of natural resources or human labor? It's yearsss past time that our leaders should have changed policy.
	▲	bossyTeacher 9 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> If technological advances result in a given technology becoming cheaper, more scalable, and easier to deploy, they also make it easier to advocate for and implement the relevant policies. Your thinking reminds me of this https://xkcd.com/538/

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podgietaru 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Policy and funding. One of which will be sucked up by this venture.

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floatrock an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hey now, our biggest companies do more than suck up to science denying wackos, don't be so unfair... sometimes our biggest companies fund their wacko superpacs!

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tbrownaw 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do not see how the second sentence follows from the first.

I would think the claim in the second sentence would only be relevant in case of the inverse of the claim in the first sentence.

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DaiPlusPlus 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> I do not see how the second sentence follows from the first.

Point 1 on the list is "Make Solar Energy Economical".

Solar is economical today - mostly due to China investing (and heavily subsidising) in solar for the past couple of decades; but compare to the US where certain particular big-businesses (oil companies, mostly) were instead cynically funding disinformation efforts and getting into bed with the Republican party (which dovetailed with the GOP's allying with other science-denying movements of the Bush Jr era like creationism and public-health matters with abstinence-only sex-ed and defunding gun safety research efforts) - means we're decades behind where we could have been...

Consider an alternative past, where the GOP had the backbone to resist the oil industry's corruptive influence and instead made a big bet on American Solar; it's entirely possible that instead of MAGA today we'd instead have a right-wing coalition strongly supporting solar and wind energy because they align nicely with American rugged individualism - whereas the current situation on the right is an unprincipled farce with inconsistencies in policy positions at every turn.

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slongfield 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is not a particularly new struggle: Jimmy Carter installed American-made solar water panels on the White House in 1979, then Reagan tore them out.

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xnx 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Improving panels or batteries (e.g. through automated material discovery) would make solar energy economical in a lot more regions.

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holmesworcester 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Solar is not (yet) economical for reliable, year-round electricity because of storage costs. China coal use is growing again this year.

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Arainach 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Solar is profitable to install at both industrial and home scale in most areas. You're moving the goalposts.

	▲	xnx 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It would be even better if it had ROI in 2 years instead of 10 for northern installs.

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marcosdumay an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Where do you find the information for 2026?

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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ivanovm an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a total delusion to think that the key to reverse-engineering the brain or producing energy from fusion is policy.

It also happens to be the favorite pretext for people to seize more political power and launder more money through nonprofits though.

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RajuChacha108 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> other than suck up to science denying wackos

The science denying wacko is a but like drunk homeless guy on street while you have your Ferrari parked in the driveway. The wacko has a golf club. There is too much to lose by pickup a fight. You might win eventually but the next wacko shows up with another golf club soon.