HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> Today's poor are worse-off than those in times past regardless of whatever trinkets they have. In almost every culture and occupation throughout history up to the industrial revolution, working people have never spent 8+ hours a day, year round, in servile labor.

Every single analysis of that ignores women. Women in the past spent basically all their time cooking and washing. Washing clothes before washing machines was an arduous, laborious task. In addition, without reliable birth control, family sizes were larger so a women had more children to take care of.

Now women have the opportunity and control to not be consigned to a life of house work.

Hans Rosling has a great TED talk on how socially transformative the washing machine was:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

The population growth isn't a problem "yet" but it is a problem when those people want to develop (ie increase energy consumption). Hans Rosling explains it well: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

⬐ spicymaki

That was a great video! Thank you!

⬐ singularity2001

will energy consumption be less of an economic problem thanks to the break even of solar and coal?

⬐ nabla9

World as a whole is hungry for energy. Industrialized nations have been able to reduce the link between economic growth and energy consumption, but the same is not true for the rest of the world.

Globally alternate energy adds to the global energy production, it's not replacing. When the industrialized world moves to alternate energies, developing world can afford to consume more oil, gas and coal. When solar becomes cheaper, it makes hydrocarbons cheaper due to decreasing demand. I don't see how solar power replaces the global hydrocarbon production significantly before it's too late. It certainly will not do so in the short or medium term.

Markets value large oil and coal companies and producers like the demand will continue. EIA estimates that global petroleum and other liquid fuels consumption and production are in constant upward path: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php

⬐ marcosdumay

Fossil fuel production is highly competitive, so prices are pretty much set by the costs of the last marginal producer.

If the world decreases its consumption, the prices may go down (possibly by a large amount). But any increase in consumption will very likely push the prices up, it does not matter it the competition between consumers is small.

Hans Rosling has a talk dedicated to just the effect of the washing machine on female emancipation:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

⬐ cimmanom

Part of the effect of that automation wasn't to free up women's time but rather to raise the standards of cleanliness against which we judge people's homes to the level achievable by a woman working at it full time WITH that automation.

⬐ watwut

That sort of makes sense. Lets say that you are housewife that believes female purpose is in being housewife. Automation freed up time quite a lot, but did not changed your believes about your own purpose. So what you gonna do? Doing crosswords for hours or watching tv for hours is lazy. So, you just continue to spend time on what you perceive as your purpose, to be better at it.

And maybe, Betty over the street did the above reasoning, has cleaner house and you want measure up. You wanna do right by your family. Maybe there is a piece of you that is competitive, which is pretty normal among humans, although you don't use that piece often.

For automation to really free time the women's time, the next step is needed - women finding the reasonable socially accepted thing (most people want to do socially accepted things) to do with that time. Eventually it did happened, just not right away.

⬐ partycoder

It's largely subjective.

You can set an unrealistic standard of cleanliness, like: polishing doorknobs, cleaning windows, the roof and the basement every day. Or do your cleaning routine twice per day, or 3 times... when does it stop?

Then, at some moment cleaning has diminishing returns and becomes redundant. Plus, day to day activities may require to make things dirty temporarily, and wanting to preserve a permanent state of cleanliness may interfere with those activities.

⬐ watwut

It never stops. The more you clean, the better you get at seeing parts that are not absolutely super clean. Kinda like refactoring code base. Until you find something that makes more sense to do.

⬐ dagw

It's worth noting that his position isn't universally accpeted. I know Tim Harford for example questioned these findings in one of his podcasts.

https://twitter.com/TimHarford/status/883373670990786561

Of course some people then went on to question Tim Harford...

⬐ partycoder

Well, you could also hire laundry services, which used to be done by hand either individually in water courses or in places known as washhouses or lavoirs... or in laundry boats (french bateaux-lavoirs). My grandfather, who was not wealthy, told me that he used the services of a professional laundress in his 20s.

But then once you are done with laundry you've got cooking, washing, ironing, etc...

Ironing became optional for some people as fibers started receiving a special treatment to reduce wrinkling. Before that, clothes would wrinkle beyond what most people today would be comfortable wearing. Before electricity, irons were powered by coal and of course had no thermostat.

Before refrigeration and other modern methods for preserving food, you also had to buy fresh food constantly, or preserve food in archaic ways like salting.

Then, before plumbing and sewers, rather than getting water from a faucet you had to go get water from a well.

Strongly recommend you watch Hans Rosling's TED talk on washing machines to realize how automated it already is: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

That said, I do still understand your point.

Dish-washers are just about the only household appliance that currently are more ecological than the human labour they replace.

Which makes me wonder: aside from liberating people from menial tasks (which is great! It leads to more equality[0]), could robots also be more sustainable than human labor?

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

⬐ siruncledrew

As long as planned obsolescence is not engineered into them

⬐ tonyedgecombe

Is that really the case? I always imagined that was a meme the dish washer manufacturers promoted.

⬐ Jill_the_Pill

Except these new efficient ones work very poorly. It's not terribly ecological to replace a large appliance every other year.

⬐ Jill_the_Pill

We replaced a 20-year-old machine three years ago. And then replaced the replacement last year. And then we had about six repair calls on the new one. It's been good since about August, but don't say that too loud . . . it'll hear you and break!

⬐ vanderZwan

I guess that to some degree that would depend on the embodied energy, but if they really only last a few years I agree (do not own a dishwasher myself because rented apartment).

⬐ hocuspocus

> Except these new efficient ones work very poorly.

I haven't noticed that at all. Nowadays in Europe most dishwashers and washing machines offer energy-saving cycles that do the same job, only 3 times slower. As far as I'm concerned this works as advertised.

Hans Rosling said the the washing machine was one of the most transformative inventions ever.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

The same goes for washing machine:

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

"What was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution? Hans Rosling makes the case for the washing machine. With newly designed graphics from Gapminder, Rosling shows us the magic that pops up when economic growth and electricity turn a boring wash day into an intellectual day of reading."

⬐ vacri

A while back a friend of mine told me how her (great-?)grandmother in Malta used to do the laundry down the river as a young woman, and her and her friends used to dream about having a magic box that you could just throw the laundry in, press a button, and it'd be done!

My favorite video of his: A huge chunk of the women in the world spend a depressing amount of their time washing clothes. The washing machine has done more for women than anything else: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

⬐ hashhar

I find this [1] one quite amazing as well.

1: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

⬐ soheil

There was actually a guy in the washing machine, that just made me completely fall in love with that talk and I already liked it a lot.

⬐ neogodless

Actually a woman!

⬐ YeGoblynQueenne

I'll confess I don't know who Hans Rosling was, but if that's what he really said, I can't muster much admiration for him. What is really depressing is that "a huge chunk of women in the world" are expected to do the washing, while the men are working or getting an education etc. Having a machine do the washing for you under the circumstances simply frees your time so you can spend it in more house chores. After all, there's not a big difference between "woman, go to your washing" and "woman, go to your washing machine".

I mean, alright, I get it- it can save time and all. But personally, I can't think of a context where I wouldn't find the association of washing machines with women to be humiliating.

⬐ aaron695

I find this statement horrific.

You would condemn the women of the world, the poorest of the poor to backbreaking work because you won't identify with reality?

Even amongst the ultra rich, aka you (given you are on HN, most likely), women do more house work.

Yet you expect people who dedicate their lives to the ultra poor and get things done to be careful of your sensibilities?

⬐ YeGoblynQueenne

And I, in turn, find your outrage misplaced. I am certainly in no position to condemn anyone to anything. Most women in most of the world are in a social situation that forces them to be domestic slaves. So what's the solution to that? To automate their domestic slavery, by buying them washing machines?

Well duh, of course not. The solution is to change their societies so that they don't have to be the ones who do all the bloody washing. Until then, selling them washing machines is primarily of benefit to the people who sell them the washing machines.

⬐ jnicholasp

I agree with your basic sentiment, that it's wrong that we so often assume that housework is women's work, and that it would be better if that gender expectation were not taken as a fundamental given.

I disagree with the view that the washing machine, and other domestic labor-saving devices, haven't been deeply beneficial for hundreds of millions of women, even though it is still a mistake that we still see doing the laundry as a job for women. I disagree because changing cultures is really hard and really slow, while changing technology is, by comparison, incredibly easy and fast. And it is absolutely better to make easy, fast changes, whenever that is possible, than to sneer at them because they do not solve the underlying problem. They still solve some part of the problem. Sometimes to a significant degree. That matters: billions of hours of trivial human labor have been saved, many of them going instead to the leisure, study, and thought necessary to move people toward the real solution.

⬐ aaron695

> that it's wrong that we so often assume that housework is women's work

Have you seen the work men do in poor countries?

Do you really expect women to be doing this work and the man stays at home doing house work?

I do see women carrying huge bags of concrete, masonry, pulling carts along occasionally.

And I find it heart breaking. It's body ruining as a man, for women to be doing it is an even lower level of poverty that they are at.

There is a lot of 'let them eat cake' going on here.

⬐ YeGoblynQueenne

No, I think what's going on here is "let them use washing machines".

Like- Problem: women are treated as domestic slaves. Solution: get them domestic appliances.

Well that's just ridiculous.

⬐ frostymarvelous

Exactly the same argument I advanced to @YeGoblynQueenne.

Where there's no option, you have to split the roles.

And where you split the roles, you can't make one party burdened unnecessarily.

⬐ kalleboo

> Until then, selling them washing machines is primarily of benefit to the people who sell them the washing machines

Have you ever done all your laundry by hand? I have, and it's a MASSIVE waste of time. As long as someone in the family has to do it manually (along with cooking with fire, carrying water, sweeping, etc), it will keep someone in the home to do all that work.

You should definitely actually watch the video. It's only 10 minutes.

⬐ YeGoblynQueenne

>> Have you ever done all your laundry by hand? I have, and it's a MASSIVE waste of time.

Yes, I have. Why is it the women that have to do it- by hand, or otherwise?

⬐ frostymarvelous

When I read statements like this, I realise how detached many people are from the African reality.

I'm a Ghanaian/German and my wife is a house wife. Indeed, I go to work while she stays at home to clean, cook and take care of the kids.

The point is, it's her choice to do so. Because she doesn't work, we can't afford to get help. And she prefers to take care of her kids herself at this young age (oldest is 4).

Does that mean we need to change so I leave work and come help her with the washing?

Well, I bought her a washing machine due to the sheer volume of laundry my kids generate in a day so she doesn't have to, on top of her other chores spend her whole time washing.

Now she has more time to study as she's done with chores sooner and is less tired after doing them.

The split of roles is mostly a necessary evil in our part of the world. Mothers are some better suited to taking care of their children than fathers are. Slice it whatever way you want, it's a fact of nature.

Our realities are different, sometimes I wish people would understand that.

⬐ YeGoblynQueenne

I don't know what nature has to do with anything- is it any different for people in Africa, than in the UK, where I live? Over here men are expected to help with all the house chores - dishes, cleaning up, washing, you name it. And that includes taking care of the children. For instance, it's very common to see lone dads out with their toddlers in a pram, or a sling around their neck.

>> The split of roles is mostly a necessary evil in our part of the world.

Yeah, sorry but I don't believe that. If you want to say that there's a great deal of social reform that's needed before women and men have the same opportunitites in life, and there's no reason to "split roles" so that women stay at home and do the washing and men go to work, then fine. But that it's "necessary" anywhere, I don't accept that. It's no more necessary in Ghana, than it is in the UK.

And btw, I'm an immigrant to the UK. I'm originally from Greece which is a very traditional country, so I'm very familiar with the alleged social necessity of keeping women home with their washing machines. It doesn't make sense in Greece, it doesn't make sense in the UK, and I'm pretty sure it's just an excuse in Ghana also.

⬐ frostymarvelous

You don't have to believe it for it to be true.

> I'm very familiar with the alleged social necessity of keeping women home with their washing machines.

I think you missed the point where I mentioned it was her choice to stay at home and take care of the kids.

No where did I try to advance an argument to keep women at home with their washing, rather, I tried to explain that for most people, they have no choice, and this lack of choice doesn't mean they should continue to do it manually.

You speak about it being an excuse. Again, basing this on your reality. One that has only experienced western culture and life styles.

In a region where much of the population is poor, and the only jobs available to them are hard and laborious with long hours, you have no option but to leave that kind of work to the men.

So yes, it is indeed a necessity to many of these people to split their roles and not just an excuse to lord it over the women as you try to make it sound. The reason this is difficult to end is due to the difficulty in ending the underlying cause itself, mostly poverty.

⬐ a_ight

that idea is an old idea predating Rosling, that the automation or labor-saving in the home and, more or less at the same time, women working in factories while the men fought WWII, was what led to women being recognized as "economically capable" and having a lot of free time as soon as they were done baby booming.

Also, with the shifting and opening of roles for women, education of children plummeted because "teacher" used to be the most acceptable role for an educated woman, and quality dropped dramatically when the most talented women funelled into the economy to become scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc. It's a serious question, this is a real "technical debt" style tradeoff, and it's not a question of "pay teachers better" or "treat them differently", it's a quality question (this view is not popular within teachers' organizations)

⬐ eru

Paying teachers better might attract more people to become teachers instead of lawyers?

Just nitpicking your argument here. I think there are empirical studies looking at things like impact of teacher pay, teacher prestige in society, teacher selection etc on student learning; and teacher pay doesn't actually have that much of an impact (and neither does class size). But I would need to look that up to be sure.

⬐ geon

Perhaps not from lawyer specifically, since that tends to be a much more ambitious goal, but yes in general.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

Hans Rosling has a very good argument that we need a certain minimum amount of energy usage if we want both social and population stability. Wasted energy in the developed world is an interesting discussion, but if we want to address climate change the focus has to be on the much larger population of the world that is trying to rapidly increase their energy needs.

> without confusing it with lowering the standard of living

That's precisely the problem. Any proposal that significantly reduces energy usage almost certainly involves telling a large portion of the world "no, you don't get a washing machine" or similar restrictions on the basic benefits of industrialization.

⬐ thatfrenchguy

> Any proposal that significantly reduces energy usage almost certainly involves telling a large portion of the world "no, you don't get a washing machine" or similar restrictions on the basic benefits of industrialization.

Probably more like "No you don't get a dryer" though, as a washing machine can use less water ?

⬐ fulafel

It's easy to imagine many proposals that don't restrict access to washing machines. For example a per capita progressive CO2 tax would be one. We generally have the mechanisms to implement binding international agreements about these things, it's just a question of political will.

⬐ dispose13432

>For example a per capita progressive CO2 tax would be one

You can't Carbon tax people by income (because people don't pollute directly). You'll target polluters.

So you go to Apple and tell them that they emitted so many kg of CO2, pay ... tax,

Which will undoubtedly find its way to rising phone prices, which means (poor) people don't get nice things.

⬐ fulafel

There are several alternative ways to address this, for example products bought by consumers might account toward their CO2 emissions. Or just apply the CO2 tax to companies directly.

Anyway, let's not get lost in the details, I was just offering a trivial counterexample against the claim that

> Any proposal that significantly reduces energy usage almost certainly involves telling a large portion of the world "no, you don't get a washing machine"

⬐ CountSessine

We generally have the mechanisms to implement binding international agreements about these things

Binding? Name one that doesn't involve nuclear weapon proliferation.

Sadly, giving up on the washing machine is giving up one on of the great labour saving inventions, and going back towards the time when washing took at least one woman-day per week.

http://johnquiggin.com/2012/05/03/housework-in-utopia/

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

⬐ gexla

Back in the day when men were out working and families were larger, women had to do a lot of work do to laundry because they would do laundry for the entire family. Doing your own laundry doesn't take long. Still more work than using a washing machine, but not too bad.

> adapts more quickly to changes in demand

I was addressing the base load[1].

>> it's still vaporware for the base load.

By definition, the base load does not change quickly. Obviously nuclear (and other slow-to-change generation methods) need to be supplemented with more adaptable methods for the load-following[2] and peaking[3] loads.

> I think the main point is that new investments should go primarily towards wind and solar

The market doesn't care where you want investment allocated. Power demand is going up dramatically over the next 50 years - which is very good[4] for world stability - and basic economics (and historical experience) says that demand will usually be filled by the cheapest supply.

While they have high initial R&D cost, that can be nuclear if we allow for standardized mass production and existing modern designs to proceed (both of which are currently blocked by anti-nuclear fools). If we do nothing, coal (and other carbon-based sources) will remain the cheapest. Maybe in the future we can include solar/wind as cheaper, but for the main base load, they are currently subsided with natural gas (and other) backups. Solar/wind by itself is still vaporware.

> they should be closing their coal plants first.

Absolutely. If Germany had spent the money they've spent on coal replacement power generation on nuclear, they might have had completely zero carbon energy production several years ago. Instead, they are limping along one of the most hazardous generation methods because of idiotic radiophobia.

> Uranium/Plutonium fission

As usual, you are leaving out thorium, which is what we should have been using.

> investments

Given that my brother is working on new photovoltaic generation, I'd love to see a lot of investment for better renewables. The new epitaxy methods he invented for his PhD made InGaN heterojunctions that were 90% efficient in converting sunlight, which is outstanding if a mass production method can be created. Investment in basic research is always important.

However, what matters right now is what we can currently make. Vaporware doesn't matter until it becomes an actual shipping product. If we wait for hypothetical methods, we allow more coal power to be built.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load_power_plant

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant

[4] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

⬐ mcv

If you're concerned about world stability, there's still one big problem with nuclear that you're ignoring: nuclear proliferation. Look at all the tension around Iran's nuclear energy program. It would be a lot better for world stability if we had give them energy tech that's not so easily weaponized.

> you are leaving out thorium

I'm leaving out Thorium for a couple of very good reasons:

* It's not as weaponizable as Plutonium and Uranium

* It's a lot safer, and as far as I understand, it doesn't produce the same levels of radioactive waste

* It seems to require more research before it's production ready (otherwise everybody would be using it already). It's not clear whether it will really be as practical as everybody says it is.

If Thorium turns out to be viable, and indeed a lot cleaner and safer than Uranium/Plutonium, it might well be suitable as a long term solution, whereas I consider Uranium/Plutonium only suitable for a short transition period to cleaner forms of energy. But for now, Thorium is still vaporware.

⬐ andreapaiola

There are startups doing this?

What do you want more of? Health, leisure time, vacations, quality food, a better environment, more children living past their 1 (or fifth) birthday?

Growth gets you that.

Growth has made it possible to buy a fridge, an oven, a vaccum cleaner, a dishwasher and a washing machine, all for relatively trivial amounts of money. Together they made it possible for litterally millions of women to persue their dreams (whether that is to have a career, start a business or just spend more time with their children). I have no idea what kind of magic the future could hold, but I find it extremely destressing that anybody could even ask that question.

Oh and if you don't why a washing machine is necessary, http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

> cheap

This is the big problem that a lot of these discussions tend to ignore. Not only does our market tend to always pick the cheapest options, the real challenge is the developing world that is going to massively increase their power needs in the next few decades. This well have significant benefits for the world in general if we can pull it off. Unfortunately, given the economic realities of these areas that means coal unless we can provide a cheaper option. Unless some breakthrough happens with storage, that means nuclear.

> Idealists

It's easy to be an idealist when your lifestyle already benefits from massive amounts of cheap energy. As Hans Rosling[1] puts it,

    When I lecture to environmentally concerned students, they tell me "No! Everybody
    in the world cannot have cars and washing machines!" ... Then I ask my students,
    "over the last two years, how many of you doesn't use a car," and some of them 
    proudly raise their hands and say, "I don't use a car". Then I put the really tough
    question, "how many of you hand wash your jeans and your bedsheets, and no-one
    raises their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.
    [...]
    Until they have the same energy consumption per-person, they shouldn't give advice
    to others on what to do and what not to do.
  

[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

Hans Rosling presented a similar topic at TED (2010):

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

On the other hand, we may overestimate the disruption of home appliances because of how history played out. Today, many poor villagers choose to spend what little money they have on a cellphone instead of a washing machine. They continue to wash clothes by hand and hang them to dry but they absolutely need the cellphone to tell them what price their crops will sell for at the market.

⬐ TeMPOraL

The article is about last century. Smartphones are this century's invention. However, both appliances and mobile tech only show how significant and underestimated the effect of technology on society is. We like to think that technology is just some weird addition or convenience, but it seems to me that it is technological advancements that fundamentally transform society.

⬐ bitwize

Yes but you couldn't convince a 1989 Indian villager to use Zack Morris's brickphone. They only became practical from a price and "carry on your person" standpoint in the very late 90s or so.

⬐ jasode

> Smartphones are this century's invention.

If you notice, I had deliberately used the word "cellphone" instead of "smartphone". Cellphones (1980s) were 20th century technology. Many poor villagers don't have smartphones but they do have cellphones.

⬐ blaincate

I was in india till 2001 and very few people in urban areas has cellular phone. Even in US during studies, very few students had cell phones (2001-2002).

The advent of cellphone is definitely from 2000 (not before). atleast my experience.

a found a link to support my observation: http://www.cartesian.com/the-rise-of-mobile-phones-20-years-...

⬐ TeMPOraL

Right. My misread, I apologize.

The reason I read 'smartphone' instead of 'cellphone' is that they're related to an observation I find important - that smartphones are actually essential tools for the poor. Internet access gives significant quality of life improvements.

⬐ Retric

You could use the internet on a web on a phone in late 90's. The post 2000 smartphone was more an evolution than a specific capability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_browser

EX: BlackBerry 850 (1999) was very email centric.

⬐ TeMPOraL

You could, but the Internet in mid-to-late 90's was nothing like it looks today. I still remember WAP browsers and this was not something useful for general population in a way smartphones and the Internet of today are. Western corporate businessmen did AFAIK had some use for it though.

⬐ cm2187

Cellphones only took off in the late 90s. They are not really 80s technology, at least for poor peasans.

In theory, there is such an option. In practice, no one will take it, because why should they? It's both a coordination problem and a short/long-term values problem. How do you convince an average Joe to reduce his quality of life now in order to secure some abstract better future later; a future, that will come to pass if and only if every other average Joe and Jane does the same? You can't, unless you're a god.

And that point itself is irrelevant anyway. I too recommend watching that TED video[0] 'pdkl95 linked. The first world can try and reduce their energy consumption all they want, while there's the remaining 2/3 of the population that is industrializing itself right now, who will need more energy for things like transportation and healthcare and washing machines and food production and entertainment, and that need will offset whatever we can save.

And while we the first worlders have privilege of worrying about climate change - after a hot meal and a hot shower, dressed up in clean clothes that were washed and dried by machines - most of the world won't care. They want their hot food and hot showers and washing machines now, to have time to go to school and to read books to their children. They will seek power sources they can get.

All this makes current anti-nuclear advocacy outright dangerous to survival of technological civilization[1]. We should be pushing nuclear for baseline and renewables on top for peak loads, and slowly phasing-out coal altogether (and maybe pouring some more money into fusion research as well). We should be doing it right now, gaining more experience with building and maintaining safe nuclear plants, so that maybe developing countries could even skip coal altogether and go straight for nuclear+solar. But instead, we got a lot of people irrationally afraid of nuclear power, thus endangering their own survival.

RE going to another country - I live in Poland, so I do have a perspective on how to live on less energy than an average American, though we still use a lot of power here.

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

[1] I initially wanted to write 'mankind', but humans are a resilient species and will no doubt survive even total civilizational collapse. Yes, there will be a world of humans. But it won't be a world any of us would like to live in. I like my pizza, showers, Emacs and an air-conditioned office, thank you very much.

⬐ facepalm

Presumably then controlling population growth is another way to save energy. I took that "how many earths does your life style require" - the evil half of my brain thought "if my lifestyle requires 1,5 earths, then it would be sustainable with one third less people than we have not"...

Afaik China for example is trying to actively manage the population growth/consumption problem, and sometimes they managed to introduce some environment friendly things that took other countries decades (like making filters in car exhausts mandatory, making plastic bags illegal, and so on). Not that China is a model of environmentalism, just saying that it's not a given that third world countries have to take the same route to modern living as US+Europe.

As for why would anybody save energy: it doesn't always have to equate less convenience. For example, even if you gave me the biggest possible car, with some magic CO2-neutral power source and what not, I would still not like commuting. So a solution that involves less commuting could both save energy and be more convenient (for example cool new houses could be build that make it more attractive to live in the city - in fact less cars would make living in the city a lot more attractive).

In general it seems to me that if "convenience X" involves a lot of energy, it will also involve a lot of nuisance (machines that make noises or need a lot of attention - lots of energy passing through it means likely it will break down sooner).

Or better insulating your house could simply be cheaper than paying for the energy to heat it - why wouldn't you then choose to insulate the house?

And so on.

⬐ pdkl95

> Presumably then controlling population growth

I take it you still haven't seen that TED talk. A key point Hans Rosling makes (which he expands upon in greater detail in several of his other talks). In this talk, he explains

    ... there are two things that can increase the energy use. First, population
    growth. Second, economic growth. Population growth will mainly occur among the
    poorest people here because they have high child mortality and they have many
    children per woman. ...

You may not have noticed, but China hasn't been very successful at legislating population growth. Meanwhile, some areas have slowed their population growth. Japan is actually concerned that they are losing population.

The way you control population is \to bring people up to a standard of living that no longer requires having large families (i.e. for farm work, etc). China knows this. They aren't stupid - they certainly understand the costs of allowing terrible ("equivalent to a pack/day cigarette habit") smog. China also understands that if they can stabilize their population by raising their lifestyle. Hence they are using incredible amount of coal as a short-term workaround while they work on the largest public-works infrastructure projects in the world (e.g. Three Gorges, their current breeder reactor project).

> some magic CO2-neutral power source

A nuclear power generator is not magic.

> save energy

You say this as if engineers aren't constantly creating new ways to make energy usage more efficient. Of course they have - engineers hate energy waste. We have been slowly improving efficiency. Obviously we should continue this process, but it will never be enough to significantly impact the the total energy used in the world.

> it seems to me that if "convenience X" involves a lot of energy, it will also involve a lot of nuisance

This is absolutely not true in general. Many things oonly become possible when you reach a minimum of energy.

⬐ facepalm

I don't understand what you are trying to say. My point was that energy can be saved. I guess I tend to think more abstract than you. For example, population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb - boom, energy saved. (I'm too lazy to go into details of population control here...).

That's of course not the solution I propose, it just abstractly proves the point that energy can be saved. In fact, as you mention with the washing machines example, the majority of people seem to get by on very little energy (even less than is required to power a washing machine).

All I said is that saving energy is another option, besides building more nuclear power plants or burning more coal.

And you seem to have missed that washing machines are not the major factor in power consumption that you make it out to be.

"it will never be enough to significantly impact the the total energy used in the world"

People will simply use all the energy they can get (even if you build lots and lots of nuclear power plants). That doesn't imply that they couldn't get by with less.

⬐ pdkl95

> population could be reduced by dropping a nuclear bomb

Some of us are trying to discuss solutions, not fantasies of genocide.

> All I said is that saving energy is another option

And I'm saying the only reason you say that is because you're living an incredibly privileged life. For most of the world, "less energy usage" means hard decisions like if they have enough food to eat. For someone who claims to think abstractly, you seem to have a serious problem thinking about energy from any other point of view than what is presumably your own ethnocentric perspective.

> And you seem to have missed that washing machines are not the major factor in power consumption that you make it out to be.

Do you know how I can tell you still haven't watched Hans Rosling's explanation of this problem?

Washing machines (and related basic-standard-of-living technology) is probably going to account for about 1/3 or 1/2 of the increase in energy usage of the world in the next several decades. Energy expensive technologies (e.g. airplanes) are not relevant, because only a small number of people will gain access to the necessary wealth in the same time period.

To be very explicit, the energy saving that are possible - which should still be done - form the tiny number of people with enough privilege to regularly pay to waste energy is tiny.

> they couldn't get by with less

Go watch that video. Look really hard at what it's like to waste your days washing your cloths instead of, say, getting an education.

What specific energy use is being wasted? What "optional" thing should they stop doing?

What, exactly, should most of the women in the world (who are currently in this situation) do to reduce their energy use?

Assuming you are not a terrible personj that says they should have to stay living in poverty or simply be bombed (your other "option"), where specifically should these people - that is, the 3-4 billion people currently living under these conditions get their energy? (there are only 3 options: nuclear, coal/gas, or "they don't get to enjoy an industrialized lifestyle")

Hopefully, answering these questions should reveal to you why "lower energy use" is not an alternative.

> People will simply use all the energy they can get

That may be true for you, but you shouldn't project your beliefs onto others.

⬐ facepalm

Em, I didn't suggest the 3rd world should save energy. Stop with your washing machine already.

⬐ facepalm

So I finally watched that talk to the end (had only watched the beginning). I generally like Rosling, but that talk seems a bit low on details. Your interpretation seems wrong - washing machine people only use 2 units of energy, the rich use 6 units. So there seems to be a lot of potential to save right there. While more people will move up to washing machine level, at the same time things could get more efficient and more green energy could become available (it's not clear where Rosling gets his projections from...).

Rosling seems to be angry at some economics students who he claims wanted to deny the world washing machines. You adopted his anger and now you think everybody who says "save energy" wants to deny people washing machines. There is simply no basis for that (and I wonder if those selfish economic students actually exist - Rosling is a cool guy, but also a show man, perhaps he invented them for a good story).

Washing machines are actually not that sophisticated, by the way. I think the first ones even operated without electricity. It's basically a drum spinning in a bowl of water, with some fancy chemicals added to the mix. Perhaps somebody should invent a "3rd world washing machine" to help all those women out.

⬐ dragonwriter

> You may not have noticed, but China hasn't been very successful at legislating population growth.

The one-child policy was a targeted a population of around 1.2 billion in 2000. Actually population in 2000 was about 1.262 billion. I may not like the methods used by China, but calling it not very successful seems somewhat questionable.

> Meanwhile, some areas have slowed their population growth.

Like, say, China, which had a natural growth rate around 25 per 1000 when the one-child policy was adopted, dropped down to 11 and back up to around 16 in the mid 80s, then pretty consistently down since, to 7.58 in 2000, and around 5 for about the last decade.

⬐ pdkl95

I probably should have stated it more precisely, but that's more or less my point. China has made some impressive changes in the last few decades, with a lot more people having access to energy and the lifestyle improvements that it brings.

Without the ability to utilize energy, the China's population would be a lot further off from the 1.2B target. We still see this in some regions, as the one-child policy is harder to enforce the further you get from the metropolitan areas.

It's still a huge country with a lot of variation, of course, and I'm generalizing a lot.

> the option to use less energy

Do you wash your clothes by hand, with water heated from solar? No? Then why are you suggesting that most of the women in the world should continue spending their lives doing such menial activity?

This idea that we need to use less energy is one of the most short-sighted examples of western cultural privilege that I've ever seen. The amount of energy the average person has available to utilize for day-to-day needs is one of the best correlations to social progress and freedom.

People that don't have to spend their days washing their cloths by hand have spare time to spend on things like getting an education or participating in a democracy. We should be using nuclear power to significantly increase the amount of power people use so the social benefits currently enjoyed by the "west" can reach more areas in the world.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing...

I not joking or exaggerating when I say that if we let the amount of available energy per-person reduce significantly, society will start to revert back to old institutions like feudalism and slavery. Without energy, you don't have the free time to become educated. Without education, we lose institutions that depend on an educated population like democracy.

edit: fixed missing word

⬐ facepalm

Most energy is used for heating, transport, and so on. Your washing machine is not under threat.

And I did not suggest any of the things you say. It's all in your head, which went on a rampage triggered by the words "save energy".

All I said it is an option. I didn't say you have to take it.

⬐ pdkl95

I never said anything about my washing machine. Maybe you should try to watching that talk by Hans Rosling that I linked to.

Who are you to say that using less energy is an option, when you have the luxury of heating and energy-expensive transportation, and most of the world doesn't yet have the energy to wash their clothes?

⬐ anc84

Calm down.

⬐ dang

Please don't be uncivil on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

⬐ anc84

I did not mean it that way, the post seemed aggressive.

⬐ dang

I believe you, but on HN everyone needs to remain civil even when others seem aggressive.

⬐ None

None

⬐ fulafel

This would be a good argument if a high portion of a comfortable lifestyle energy consumption went to washing machine-level improvements to living standards. Instead energy is so cheap in first world countries that we waste it and use 10x more than we need.

The washing machine might eventually show up in the charts once we cut out enough of the big items from energy wasting cuplrits. Even then most of the electricity consumption goes to heating the water, but it doesn't even register enough to warrant hot water intakes in washing machines. Or heat exchangers in waste water systems for this and shower/dishwasher.

(You don't want to waste electricity on water heating when you could heat it with solar, CHP or waste water recovered heat)

His TED talks are well worth watching too:

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_o...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d...

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv

* http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

⬐ Evgeny

There goes my weekend! Thank you so much.

⬐ TeMPOraL

I strongly recommend those talks.

The 'magic washing machine' talk is beautiful. One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from it.

And what we said, my mother and me, "Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books."

⬐ agumonkey

IIRC that talk had a powerful ending (beside that quote).

⬐ zo1

Are you referring to the one where he performs sword eating? (I kid you not)

I have conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand it's nice to see the creativity and spirit, on the other hand it's sad to have to invent solutions for problems we should have stopped having a century ago, where the solution does not free up time for other things. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

⬐ r0h1n

Agree. Also, it's a bit misleading to suggest she's created a washing machine that "runs without electricity". By the same logic, Fred Flintstone (or someone in his era) should be credited for designing a car that "ran without electricity".

At this stage of mankind's industrialization, it's disingenuous to look at a human powered machine as an improvement over an electricity powered one.

⬐ acqq

It's a huge improvement over holding the stuff full of skin-attacking chemicals in the hands for extended periods of time. Women in India and not only there have to do that daily.

⬐ r0h1n

That's an inference you see to be making, because I see no evidence in the story that this machine is being targeted at households too poor to have (or afford) electricity in their homes.

Just for reference, the cheapest semi-automatic washing machine I could find online is Rs.3990 or ~$65 [0] (there are cheaper models available offline, usually).

[0] http://compareindia.in.com/specification/washing-machines/ak...

⬐ nmridul

Its not about affording electricity. Its availability of electricity. Even when you can afford a washing machine, electricity shortage makes it impossible to run the machine. Sometimes the power goes right in the middle of a wash cycle and you have to wait couple of hours before the power is restored. And in summer, power cuts are more prevalent.

⬐ FooBarWidget

Because gloves are too expensive?

Never mind that though. Pedalling is a lot easier than washing clothes by hand. It's better for your back too.

⬐ jxf

Gloves don't work. The chemicals impregnate the gloves and then the situation's even worse, since they're being pressed against your skin for long periods of time.

⬐ FooBarWidget

What? Latex gloves are water proof. Where can I learn more about the chemicals impregnating the gloves?

⬐ jxf

Here's a test for you: dry your hands, then take a pair of dry latex gloves, then dunk your hands in a soapy sink for three seconds. Take off the gloves.

Your hands will be at least a little damp and soapy. How did that happen, if latex is waterproof? It's because your hand doesn't make a perfect seal with the glove.

Also, dish soap and other detergents are surfactants, which reduce the surface tension of water. That makes it easier for it to get into tight spaces, like the space between the glove's edge and your hand.

Finally, latex is soluble in many kinds of oil/petroleum-containing product (many waxes, some heavy-duty cleaners, etc.), so if you're wearing latex gloves, you'll literally be dissolving latex onto your skin and degrading the gloves. Gross.

If that's what a three-second test will do, imagine how it'd feel to wash clothes for thirty minutes. Not pleasant.

⬐ walshemj

No thats the sweat from your skin :-)

Trust me years ago I worked on on project that was simulating a nuke reactor (the CFR breeder) and had to spend an afternoon wrapping a dummy fuel pin with insulation in full bunny suit, respirator and latex gloves on a very hot day when I took the gloves off there must have been 50 cc's of fluid in the gloves finger tips.

⬐ toomuchtodo

Perhaps there is a market for latex gloves that are snug and seal better at the wrist (similar to the male condom).

⬐ hnal943

or perhaps dish gloves (which already exist) are long so they do not become submerged in the water.

⬐ enraged_camel

>>Here's a test for you: dry your hands, then take a pair of dry latex gloves, then dunk your hands in a soapy sink for three seconds. Take off the gloves. Your hands will be at least a little damp and soapy. How did that happen, if latex is waterproof? It's because your hand doesn't make a perfect seal with the glove.

No, it's because your hands generate sweat, which cannot evaporate due to being completely sealed in by the latex.

Here's a test for you: fill a latex glove with water and see if it is leaking any. You will see that it is completely waterproof.

⬐ aplusbi

Perhaps jxf should have written "dunk your hands up to the elbows". If you are washing clothes with gloves on, you can expect at least some water to make its way in through the top.

⬐ jxf

You'll get sweat too, but there'll be soap from the sink in there. Unless you have some very unique genes, that didn't come from your hands!

The soap got in through the edge of the glove, not through the glove. Your test won't demonstrate anything other than that latex can hold water, which is not what I was trying to show.

I wasn't kidding when I said to try it. :)

⬐ FooBarWidget

So a little soap/chemical enters through the edge. A 99% reduction in exposure still beats 0% reduction in exposure.

⬐ umsm

I don't think you've ever washed anything by hand.

⬐ DanBC

Safety equipment is valuable. Thus, it is stolen or sold to get money to buy food.

⬐ gohrt

Washing machines are valuable. This, they are stolen or sold to get money to buy food.

⬐ vinceguidry

It's not so much that they're valuable, it's that it's too easy for assholes to insist that the poor girls doing the washing don't need / deserve them.

⬐ DanBC

Well, yes, that would be a problem.

There is a problem with risk assessment in general.

BBC had a few useful programmes. One was about young peoe visiting developing nations to see how luxuries are produced. They visited the Accra toxic electronic equipment dump. People take wiring and burn the insulation off to get the copper. These cable bonfires release huge clouds of toxic smoke. Now one has any kind of mask. The programme showed a boy smashing capacitors off a PCB with a rock to sell them. I think, but do not know, that if je'd had a pair of snips (for the compnent leads) and some way to get the copper / gold off the PCB that he'd have had a more valuable resource to sell. It was a profoundly depressing, distressing, view.

There was another programme called Welcome To India. This showed poor people reclaiming gold. They visited the jewelery district and swept the roads. They used acids and mercury and heat to turn this dust and grit into tiny gold grains. Part of the process was taking aciding grit in the palm of their hand and stirring it with their fingers. Again, no glasses or masks or gloves.

Indian bloggers - are there any good blogs showing everyday life in India? Not just the poverty, but the life of a broad cross section of the population?

⬐ youWontLikeThis

Gloves, now coming to every cornershop in your shantytown. Free loaf of bread for the 1st happy customer.

⬐ acqq

Yes, gloves are too expensive and also don't work for people who wash today by hands.

I see it's hard to imagine that to you, so try with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Below_Poverty_Line_(India)

400 INR monthly per head is less than 7 USD per head per month to survive.

⬐ jetru

Thank you.

⬐ lozf

Written like someone who has no experience of how common power outages are in many parts of India, not to mention the cost / scarcity of what "rich westerners" recognise as a Washing Machine.

  -- sent from a hut on the beach in Goa.

⬐ adamwong246

That's not fair at all! Look at our affluent, american lifestyle. We use massive amounts of electricity, water and chemicals to wash clothes, then get in our petroleum powered machines and drive to a place called a "gym" where we pedal a bike that goes nowhere. And we pay for the privilege!

Perhaps the solution is NOT to make trivial tasks ever more trivially easy? Perhaps humans need a little resistance training in their daily lives? There is a point where things are too easy and the average american's health is proof of this. This product can improve the lives, not just of those without electricity, but also those with electricity.

⬐ gohrt

May I infer that you, an informed, rational, and affluent person, live in a rural Indian village by choice, as it is better for your health?

⬐ adamwong246

You have made some sort of logical fallacy... I'm not sure which but you are stretching my words beyond the breaking point by framing the situation in a black-or-white, all-or-nothing way.

There are some benefits to living in a rural Indian village- you get more exercise then I do in my natural habitat. That's not saying that it's healthier to live there or that I would ever voluntarily move there. Obviously, I have more choices, better health and more wealth living in the states. But living in front of a macbook also has downsides- my arteries are clogging as we speak. So I have to offset all my inactivity on my bike or at the gym.

With this washing machine, I can get everything I want and need- clean clothes, lower electricity bills and exercise. And so too can a woman in India get what SHE needs- clean clothes, free time and less toil. But stating the obvious- that Americans needs more exercise and to use less energy- is not even close to advocating for living in a rural Indian village.

⬐ Crake

>There are some benefits to living in a rural Indian village- you get more exercise then I do in my natural habitat.

Speak for yourself. My natural habitat has great public transit, so I get my exercise built into my commute.

⬐ prakashk

> it's a bit misleading to suggest she's created a washing machine that "runs without electricity"

I don't think it's misleading at all.

If electricity and electric cars were available and commonplace in Fred Flintstone's era, and he designed a car that used no electricity, then he could and should be credited for designing a car that "ran without electricity".

Now, if someone said this machine ran without energy, that would me not only misleading, but a lie.

> At this stage of mankind's industrialization, it's disingenuous to look at a human powered machine as an improvement over an electricity powered one.

That's a legitimate point, and one that is worth discussing about.

⬐ walshemj

Yes my granny had a manual washing machine and a mangle too.

⬐ codingdave

Not every location in this world has pervasive electricity. For example, many towns in the Amazon have to ship in propane to run generators that run just for a couple hours of power each day. Locations that do have constant power also have a serious infrastructure to create that power, which burns non-renewable resources in quantities that would surprise most people.

Electricity is awesome, but until we truly have renewable power in all areas of the world, devices like this are good things.

⬐ agumonkey

Reminds me of the quite `rinced` Louis CK bit about the mainstream ignorance and disregard toward technology.

ps: The assistant made me laugh. Very ironic.

⬐ Mvandenbergh

This is probably still faster than washing by hand in a basin. If it is, it'll still free up time.

⬐ dredmorbius

Not only faster but generally more effective and, from what I can tell, more efficient in terms of water use. This looks like it mimics the cleaning cycle of high-efficiency washing machines which dip clothes through a small water/detergent solution rather than fill a large tank as top-load washers do.

⬐ comex

Arguably, having the side effect of providing exercise counts as freeing up time for other things.

⬐ kokey

Exercise is only lacking if most of your daily chores and transport are handled by machines, which is not the case here.

⬐ deckiedan

Yes, and while cycling, you can actually do some other things. Reading, watching TV, etc. Although, looking at first world countries, and how society is working, having solutions which force exercise on us would probably be extremely beneficial.

⬐ almosnow

You could be coding in Java...

⬐ chris_mahan

Then I wouldn't get the laundry done.

⬐ igravious

Wouldn't you need to find a TV that doesn't run on electricity first?

⬐ deckiedan

ha! good point.

Although I was kind of thinking that even without the electricity, it's a benefit.

Or alternatively, you could get 20 of these, all facing each other and be sociable. Or if you have some electricity in a town, get all of them in a hall, and play movies. :-)

⬐ TeMPOraL

Well, electricity is made out of rotating things if you strap a magnet to them somewhere ;).

⬐ icebraining

If you're powering a washing machine and a TV by pedaling, I'm not sure you'll last a full cycle ;)

⬐ r00fus

smartphone/tablet - and solar powered battery charging. No need for a big screen.

⬐ dredmorbius

Small electronics draw relatively little power. You can run a small LCD/LED TV (or radio) off solar PV and a small (regulating) battery. Large power (and heat) loads require far more (and more reliable) energy. Tapping into human energy is an option, though net net it's still fairly inefficient.

⬐ evrenesat

Free up time to go to gym and burn the calories we got from junk foods that we eat to compensate and cope with our terrible modern life problems?

⬐ None

None

⬐ loceng

Well, it frees the user up from having to go to the gym later to do some cardio exercises.. Half-joking.

⬐ Cthulhu_

TBH, this problem /was/ solved a century ago, if not longer, how do you think your grandparents (or their parents) did their laundry? First you had bashing clothes against rocks, then you got washboards, then you got hand-cranked washing machines. Not as clever as leg-powered washing machines, though, but then I'm sure we would be using those by now if it wasn't for electricity.

⬐ MrZongle2

Agreed; this came to mind as well.

Before electricity was commonplace, people still washed their clothes...even if they didn't have easy access to a stream or river.

This may be a clever refinement of a human-powered washing machine, but it is far from novel.

Please watch this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

In it Hans Rosling explains how something simple as making people able to use a washing machine to clean their clothes, will ultimately reduce population growth.

This is because the knock-on effects of that are that women are more able to educate themselves, more able to keep their kids alive as a result of education and thus the family has no need to reproduce massively.

The key is not to educate people about overpopulation, but to educate them effectively in how to remove the need for high reproduction while increasing their life quality.

⬐ lutusp

> The key is not to educate people about overpopulation, but to educate them effectively in how to remove the need for high reproduction while increasing their life quality.

This doesn't take the Population Paradox into account. I'm not saying such measures shouldn't be pursued. To do otherwise would be to abandon democratic principles and the uncontroversial advantages of education.

But it won't make any difference. When medical researchers discovered antibiotics, they believed that marked the end of bacterial infectious diseases. But that was not to be -- natural selection reacted to these new measures by choosing the tiny minority of bacteria that proved resistant to antibiotics, and we now face bacterial strains that are completely resistant to any available remedies (MRSA, tuberculosis and others).

In the same way, natural selection will react by these new measures by choosing the tiny minority of people that prove resistant to education and gender equality, and we will face human strains that are completely resistant to any available remedies.

In case anyone thinks this is some kind of veiled racist rant, I personally think the resistant strain will turn out to be white people of European descent. The reason? We can and do rationalize anything to ourselves -- for example, that environmental projects will save either us or the planet, in the face of uncontrolled population growth.

See, in the Population Paradox, it's not the people who get it that are the problem -- it's the people who don't, who can't, get it. And history proves that there's no political solution that doesn't turn out to be much worse than the problem itself.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." -- Pogo

More here: http://arachnoid.com/evolution

⬐ waps

Also know that interfering with natural selection in humans is likely to have more consequences than simply fewer humans. There have been many studies about what happens when you make even seemingly insignificant artificial changes to population numbers and the results aren't pretty.

Generally because of constant attempts to flip population numbers (oh no ! too many ! oh no ! too few ! oh no ! too many ! ...) the population numbers start to fluctuate wildly. Then at some point, they hit 0. Whoops.

Keep in mind that if you do seek to reduce birthrate, to have more than extremely small changes in the rates is likely to result in outcomes vastly different from what you envisioned. So far, the most famous of those rate-adjustment fuckups have been with rabbits, cats and kangaroos. If the same happened to people, we'd be in shit so deep you wouldn't believe it.

⬐ Mithaldu

> This doesn't take the Population Paradox into account.

Because it's bullshit. The core of it is this statement:

> Insensitive, unintelligent, uncompassionate listeners don't -- they will have the usual number of children.

It entirely ignores the fact that having children and rearing them is WORK, EFFORT. People in poor countries do the work for a single reason: They NEED their kids to care for them in old age. As you remove this need, even dumb people will want to avoid having kids, because it's less work.

There's a reason the US fertility rate has stabilized to 2 childs per woman, and an overpopulated country like china is even below it, and it is that the complex real world pressures cause an equilibrium on their own.

In short: Don't just write massive posts, also ask "why?" a LOT more.

⬐ lutusp

> As you remove this need, even dumb people will want to avoid having kids, because it's less work.

Yes, that explains why people who lived in the early agricultural societies, who had easy lives, also had a lot of children. It explains why, today, those with the highest birthrate end up becoming the majority, consistent with the principles of natural selection.

You need to realize something about natural selection -- the future population belongs to those with the highest birth rate, whoever and wherever they are. You should know this, but you clearly do not.

In Israel, arabs are outbreeding Jews and will eventually become an absolute majority:

Title: "High Arab birth rate in Israel raises concerns about country’s Jewish identity":

http://www.ibtimes.com/high-arab-birth-rate-israel-raises-co...

In the U.S., groups other than White descendants of Europeans are outbreeding them and will soon become an absolute majority, as they already are in California:

Title: "California: Whites are no longer the majority"

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/01/california-whites-are-no-long...

I'm not complaining about the ethnic makeup of the future, I'm only making the point that natural selection blindly chooses those with the highest birthrate, and it is that group that becomes the future population of the world.

> Don't just write massive posts, also ask "why?" a LOT more.

It is you who needs to educate yourself on this issue. You posted opinions, I posted facts. You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

Quote: "As of September 10, 2013 the world's human population is estimated to be 7.11 billion by the United States Census Bureau, and over 7 billion by the United Nations. Most contemporary estimates for the carrying capacity of the Earth under existing conditions are between 4 billion and 16 billion. Depending on which estimate is used, human overpopulation may or may not have already occurred. Nevertheless, the rapid recent increase in human population is causing some concern. The population is expected to reach between 8 and 10.5 billion between the year 2040 and 2050. In May 2011, the United Nations increased the medium variant projections to 9.3 billion for 2050 and 10.1 billion for 2100."

⬐ Mithaldu

> early agricultural societies

When, where?

Also, your links only affirm what i already said. People with a perceived lack in the "secure future" department have more children.

Lastly, i never said overpopulation isn't a thing. It's unclear why you quote wikipedia.

⬐ Mithaldu

Actually, you know what. Let me present more compelling evidence. That first article you link mentions concerns about Yemen's growth. So let's contrast how Yemen is doing in comparison to the USA with this Gapminder graph:

http://goo.gl/ok9irQ

Do note that the trails both start in 1960 and the child mortality axis is scaled logarithmically, meaning that at any time Yemen's child mortality was an order of magnitude larger than that of the USA. Also note that you can switch child mortality with expected lifespan and get pretty much the same curve.

Hans Rosling made an inspiring case for the washing machine being the greatest product of the industrial revolution in his Ted Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_...

http://ted.com - the number and quality of ideas there still amazes me. Pretty much every talk can be a start of an interesting, constructive and deep conversation. Almost every video leaves me with a feeling of wonder. Culture at it's highest.

I'm pretty sure everyone on HN knows what TED is, but just in case someone doesn't, here are some of my favourite talks - they show the breadth of the topics covered:

- http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_differen... - 2 minutes about how things we thing work in some way may be completely different somewhere else

- http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_... - how technology really improves lives

- http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/eythor_bender_demos_human_e... - exoskeletons, with wheelchair woman standing and walking live on the scene

- http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sam_richards_a_radical_expe... - a talk about empathy

And of course, the obligatory one,

- http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/ken_robinson_says_schools_k... - how school kills creativity

⬐ wickedchicken

> Almost every video leaves me with a feeling of wonder. Culture at it's highest.

Pop culture, yes. There is a whole world of knowledge behind TED's glossy sheen, and that world is found by looking up original sources. Don't read the Wikipedia article on Gödel's incompleteness theorem and stop there. Read On Formally Undecidable Propositions in Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I. It will be hard, but it will be awesome. Don't watch a cool TED talk and immediately show it to all your friends: look up the journal paper the presenter was referencing and actually see what happened. You will find out something along the way.

TED has its place in getting people excited about things, but there is much, much more beyond it. Not all knowledge is packaged in neatly-produced 4 minute feel-good videos. Go explore :).

⬐ teeja

Godel's theorum is incomplete.

⬐ None

None

⬐ TeMPOraL

> Go explore :).

Thanks for the encouragement :).

Of course TED is not a knowledge compendium, it's a starting point - to get excited about some idea, technology or solution, or to start a deep discussion about a particular topic. I always treated it as a "high-level overview"; in cases of topics one knows a bit about it is easy to see how those talks show only surface layer of the topics.

This article makes me angry, and the groupthink of most the replies I read here supporting Moglen make me angry too.

You know what causes a real ecological disaster?

Washing Machines.

Yes, FUCKING washing machines.

They use too much of one of the worlds rarest resources (clean water), contribute to global warming and pollute the waste water with phosphates.

On the other hand, they have freed up half the worlds workforce from backbreaking manual labor and contributed to society enough that no less than Hans Rosling calls them the greatest invention of the industrial revolution[1]

Facebook allows companies to sell advertising and allows law enforcement to track you.

On the other hand, it allows quicker and easier communication than ever before, and contributed to the Arab Spring to the point where the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are known as "the Facebook revolutions" [2][3]

Convenience has costs, but who is Moglen to judge if those costs are worthwhile for everyone?

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_and_the_magic_washing_... (watch this video - it's really good)

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/so-was...

[3] http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38379/

Edit: To all those claiming this is a strawman - it's not. Moglen failed to point out the benefits of social networking, and I'm using an analogy to show that most things have costs and benefits. Please don't get distracted into an argument about that.

I'd love to see people try and explain how Moglen is right about Twitter (which has much lower privacy costs than Facebook).

⬐ Adaptive

I agree that washing machines are great. I've lived in places without them for years at a time. It's doable but hand washing is time consuming and not fun. Phosphates are a separate issue. There is phosphate free detergent. There are low water use machines. It's being solved.

Let's look at another example of convenience that isn't being solved very well: my car.

My car is incredibly convenient. Often I'd rather drive than take the bus. And you can't beat it for hauling stuff around. Better than my bike, for sure.

Cars have freed up the world's pedestrians from footwrecking walking!

But there's a lot going on here. Cars, roads, the death of public transport (cf trolly cars in LA http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/historic/redcars/ ). America, at least, was sold on the car by businesses that had a vested interest in seeing the car succeed. Cities dismantled public transport systems at the behest of these same powerful lobbies.

And today our cities are outgrowths of the personal motor vehicle. (Electric cars don't solve anything here, it's still energy being produced).

While I think that you make a point worth considering, I believe that we should error on the side of suspicion when utility, or less nobly, convenience, comes at an initially small cost and is heavily promoted by... whom, exactly?

I worked in advertising long enough to look squarely to the data-finance industrial complex (tongue only partially in cheek when using that phrase) whenever personal information is involved.

Convenience has costs. Moglen may not have the right to judge but we need noisy people that remind us there is a problem.

⬐ nl

Moglen may not have the right to judge but we need noisy people that remind us there is a problem

On HN we sometime need people to remind us there are benefits, too.

⬐ franklindholm

Firstly, strawman.

Secondly, the idea of wasting the "worlds rarest resources" is completely dependent on where you live. I, for example, live in a part of the world with a huge excess of clean water, and there is absolutely no sustainable way to export our water to those parts of the world that have a shortage of clean water. Building pipe lines to those parts of the world would be ridiculous expensive. Transporting it by truck would pollute excessively.

So if we didn't use this clean water all of it would just be transported by nature to ground water reservoirs, out in the ocean and get mixed with the salt water or evaporate into the atmosphere.

I won't go into the points about washing machines adding to global warming and pollution of the water, that could very well be true.

⬐ waitwhat

Facebook [...] contributed to the Arab Spring to the point where the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are known as "the Facebook revolutions"

They're certainly known as "Facebook revolutions" (or "Twitter uprisings" or whatever) by foreign media organisations looking for a gimmicky hook to hang a story on, but I honestly doubt that regular Tunisians and Egyptians really use that phrase themselves other than as talking heads when dealing with said media organisations.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that most people just call it "last year."

⬐ nl

I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg one day and thank him [...] I'm talking on behalf of Egypt. [...] This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started [...] in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content. We would post a video on Facebook that would be shared by 60,000 people on their walls within a few hours. I've always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet.

Wael Ghonim: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/egypt-facebook-revo...

⬐ waitwhat

I don't dispute that Facebook played some part in the revolution, just whether the people whose revolution it was actually call it a Facebook Revolution.

Related anecdatum: I live in an ex-Soviet Republic. It is rare for someone here to actually say "The Foo Revolution"; instead people talk about "the early 90s" or "after independence".

(Also: your quote is taken from an interview with one of those foreign media organisations who had already decided that Facebook was the hook they were going to hang the story on.)

⬐ Confusion

Clean water is not fundamentally a scarce resource. Almost nothing is. The only actually scarce resource, and the one everything depends on, is energy. Given enough energy, we can clean all the water we want and distribute it anywhere we want. Given enough energy, we could recycle everything down to the smallest granule of rare earth metals. We would only get into trouble once we would be using all of the stuff at the same time, but then, given enough energy, we could mine the moon, asteroids, other planets. Given enough energy, everyone would be warm and fed, without any ecological problems, because we could clean all waste and recycle everything.

In the end, it all comes down to energy. If some countries would spend even a fraction of their defense budgets on solar, water, wind or fusion power research, we would be there in a jiffy. We could have had more energy than we could ever use by now. Our progress is much slower than it could be, because energy is kept scarce.

⬐ jonhendry

Um, no. You might as well say that scarcity of energy is the only thing between us and free ponies for everyone.

Even if energy were free, there'd still be the question of paying for the facilities to purify the water. The kinds of places where clean water is scarce now tend not to have much money, or much clout, with which to get such facilities built. More likely you'd get wealthy people wasting vaster quantities of clean water, while the poor remained without clean water despite the theoretically easy availability of the required water purification equipment.

⬐ Confusion

  You might as well say that scarcity of energy is the only 
  thing between us and free ponies for everyone.

That's exactly what I'm saying, with the caveat that it will take time to get to the situation where everyone can turn the energy into free ponies. As you rightly point out, there is infrastructure required to make use of the free energy. However, if you would have free energy, that infrastructure will get much cheaper. The richer will sponsor infrastructure for the poorer, as has started happening more and more. We are slowly but surely succeeding in improving the living conditions of the poorest. The component cost of energy in everything is not to be underestimated. If you could eliminate that, things would drastically change.

The energy is there for the picking, but no country or company is trying hard enough. And why should they? What would they gain? That's the problem.

⬐ ColdAsIce

"On the other hand, it allows quicker and easier communication than ever before, and contributed to the Arab Spring to the point where the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are known as "the Facebook revolutions""

From an interview by an 17 year old Tunisian protester when asked how did social media influence the protesters actions:

"Only after we organized and burned down a third of the police stations in less than a day, foreign media asked us about these social media networks. By then it was already to late to use them, they where shut down. We kept burning the remaining police stations."

⬐ skore

Wow, that's quite a straw man you have there.

Washing machines are tools. Facebook is a platform. If Mr. Moglen was attacking the postal service or mobile phones, you'd have a point. But he is talking about a centralized service that gives unprecedented power to the ones in control of the service and the jurisdictions it falls under.

I can stand in front of my washing machine and say, with total clarity, that I'm the only one in charge of it at that time. If I had a facebook account, there would be no such thing. And that doesn't even get to Mr. Moglens deeper point - that usage of facebook spreads the problem into your social graph.

As for the "facebook revolutions" you cite - that's quite a rosy picture you paint there. In reality, those services were used to track protesters and there have been coordinating handouts urging participants not to use social media for that reason. Furthermore, after these 'revolutions' have cooled down, it's still unclear what we will end up with. I would conclude that at most, those services served as catalysts and their convenience came at quite a cost indeed. But it's not Arab Youth + Facebook = Functioning Democracy.

⬐ nl

My response is far from a strawman.

Moglen pointed out all the problems with Facebook (and Twitter) without showing the benefits.

⬐ skore

So you say it's not a straw man. Maybe you have some more words left to explain yourself on that point?

He was asked for the problems. It's not his job to advertise social networking services.

One of the big figures of Software Freedom is asked about the drawbacks of social networking services and you start your argument with saying that he doesn't talk about the benefits. And then you compare the drawbacks to the ecological damage of washing machines (with the recent advances in efficiency, nobody is making as strong a point against them as you are trying to force). Nope, sorry, that's a straw man. And a very weak one at that.

I think if anything, having those three big issues out there (privacy violations, tracking by government, careless spreading of the two into the social graph), Mr. Moglen would be correct to say that the cost is already too great to be weighed against with any benefits.

⬐ pingswept

> Maybe you have some more words left to explain yourself on that point?

You could make the same point more civilly.

⬐ skore

I apologize for being slightly uncivil (although I saw it as stating my question deliberately terse), but "it's not a straw man" isn't really a good response against a claim that your argument is a straw man, don't you think?

⬐ pingswept

Apology accepted. I do agree that "it's not a straw man" is a weak rebuttal, but that's more reason to keep the tone civil-- so that people will argue with you sensibly.

⬐ nl

A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.

I don't think I misrepresented Moglen's position in anyway. He only spoke about the negative aspects of social networking, but nothing about the conveniences. Argument by analogy isn't a strawman.

I agree that recent advances in washing machines have improved them, and that the environmental impact of them is far outweighed by the convenience.

Indeed, that is my point.

For me - and many others - the convenience and advantages of social networking outweighs the costs. I make that decision in full knowledge of those costs, and I think it is fair to point out that there are advantages as well as costs.

⬐ skore

Mr. Moglen is well known to speak against and was asked to comment on the drawbacks of social networks. You are attacking a straw man if you complain that he isn't talking about the benefits.

    Person A: Sunny days are good.
    Person B: If all days were sunny, we'd never have rain, and without rain, we'd have famine and death. Therefore, you are wrong.
    Problem: B has misrepresented A's claim by falsely suggesting that A claimed that only sunny days are good, and then B refuted the misrepresented version of the claim, rather than refuting A's original assertion.

You are picking a discussion that Mr. Moglen was not having.

The benefits of social networks are self evident - they enable communication in an unprecedented way. His argument is that the drawbacks he is talking about are unnecessary and dangerous and that some of the technology may seem useful, but is actually just thinly disguised non-social behavior ("keeping up" with somebody may border on "stalking"). You have not addressed any of his arguments while complaining that he didn't address points that nobody was discussing to begin with.

So yes, one more, final, time - your argument is a straw man.

⬐ kelnos

Except that Moglen is effectively saying that it would be good if every day was a sunny day. He's taking the absolutist position that social networks are always bad and anyone who uses them is a part of the problem.

⬐ skore

'effectively' being the key word here. You are estimating this to be his position, but it is not.

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1349229 "Diaspora team takes on Eben Moglen as informal advisor"

⬐ nl

A nuanced position is exactly my point.

In this article he only presents the negatives.

⬐ nl

Wait - so I'm not allowed to attack omissions in his arguments?

That's like saying when Rick Santorum points out what he sees as problems with gay marriage no one can point out the benefits because it is a strawman.

That's ridiculous!

⬐ skore

Alright, this is moving quickly into troll territory. One final reply:

The premise of the article we are discussing was this:

"My editor wanted a quote from a privacy advocate, so I immediately thought of Eben “Spying for Free” Moglen, a militant digital privacy advocate, founder of the uber-secure personal server FreedomBox, and the inspiration for the decentralized social network Diaspora."

Eben Moglen was asked for his statement as a privacy advocate. There is nothing to be said about facebook in terms of being a privacy advocate. Except for maybe "sure wish they'd try some!". And that's the end of your argument right there.

Eben Moglen argues that facebook is bad because of the gross privacy violations it institutionalized. His argument is perfectly sound and coherent and doesn't need any forced "balancing" to be valid. He is not omitting any facts to make his argument.

You are welcome to argue against it, but you have instead chosen to act as though his argument is moot because he didn't make yours. That's not how arguments work.

Your 'Rick Santorum' point boggles the mind. Rick Santorum is not attacking a straw man, he is stating his honest, if misguided, beliefs. You could now attack a point completely unrelated or only superficially related to his rants about gay marriage and that would be a straw man. You could also, however, argue for or against his points with your own argument.

⬐ nl

Rick Santorum is not attacking a straw man, he is stating his honest, if misguided, beliefs.

Moglen is not attacking a straw man, he is stating his honest, if misguided, beliefs.

You could now attack a point completely unrelated or only superficially related to his rants about gay marriage and that would be a straw man. You could also, however, argue for or against his points with your own argument.

This is true. Additionally, one could point out the good things about gay marriage. That's a perfectly reasonable approach.

Specific to the Moglen argument, it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to argue against his points because I agree with a lot of them. However, I think the benefits are more important and I won't sit still and let only one side of the argument be presented.

How would you suggest I should present benefits of social networking without you calling me a troll or saying my argument is a strawman?

⬐ pessimizer

Probably under an article talking about some specific benefit of social networking. Hopefully no one will be enraged by your only analyzing the truth of that benefit there, rather than recounting everything terrible about social networking that went unmentioned.

When you respond to a Santorum argument about the terrible things about gay marriage with a list of good things about gay marriage, you have accepted his arguments as true, and started a new discussion.

⬐ skore

Moglen is not attacking a straw man, he is stating his honest, if misguided, beliefs.

Seems like you finally got it! (Although I disagree that his beliefs are misguided.)

Moglen was stating his beliefs because he was asked for them. You created a straw man to argue against them.

You could have just said "I agree with Mr. Moglen on points X-Z, but I would like to weigh them against the benefits of social networks" - and then do that. That would clearly mark that you are opening your own line of reasoning instead of trying to forcibly claim them on the OP. Then, we could have that discussion together.

You must understand - I did not take exception to you trying to start that discussion, but it's a cheap shot to say that Mr. Moglen was the one who should have done so. It's perfectly reasonable to stand up for your own arguments without forcing them on another person. It was a particularly cheap shot because you did not offer anything in line with your argument except the washing machine argument which I found very weak for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

⬐ nl

You could have just said "I agree with Mr. Moglen on points X-Z, but I would like to weigh them against the benefits of social networks" - and then do that. That would clearly mark that you are opening your own line of reasoning instead of trying to forcibly claim them on the OP. Then, we could have that discussion together.

There are an infinite number of ways I could have responded, but I deliberately chose to use an analogy, and to express my anger about how Moglen presented a 100% negative view. I understand why you say that he didn't need to express anything positive about social networking, and I disagree. To me, one should always attempt to give an honest view on any subject. Moglen's 100% negative views are either wrong or dishonest. That make me angry.

Show me where I misrepresented Moglen's views in anyway. That's the definition of a strawman, and I object most strongly to your claim that I used one. Nor do I troll, take cheap shots or resort to personal attacks.

⬐ skore

Eben Moglen was asked "What's so bad about Social Networks?". Then he talked about what he thinks is bad about social networks.

You say: "His argument isn't valid because he isn't talking about what is good about social networks".

Instead of addressing what he did talk about, you chose to talk about something he did not. And that's the definition of a straw man:

to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition

"What is bad about social networks?" != "Can you provide a balanced picture of social networks?"

The fact that you have not given a single word to actually discussing his statements (Oh, because you agree? Hmm...), except defending your initial argument (based on the olde and extremely valuable "because!"), actually not even responding to my critique of that argument, shows that you are not interested in the discussion, you are only interested in being right. You've made a mistake in your understanding of the article and made a bad argument against it that I and others clearly saw for what it is. Get over it.

Actually, I don't know why I bother anymore. If what I (and a couple other commenters) have said before doesn't convince you, I reckon nothing will.