somervta comments on Rationality Quotes March 2013 - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 02 March 2013 10:45AM

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Comment author: jsbennett86 02 March 2013 04:31:22AM 33 points [-]

On the presentation of science in the news:

It's not that clean energy will never happen -- it totally will. It's just that it won't come from a wild-haired scientist running out of his basement screaming, "Eureka! I've discovered how to get limitless clean energy from common seawater!" Instead, it will come from thousands of scientists publishing unreadable studies with titles like "Assessing Effectiveness and Costs of Asymmetrical Methods of Beryllium Containment in Gen 4 Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors When Factoring for Cromulence Decay." The world will be saved by a series of boring, incremental advances that chip away at those technical challenges one tedious step at a time.

But nobody wants to read about that in their morning Web browsing. We want to read that while we were sleeping, some unlikely hero saved the world. Or at least cured cancer.

David Wong — 5 Easy Ways to Spot a BS News Story on the Internet

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 March 2013 07:48:59PM 13 points [-]

I don't understand why we can't simply build an LFTR. I can't find anything online about why we can't just build an LFTR. I get the serious impression that what we need here is like 0.1 wild-haired scientists, 3 wild-haired nuclear engineers, 40 normal nuclear engineers, and sane politicians. And that China has sane politicians but for some reason can't produce, find, or hire the sort of wild-haired engineers who just went ahead and built a molten-salt thorium reactor at Oak Ridge in the 1960s.

Comment author: somervta 03 March 2013 02:19:20AM *  5 points [-]

Well, that very same Cracked article has this to say:

So if you actually Google the subject of the clean energy link above (in this case, thorium nuclear reactors) instead of, say, instantly forwarding it to all of your friends, you will be immediately kicked in the balls by Wikipedia's giant wall of text describing the many problems with the technology.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LFTR#Disadvantages" Interestingly, that same wiki page possible solutions to most of the disadvantages Personally, I think the biggest reason is that Carter stopped the research decades ago, so there are no actual examples of the technology to evaluate. People thereby assume that because no-one is doing it, it must not be worthwhile.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 March 2013 04:36:06PM 8 points [-]

Those are not very impressive disadvantages.

Comment author: Sengachi 03 March 2013 11:32:53PM 6 points [-]

So far as I can tell, the only insurmountable disadvantage is that you can't use a Thorium reactor to make nuclear bombs. Wait, did I say disadvantage? I meant advantage. Or, well ... are you a politician or an average person? That'll make the difference between advantage and disadvantage.

Comment author: Desrtopa 04 March 2013 12:08:23PM *  11 points [-]

Considering that politicians get ahead by gaining the approval of their constituents, I'd think that now that America is no longer in an arms race, a politician could probably get ahead by proclaiming support for sustainable nuclear energy which does not have a chance of producing weapons.

Except for where that would mean announcing support for nuclear energy.

Comment author: MLS 05 March 2013 04:10:49AM 11 points [-]

"Or, well..."

Was that subtle framing intentional?

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