Notices by Timo Tiuraniemi (ttiurani@fosstodon.org)

Buying green is good sometimes. Not buying at all is better most of the time.

#degrowth #heuristic

November has been rough for me. Terrible international news, stress at work and almost no sunlight in Helsinki has been a lot handle.

Then I got ill but tried to get back to work too early, and it was all too much.

I've now had to block all news and social media from Thu to Sun with the great Freedom.to app (the only SaaS I pay for). It has helped, and I've for example read a lot of fiction again.

Unfortunately, it means less time on Mastodon. But I'm still here!

P.s. Hello new followers!

@aral Hmm, doesn't seem to be open source? Their github at least looks outdated and can't find a link anywhere else either on their site.

@aral We're going to hear capitalism is the "worst economic system, except for all the others" from the people on the winning side of global exploitation and destruction until there are are no more people to exploit and nature to destroy.

That is, unless we get them to admit they actually know of only a couple of alternatives and that there is no limit to the different ways we could structure our economy if we just used our imagination.

@tio @aral

I probably misunderstood, but replied to this:

"no one can live on this planet without trading.... you can't be a good human being, do good thing, and survive."

which I understand to argue that no one on the planet can be a good human being and survive at the same time?

There are both (indigenous) people living directly off the land, and people within societies consuming very little, but still enough to not only survive but also have a good life.

So "no one" is not true.

@tio @aral

I don't believe this is true.

We are heterotrophs and need to consume other life to survive. However, that doesn't mean we must consume more than what nature can regenerate. There are hundreds of millions of people living in harmony with nature, doing good things, right now.

In fact, we can also feed 10 billion people sustainably:

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-feed-10-billion-people

The problem ofc is that our societies, especially in the Global North, actively prevent this.

Let's change them.

This wonderful talk by @kathhayhoe gives good insights on why just telling people the facts will not stop #ClimateChange.

The goal for today (especially in the Global North) isn't to get everyone worried – a big majority of people already are. The goal is to change that worry into action.

To do that, more emphasis is needed on what (personally relevant) better future people should fight for, instead of what they should stop doing to prevent harm.

https://www.yewtu.be/watch?v=ZDIse6LJGZM&t=1386s

Tell me again that the only ecological problem we need to focus on is too much greenhouse gases.

Explain to me how nuclear energy is The Solution.

Convince me that rich countries can keep consuming exponentially more every year, if we just make sure that consumption is "green".

Give me your optimistic take on how electrification, digitalization, fusion energy and/or "AI" will both prevent #EarthBreakdown and save capitalism.

I dare you.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

@gwensnyder

To those hopeful that #BlueSky is the answer, Jack Dorsey in full agreement with Musk's plan to remove blocking is crucial to know.

Jumping from one billionaire's playground to another is not the way – especially when the two billionaires are good chums.

@hrefna @maegul @aral

There's a difference between resource efficiency wrt scaling up vs a constant (small) scale.

What the fediverse could use (as you highlighted) is a resource-efficient server for small-to-medium scale, think max a few hundred users. While the official Rails app has problem, what Red Planet Labs has built is a JVM server that runs Clojure. That by design comes with a large memory footprint, which is not resource efficient if you don't have enough use for it.

@hrefna @maegul @aral

Again, the official Rails app isn't good, but I'd be very surprised if this is operationally anywhere close to optimal for the small-to-medium scale. If you build for Twitter-scale, you will make decisions that will almost certainly hurt small scale.

And Clojure relies *heavily* on the GC. Using it is not a good way to build low memory JVM servers.

@hrefna @maegul @aral

Fosstodon is *way* too big. Looking into the future, fediverse ought not optimise for that scale.

No JVM GC, including G1, works without a noticeable memory overhead. That directly contributes to the total memory requirements of the server, and it does make a difference that it's by default higher than needed. As you said, there are a bunch of other things on that server as well that use memory.

@hrefna @maegul @aral

Yes, I'm also interested in the actual numbers and operational complexity.

Personally, for the reasons outlined above, I'd be very surprised that the result will be anywhere close to an optimally resource-efficient and cost-efficient solution to host a server for a small group.

Better than Rails, definitely.

So good that the pros outweigh the cons of making an Big Tech scalable Mastodon server? I'm doubtful.

@aral @73ms Indeed, I still get Aral's toots fine.

But still, really want to know what happened here with the silencing. @kev ?

Reminder that we know how to cut emissions fast:

"Demand-side measures and new ways of end-use service provision can reduce global GHG emissions in end-use sectors by 40–70% by 2050 compared to baseline scenarios, while some regions and socioeconomic groups require additional energy and resources. Demand-side mitigation response options are consistent with improving basic well-being for all. (high confidence)"

#ThrowbackThursday #IPCC #AR6

C.10 from https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf