Why we have to start living more like the Na'vi now

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Aquaplant

Hey, you are supposed to be the idealist here!

I am only in a certain aspect - in that I say that there needs to be deep cultural change. Jevons Paradox is IMO not an inevitability, it only is so in the context of a culture that resides on the paradigms of progress and growth as the basis for its existence. People in this culture prefer growth and progress over stability. Stability is even sort of a bad word now, because it has the connotation of something static and boring. But in a culture that values growth over all, it is inevitable that increases in efficiency end up powering more growth and progress instead of reducing consumption. In a different culture that has at its root things like preservation, sustainability and caretaking, an incerase in efficiency might actually lead to a true reduction in consumption while just maintaining what is or even having some slow growth.

But candles are so nice....have you ever calculated if it would be more environmental friendly to use candles as a light source instead of your average light bulb, halogen or what have you. I think the manufacturing of the bulbs in itself is the process most hazardous

I never calculated that. Calculations like that are extremely complicated, because something like a fluorescent light bulb or a LED is a product of a highly fractured, complex industrial machinery. To factor all this in to the right porportion - from the metals used, the minerals needed for that metal, the mining used for that, the oil used in mining and the coal used in smeltering, the electricity used in production, the coal mined for the electricity, the water use of these industries, the social impacts and the lot... you see what I mean, it gets out of hand very quiickly and many of the things associated are not quantifyable in money anyways. Of course to have as much light as with a fluorescent lightbulb you'd need many candles and the consumption would be horrific. And in the end, unless you get the candles from beeswax, even that process costs resources without end. Certainly to use a single beeswax candle to read a book is much more sustainable than even the most efficient light bulb that still depends on all kinds of industrial processes and nonrenewable resources - even if it allows for much more light

I think this is the kind vanity that I would be guilty of if given the possibility to do so, but at least I acknowledge that fault within myself. Lights are very pretty at times

Of course. That is why I said that this also has some value. Nowadays we can with the same energy have bright lights during dark nights where our ancestors had a candle. But fact is that overall we use a lot more energy than in the past, despite (or because of) increasing energy efficiency in part

The scale of consumption though is not always that linear. For example, the power consumption of fancy LEDs used in casemodding usually use but a fraction of the energy the entire system uses.

Yes but before the computer system did not use any power to create fancy lights. Ok maybe the power-led

I currently have a computer that is fully awesome, and it uses as much power idle as the old 2004 variant that is on the same desk as backup computer. The computing powers aren't even comparable due to the laughable scaling and whatnot, and my main computer still uses less power while still doing loads of more stuff.

And while I am guilty of getting performance at the cost of power consumption, it is because I need it

I did not quite understand the first part, but I think what happens a lot is that people will rather buy a computer that uses more power in total than one that consumes less but only has the capabilities of one that existed 10 years ago. This is because one wants to play 3D high resolution games or do crazy 3D modelling or edit large photos. Mostly the first one though I guess. The extreme alternative would be to reduce consumption extremely. One certainly can now play PacMan on a microprocessor that uses just the energy from a small solar cell instead of needing a C64 computer.
Lately I see some hope in that people start to put more value to energy consumption because they want mobile devices and battery capacity is limited. If battery capacity goes up again, I am sure so will energy consumption by these devices as a tradeoff to vastly increased computational capacity.

And while you are once again correct, we both know the problem is inherent in the system itself, that encourages and forces this kind of behaviour.

Yes sure. And I think that this "system" is based on a culture of growth and progress at all costs which is killing the planet. Capitalism, Jevons Paradox and all the lot are things that come from that foundation of the cultural narrative that describes members of industrial human nations as infinitely innovative and progress as unidirectional and ever increasing. The money system with interest is based on growth as is the whole financial industry but also technology is drawn into that spiral. People cherish "Moores Law" that predicts exponential growth of computational power because growth is always good, just the costs have to be reduced. But in so many cases over and over again, the costs have decreased less strongly than the growth of that sector. I just read that while computational power increases every 18 months, it takes 20 months to halve the energy consumption per operation. This means that if one makes full use of the capabilities of Moores law and uses the new computational capabilities, overall the total energy consumption has to rise. This is no inevitability for individuals, but for society as a whole I think it is true that energy consumption by computer devices has risen strongly over the past years, in part because they have gotten more efficient and thus much mor ubiquotous.