I used to work for a supplier for Aldi Aus. They used to treat suppliers really well while they were in the growing stage. Once growth slowed they relied on the manufacturer to take up more of the pricing slack.
It is all about price and nothing else, never once where they really concerned about quality of the product. If they could have products cheaper than Coles/Woolworths they would do it regardless of how many short cuts where taken to get there. Thus you could have something like yogurt that was $1 cheaper but tasted like glue.
No price shock but you would definitely notice the quality issue once you got home.
Funnily enough Aldi aus did a study a few years back and noted that people will cut food costs before they cut entertainment. It was aimed at Coles and Woolworths to highlight that when things get rough they would flock to Aldi. Looking at their shelves recently, provided the supply chain is still running ok, it might have been true.
That point about cutting back on food before entertainment definitely rings true. Back when I first moved out of home I'd do EXACTLY that - huge TV, games consoles, flashy computer etc but also eating 2 minute noodles, and chickpeas or eggs for a lot of meals and occasionally a chicken fillet as a treat.
Another way to see it is that while we are so small and irrelevant - enjoy the fact that we are irrelevant and yet we get all this.
Add to this the scale of time - just remember that in 500 million years after all evidence of us is long, long, LONG gone that the clouds will still form and the waves will still crash on the shore.
That we are here and potentially meaningless isn't something to fear, it is something to cherish.
I see it the other way around - we are the only thing that is relevant, and the rest of the universe isn’t. Yes, it is big (to put it mildly) and hostile, and some people feel that thinking about it is somehow “liberating,” which, in fact, is merely a fleeting illusion, because the excitement quickly passes as soon as you go back to your daily minutia and have to continue to put up with all the bullshit and what not that’s happening around you. (The thought of the impending death may be just as “liberating” except that it’s not and never has been. You simply go through you daily routine until, say, you get sick and die. That’s it.)
The daily routine until you get sick and die - that is true but there is something special in that in that it is just the way we are. Why should we expect anything more?
If that cloud were conscious the way you and I are, it would probably be amazed that so much complexity could be compacted into such a tiny space as your brain, our world, teeming with equally complex life and intricate webs of interdependent systems to keep our little bundle of life running must be amazingly interesting to galaxy-sized systems such as that, although I bet it would be terrified of being compressed into such a finite size.
I like that people are seeing this as 8 years from now when the original bet was from 2003. That there is still a reasonable chance that this could happen by 2030 and by that point was predicted 27 years in advanced. It will just add to the Carmack myth if it goes well.
Personally I'm not sure we will see it but there is nothing that jumps out and says that it is impossible at the same time. 8 years ago I would have said it was a no brainer that we would be there, nowadays not so much. It feels like with a lot of things, the last 10% takes 90% of the time.
I have no candle in the game and am an arm chair speculator at best, but it is fun to wonder.
Let just agree to reconvene on this in 8 years time. It isn't that far away.
Wait where did that “original bet was from 2003” fact come from? Atwood’s post doesn’t mention 2003 at all, and looking at Carmack’s twitter thread didn’t bring anything up for me either.
There are four stages of identifying and use of a resource.
Theoretical quantity - That would be the 20ppm as you said. Based on knowledge and estimates.
Identified reserves - How much of this stuff do we actually know about and is in a suffciently enough pooled ___location. This would be less than the 20ppm - how much less is a different question.
Technically available - How much of the known resource could we actually extract? It is ok if we know about it but if it is 10KM below a lake, could we get to it?
The most important stage after those three - Economic availability. Can we actually afford it and have people pay for it?
The argument from absurdity I use on this one is that there is effectively near infinite clean energy in the form of hydrogen in the sun. No one owns it - now go get it! The technical and economic scale ruins the argument a fair bit.
I'm not even arguing against lithium here, it seems to be more output restricted than resource limited. The two elements in batteries I worry about is Cobalt and Nickle - they could become the weakness. That said it does look like some folks are working on some neat alternatives in that space.
Although it is still an issue. While the resource is everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a specific vulnerable position.
Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.
