Obviously, I am not going to waste my time (1h39m), so a short written precis may be more appropriate.

> Even at 37% of electricity consumption there's no reason to believe that it's "the most profitable"

Given that business rates for electricity is usually lower than residential rates, there is no reason it would not be, but whatever. There was no reason for you to make an unsubstantiated claim however.

Anyway, I am all in favour of solar energy. I only expect there will be some disruption due to the transition.

It's not a concept I made up - check out The Utility Death Spiral for more.

You said:

> Residential power is only 22% of US electricity consumption, it isn't the most profitable part.

If you are being snarky, it helps to be right:

> The residential sector accounts for about 21% of total U.S. energy consumption.

Energy is not the same as electricity.

Also the EPA disagrees with you lol.

Lastly, your "source" says nothing about profitability.

0/3 lol

If you were to actually google China, "renewable"

> According to the NEA report, China's installed renewable generation capacity totaled 1,063 GW in 2021, accounting for 44.8% of the nation's total generation capacity. There is typically a difference in installed capacity and actual power generation due to the intermittency of renewables.

> Residential power is only 22% of US electricity consumption, it isn't the most profitable part.

Source?

You have not addressed any of my points, and in particular the fixed cost of maintaining the grid, and how energy companies will maintain profitability when their most profitable customers are defecting without raising prices for others.

> But I guarantee you you still have a battery.

Really?

> Not every solar power system has a solar battery attached. In fact, only about 4% of residential solar installations had a battery backup.

Enough said. I will not address anything else, since you did not provide any sources.

I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt and just imagine you suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Firstly, you can use the power when its available in the day, such as to run your aircon, washing machine, fridge and ev charger.

Secondly the excess you can sell to the grid, and use normal grid electricity in the evening like everyone else.

Most solar installations do not have batteries.

Firstly, you don't need a battery to use solar, and the CO2 payback for solar panels is less than 2-3 years, and constantly falling as the grid in China becomes more renewable. They also last 25 years+, meaning they save 23 years of carbon emissions.

In addition, batteries only add a few years to the equation, and then you do have power when there is no sun.

Are you ill-informed or paid to spread nonsense on the internet?

This is going to become a big issue, as the more well-off will be reducing their payments to the electrical grid system, meaning the poorer people will have to bear a greater and greater share of the fixed cost of the system.

As grid price rises to compensate more and more well-off people will be incentivised to get their own solar and batteries.

People who live in low-density suburban housing in particular will benefit a lot more from solar energy than people who live in high density urban areas.

Then with the rise in EVs (again favouring the well-off who buy new cars) those with solar will basically drive for free also.

Interestingly in Australia (where 1/3 of homes have solar), most solar is installed in below average income areas.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/rooftop-solar-uptake-still-highest-in-low-income-australia-63263/

Probably because the initial investment is much lower and the return more obvious. Apparently the payback time for solar is only 4 years in Austalia, while its often decade in USA.

> Also, I’m not American.

So you think this is a uniquely US problem? In UK they are about to cancel HS2 high speed rail because cost spiralled to more than £100 billion

Tell me which country you are in, and I will look up your local figures.

> Also, of course cities and countries will consider the negative externalities and the effect on tax revenues… what do you think their job is?

No, they look at their budget, and what they have to spend now lol. You live in a fantasy world, especially when it comes to developing economies.

So you are in Portugal:

> In February 2009, the government of Portugal announced plans to build a high-speed rail line from Lisbon to Madrid; this plan was cancelled in March 2012 amidst a bailout programme of financial assistance to the Portuguese Republic.[1] The project was valued at €7.8 billion and the government had claimed it would create 100,000 jobs.[2] The line would link to Spain's Southwest Corridor.

Lol

In Portugal the government spends more than 200,000 Euro per mile on rail track per year.

In Portugal the government spends around 70,000 Euro per km on roads.

> In some other countries (i.e. Austria, Croatia, The Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and Japan) the infrastructure costs are significantly above € 40,000 per kilometre road network. In Portugal and Croatia, the large-scale investment programmes in the 1990s and the first decade of this century largely explains the high cost levels

https://cedelft.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/CE_Delft_4K83_Overview_transport_infrastructure_expenditures_costs_Final.pdf

> And especially so when taking into account the negative externalities that road construction, maintenance and individual transport creates and also the opportunity cost of not having denser living spaces (which increases tax revenues).

Ignoring whether these things are real or not, do you actually think anyone will care?

> Those numbers are completely incorrect lol.

You swallowed too much propaganda.

> In the United States, most recent and in-progress light-rail lines cost more than $100 million per mile. Two light-rail extensions in Minneapolis, the Blue Line Extension and the Southwest LRT, cost $120 million and $130 million per mile, respectively. Dallas’ Orange Line light rail, 14 miles long, cost somewhere between $1.3 billion and $1.8 billion. Portland’s Orange Line cost about $200 million per mile. Houston’s Green and Purple Lines together cost $1.3 billion for about 10 miles of light rail.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-26/the-u-s-gets-less-subway-for-its-money-than-its-peers

For roads:

> New Construction 2 Lane Undivided Urban Arterial with 4' Bike Lanes: U01 $4,285,161.73

https://www.fdot.gov/programmanagement/estimates/documents/costpermilemodelsreports

That's $4 million vs $100 million btw.

People have been lying to you, and you have swallowed it up.

> Road construction and maintenance is much more expensive than public transport infrastructure, so don’t tell me they don’t have the money to pour into these projects.

This is 100% wrong and I have no idea where you got this idea.

Train tracks are about 10-100x as costly as roads per mile, and running PT is much more expensive than maintaining roads.

For exactly this reason you will not see massive investment in PT.

The carfucky people are jokes. Do you even know what transport is like in much of Africa - its private, not public, busses and shared taxis. When people can use their own transport they prefer it, and its much safer.

How exactly do you expect this PT revolution to evolve lol.

> It makes no sense for the poorer ones to adopt outdated and inefficient technology.

Yes, they will jump straight to EVs lol.

> India and Africa are making huge investments into renewables from the get go, they’ll probably skip the car inferno rich countries have and jump straight to public transport.

Look at India lol. Look at China lol.

> jump straight to public transport.

Hahahahahaha hahahaha

Lol. Imagine thinking public transport is progress.

That sounds like nonsense since silicon has been perfectly fine for emulating many bits of human intelligence.

> Less people will be driving.

You know as Africa becomes richer and doubles in population more people will be driving, right?

Amazon has introduced a new robot called Sparrow which will help them overcome their worker shortage and take on a new role in warehouses - bin picking. Previously robots could only move bins around, and Amazon relied on humans to pick them.

> The system — as with its predecessors is an off-the-shelf Fanuc system customized with Amazon hardware and software. The former is a hydraulic-based suction system capable of lifting objects at a variety of weights.

> The latter utilizes sensors to identify the items based on a variety of different inputs, including size, shape and bar codes. An Amazon spokesperson claims the system is able to identify around 65% of the company’s entire product inventory.

Here is a gif of it in action.

Good question. Here is a gif of it in action.

A bit more info than in the press release:

> The system — as with its predecessors is an off-the-shelf Fanuc system customized with Amazon hardware and software. The former is a hydraulic-based suction system capable of lifting objects at a variety of weights.

> The latter utilizes sensors to identify the items based on a variety of different inputs, including size, shape and bar codes. An Amazon spokesperson claims the system is able to identify around 65% of the company’s entire product inventory.

If they are nice they would slow down the clock tick for everyone.

Unless you run slower than real-time.

This is 100% true lol. This could be the Bad Place lol.

> it will be the supreme intelligence in the universe. It will be incomprehensibly intelligent beyond what either me you or anyone can understand.

This is funny, because it sounds like a description of God.

So imagine an ASI is in charge, directing all events, but subtly, as an ASI could.

Then the whole world could be the same, and we could say "This is how it's meant to be, how ASI intended", just like now lol.

Migrating to a digital world will make us immensely vulnerable as a species. An AGI might just decide to switch us off for example.

Also when you are digital you can never really die, whether you wish to or not. There would always be a back-up somewhere, and you could be re-instated and manipulated, not to mention tortured, at will.

In conclusion, going digital is very dangerous.