Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | thendrill's commentslogin

You think the planet is gonna run out of oil before it runs out of water.... interesting.

I don't get your point. The planet will not realistically run out of either. The water price goes up, then soler + desal becomes more cost effective, then people get to use the material that covers 75% of the planet's surface a bit more. Similarly, when oil gets more limited the price goes up and the planet gets to keep its oil while people stop being able to afford burning more of it. Or perhaps this was exactly your point.

How does the planet run out of water?

> How does the planet run out of water?

By draining aquifers, for one:

* https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06879-8

* https://unu.edu/inweh/news/world-enters-era-of-global-water-...

Certain desalination exists, but can get expensive and energy-intensive (and they it may be necessary to transport the fresh water great distances).


OK I see, thank you. The idea of "the planet running out of water" confused me.

The planet will never run out of oil, because people will always run out of money for it first.

Refinery capacity is the bottleneck, there are only ~420 of them that remain [1] globally. We won't run out of oil, we will run out of refineries as they slowly close over the next 10-15 years. No new ones will be built, out of stranded asset risk. The more painful oil is now, the faster permanent changes occur to destroy the future demand curve [2] [3]. An EV deployed today will last long into the future, while ICE combustion sales continue to decline.

China has destroyed oil import demand the equivalent of annual UK oil imports in the last six months, for example. Push those oil and diesel prices up, hold them up as long as possible. Several countries have banned internal combustion vehicle imports to push the needle on the EV trajectory (Ethiopia, Laos) because they are fossil fuel poor. Global EV sales have spiked, and already exceed 25% of total annual vehicles sales (~90M units/year) [4] [5]. We're just discussing how long until we reach tipping points that further accelerate the transition.

How much fossil supply chain infra must be impaired to further move the needle? Hard to say, excited to find out. Electrify or get wrecked. To not to is a choice.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49479229 (citations)

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647405 (citations)

[3] Gas car sales fell 40% in August in China [Charts] - https://carnewschina.com/2026/09/08/gas-car-sales-fell-40-in... - September 8th, 2026

[4] Global sales of combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 - https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/global-sales-of-com... - May 21st, 2026

[5] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales

(as of this comment, China has enough EV manufacturing capacity to satisfy global demand; they are currently export constrained and cannot ship fast enough to meet demand)


Saudi Arabian oil pipeline system hit by projectiles triggering fires - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661610 - September 2026

IEA warns global oil refining system ‘stretched to the limit’ as Iran, Ukraine wars tighten market - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/iran-war-oil-diesel-iea-horm... - September 11th, 2026

> The International Energy Agency has cut its 2026 global oil supply forecast by 6% as the Iran war drags on.

> It now expects global oil demand to fall by 2.5 million barrels per day this year.

> The energy agency also warned that shrinking inventories and strained refineries could further tighten markets.


For fuck sake nerds why do you overcomplicated everything.

Go to the hardware store, buy some tools and fix something on your car or house, or build a new wall or stairs or something... Or even simpler. Get a shovel Go dig a ditch and plant some trees...

Brainrot solved


I love how we pretend to live in a free democratic society where everyone is free to make up their own mind and vote for what they believe...

...as long as they don't have opinions that differ from ours, in that case we might punch em in the face...


You have freedom of speech to advocate for your politics. The rest of us have the freedom of association to not want to be involved with you in any way.

These are not contradictory - they are both essential freedoms.


And everyone is free to chose not to buy products from people who have opinions that differs fundamentally from their own?

And some opinions cannot be tolerated in a democratic society. An obvious example is anti-liberal/anti-democratic opinions as they threaten the system itself. You cannot have a free democratic society if a majority removes the freedoms of a minority.


> "punch em in the face"

Very weird interpretation of "voluntarily choose to not continue supporting them financially"

Presumably you want everyone to be forcibly compelled to finance the political parties they disagree with? And you would define this as a democratic society?


Punishing a company because someone does something in their free time with their own money ....


The guy owns half the company, so a significant part of the money I'm paying is involved. Yes, it is quite ethical to decide based on matters like that. It's not an employee or minor shareholder.


Not doing business with a company (for any reason btw) is not 'punishment'. Nobody is taking away anything from the company or any people involved with that company.


That's how markets work. People have the right to choose to do business, or not, based on whatever criteria they value.


For most people, the concern is the money, not the voting. People don't want wealthy people reshaping politics to fit their interests through their wealth. They can vote for whomever they want.


This sounds a bit irrational. Where does "wealthy" start? Mullvad co-CEO donated ~ $500K, would him donating $100K have the same effect? What about $10K? What if a Mullvad _employee_ donated $500K?


What about work in units of median annual household disposable income, which are at least somewhat responsive to the distribution of money?

What % do you think a reasonable voter should accept a person donating to a political campaign before it causes concern about the donor's influence vs the median household's voice?

Off the top of my head, I'd guess 500k USD is about 1000% / 10x median annual household disposable income in SE, which I think would give the median voter pause.

For what it's worth (my own view): I think about 10% (~5k USD) is obviously acceptable, and I expect most anyone would agree that donations at that level are fine. I think your proposed 1000% is obviously unacceptable, and I expect most people would agree with me on that as well.

I'm not sure exactly where the level is that opinion would flip, but I feel pretty confident about those boundaries.


A company shouldn't be able to fire an employee over their opinion,[0] so that wouldn't matter to me. For a major owner, the donation amount starts to matter to me around $5-10K, but YMMV.

[0] I suppose unless they have a very influential position and it's about a matter that contradicts main company goals


[flagged]


Oh, come on. If you're trying to make a point, be more clear.


What's wrong with choosing who you give your money to?

Is that somehow undemocratic?

Is anyone censoring the guy?


So far in this thread you’re the only one mentioning punching anyone in the face.


[flagged]


Surprised it took that long for a Godwin.


> in that case we might punch em in the face

Nobody is calling for violence though?

In a free democratic society nobody is forced to do business with anybody they don't agree with, and free speech means they can talk about their decision without fearing repercussion.


Everyone is free to make up their mind and vote for what they believe.

And if I disagree strongly enough then I am free to take my business elsewhere. Especially if the money I hand over might go to support speech and parties I fundamentally disagree with.

Freedom swings both ways, and freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from people thinking you're an asshole and not wanting anything to do with you. That's their freedom.


Haters will now say that the far right will destroy exactly that: "our" democracy. The Western morality is a joke, and many HN readers comment like an infant. I feel ashamed.


You must be real fun at parties ...


Do you mean the US of I?

Remember Snowden? Remmeber Assange? Remember Aaron Swartz? Remember the terrorizing of Occupy Wallstreet organizers? Remember the funding of terrorists all over Africa? Remember Libya? Remember who funded Isis?

Is that regime you are talking about?


It's really hard not that deep...

Video games and technology has always been spearheaded by "autistic" tendencies... There is a certain repetition that autistic people and people with adhd have. Most of those people are men...

Women were never excluded. They just never found much interest in it. Just like it is for chess or motor sports.


Chess is actually an incredibly good counter-example: The moment women’s chess clubs and teams started proliferating, women started participating much more. Chess had a “guy’s club” connotation to them, and women were effectively excluded because of that. No intentionally excluded, obviously, but effectively.


Soccer is a similar example.


It's both. Women were definitely excluded, especially in the 80s and 90s. Ads were a little....let's say a little focused on the male gaze: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1k3dre/game_boy_poc...

Games went very hard into the "shoot stuff" genre from get get-go (presumably in part because it's comparatively easy to design and make) and stayed there, and that's also a factor.

But ALSO, yes, the folks making games tended to be male, and so the target audience also tended to be male.

But on the other hand, as more games became available, and especially as mobile gaming on phones became possible, women quickly climbed back up to being about half of the gamers, so it was certainly never about any inherent differences in how much they'd like games so much as just what sort of games different people might like.


There's definitely some exclusion, but I'm still inclined to agree that interest is the larger determining factor.


The interest has been there just never promoted as a your welcome too. It has pleasantly been gate kept.

The early 90's was heavily painted pink and dolly for girls and camo & macho for the boys.


Israel is the greatest global security threat in history.

there ftfy..

The have nukes, commit genocide, extort foreign politicians, attack every neighboring country. Assasinate people all over the globe. Ignore every international law and convention. Also they are the only country compeletley exempt from the FIVEYE surveillance program.


Ever considered that they only attack the neighboring countries that attack them? They didn't strike Egypt or Jordan for that very simple reason.


Well I guess they should stop stealing lands from their neighbors...


Israel can't do all of that without the support of the West, and particularly the US, though.

Granted, that predates Trump, but he continues to enable it at an even greater scale than Biden did (and Biden enabled it a fuckin' lot.)


Well the epistine files proved that Israel has controlled every politician since the oslo accords (1994)..


I see alot of people get really confused between the act of writing code VS. programming...

Programming is willing the machine to do something... Writing code is just that writing code, yes sometimes you write code to make the machine do something and other times you write code just to write code ( for example refactoring, or splitting logic from presentation etc.)

Think about it like this... Everyone can write words. But writing words does not make you a book writer.

What always gets me is that the act of writing code by itself has no real value. Programming is what solves problems and brings value. Everyone can write code, not everyone can "program"....


Programming is writing code. There's nothing to confuse because that's what the word means.


Is it? I wouldn't consider punch cards writing code but they were certainly programming. Programming is a broader concept than code in a text file.


They're saying writing code is programming but not all programming is writing code. What is Scratch?


A graphical means of writing and manipulating a program.


Aka Claude Code.


This article makes an elephant out of a fly. The explonation is much simpler...

The microphone and communication protocols on Bluetooth is shit. Everyone that talks alot on the phone knows that the microphone one a wired headset is sooo much better than Bluetooth, simple as that. You hear better and they hear you better. That is it


So you think that engineers that maintain and write the FOSS that runs most of the world IT infrastructure ( Linux, Curl, GIT etc. ) do it for the returns ?


They don't, and as a result most don't get much if any.

For them to survive, they have to have got returns from somewhere - maybe welfare, inheritance, a day job. Someone has to have worried about the returns so they can be free from thinking about it.

And if you don't worry about returns, you will let someone extract it ruthlessly from you, that you contribute millions of value to a company that gives you nothing back. This may be fine to you at some level, but many of the people who you allow to exploit you use the resources they gain as leverage to further their selfish ends, like a certain richest man in the world who helped a certain politician buy an election at the most powerful country in the world.


No, that's exactly parent's point. The premise of the title can be read as "just create value, don't worry about monetizing, things will work out (financially)". Which is invalidated by FOSS


It isn’t. FOSS doesn’t just create value it gives it away for free usually in a not so friendly way to the point entire companies exist to streamline and support projects (eg redhat)


aren't most of them being payed by big corps? Redhat, Google, Microsoft... you name it.


I am pretty sure not most of them. In something like linux, that is the case, but I think there are so many other projects that barely receive financial or any other kind of support


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: