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40 points

I love this kind of shit. Building things for the sake of it is worth it. Not only as just expression, which may be hubris but it’s still expression. Also entertainment, inspiration, pushing the art of engineering, and just giving people something to do, and all the good that comes with that like personal and trade growth.

A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

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83 points

We can do that, but first let’s make sure everyone on the planet has clean water first.

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17 points

The money spent on this would not have been spent on giving clean water to people thousands of miles away

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35 points

Does this really make it any less worthy of criticism, though…?

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9 points

Is that where guillotines come in?

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5 points

Maybe it would’ve if governments taxed them properly and spent that money to save the planet

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1 point

So we might a well build some shit.

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30 points
2 points

Doesn’t flint still not have clean water?

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6 points

This is the equivalent of saying “Eat all your dinner cause there’s starving children in Africa”.

Sure, this sounds nice, but this logic falls apart the instant you start thinking about it.

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4 points

You sound like the people criticising NASA for spending money on science. “Who do X when Y is still an issue?”

I doubt you make that kind of prioritization with your own money.

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1 point

NASA also consistently provides new innovation and new science.

What will the dome keep contributing to society for the absurd electricity cost it takes to keep running? Advertisements?

Yeah, there not really the same argument.

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25 points

I understand that perspective, but does it really have to be advertising?

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3 points

I’d prefer if it weren’t. Though that’s not the only use for this thing.

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50 points

A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

Well, that hubris won’t afford you a livable world for much longer.

We could have respected the planet that birthed us, and taken only what we needed. Instead we extracted every natural resource we could find, and left behind countless shattered ecosystems. Even as the walls close in, we accelerate our pettiness and perform acts of wastefulness that alone do measurable ecological damage, and we celebrate it because it is “cool”.

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2 points

If this is something you feel strongly about, then please stop eating factory farmed meat and animal products if you havent already. It is something you personally can actually do. It helps, and it will genuinely make you feel better. You may not have much power, but using the power you do have to help the team you claim to be on instead of the other team is a massive step forward.

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10 points

Look, you’re not really wrong, but you get that this shit is why people get irritated with vegans right? We were talking about being wasteful with energy resources for the sake of capitalism and you came in with a lazy segue to animal rights and nutritional health.

It’s a conversation that we should be having, but it’s also insufferable to constantly be shoehorning it into every conversation.

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0 points

It helps,

no, it doesnt. despite the existence of vegans, meat production increases every year, year over year.

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12 points

This isn’t pushing any boundaries, though. This is off the shelf technology. Anybody can do something big by throwing a shit ton of money at it. It would be pushing boundaries of tech or art if it was for instance super power efficient, or mind bending in any way. This is a fucking sphere, it’s the simplest shape and a rip off of the pyramids but less original and not even comparable in terms of durability.

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2 points

Could it not be argued that building this thing now gives people a chance at looking at the power draw and attempting to make it super efficient? Like now people have a tool to test things on.

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3 points

They did mention that they are working on making 70% of this powered by solar panels. Maybe this will push forward solar technology in some way.

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3 points

It is absolutely pushing boundaries to be driving this many pixels at a frame rate that doesn’t take minutes to refresh. I build a lot of projects with addressable LEDs and the typical hobbyist stuff chokes out when you start trying to control more than a thousand or so. This thing has 256 million pixels inside and 1.2 million outside.

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4 points

Sure but we’re burning tons of coal to have this thing advertise minion movies, not anything artistic or worthwhile.

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-1 points

Worthwhile for who

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