1) "Water batteries" - highly efficient (far more than the 'chemical' you are apparently referring to) & responsive

2) Methods for using 'renewables' to produce &/ support production of chemical fuels - with the added draw / potential goal of 'closing' the 'carbon cycle'

As to #2, one of the ideals that has been kicked around for decades is to do something like: use 'renewables' to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into something like butanol, for example.

Now, last I was up-to-date on any of this sort of work (~10+ years ago), the economics were not favorable. Certain types of commodity chemical production with 'biological basis' (another type of renewable, typically) had much more favorable properties economically. And, indeed, you do see, for example, (thermo)plastic products made from chemicals like "PLA" increasingly. But, the "biofuels" concept is / was much more challenging, especially as "fracking" technology made great leaps etc.

Nuclear has its pros and cons - blanket disavowal is fatuous. Nevertheless, there are substantially more options, systems, technologies, etc. in development and production than are often discussed in too many of the pro-nuke(s) / no nuke(s) 'sniping' chains that have been prevalent in society & on the internet since I was a wee tyke myself.

It's a stitch in the bird is worth a pound of eggs off a duck's back, as everyone knows...*

* Courtesy of the excellent "Field Guide of Egregious Mixed Metonomies", soon to be published by Penguin Random House Simon Schuster Merriam Webster Britannica, I'm told

Kudos - excellent examination of implications / change of perspective / viewing from another angle.

The kind of thinking that, more seriously, really can be essential in developing insight(s) etc. ... and, finding (proofs by) contradiction(s) etc.

"Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it."

- Terry Pratchett

(from Thief of Time - a remarkable book, IMO)

* / Wen the eternally surprised

Nevertheless, the consonance of this 'weaker result' is still satisfying.

Bravo!

People like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are / were far closer to sound / faithful capitalists than most seem to be, lately:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/business/warren-buffett-c...

But, one can go further, IMO:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-020-04521-5

Those who stress the idea that "greed is good" set themselves (and, unfortunately, the rest of us, as well) up for misery and the kinds of instability / inequality / tightrope walk that may culminate in events like the Reign of Terror (one example that always comes to my mind, at least - a la Les Misérables, for example [but, so much more than 'just' that theatrical version of events]).

* ~3 hours ago - and, not a common thought at all for me (though thinking about economics in general is common)

https://eandt.theiet.org/2018/05/24/top-10-invasive-species-...

My favorite move, in God's** (actual) 4D chess game (playing off our ... tendencies, say), is when we try to introduce a species to get some benefit / value from it ...

https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/spongymothinwisconsin/history...

... then, think - "gee, that worked so well, let's introduce a different species to try and undo the damage!" ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/biological-control-b...

There are plenty of further examples where attempts to remove invasive species have backfired in other ways as well...

But, ya gotta admire that indefatigable optimism!

To be fair and try for a degree of accuracy, we have obviously benefited, in the short term, greatly from technology, engineering, science, etc. ... But, there are certain areas where we do have an abysmal track record. Just about anything abstractly related to the so-called "gray goo" scenario being a prime example. Just like that recursive function you're SURE is limited no matter preconditions ... that takes down one of the main university computer systems the first time it's run... (back in the ol' days when there were fewer 'protectives' [codpieces being out of style even at that time ;)])

* https://youtu.be/DJ976Eb31qw

** For a suitable value of "God" (i.e., insert whatever term you use for everything ... the universe, the matrix, whatever... the relative personification of that particular word works better here, I think)

Sorry for low content response, but, too good a joke to simply upvote, IMO

In any case, I think your response and multiple similar responses make the essential point(s). One of the useful 'results' from decades of R&D at trying to build machines (&/ "software" - may be considered another type of machine) has been 'seeing' the difficulty in practice at achieving capabilities we (and many other animals ... even, say, nematodes**) absolutely take for granted.

One of the old jokes I always associate with Groucho Marx is something like:

"Can you play the piano?" ... "I don't know, I've never tried"

It reminds me of how people often say "foreign languages are difficult" ... As though any "native language" is somehow different / easy / easier ... Entirely neglecting the tens of thousands of hours of experience and practice most people have with some "native language" by the time they're a mere 10 years old. AND, we all continue to "practice" whatever language we speak and think (to some degree) in every hour of every day.

It's all in what you put your time into, as you get at, as well. And, one particularly crucial aspect is what you believe about how skill "arises" which you reference as well. One of the greatest disservices to (young, especially) people is inculcating them with the idea of "talent." While most people are not likely capable of becoming, say, the top tennis player (male / female) in the world - there are all sorts of variables - too often people are artificially limited by nonsense that passes as "common wisdom" and permeates "culture" (ideas that just propagate from some people to others - here, especially, parents to children).

It's interesting, to me, that while my mom, for example, was an incredible "believer" in education, and had defied her own parents and exceeded the role(s) they envisioned for her by many orders of magnitude, she also would often reference "talent" in various contexts when I was growing up.

We are riddled with nonsense - in our heads. I know for sure that I'll always be full of internal inconsistencies and false beliefs and the like. But, it is very helpful to escape as many of them as possible. Particularly those that artificially constrain us - a species limited enough as-is.***

* Where symbols "Picasso" & "Hendrix" are understood / defined 'in the usual / obvious way' - in terms of equivalence in impact / fame / etc.

** See recent articles on mapping of "neural network" / nervous system structure of C. elegans, for example

*** I write this not to disparage our species but simply to highlight the fact that we are constrained just like all other species by our form(s) and what is optimized by the process of natural selection and such ...

I was too grabbed by some of the later description and just connected it somewhat haphazardly to not very organized or accurate info rattling around in my head from years ago.

Thanks for pointing that out!

I'm not sure where that might happen or be tolerated, today. If you go back and look at research into antibiotics, DNA, etc. back in the 1940s and 1950s ... and even research in the 1960s and 1970s, decades later, there ended up being serious questions around ethics, authorship, etc. for some really seminal papers, for example.

It's been decades since I looked at any of the details involved in any of the various types of reactors that have been designed. When I did, in the past, I hadn't even encountered concepts like "control theory" or spent any time with the subject matter of "systems engineering" or even "chemical engineering". I.e., areas where you start thinking about how to combine all of the different simple "laws"* and properties and such of energy and matter to create "robust" (ideally) or even just practical "systems".

Although I had read about the Chernobyl disaster, and "run-away" that occurred - the massive volumes of water being pumped in, partly as a result of such levels, at near boiling ... the steam voids, etc. I'm not entirely sure whether I really encountered the point about temperature and density, but, certainly, it didn't 'click' quite the way it did now when I read your description.

I love this kind of stuff - the "how it all fits together" from what can otherwise be these seemingly dry / 'dead' "laws" and such that can seem too simple / narrow / etc. to do much of use with - even if your teachers spend as much time as possible giving you homework questions etc. that certainly seem practice-oriented - but who gives a rat's-keister about whether comparing the weight of a duck to a putative witch might establish flammability and hence witchcraft when they're 15, right? ;)

* Simplified models describing various types of matter and physical processes - models that are valid (for some definition of ... as the mathematicians &/ Humpty-Dumpty [Alice in Wonderland / Lewis Carroll] might say) given certain assumptions / pre-conditions (on scale, frame of reference, etc.)

It's a complicated topic, biochemically / physiologically, however. Guidelines and recommendations have changed many times in the past couple of decades. With the scale of epidemiological data collection and specific studies carried out in recent years, conclusions are still rather "mixed".

There are many reasons to think, mechanistically, that aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) should come out "net positive" in its effects on human health. But, even some of the "prostaglandins", for example, can be important in endothelial function and health (in a positive way).

I will note that I haven't kept up with this topic much in at least 5 or so years, but, I can point to a couple of sources with some analysis / discussion that should be of use to most, I think:

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/aspirin-making-sense-cha...

https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recomme...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2791399

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-pharmtox-0...

I specifically remember concerns roughly 10+ years ago that some of the expected net benefits might, in fact, actually be net harms in the broader population - particularly for other NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), but, even, at some point not long thereafter, for "aspirin" as well. I may dig out that info if I get a chance to try to refresh, myself, and will comment again if / when I do.

I always think of Lewis Black's bit on this, though (while pointing out that this is the nature of science and its best to go with the best info available at any time, generally, IMO):

https://youtu.be/iRsTtzYhTxk?t=5m27s

I'd suggest it will depend on goals / scale - if not many are using, probably would be ignored even if bad actors were aware of it. If it started to have real effects, there'd undoubtedly be very intentional efforts to attack it. Beyond just the sporadic script kiddiez / for the lulz set ...

Edit: sorry, "app" - to potentially use the app in some malicious way ... Not sure my comment is so useful, but, I'll leave it since it's unfortunately all too easy to end up with unintended consequences. Though, I favor fighting this garbage wholesale and support any efforts to interfere with the deluge of BS / noise with modern communications tech.

Professionalization of management with its easy over-reliance on the simplification of the quantitative - of "metrics" - along with the scales (size) this allows and manner in which fundamental issues get obscured tends to produce these types of results. This is, of course, well known in business schools and efforts are generally made to ensure graduates are aware of some of the downsides of "the quantitative." Unsurprisingly, over time, there is a kind of "forcing" that tends to drive these systems towards the results like you describe.

It's usually the case that imposition of metrics, optimization, etc. - "mathematical methods" - is quite beneficial at first, but once systems are improved in sensible ways based on insights gained through this, less desirable behavior begins to occur. Multiple factors including basic human psychology factor into this ... which I think is getting beyond the scope of what's reasonable to include in this comment.

The US (in particular) has seen a significant decline in trust (think community, as in union, as in Federalist #10 etc.) in all manner of fundamentals of democracy and 'modernity' (tech, science, etc.) in the past several decades. And, bear in mind that there are significant differences in the way people cope with these sorts of changes and the increasing instability* quite generally for many people as well as local and regional communities.

Fire departments, since the time of Ben Franklin, have mostly, to my knowledge, doused fires with "extinguishers," not "accelerants".**

* Especially economic - not in the sense of "time for 'entitlements'", ideally, in the sense of "time to reconsider if trashing the 'New Deal' starting ~ in the 70s might have been a bad idea" ... for those not already thinking that way. Nothing better (socially) than to provide people with meaningful ways of 'acquiring capital.'

** Outside of stories in books, anyway...

Why, going through such trials, ex opere operantis, might just sour a 'true believer' in the "invisible hand" on the whole novus ordo seclorum.*

Hahahhahahaha! Urghk, briefly part-swallowed my tongue from laughter, excuse me...

* As the undoubtedly distinguished graduates of Yale SOM, for example, might phrase it

Hemodialysis.

Join the 'penumbra-side'.

More seriously, sorry you have that issue. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything useful I'm familiar with. You could look into 'inducers'. Wikipedia has a small list.

At least, though, it's good to know about the trade-offs - knowing that caffeine specifically comes at that kind of cost. Some suffer for years before determining what the actual root cause of some difficulty has been. With awareness, at least there is the possibility of volition / decision.