from Hacker News

Ways to think about water (2015)

by siruva07 on 9/21/21, 1:56 PM with 41 comments

• by photochemsyn on 9/21/21, 3:39 PM

  Odd quote from this article:

  "One interesting idea that has emerged in dry places (notably Australia and Israel) is water markets. These make sense on a pretty basic level: if something is scarce and valuable, I should be able to buy, sell, and speculate on it."

  Given that water is a fundamental necessity, it's supply should not be subject to rigged markets and monopolistic pricing, which is the norm when private investors try to take over natural monopolies (i.e. there's no 'competition' in water supply systems, rather like electricity markets.)

• by lmilcin on 9/21/21, 4:04 PM

  > A man in a desert and a sailor at sea will think about water very differently.

  Maybe there are more sailors here and they may feel differently, but that's not true for me. For me open ocean is about as close to desert as possible and sea water is like sand.

  Probably the only thing different is that you can stuff a lot more fresh water onto a boat that you can stuff on a camel or expedition car. And the way it is stuffed means there is less chance you will loose it. And sailing is incredibly involved and technical compared to say riding a camel so you have other problems that occupy your mind. So it probably takes less space in your mind while you are sailing than while you are crossing Sahara.

  But if your boat quits on you in the middle of an ocean it is more or less as if camel or expedition car did.

  You lend your life to the elements and to your equipment. If it fails and you can't fix it, you die.

  ---

  I had a discussion with somebody that incessantly wants me to "save" water supposedly because many people have shortage of it.

  I tell her "Our water comes from local river. We don't have water shortage. Any water that I do not use will just happily flow to the sea. Any water that I use will get cleaned up and dumped into the same river from which it came, to happily continue its journey to the sea."

  Seems the argument doesn't work.

  People are strange sometimes...

• by 21eleven on 9/21/21, 3:41 PM

  Here's a different way to think about water:

  There is the theory that evolution is a process by which genes advance and proliferate. That livings things are just the pawns for their genes, life is a medium for a genetic super organism.

  But the genetic super organism is just a middle manager. Life does not exist for itself or for genes but for water. Living organisms were created within water and by water to be a vehicle that H2O can use to transcend the tyranny of gravity and explore space.

• by newyankee on 9/21/21, 2:34 PM

  It is my genuine hope that desalination becomes cheap enough in the next decade that most coastal places will depend on it instead of any other source for domestic and industrial use. Taking that as a baseline i hope transporting water in flat topography inland up to 100 to 200 km inland from coasts also becomes cheap enough. All depends on material science breakthroughs, cheap renewable energy, technology sharing and scaling.