On Thu, May 08, 2025 at 10:05:03AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
older machines are also normally using a lot more electricity than something small and more recent might use.While that's obviously good, that doesn't necessarily justify buying a new machine from an ecological perspective: AFAIK the embedded energy in a laptop (i.e. the energy that was necessary to produce the laptop) is typically higher than all the electricity that the laptop will consume during its lifetime.
It does justify getting a 20 year younger used machine...the entire argument about keeping antique hardware in operation on ecological grounds makes no sense except in a hypothetical world where only two machines exist.