It’s interesting because I’ve seen this CO2 anxiety on HN and Twitter before but I’ve never found any solid rationale for people to worry about CO2 concentrations at those magnitudes. Part of me wonders where this idea came from. Hopefully it isn’t just a ploy to sell CO2 monitors.
This is what ChatGPT has to say on the subject:-
The difference in acceptable CO2 levels between submarines and office buildings is due to different environmental and operational constraints.
Enclosed Environment: Submarines operate in a highly enclosed environment where air cannot be easily exchanged with the outside. This leads to a natural accumulation of CO2, making higher levels unavoidable.
Air Filtration and Recycling: Submarines are equipped with advanced air filtration and CO2 scrubbing systems to manage air quality. These systems can handle higher CO2 levels effectively, unlike typical office HVAC systems.
Occupational Health Standards: Office buildings adhere to civilian occupational health standards that prioritize comfort and long-term health, aiming to minimize any impact on cognitive functions and overall well-being of the occupants.
Operational Necessity: Submarines often have to remain submerged for extended periods without venting or taking in fresh air. The operational demands and limitations necessitate tolerating higher CO2 levels.
Adaptation and Training: Submarine crews are trained and gradually adapted to higher CO2 levels, something that is not feasible or necessary for office environments.
The higher tolerance for CO2 in submarines is a trade-off between operational needs and environmental constraints, whereas office buildings prioritize occupant comfort and health under normal environmental conditions.
You can psych yourself into feeling anything if you buy a machine that displays numbers and prime yourself to get anxious if the number goes up. Why would you buy this machine in the first place, if not because someone convinced you that you should be anxious about whatever numbers it might display? It’s a circular argument grounded in marketing.
> Submarines are equipped with advanced air filtration and CO2 scrubbing systems to manage air quality. These systems can handle higher CO2 levels effectively, unlike typical office HVAC systems.
The question is the CO2 level in the air that the humans are breathing. Obviously the systems on a submarine or spacecraft are going to be more powerful than the systems in a normal building because they can’t just exchange air with the outside. That’s like saying you need a better heating system in Alaska than you do in Hawaii. That doesn’t mean you have to set your thermostat to 50 degrees if you live in Alaska. You can still set it to 70 degrees. Likewise, if it was important or necessary for a spacecraft or submarine to provide 600ppm CO2 concentration to the crew that is responsible for safely maintaining that vessel, they would be designed to that specification. They aren’t because it isn’t necessary.
I’ve seen evidence that 3000ppm is more comfortable and desirable than 5000ppm, but nothing to suggest that 1200ppm is of any concern.
And frankly, it’s insulting to my “general intelligence” that you would have ChatGPT (which is not an AGI) argue with me in the first place. One would expect GPT’s reasoning here to have flaws which a moment of critical thinking can uncover. Now that I have done so, do you have any thoughts of your own to provide?
