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chat thread 2021: RIP Paul Mooney

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Yeah man. Add to that the sociology of having female friends at that age. Huge potential for tons of passive-aggressive competition among mid/late 30s women.

Horrible take. Women’s friendships in their 30s and beyond are generally more fulfilling and consistent. I think within the next decade or so you’re going to see more and more women forego marriage and chose to cohabitate and co-parent with their women friends instead.
 
This is a great example. Activists tried to kill nuclear energy and now we're starting to realize that it is pretty much the only way (in the intermediate term) to get anywhere near our goals. Or the fairly recent documentary showing how shitty biomass, solar, and wind are as actual solutions. Or the fact the EVs still need to run off a grid that is largely based on fossil fuels. I mean, the EIA basically came out the other day and said that everyone in the world is going to have to use significantly less power/energy in order for us to get anywhere near our goals and their conclusions were basically ignored as an impossibility.

I absolutely believe there is a chance that we make the world uninhabitable for humans... But I think as that becomes more apparent and we start to have real issues, we'll probably kill off each other anyway in a grab for finite resources.

similarly, we could all just become vegetarians but good luck with that one
 
This is a great example. Activists tried to kill nuclear energy and now we're starting to realize that it is pretty much the only way (in the intermediate term) to get anywhere near our goals. Or the fairly recent documentary showing how shitty biomass, solar, and wind are as actual solutions. Or the fact the EVs still need to run off a grid that is largely based on fossil fuels. I mean, the EIA basically came out the other day and said that everyone in the world is going to have to use significantly less power/energy in order for us to get anywhere near our goals and their conclusions were basically ignored as an impossibility.

I absolutely believe there is a chance that we make the world uninhabitable for humans... But I think as that becomes more apparent and we start to have real issues, we'll probably kill off each other anyway in a grab for finite resources.

90 companies emit 2/3 of the world's carbon emissions

it's not a personal consumer problem

we have to entirely disable the fossil fuel grid and start from scratch today or it's over
 
curious what you think is on the list of "actual problems" that is going unaddressed

That's a tough one. And I wouldn't say unaddressed... More like poorly addressed.

I think wealth inequality is a big deal. Not really talking about within the US (though it is obviously an issue)... Thinking more globally.

Environmental issues... More in the sense of how we're going to give everyone access to energy (and water) without destroying the planet and/or our existing civilization.

I also have big concerns about individual freedoms... I think once the importance of liberty is minimized, it's near impossible to get it back without revolution. Again... thinking globally, not just in the US.

And, nearer term, I'm concerned about MMT and the potential for actual inflation... More broadly, I don't think we have any idea what we are doing with the US economy. Things could get really shitty really quickly and we'd have no idea what to do about it.

***I don't pretend to have solutions for any of these things.
 
there is defs a major tension between individual freedom and the pursuit of equality of wealth/resources

it's a tough one for me to reconcile
 
That's a tough one. And I wouldn't say unaddressed... More like poorly addressed.

I think wealth inequality is a big deal. Not really talking about within the US (though it is obviously an issue)... Thinking more globally.

Environmental issues... More in the sense of how we're going to give everyone access to energy (and water) without destroying the planet and/or our existing civilization.

I also have big concerns about individual freedoms... I think once the importance of liberty is minimized, it's near impossible to get it back without revolution. Again... thinking globally, not just in the US.

And, nearer term, I'm concerned about MMT and the potential for actual inflation... More broadly, I don't think we have any idea what we are doing with the US economy. Things could get really shitty really quickly and we'd have no idea what to do about it.

***I don't pretend to have solutions for any of these things.

Agree with a lot of this. Feels like we are passing the point of no return with wealth inequality and the environment for sure.
 
90 companies emit 2/3 of the world's carbon emissions

it's not a personal consumer problem

we have to entirely disable the fossil fuel grid and start from scratch today or it's over

It's not starting from scratch. It's just promoting alternatives to fossil fuels that can advance our carbon reduction goals and power an increasingly electrified economy (EVs, smart grids, connected communities, data farms (which use a TON of power and which require that the power they receive is high quality). In the near term, there is only one answer, but there are too many people that don't like it largely for very misinformed reasons.
 
there is defs a major tension between individual freedom and the pursuit of equality of wealth/resources

it's a tough one for me to reconcile

Yeah, it's downright depressing for me because I think most people are selfish assholes, which means a solution is probably impossible.
 
when i say disable the grid, i mean no new permits for drills or refineries or power stations that can solely run on fossil fuels, and when i say start from scratch, i mean rebuild the grid based on next gen technology, and not retrofit based on teh needs of the 20th or 19th century

i also think the big problem (and i don't really want to make the chat thread political) is that there is no capitalist solution here. power should be decommodified and nationalized.
 
It’s always interesting that people have great passion or thoughts about real world problems then go back to their job that really does nothing. That I think in the last few decades is also an unaddressed problem. How many intelligent people with the capacity for problem solving and making a difference end up charting a career path that in the end leads to making money. Also it’s a circular problem because that’s also where the jobs are, moving some money around to make more money or help a company make money instead of jobs in engineering, research and so forth.
 
I dunno, an effective altruist might argue youre better off making as much money as you can and then donating it to buy malaria nets and deworming initiatives and whatnot.
 
Yeah I mean if you think about it, it’s overwhelming. Individually you have almost no capacity to impact change, as townie pointed out with climate change at 2/3 from a few companies. Also you end up drawing the line with, well I’m not going vegetarian, I’m still driving a car, I’m running AC in the summer and so forth. It’s kind of like raising money for research, like congratulations hit the bricks you have raised .00001% of the NCI budget.
 
when i say disable the grid, i mean no new permits for drills or refineries or power stations that can solely run on fossil fuels, and when i say start from scratch, i mean rebuild the grid based on next gen technology, and not retrofit based on teh needs of the 20th or 19th century

i also think the big problem (and i don't really want to make the chat thread political) is that there is no capitalist solution here. power should be decommodified and nationalized.

Aside from people with an interest in fossil fuels, energy companies are largely trying to move away from fossil fuels, but it's hard to do so when the alternatives aren't viable for various reasons. And there has been a lot of two steps forward, three steps back. If we shut down certain of our nukes in Illinois because they are uneconomic (the IL legislature has 11 days to act before that happens), the only way to replace those MWs is with fossil. And I realize that this now gets to your point about capitalism and whether it would be better to nationalize the grid so that economics play less of a role, but that's simply not going to happen in this country for a variety of reasons. It's not impossible, but like a lot of things in the US it would be damn near impossible to get the competing sides to ever agree - not to mention the fact that the energy companies and utilities have a lot of sway and make a lot of money (they also spend a lot of money and employ millions of people are are often the largest taxpayer in a city/town, so they're not all bad :cool:)

Obviously I have a little bit of a bias here.
 
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