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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: October 11th, 2023

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  • The criticisms are also that companies use slavery to acquire the materials to make EVs. And they don’t work well in the cold (see current cold snap in Canada), the lifetime of the batteries aren’t great, and we still need to destroy huge swaths of land to create cars, park/store cars, and drive cars.

    EVs are only going to save the car industry. To fix it requires a redesign of cities (see Strongtowns, not justbikes, city beautiful, etc.).







  • It is one of the consequences of monopolies, but monopolies are a consequence of economic competition.

    The “winner” gets the losers stuff and customers (mergers for example), making the winner bigger and more able to manipulate the market to their benefit.

    When there are few enough companies profits can be chased without consideration for anything else (planned obsolescence, shipping jobs outside the country, lay-offs, etc.)

    So, like you said except in a for profit market, monopolies are inevitable.



  • The current energy consumption of the planet is 113,000Twh (according to Wikipedia). Since every single Joule of renewable energy is some derivative of solar energy (solar, wind, tide, hydro, but not geo I suppose) the maximum energy we can derive from renewables is 765,000Twh.

    The problem with that, is if we start to consume 10’s of percent of the total solar radiation through “renewables” that would otherwise go into generating weather and other natural events, well I’m sure you can see the potential problems.

    So, we have to get away from carbon intensive electricity generation, but we can’t physically rely solely on renewables. Therefore we need fission/fusion.

    There’s obviously the case of our current economic system causing us to overuse energy in the name of profit (oil is so important because it makes energy cheap and thus easier to make profits), and a change in production/consumption/distribution priorities would likely cause huge decreases in energy needs globally. But we can only really consider energy needs based on what we know.

    Whoops, I forgot the “achtually”.





  • I “know” this is a metaphor, and I’m being a wet blanket about it, but I’m saying it anyway. There is no super hero to save anyone from anything, much less a society circulating the drain. The only way to make things better is by getting organized with your friends, family, and neighbours.

    Be prepared (collectively) when things go to shit, and actively try to make them better. You can do very little alone, but together the choice is no longer between Hitler and Hitler, it’s change or stagnation. And neither genocide Joe or Cheetos man will lead to any positive progress.

    Okay, no more wet blanket…