stickly

I have examined the ~~goat entrails~~ quarterly metrics and determined that ~~gods~~ markets require more ~~human sacrifices~~ corporate tax breaks

It doesn't take a genius to understand that if given a windfall of nearly half a million dollars, most people would instantly fritter it away on useless nonsense like drugs, alcohol, and luxury goods

You made an over generalized statement that "most people" waste a windfall, which clearly isn't true with our current evidence. Yeah nothing as outlandish as this hypothetical has ever happened, but I feel more comfortable projecting that ~173 million people getting a wealth bump will look more like those large scale programs than a few dozen lottery winners.

BTW there's no evidence to even support your lottery bankruptcy stat. Multiple studies confirm that winning the lottery improves long term quality of life and most people spend their winnings over time with no evidence of extravagant waste.

Who said they were planning on it? The real economic implications of that scale of payout are basically unknowable.

Contrary to pithy internet comments, cash windfalls have been shown to unlock the economic potential of that money very efficiently. Replacing food aid with one-time direct cash aid leads to higher quality of life for the poor. They actually do invest it in housing repair, transportation for jobs, necessary clothing, etc...

Yeah some people are just gonna do $400k worth of cocaine, but the myopic view of a stereotype lottery winner is pretty unfounded.

I don't know that lottery winners are a good representative sample. Playing the lottery isn't exactly sound financial planning.

I don't disagree that anarchist ideals about localization make sense as a reaction to our modern, global, hierarchical world. I'm not arguing to preserve the efficiencies of centralization but pointing out that their gravity makes opposition by other means impossible. Here's the issue that I never see resolved:

if one group starts consolidating power and turning coercive, that’s a problem. However it’s not solved by having centralized oversight in the first place. That’s how we got here.

Then how does it get solved? History shows a thousand instances of empires expanding through piece meal conquering of fragmented autonomous polities. Look at the European conquest of Mesoamerica, how the Roman's picked apart most of the world, the colonization of Ireland, the fate of the Iroquois Confederacy, etc... The aggressor doesn't even need a material or martial advantage, as in Macedonia's subjugation of the loose federation of Greek city states.

Generally, the expansion only stops from an internal shift (dynasty change, leader death, coup, etc...), hitting a geographical limit, or when the aggressor runs into someone too large to bully.

I'll point out as well that this doesn't even need to be a nefarious, expansionist scheme. Changes in climate can apply a survival pressure to take what you need from neighbors. Take for example, sea level rise reducing arable land for the Vikings, one of the causes for their invasion and settling in Britain.

I asked this in a thread a while ago but I'll repost it here since I never got an answer:

[I don't see how anarchism] would work in practice. Hierarchies form to simplify the logistics and social cohesion of a disorganized network of subunits.

As a basic example, how the hell do collectives even communicate with those on other continents? It took millenia for humans to develop reliable seafaring technology, only made possible through the direction of state actors. Sea cables cost millions to maintain; satellite communication is even harder to achieve.

Assuming that any of these could even be accomplished strictly via collectives ("Why the hell should I give you my Chilean copper so you can throw it in the ocean to talk to Europe?"), operating these essential services gives access to power and coercion.

Somebody has to launch the ships or run the heart of the telegraph network. Will you centralize the authority of multiple collectives to regulate and monitor it?...

And if you don't do anything to bridge the ocean, what's to prevent ideological drift for that continent; getting a little too centralized for more efficient resource use? Even if your accessible web remains strong and ideologically pure, you have to pray that completely separate webs will be just as strong.

Anarcho-primitivism is the only critique that seems to own the inherent anti-civilization logic, but even then there's nothing stopping a collective-of-collectives from making a bigger pile of sharp rocks to subjugate you.

The gist of it being that hierarchies form due to the natural gravitation of civilization towards efficiency. Delegating someone with power to direct the actions of a large group will always be more efficient than getting N subunits to reach a web of equilibrium. If you've ever tried to horizontally coordinate a group of a large size it's pretty obvious.

Efficiency begets power and power propogates and entrenches the system that it's derived from.

I assume it's supposed to mean magically find the raw materials and production somewhere else? These people have no rational thought, they can't even put 2 and 2 together and see why solar is cheaper.

Why do these people have such frothing opposition to nuclear? You'd think a meltdown killed their whole family, but somehow only at 2% coverage.

They bought the oil lobby's ancient anti-nuclear propoganda hook-line-and-sinker and don't care about any of the actual data. But I'm the shill 🙄

Lmfao holy shit you're dense. You know you can't just drop wind turbines in any location? That insolation and geography can limit effective solar usage? That nuclear has way more flexibility?

Do you know how to read that chart? Did you notice that the majority of emissions happen upfront during construction of those sources, unlike nuclear which is amortized over its whole life span?

Did you realize that might matter quite a bit when we need to halt/reverse emissions NOW to stop spiraling?

Ignoring all that and you even admit I'm right in the end. Someone here is coping and it definitely isn't me.

Are you agreeing with me or did you just not read your source?

The best solar technology in the sunniest location has a footprint of 3gCO2/kWh, some seven times lower than the worst solar technology in the worst location (21gCO2/kWh).

Solar averages at 6gCO2/kWh compared to nuclear's 4gCO2/kWh

Here's another breakdown of the same data to make it more clear.

I believe it was this article. The main point was on how incredibly shitty coal is but I thought it was interesting how the others stacked up as well

By all means, enlighten me. Show me your sources. Everything I've looked at shows current gen solar having a larger construction impact and higher lifetime greenhouse gas emissions per unit electricity.

Or is this just your "common sense"? Surely if you have such a strong opinion it's not based on sound bites and headlines?

It's very telling that you think I should be more concerned about my backyard and neighbors rather than the billions of people who will suffer while we try to dig our way out of this pit with more palatable tech that can't do the whole job.

Also funny that you think having a radioactive hole in the ground that loses the majority of its potency in less than 100 years is too high a price to keep our planet habitable. I'd rather be relocated out of my neighborhood than deal with billions of climate refugees moving in. Your NIMBY-ass logic is why our planet is fucked.