TheDemonBuer
@TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
- Comment on US frackers were already facing a global oil supply glut. Trump’s Venezuelan dream could make it worse 1 week ago:
Like, all you really need to build a settlement is water, electricity and a source of carbon.
That’s not all you need. You also need breathable air and surface pressure that isn’t going to make your eyes pop out of your skull. You need protection from too high levels of radiation.
You’re not living on the surface of Mars. That environment is not survivable. If you’re going to Mars, you’re living underground or in enclosed habitats. You can do that here. Go get a little bit of land here on Earth and build a self sustaining enclosed habitat and live in it. It would be a lot easier and cheaper.
- Comment on US frackers were already facing a global oil supply glut. Trump’s Venezuelan dream could make it worse 1 week ago:
Yeah, space. That’s always the solution. But if expanding into less and less hospitable environments was the next frontier of continued economic growth, why aren’t investors scrambling to build out Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean?
- Comment on US frackers were already facing a global oil supply glut. Trump’s Venezuelan dream could make it worse 1 week ago:
I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding at the heart of many countries’ energy policies. Many countries believe that continued economic growth will require an increasing amount of energy. That is absolutely true. More growth will require more energy. However, the misunderstanding is the almost subconscious belief that energy = oil and gas. It’s as if many world leaders believe that there are no energy sources available to humanity outside of some relatively rare fossil hydrocarbon deposits. To many, oil and gas is energy and energy is oil and gas. It makes sense why people who think this way believe the choice the world faces is between continued growth or reducing fossil use, as if we must choose one or the other. The fact is, it is possible to grow while reducing fossil fuel use. Between renewables and nuclear power, we can produce enough energy to power a growing global economy.
That being said, infinite growth does require infinite energy. If the global economy continues to grow, at some point we will need all the fossil energy resources, as well as all renewable energy and all the nuclear energy. But we’ll boil our atmosphere just from latent heat before we can use all the energy. At some point, wealthy countries are going to have to decide when enough is enough. We simply cannot grow forever on a finite planet. It’s not physically possible. But in the meantime, developing countries especially can and should continue to grow, and they absolutely can do that without increasing global fossil fuel demand. But that’s largely up to the wealthy countries.
- Comment on I can still get down with the best of 'em! 1 week ago:
- Comment on US | NASA's Largest Library To Permanently Close On Jan 2, Books Will Be 'Tossed Away' 2 weeks ago:
Fix your shit, Americans.
I wouldn’t plan it. We’re a lost cause, best to plan on the US being a mostly irredeemable pile of garbage for the foreseeable future.
- Comment on ‼️‼️ scam alert‼️‼️ 3 weeks ago:
I think corporations should make dividend paying shares a part of employee compensation more often, at least for long term employees.
- Comment on Tesla Robotaxis Are Crashing More Than 12 Times as Frequently as Human Drivers 5 weeks ago:
If driverless taxis ever go mainstream (and that’s a big if), it will be from companies like Waymo, not Tesla. Tesla shouldn’t be seen as a serious company. I mean, they do sell legitimate products, but their $1.6 trillion market cap isn’t based on what they sell today, but what their cult member investors think they’re going to bring to market in the future. You know, all the stuff that will usher in the post-human, techno utopia. It’s all nonsense, and someday it will all come crashing down, though that could take a while. People can stay delusional for a long time.
- Comment on If you are a guy living with a woman you know THIS 5 weeks ago:
I always put the lid down. It’s got a lid for a reason, it looks much nicer with it down.
- Comment on The Fed just ‘Trump-proofed’ itself with a unanimous move to preempt a potential leadership shake-up 5 weeks ago:
It’s more regulatory capture and misaligned incentives than a pure “invisible hand” problem.
Well, what’s your solution? I don’t think this is a terribly uncommon opinion, but I’m not exactly sure what the implication is. Eliminate all regulations? Eliminate government entirely, paving the way for an anarcho-capitalist utopia? I’m not sure I think it’s a good idea to eliminate all public oversight when it comes to something as important as our national power grid. Someone has to look out for the interests of the public and the nation, and I’m not sure private, for-profit interests can be counted on for that.
That being said, I am totally in support of regulatory reform. Unnecessary and inconsistent regulations introduce all sorts of inefficiencies and costs. But all the more reason, in my opinion, for the Federal government to standardize, unify, and simplify regulations as much as possible across the country. Of course, that would require capable leadership, and we are woefully deficient there.
- Comment on The Fed just ‘Trump-proofed’ itself with a unanimous move to preempt a potential leadership shake-up 5 weeks ago:
This is definitely a good thing, but if we can’t get competent leadership in Washington, it won’t matter. Just the interest payments on the Federal debt is approaching $1 trillion. That’s already almost 1/5 of all federal revenue. But the debt problem isn’t restricted only to the Federal government. Private debt is nearly 150% of GDP.
And do we want to reshore at least some key industries? What about our infrastructure? What about our aging power grid? What good is AI if there isn’t enough power to run the damn data centers. All of this is going to take a lot of money and most of that is going to have to be borrowed.
And I’m sorry but the god damned invisible hand of the free market ain’t going to do it. If the free market is so all knowing and wise, why hasn’t it kept our power grid updated? Could it be that the free market is too narrowly focused and short sighted? Hmm.
- Comment on China’s exports grow 5.9% in November, while U.S. shipments drop 29% 1 month ago:
Here in the United States, we’ve been very disappointed with our leadership for some time now. We decided to do something about it, which is good. Unfortunately, the solution we came up with was to put significantly worse leadership in place. Whoops.
- Comment on Why you may not want lower prices as much as you think you do 1 month ago:
Deflation would be bad, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that debt defaults, both public and private, would skyrocket. So, no, we don’t want lower prices, as that would certainly mean a significant recession, if not depression.
What people, desperately, desperately need is for their income to AT LEAST keep up with inflation. Any household that doesn’t see their yearly income increase at least as much as the rate of inflation, are getting a pay cut. And when you consider that housing, a ubiquitous, universal human need, has increased in price much faster than the overall rate of inflation, really people probably need their income to increase much more than the base inflation rate.
- Comment on Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it’s costing the economy 1 month ago:
Fuck the economy.
- Comment on He's on a mission 2 months ago:
Probably someone who lives in the southern US, where it rarely snows. This wouldn’t be unusual for someone living in many northern states, especially those around the great lakes. But to a southerner, this might as well be a different planet. They will close schools and businesses even for relatively light snow in the South. It frightens and bewilders them.
- Comment on Linux gamers on Steam finally cross over the 3% mark 2 months ago:
I wonder if Valve will ever release an official desktop version of SteamOS? I think Linux adoption would really increase fast if there was a gaming focused Linux desktop distribution with the support of an established company. But does Valve want that? A full featured operating system is a lot to maintain and provide support for.
- Comment on Bill Gates warns AI will take over most jobs and leave humans working just two days a week 2 months ago:
No it won’t.
- Comment on Inflation hit 3% in September, reflecting stubborn price pressures on U.S. consumers 2 months ago:
It’s only going to get worse. Two more rate cuts before the end of the year and tariffs.
- Comment on How did easy access to Porn while growing up impacted Gen-Z ? 3 months ago:
Isn’t a child acting sexually often a sign they were sexually abused? Maybe the problem isn’t gen alpha watching porn, but either more sexual abuse by their parents
The two things are not mutually exclusive. One of the ways a parent can sexually abuse a child is showing them. Porn is often involved in child sexual abuse.
- Comment on How did easy access to Porn while growing up impacted Gen-Z ? 3 months ago:
I never said that the health professionals didn’t consider the possibility that these children were themselves sexually abused. Of course they did. I never said that the health professionals asked only about porn consumption but not about past sexual abuse. They make both inquiries. I wasn’t even necessarily making a causal argument, only pointing out the strong correlation. I can’t tell you, because I don’t know, how many of the children who consume pornography have also been sexually abused. I don’t have access to that information, I don’t work there. All I do know is that significant porn consumption (including kids being caught watching porn in school) is very common among these kids.
It’s not fake, I’m telling you what I know, you can choose to believe it or not, I don’t give a shit.
- Comment on How did easy access to Porn while growing up impacted Gen-Z ? 3 months ago:
I’m not sure about gen z, but I worry about gen alpha. My wife works in a hospital for behavioral health and she sees an alarming number of kids (as young as 6 or 7) who are acting out sexually, and most of them consume a considerable amount of online porn. Many of them are there because they’ve sexually abused a sibling.
This is anecdotal, and of course in a behavioral health hospital my wife is going to see only the children who are acting out the most, and those children are by no means representative of the average child. It is also likely that some children have always acted out sexually, for various reasons, long before Internet porn. But the number of children they see for sexual predation is very concerning.
- Comment on Political discourse 4 months ago:
If you think the next US civil war will be fought between Nazis and Marxism-Leninists, you don’t understand American politics very well. The US in 2025 isn’t Stalingrad in 1942.
- Comment on Happy Birthday! 4 months ago:
Welcome to back pain, Mario.
- Comment on The AI Report That's Spooking Wall Street | The majority of companies are failing to see any returns on their AI investments, a report finds 5 months ago:
Despite the major push to adopt AI tools in the corporate world, fewer than one in ten AI pilot programs have generated real revenue gains. The rest are having no impact on a company’s bottom line
Shocking.
- Comment on Warren Buffett Said Buying 'Distressed' Homes With 30-Year Mortgages And Renting Them Out Might Be The 'Most Attractive' Investment Available 5 months ago:
How rich do you need to be, you greedy fossil?
- Comment on Trust in the US is eroding. Now the question isn’t if the dollar will lose supremacy: it’s when 5 months ago:
No one country should control the world’s reserve currency. There’s a reason Machiavellians want to capture the Federal government: it’s the most powerful government institution in the world. If you control the levers of the US Federal government, you control the world’s largest and most advanced army and the world’s reserve currency. I would certainly hope that any reasonable person would be able to see why that’s a huge problem.
- Comment on Happy No-more-USA Day 6 months ago:
I was born and raised here in the United States, just like my father, and his father, and so on for several generations. You fuck off. You and your disgusting fucking federal government. May you all rot in hell.
- Comment on We live wasted lives 6 months ago:
I think most reasonable people would agree that there are many objectively good things about the modern world, but progress isn’t a strict good/bad binary. Often, progress results in both good and bad circumstances.
For instance, I think most reasonable people would agree that modern medicine is a very good thing. Vaccines and antibiotics have saved countless lives. Also, more advanced agricultural technology has allowed us to grow more food and feed more people. However, progress has also resulted in significant ecological damage, depletion of natural, nonrenewable resources and a significant loss of biodiversity. I think most reasonable people would agree that these are very bad things.
I don’t think the point is to ignore the very real, important positives about the modern world, but to point out that there are still things that need to improve, and unintended negative effects of progress that need to be dealt with.
I appreciate that for you the modern world is overall good, but that’s not necessarily everyone’s experience. Some people do feel purposeless, depressed and worn down, despite being relatively wealthy and comfortable, especially compared to humans of past eras.
- Comment on Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates Meet for the First Time Ever 6 months ago:
No major kernel decisions were made,” jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.
Man, wouldn’t that be wild, though?
- Comment on [deleted] 7 months ago:
I stopped buying consoles and moved pretty much exclusively to Steam because it gives me many more options. Thankfully, I don’t think that’s changing anytime soon. Consoles are great for some people, but I need more flexibility. I sometimes wish I could (legally) play Nintendo first party games, but it’s really not that big of a deal.
- Comment on Switch 2 Breaks Records By Selling Over 3.5 Million Units In Four Days 7 months ago:
Nintendo has spent decades building an extremely loyal, multigenerational consumer base. They also release very popular, high quality games. I have no interest in owning a Switch, but I get why so many people do.