alvvayson

@alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tripling renewables globally by 2030 is doable, says new IEA report⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Storage tech is indeed the laggard.

  The most readily available form of stored energy is still natural gas.

  We really need to change our energy pricing and taxation to reward green ways to store energy better.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lebanon’s health minister says 8 killed, 2,750 wounded by exploding pagers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep, all the electrical engineers who have chimed in say it looks more like explosives.

  A battery would get hot and start a fire. It wouldn’t instantly explode like this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Salvage operation for oil tanker in Red Sea not safe, EU says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you. I thought I had checked Wikipedia.

  It seems smack in the middle between Eritrea and Yemen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Salvage operation for oil tanker in Red Sea not safe, EU says⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Does anyone know exactly where in the red sea this is?

  I want to know if it’s in Yemens territorial waters or not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do big corporations get to claim losses, but small businesses can't?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Because they manage to attract investment.

  As long as investors are willing to give cash in exchange for equity, a company can operate on that cash and run at a loss.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK most US states assign their electoral college votes by the state's popular vote⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  He should have said almost every.

  But thanks for pointing out the mathematical truth ☝️

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dutch toilets⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep, but nowadays they are losing popularity. I don’t even know if you can still find them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Checkmate, Atheists⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The humiliation of losing to a black woman.

  The past months the mood in America has been: not these two old geezers again.

  I am honestly optimistic that it’s going to be a landslide for the Democrats without Biden. Americans are just sick of Trump and they didn’t want Biden to run again.

  So the Democrats are giving the people what they want, while the Republicans are trying to force feed them something they don’t want.

  Let’s see how this plays out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So is Israel just going to finish Palestine off?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I know a lot of people don’t like the American First Past the Post system, but to be honest, even in a proportional system like here in the Netherlands, you end up with very similar dynamics.

  Truth is, progressives are always a small minority, in every country. Because they are always ahead of the curve on change.

  In the US, this means that you only get a handful of progressives in the most progressive districts and never a really progressive national government.

  In the Netherlands, this means progressives are always represented, but need to compromise to form a government. And often, they even get skipped and the centrist and conservative parties form a coalition.

  Truth be told, Biden is as progressive as you could hope to get in the USA.

  And, while I do think it is important to criticize him - and even threaten to not vote for him - to enable him to move more towards the left, it is also important to vote for him.

  Progressives always win, not through getting majorities, but because they have the right ideas and eventually the other parties catch up to them.

  For recent examples, gay marriage in the USA or marihuana legalization are now law in the USA.

  I am 100% confident that American policy on Israel will also shift thanks to progressive voices. And it will not require a progressive majority.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So is Israel just going to finish Palestine off?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Americans still care about the price of oil, which is set in a global market and where Saudi-Arabia and Russia have more influence than the USA.

  Obviously, the extremist Arabs that overthrew their own leaders are also to blame. Where did I deny that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So is Israel just going to finish Palestine off?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think you really have a lot of choices to be honest.

  You’d first need to get new candidates to win a primary and then a general and the required majorities are lacking almost everywhere.

  A more fruitful approach is to actually change public opinion.

  It’s a long uphill battle, but it’s happening.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So is Israel just going to finish Palestine off?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For decades, Israel and the US (and European countries) have pursued a policy to destabilize middle eastern regimes.

  People don’t realize this, but there was a wave of Arab nationalism that was killed by sponsoring Islamic extremists. Had that not happened, the middle east would be much more secular today than it is.

  Israel attacking and destabilizing Lebanon and Syria and the US maintaining a dictator in Egypt are part of this strategy.

  In turn, this leads to hate towards the West and Israel by the Muslims affected.

  It won’t stop as long as American voters care much more about gas prices than about human rights. American politicians are willing to sponsor genocide to have some control on oil prices in order to win elections.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Renters' hopes of being able to buy a home have fallen to a record low, New York Fed survey shows⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Would such a strategy legally work in the USA?

  Here in the Netherlands, a plan to regulate maximum rents seems to be much more promising.

  We will know if it worked in about 2-3 years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Indeed, also it’s much nicer to use a shared high quality tool than to buy an el-cheapo disposable tool.

  Even something simpel like a crowbar. I once borrowed a (shorter) professional crowbar after struggling with a (larger) cheap one. The thing I was trying to pry came out like butter.

  Even though physics dictates that a shorter lever should be inferior, it just had a much better design and grip.

  Better for our wallet, sanity and environment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gaza war surgeon feels ‘criminalised’ after being denied entry to France⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel obliged to point out that, Brexit didn’t happen, then his rights as an EU citizen would have been violated. As far as I know, you can’t use the Schengen system against EU citizens.

  But because he was British and Brexit happened, Germany could do this.

  But I do wonder… if the French government would formally invite him, they should be able to overrule the German decision. It seems that they decided not to do that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨But how would they be able to live on that?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Indeed, property taxes should just be extended to also cover stocks and bonds.

  That should be the basic premise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨But how would they be able to live on that?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That also seemed odd to me.

  I think they are confusing a wealth tax with fair taxation.

  The shown numbers seem to roughly correspond with what would be owed if they had paid fair capital gains tax over the past years. In other words, if all the tax loopholes were closed.

  Bill Gates just didn’t have nearly the same amount of capital gains over the past few years compared to Elon and Jeff.

  A wealth tax would tax then proportionally similar, so Jeff wouldn’t be paying 10x the tax that Bill G would pay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Life was better in the nineties and noughties, say most Britons⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I presume you’re an American then.

  It wasn’t that bad in Europe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Life was better in the nineties and noughties, say most Britons⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We are talking about the 90s though, not the 60s.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Life was better in the nineties and noughties, say most Britons⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The difference is that even young people say life was better when boomers were young.

  Higher wages, cheaper housing, lower cost of living.