2022: HOLD MY TEA! đŸ”

General Chat
2615

There is a saying here that goes “even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day” :stuck_out_tongue:

In snippets, everyone is “wise and amazing”.
These are serious issues, we cannot treat them with quotes and snippets like those found in fortune cookies. They need logic, context and cohesion. And more importantly they need plans and alternatives.

Here is context then, the full part of that speech on that issue:

Trump is talking about exporting USA’s energy (he included in that the term “clean coal” which is objectively funny), bashed the OPEC countries for “ripping of the rest of the world” and he claimed that are being defended for free/nothing, yet charge high prices for oil (yet he was the main proponent in selling/providing weapons over there and starting a war with Iran, if memory serves), congratulated Poland in making a pipeline via the baltic to connect to Norway (which cannot singlehandedly provide energy for the whole central Europe and it would also lead to price increases) and when the time came to Germany, it was only the suggestion to “change course” 
 to where, one might wonder :thinking: 
 everyone and their dog knows that it was exactly that energy deficiency found in central Europe that dominated the choices that were made by the Allies and the Axis during WW2, so it is not a new issue, nor an easily solved one.

Anyone can observe something obvious, but as long as we do not provide a serious alternative, this observation is patently worthless and useless.

For example, what is the solution to the current energy problem in central Europe?
Shipping expensive Liquified Gas from across the Atlantic as the speech suggests?
Because that is one of the solutions currently implemented and, if not for the war creating an emergency, it would still be a laughable solution to how to power a national economy.

I makes as much sense as me cutting the central water supply and closing my house’s taps and opting to driving to the mountain every day to buy water from a monastery that has a natural spring :stuck_out_tongue:
Wouldn’t you have laughed at that idea, too? :wink:

I might do it for a couple of days, in an emergency, but not every day and certainly not long-term.

There is something called the “hunger map”:

Just because we are well-stocked for now, doesn’t mean that there is enough for “all of us” and certainly NOT “plenty”.

1 Like
2616

Didn’t know you could custom make prime numbers

4 Likes
2617

That’s two big “ifs”. For the moment, without contraception people would have something like 8 children.

2618

If you think “clean coal” is “objectively funny,” then you don’t understand the term.

1 Like
2619

I have no objection to contraception, but that was not the subject I was speaking of.

2620

I wanted to say that humans are very far from being unable to reproduce.

1 Like
2621

(Do I want to bring up patriarchy :thinking:)

Who though. Musk has 10 children, Nick Cannon (who?) has 12, Trump has 5. Their wives/ partners have a fraction of that each.

Do we count as people who would have 8 children the person who has to carry to term or the “I need my seed to dominate!!!” (blegh and also ew).

1 Like
2622

A child generally has a father and a mother, and the number of men (males) is approximatively equal to the number of women. So the average number of children per man is about equal to the average number of children per woman.

3 Likes
2623

I know. :roll_eyes:
This was not my point.

Men can have a bunch of children and it doesn’t mean anything for their health, they can just keep updating their harem as they did historically, women have complications.

So, there’s a very big difference in what we count. Average distorts the picture very much, as you unwillingly showed with your reply.

3 Likes
2624

No, but I understand the concept of “I am grabbing on for dear life from one phrase in a parenthesis to try to ignore the rest of the content for which I fervently wish to ignore” :wink:

Greece was for decades one of the biggest lignite digging countries on earth in terms of volume and my island used to have one of the biggest digsites and the first ever established in the country back in 1873, but what do we know, eh? :smiley:

However, I am very open to learning new things 
 do explain - or post a link, you do not have to write it yourself (there is no excuse for laziness - posting a link takes 20 seconds) - why “clean coal” is an exportable commodity (as Trump claimed in the video) and most definitely “not funny”.

Just to be clear and you do not throw the ball to the park: I do know the concept of “clean coal technology” which tries to mitigate the pollution made by coal extraction and burning, but we are talking about “clean coal exportable commodity”. That is what is “objectively funny” and I was very clear about it.

I am very curious and all ears. :slight_smile:

That is true only in the mega-rich examples you posted or in the cases where the father scarpers and totally disappears. In the case of actual families (a.k.a. “most cases”), there is no such thing as a “harem”.

2625

Lol you don’t know how often men hit and bail I guess, or how often they discarded an older woman for a newer. With or without consent. With or without it being official.

2 Likes
2626

I think that this is largely a myth propagated to benefit the narrow interests of those who control the fossil fuel reserves. Not only is transitioning away from fossil fuels feasible, but it would actually save money while preserving better livelihoods and environmental conditions.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X

3 Likes
2627

That’s your fantasy and abusive assumption. I consider it a waste of time to attempt any longer answer.

1 Like
2628

Often enough, but “often” is not “the majority”, last time I checked the statistics. If you have any stats saying otherwise, I’d be happy to update my knowledge - and opinion - on the matter. :slight_smile:

Or you cannot find even one link that supports your opinion. :rofl:
Let’s not pretend that you even made the attempt. You might be older, but I’ve been in fora for twenty years and I’ve seen that behaviour again and again, so while you try to pretend that this is “a waste of time” (even though YOU were the one that brought the original speech snippet and in the time you posted that it is “a waste of time” you could have found a link :wink: ), here is an actual source for those that want to learn more about the issue:

I think that you will find it useful and next time do try to not fall for demagogues that try to conflate “clean coal technology” (which is something REAL) with “clean coal exportable commodity” (which is something NOT REAL).

Again, if you think this is wrong, I am all ears. I am always open to new knowledge. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
2629

You want “stats” for the whole of patriarchy in human history? :roll_eyes::rofl::roll_eyes::rofl::roll_eyes:

Yeah, I see this attempt to explain stuff about women going as well as previous attempts, so no.

2 Likes
2630

I agree.

Many people I know would say buying new clothing every year and new furniture every 5 years (discarding basically all old stuff in both cases) and also flying around half the globe for amusement 3 times a year is required for decent living conditions.

Which brings me back to:

2 Likes
2631

I was under the impression that we were talking about modern times, since your examples were modern (Elon Musk, Nick Cannon, Trump).
It is what is what we can actually study and improve, after all.
I doubt the ancients kept stats over such things and I hardly think that we would care how many concubines emperors used to have (the only people we have historical records for).

As I said, if there is new data, I’d be happy to read it and update my knowledge on any issue.

2632

I’m not talking about that. If we just want to bring 8 billion people to the livings standards of Greece (which is not a really wealthy country), we would need to increase global carbon emissions by 50%.

2 Likes
2633

I don’t disagree. I just wanted to point out how big the gap is and that there is scarcely any awareness that our style of living is incompatible with the goals most of us can easily agree on. Or maybe there is even awareness, but no willingness to act on it.

When listening to news I’m always stunned when within 5 minutes they report on climate crisis and outlook of the aircraft building industry without noticing the two might be connected.

2 Likes
2634

It is, however, crucial, to note that the mindset that @richyfourtytwo mentioned is what keeps the economy going. When hundreds of millions are going hungry and we are tossing out perfectly good vegetables because they do not look “presentable” and we keep supermarkets overstocked because “noone wants to buy the last watermelon because they think that there is something wrong with it”, perception is, unfortunately, a key issue to the problem.

I am having some peppers tomorrow stuffed with rice, for lunch.
Perfectly edible from my garden, right?
But they are mishappen and do not look “buyable” and a professional who would want to sell them to a supermarket would have tossed them to the garbage piles for compost, even though they are not only perfectly edible, they are better than the ones in the stalls.

A great amount of fruit and vegetables and eggs and products are being tossed out and we spend more resources for over-producing because of “how they look”.
Good servicable clothes are being tossed out and destroyed because “they are out of fashion”, and we spend more resources for new ones.
Good operable cars are scrapped and we spend more resources for new ones.
and so forth


The economy is, unfortunately, geared towards this perpetual cycle of greed and growth, that does not leave us any time to pause and ponder on how wasteful this process really is.

Tl;Dr; Before we set a goal of how much would it cost to get other people’s living standards up, it could be very worthwhile to have a look on how much we could offset by getting our living standards in tune with the goals we are setting for the planet :slight_smile:

2 Likes