gilesgoat wrote:I was wondering ... "What's going on in Syria ?" you don't hear a single word any more about it ?
... is everybody dead Dave ???
.. there was a time were it was day by day news ... what happened there since then ???
While ISIS no longer has a “caliphate” it still remains active in Syria, Iraq and Africa.
Syria is still in ruins. And so is Yemen. Millions starving in eastern Africa.
But Ukraine is media catnip, helped by Western politicians leeching popularity off their president.
Can you imagine the newspaper headlines if labour were in power, and this many strikes were going on?
Plus in reference to the famous line from that Depeche Mode song “Princess Di is wearing a new dress” I see The Times have on their front page another world impacting Netflix Harry docu story….Christ that paper has gone downhill…
Deckard wrote:Can you imagine the newspaper headlines if labour were in power, and this many strikes were going on?
Plus in reference to the famous line from that Depeche Mode song “Princess Di is wearing a new dress” I see The Times have on their front page another world impacting Netflix Harry docu story….Christ that paper has gone downhill…
Imagine the headlines if Labour ministers refused to talk to striking unions, or flat out sabotaged a deal.
But the Tories get away with it.
They cannot even govern effectively, watering down and postponing legislation because of their own backbenchers. But they push through stupid ideas like the new coal mine in Cumbria (environmentally damaging and backwards, because its coal is not even going to be used in this country because of the high sulphur content!)
Just a little intemission here from the main subject.
And Lisbon flooded.
Last night a big storm coincided with a full moon hi-tide.
One person died in my municipality in a flooded basement apartment in a town named Algés. All their downtown which is at water level flooded badly.
Lisbon itself had floods in all areas, 3 meters of water in 2 tunnels that are not even close to the water or in low areas. People had to be rescued from cars that got stranded all over the place. Cars floating. Stores and restaurants with a meter and half or more of water. Lots and lots of basements flooded. Train stations flooded too, not the ones of the old train line close to the river but the ones of the commute trains going fm Sintra to Lisbon. Shopping centers flooded and a portion of the roof of El Corte Inglés came down, and the water came down the floors. Theaters and Movie Theatres flooded too. One of the airport landing strips flooded, etc, etc, etc.
I didn't have any problems but there was a lot of water falling from the skies for quite a while. I live on a hill and the street out there looked like a river.
In Summer it burns, then it floods. Welcome to climate change. Not really a surprise, it was heading that way.
(Dec 8, today, is a holiday so they have been removing water and cleaning the city all day)
The latest Tory pie in the sky - removing the regulations brought in after the 2008 financial crash will instantly mean more economic growth. Because of course they don’t want to protect the average bank customer or small investor* and just want to put more money in the pockets of the rich.
There was also the irony of announcing it on the same day Santander are fined £108 MILLION for failing to prevent money laundering.
*The only good thing in this legislation is separating retail funds from investment portfolios, so that speculation doesn’t devalue what ordinary people save.
And regarding politics and corruption there is a big scandal going in the European Parliament with some MPS arrested for receiving payments from Qatar, at least one Greek, and 2 Italians, I think. Apparently it had to do with an agreement that would facilitate the entry of Qatar citizens in Europe, and vice versa
Oliver Dowden, Tory MP - these strikers are holding the country to ransom, they should negotiate
Well, Oliver, the fact is that the UNIONS want to negotiate.
Health Minister Steve Barclay won’t discuss pay with the nurses and ambulance staff.
And the Transport Secretary and Minister have both said “it’s not our place to be negotiating”.
Instead of rushing through anti-strike legislation and holding a pointless COBRA meeting*, they should get round the table and improve the offer - and that means getting rid of all the strings and harsher working conditions that are being imposed on top of a real-terms pay cut.
*It’s been reported Sunak and others weren’t happy about having to be at COBRA meetings during the pandemic where lockdowns were discussed. So they would have rather killed more to keep the economy going, despite wrecking it with Brexit, stomping on the ruins with higher taxes and spiriting away billions to cronies in dodgy PPE contracts and COVID support fraud they don’t want investigated...
Imagine an alternative history where governments had actually "walked the walk" on their climate commitments.
Where the UK had undergone a big push to insulate homes. To install solar and batteries. To have more offshore and onshore wind, solar farms, geothermal, etc.. To install heat pumps, and shift us from a massive over-reliance ("single point of failure") on natural gas to heat nearly all homes.
Where we'd not been feeding Putin billions (granted, the UK definitely ain't the worst for this), so possibly his war machine would never have even begun rolling in the first place - we can see that it's not well-maintained already, so to be further underfunded would have pushed it to levels where not even Putin would have considered using it for anything but defence.
There'd be no cost of living crisis. No strikes. No leverage for Putin to squeeze the West.
I mean, notice the pattern. Because the last time we had something like this - "the Winter of Discontent" - then that was because oil prices had gone sky high. Now that gas prices are rocketing upwards, we see it returning once more.
It's a really basic argument: that "green" ain't just for the environment, it's also necessary for a stable economy.
Because, as well as simply being the cheapest form of energy, renewables like wind and solar are also somewhat "immune" to wider geopolitical influences. Fossil fuels need to be transported around, so wars and pandemics cause problems. But a wind or solar farm gives zero shits, if there's a war going on or borders are closed.
It happens to be the cheapest form of energy (and can only get cheaper with greater economies of scale). But it'd be worth it, even if it were slightly more expensive, just to have a stable form of energy. That's not vulnerable to sudden price hikes from world events.
An economic "base load" underpinning it all that can't be affected by these events, can't suffer any insane price hikes, that won't trigger these periodic "Winter of Discontent" issues.
On the "future of energy" thread, I've always been light on "save the planet" - though, you know, that is a thing and also perfectly vital - and more trying to emphasise the economics here. Perhaps now folks can exactly see why.
In that alternative history, where this was actually taken seriously much earlier, then none of this would be happening. As we'd have built ourselves a stable economic foundation - as energy supply really is at the root of economics, because you need energy to do anything and most everything - that is just not vulnerable to these tides of history.
No cost of living crisis (and not just that it wouldn't have happened, but that we have a stable foundation of things, where it simply could never happen). No strikes.
Properly insulated homes, so we're simply needing less energy in the first place. Solar and batteries. Heat pumps. If all these things were commonly in place everywhere, then we'd have that stable foundation where you're always going to have some free energy to keep warm. Even if it's not quite enough on its own, and still needs supplementing with fossil fuels over a harsh Winter cold snap, we'd still be using less, be less vulnerable to "shocks", etc. - that is, even if we hadn't gotten to a 100% renewable solution yet, then a 50% or 75% renewable solution would still have been massively useful and prevented the worst.
In a sense, it's been a slightly annoying distraction that "the green agenda" has been dominated by voices talking about trees and animals and weather. I mean, not that any of it is wrong - it absolutely isn't - but it's just framed the economic argument out of the bigger picture for the wider public and that's, in my view, the real one that people need to hear.
Relying so heavily on fossil fuels is a massive "single point of failure". When the world gets unstable, it becomes an economic nightmare.
My call is not "save the planet" - though, again, that is a thing and we can simultaneously be doing that - but it's "save ourselves". It's "save modern civilisation". Because continuing to rely so heavily on fossil fuels, as they run out and are vulnerable to these "shocks", will drive us back to "horse and cart" technology eventually. While cars need petrol, they become useless lumps of metal and glass, when the oil runs out. But if we electrify, there's many options to keep things ticking over (including, yes, oil and gas and coal, while those are still on the table). Better options.
But, yeah, in the '70s, oil prices sky-rocketed, and we had "the Winter of Discontent". Now we have gas prices sky-rocketing, and something similar is happening again.
And while we rely on these fuels, this'll keep happening. With more and more frequency, to worse and worse economic nightmares. Because, as that supply runs out, our options will keep narrowing. And the prices - supply vs. demand - will keep going up. Faster and faster.
We need to jump off the merry-go-round now, before it spins completely out of control and there's nothing we can do about it.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
"You may say that I'm dreamer..." and you know the rest.
Utopian, sure. But my point is that it would be, in the overall, a pareto-efficient move. That is, one where, ultimately, everyone wins and no-one loses.
What I'm focusing on here is that a renewable foundation would be stable. Such wild economic swings, like the '70s oil crisis or the current gas crisis, which is leading to strikes and social dysfunction, just don't happen.
Not only is recharging an EV cheaper than filling a tank with oil, it's stable at doing so. Oil and gas prices fluctuate - react to global issues - but solar and wind and geothermal are localised and, thus, economically stable, as they're not jostled by world events in the same way. You wouldn't have to advertise prices on a big board outside a charging station in the same way, as the price doesn't constantly fluctuate and, other than general inflation, doesn't get constantly more expensive.
Governments could bring an effective end to energy poverty, once and for all. Which keeps the cost of living stable. Which means they'll never face this type of mass strike action. As everyone, at home, has some degree of energy self-sufficiency - the Sun rises every day and supplies something, as a free "basic allowance" of energy (you might not be living it large, with a small array on a dark Winter's day, but a guarantee to always be able to cover the basics of lighting and refrigeration and such for free, no matter what).
It stabilises the cost of doing business somewhat as well. It's not just the poor, who're at the sharp end of the pain, but everyone is affected by this. Energy is at the foundation of how everything gets done. So to have a cheap and stable energy source at that foundation, stops the boat from rocking around.
You get the gist.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
This can be summarized in "If people would act with conscience for each other and would be nice to each other".
But that does not really happen, which could open a philosophical/scientifical/practical question as "So why it's so ?".
SOME science appears to "prove" that "being a nice person" SHOULD get "more benefits" for ourselves and others than "being a bad person".
But SOME other science/studies seems to prove "actually no, the more arsehole you are the more you gain".
So it's humanity really "inherently failed" because "we should have the means for but we NEVER manage to create" the ideal society/life ?
And I am NOT talking about "big tech or mega-knowledge" because even if we have that, wars, craps, intollerance, weirdos, etc. do exist and will keep to exist and troubles keep existing.
So "despite all shit we do have something always never quite works".
Which clearly points to "there's something inherently wrong with the human race" at least SOME of it but also "overall we can't fix it".
And/or simply "we are MUCH LESS than a burp in an evolution scale/time that we are simply not evolved enough to be there".
Maybe "that sort of perfection does not belong to us", we are just "an intermediate step" for it.
Yes your "utopia" could be done, we could have the means to make it but it's NEVER going to be done.
gilesgoat wrote:SOME science appears to "prove" that "being a nice person" SHOULD get "more benefits" for ourselves and others than "being a bad person".
But SOME other science/studies seems to prove "actually no, the more arsehole you are the more you gain".
When you are young, you root for the first theory. Then life experience kicks in and you realize, it's been about the second theory all the time.
gilesgoat wrote:SOME science appears to "prove" that "being a nice person" SHOULD get "more benefits" for ourselves and others than "being a bad person".
But SOME other science/studies seems to prove "actually no, the more arsehole you are the more you gain".
When you are young, you root for the first theory. Then life experience kicks in and you realize, it's been about the second theory all the time.
I think I heard a few times this story that when Lord British ( Ultima xxx ) created his "Ultima" series he assumed players would have played "fair" and "morally" so progressing linearly in the game, starting from a low rank, building up until they got a better one, etc.
He soon realized that "something was wrong with certain players/the game", in fact he then found out that "the more arsehole you were, the faster/better/more you progressed" .. so instead of "work" by killing/robbing all people you could, stealing everything you could, killing all "competition" and overall acting like real shit was giving you "tremendous gain" over all the others.
The real problem ? There were absolutely no consequences ( or very little ) in doing so.
Therfore he said he had to introduce the concept of "Mana" an some system to really punish in some way whoever was breaking certain "rules".
This is the problem some people face "they don't get bad consequences for their bad actions" and it seems "if they reach a certain level" they may reach a point where really "they cannot face any consequences" so whatever shit they do they are not going to pay for it.
I have a theory that there's also "a point of criticality" where a system designed to keep order/all ok works as long as the number of people "not going according to system rules" is below a certain level, like "if everyone is a thief there's nothing you can do to control the non-stealing" or to better say when the number of thiefs is >X threshold you can not stop stealing any more.
I was discussing with my bro yesterday about "certain practices" in the "research/science field" ( that are extremely questionable - about getting fundings for ) there is a problem like "yes but if I ( too ) do not do so, someone else will do it regardless therefore I am going to "lose" and someone else "wins" so I MUST do the same BEFORE someone else does it".
And it gets into a "loop" where "everybody does it" because "1. it's the only way that seem to work", "2. if you don't do it you are left out, actually you are dead".
Actually '1' is more "is the system so far that gives you only that option and there are no others".
Everyone knows that system is well broken/faulty/badly designed but no one seems/wants to change it so far.
Yesterday I was looking at crap news .. shit there and there .. capitalism .. materialism .. homicides .. protests .. money ..
And then if you "condensate" all this you can really "boil it all down" to a question ?
Isn't there any more ( enough ) love in this world ?
Doesn't people any more love things but not as "I want them so badly" as in "real love" ?
It seems like the most stupid question and part of the answer could be "it's hard to love when you are surrounded by crap that doesn't love you" .. and/or sound like a very childish one ..
But I think at the same time "is a very true question" ..
</Hippie mode>
I love my coffee, I'll have one soon.
"Everybody needs to belive in something, I believe I'll have another beer" - Andy Capp
[edit] - and of course let's not forget there's a FINE LINE ..
