I’m not sure I agree with how you’d be able to execute on that level or organized construction safely, but I think we’re also reaching the “impossible-to-be-sure hypothetical” territory, so I’ll concede the point for now.

I think my problems of cost and time still stand. It looks like adding rooftop solar with batteries to every building is still cheaper (on startup, and likely per MW) than nuclear plants. Regions that cannot support solar, onland wind, geo, or hydro can justify nuclear (at least unless shipping batteries or hydrogen conversion becomes cheap enough to compete), but I don’t think they amount to nearly 15% of the power needs in the world since they represent fairly distinctive regions with low energy demand.

Just did a bunch of my own math before realizing those numbers were already out there. We would need to add 3960 nuclear plants to match current energy demand for the world (440 power 10% of the world).

That would require at least 5 years of construction per plant. It takes about 7000 workers to produce a nuclear plant. To produce them concurrently would require about 27.7 million construction workers dedicated to this project for at least 5 years. So on one hand, perhaps you’re right, since there are 100M construction workers in the world. I can’t, however, find numbers about how much heavy equipment exists to facilitate a product requiring 1/4 the world’s construction workers concurrently. You might be right that if all other construction were ground to a halt, we might be able to manage a 5-year plan of nuclear at the cost of about $20T (I had done the math before realizing this reply were about workers, not cost stupidity). I concede it seems “10x increase world construction capacity” was wrong, and the real number is somewhere around 1.5-2x, so long as we stay conservative with nuclear figures and ignore extra costs of building or transporting nuclear energy to countries incapable of building their own plants.

Interestingly, at those construction numbers, you could provide small-project rooftop solar to the world. I can’t find construction numbers for power farm solar, except that it’s dramatically more efficient than rooftop solar. Unlike nuclear, it appears we could easily squeeze full-world solar with our current world construction capacity.

I won’t bore you with the cost math, but since I calculated them I’m still going to summarize them. Going full nuclear would cost us about a $20T down payment. Going full solar (with storage) down payment is about $4T (only about $1T without storage costs factored). And while nuclear would be cheaper than solar per year after that $20T down, solar power and storage would STILL be cheaper in a 100 year outlook, but would also benefit from rolling efficiency increases as we add new solar plants/capacitors and tear down older ones…

As others pointed out, to build that many nuclear power plants that quickly would require 10x-ing the world’s construction capacity.

My counterpoint is that if we had “just got on with it” for solar, wind, and battery, we would have the capacity by now and the cost per kwh of that capacity would be approximately half as much as the same in nuclear. And we would have amortized the costs.

Except that nuclear isn’t the only, or even the cheapest, alternative to fossil fuels.

That’s why there are lots of regulations for things impacting life safety

Regulations that a lot of pro-nuclear people try to get relaxed because they “artificially inflate the price to more than solar so that we’ll use solar”. I’m not saying all pro-nuclear folks are tin-foilers, but the only argument that puts nuclear cheaper than solar+battery anymore is an argument that uses deregulated facilities.

If solar+wind+battery is cheaper per MWH, faster to build, with less front-loaded costs, then it’s a no-brainer. It only stops being a no-brainer when you stop regulating the nuclear plant. Therein lies the paradox of the argument.

No shit. Especially on a silly celeb survival show hosted by Will Shatner.

Exactly. I recently watched Lance Armstrong go off on a silly survival TV show about how trans folk should not be allowed in men/women’s sports and try to defend it with a truly pointless argument of “unless there’s overwhelming proof” bullshit.

He almost got voted off the show for that rant alone. If it weren’t on Fox, he would have.

I’d like to interject that it’s not necessarily the evidence that mixed, but its interpretation. The same data can be taken two different ways.

I just finished reading a link (wish I kept the url) that argued trans woman runners still outperform cis women by 12% after 2 years of hormones, pointing out the competitive requirements are only 1 year of hormones. Only in the subtleties do you find that their metrics for performance did not just involve running speed (but included push-ups), and that the underlying research admitted in conclusions that they were likely over-rating the trans women’s competitiveness…

One of the things that I read somewhere that REALLY stuck with me is this. There will always be an "evidence-based "argument to attack trans atheletes so long as there is at least one trans athelete that is outperforming cis atheletes. If trans women are equivalent to cis women, then the real answer is that it should be even (weighted obviously) odds that the best in the world would be trans or cis… but what we seek to validate “fairness” is that no trans athelete ever actually rises to the top. Because if they do, it must have been their gender advantage.

I’m male. How much do I have to change to be considered female?

The standard in many sports is… documented use of testosterone blockers for 2 consecutive years, and a testosterone test showing T levels lower than some number that is clearly within the natural ranges.

If you dig into the sports involved, they generally all have run studies. There is a point where any advantage of being born male becomes negligible. It’s not (just) about identifying as the destination gender. It’s about showing zero or limited advantage in the league.

Ironically, it looks like the bigger issue is with trans men, who tend to somewhat outperform cis men in certain base tests of strength despite having compatible testosterone levels.

As for breasts in swimming. You understand that it is not against the rules in competitive swimming for a cis woman to get a breast reduction, right? If Cis women have no requirements or limitations on that, why should trans women?

What if I didn’t want to subject my body to hormones just to be considered the gender I feel like I already am? That should be my choice.

Then don’t compete in the destination gender’s circuit? Turning gendered sports into hormone-matched gendered sports is an entirely reasonable compromise because you’re defending the competitive integrity without being bigoted against a person.

A trans individual is not welcome in their birth gender sport because they resemble (hormonally) the other gender. It seems contrived to defend exclusionary behavior on “what if I want to do what would include me in the other category”.

It might help you to understand that there has been a lot of study in many sports (for the very reason of your uncertainty).

Apparently, testosterone level (not birth gender) is the effective indicator of expected performance. In all women’s sports that allow trans competitors, trans individuals need to test **lower ** testosterone levels than are naturally allowable in cis women.

The issue is this. For someone trans to be willing and able to power through all the bullshit, they need to be uniquely dedicated and talented (or they’d just not do it). What that means is that unsurprisingly some trans individuals are absolutely phenomenal at a given sport.

Ultimately, there’s the problem. “We” seem to think a m>f individual doesn’t have an unfair advantage ONLY if they lose. So we’re not looking for the average or variance of skill, only the fact that there exists a trans individual that shines. It’s hard not to look at a trans woman winning and say “see, that’s what happens when someone born male competes with a woman in this sport”. But it’s also unscientific, as the science says trans women compete with comparative attributes to cis women.

Chess? Banning trans competitors is fucking idiotic and the chess federation can fuck right off with that implied notion of women being less capable.

Yeah, there’s no real defense to the two being separated in any league.

They’ve always backed conservative cops enforcing conservative laws against “other people” but letting conservatives off with a warning.

It is not legal where I live

Does where you live also restrict emmigration? If so, you’re not in a free country in the first place. It’s 100% legal where I live.

Let’s try not talking about the binary situation of refusing a government or taxes altogether. I can agree that certain things can be handled by a state (although not in the most efficient way imo). There are still a shit ton of things that governements spend money on that I might not want

So? Independent will is not the be-all end-all. If you want to kill people, you don’t get to do that. Not paying taxes is not a victimless act, either. That’s part of the societal agreement. You don’t always get what you want. But you do get to do things that many people think you shouldn’t get to do. As I mentioned “property is theft” to many people. And I reject their opinion the same as yours.

For example, where I live a significant portion of my obligatory tax goes to state run “public service”, i.e. state run entertainment

Are you a democracy? If you’re a free country, at least some percent of society wants to use tax dollars to that. If you’re not a in free country, well, taxes is a weird hill to die on.

And our process for public procurement is a mess, where things cost insane amounts of money, and most of the time don’t even lead to any actual executed projects. How are such things defensible with an obligatory tax design?

Private sector inefficiency is pretty horrible in most of the world… and most of the world thinks it’s ok to have private sector inefficiency (aka, profit margins). I tend to fight FOR regulated efficiency in both the private and public sectors… so you have my sympathy, just disagreement that it means taxation is actual theft.

What I’m trying to say is that yes in a perfect world taxes are fine and dandy, and we get nice roads and healthcare, but in the reality that at least I live in it is just an expensive mess of things that I mostly don’t want, but am forced to pay for.

I don’t know where you live or the details, but it seems you agree taxation isn’t theft :). But more importantly, I’m sorry to hear your government is wasteful (or that you think it is. Though I can’t really guess where you’re from, I find the most effective governments often have the most complaints of government waste).

None of these things you replied with have anything to do with the topic at hand, and I understand. It’s easy to come up with some fancy catch-phrase and just hold to it in the face of rational thought. It’s what governments do all the time.

You have not and will not convince me that a government will ever be more competent and efficient at solving these issues than alternatives

This is a topic change and gishgallop. I have opinions on that topic, but why would I pivot to it with how bent out of shape you’re getting over this one?

And, I repeat, it is not voluntary

It is “not voluntary” only the same way contracts are “not voluntary” or work is “not voluntary”. It’s hard to get by without those things because the entire world disagrees with you on them. But it’s possible.

If private property is not a right, what gives the government right to dictate my life because I happened to be born on this particular plot of land?

They don’t dictate your life. They dictate that a percent of the private property they amplify for you go back to them. If you choose not to take their protection on a piece of property, or use their infrastructure in any way, they can ask nothing of you. With very few exceptions, if you work any job or any land at all, you use government infrastructure in 100 different ways. It is perfectly legal in many countries (including the US) to live in the wilderness and sustain yourself on your own efforts. In such a case, you use no infrastructure and pay no taxes. Win/win. What you seem to want is all the entitlement you already have, but the government providing it to you free of charge. Good fucking luck.

But I think it is at this point where the core of our disagreement lies: you think it is a fair compromise to give up freedom and have a government solve these issues however it sees fit (as a part of a “social contract”), whereas I see it as a basic human right to be able to choose

But private property isn’t a human right. Are you trying to pretend otherwise? Hell, “work begets profits” isn’t a human right. It’s not even a right under capitalism. You could work your ass off and get nothing. You don’t have the right to the fruits of your work in the first place. If you work hard and get nothing, you don’t think you’re entitled to something. The government creates a framework that increases the odds you’re going to get something, and you ungratefully treat their commission as theft.

You being able to get anything at all from your work is a social contract. You say taxation is theft, but here’s something I bet you didn’t know. “Taxation is Theft” is a newer concept, perhaps even a response to the older, more defensible concept that “Property is Theft”.

And with due respect, you DO have a choice. You give consent to taxation every single day you stay in a country that charges taxes. You are consenting to a social contract. Anyone who has ever taken a loan to pay medical bills will agree that consent isn’t necessarily a happy thing, or an uncoerced thing. You could always emmigrate to a country that doesn’t have taxation, like Qatar. Countries that don’t tax have a pretty bad track record of treating people living in them, but at leaste you don’t have to pay taxes. Well, there are a few that are just havens for billionaires, but I don’t think you’re rich enough to go to one of those if you’re arguing with me on lemmy.

I don’t think taxation is theft, so I don’t have to deal with any of these logical contradictions that I’ve directed at you.

I gain work-protection from the government. It’s a social contract, and a fair one. They take my tax dollars as payment, but in return, will shoot you if you try to walk into my house. I have some ethical problems with the way some of that happens, but all-in-all it’s a reasonable exchange. The biggest thing that’s missing is that a critical part of the social contract is that if I can’t walk into your house to take your food, the government needs to guarantee I won’t starve otherwise. Guess what is necessary to close that loop? Tax money.

And no, I’m not being silly. I’m accurately calling you on defining “things I don’t like” as theft and “things I do like” as not theft. “Loss of value” is an unusable metric for that, and I provided a concrete example to that effect.

You are committing what is called a fallacy fallacy, and do not address how they are different

I actually did address the claim by showing how your logic doesn’t work with anarchism. But if you would like a direct rebuttal, I’d be happy to provide. Here are the reasons that “taxation is theft” is bullshit propaganda.

You do not have a right to your pre-tax income, or any income for that matter. Private Property is a social contract. The money you are being taxed has no real or implied value except the value created by a single cohesive system that involves the same threat of force to reinforce. If taxation is theft, then money is not property and you don’t own that house you bought with it. In fact, you trying to keep me from walking ont it and taking some food would quite literally be theft.

The only way taxation can be theft is if you reject the mercantile system. And if you reject the mercantile system, then the money being taxed cannot be seen as property (and therefore it is still also not theft).

I take it you refer to online piracy?

Yeah. Record labels started taking to call it “theft” when they wanted to ban it. They started teaching people it was theft. They got this big FBI banner on the opening of all VHS tapes.

On one hand you are not taking anything away, you are just copying. But on the other hand, to cite yourself, that is of course an oversimplification.

Thank you for explaining to the audience the exact reason I brought up piracy :)

As you are stealing potential income

So is it theft for me to install a lock on someone’s door because I’m stealing another thief’s potential income? I’m objecting to this ever-widening definition of theft to “whatever I think of as theft”. I recently heard an interesting lie: “words don’t have definitions, they have usages”. The idea was to counter all these semantic-seeming battles. The problem is that words most certainly do have definitions, and if you oppose what a word means (like theft) that doesn’t mean you get to oppose others’ meanings of that word automatically.

Taxation is NOT theft. If you think it’s wrong, find better reasons to think it’s wrong than to use a word with a very clear definition that doesn’t include taxation.

Here’s some citations for you on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft#:~:text=Taxation does not take from,has no independent moral significance.

https://taxjustice.net/faq/is-taxation-theft/

https://www.fastcompany.com/90636996/taxation-isnt-theft-but-avoiding-taxes-is

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/01/why-taxation-is-neither-theft-nor-slavery

You are committing what is called an oversimplification fallacy. I’m assuming you’re an anarchist? If not, how is it very different, as you are opposing government’s right to run themselves just like an anarchist (do you see what an example of an oversimplification fallacy is?). If so, please understand that arguing definitions is not how you will convince the 99% of the world who think anarchism is nothing but puerile stupidity that it isn’t.

That said, you seem to have ignored half my point, that piracy isn’t theft. Or are you saying you think it is, as well? Was it theft before it was illegal?

Better than trying to pretend taxation is theft, you should probably just affirmatively attack taxation with real reasons.

If you’re using definitions of a word that can not effectively differentiate between two very distinct things, you’re using the wrong definition or the wrong word.

Taxation is not theft. Piracy is not theft. Using definitions of theft that include them triggers George Orwell alarms in anyone who knows better.

You do realizing that explaining why will not cause them to let you keep the $100k. They WILL seize it, regardless of your reasons. They take note of those reasons you give so they can use that against you in a court of law, however.

The possession of the money is treated as probable cause. The police are not tasked with finding the ultimate truth of things, just acting on probable cause.

So you’re on the road with $10,000 in cash. The police find out. You tell them the true reason. They write it down, then seize the money because it was suspicious to you to carry $10,000 in cash.

Then, of course, you can go petition to get the money back. At which time, you have to prove by a preponderance of evidence (the same bar as if you were suing them for damages) to get the money back.