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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 11th, 2023

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  • And what are you going to do about it? Be upset? That sounds like a waste of your time, emotions, and intelligence.

    Like I said in another response, I’m sure what happened is mostly true, but the framing is for political purposes. It’s important to be critical of the purpose of an article (to inform? Or to influence?) so you can focus your energy on the politics that you have influence over.


  • I remember the article. And I’m not saying that didn’t happen, in fact I’m sure the Russian Oligarchs are siphoning tons from the Russian people.

    But the fact remains, the article you shared is American propaganda being used to drum up support for more sanctions, or war, or some other purpose, which will just result in American Oligarchs sending Americans and/or their money to places they should never be. There is truth to the article, but the framing is for political purposes.

    You want to support oppressed people? Great! You want to denounce a tyrant? Great! You see folks across the Atlantic rising up in revolution against oligarchs? Also great!

    But being critical of how the media is presented can go a long way towards supporting the right causes, being upset about things that are worth being upset about, and making sure you don’t waste your energy pushing the agenda of some government which should be minding its own business.

    And the working people always suffer, and will always suffer, as long as our representatives don’t represent us.


  • Good point. North east US.

    And you are right they didn’t mention a storm, but that’s not my point. The article title clearly exacerbates the problem, and points the blame in a way that suggests the Russians are either too stupid or too poor to fix the problem. Why should any of us care about such a small thing for one? And two, what is their intention? It’s well known that NYtimes toes the state line when it comes to propaganda against American “enemies” .

    Really the only thing useful from the article is:

    “20,000 without heat in Russia due to infrastructure failure. Crews working to fix it.”

    But then why would anyone care about that?







  • It is one of the consequences of monopolies, but monopolies are a consequence of economic competition.

    The “winner” gets the losers stuff and customers (mergers for example), making the winner bigger and more able to manipulate the market to their benefit.

    When there are few enough companies profits can be chased without consideration for anything else (planned obsolescence, shipping jobs outside the country, lay-offs, etc.)

    So, like you said except in a for profit market, monopolies are inevitable.




  • The current energy consumption of the planet is 113,000Twh (according to Wikipedia). Since every single Joule of renewable energy is some derivative of solar energy (solar, wind, tide, hydro, but not geo I suppose) the maximum energy we can derive from renewables is 765,000Twh.

    The problem with that, is if we start to consume 10’s of percent of the total solar radiation through “renewables” that would otherwise go into generating weather and other natural events, well I’m sure you can see the potential problems.

    So, we have to get away from carbon intensive electricity generation, but we can’t physically rely solely on renewables. Therefore we need fission/fusion.

    There’s obviously the case of our current economic system causing us to overuse energy in the name of profit (oil is so important because it makes energy cheap and thus easier to make profits), and a change in production/consumption/distribution priorities would likely cause huge decreases in energy needs globally. But we can only really consider energy needs based on what we know.

    Whoops, I forgot the “achtually”.



  • I “know” this is a metaphor, and I’m being a wet blanket about it, but I’m saying it anyway. There is no super hero to save anyone from anything, much less a society circulating the drain. The only way to make things better is by getting organized with your friends, family, and neighbours.

    Be prepared (collectively) when things go to shit, and actively try to make them better. You can do very little alone, but together the choice is no longer between Hitler and Hitler, it’s change or stagnation. And neither genocide Joe or Cheetos man will lead to any positive progress.

    Okay, no more wet blanket…