• 3 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • Dissappear? No, of course not

    Fall out of repair, and be unable to be repaired effectively without tools, resources, or knowledge that are no longer accessible?

    Abso-fucking-lutely

    Take a deep sea oil rig. How long do you think it’ll be operational without maintenance with all that sea water? After not too long you won’t be able to repair the damage without serious industrial capabilities, and that’s assuming you even know how to fix it.

    Really even as relatively little as a few decades of total chaos and disorganization would be enough to make crawling back really hard. A century and more and it really could be impossible, or at least improbable - especially given that the humanity that comes out of the other end of the crisis is the same one that got us into it. So the remaining pieces of major valuable infrastructure left will probably get wrecked as the survivors fight over them


  • True, but Its 100% possible for us to get knocked back into the iron age, and if that happens, there’s a very real chance we won’t be able to climb up again.

    Easy to access sources of a lot of the resources needed to rebuild a modern civilization are gone, the only reason we can get to the remaining deposits is because we already have the advanced equipment to extract it. It’s entirely possible that if we get knocked back down the tech ladder, we may never climb back up again


  • Irrelevant, since my critique actually has nothing to do with Ukraine, but about constitutions in general.

    So you’re advocating for him to break the constitution he was elected to uphold, to hold an election that would have to be incomplete and unfair - all so that you, a person who isn’t even a Ukrainian can feel better about the situation? Despite the fact that there’s no call for this from the actual Ukranian public?

    That’s certainly an opinion to have lol


  • So, in your opinion - in order for Zelensky to not be a dictator, he has to break all the existing rules of law in order to completely replace the existing constitution? And he should be allowed to do this unilaterally? And this would make him not a dictator? He’s not a fucking monarch dude, he’s the elected head of state - he doesn’t have supreme authority to do whatever the fuck he feels like.

    The foundation of democracy is the idea that our elected officials have to abide by the rules of law that are already in place, including (and especially) those laws that concern how other laws are made. Otherwise any elected official could just declare themselves the new supreme ruler and toss out every law that limits their power.

    And that’s all putting aside the question of how you would even hold an election in war ravaged Ukraine right now, a significant portion of which is under hostile occupation lol


  • What exactly is the process for a complete replacement in the constitution in Ukraine? Is it something that can feasibly be accomplished during wartime?

    Edit: apparently the process is “you can’t” https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/389-19#Text (Article 19 Section 1)

    So basically there is no way for Zelensky to change anything about the situation without just fraglantly breaking the law (or declaring an end to martial law during wartime, which would be beyond stupid). Pretty hard to argue he’s a “dictator” when literally all he’s doing is following the law that was out in place well before he was elected.

    Now, if the war ends and he still refuses to hold a election, I’ll be right with you in calling for action, but I fail to see any fault with his current course on this specific issue





  • Of course it won’t fix climate change in one go, but doing so would remove a major fossil fuel dependency for your average Joe and make them much more likely to vote against fossil fuels.

    Put another way, how many people driving gas cars would vote in favor of heavy taxes on fossil fuel use?

    Now, how many would vote that way if they personally didn’t have any dependencies on fossil fuels?

    Also, highway vehicles account for 1.5 billion tons of GHGs being emitted each year, that’s 11% of the global yearly GHG emissions, so yeah, it definetely would “move the needle”. In the US specifically it’s as much as 20% of our nations emissions.

    And yeah I already know the next argument “bUt YoUr JuSt UsInG fOsSiL fUeLs To ChArGe It” - except you’re not necessarily, in my area (part of CA), you can choose to have 100% of your electricity provided by renewable sources for a small monthly premium ($18/month). Additionally in CA, all new homes are being built with solar power, which further increases your ability to charge without fossil fuels.

    And in the areas that isn’t true, it’s at least getting groundwork laid down to make it true. An electric car can be powered by renewable energy, a fossil fuel car must be powered by fossil fuels.

    There are a lot of steps to solving climate change beyond “buy an electric car”, and you’re right that industrial and commercial pollution accounts for the majority, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be pushing on all fronts.

    We’ve already waited way too long to act, we can’t afford as a species to say “well, I’m not going to change my car until the industrial polluters get their shit together”, we have to push in Every possible direction, all at the same time to make progress, and electric cars overtaking fossil fuel cars is a big part of that.

    There’s a lot of work to be done globally until electric cars are 100% green, both in terms of power infrastructure and the processes to create them, but there’s no way forward with gas cars, so we need to start moving over as a society now, phasing out the production of gas cars with electric




  • If actual aliens are here it basically means travelling faster than light is possible.

    Not just possible, but dirt cheap, otherwise why would they be constantly dropping down into Earth to see what we’re up to.

    Really, the whole notion is a bit silly when you think about it rationally. If a society was advanced to the point of cheap FTL (which, I feel the need to point out, isn’t just “advanced technology” but “technology that operates in complete defiance to our most fundamental understandings of physics”), why on earth would they be dipping into the actual atmosphere, doing landings, or flying by private aircraft? Surely a society with such breathtaking technology could drop a single spy satellite into orbit and get every piece of info they could possibly want about us, especially now that we’re in the digital age.

    I have no doubt that alien life of some sort is out there, very possibly it’s even prolific (though that doesn’t seem to be the case based on our admittedly limited observations of exoplanets), but there’s no rational basis for thinking that an advanced alien society would have either the means, nor the motivation, to constantly pop down to earth to screw with pilots, farmers, etc.


  • Or when they extropolate from America the country being shit, to every individual American being shit for having the audacity to have been born here.

    Most of us would also rather it wasn’t like this, but our families, friends, and livelihoods are here, so generally speaking it’s not practical to just up and leave. And our political system is to broken for us to really fix via voting

    Trash on the country all you want, I’ll join in with you - but don’t blame the folks who are just trying to live the best we can in this fucked up country


  • Most would agree with your point - right up until you suggest that having an “uncorrupt government” is remotely possible.

    Pretty much the same level of unrealistic idealism as folks who think it’s remotely possible to transition a state to communism without it turning into authoritarianism.

    There, now I’ve pissed off everyone lol

    Edit: Except, I guess for the hardcore capitalists, but I assume those guys are all too dumb to read, so no point, really 🤷


  • The only way people can disagree with you is if they are paid Russian shills

    You say that as though lemmygrad and hexbear posters aren’t constantly accusing anyone they disagree with of being FBI plants or Western shills lol

    So far you’ve used a whole shitload of words to not actually disprove anything that anyone in this thread is asserting, while throwing strawmen around like they’re confetti lol - in fact, you’ve actually agreed with the only claim this thread is making

    what idiot would invest in stores of rubles when their countries are all engaged in economic sanctions that threaten to make those rubles useless to them.

    But keep throwing around strawmen like

    you keep fantasizing about when you call for the blood of “Russian orcs” or the death of the “brain washed Chinese”

    I’m sure it’ll prove your point. So far on Lemmy (and yes I know the situation was different on Reddit, but we all left that shithole for a reason) the only references to “Russian Orcs” has been from lemmygrad and hexbear users who are pretending that it’s common terminology among all Ukraine supporters. FWIW I totally agree with you that calling Russian Soldiers Orcs is both counterproductive and inherently unempathetic and even evil. My heart goes out to every Russian conscript who has been forced to march to Ukraine, either to die a pointless death, or to kill other humans all for Putin’s idiotic ambitions. But the fact that Russian Conscripts are people too doesn’t mean that Ukraine should just cede its sovereignty so that they don’t have to kill the soldiers that Russia is using to try and take away their independence.

    You just can’t handle the idea that someone who was in college thinking about how they could build a startup and if only the government would deregulate more, and yada yada that someone like this could actually study world history and end up believing something different than you. It’s a fragile world view you have.

    It’s hugely ironic that you keep saying how other people are too fragile to accept that other’s might have different world views, while showing yourself to be totally unwilling to consider anyone elses point of view on this subject. No one is telling you what you can and can’t believe. If you choose to believe that Russia is the lesser of two evils in this conflict, despite objectively being the one who invaded the other, then by all means go ahead. But don’t act like anyone who disagrees with you must just not understand the situation. Presuming that everyone who doesn’t think the same way as you is just incapable of seeing the truth is a sure sign of a small mind.




  • There’s no outrage because

    A) it’s Trump, and that’s not even the most outrageous thing he’s said this week

    B) frankly, what he’s describing is more or less SOP for the US (not that I think that’s a good thing). We’ve done it countless times for countless petty economic reasons. He’s not talking about doing something unprecedented, so much as just saying the quiet part out loud.

    Again, I don’t think either of those things are OK, but you can only summon so much outrage for Trump at a time, and sadly people are just used to the economic imperialism of the US to the point where most people barely see it as a bad thing