I think we were very foolish to declare the cold war over, and ourselves the victor, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some even declared it to be the end of history. There’s only one word for that: hubris. In reality, history continued on, and the war of ideology remains ongoing, albeit changed.
We live in a society that generally looks down on working class people. Not all working class people, equally, though, as not everyone who sells their labor is culturally or socially in the same class. A professional athlete making tens of millions of dollars a year can’t really be counted in the same social class as a factory worker making $50K a year. That being said, very, very few people get rich by earning a wage. Generally speaking, if you want to get rich you have to have access to capital.
And getting rich is the goal. One’s position in the social hierarchy is closely tied to their wealth and income. For this reason, there’s a strong incentive to NOT do work that doesn’t pay a lot. Unfortunately for all of us, much of that work is absolutely essential for the functioning of any modern society. So, there’s a disconnect. The incentives are skewed, away from some of the most essential work and toward some of the least essential work. I think the long term effects of this could be disastrous, as we see more and more shortages of workers in essential fields.
But fear not, the capitalists have anticipated this and they have a solution: immigrants. Just bring people in from other countries to do the essential yet low wage, low status work. I don’t really think that’s a solution at all, and is more or less just delaying the inevitable.
He’s talking about Communists. The Soviets were a major part of the allied victory. More out of necessity than anything else. I don’t think Stalin wanted to fight the Germans. Not at all. That’s why he signed the The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, though I think he did want to use Germany’s war to try and take territory for the Soviet Union, and expand the Soviet sphere of influence. Regardless, the Communists were on the winning side and people like this guy hate that fact.
They hate communism because the stated goal of communists is to create a classless, moneyless, stateless society. Modern Conservatives might not be fully aligned with Fascists in general, or the Nazis specifically, but they do have one very key thing in common with them: their incredibly strong belief in hierarchy. What the Nazis and modern Conservatives share in common is a belief that some people are inherently superior to others. For this reason, the idea of a society without social classes is abhorrent to them, and so is democracy. They cannot stand the idea of a society ruled by the people. In this regard, they are much more clearly aligned with fascists than communists, or democrats.
Modern Conservatives are not necessarily aligned with liberals, either, although liberalism does not reject hierarchy nor does it require, or even prefer, democracy (see Chile under Pinochet). In fact, I would say liberals prefer that their “democracy” be one that is carefully curated by elites, experts, and certain members of the upper social classes, rather than a state that is completely subordinate to the people. In this regard, I would say liberals are generally more closely aligned with modern Conservatives than communists or democrats. However, liberals and conservatives differ greatly on matters relating to supposed “natural hierarchies,” like racial or ethnic hierarchies, as well as hierarchies based on gender, sexuality, religion, etc.
Good. Obviously it won’t pass, but we have to start somewhere.
“Simpson, how would you like to escort 500 Big Macs to Marlon Brando’s island?”
US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller later stated the US believes this step is “not productive at all” due to the UN’s role in the region.
Wow, we are really taking a firm stance here. Israel better be careful or we might become slightly miffed, or maybe even peeved.
If they’re such committed zionists, why are they here and not in Israel?
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying that public utilities should be funded from taxes instead of charging for service? I don’t think having tax payers pay public utilities to overproduce electricity is going to fix the problem, especially since no amount of tax dollar funding can allow utilities to produce solar electricity when the sun isn’t shining.
Public utilities still need to cover their expenses, and they’re not going to be able to do that if they’re charging negative rates in the middle of the day and have no electricity to sell once the sun goes down.
Isn’t peak consumption around middle of the day for most countries?
I can’t speak to other countries, but in the US peak electricity demand generally occurs in the early evening.
Mfw electricity being cheap to generate is not economical
Cheap electricity is great for consumers, but not necessarily for producers. Some people might say, “well, screw producers,” but even if you take profit out of the equation, electric utilities need to be able to at least cover their expenses, and you can’t do that if the amount of electricity you’re generating relative to the demand is so high the price actually goes negative (meaning the utility is actually paying the consumer). Again, that’s good for consumers, but I’m sure you can see how that’s not a sustainable business model. And, like I mentioned before, it would be one thing if utilities could make up for this by selling for a higher price during peak, but by that point the sun is either setting or already set, depending on the time of year, so there’s just no solar electricity to sell, at any price.
That’s not what they were saying, they were saying that it’s not economical to have an abundance of electricity when people need it the least, and little or no electricity when people need it the most. It would be one thing if utilities could sell solar electricity at peak demand hours for a higher price, to make up the difference, but that’s just when solar generation is slowly down significantly or stopped entirely.
And, yes, I know that battery storage could theoretically solve this, but battery technology is not currently capable of providing electricity for the entirety of the time we need it. New technologies are being developed right now with the goal of achieving long term grid storage, but they are still in the R&D phase. I’m confident a suitable storage technology, or multiple technologies, will eventually come to market, but it’s going to take a while.
Regardless, it is likely we will always need some kind of on-demand power generation to supplement renewables and maintain grid stability, and I think nuclear is the best option.
But we shouldn’t act like the problem is that utilities are just greedy. Many utilities aren’t even for-profit companies, as many are either not-for-profit cooperatives or public entities. Sure, there are also many for-profit power utilities as well, maybe even some with connections to the fossil fuel industry, but generally power utilities are not some great villain.
I don’t think innocent people deserve to die just because they happen to not live in a liberal democracy. It’s not like it’s their choice, anyway, but even people who support their country’s regime don’t deserve to be killed for it.
Nintendo doesn’t want you to play their games if you’re not willing to follow their rules. Ok, that’s their prerogative, but that means I will not be playing their games…at least not their new ones.
I prefer playing on my Steam Deck these days, and I really don’t want to buy another handheld just to play Nintendo first party titles. I’m going to play some of my favorite classic Nintendo titles on my Deck using emulators and just not play the new stuff. I’m sure they’re great games, but so what? There are lots of great games. I’ve got a huge backlog of great games already in my Steam library, and 20 more on my wishlist. If Nintendo some day decides to make their titles available for Steam Deck or PC, I’d consider buying them, but since that’s extremely unlikely to happen, I think I’m just done with Nintendo.
Who gives a shit.
Nintendo has burned through all the good will they developed with me when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s. I doubt I’ll ever buy another Nintendo product again. Not that it matters to Nintendo, though. I’m many years removed from their target demographic. They make products for young people and that ain’t me. I’m sure those younger Nintendo fans will keep supporting the company, but, as for me, I’ve got the classic Nintendo games I want and I’ll keep playing them on whatever device I want. If Nintendo doesn’t like that, they can kiss my whole ass.
Ideas about how men are expected to live and behave will always differ from culture to culture, but even within a given culture there are different expectations, based on things like class, for instance. In fact, I would say that’s the big difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, at least in this instance. Walz is a working class man, Vance is firmly a member of the upper class. Given this, it shouldn’t be surprising that Walz seems more in touch with the “average American,” where Vance seems very, well, out of touch.
So why then do so many working class men identify more with Vance? It’s complicated, but it generally all comes down to hierarchy. Working class Americans have been told their whole lives that workers are lower in the social hierarchy, especially those who work more physical jobs and make less than what is necessary to be considered at least upper middle class. By this metric, Walz is a “loser” while Vance is a “winner.” Hierarchy is very important to many men and few of them want to be associated with “losers.” It doesn’t matter so much that Trump and Vance are weird and out of touch, what matters is they are rich, and in this country your place in the social hierarchy is largely determined by your wealth and income.
Makes sense. Steam OS is Arch based, so Valve has a vested interest in it. Especially now that the Steam Deck is an unmitigated success.
Which is something that can, and often does happen in unregulated free markets. The invisible hand is not necessarily very good at things like consumer protection, among other things.
China, Iran and Russia are all spreading disinformation to sow discord
It’s not about supporting one candidate over another because they are more closely ideologically aligned with that candidate, it’s about amplifying division among Americans. Make no mistake, however, these countries did not create the divisions. The divisions stem from our ideological, political, religious, cultural, etc, differences, but these countries are trying to exacerbate conflicts and division, to increase instability and weaken the US.
If you are at war with someone, where do you attack them? Where they are strongest, or where they are weakest? You target their weaknesses, and our divisions are where we are weakest. Where we fundamentally disagree on our political, social, and cultural vision for America is where they target.
And it worked, we hate each other. To be fair, we might have gotten to this point even without outside interference, but I think it at least accelerated the process.
I think what this shows is that EVs are, as of right now at least, more status symbols than climate mitigation tools. While some people certainly do buy EVs because they care about the planet, many don’t really care all that much. I think this is also holding back mass EV adoption in the US. We need EVs to be seen as the sensible choice for the average person, not playthings for the rich and opulent.