You’ll get de-licensed for teaching that, too

Every time Democrats have an opportunity to increase the number of seats on the SCOTUS, they punt.

The fanaticism and fatalism produce some interesting parallels

Then people grow unhappy and begin to rebel. And they either pave a new, wiser path or double down by resorting to cruelty.

Don’t forget Blinky, the three eyed fish.

https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Blinky_(The_Simpsons)

Despot means you have absolute power.

Traditionally in a cruel or oppressive manner.

The wise leader doesn’t need to inflict cruelty, because they have the public’s trust.

I just dont see any reason to ever invest into it nowadays, when renewables and batteries have gotten so good.

Renewables and batteries have their own problems.

Producing and processing cobalt and lithium under current conditions will mean engaging in large-scale deforestation in some of the last unmolested corners of the planet, producing enormous amounts of toxic waste as part of the refinement process, and then getting these big bricks of lithium (not to mention cadmium, mercury, and lead) that we need to dispose of at the battery’s end of lifecycle.

Renewables - particularly hydropower, one of the most dense and efficient forms of renewable energy - can deform natural waterways and collapse local ecologies. Solar plants have an enormous geographic footprint. These big wind turbines still need to be produced, maintained, and disposed of with different kinds of plastics, alloys, and battery components.

Which isn’t even to say these are bad ideas. But everything we do requires an eye towards the long-term lifecycle of the generators and efficient recycling/disposal at their end.

Nuclear power isn’t any different. If we don’t operate plants with the intention of producing fissile materials, they run a lot cleaner. We can even power grids off of thorium. Molten salt reactors do an excellent job of maximizing the return on release of energy, while minimizing the risk of a meltdown. Our fifth generation nuclear engines can use this technology and the only thing holding us back is ramping it up.

Unlike modern batteries, nuclear power doesn’t require anywhere near the same amount of cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese. Uranium is surprisingly cheap and abundant, with seawater yielding a pound of enrichable uranium at the cost of $100-$200 (which then yields electricity under $.10/kwh).

We can definitely do renewables in a destructive and unsustainable way, recklessly mining and deforesting the plant to churn out single-use batteries. And we can do nuclear power in a responsible and efficient way, recycling fuel and containing the relatively low volume of highly toxic waste.

But all of that is a consequence of economic policy. Its much less a consequence of choosing which fuel source to use.

I would rather see more investment on better renewable tech then relaying on biohazard.

Modern nuclear energy produces significantly less waste and involves more fuel recycling than the historical predecessors. But these reactors are more expensive to build and run, which means smaller profit margins and longer profit tails.

Solar and Wind are popular in large part because you can build them up and profit off them quickly in a high-priced electricity market (making Texas’s insanely expensive ERCOT system a popular location for new green development, paradoxically). But nuclear power provides a cheap and clean base load that we’re only able to get from coal and natural gas, atm. If you really want to get off fossil fuels entirely, nuclear is the next logical step.

One of the saddest bits of the show was when they kinda just gave up talking about socio-economic issues and made the whole show revolve around Homer being a big dumb-dumb.

Some of the harshest criticism they had around nuclear power revolved around its privatization and profitization. A bunch of those early episodes amounted to people asking for reasonable and beneficial changes to how the plant was run, then having to fight tooth and nail with the company boss for even moderate reform.

Again, I agree, but my comment was about automobiles.

Nearly 40% of Honda’s automobile production took place in China in the last financial year.

Honda would continue to keep its supply chain in China for the domestic market in the world’s second-largest economy while building a separate one for markets outside of China, the Sankei said. It did not say where it got the information.

That’s not “pulling out of China”. That’s a sign of Chinese domestic automobile consumption rising.

Biden has expanded Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to include more imports.

I haven’t seen much to suggest he’s enforcing it. These laws are consistently toothless, in the same way more and more of our regulatory system is toothless.

It’s the age old problem of a wise despot.

When you’re governing wisely, there is no need to be despotic. Conflicts and contradictions necessitate a large militant police state to keep the lower class in line. But when you’ve got generous surpluses and a rising quality of life, people are generally happy and easy to govern.

Patreon alone is not enough for most creators to make a living

I’ve seen a number of content creators argue otherwise. From the “Hello from the Magic Tavern” sketch comedy group to the “Scenes from the Multiverse” Cartoonist to the various musicians cranking out indie tunes on Bandcamp, the refrain I consistently here is that direct patronage offers significantly better returns than ad-supported payments on bigger media platforms.

Indie creators generally have an easier time of securing monthly subscriptions because they’re more boutique and have closer connections to the audience. And you don’t need an enormous audience to bring in a reliable income. While YouTubers need to get into the hundreds of thousands of subscribers to see any kind of productive ROI, Patreon artists can justify the expense of their work on an audience in the hundreds. They can go entirely indie with an audience in the thousands.

Most creators can’t afford to go fully indie, but the margins are so much better relative to the audience size with direct payments. Even just $2/viewer/episode pays vastly more than what a streaming service offers.

Large professional centrally planned economies do a better job of managing scarce resources than a pack of ill-informed and uncoordinated Wall Street Lemmings.

They’ve since been pulling out of China

Firstly, no they haven’t. US trade with China has only ever increased year-over-year going back to the 1960s.

Secondly, our hunger for cheap labor is sending us to penal colonies across the rest of the Pacific Rim. This isn’t something that began or ended with a single factory in a single country.

Many nations are cracking down on imports related to Uyghur labor.

They’re not. The business is just being laundered through front companies.

Upon the review of the ASPI report, Skechers said it contacted senior management at Luzhou prior to conducting two additional audits of the factory — none of which revealed any indications of forced labor. Luzhou, however, did confirm that members of the Uyghur ethnic group did comprise a portion of its workforce but were employed under compliant terms and conditions.

Shoving thumbs in my ears and saying “I don’t see the non-compliance, its all fine actually!” and letting the provisions go completely unenforced.

And that’s before you get into direct sales through Ali Baba and Temu

There are plenty of automobiles manufactured in the US, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and the UK

And they’re all complicit. BMW, Volkswagon, Jaguar Land Rover all source parts from China.

In fact, the entire US supply chain is reliant on Chinese parts.

Earlier this month, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) said it would be temporarily halting production at a plant in Kragujevac, Serbia due to a lack of parts from China, while Hyundai and Renault have done the same in South Korea.

You can whitewash your supply chain by slapping an western label on Chinese parts. But this isn’t demonstrating any kind of concern for labor rights or ethical insourcing. FFS, we won’t even let Volkswagon plants in Tennessee unionize.

Nevermind Uyghur slave labor. Americans can’t even bargain for better salaries. Its too much for our fragile economy to handle.

As a Texas resident with a few friends in who are professional teachers… oof. I’m so sorry to hear this story has a sad ending.

I’m a big fan of Patreon.

Like that was the time to wake up and hate every single one of these content creators for selling out

And then what? Stop consuming their content?

Electric cars in the US are more expensive mostly due to higher costs of overhead. For example, we have a minimum wage, and China uses forced labor.

• Inside the brutal reality of prison labor where U.S. inmates face injury and lost limbs to fuel major corporations’ supply chains

• In China, men currently can retire at 60 years of age, while women who work in factories can retire as early as 50. Female public-sector workers can retire at 55. Each year 3 million Chinese retire. Many retirees have a lot of time and limited resources. They like to hang out in the streets chatting with their friends or congregate in parks doing tai chi, ballroom dancing or some other activity. One elderly man told the New York Times, “Many old Chinese loving fly kites because it can take up much time, and its cost is free.”

:-/

Is this really the same group of people that want US businesses to divest from Israel, defending products made with the slave labor of Uyghurs?

Americans are just mad that we have a perfectly good exploitable population at home.

This isn’t competition, it sounds like the CCP heavily subsidises the manufacture

China: “Here, have a bunch of cheap electric vehicles to replace your aging fleet of ICE engines. Don’t worry, we’re picking up a part of the tab.”

Americans: “What a great deal! We’ll buy them in droves.”

State Government: “Not so fast! This wouldn’t be fair to honest, hard working domestic car companies like Tesla and Volvo and Toyota.”

Thinking in decades or centuries is a very powerful tool!

Shame we’re only capable of thinking about the next quarter’s profits.