Have you ever been through West Virginia and seen the huge bands of coal in the cliffs beside the highway? Awesome. — frank

No, but that would be highly interesting.

I was at Cumberland Falls in Kentucky a few years ago and picked up some pieces of coal that had washed down from up stream. The pieces were rounded and smoothed; quite nice. I've never thought of coal as a rock, either. When I was a child, we heated the house with a coal space heater. Usually the coal was briquettes, but sometimes it was chunk coal, some of the chunks being the size of a small watermelon or cantaloupe.

I suppose, upon your first naive encounter with unprocessed coal one could think of it as a rock. It is rock-like in hardness and weight, but it has very unrocklike features. For instance, if you apply a small torch flame to the surface of unprocessed coal, little jets of gas will ignite; if you apply more heat, the surface will chip off. Apply enough heat and it burns. Rocks don't do that.

The residue of burnt coal is more clearly a mineral. Clinkers formed in the bottom of the stove. They were fairly hard and brittle -- but not a solid mass -- lots of irregular shapes and holes. Coal ash is reddish grey-brown and relatively light in weight. The ash will become toxic when water leaches out the various chemicals native to coal and created by combustion.

So is the idea basically that Democratic Socialism proffers a welfare state with higher taxes, along with a non-profit government? — Leontiskos

More or less.

I am trying to understand the foil to Democratic Socialism. I think everyone agrees that the government should be non-profit, so it probably isn't that. Presumably the foil is a laissez-faire scheme with limited government, low taxes, and no welfare benefits coming from the state? — "Leontiskos

That describes neoliberalism -- weak state, strong corporations, minimal regulation, few benefits, everybody is on their own.

The other thing I often do not understand with respect to socialism or Democratic Socialism is how the change is supposed to be effected. For example, what is the motivation by which a capitalist society would transform itself into a Democratic Socialist society? — "Leontiskos

European countries have had democratic socialism certainly since WWII but before as well.

Why would capitalism convert to any form of democratic socialism? Survival and crudely obvious necessity.

The American economy in the last quarter of the 19th century and into the 20th was "the gilded age" a period of extremely disproportion concentrations of wealth. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Progressives (like Theadore Roosevelt) began reforms which would eventually reduce the disparity of wealth. The New Deal and WWII was financed largely through extremely high taxes on wealth. Between 1929 and 1945 the amount of concentrated wealth was roughly sliced in half -- fewer millionaires by half.

After WWII, there was a consensus formed among government, labor, and the corporations (and their stockholders) to NOT return to conditions of the gilded age. During the years between 1945 and 1974 the US was roughly democratic socialist -- high taxes, very generous benefits, good wages and cooperative labor agreements, and so on. During this time, business, labor, and government all did well. The WWII debt was paid off; FHA, VA, NDEA, and other benefit programs helped working class people achieve greater education, better employment, and better housing. "The common good" won out,

After 1975, there was a reaction during which aspirants for greater private wealth and power effected lower tax rates, reduced benefits, union busting, and lower wages. They had had enough of that "common good" crap. Between 1975 and 2023 there was another extraordinary accumulation of wealth in a relatively small number of hands.

The public which had previously supported and benefitted from a democratic socialist period no longer held together, and they lost out.

And a preferential option for the poor, but let's leave that aside for now because it is more explicitly religious. — Leontiskos

The American ruling class also has a preferential option for the poor, namely, "fuck 'em".

I suppose I am not convinced that the tensions of a hybrid model are ultimately sustainable. — Leontiskos

It has not been sustainable in the USA -- perhaps the least fertile soil for socialism of any kind. Europe has maintained its democratic socialist systems much better. Seems like part of Brexit was an effort to get out from under the democratic socialism of the EU.

Whether the EU can maintain its democratic socialist programs during the more turbulent times ahead--increased pressures from climate refugees, global heating problems at home, war next door, god knows what else, remains to be seen. I hope they can for their sake.

Point out the fault in this logic:
- Atoms of carbon in the atmosphere are taken up by plants.
- Cows eat the plants.
- The cows release the atoms of carbon back into the atmosphere. — Agree to Disagree

Your picture of the carbon cycle is OK as far as it goes, but 3 things are missing:

a) A small minority of cows are grazed on grass alone. Most cows are fed hay or grass, but are "finished"(weight and fat are added) on grains. Grain requires quite a bit of added energy input in the form of fertilizer and fuel. Carbon dioxide is the by-product of raising corn, wheat, and soybeans for feed.

b) Grass-fed cows digest their food by fermentation; a by-product of this fermentation is methane, which the cows belch in large quantities, Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

c) The land on which feed for cattle is produced could produce those crops for humans--corn, wheat, soybeans, oats, etc. The ratio of grains to meat (pound for pound) is 6:1 -- it takes 6 pounds of feed to produce one pound of meat. Chicken is much more efficient, 1.5:1--1 1/2 lbs of feed for 1 pound of chicken. Pork is in-between beef and chicken -- 3:1.

I am not a vegetarian, btw. I like meat.

Not sure why you’re muddying the waters on something pretty well understood. No one claimed oil is made from “dead dinosaurs. — Mikie

No one HERE claimed oil is made from dead dinosaurs. Go ask 100 people in Walmart; some of them will say that oil came from dead dinosaurs.

As long as we are talking about fuel, "fossil fuel" is not at all confusing. If people start talking about fossilized animals and plants while they are also talking about fuel, the water turns muddy. If you were to be covered up with a lot of muddy water, the suspended solids would settle on your esteemed carcass and over eons would turn you into a very small glob of petroleum, depending how fat your are. Unfortunately, by the time your are petrol the species will have long since become extinct and the successor species will probably use photosynthesis.

To repeat the point: the term "fossilization" is tricky.

I consider a fossil to be "a plant or animal whose tissue has been completely replaced by mineral substances; no part of the animal remains in the fossil--only the form". Petrified wood, or petrified dinosaur bones are mineral replacements of the original tissue. The original tree or theropod is altogether absent--gone, missing, kaput.

Coal and oil can be called fossils, but in fact the original tissues of the organisms are present, albeit transformed. If they were actual "fossils" they could not be used as fuel.

So, "fossil fuels" are a handy figure of speech, but they do not actually describe coal and oil.,

I asked Google whether coal is a rock or not and got two answers:

Why coal is considered as rock?

Being composed of carbon, coal forms a carbonaceous deposit. Having been transported and accumulated in a single deposit it is sedimentary. Having undergone metamorphosis and petrification it is a rock. Consequently it is reasonable to classify coal as a carbonaceous sedimentary rock.
Oct 12, 2015

Why is coal not a rock?
Coal differs from every other kind of rock in that it is made of organic carbon: the actual remains, not just mineralized fossils, of dead plants. Today, the vast majority of dead plant matter is consumed by fire and decay, returning its carbon to the atmosphere as the gas carbon dioxide.
Jan 23, 2020

Applied topically? Or do you drink it? — frank

"We're sorry; the Turpentine Poison Hot Line is closed during the month of August. Please call back at a time when we might be open."

Fossil fuels are fossilised plants (and some animal remnants).
— @Benkei

I think it's more that under pressure, fossilized organic material produces oil and coal. An actual fossil won't burn because it's made out of rock. — frank

The word "fossil" is leading us astray here. Fossils are plants or animals whose tissues have been replaced by minerals. The original animal is altogether absent (except for insects trapped in fossilized amber).

Coal formed because during the carboniferous period, there were no fungi to break down lignin. So, as the masses of vegetation died, accumulated, sank, were buried deeply, heat and pressure cooked the vegetative mess into coal. Minerals did not replace the vegetative matter: If they did, one would have petrified wood, which is interesting, but can't burn.

The Carboniferous Period came to an end with the rise of fungi which were capable of turning the dead plant matter into soil -- no more coal formation.

"Petroleum, also called crude oil, is formed from the remains of ancient marine organisms, such as plants, algae, and bacteria". All that stuff wasn't fossilized. If it was, it would resemble limestone more than grease.

Kerogen is incompletely formed petroleum and makes up shale oil.

The Sinclair Oil Company not withstanding, dead dinosaurs are not the source of crude oil.

Once upon a time, all tar came from pine trees. — frank

In various parts of the world, petroleum has seeped out into pools, which then evaporated, forming thick tars. Think of the LeBrea tar pits in L.A. Ancient people found various uses for these substances. Another source of very sticky resin comes from birch bark. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens both extracted a glue from birch bark. Amber is fossilized pine resin.

Pitch, resin, asphalt, and tar name the same (and different) substances. Yes, confusing. It gets worse: plastics derived from petroleum are also called resins.

The sap of pine trees is called resin.
Pitch, asphalt, and tar are forms of petroleum.

A violinist uses a small block of "rosin" or "resin" to increase the stickiness of the horsehairs on the bow. Use the song, "Rosin the beau" as an mnemonic device to connect resin with horsehair. The "bow" in the song is inconveniently spelled "beau" which spoils the whole thing, but never mind.

Pitch, asphalt, and tar have all been used as sealants for boats, wine barrels, and other leaky things.

Tree-sourced resin (or rosin) is used for skateboards to prevent cracking, chipping, and breakage. Turpentine from certain pine trees has been used medicinally for treatment of cough, gonorrhea, and rheumatism. Tar water, resin steeped in water, used to be recommended by doctors for illnesses such as smallpox, ulcers and syphilis.

If you should get a case of gonorrhea, smallpox, or syphilis, I strongly recommend that you not resort to turpentine as a cure.

thought that 1 billion cows must be causing a huge problem. But then I researched further and found that CO2 and methane from cows are part of the biogenic carbon cycle. There is no overall gain or loss of carbon atoms in the atmosphere due to cows (in the long-run) — Agree to Disagree

The problem with cows is less CO2 and more methane CH4. Cows digest grass/feed through enteric fermentation which produces methane as a by-product--those 4 stomachs... Methane is a much more potent green house gas than CO2 because it absorbs more solar heat. Cows are not the only source of methane: leakage from natural gas operations, rotting vegetation, rotting thawed permafrost soils. Methane also occurs as a hydrate -- water and methane combined in fragile solid deposits in the ocean.

Cows could disappear and methane would still be a significant contributor to global heating,

He can apply his own effort towards nature and maybe do so in voluntary effort with others, or he can sit back and take from those who do. — NOS4A2

Ah, great description of anti-social capitalism!

Hey, NOS4A2, we're not in the same city, let alone the same ball park. We're not going to agree.

Graft and corruption (of the sort that characterized the Chicago political machine for many years, is parasitical. But honest government is lean, efficient, and effective. Government does work that either does not (or should not) make money. Take the disease surveillance activities of public health departments. Controlling transmissible disease requires an agency to actively scan the community for disease -- syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, West Nile fever, cryptosporidium, and so on. It's not a money maker. Someone needs to measure school performance -- else billions go to waste. Education supervision like public health is not a money maker.

Mining? Agriculture? Transportation? Manufacturing? Warehousing? Retail? Capitalism does these (and others activities) because these are the money makers. In Democratic Socialism, the state DOES NOT take the place of business. If it does, then you end up with state capitalism, which is what the USSR was. Not that great. What happens in Democratic Socialism is that business and workers pay higher taxes (than in the US) to maintain a healthy, productive society. Democratic Socialism is not communism at all, and it's not classic socialism, either, because profit making corporations are a key part of the system -- just not quite as much profit making.

People in at least reasonably decent societies willingly share the necessary resources required to keep that society operating and solvent. Sometimes the resources are gathered in a. purely voluntary manner -- the hat is passed and individuals contribute what they can contribute. Hat-passing works in small groups.

Sometimes people are asked for contributions. Public Radio stations ask for donations about 3 times a year. They'll take any donation, but they generally suggest amounts. The Girl Scouts sell cookies. You get a box of cookies and part of the price goes to the organization. Capitalism in general works that way: you buy stuff and some of the money goes to the organization (like the stockholders).

For the expensive heavy lifting activities that a society needs--bridges, sewers, hospitals, schools, social services--we share resources through taxation. It's sharing, not expropriation. The pharaohs expropriated some grain from the peasants to pay for pyramids that did absolutely nothing for the peasants. Sharing through taxation maintains the quality of the society so that everyone can live a reasonably fulfilling life.

The better the quality of life a society desires, the more sharing of resources that is required. More is required because a very good quality of life for everyone is expensive. It's much cheaper to operate a shit hole society. Where do you want to live? Venezuela or Sweden?

We actually don't know for sure that the pyramids were built with slave labor. Engineering studies indicate that many of the steps in construction were technically very demanding as well as physically difficult. I don't think anyone has demonstrated exactly how the ordinary 2.5 ton stones were maneuvered into place, much less the really big stones at the center of the pyramid (the king's chamber) that weighed between 30 and 80 tons. 8000 tons of granite were brought from distant quarries. Slave labor might well have figured into some phases, but there is also some evidence that at least some workers were skilled wage earners. (The evidence is partly in the existence of construction villages next to the work site.)

But to your point: Funds had to be expropriated from one source or another.

I've also been to the low-tax countries such as Monaco, the Bahamas, and Dubai, and can report that their infrastructure is far superior to the ones I see here. — NOS4A2

I haven't been to these places, so I have no opinion on their infrastructure. But Dubai is 1588 square miles; Monaco has <1 square mile; Bahamas is the giant among the 3 with 5358 square miles, but is spread out over 700 islands. Whatever their assets and liabilities, there isn't much point in comparing them to Canada (3.8 million square miles) or Australia, the latter which is a continent.

Getting rid of the parasite class did France a world of good.

Don't forget the American Civil War. A lot of southern slave owners were reduced to poverty. Wealth was greatly reduced after WWI and lasted until around 1970. What caused it? Progressive legislation! The Progressives started trimming the wealth at the top before 1914. The economic collapse in 1929 wiped out some of the Uber-wealthy, but legislation played a crucial war. The New Deal to turn the depression around was expensive, and it was very high taxes on wealth that paid for it. Then came WWII, and continued high rates of high-wealth taxation. The post-WWII boom was financed partly by government efforts (FHA, VA, NDEA, etc. which, again, were paid for out of high taxation.

Heavily taxing wealth required an agreement among labor, capital, and politics. That agreement held until the early 1970s, when the highest tax levels began to be lowered, and various changes made it possible for the rich to again get much richer at the expense of the working class.

There is nothing inherent in Capitalism to bring about the Gilded Age of the 1880s or the current gilded age of multi-billionaires. It's the cooperation, yea--the facilitation--of government that makes this possible, or not.

one could find a constructive use for mace and the guillotine, but I'm hard-put to imagine what that is — Vera Mont

Guillotines remain the go-to device for severing heads. Much more reliable than a hand held axe. Quicker than hanging. Etc. Now, as for severing heads, there is an abundance of heads which, severed from their bodies, would have beneficial effects on society. I can think of a few dozen right off.

The major drawback of the guillotine is excessive bleeding. The place d'severence was moved periodically, probably because the ground became saturated with varying degrees of noble blood. Now, of course, we would funnel the blood into sanitary sewers.

I'm inclined to say that humanity's troubles are not caused by any particular human invention so much as the fact that humans keep coming up with destructive inventions. — Vera Mont

I'm inclined to say that humanities troubles are caused by our evolution from adaptable but short-sighted primates to overly clever, adaptable, and short sighted primates. We're good at inventing, but not projecting long-term consequences (like, longer than 15 minutes or 15 years). Our short-sightedness isn't a bug, it's a feature. Survival USUALLY is determined in the short run. In the long run, we're all dead. ("‘The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead,’ wrote John Maynard Keynes in his 1923 work, A Tract on Monetary Reform.")

WELCOME TO THE PHILOSOPHY FORUM, even though you joined 4 years ago.

Pretty big questions, an-salad.

I'm a democratic socialist, so there's my bias. "Capitalism" is not a huge unitary entity. There are numerous players with often mutually exclusive aims -- hence the anarchy. Capitalist economies may be organized into blocks, like the G7. organized around shared values of pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative government. China is (some sort of quasi) capitalist country but it doesn't share the same values as the G7.

According to the world bank, 8% of the world's population (650 million) live in extreme poverty -- that is, they have less than US $2.15 to live on per day. Almost a quarter of the global population, 23 percent, lived below the US$3.65 poverty line, and almost half, 47 percent, lived below the US$6.85 poverty line, as reported in the 2022 Poverty and Shared Prosperity report (World Bank).

Capitalism IS responsible for the impoverished lives of many people who produce goods for export to the G7 and other countries. By contracting with ever cheaper capitalist operatives in 3rd world and developing countries, labor costs are driven to the absolute minimum--a level at which people in Bangladesh can not feed themselves.

Socialism has to be the shared system around the world if it were to make a significant difference. A few socialist countries here and there (even big ones) can't dismantle the capitalist system alone.

War and poverty have been around since Ur, a long time ago. Given that we are heading into a period of globally heated instability, I'm pretty sure there are going to be wars over ever diminishing necessities like fresh water, food, tolerable heat levels, and so on. From that point of view, I'm not sure any politico-economic system will be able to equitably administer the world's needs.

En-salad -- are you a socialist?

ECOWAS countries held a meeting today to contemplate sending a "standby force" to restore democracy to Niger after the military coup — ssu

It seems unlikely that ECOWAS will successfully restore democracy. I don't know how much power they can bring to bear (military and economic) on the Niger Junta. I can imagine one of the major powers attempting this and having the effort fall flat on its face. Or blowing up in their face. Some sort of face-losing experience.

Will we see even worse development, more famines and war in the region? — ssu

Famine, certainly. What desertification doesn't do, bad politics probably will. There were efforts being undertaken to slow the advance of the desert southward; the last time I read about that was years ago.

Africa is so big; the cultures so varied; the success and failure of various nations in doubt.

Thanks for starting this thread. I don't know much about Africa either.

This map demonstrates how big the continent is

This office / residential building in Norway is mostly wood -- all vertical and horizontal loads are carried by wood structures. There may be some diagonal bracing using steel; lots of metal fasteners; exteriors on wood buildings may not be wood, owing to harsh weather. Wood has lots of advantages, and some disadvantages. 1) because it is light weight, it offers less resistance to forces acting on the building. So, heavy wooden pieces need to be used in tall structures. 2) wood is not completely moisture resistant. Miami might not be a good place to use wood for high rises. 3). repair can be difficult



How the laminated pieces will hold up over 100 years... I don't know. Probably pretty well, assuming the building is consistently maintained. There are 60 to 80 year old buildings with laminated supports that are doing fine.

Soil is a natural carbon sink, but it doesn't capture and hold carbon just by existing, Plants put the carbon into the soil. Regenerative (rather than extractive) land management can increase the amount of carbon sequestered.

With regenerative agriculture the percentage can increase to between 5 and 8% over 10 to 20 years, by which time the soil will become carbon replete. According to them, each percentage increase represents 8.5 tons of carbon sequestered per acre: so between 25 and 60 tons per acre over 10 -20 years. — BMJ - UK

John Deere Co. recently retired one of its oldest plow models--the kind that turns the soil over. A lot of crop farmers have switched to minimum tillage agriculture, and rather than plows, chisels are used to create a narrow furrow, without disturbing the soil on either side. Planters are designed to create a little hole in the furrow into which the seed is inserted. Again, less disturbance of the soil.

Regenerative farming is far less capital intensive than trying to extract carbon mechanically or chemically from the atmosphere and then storing it deep underground in old oil wells.

Building with wood rather than concrete is another way to sequester carbon. By using cultivated forest products made into engineered wooden beams and plywood, the structure can store carbon.

Here is a 25 story wood-frame bldg. in Milwaukee. WI. Posts, beams, and other structural parts are made with many cross-laminated layers of wood which are very strong. They are also fire resistant.



Fast growing trees are another carbon sequester. Poplars and Cottonwoods grow quite fast and can be used in various wood products.

One of the big problems with the issue of climate-change/global-warming is that you have two sides screaming at each other and not listening to what the other side is saying. — Agree to Disagree

Factual matters (like gravity) don't have two sides. A creationist and a scientist will not benefit by "listening to each other". Some pairs of political ideas are mutually exclusive -- like dictatorship and democracy.

In my opinion it is almost impossible to stop global warming. The best that we can do is adapt. — Agree to Disagree

I'm not at all sure we WILL stop global warming, but given that it is caused by human activity (burning fossil fuel) it CAN be stopped--provided we get on with the task in a very forthright manner.

If global warming were something caused by a natural solar cycle of some kind, for instance, we would not be able to do anything about it. But that isn't the case.

At the time, 2011, it seemed like a big mistake to shut down Germany's nuclear generators. Granted, Fukushima was a major disaster, but Germany doesn't seem prone to severe earthquakes and tsunamis. Solar and wind w/o a reliable third generating source (and not coal/gas) are insufficient.

A lot of ideas are just bad ideas. — ChatteringMonkey

I have been a steaming kettle of bad ideas which seemed like good ideas.

At this point there is a disconnect between what would be needed to solve climate change and the ecological crisis more generally, and societal goals. — ChatteringMonkey

You hit the nail on its head. Full employment, continual GDP growth, new production, and all that are the national policy--the environment be damned. Unfortunately, a radical response to the ecological and economic crisis of global warming could bring about an economic disaster on its own. Carbon neutrality by 2035, '45, '55, '65--pick a date--would require so wrenching a change in society--one so severe that the outcome would be unacceptable. Fossil fuels are so central to the economy, and the build out of low carbon systems are so complex and time consuming -- and that is the case IF we had actually started the build out.

philosophically speaking it's a case of Kierkegaard's sickness until death, which is that we can't carry certain aspects of who we are into this new world we imagine. We have to die to change, and it's hard to let go. A crisis would take that part of it out of the equation. — frank

"Never let a good crisis go to waste", but if global heating isn't a sufficient crisis what did you have in mind? Something spectacularly bad but which we still survive...

Indeed, it is hard to let go of "this world" and die into a different one. I haven't become a vegetarian yet, which is NOT the toughest thing in the world to do.

If Mikie is right, then you are giving aid and comfort to those who for whatever reason are actively preventing people from reaching a consensus that would allow a collective response to a crisis that will cost many lives. — unenlightened

@Agree to Disagree appears to be invincibly misinformed. There isn't much that can be done for or with the invincibly misinformed, the invincibly ignorant, the invincibly stupid, etc. Every member of TPF, one by one, can beat him or her over the head with the facts, but the invincible are... invincible. So, move on; leave the close-minded sons of bitches alone.

@Agree to Disagree may want to plug up the conduit of consensus. I don't know why. However, some resistance can actually help solidify consensus.

We aren't in a very good position to change the policies of the extensive fossil fuel industry, it's outright owners or stockholders, invested banks, mutual funds, and private equity companies. Were TPF to be a $500B fund with lots of fossil fuel stocks, our consensus might disturb Exxon Mobil.

It isn't that we are completely powerless (and I definitely don't want to discuss how close to powerlessness we might be) so there are some things we can do on a personal level: recycling, eating a vegetarian diet, buying less, traveling less, consuming less--but BEING more. These are all pieces of a civic spiritual discipline.

We can try to influence those around us to take climate change (global heating) seriously. We can agitate, irritate, and aggravate do-nothing officials. We can vote when and if a candidate is available who might make a difference. We can engage in any suitable anti-corporate protest that might be available.

It's at least disgusting when some nattering nabob of negativity very reliably pipes up with "That won't do any good!" "It won't work!" "If one march doesn't lead to victory, why bother?" Etc.

In a culture which covers up the penis, then the penis isn't as important to gender-identity as many other things that we actually do get to see on the regular. — Moliere

Or the penis may become more important because it is always covered up.

Men whose penises have been blown off, shot off, or ruined by cancer greatly desire a replacement -- either one fashioned from his own tissue or a transplant (some penis transplants have been done). Even if the replacement is not 100% functional, the essential piece of tissue is present. Appearances have been preserved. Better, of course, if it works.

Some men (many?) seem to be anxious about exposing their penises to unflattering comparison with other men's dicks. A lot of this anxiety derives from too little exposure to what other penises actually look like. So, quite often there is furtive glancing to the side while standing at urinals.

Too much masculinity is invested in the penis--a mistake. Masculinity is found in the whole body and in the brain. The penis doesn't hang alone as the sole signal of masculinity, and the penis doesn't 'produce' masculinity. Men with big dicks are not more masculine than men with small dicks.

Much of the time we are all covered up--chests, breasts, vulvas, penises, balls, butts, arm pits, knees... "Why are we covered up?" has been asked and discussed often enough. Many people are embarrassed by their naked bodies because we are always clothed. There are a few situations when we are naked with strangers -- shower rooms at gyms and pools, for example. These are healthy settings, but are usually rushed. A sauna is less rushed, but time limited -- unless one wants to end up cooked.

A nude beach or nudist camp is more 'therapeutic' because our nakedness is prolonged and not instrumental -- naked for the purpose of washing up. Uncovering everything -- neck to ankle -- is good for anyone with "body issues" provided one is reasonably selective about where one undresses. A highly competitive gym might not be the best place for a skinny, out of shape, or fat person to compare physiques. Better are places with a normal mix of body types and details into which an individual fits.

Actually, one trip to a nudist camp or nude beach may be enough. The first time I undressed completely on a nude beach was the cure. The many repeat visits was just for fun.

Thank you for the lucid explanation.

Thank heavens COCA (Council on Child Abuse) has finally recognized the harm bad grammar can cause.

You don't have to do it alone — unenlightened

That's a relief. I was feeling slightly anxious about it.

In 2017 and 2018 the world produced 97,000,000 cars. More than I thought, but most of these were internal combustion powered. By 2025 the total number of electric vehicles on the road will be around 70,000,000 and somewhere between 10 million and 14 million are produced yearly in the world.

The numbers of electric cars are increasing rapidly, but it will be quite a few years before the CO2 burden of gas powered cars is lifted. Then we have to consider how the electricity for electric cars is being produced. Windmills? Solar arrays? Nuclear plants? Hydro? Natural gas? Coal?

Last year 12% of the world's electricity was from solar and wind--better than I thought, but still, a long way to go, especially in the US.

Fortunately I do not have to generate the world's electricity on my bicycle powered generator.

The world can be reconfigured quite easily, we have been doing it for centuries — unenlightened

We have been reconfiguring the world for centuries -- true. It was definitely not "easy".

The Industrial Revolution demanded extremely strenuous efforts from hundreds of millions of workers, animals, and machines. Further, it took a couple of centuries to accomplish (and, of course, raise CO2 levels enough to make life increasingly difficult).

Take automobiles. There are about 1 billion cars on the world's roads, almost all of them burning fossil fuel. Replacing 1 billion internal combustion engines with 1 billion batteries, and the building generating capacity to keep them all charged, will not be easy.

There are, roughly, 140 million houses just in the US. Most of them are heated or cooled with fossil fuel (directly or indirectly) and many of the houses are poorly insulated. Electrifying 140 million homes and building the requisite wind and solar generating plants will not be easy.

Even acquiring the land and permits to build wind and solar plants is difficult. Building long power transmission lines between windmills and cities requires the acquiescence of many litigious, uncooperative agents.

And so on and so forth.

Sartrean-type dilemma — Baden

Sartre wrote a short story in which a member of the underground resistance was captured and under torture revealed where the rest of his 'group' would be located. The captive made up as unlikely a location as he could, but it turned out to be exactly where his comrades had gathered. The Nazis killed them all.

I can't remember the name of the story, and perhaps it took place in Spain. The 'lesson' I took away from the tale was that 'absurd', even tragic consequences can flow from our best-motivated decisions.

Suppose an epic disaster is about to hit your town, and there aren't enough shelter spaces for everyone. — Paul

Greetings, Paul. Glad to see you visit your grand child (TPF, child of PF) every now and then.

Time is of the essence here, since whatever is going to happen is already on its way. Given a shortage of time, and given the faster speed of emotional decisions (as opposed to decisions based on working out the logic of it all), I would choose my mother. Most people would.

"Reasons of the heart" may be quite different than the reasons of utilitarian logic. Mother dear will be a burden once the first wave of the epic disaster is over and we leave the shelter. She was a widely respected art dealer, for which the demand will be seriously diminished. Aside from art, she promoted nouvelle cuisine. Soon people will be lucky to have skinny cat for dinner. Hang out at your gallery, mom, and the bomb, meteorite, tsunami, level 6 hurricane, or shit storm will be your last customer. I hope the 20 year old who is taking your place will have loads of practical skills. We didn't have time to administer aptitude tests. He was close to the door so we grabbed him.

I will advise the in-shelter survivors not to dither over who survived and who didn't. Mass death obliterates morality. "The living will envy the dead" Nikita Khruschev said.

From a 'selfish' point of view, it is entirely in our interest to protect and preserve the earth--as a species, as a colossal herd of animals, as an apex species--in the final analysis, completely dependent on a complex environment.

If we do not, then we--as a species--might well be finished because the fucked-over environment will no longer support us, or much else.

IF we finish ourselves off in nuclear annihilation or run-away globe heating, we're dead meat--another bunch of rotting carcasses on the dying planet, forever guilty of suicidal ecocide.

I wish you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans. — T Clark

Oh, look! Here's something in a foreign country, right next door, that we can obsess about: Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau are separating after 18 years of marriage. What effect will this have on Canadian-Australian relations? Did King Charles have anything to do with this? Were one or both of the Trudeaus untrue to the other? How will this affect the war in Ukraine? Will the firefighters in BC and Quebec be less efficient with a DIVORCED Prime Minister at the helm? Will Justin resign? How will this affect the trade balance between the US and Canada? Will global heating get worse with the first family of the frosty north breaking up?

the wear and tear — Dawnstorm

Tell me about it! I'm 76 and limping around (bad knees and hips).

I'm not at my best lately. — Dawnstorm

Checked your 'sell by' date?

Maybe the better question is -- how is it, given that meaning is public, that we understand novel uses? — Moliere

Well, sometimes we don't understand.

"Dope", for instance. The word was derived from Dutch "doopen" meaning 'to dip" or 'sauce' and was imported into English about 200 years ago. It has been used to mean a) a drug b) inside information c) a stupid person d) a thick varnish or a lubricant. It also has a meaning in semiconductor manufacture, It is both a noun and verb.

Those uses were familiar to me. "Dope" meaning 'cool' or 'high quality' -- dope shoes -- was meaningless to me the first few times I encountered this usage.

Things used to be "hot"; then they became "cool".

I read pretty widely, and I thought I had a large vocabulary. However, I keep coming across English words that are as unfamiliar as Sanskrit. I've been collecting them, along with their meaning. The words are not common at all -- I check them out on Google Ngram, which is a measure of the frequency that words have appeared in print during the last several hundred years.

Who the hell uses these weird words?

A medievalist would be familiar with destrier, a medieval knight's warhorse. But who uses instauration, the action of restoring or renewing something? Here's one with very narrow usage: floccinaucinihilipilification The Latin elements were listed in a well-known rule of the Latin Grammar used at Eton College, an English public school. Right. Not my neighborhood. But here is a rare word that one could use at TPF fairly often:

monocausotaxophilia, "the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity’s most common cognitive errors." The novelist Kim Stanley Robinson may have coined this word in a Financial Times article. The article is behind a paywall.

Paywall is a new word we all know the meaning of.

So: we encounter new words that are familiar to other speakers; we can guess at the meaning from context, ask what it means, or look it up. If we hear the word several times, we might add it to our own lexicon. Or not: I read somewhere that after middle age, people tend not to learn new words. My guess is that this is not a brain phenomenon, but a cultural one. Life no longer brings older people into contact with people regularly using new and different vocabularies. Plus, other middle aged or older people find somebody using too many new words very annoying.

I have added this new word to my vocabulary: deliquesce. It means to melt, or fade away, It's what happens to a snowman on a warm winter day. There are times when I wished I could just deliquesce -- quickly melt and fade away from the unpleasant situation I was in. 'Deliquesce' also labels the unpleasant experience of becoming obsolete and irrelevant--another experience I've had (sob, snivel).

I am aware that this is not the correct thread to discuss these things — javi2541997

The Ancient Order of English Majors endorses grammar discussions in any thread on any topic. One must exploit the teachable moment.

I asked myself that question while I was writing the post. I think you're wrong. "We" is not the object of the prepositions, "Americans" is. — T Clark

I wondered about that as well. I agree that you are correct in claiming "Americans" as the object of the preposition "to"; but unavoidably, so is the attached pronoun.

Let us examine the sentence

"I wish you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans."

"I" is the subject of the sentence, "wish" is the verb. The dependent clause "you fucking foreigners would leave the US politics to we Americans" is the object of the verb "wish". "Americans" is an object of a preposition, but so is the pronoun you used with "Americans". The pronouns "we" or "us" emphasizes that the speaker is part of the collective noun "Americans" and not a third party,

leave the US politics to we Americans — T Clark

Nattering nabob of nitpicking grammarians here... The sons of bitches should leave the US politics to us Americans. "Us" is the object of the preposition "to". "We Americans never interfere in other counties' affairs" (cough, cough). We Americans is the subject of the sentence.