Like I suggested to Mr Bee: since climate change denial and spamming this thread with stupid bullshit doesn’t warrant a banning, the ignore list feature works brilliantly.

The posts have already been established as worthless, so there’s nothing to miss.

There are some who argue that pregnancy should be classified as a disease. — Jussi Tennilä

And I think the “some” people who argue this should be classified as diseases.

So it could be an electrician, a lawyer, a dentist. — ssu

So anything at all, provided you work for yourself. In Other words, small business owners. I don’t see anything innovative about that, and if all those people are “entrepreneurs,” then the term is useless or redundant.

Soviet Union with it's central planning wasn't this paradise of innovation. — ssu

Sputnik?

Anyway— the US is centrally planned too.

If the real argument here is the tired line that capitalism — free markets and privatization and the profit motive — somehow leads to greater outcomes, then fine — I have no desire to debate religion.

ordinary entrepreneurship — ssu

So you are talking about the Miracle Mop and the like. What are your examples of all this small, everyday entrepreneurship? The Pet Rock?

We were discussing computers and the Internet. But by all means give some instances…

:up:

All the more reason to take him seriously on Ukraine.

So great to watch Bibi and his ilk squirm and cry over being left behind by… basically the entire world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/world/middleeast/icj-israel-gaza-rafah-ruling.html

No one should really be defending a terrorist organization that murders innocent people, but also shouldn’t treat this organization as equal to the people they supposedly represent.

I’m referring of course to Likud, who is responsible for murdering tens of thousands of innocent people not only over the last 7 months but for many years. They’re not the Jews and they’re not even the Israelis— even if many Israelis support them.

Hamas shouldn’t be defended either, but they kill far fewer people and have been promoted by Bibi and his party, so…

Again, the Nat Turner Rebellion is relevant.

Yet when I refer to entrepreneurs, I do talk about the actual masses of ordinary people. — ssu

It wasn’t the masses of people that created computers and the Internet. That was the point. It comes out of government spending, mostly the department of defense. Ditto for drugs and medical research— often funded by the taxpayers, like from public research universities and research hospitals. The work is the taken and packaged nicely, privatized, and makes a few people rich. That’s what is called “entrepreneurship” in the United States.

Whatever you’re talking about, I don’t know. Maybe something like the Miracle Mop.

Hey— I like most of those people. I originally titled it “bizarre and fantastic,” but then I remembered Kissinger was on there. Not so fantastic.

It’s like arguing world hunger is a hoax because some nonprofits funnel money to rich people. That is to say: stupid.

Added one: people who write “you see.” Ugh.

Man the excuses for not doing anything on the climate are starting to get silly even by denialist standards. — Mr Bee

:up:

Just ignore climate deniers. See ignore list extension thread. I promise you won’t be missing anything.

The occupation has cultivated a longstanding disregard among Israeli soldiers for Palestinian lives, and similar impulses in the words and actions of commanders can be seen to lie behind the horrors of what we are witnessing today.

Israel has governed a people denied basic human rights and the rule of law through constant coercion, threats and intimidation. The idea that the only answer to Palestinian resistance, both violent and nonviolent, is greater — and more indiscriminate — force has shown signs of becoming entrenched in the Israel Defense Forces and in Israeli politics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/opinion/israel-gaza-idf-palestinians-human-rights.html

Always fun to watch the topic immediately switch to “mom and pop stores” and other small businesses when the parasitic, greedy, pathetic behavior of “entrepreneurs” that we’re all supposed to worship is pointed out. Politicians do this all the time with taxes (“You want to tax small businesses to death!”)

Also, your take on what’s “leftist” or not is worthless. You have no clue what my views are, or where they fall on some conventional spectrum they blather about on cable news.

The guy knee deep in the Trump cult talks about how everyone else is propagandized. Not him though — he’s original. (As he repeats, verbatim, Trump’s tweets.)

:rofl:

Don’t let me interrupt. Please continue your boring one man display of sycophancy.

The genocide apologist tries satire again. Hilarious.

:yawn:

Why would anyone expect the pro-Hamas crew to be civil? — Moses

Yeah, like the civil pro-genocide crowd:

STFU moron. — Moses

:up:

See my prior comments regarding your ilk.

Unions should extend to everyone — and they basically do.
— Mikie

No, they do not extend to everyone. — javi2541997

Unions should extend to everyone— and basically do.

My point is, some class workers (prostitutes) will not have the same back-up from a union as others — javi2541997

Of course. Prostitution is illegal in many countries. But unions basically extend to everyone else. The degree of power varies.

Unions should extend to everyone — and they basically do. They’re susceptible to corruption and laziness like any other institution. The last 40 years or so, until recently, has shown what happens when you play it safe.

I’m glad to see unions on the rise again. Despite what the numbers may say, they’re gaining power.

Trump fucked a porn star and tried covering it up before the election.

Trump also tried to overthrow an election he lost.

There — I just saved everyone the time of reading countless words of apologetic gymnastics. Both are facts; both are obvious.

I can’t help myself sometimes. But no worries— I blocked him. So I’m done. Feel free to delete my comments.

You see, without the entrepreneurs these technologies would be just like computers were in the 1970's and 1960's — ssu

The “entrepreneurs.” Yeah, those valuable parasites who know how to take technology they don’t create, put it in a pretty box, and advertise the shit out of it. So let’s worship Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. Brilliant billionaire geniuses.

What a bunch of bullshit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/business/mercedes-benz-uaw-alabama-vote.html

Too bad. Alabama needs unions.

“Unions are the most powerful tool to fix the most important problem in this country.” — Hamilton Nolan

He’s speaking of wealth inequality, which underlies so many other problems. And he’s right. It’s not voting, it’s not government (although local government is a bit different). It’s really unions, and in particular their ability to strike, that serves a counterbalance to the power of corporate America and K street.

Israel is unlikely to eradicate Hamas, any more than the United States eradicated the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Vietcong in Vietnam or violent militias in Iraq.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/18/opinion/rafah-gaza-israel.html

Funny this even makes it to The NY Times. But of course he’s right. It’s a stupid decision, apart from being genocidal and morally disgusting. But it may get Bibi another few months of power. (Although even that is looking uncertain now, given his thin alliance is getting restless.)

@180 Proof

Just watched the Mearsheimer video in full, BTW. Crystal clear, as always— but the Q&A was especially interesting.

Two dead threads from years ago — Lionino

That don’t exist. Oh wait, they exist but they’re from years ago. Oh wait, not from years ago but 7 months ago.

I really shouldn’t engage with imbeciles. My bad. You’re going on the ignore list. Have fun talking to yourself. Bye.

Interesting…

America’s energy system has a problem: Solar and wind developers want to build renewable energy at a breakneck pace — and historic climate legislation has fueled their charge with financial incentives worth billions of dollars. But too often the power that these projects can produce has nowhere to go. That’s because the high-voltage lines that move energy across the country don’t have the capacity to handle what these panels and turbines generate. At the same time, electric vehicles, data centers, and new factories are pushing electricity demand well beyond what was expected just a few years ago.

As a result, the U.S. is poised to generate more energy — and, crucially, more carbon-free energy — than ever before, but the nation’s patchwork system of electrical grids doesn’t have enough transmission infrastructure to deliver all that renewable energy to the homes and businesses that could use it. Indeed, this transmission gap could negate up to half of the climate benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, according to one analysis.

On Monday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, approved a new rule that could help complete this circuit. The agency, which has jurisdiction over interstate power issues, is essentially trying to prod the country’s many electricity providers to improve their planning processes and coordinate with each other in a way that encourages investment in this infrastructure. The hope is that this new regulation will not only address the outstanding interconnection challenge and growing demand but also fortify the grid in the face of extreme weather, given that more transmission will make it easier to shift electricity from one grid to another when there are disaster-driven outages.

However…

However, the reality of the rulemaking process means that the action might not come as quickly as the moment seems to demand. Though the rule was approved on Monday, it doesn’t take effect until 60 days after its publication, and then grid operators and transmission planners will have 10 to 12 months to outline how they intend to comply with the new rule. Only then will the actual planning begin.

[…]

Of course, these new requirements could be delayed or derailed by lawsuits — a likely prospect given the history of legal challenges faced by major FERC rules in the past. Both Powell and Phillips said that they believe that the new policy is durable enough to withstand those challenges. Powell told Grist that the rule went through a lengthy review process that involved extensive public comment. FERC went through 15,000 pages of those comments and ensured that the arguments and issues raised in each were weighed and considered before the final rule was completed.

https://grist.org/energy/ferc-transmission-rule-electricity-grid/

I’m sure it’ll be challenged— and who knows with this Trump-stacked judiciary what will happen.

Reconductoring is included and that’s a good thing too.

Funny how I don’t see them creating threads about the topics they seem to care so much about.

Even though they exist already. But no matter.

I really shouldn’t even take imbeciles seriously.

Yeah, racist genocide promoters love to divert attention from the topic of the thread. Anything to defend the Nazi regime.

Hey look! Suffering in Bangladesh! :lol: — idiocy knows no bounds.

Dabney Coleman. So strange that he popped into my thoughts yesterday while cutting the lawn. My mind wandered to "Cloak and Dagger," an old 80s movie -- and I wondered if he was still alive. At that moment, he was. 24 hours late...not. So strange.

I used to always get him confused with the Dad from A Christmas Story.

Don’t you mean “your guru Mearsheimer”? (Is that goofy ignoramus still around? I lost track after putting on ignore list.)

Anyway— Mearsheimer is spot on, as usual. I’m glad he’s getting a larger audience, thanks mostly to the internet media sidestepping mass media, which ignores him (although he did get 5 minutes on the PBS Newshour a few months ago).

Awfully little talk about the suffering of other countries on a thread about Israel/Palestine. How suspicious! It just proves that those discussing Israel/Palestine, on an Israel/Palestine thread, don’t really care about oppression, ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

And pointing this out makes me smart. It definitely doesn’t prove that one is a complete imbecile.

With its enormous economic, military and political clout, America is the colossus that stands in the way of a planetary crackdown on emissions. Congress is deeply entangled with the fossil fuel industry, and in the short term will stay that way. In time, we can hope for its corruption to wane and a belated survival instinct to kick in. But at this pivotal point, when science tells us we have to peak emissions by 2025, the only way forward is through the executive.

President Biden can’t stop oil companies from drilling on private or state lands, which are the source of the vast majority of our current output, but he can phase out oil and gas production on public lands. And he can reinstate a ban on oil and gas exports from private lands. He can stop saying yes to all new oil and gas projects — including the planned Sea Port Oil Terminal off the Texas coast, intended to increase our exports — and more exploration and drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico.

He can declare the destabilized climate to be the emergency it is and stop the billions of dollars in fossil fuel financing invested abroad, which locks in decades’ worth of extraction. He can direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. He can end the Department of Energy’s fossil fuel financing programs and require that all new vehicle sales are zero-emission by 2030. He can prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Gavin Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the clean energy transition.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/opinion/climate-summit-2023-un.html

Objective: eradicate Hamas.

Since Israel is the aggressor and occupier, which has created a murderous prison for 2 million people barely surviving under its vicious regime, the way they can deal with Hamas is to free the territory from their sadistic rule.

More narrowly, they can accept a cease-fire.

There will be no eradication of Hamas. What Israel wants is apparent: cleanse the region of those “barbaric” Palestinians, who are to blame for Hamas’ actions and who don’t really deserve to be there anyway. Barely disguised racism, really. But so it goes…

I added to the list. Nutty that she’s around too.

Just added Dr Ruth. How is she still around?

Kind of like Richard Simmons— very big in the 80s, but haven’t really heard from them in a long time and just assumed they died a long time ago and I never heard about it.

But no. Still alive. Cool! :up:

I think the definition I gave is probably a good one. — Sam26

Silly and random, but good I guess.

But similar claims can be made about beings, as well. Or experience. Or thinking. Or awareness. Or meaning. I probably couldn’t give examples of where philosophy doesn’t in some way deal with any of those things either. No reason to prioritize epistemology — that seems more a choice based on tradition. — Mikie

Hey let’s come up with a bunch of hypotheticals towards the end of justifying present-day genocide. What a fun game.

We use deductive and inductive reasoning to analyze what we believe and what others believe. — Sam26

We really don’t. Not most of the time.

The emphasis of thinking (in terms of logic), epistemology, etc — again, seems to me just a residue of tradition. Why start there? Why not start with phusis? Or what is not thought? Instinct? Habit? The unconscious.

The very idea that we walk around reasoning in a structured way, taking things in and “analyzing” beliefs— that whole story is unconvincing.

Can you give an e.g. where philosophy doesn't deal with beliefs or belief systems in some way? — Sam26

Depends on what we mean by belief. But similar claims can be made about beings, as well. Or experience. Or thinking. Or awareness. Or meaning. I probably couldn’t give examples of where philosophy doesn’t in some way deal with any of those things either. No reason to prioritize epistemology — that seems more a choice based on tradition.