• 42 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • The war on drugs only wasted shit loads of money to fuel the prison labor industry.

    Sounds like we need to do it better.

    For all the gun deaths liberals like to talk about, these newer drugs are more dangerous and are the #2 killer after COVID-19 (and now that vaccination is widespread, Fentanyl is probably #1 now).

    This can very well become a Democrat / Liberal weakness if y’all let it faster. Some kind of acknowledgement or even policy to address this large scale killer of Americans is needed.


  • Perhaps the rule is that I’d like this place to be a good “Frontpage” for Lemmy posts. A “Beginner-to-Lemmy” kind of curation / discussion hub. By the time we’re on community-on-community or server-vs-server discussion, we’ve left the realm of beginner topics / introduction to Lemmy kind of things.

    Its not the “drama” I’m necessarily against. Its more like, “my vision for this community means that discussions about the peculiars of servers or community comments is unhelpful here”.

    I recognize the need to discuss different servers and communities. But “BestOfLemmy” should be beginner-to-lemmy focused. I don’t think new posters would necessarily have much benefit from that kind of comment.


  • I did not create this community so that users would have community-on-community drama. I’m not necessarily against politics, nor do I wish to demean the discussion of servers. But its not helpful to Lemmy overall to keep this post here. As such, I’m locking this topic.

    I do expect various communities to have more discussions about each other as Lemmy matures. And there needs to be a place for community (or even server-wide) discussion. But this “BestOfLemmy” community is not the location for that.


    I realize that by locking this topic, meta-discussion is somewhat hampered. If you want to continue to discuss, please use the “Welcome Thread”. Or otherwise direct message me and I’m sure we can work something out.



  • I appreciate the stats.

    Gas is the largest single component, but gas plus coal together comprise only 42% of the energy mix. The rest is nuclear and renewables (though I quibble about biomass being counted as a renewable).

    And if you look at the change of the energy mix over time, fossil fuel usage has been declining, though taking massive powerplants offline is not a quick process.

    Its going to be difficult to dislodge combined cycle natural gas. Its very efficient, very cheap to spinup. Yes its still a fossil fuel, but its the best of fossil fuels. 60% efficiency means getting 50% more energy per CO2 (compared to 40% traditional plants). As far as I’m aware, natural gas is cheaper than most battery technologies.


    Nuclear is good, and continues to be a major supplier at night (when people are likely charging cars). Natural gas drops by 5GW at night, so that’s a good sign and the grid at night might be less carbon (even if there’s less overall energy due to missing solar). So more nuclear energy into the mix might mean that night energy was better overall. Hmmmmmmm. Okay, I’ll accept your point overall.



  • The grid is still natural gas or coal mostly. And even solar enthusiasts don’t charge their cars primarily in the day (we all charge our cars at night, when solar no longer is helping).

    We shouldn’t be tracking electricity -> motion per se. We need to be tracking natural gas -> electricity -> motion, which has a rather inefficient step.

    Hybrids at 40% thermal efficiency, like Prius / Toyotas Atkinson engine, should lead to less overall burning of fossil fuels than a 40% coal plant making electricity -> 5% losses in wires -> 20% losses in the battery -> 10% losses in the electric motor.


    Now combined cycle natural gas is 60% thermally efficient. And that’s where EVs gets their biggest boost IMO. But not all Nat Gas is combined cycle, it differs strongly from location to location.


    1. Anti-federalism – Deep rooted distrust of the Federal Government has been around since the dawn of the USA, though its often been part of the minority.

    2. Know Nothing / Native American Party – 1850s era movement. Protectionist, isolationist, nativist. Originally they popped up as anti-Irish and anti-Catholic, but overall the concept is that immigrants suck. The modern concept is: “I know nothing”, about the movement. The overall idea is that even in the 1800s, it was bad to look like a racist bigot, so you’d keep your support for these causes secret. Everyone in the party knows that “the Know Nothings are larger than everyone expects”, but no one really knows how big the movement is. And that’s the point.

    3. America First – 1930s saw the rise of Fascism vs Communism in Europe with the dawn of the Spanish civil war. The “America First” movement focused on isolationism and even pro-German / Nazi slant mixed with religious fervor. This was pushed by tech-gurus of the time: Charles Lindberg (airplane entrepreneur, first Trans-atlantic flight, etc. etc.), and the Christian Front. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden).

    4. NAFTA – 1990s free-trade by Bill Clinton opened up Mexico and Canada as incredible trading partners. However, local industry / local steel lost out as companies started to shop in Mexico for material. As Bill Clinton was a huge pusher of NAFTA, the anti-NAFTA political group consolidated under Republicans. This is likely where the bulk of blue-collar workers is coming from, especially because Trump started adding Tariffs / anti-globalism concepts back to the forefront of American Politics.


    Some more recent context:

    1. Trump has been building his brand for decades as a very rich, very macho straight-talker. Even in the 80s and earlier, there’s a large number of Hotels, Casinos, Resorts, Golf Courses (etc. etc.) that have relatively high reputation among Americans in general with Trump’s name.

    2. Trump reads from the teleprompter in “another voice”, openly showing his disdain for public speaking and the political system. Anyone who has lost faith in the political system loves this. Trump pretends that the teleprompter is forcing him to talk and its all just a “through the motions” thing. Then Trump obviously goes off teleprompter and talks about different concepts, the “real stuff”. (Or so goes his branding). This simple trick is enough to get the gist to his followers: don’t listen to what I say (because I’m being forced to say this politically correct crap). This means that Trump’s true actions are only limited to the imagination of the listener.

    3. Trump is playing and leaning into the borne again Christian role. From a religious perspective, the “former enemy / former outsider” coming into religion is a common story and religious love it. Trump was openly a Democrat in the 90s / 00s before switching into Republicanism.


    The “bulk” of Trump’s political style is Know Nothing + Macho + anti-political correctness.