Posts by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
(DIR) Post #B2NDsue7QLZO3HbTZA by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Random thought:I think basically nobody agrees with my political perspectives because:1. The left has a very narrow orthodoxy, and if you don't agree with it 100% then they claim to think you're a not-see. To anyone outside of the leftist bubble, this is self-evidently garbage.2. The right has a tenancy to over-simplify problems and is attracted to "big hammer" solutions - like as if everything will be utopia if we just send the blacks back to Africa, take away women's vote, evict the jews, etc. The problem with these "simple" ideas is that if things were so simple, somewhere at some point in history, some country would have accidentally stumbled on them, thrived, and made them a universal standard.If you approach things from a first principles perspective based on the assumption that governance is a hard problem and the best countries to live in today are already solving it as best we know how - conclusions and proposals end up being a lot different from anything that is typically discussed in the political arena.
(DIR) Post #B2NGtvMeXS92QpbkdE by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I generally don't vote at all. For one, I live outside the US so I can't vote here and I wouldn't vote for people where I don't live. Secondly, even if I could vote here, I would be reticent about doing so because I moved here because it's better - I don't claim to know how to improve it further. Chesterton's Fence can be subtle. Also to some extent, I simply refuse the humiliation ritual.
(DIR) Post #B2ONviv2ftCHFXST8C by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Related:"Kill yourself faggot" means "that was not a very good post, you can do better, try harder next time"and"Yikes" means "murdering you and your entire family is actually good, and necessary, and will save humanity, and I need to do it"
(DIR) Post #B2ONvjnzNb9JzxALmC by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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> Let's unpack that.Means: I'm outside your house, say goodbye to your loved ones
(DIR) Post #B2Pn8LO2AeIu2f5r8K by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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It's when the ICE larpers troll the Minnesota Tolerance into teaming up with Mexican Cartels and starting Civil War 2
(DIR) Post #B2R9hpARpXn4gt1Qau by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I think everyone is basically admitted to the fact that International Law is meaningless. We're in the Strong Do What They Can / Weak Suffer What They Must stage of the empire.
(DIR) Post #B2R9hroZzJ52tvoVQO by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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First comes force. Then comes the recognition that in a world ruled by force alone, everybody loses. From that comes law, norms, and red lines. Then from comes the desire to break the rules to gain a little bit of advantage. Then from that, we go back to a world ruled by brute force.We're in phase 3/4, depending on who you ask.
(DIR) Post #B2R9hshsfhJffRgfce by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I don't know, but I imagine they took it by force - during the previous period of Hard Times.Now it will be taken from them in the next.I don't really blame Trump for this, he's doing what Putin is doing - recognizing that international laws, customs and norms have been discarded.Who discarded them? Bush when he legitimized torture. Everyone when they threw rule of law overboard because muh covid. Democrats when they decided that stuffing ballot boxes was okay because "it's weally weally impowtant the good guy wins"...Weak men make hard times is a global cultural phenomenon, it's not confined to one person.
(DIR) Post #B2VEBG1qDVkOqW7tei by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I think I would not move to your country because those policies are obscenely huge and I want to do things other than constantly reading.I actually prefer more regulation on what you are allowed to "casually" offer as an agreement (policy, EULA, etc) with the general public, so that people can feel safer NOT reading those.
(DIR) Post #B2VECUyI95ezTo3eJU by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Yeah but you can't change peoples' fundamental instincts.There's a reason why it's illegal to write indentured servitude contracts, because people would just sign them. Hell, the closest thing to indentured servitude is student debt and people sign that all of the time.But at least there's a certain amount of artificially induced seriousness to the ritual of signing such a thing.In theory, you could create an online university and "pre-approve" everyone to do student debt, and then make a $100,000 loan agreement a click-through on your website. BUT, a judge will almost certainly not accept the legitimacy of such a contract and might call you a scam artist.Actually the biggest risk to all of these online "I read and understand the terms" things is that judges might decide that a Reasonable Person does not actually read them - because most people don't read them - and so this is not a legally binding contract because to be legal, parties must understand what they're signing.
(DIR) Post #B2Wa6iZx26cq5vHVs8 by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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@Humpleupagus @p explain yourselves.
(DIR) Post #B2aMVtUKzHR8RXbdgm by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I'm fairly convinced that the reason we don't have cheap power is more or less entirely a political matter.If you try to build one in a 1st world country, there's so much regulation that it's just not going to happen.If you try to build one in a non-1st world country, you're gonna get bombed because "muh nuclear proliferation".China is working on it, but they're probably facing quiet international backlash because once the cat's out of the bag, everyone is going to want one...It's basically like Free Energy suppression, except it actually happens.
(DIR) Post #B2aRHCXwLaCoyh6XjM by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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> if it was possible to make cheap power, you could just do itAnd then men with guns come and take away your house.You were doing the math on a pressurized water reactor, and all of the safety equipment that is expected when you have hot radioactive stuff under high pressure.If you use molten fuel (not even a thorium breeder, just plain old boring uranium), you have no pressure to deal with, you could use ceramic pipes, a ceramic Archimedes pump, so basically you need beryllium and lithium fluoride, ceramic clay, u233, high purity graphite, a boiler & steam turbine, and lots and lots of concrete.None of those things are that costly. They're not *cheap*, but they're not expensive in comparison to being able to crank out like 30kw of power all day and all night.If it weren't for regulation, there'd be youtubers doing this, I'm sure of it.
(DIR) Post #B2aRa8ZHMYqa8olBoG by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Yes, BWR and PWR are fairly dangerous by design so a lot more costly to make safe. But IMO even those are over-regulated.
(DIR) Post #B2aRamkfxbjMlkOr7w by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactorPredictably, only Russia and China have them, because they're the only ones who care about having cheap power AND are tolerated to have nuclear weapons.
(DIR) Post #B2aSUkXXN52C7qwMPA by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Well, they should at least allow the same levels of radiation as what's emitted by other sources such as coal plants.
(DIR) Post #B2aUaC2AmAr2klzdo0 by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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> thoriumThere are two different things here, one is molten fuel and the other is thorium breeding.Molten fuel is a really big deal because you lose the pressure, so then you don't need any pressure vessels, containment, etc. If it's a slow reactor like the MSRE they ran in the 60s, you have a graphite core and hot molten salt with uranium dissolved in it. When the salt passes through the core, the graphite moderates the neutrons which causes reaction and it gets hot, when it's not in the core, it doesn't.The other really big deal about molten fuel is that it's a liquid, so chemists can do chemistry on it, like for example extracting the waste (and just the waste) and then putting the other 95% good fuel back in to run again. PWRs retire fuel pellets when they're no longer good for reacting, which is when they're about 5% degraded.The challenge with molten salt is it corrodes things, and that nobody can get permits to build it. There are like 4 or 5 companies trying to build them in the west and it's all just held up on permits.Thorium is a whole other topic. The thing about thorium is that it's really really abundant, and if you bombard it with neutrons, it will transform into uranium 233. So people have the idea of surrounding the reactor with a layer of thorium to absorb the wasted neutrons and convert it whilst running the normal uranium reaction. But this is not necessary for molten salt, it's just a stretch goal. Uranium is already like $60 a pound which is basically dirt cheap for the amounts you actually need.The MSRE did not breed thorium, but Alvin Weinberg (administrator of the MSRE and also inventor of everybody's favorite PWR) suggested that it could.
(DIR) Post #B2aXwvB9uOMH08j2yO by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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> Well, on the other hand, please name a third-world country that you think should have fissile material.Well, given they'd probably all use them on each other... 😏
(DIR) Post #B2bMDBhpE1IibFxGsq by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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I concur on the pebble bed stuff... GE and Westinghouse always making things more complicated than they need to be in order to bill support.But the promise of modular is orthogonal to whether the fuel is solid or liquid. Being able to assemble a plant out of shipping container sized parts that are built in a factory is a game changer for construction cost... Also for replacement or decommissioning, you don't need the army corps of engineers to move the things...
(DIR) Post #B2ej05EeqrL1Bgud0a by cjd@pkteerium.xyz
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Actually really cool country, very libertarian, but also they don't fall for the Muh Refugees bullshit.