[HN Gopher] Where have all the insects gone?
___________________________________________________________________
Where have all the insects gone?
Author : jseliger
Score : 249 points
Date : 2021-10-26 16:04 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| Hokusai wrote:
| Not just insects. Where I used to live even birds had left. A
| decade of stronger regulations and cleaning the closer by river
| made animals come back. And the river started to look less like a
| sewer and more like a river. The pollution that kills insects is
| not good for humans either.
| DantesKite wrote:
| On a side note, I noticed after the pandemic began, the birds
| began starving because they started eating out of our dog's
| bowls of food.
| agumonkey wrote:
| A lot of birds are getting way closer to our windows than
| they used to be (lived in the same place for 40 years). These
| aren't angry bird (npi), usually they keep their distance
| with humans, but now they come very close very often.. I
| cannot not interpret it as a sign of risk taking facing
| higher needs.
| e40 wrote:
| In the last month we've had 2 small birds (that don't eat
| peanuts we leave out for crows) come into our kitchen (wife
| leaves it open when she cooks). In 20 years here, that
| never happened before.
| e40 wrote:
| We feed crows in our area peanuts and when neighbors
| complained of crap on their cars we stopped for a bit, but
| they were really aggressive in asking for peanuts. Sometimes
| there are 10 of them on the wires near the street. They
| follow my wife home from a main roost a few blocks away--they
| seem to recognize her in her car. It's unclear if there's a
| connection to the article.
| termau wrote:
| crows are super clever, when I drive brisbane to sydney
| they'll be in the middle of the road eating kangaroos and
| other dead animals, they dont fly away they just hop to the
| right of the line so I dont squish them at 100 miles an
| hour, watch me go by then go back to what they are doing -
| they actually know which side of the road I'll go past and
| that they will be safe.
| imglorp wrote:
| Songbird populations everywhere are hurting.
| nipponese wrote:
| I feel like if this were true we would be seeing a major decline
| in the sales of pesticides, at least on consumer-level volume.
| Has anyone dug into those numbers?
| salynchnew wrote:
| Not sure this would hold true. The most efficient way to manage
| insects in a home (consumer) environment has nothing to do with
| pesticides.
|
| For example: Ants are best managed caulking ingress points.
| Silverfish are best managed by reducing humidity. Bed bugs
| typically require professional fumigation. Flies & roaches by
| removing/storing food sources, etc.
| orev wrote:
| A lot of pesticide use on the consumer side comes from pest
| control companies where people have a recurring service that
| preemptively sprays the entire yard and house. The customer
| just sees that they don't have bugs, and assumes it's because
| the service is working.
|
| For there to be a decline in sales, consumers would need to be
| purchasing products only in response to an infestation, but
| with such a service, they aren't doing that. And the pest
| control company has no incentive to tell people "by the way,
| you can cancel the service now because everything is extinct".
| WalterBright wrote:
| I used to use a lawn service, and told them no pesticides or
| herbicides.
| orev wrote:
| I'm talking about pest control services, not lawn (i.e.
| mowing) services. Depending on where you live, it's legal
| to "treat" the entire lawn area preemptively, not just the
| areas within a few feet of the house.
|
| Part of the sales pitch is also "if we treat all your
| neighbors, then all those bugs are going to come to your
| yard". They really have no interest in just pest control;
| it's a hard sell to sign up another customer.
| zz865 wrote:
| Unfortunately the cockroaches, bed bugs and ticks didn't get
| the memo.
| monkeydreams wrote:
| > I feel like if this were true we would be seeing a major
| decline in the sales of pesticides, at least on consumer-level
| volume. Has anyone dug into those numbers?
|
| I just don't see the causative link as the pesticides are used
| prophylacticly. Fewer insects would tend, IMO, to reinforce the
| behaviour, not reduce it.
| redprince wrote:
| The observed decline in total insect population is collateral
| damage and not the driver of pesticide sale.
| zsmi wrote:
| Pesticide use is down 40% since 1992 but it's complicated by a
| number of factors. The biggest being the chemical formulas,
| concentrations and dosages have not stayed constant over time.
|
| zhttps://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/us-pesticide-
| use-...
| elif wrote:
| In my neighborhood, there were 2 cases of West Nile virus
| detected in humans in June/July.
|
| Since then, the city have contracted a corporation called
| BugStars to drive down every street in my neighborhood (downtown,
| 10k population) and the four around it releasing poison directly
| into the air every Wednesday night.
|
| There was no notice given to any of us, and only after
| investigating were we able to figure out why everyone's beehives
| died the same day, and we are left on our own to coordinate which
| nights we need to seal the windows or breath actual poison.
| hsavit1 wrote:
| this is horrendous. where are you located?
| nonameiguess wrote:
| It's fictional, but similar things have happened, like the
| aerial malathion bombardments of the 80s in California to
| combat the Mediterranean fruit fly. I lived through that
| perfectly fine, but do remember it being pretty controversial
| (but I was a kid, so not sure how reliable my memories are).
| kij wrote:
| 99% sure reddit is leaking in, and this is just some pop
| culture reference https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Bugstars
| amatecha wrote:
| So like.. lawsuit? I'd definitely be calling up a lawyer (in
| addition to the city/police)... that's _seriously_ effed up.
| What if you had a home business selling honey/beeswax? That's
| just the most obvious example... not to mention the human-
| hazardous aspect of spraying this stuff!
| NationalPark wrote:
| It's not really happening, he's describing the plot of a
| video game.
| amatecha wrote:
| Super weak, I wondered if that was the case. Lame troll
| then.
| nullc wrote:
| Doesn't it concern you that you're poisoning the public
| discourse with this false claim that looks plausible?
|
| The only thing that gives away that you're talking about some
| side quest in the video game grand theft auto is googling
| "BugStars".
| ruined wrote:
| my hometown in Texas has done this regularly since i was a
| child, when mosquito-borne viruses hit there. they aired
| notices about spraying nights on local TV news, on the radio,
| and published schedules in the papers.
|
| i remember my parents discussing it with me and reading
| editorial debates in the paper.
|
| not providing notice seems like a serious failure and i'd
| encourage you to give them legal/financial incentives to do so
| in the future.
|
| edit: some other commenters are dismissing this as fake, so
| here, the CDC has an informational page on truck spraying
| https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/mosquito-control/community/tr...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I had noticed this decline anecdotally previous years, and this
| summer made a concentrated effort to plant wildflowers to attract
| pollinators and it did wonderfully. I saw more bees and
| butterflies than ever.
|
| I plan to do this as long as I can and would encourage others to
| do the same! I was amazed by the difference.
| quasse wrote:
| I've been planting wildflowers at my new house as well and it's
| very fun to watch which plants different insects prefer.
|
| I've noticed that Monarch butterflies ignore almost all plants
| in my area but they _love_ Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia
| rotundifolia). I wonder how much of that is regional, since
| they 're supposed to like Zineas and Verbena but they've shown
| zero interest in mine.
| mod wrote:
| At my place the Monarchs (a couple weeks ago) were all
| attracted to a plant I haven't properly identified.
|
| It looks like queen anne's lace--crowns of many tiny, white
| flowers. We have a few similar-looking species in the region
| (Ozarks), and it could be any of them.
|
| Maybe worth a shot finding out if you want some other options
| for them!
| nanomonkey wrote:
| They absolutely love the wild fennel plants in my yard,
| which looks similar to queen anne's lace.
| dmux wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is the plant you're describing, but in
| New England, Monarchs are really attracted to Milkweed. The
| White Swamp [0] variety may be what you're describing.
|
| [0] https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-
| week/asclepia...
| junon wrote:
| Anecdotally the spiders here in Germany this year are insane.
| [deleted]
| jtdev wrote:
| Big chem selling pesticides like there's no tomorrow.
| friedman23 wrote:
| In my back yard when I was a kid there used to be thousands of
| these horrible beetles in the grass. You would step on them
| everywhere you walked and they smelled terrible. They are gone
| now but so are the dragonflies and the butterflies. I don't think
| whatever we did was worth it.
| kruzda wrote:
| Find it interesting for this topic to be coming up after reading
| an article recently that goes into some detail on the concept of
| the perceived insect apocalypse
|
| https://quillette.com/2021/07/25/the-insect-apocalypse-that-...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Outdoor lights disturb insects. At night I turn most of my
| outdoor lights off.
| foxhop wrote:
| We used technology to make the earth sick. The insects are
| fleeing to safe havens in places like my small backyard.
| Seriously all I did was stopped mowing, and instead use simple
| nudges to guide the manifestation of a natural system! So much
| abundance here, with some practice we all can make habitats for
| humans and animals (including attracting animals and humans by
| growing tasty food).
|
| We will rebuild stronger together, nature abhores a vacuum and
| will repair with us if we allow it to manifest. Thank goodness.
|
| Ref: https://youtu.be/aYewfMjRH0c
| WalterBright wrote:
| I don't use any fertilizer or *cides on my lawn. I do mow it
| once every month or so. When I walk down the driveway in the
| summer, there's a constant hum of insects.
|
| The only pesticide is a line of diatomaceous earth around the
| house to keep the ants from setting up shop inside.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I used to want a backyard wildlife refuge until I realized this
| also means having a backyard refuge for ticks. I'd love to know
| if there's a way around this
| CalRobert wrote:
| Do you get them even in the suburbs? If your yard is big
| enough, keep an area mowed short and a 3-5 meter buffer
| between that and tall growth. But that takes quite a lot of
| space.
| patall wrote:
| My 85y old grandma got lyme this year and she hasn't left
| the city in more than 5 years. Birds can transfer ticks
| from thousands of kilometers away. Her garden is very nice
| though with the long grass and all that.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Keep the deer out?
| imoverclocked wrote:
| There are a lot of things that eat ticks. eg: Chickens will
| turn ticks into eggs.
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Guinea Hens are great at eating ticks.
| whichquestion wrote:
| One way to lower your risk of ticks is to manage the parts of
| your yard you use most. Mowing paths into your yard instead
| of mowing the entire yard can help and allow the other parts
| of your yard to grow, planting patches of yard with native
| plants and allowing plants to grow instead of turf.
|
| If you can find a way to attract Opossum they are net tick
| destroyers. Keeping out deer will only help so well, as small
| mammals(chipmunks, mice, etc) are primarily the sustainers of
| tick populations.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Where I live there are termites flying around everywhere today,
| its a banner day for termites all over town.
| teekert wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/pl6czq/k...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Sometimes I don't know what to believe. Wasn't there a
| counterpoint posted here on HN a while back?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24133315
| tw04 wrote:
| Without the full article it's tough to say, but my refute would
| be about my local environment. There has absolutely been a
| MASSIVE decline in NATIVE insects (among other things). Instead
| we have more asian beetles, emerald ash borers, and japanese
| beetles than you can shake a stick at. So while yes,
| technically the numbers may remain neutral, I'm not sure we can
| call it a healthy distribution.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > my refute would be about my local environment
|
| Is it an urban environment? Most people's environments isn't
| a reasonable reference.
| tw04 wrote:
| That would be spread across a residence outside of the
| city, one inside city limits, and a cabin in the middle of
| nowhere.
|
| The only insect I'm aware of that seems to still be in full
| force that is native are mosquitos. Dragonflies, lightning
| bugs, lady bugs, moths, butterflies, etc. are sadly all
| rare sightings.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| No disrespect, but I'd feel more comfortable if the rebuttal
| was based on science and not an individual anecdote from some
| unknown individual on HN :)
| tw04 wrote:
| No disrespect taken. There are countless studies backing up
| the finding of insect decline. I was simply throwing out a
| hypothesis of how someone could claim otherwise - they
| simply aren't measuring the appropriate way and/or they
| aren't accurately representing their results.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/studies-
| c... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/stu
| dies-c...
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| And with the global greening trend too...
| https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| The New Yorker doesn't read HN.
| drocer88 wrote:
| https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-
| valley/th...
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| This was actually the article that put HN on my radar and
| brought me here.
| pengaru wrote:
| Last year I had a jarring experience driving through some of the
| agricultural land near the Salton Sea en route to Bombay Beach
| coming down from JTNP, taking back roads.
|
| The general region is desert, water and food is scarce, but
| through this agricultural zone there's this dense pocket of food
| and water on the surface.
|
| I was in a Miata with the top down, and the amount of chemicals
| they were using to keep the pests/insects away from this lush
| green oasis in a land of nothing was _noxious_. I hadn 't exited
| my car, just drove through these fields on the farm roads, and it
| left me feeling sick with a headache and nausea well into the
| next day.
|
| Of course I didn't encounter a single insect, spotless
| windshield.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Yes it's very bad and it doesn't have to be that way. The mass
| chemical use must be profitable but there is a great cost to
| the land and the environment to do so.
|
| This is why it is so upsetting that Bill Gates is pushing this
| kind of chemical intensive farming all over Africa and
| positioning himself to profit off the transition too. Once
| again harming the continent and its people for profit while
| telling them it's good for them.
|
| EDIT: He's also buying up all the farm land with water rights
| in the USA. He is the single largest holder of US farmland. So
| when drought inevitably comes and swaths of farmland become too
| dry to use, he will profit. If you apply to one of their
| foundation grants for agriculture, you will see a big emphasis
| on "bundled services", so they seem to want to build a "farm as
| a service" system where farmers don't own anything. It's a new
| enclosure movement where the lords own everything and everyone
| else pays them to use the land. We have enough in this world we
| can live pretty cheaply if we work together and share in the
| right ways. But control of the land is vital or we will all die
| in poverty from rents.
| Kye wrote:
| Lex Luthor's mistake was causing the disaster he planned to
| profit from rather than preparing to profit from one that was
| inevitable in his lifetime.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Or just... being focused on profit instead of mutual
| support of others.
| sickygnar wrote:
| I've done the same drive, thru the farmland and cattle ranches
| to the south of the salton sea by Brawley. God it was noxious.
| Despite the sea having a reputation for an awful smell, it
| didn't compare to the farmland below. My throat hurts thinking
| about it. You sometimes get a similar effect in the san joaquin
| valley.
| scrose wrote:
| For anyone unfamiliar with the history of the Salton sea and
| the effect all these chemicals have had on the surrounding
| areas, check out this documentary:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8TjGAWxL23c
|
| A part of me wants to visit just to fully take in the reality
| of it all. But I don't think my family would be too happy.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Drove through Texas agricultural land in spring of 2016.
| Windows up, not a convertible, and I was still horribly
| affected for 2 weeks. My eyes and nose burned the moment we
| started driving by the fields, and my nose continued to run and
| drain for 2 weeks after.
| pengaru wrote:
| I believe it, but being Texas I imagine you drove through a
| much larger area.
|
| The distance I traveled through this poison was relatively
| little:
|
| https://goo.gl/maps/v7MQNgpffP2wNCrc7
|
| It was Box Canyon S down to 111E, stair stepping a bit
| through the fields...
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| The name of that road is extraordinary appropriate, though,
| so I imagine under the right conditions it could trap and
| concentrate quite a lot of the aerosolized chemicals from
| the croplands it opens onto just south. While on the
| twisties through the namesake canyon you could have been
| blasted with several times the concentration found in the
| open air above the fields themselves.
| pengaru wrote:
| The canyon road snaking up through the mountains was
| odorless, only the roads immediately through the fields
| were noxious... but it wasn't a windy day.
| mainah wrote:
| Up here in southern Maine we had many insects, including
| pollinators all summer long. Still have a few bumblebees hanging
| around in the few remaining wildflowers.
|
| A strange one was a parasitic wasp that would harvest inchworms
| and leave them in piles in my shed! Took a while to catch it in
| the act.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Maybe the author doesn't see insects as they are in a heavily
| populated city with exterminators everywhere. Down in Southern
| California I have seen more bees this past year than I have ever
| seen. A few things I do feel like I see alot less than I used to
| see is dragonflies and praying mantis. I remember as a kid I used
| to see so many of both, now I may see one or two a
| month(dragonflies), and praying mantis once or twice a year.
| hinkley wrote:
| I have a crap ton of bees visit my flowers and happened to get
| chatted up one day while outside garden gin by someone who
| keeps bees. If memory serves he's about 10 blocks away, so I
| never would have solved that on my own just by walking around
| looking for hives.
|
| Could be you have new neighbors.
|
| Half of my bees are bumbles (at least one nest in my yard),
| maybe the odd mason, and hoverflies. But I'm on an edge of a
| garden district, less than a mile from a river, so I see lots
| of things. I'm pretty sure I'm part of a corridor between the
| two.
| mod wrote:
| I've had a different year, as well. Fewer bees seemed pretty
| obvious, but more wasps this year, including a swarm of wasps
| that I didn't even know swarmed--they normally have 3 or 4
| wasps on a relatively small hive.
|
| But I've got lots and lots of mantises this year. One evening,
| attracted by the lights of my workshop, I counted 6 mantises
| climbing around my windows at the same time. I've continued to
| see them elsewhere, though one at a time. I've never seen more
| than a few per season, previously.
| mint2 wrote:
| Do you mean honey bees because those would be more like looking
| to cows or sheep population as a metric of general wild animal
| population.
|
| My area of SoCal is HOA/office park "landscaped" with near zero
| variety of plants for miles around. There are very few flying
| insects in my yard. I did attract some caterpillars this year,
| but they are very particular about plants. The caterpillar on
| the native gooseberry stays there, the tomatoes get hornworms
| and the other plant gets budworms. Bugs can be very specific
| and the grass and office park shrub monoculture around is not
| supportive of a diverse insect population.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in
| the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the
| front window and grill. Today, this is no longer a problem.
| hinkley wrote:
| I recall my dad checking the washer fluid level before road
| trips because we ran dry on a previous trip and it was clear we
| wouldn't make it home without hitting a gas station ASAP.
| strict9 wrote:
| This is a common anecdote, and a situation I remember as that's
| when I started driving.
|
| Also one used in scientific study with seemingly dire results:
|
| > _The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural
| Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and
| found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel
| decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live
| on insects._
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...
| papito wrote:
| YES. Drove with my parents to the Catskills in upstate NY
| almost every weekend in the early 2000s. The windshield was
| covered in bug splatter. Now - _nothing_.
|
| Edit: it was a Hyundai Excel
|
| https://retrocars.fandom.com/wiki/Hyundai_Excel/Accent
| l8rpeace wrote:
| Try south of St Louis, MO on 55 (specifically south of Cape
| Girardeau, MO) in the summer. That might be where all the bugs
| have gone. \s
| csmoak wrote:
| I just drove across the US (down the east coast, across the
| south, up the Rockies) and found I had to do this only after
| driving across Texas.
| inter_netuser wrote:
| meaning bugs are doing well in Texas, but not nowhere else?
|
| Really weird
| eddiecalzone wrote:
| Meaning Texas has the highest speed limits in the country
| csmoak wrote:
| The speed limit went up to 85 in Texas. It seemed to max
| out at 75 or 80 in other places. I'm not sure if an extra
| 5-10mph made the difference, but it could have.
| karlkatzke wrote:
| People aren't as densely packed in most parts of Texas, so
| it might be explainable that way. A lot of the state is
| also hay fields instead of food crops that are more
| intensively controlled for pests.
|
| But I've noticed a big change in Texas in recent years. The
| last two years I haven't had to use pesticide in my
| residential vegetable garden. I've had to control for
| mold/fungal infections, but not for insects. And I live up
| against a nature preserve and try to keep most of my
| property as natural as possible.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| This also stopped being a problem for me in the 90s when I
| started driving my mom's Dodge Intrepid, which was
| significantly more aerodynamic than other cars of the era.
| BayAreaEscapee wrote:
| Everytime this "the insects are dying" thread comes up, people
| come out of the woodwork with anecdotes like this.
|
| But I am one of them! I remember getting my first car in the
| late eighties and scrubbing tons of splattered insects off my
| windshield _every_ time I went to the gas station.
|
| Now I barely even notice them.
|
| Antecdote is not data, but I certainly believe people when they
| say the insects are dying.
| thrashh wrote:
| But people who haven't seen fewer insects probably aren't
| posting.
|
| Anecdotes are misleading and they are always a huge trick.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Same here, but in California's Central Valley.
| srcmap wrote:
| Remember need to scrape off bugs from windshield after each
| trip thru I5 ~10 years ago. No need to do that anymore.....
|
| On the other hand, in my back yard, I grow a lot veggi,
| strawberry with worm casting from kitchen scraps. I do still
| lot of insects. A lot of birds nested around my house.
| Produce 10-15 young birds. I found a very cool looking giant
| tomato worm a size of my biggest finger. It ate half of (7 ft
| height ) tomato plant in 2 days.
|
| The Strawberry, cucumbers, other veggies grow with worm
| casting taste SO much better than from anything store .
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| A lot of those drives of mine were on highways between
| planted fields.
| cookrn wrote:
| I love creating little sanctuaries and do think they're
| useful as pockets of support and diversity. Also, the
| Tomato Hornworm is an awesome creature and results in a
| Hummingbird Moth. I try to feed them vegetative branches
| and keep them separate if I can so that they hang around
| and we still get tomatoes.
| skinkestek wrote:
| I didn't drive to much until 20 or so years ago but I think I
| saw a lot more of ot back in the day.
|
| In according to the more usual explanations I've been working
| if lights along the road might be part of the problem.
| lrem wrote:
| I drive long distances through Europe every now and then
| since 2009-ish. That's only 12 years and much of my drive is
| through farmland and forests, no lights other than the cars
| for at least 1000km in aggregate. In 2009 the windshield and
| lights would need a solid scrub every couple hundred km. Now
| I don't bother cleaning when refuelling.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| Could that be explained by improved aerodynamics of cars now
| compared to then? Has that been studied?
| mellavora wrote:
| For me, I noticed the change over one year. I had a job where
| I commuted the same stretch of highway every day. For the
| first few years, every May/June the windshield was always
| badly crusted with bugs. Then suddenly one year, no bugs.
| Same car.
| fouc wrote:
| Yeah but what about the year after?
| tedmcory77 wrote:
| What year? Would love to have that data point, or an
| aproximation.
| xattt wrote:
| I mentioned this in a similar discussion on HN a few years
| ago. I used to own a Nissan Cube (a boxy car), and it would
| regularly get encrusted with insects every summer, when
| compared to other family members' vehicles which did not.
|
| Insects still get hit with aerodynamic cars, but the blows
| are glancing and less likely to cause a "burst".
| [deleted]
| Steltek wrote:
| Huge trucks and SUVs are really popular in the US. The
| aerodynamics are not going to compare favorably to typical
| 90's cars, where even the trucks are much smaller.
| robocat wrote:
| Research says no: "The research included vintage cars up to
| 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant
| they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually
| hit slightly more insects." From
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-
| spla... (Second hand comment from a journalist; actual
| research results may vary).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Is it possible for there to be so many more vehicles than
| decades before that the number of insects hitting each car
| is much less?
| papito wrote:
| It's not like we were all driving in Chevrolet Bel Airs in
| the 90s and now switched to Lamborghinis.
| LanceH wrote:
| It is an variable that very obviously needs to be
| controlled and is worth mentioning.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, not only that, but the Lamborghini Countach has a Cd
| of 0.42, while every car on this list has a lower Cd,
| except for the original VW Beetle [1].
|
| (Although, TBF, the Lambo's wing and aero package adds a
| lot of drag in exchange for much greater downforce)
|
| [1] https://ecomodder.com/wiki/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Dra
| g_List
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| My intuition for aerodynamics must not be as good as yours.
| But looking at https://caradvise.com/blog/2019/08/17/most-
| popular-cars-in-t... and
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g36005989/best-selling-
| car... is interesting. In particular, the way the
| headlights sit on the front of the car seems to have
| changed a lot. Cars in the 90s look to have lights that
| pointed straight ahead. That seems to have evolved over
| time to a more streamlined position and orientation.
| goda90 wrote:
| I feel like this is something we could check with
| simulations. Given the same insect clouds, would an older car
| hit more of them than a newer one?
| trynumber9 wrote:
| It also depends on the bugs spawning behavior. There are
| still species which blot out the sky when they spawn along
| the Mississippi.
| eddiecalzone wrote:
| Are they, though? So many trucks, SUVs, and other cars that
| don't have sloping windshields. Also, I would expect even
| pastier windshields given that the nationwide speed limit was
| 65mph until 1995, and it took years for states to nudge it
| upwards to where it is now (85mph at some places in Texas).
|
| Source:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
| holri wrote:
| I drive my old motorcycle with the same big windshield since
| the 90ies. Insects are dramatically less on it now than 20
| years ago.
| mikestew wrote:
| Fellow biker here, with as small a windshield as I can
| stand (meaning my helmet stands above the windshield. I
| still carry a can of Honda Spray Cleaner and Polish in the
| tank bag for scrubbing the face shield on the helmet, as
| well as the windshield. I used to go through several cans a
| year. Now, for the same miles ridden, a can might last over
| a year. The one variable is the bike, but I've owned a
| variety of bikes over the decades I've been riding, and
| only in the last 10 years or so did I have to cut back on
| my standing order of cleaner.
| cowmix wrote:
| Yup.. I'm 50 and I will attest there is NO DOUBT insects
| populations have declined. It's crazy.
| yeetaccount wrote:
| We're seeing a comparable decline in birds that depend on
| them for food, so probably not.
|
| That said, it's fun to imagine that we just selected against
| insects that hang out by the highway.
| plushpuffin wrote:
| This has apparently happened with birds. Some bird species
| have evolved shorter wings for better maneuverability near
| traffic.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2013/03/22/175054275/birds-evolve-
| shorte...
| dnautics wrote:
| that wouldn't be strange. I remember a friend telling me
| about scientists who visited a remote place twice and
| seeing fungus-caused dieoffs the second time and he
| immediately claimed that it was global warming. My first
| thought was "those bastard scientists brought the fungus
| in" (I've hiked through remote endemic-plant forests and
| they tell you to scrub yourself vigorously on your way in
| to prevent tracking non-native plant seeds)
| lsiebert wrote:
| The loss of pollinators is scary. blueberries, cherries, every
| brassica (broccoli, cabbage etc), carrots, squash, melons, and
| many more are insect polliated.
|
| A few other plants can also self pollinate, but with reduced
| yields.
| pfdietz wrote:
| All the major staple foods are wind pollinated.
| lsiebert wrote:
| Wheat and corn and a number of other plants are wind
| pollinated, so we won't lose everything. And we'll probably
| keep some plants that need bees alive in conservatories
| through manual pollination.
|
| Still scary, in that a single disruption, like a new illness
| infecting crops, would have a much bigger impact.
| deelowe wrote:
| It seems like all that's left around me is stinging/biting
| insects. Plenty of mosquitos, wasps, fireants, and carpenter bees
| but that's about it.
| toss1 wrote:
| I'm fortunate to live with a wetland on the property, and find
| a lot of dragonflies and even bumblebees which have disappeared
| from several adjacent states and are now proposed for
| endangered status.
|
| Yet, I now feel lucky to see even a few fireflies in a summer,
| when I remember loving to see fields of them blinking in the
| evening... wow I miss that.
|
| (and we're in real trouble here)
| ofou wrote:
| Electromagnetic pollution is the main cause. Right?
| Jensson wrote:
| More like pesticides and pollution killing their spawning
| locations.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Sarcasm? Otherwise: No.
| daenz wrote:
| Sometimes I get the sense that people hate that we exist, in the
| numbers that we do, because of our impact on the earth by merely
| existing. A self-hatred if you will. And before you respond with
| "if only we did X, it would be fine," consider that the
| difficulty of convincing/coercing lots of people to do things is
| also an inherent part of our existence. Also part of our
| existence is the incentive to cheat to get ahead (in whatever
| economic system you pick).
|
| We can't live like native Americans with iPhones.
| _jal wrote:
| I'm sure there are some who do. There are a lot of people out
| there, you can find just about any belief.
|
| But sometimes I get the sense that people say things like this
| as a way to derail the conversation. They'd rather talk about
| other people's motives and beliefs than the the actual
| observation about the environment.
|
| And we know those people are out there. Some of them get paid a
| lot to do it.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| There is strong evidence that when humans first arrived in
| locations they had never existed before, mass extinctions of
| megafaunal species occurred. And this was thousands of years
| ago, before we collectively had _any idea_ about the dangers
| of biodiversity loss, climate change, or the sheer extent of
| the power we wielded as a species. The first time we ever
| thought about the greenhouse effect as a tangible concept was
| only 200 years ago.
|
| Given that it required us thousands of years to develop a
| scientific mindset to even be able to comprehend the scope of
| our own destruction, I can't see how we could have stopped
| ourselves any sooner.
|
| The recent uptick in energy consumption is now magnifying the
| problem at an exponential rate, but it doesn't sound
| agreeable or practical to prevent people from spreading
| around to consume all the resources we have, or to smack the
| newly invented, frivolous and energy-draining devices from
| their inventors' hands the moment they've been first
| actualized.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Insects are seriously part of eco-system, what part of that is
| not important?
|
| pp remarkably off-topic and additionally self-defeating.
| slingnow wrote:
| All of it isn't important, in an absolute sense.
|
| Shift your view up a couple levels of abstraction and
| everything on the planet is ultimately meaningless. People
| always seem to argue about "saving the planet" as though it
| has some greater meaning, when in reality it is just a poor
| proxy for "keep the planet inhabitable for humans".
| [deleted]
| kesselvon wrote:
| The problem is that we life under a system that demands endless
| growth on a finite plane.
|
| It's pretty clear that the human population has grown beyond
| the ability of the planet to sustain a progression towards
| universal industrialization. Humans have nowhere else to live
| and we're eroding what underpins our ability to survive.
|
| We more than tripled the human population in the last 100
| years. In my own lifetime, the human population has grown by
| 42%. It's insanity to believe we can continue this without
| serious consequences.
| stacks_on_stack wrote:
| I've read studies that show human population peaking around
| 2100 and slowly lessening until it finds a happy medium. This
| is due to increased access to birth control in developing
| nations as well as people simply having less children because
| automation on the farm replaces the need to have several
| workers (the kids) around to help with the harvest, etc.
|
| Link to article: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-
| tank/2019/06/17/worlds-popu...
| brandon272 wrote:
| Sometimes I get the sense that people would rather put their
| head in the sand than discuss the realities around human
| impacts on the Earth.
|
| This has nothing to do with "hating that we exist", however, at
| a minimum we probably have a responsibility to study, discuss
| and understand our impacts on the Earth, and not just for what
| it means for other species, but for what it means for _us_.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| > Sometimes I get the sense that people hate that we exist, in
| the numbers that we do, because of our impact on the earth by
| merely existing.
|
| I thought you were trying to speak for the insect kingdom here
| for a moment.
| tw04 wrote:
| >We can't live like native Americans with iPhones.
|
| We probably could in the next 100 years through automation,
| massive reduction in population, and making things to last
| instead of making things to be replaced. Building a society
| whose values aren't based around never-ending growth.
|
| We won't, but we could.
| cobookman wrote:
| population growth is starting to recede. Most 1st world
| countries are growing through immigration, with a birth rate
| that is too low to support our population.
|
| We are trending towards having a smaller population in 100
| years.
|
| EU Birth rate over time:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1251516/crude-birth-
| rate...
|
| US Birth rate is 1.7 kids per female.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| There is a good anti-growth counter argument/observation in
| Homo Deus. Population growth necessitates economic growth
| otherwise you end up with unemployment which destabilizes
| society and can lead to war.
|
| If you don't have population growth you still need economic
| growth to provide upward mobility to people at the bottom.
| Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again can lead
| to war.
|
| Ideally improvements in efficiency or a shift values/culture
| can create a world where we can have economic growth without
| increasing the burden on the planet.
| tw04 wrote:
| >If you don't have population growth you still need
| economic growth to provide upward mobility to people at the
| bottom. Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again
| can lead to war.
|
| _OR_ you reset wealth upon death. You don 't necessarily
| need unlimited growth if you prevent wealth from pooling at
| the top.
| abakker wrote:
| massive reduction in population is a very ugly thing. There's
| basically no good way to do that.
| tw04 wrote:
| I don't know, Japan seems to be doing OK. There are all
| sorts of problems that are going to eventually arise simply
| due to the fact that our economies are built on endless
| growth. But IF they embraced it and were able to advance
| automation fast enough, most of those would be overcome.
| Mainly: who will take care of the elderly.
|
| HA part of that could be easily solved if suicide weren't
| so stigmatized. If everyone could just agree that once
| you're past the age of 80, once you get to a point of being
| infirm you just take a magic pill and peace out on your own
| terms, we'd be far better off as a species.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| Not necessarily. Demographics indicates that developed
| nations seem to have near-replacement birth rates. Anything
| less than 1 and you get exponential decay. So a small nudge
| will eventually lead to large reductions in population, but
| the rate of decline need not be severe.
|
| There are of course issues that a lot of the economy is
| predicated on growth, but again, I'm actually pretty
| optimistic that markets and humans are pretty resilient and
| adaptable given enough warning and time.
| tspike wrote:
| True, although it'll eventually happen on its own, and it
| likely won't be on our terms.
| Shorel wrote:
| Some decades with very old population, and many countries
| are headed in that direction.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Significantly fewer wasps this year in my little corner of
| coastal New England. More stink bugs in the past few years.
| Honeybees and bumble bees seem pretty consistent.
| 5faulker wrote:
| All that talk about invasive species without talking about the
| humans...
| throwawayfear wrote:
| Because it is misanthropic to talk about it that way. You're
| describing thinking conscious beings that have needs and that
| are born without their choosing. Construing people as an
| invasive species is not going to be productive or win you any
| points in a serious conversation on the subject.
| trutannus wrote:
| This won't be popular, but remember just 10 years ago when
| people were talking about the environmental advantages of a
| mass die-off of humans? It _was trendy_ for a bit to spitball
| about how much better off the environment would be with an x%
| decrease in human population as a result of a global death
| event. In fact, "we need a new plague" was a running joke on
| online environmentalist forms for a while. Funny how an
| actual pandemic made those same people glibly taking up the
| advantages pull a 180 when it was _their grandmother_ who was
| in the x% who were going to die.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29003279.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > He spent a sabbatical conducting field work on Trinidad and
| Tobago and in Suriname.
|
| What a great example for why we need the Oxford Comma.
| kgermino wrote:
| You wouldn't have an Oxford comma in a two item "list". It's
| for a series of three or more items.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Perhaps an exception if one of those items has an "and" in
| the middle?
| kgermino wrote:
| I've been thinking about the same since I saw your comment.
| I think a comma after Tobago: "Trinidad and Tobago, and in
| Suriname" would make the sentence easier to understand but
| it also might add meaning that isn't there. Does the added
| comma imply that primary object (most of the work) was done
| on Trinidad and Tobago, while the work in Suriname is
| smaller or less important?
| irthomasthomas wrote:
| Did he meet any interesting Trinidad and Tobagoans? Or is it
| Trinidadian and Tobagon?
| dllthomas wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidadians_and_Tobagonians
| patentatt wrote:
| I don't think you'd use a comma there in any circumstance. It's
| a list of two places, joining with a single and is appropriate.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Actually, the use of the preposition with each item makes this
| perfectly clear and unambiguous without any gratuitous added
| punctuation.
|
| "in Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname" (aside from any issue
| with conventional use of "on" for the former) would be awkward.
|
| Since its a two-item list, an Oxford comma would never be
| appropriate, so it can't signal the need for it.
| euroderf wrote:
| Paging Doctor Ampersand. Please come to the courtesy desk.
| bluGill wrote:
| No, that is why you need a semicolon. The Oxford comma is good
| as well, but what you showed was where a semicolon is called
| for.
| cranekam wrote:
| I don't think a semicolon is right here. Are you proposing
| this?
|
| "He spent a sabbatical conducting field work on Trinidad and
| Tobago; and in Suriname."
|
| That sounds very odd indeed -- I wouldn't say the sentence
| with a semicolon-sized gap in it and reading it with one is
| jarring.
|
| There's nothing wrong with the original sentence. When I read
| and say it I do so with the same cadence as "He spent a
| sabbatical conducting field work on Bermuda and in Suriname."
| The "and" in Trinidad and Tobago is just coincidence -- it's
| not part of the sentence structure. If a reader doesn't know
| that Trinidad and Tobago is a place then perhaps the
| sentence's "in x and y and on z" would provoke them into
| finding this out.
| iso1210 wrote:
| > He spent a sabbatical conducting field work on {Trinidad
| and Tobago} and in {Suriname}
|
| Could be clearer, although "On Trinidad and Tobago" doesn't
| make sense. "In Trinidad and Tobago", or "On Trinidad", or
| "On Tobago", sure, but Trinidad and Tobago are two islands
| (and many smaller)
| 0des wrote:
| I was taught to use a semicolon when both fragments can
| stand alone as discrete sentences.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| But Trinidad and Tobago is just one place.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Exactly, that's my point!
| jonathankoren wrote:
| I'm surprised some hyphen aficionado hasn't tried
| hyphenating that country's name because it's "too
| confusing".
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That's why they said "and _in_ Suriname ". The "in" makes
| it clear.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Exactly the point, err, comma.
| throwanem wrote:
| Not applicable here, as "Trinidad and Tobago" is a single name
| in a list of two items. But a comma following "Tobago", while
| not a serial comma _sensu stricto_ , would still aid
| comprehension.
| thrownaway561 wrote:
| https://www.firefly.org/
|
| i remember an article about how fireflies are dying out
| akeck wrote:
| Habitat is definitely a factor with fireflies. For years we had
| none. Then we let some of the landscaping and trees grow out so
| parts of our yard became more forest-like. 2-3 years ago we
| started seeing fireflies for the first time.
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20211026171800/https://www.newyor...
|
| https://archive.md/t9nf6
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| I think it's all the people having yards sprayed for ticks and
| mosquitos
| melling wrote:
| "Wilson is now ninety-two and lives in a retirement community in
| Lexington, Massachusetts.
|
| He's the subject of a new biography, "Scientist: E. O. Wilson: A
| Life in Nature" (Doubleday), by the journalist Richard Rhodes.
| Rhodes, who's the author of more than twenty books, including
| "The Making of the Atomic Bomb,"
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Hm, I would guess that it is the neonicotinoids pesticides. If I
| could point to my general recollection of the decline, I'd very
| vaguely point to that and when "roundup" became a thing.
|
| It does seem to be even more global than that though. So global
| warming is probably the main culprit.
|
| Look out the window next time you're in a jet. In america it
| seems like we have industrialized everything: food production,
| suburban housing, etc. The scale of our civilization is
| terrifying, and America is peanuts in terms of population (but
| NOT in terms of resource consumption per population, the far more
| important metric).
|
| The fact is economists can't estimate the value of an ecosystem,
| habitat, or wilderness. It's just untapped money to them if it's
| torn down. If economics, which directs 95% of our policy, can't
| get their heads out of the asses and figure out how to properly
| account for the existential value of nature, we are doomed.
|
| The fact that a pseudo-mathematical/pseudo-scientific area of
| study, one filled to the gills with venal denialist ultra-right-
| wing orthodoxy is the driving force of our future is not
| encouraging.
|
| Economics is useful in the small and medium scales, and in very
| limited large scales, I'm not going to sit here and tell you
| price theory, supply/demand, and game theory are all bunk, but
| the political force that is "economics" is a key contributor to
| our dire situation.
| boringg wrote:
| Anecdotally this year - almost no insects in our backyard. It was
| great for being outside but also really creepy. Could be a one
| year thing here but still noteworthy.
| amriksohata wrote:
| Albert Howard an English botanist observed Hindu / Indian farmers
| using Cow pat to fertilise their land. He dubbed this the Indore
| process, there was no need for toxic pesticides or fertilisers.
| All this modern science that at the time that was supposed to
| improve farming actually destroyed our biodiversity and insects.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > All this modern science that at the time that was supposed to
| improve farming actually destroyed our biodiversity and
| insects.
|
| What is the distinction between "modern science" and "science"?
| Are you claiming that the development of the Haber-Bosch
| process and other fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides, and
| fungicides did not increase yields?
|
| What is "improve farming"? It does not seem to be a small feat
| to go from feeding 1.5B people to 8B people in 100 years, at
| far more calories per person.
|
| Granted, the long term effects very well may have destroyed
| biodiversity and insects, but the immediate problem at the time
| was hunger and malnutrition. Although, one can make the case
| that the loss in biodiversity and insects is inevitable with
| excess human population, in which case the development of
| technologies increasing yield would be responsible for leading
| to the possibility of excess humans existing.
| [deleted]
| nemacol wrote:
| Somehow mosquitos, stink bugs, and asian lady beetles persist in
| my area.
|
| It is amazing to see every other type of animal come back
| stronger with the waning of industry.
| adrian_b wrote:
| I believe that bugs (Heteroptera) might be more resistant to
| common pesticides than other insects.
|
| Where I live, in Europe, several species of bugs have become
| quite abundant in recent years.
|
| On the other hand, most other kinds of insects, e.g.
| butterflies, dragonflies, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers,
| various kinds of wasps and flies etc. have become exceedingly
| rare compared to how abundant they were when I was young.
| MivLives wrote:
| All these, and ticks, so many ticks. My roommate got lyme
| disease walking through are back yard which has next to no
| plant life and is mostly concrete.
| salynchnew wrote:
| Ants, birds, and spiders are all tick predators. FWIW, it
| sounds like there is a lack of natural predators for ticks in
| your area.
| the-dude wrote:
| We had remarkably much insects this year in The Netherlands.
| stinos wrote:
| That was due to the weather: very good in srping, no huge
| heatwaves killing insects and plants, enough rain, and in some
| places even too much and circumstances became superb for
| mosquitos.
| patall wrote:
| I have no knowledge in how far there have been immediate
| effects but several neonicotinoids have become more
| restricted/banned in the EU in the last 2-3 years.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Pesticides need to be taxed to discourage their excessive and
| indiscriminate use.
| swayvil wrote:
| Meh, crazy is like life. It always finds a way. Controlling it
| with laws is like herding mosquitoes with a chainlink fence.
|
| What we need is a cure for crazy (this whole obsesso,
| brainbound, machine-pooping culture being a symptom of that).
|
| I'm thinking psychedelics and meditation.
| babycake wrote:
| They heroically died for our capitalist masters, because money is
| the holy grail of our society. Amen, brave insects for humans
| shall soon be next.
| OtomotO wrote:
| Just a few apes on a spacerock, good riddance.
|
| Good luck to the next dominant species, I hope you get past the
| great filter!
| boringg wrote:
| Haven't head that one before - its fantastically accurate.
|
| A few apes on a spacerock. Even with all our cleverness thats
| all we really are :)
| DiffEq wrote:
| @babycake I take it that you are making a dig at Western
| society as a whole or just the U.S.? I think if you took some
| time and traveled to some of the non-capitalist (Marxist)
| countries you might see the utter horrifical ecological damage
| that they are doing and have done to the world. I think if all
| told you might find that capitalist countries have done a
| better job with the environment - I am not saying they have
| done a good job - just a better one than the Marxist countries.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| There are no "Marxist" countries on the planet. I'm not sure
| there ever were. I _think_ I understand what you 're trying
| to say, but someone could very easily take what you wrote as
| the suggestion that there are two types of countries:
| "capitalist" and "non-capitalist (Marxist)". That's... you
| should actually read Marx, or decide on a less fraught
| descriptor.
|
| For that matter, how much of the ecological devastation in
| these poorer countries is being caused by a Western mining
| company or Western oil company or a Western baby-formula
| company?
| wiseowise wrote:
| Oh yeah, "that wasn't true communism".
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| > Oh yeah, "that wasn't true communism".
|
| "Marxism"? "Communism"? What are we talking about again?
| Eh, who cares what words mean when you can bludgeon
| people with them! It's all "non-capitalist", which is a
| word that means "bad".
| DiffEq wrote:
| I don't disagree; just like there are no true capitalist
| countries. However there is a degree in which you lean one
| way or the other and it may vary depending on industry. For
| instance the Health care in the United States mentioned
| earlier in this thread is thought to be capitalist - but it
| is so heavily regulated in certain ways that it is probably
| leaning more towards a Marxist creation.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >but it is so heavily regulated in certain ways that it
| is probably leaning more towards a Marxist creation
|
| I find it interesting that you don't mention those ways,
| or why they might make the US healthcare system
| "Marxist". Marxism is a form of socioeconomic analysis,
| not an economic system, nor a scheme of healthcare
| regulation. I have absolutely no idea what you're trying
| to convey.
| boringg wrote:
| The anti-capitlists have this utopian alternative world where
| all problems cease to exist and the power is distributed
| equally. I get the indulgence in the fantasy worlds but best
| to stick with reality and work with the system we have both
| the flaws and the strengths.
| marksbrown wrote:
| Perhaps consider a steel man instead of a straw one.
| Socialist institutions that cover natural monopolies save
| the state money simply by economies of scale. I'll grant
| not all industry could or should be nationalised but
| certainly healthcare in the US is a prime example of market
| failure.
| boringg wrote:
| I don't disagree with healthcare - its a complete
| debacle. That said the US models actually pays for a lot
| of the leading edge R&D in healthcare while a lot of
| foreign countries get to ride along the cost curve by
| buying that same healthcare after the bleeding edge
| making their healthcare costs more manageable.
| ModernMech wrote:
| That would be more tolerable if the US had better
| healthcare outcomes compared to those other nations. We
| don't -- they're doing it cheaper _and_ better than we
| can. Probably the most important factor in getting good
| outcomes is catching diseases early. It doesn 't matter
| how good your state-of-the-art new stage IV cancer
| treatment is, it's always going to be better to catch it
| early. Catching diseases early in their progression
| requires regular visits to the doctor, which in America
| cost an arm and a leg if you're not insured, leading to
| postponement of treatment and the poor outcomes we
| experience.
|
| https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2020/07/how-does-the-us-
| healthcare...
| mistrial9 wrote:
| dramatically off-topic
| missedthecue wrote:
| If only the government had nationalised industry, these bugs
| would be alive?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Less glib, we'd be in a lot better shape if governments
| didn't allow companies to externalize their costs in pursuit
| of limitless profits. Nationalization is not strictly
| necessary, but the solution to these types of problems are
| incompatible with capitalism _as we practice it today_.
| nickff wrote:
| Historically, the capitalist countries have been much less-
| polluted ('cleaner') and more environmentally friendly in
| general than the communist countries. With respect to
| 'socialist' countries, the correlations depend on exactly
| how you define socialism, and which countries you
| include/exclude.
| istorical wrote:
| The alternative to 'capitalism as we see it today' is not
| socialism. It's capitalism without regulatory capture and
| functional regulatory bodies that have teeth and use
| them.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I think there's enough contradictory information here to
| make clear ideological statements like that indefensible.
| The late USSR was far dirtier than America of the same
| period, yes, but neither can hold a candle to pre-EPA
| America or late industrial revolution England. Heck,
| London had a coal smoke smog in 1952 that killed 10-12K
| people in a week.
|
| Regardless, I find this discussion to be an unwelcome
| diversion. The USSR is dead, and even most communists
| don't want that specific state back. The reality is that
| today in America we regularly let companies privatize
| their profits and shift their costs onto all of society.
| We don't need to nationalize industry to fix that, and as
| you correctly point out that might not be sufficient, but
| we do need to regulate this.
| nickff wrote:
| North Korea and Cuba have been disasters, and I think
| you're wrong about the USSR being cleaner than pre-EPA
| USA. China has been a mess throughout its self-professed
| communist history as well; you may dispute its degree of
| communism, but it certainly has more nationalized
| industries (of the sort proposed in parent comments) than
| the USA or any other 'capitalist' country.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I see you're more interested in hashing out the communism
| vs. capitalism thing. I am not. Frankly it's the
| internet's most overwrought and under productive
| argument.
|
| All I want to see is industries pay according to the
| impact that they have on society. This isn't an
| inherently socialistic idea, but it would require a
| change in the way that we currently conceive of
| capitalism[0].
|
| 0 - Economists generally think that removing these
| externalities are good for the market. But this runs
| contrary to the anti-regulation attitude currently in
| vogue.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" I see you're more interested in hashing out the
| communism vs. capitalism thing."_
|
| No, I just think that most of your previous post was
| wrong.
|
| edit: I see that you added to your post:
|
| > _" 0 - Economists generally think that removing these
| externalities are good for the market. But this runs
| contrary to the anti-regulation attitude currently in
| vogue. "_
|
| Where have regulations decreased over the medium to long-
| term (5+ years)? I can't think of any (stable) country
| which has acted in an anti-regulatory way; do you have
| any specific examples?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > Where have regulations decreased over the medium to
| long-term (5+ years)? I can't think of any (stable)
| country which has acted in an anti-regulatory way; do you
| have any specific examples?
|
| This is genuinely quite baffling to me. Ignoring the fact
| that de-regulation has been an explicit plank of the GOP
| for my entire life, the US deregulated a ton of stuff
| since the Reagan era. Airlines, trucking, labor, and the
| financial industry all saw significant cuts to their
| regulatory rules. Anti-trust laws have been re-
| interpreted to be less aggressive[0] leading to more
| mergers, and regulation of various services have been
| weakened[1]. Environmental regulations have been a bit of
| a back-and-forth with executive orders changing things
| often, but at the state level de-regulation and willful
| non-enforcement is the norm in some areas. Texas is
| generally the go-to here, with willful non-enforcement of
| EPA rules around fracking and the (disastrous)
| deregulation of the energy market. Trump in particular
| made industrial de-regulation a goal, and tried to de-
| regulate a ton of stuff and lock out his successors from
| changing the rules back.
|
| https://climate.law.columbia.edu/climate-deregulation-
| tracke...
|
| The UK is now finally starting up their deregulatory
| processes again, now that they're no longer restrained by
| the EU. They've been greenlighting new pesticides for
| use, eliminating EU rules around used plastic exports,
| and allowing private water companies to dump their
| untreated sewage into the ocean. Personally I'd keep my
| eye on them the most for de-regulation, because their
| anti-regulation party has effectively no electable
| opposition, leaving them entirely without political
| restraint. Although given the current status of their
| import woes, I think they might end up not being
| sufficiently stable for your requirements.
|
| 0 - Anti-trust used to be about whether or not a company
| was "anti-competitive". The new rules determine whether
| or not a monopoly reduces consumer prices. Whether or not
| this is good or not, this is effectively a deregulation.
|
| 1 - I'm specifically thinking of the end of the fairness
| doctrine and the deregulation of ISPs.
| nickff wrote:
| I would agree that many specific regulations in the USA
| have been reduced/eliminated, but overall regulations
| have steadily increased throughout the last 90+ years.
| You may be able to pick out one year that they decreased
| overall (though I can't), but I doubt you can find a
| 5-year period over which they've decreased (by any
| measure).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| _Sigh_
|
| I gave tons of examples and an entire decade with
| bipartisan deregulation as the norm. It seems that you're
| ignoring what I actually wrote, all while demanding more
| evidence I already gave and offering none of your own.
| I'm forced to conclude that you're not really acting in
| good faith, and that there's no point in continuing.
| nicoffeine wrote:
| Totally and completely false. The UK in 1930 was much
| more polluted than the USSR and China at that time.
| Making that argument today is possible if you ignore
| moving practically all manufacturing to a country that
| happens to be communist. There would be far less
| pollution in China if they weren't making all of our
| stuff. It's actually a good example of how unchecked
| capitalism is always looking for new ways to externalize
| costs, regardless of the consequences for whoever is left
| holding the bag.
|
| Also, any country that builds infrastructure with taxes
| and regulates industry is socialist, including the US.
| The difference is usually that "capitalist" countries
| have safety net for corporations and the wealthy, while
| "socialist" countries have safety nets for everyone.
| nickff wrote:
| Well, China wasn't communist in 1930; that aside, I think
| it's tough to get an accurate idea of one specific time
| in the past, as such I think we're better off trying to
| understand the general situation over the situation over
| a longer-term in the USSR. Here is a quote from a self-
| professed socialist on a socialist website about the
| environmental situation there:
|
| > _" On this basis, let me agree with Adam that the
| damage done to the environment by the Soviet regime and
| its successor doesn't remotely bear comparison with that
| in the West. It was, and remains, catastrophically worse.
| Particular countries elsewhere, especially in the
| developing world, have suffered one or another ecological
| disaster, sometimes of mind-bending dimensions. The USSR
| managed something in just about every sector of heavy
| industry to match the worst of them."_
|
| https://socialist-alliance.org/alliance-
| voices/ecological-di...
| papito wrote:
| That's too bad. "Corporations are people", my friend, but
| they can also pump unlimited amounts of money into
| politics, creating their own laws. Let's not just call out
| "the government". They are the government. And, no, it's
| not tinfoil stuff, we know what's going on.
| Jensson wrote:
| Politicians taking bribes from companies for creating
| laws is an example of politicians using their power to
| enrich themselves. Such politicians will use their power
| to enrich themselves regardless of what system you use,
| making such people run the entire economy would guarantee
| a disaster.
|
| What you need is a stronger separation of capital and
| state.
| Jensson wrote:
| > the solution to these types of problems are incompatible
| with capitalism as we practice it today.
|
| It isn't, regulations to price in externalities is a
| cornerstone of modern capitalism as practiced everywhere in
| the west. If your government isn't doing its job then you
| shouldn't blame capital, you should blame your government,
| your voters or the system you use to count votes and elect
| officials.
|
| If companies can just buy politicians then the problem lies
| with your democracy and not with those companies.
| [deleted]
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The difference between a nationalised industry and a
| publically-offered industry is that the nationalised industry
| has a _chance_ of properly dealing with externalities,
| treating workers properly, ensuring safe long-term
| functionality, and, y 'know, prioritizing the service they're
| there to provide.
|
| This situation is covered by the first, though I bet the
| things that are killing the insects are hurting us, too.
| oofabz wrote:
| >nationalised industry has a chance of properly dealing
| with externalities
|
| Do you know the history of the Soviet whaling program? They
| killed more whales for industry than the West.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Yes, yes, the USSR was bad. If I allow you to define
| "nationalised industry" as "something bad the
| Soviets/CCP/Venezuelans did", then of course it's bad.
|
| Contrast that to the concept of a Crown corporation in
| Canada, which "provide services required by the public
| that otherwise would not be economically viable as a
| private enterprise or that do not fit exactly within the
| scope of any ministry." [0] They can do things like "care
| about externalities" because they're not expected to
| _make money_ , but they're still structured as
| corporations and therefore can have the usual trappings
| like middle management and competitive salaries and
| casual Fridays.
|
| A famous example would be the Canadian National Railway,
| which was created by government fiat in 1918 as a
| response to a bunch of private railways in (less-
| developed) western Canada running out of government money
| to feed on and thereby going bankrupt. The diversity of
| the interests that it inherited allowed it to spin off
| all sorts of other beneficial Crown corporations
| recognized by every Canadian, like VIA Rail, Air Canada,
| and the CBC.
|
| Of course, the privatization of Crown corporations is
| also a great way for right-wing governments to create
| minor budgetary surpluses to enthrall the plebes while
| handing over a captive "customer"-base to their already-
| wealthy friends, and since the 80s it's become a proud
| tradition. [1] Air Canada, Ontario Hydro, Petro-Canada...
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_C
| anada
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_Crown_c
| orporat...
| Jensson wrote:
| > Contrast that to the concept of a Crown corporation in
| Canada
|
| Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries
| though, it is just an organization for providing
| government services and isn't any different than a
| typical department of education or post or government
| rails etc.
|
| I'm sure most agree with you that there are areas best
| served by government run organizations. Crown corporation
| just operates in such areas, so it wouldn't change
| peoples views on what services a government should run at
| all.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries
| though, it is just an organization for providing
| government services and isn't any different than a
| typical department of education or post or government
| rails etc.
|
| An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an
| industry? I also suggest you read the second link in the
| grandparent: Nova Chemicals, Yara Belle Plaine,
| PotashCorp, all the resource extraction corps in
| Saskatchewan...
|
| Also, that's strictly wrong -- Crown corporations could
| operate in any sphere of business at all, so long as the
| government chose to endow them to do so. Furthermore,
| some Crown corporations must deal with real physical
| externalities arising as a consequence of their
| operations, like Petro-Canada, which (before it was sold
| off for a song to already-rich people) extracted real
| physical oil in Alberta, and dealt with the real physical
| externalities in a much MUCH *MUCH* more accountable way.
| Jensson wrote:
| > An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an
| industry?
|
| No, they aren't manufacturing anything. Managing natural
| resources is a reasonable thing for a government to do.
|
| > Crown corporations could operate in any sphere of
| business at all
|
| But they aren't which is the point. Just because they
| could do something in theory doesn't mean that they would
| do a good job if they did. There is no evidence that they
| would, so using them as an example doesn't work.
|
| > Furthermore, some Crown corporations must deal with
| real physical externalities arising as a consequence of
| their operations, like Petro-Canada
|
| There is no reason this couldn't just be done for private
| corporations via regulations. Politicians have that power
| today, why aren't they using it? And why do you think
| they would use it if ownership was different?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Apologies, I had updated my comment to list a few of the
| dozen-and-a-half industrial Crown corporations that
| Canadian governments have sold off to already-wealthy
| people. I'll continue: Victory Aircraft, Orion Bus
| Industries, Canadian Vickers, Canadair...
|
| It's a historical fact that the government _did_ operate
| industrial Crown corporations, and they operated them
| "better", as viewed from the embarrassingly non-fiduciary
| perspectives of the workers and the environment, which is
| the point.
|
| >There is no reason this couldn't just be done for
| private corporations via regulations. Politicians have
| that power today, why aren't they using it? And why do
| you think they would use it if ownership was different?
|
| There's several organizations between the legislature in
| which some regulation is made, and the actual group to be
| regulated, whereas a Crown corporation's mandate to
| report directly to the government, not to mention the
| absent necessity to cover bad things up until the
| quarterly earnings report drops, makes them more honest.
| The other kicker, of course, is that private corporations
| can just bribe I mean lobby the government for permission
| to do bad things. There's not really an incentive for
| Crown corporations to do that.
|
| A Crown corp is not there to make ever-increasing amounts
| of money, they're there to _provide a service_. No amount
| of deployed regulation on a for-profit, privately-owned
| corporation can change its tendency to optimize for the
| former.
| Jensson wrote:
| Still see no evidence among those.
|
| Victory aircraft was a WW2 wartime aircraft manufacturer,
| not sure how that is relevant for anything. Wartime
| economics is very different from peacetime economics.
|
| Orion Bus Industries is and was always a private company.
| It was owner by a government entity for an extremely
| short period.
|
| Canadian Vickers is a private company.
|
| Canadair was a private company, then nationalized for a
| decade. Crown didn't do a good job leading this company
| so they sold it a decade later. This just solidifies my
| point, they can't run industries efficiently.
|
| > There's not really an incentive for Crown corporations
| to do that. They're not there to make ever-increasing
| amounts of money, they're there to provide a _service_.
|
| Right, they can work in service sectors where you provide
| a service to people. They can't do good work in an
| industry sector where the job is to produce goods.
| Government agencies are great at managing simple sectors,
| but they couldn't take over the entire private sector. If
| they could then they would already have done that in many
| areas of the world and those would thrive. But anyone who
| tried quickly reversed it as it didn't work out.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >Still see no evidence among those.
|
| "Evidence"? You said there aren't any industrial Crown
| corporations. In fact, you said that
|
| >>>Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any
| industries though
|
| and
|
| >>Just because they could do something in theory doesn't
| mean that they would do a good job if they did. There is
| no evidence that they would, so using them as an example
| doesn't work.
|
| But I listed a whole bunch of former industrial Crown
| corporations. Just because you don't like the idea that
| your baseless assertions were proven wrong by the facts
| doesn't detract from their facticity.
|
| Canadian Vickers isn't a private company, they don't
| exist. When they _did_ exist, they were heavily
| subsidized by the government and then nationalised into
| Canadair, which then privatized after the war and got
| thrown around as a subsidiary of various aerospace corps
| until '76 when the government bought it from General
| Dynamics. Then it actually did quite well until the
| Challenger business jet, then the Mulroney government --
| one of those right-wing, fast-buck governments I
| mentioned earlier -- sold it in '86. And that's a great
| example, because that's just a straight-up loss. If a
| private company makes a crazily-bad investment, it's
| going to go under and get bought for pennies on the
| dollar by another private company. A Crown corporation,
| theoretically, can take less "sensible" business risks
| without that fear, because of government support. Unless
| the government decides it's not worth it and sells it for
| pennies on the dollar by another private company.
|
| >Crown didn't do a good job leading this company so they
| sold it a decade later. This just solidifies my point,
| they can't run industries efficiently.
|
| The "Crown" doesn't "lead" a Crown corporation. They
| don't make business decisions for them, they just provide
| a mandate (in this case, "design aircraft in Canada"), a
| financial backstop, and, yes, allow much more efficient
| internal meddling than normal regulatory schemes if need
| be.
|
| To be honest, I don't think you really know what you're
| talking about. Your assertions are mostly false, and the
| suggestion that my argument is leading up to the idea
| that "government agencies" could "take over the entire
| private sector" is absolutely bonkers. Again, I suggest
| you go read up on what, _exactly_ , a Crown corporation
| is and does. You're clearly under a number of incredible
| misapprehensions.
| brandon272 wrote:
| > Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any
| industries though, it is just an organization for
| providing government services
|
| Incorrect.
|
| > But they aren't which is the point. Just because they
| could do something in theory doesn't mean that they would
| do a good job if they did.
|
| See: SaskTel[1], SaskPower[2], SaskEnergy[3],
| Saskatchewan Government Insurance[4]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaskTel
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaskPower
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SaskEnergy
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_Government
| _Insura...
| mellavora wrote:
| Do you know the early history of the US post office when
| it was considered a wonder of the world?
| papito wrote:
| How about the middle ground, where the capitalists try to be
| good citizens and patriotically do not attempt to poison us
| all for profit, while building escape bunkers in New Zealand,
| once we are all f---ed back home.
|
| Ok, big ask, I know. How about this - they stop gutting the
| government to a point where any sort of reasonable regulation
| and oversight is essentially absent. Let's be honest for once
| about what "small government" stands for.
| farias0 wrote:
| I mean, probably? If we had elected good officials at least.
| I'm not defending socialism at all, but if you accept the
| fact that this kind of thing happens because there's no
| monetary incentive for the industry to avoid it, then the
| logical conclusion is that under a system not motivated by
| profit this would be less likely to happen.
|
| But what I'm sure you are aware of this line of thinking.
| What is the argument against it?
| Jensson wrote:
| > If we had elected good officials at least.
|
| That is the argument against it. If you had elected good
| officials they would have created regulations against this
| already. Fact is that we can't elect good officials in the
| current system. Either it is because people would rather
| have more goods instead of caring about nature, or the
| system is corrupt and politicians use their power to enrich
| themselves rather than doing what people wants. Either case
| those politicians wont be fixing the problems you care
| about.
| farias0 wrote:
| The problem with US politicians is that they are sold out
| to the private sector. This is a problem that would
| obviously not exist if there was no private sector, or if
| it was weaker, which is the "what if" of the discussion.
|
| Sure, then we could elect politicians that are bad in
| different ways, but then this becomes a discussion
| against socialism, which is not what I'm intending here.
| I'm only talking about socialism hypothetically. My point
| is that we can't ignore capitalism's shortcomings. We
| have to understand what having profit as a main motivator
| leads to, so we can deal with it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The problem with US politicians is that they are sold
| out to the private sector.
|
| No. The corruption is one of many symptoms of the
| problem, which is the fact that the electoral system is
| poorly designed for responsiveness and accountability,
| since it is structured so as to reinforce duopoly which
| incentivizes lesser-of-two-weasels voting.
| Jensson wrote:
| > The problem with US politicians is that they are sold
| out to the private sector. This is a problem that would
| obviously not exist if there was no private sector
|
| You are diagnosing the symptom and not the cause.
| Politicians selling their power to the highest bidder is
| a symptom of politicians being corrupt and using their
| power to enrich themselves. Removing the private sector
| would give these corrupt cronies a lot more power to
| enrich themselves, that woudln't solve anything at all.
| Instead of having people with money and people with
| military power, you now have the same people having both
| power over industry and power over military, do you
| really think these people would now start caring about
| the environment over how much those factories are
| producing? No, these politicians still enrich themselves,
| they run these factories to make themselves as wealthy as
| possible and now there isn't even a government to stop
| them since they are the government.
|
| Modern capitalism is based on the separation between
| capital and state. We call it corruption when capital is
| used to buy political power, or when political power is
| used to buy capital power. Communism is the merging of
| capital power and political power and giving this to the
| same ruling class, it is the ultimate form of what we in
| the west calls corruption.
| agalunar wrote:
| Modern capitalism is an exhibition of capital's
| _dependency_ on the state. Without the state, who would
| enforce a corporation 's claims to property? (the
| products of worker labor, intellectual property, and so
| on)
|
| And empirically, the bottom 70% of the US population on
| the wealth scale has absolutely zero influence on public
| policy. The policies of the US overwhelmingly align with
| the interests of US corporations. I'd contend they'd be
| much less dominating otherwise.
| Isinlor wrote:
| You should read about the Great Leap Forward and The Four
| Pests campaign that lead to the greatest famine in human
| history with up to 55 million people dead from starvation
| and bodies piling up on sides of roads.
|
| Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct
| the country from an agrarian economy into a communist
| society through the formation of people's communes. Mao
| decreed increased efforts to multiply grain yields and
| bring industry to the countryside. Local officials were
| fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and competed to fulfill
| or over-fulfill quotas based on Mao's exaggerated claims,
| collecting "surpluses" that in fact did not exist and
| leaving farmers to starve. Higher officials did not dare to
| report the economic disaster caused by these policies, and
| national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in
| food output, took little or no action. The Great Leap
| resulted in tens of millions of deaths, with estimates
| ranging between 15 and 55 million deaths, making the Great
| Chinese Famine the largest famine in human history.
|
| The Four Pests campaign (Chinese: Chu Si Hai ; pinyin: Chu
| Si Hai), was one of the first actions taken in the Great
| Leap Forward in China from 1958 to 1962. The four pests to
| be eliminated were rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows.
| The extermination of sparrows is also known as smash
| sparrows campaign (Chinese: Da Ma Que Yun Dong ; pinyin: Da
| Maque Yundong) or eliminate sparrows campaign (Chinese:
| Xiao Mie Ma Que Yun Dong ; pinyin: Xiaomie Maque Yundong),
| which resulted in severe ecological imbalance, being one of
| the causes of the Great Chinese Famine. In 1960, Mao Zedong
| ended the campaign against sparrows and redirected the
| fourth focus to bed bugs.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| "Better red than expert" is not a prerequisite for
| socialist thought. For what it's worth, putting totally
| unqualified ideologues in positions of real temporal
| power over the economy and health of the nation and
| watching them fuck everything up is something we do in
| modern capitalism, too. Our tools are different;
| political power grows not out of the barrel of a gun but
| a barrel full of money with a dollar sign on it.
|
| I find it bafflingly common to encounter the conflation
| of authoritarianism with collectivism.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Lots of downvoting, as you're about to find out. For some
| reason, HN _really really hates_ the idea that there 's
| enormous monetary incentive to ignore existential problems
| caused by modern capitalism.
|
| Probably because, as Jeff Hammerbacher said, "the best
| minds of my generation are thinking about how to make
| people click ads. That sucks."
| LanceH wrote:
| I think HN really hates the histrionics that started this
| thread, "They heroically died for our capitalist
| masters". When people talk about HN becoming Reddit, this
| is one of the things they are talking about.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| > I think HN really hates the histrionics that started
| this thread, "They heroically died for our capitalist
| masters". When people talk about HN becoming Reddit, this
| is one of the things they are talking about.
|
| Oh absolutely, it's very clear HN hates that.
| Redditification is an ever-present threat, as I learned
| when I turned on showdead and finally saw, in almost
| every comment section, the root-level graveyards of "Very
| cool!" etc.
|
| But that's an entirely different memeplex. HN hates that,
| but it also hates the idea that there's enormous monetary
| incentive to ignore existential problems caused by modern
| capitalism. One of the ways that displeasure might be
| shown is whataboutism regarding genuine if unhelpful
| "histrionics".
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yup. We are not here for that kind of manipulative
| nonsense. Take it somewhere else.
|
| The same point could have been made without that garbage,
| and would have been better for it.
| skulk wrote:
| > What is the argument against it?
|
| I've discussed this with libertarians and the best argument
| I've heard is that the incentive to manage negative
| externalities comes from private ownership. If the factory
| down the road is polluting the river that runs by your
| house, you sue them.
| farias0 wrote:
| Well, sure, this is trying to fix capitalism, which is
| something I'm all for. But one way or another, I think
| it's vital to have the shortcomings of a capitalist
| system understood. It's one thing to believe capitalism
| is the way to go, it's another to go defend that we
| should always act in self interest and this will only
| lead to good things.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| The "puzzles" will keep pilling up. One year there will be no
| insects, the next year it will be a horror movie.
|
| Global human-made mass now exceeds all living biomass [0]. We are
| basically simply pushing the rest of the biosphere to a corner.
| It responds as the immensely complex, adaptive, system that it
| is: _unpredictably_.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5
| z3t4 wrote:
| About the same amounts of pests every summer, so I'm not
| concerned. If the winter comes fast, like 15 C one day and -15 C
| the next day, many will die and there will be less of them the
| following spring, but at the end of the summer they have usually
| recovered. I think the lack of pest are due to use of pesticides
| and lack of habitats - rather then some doomsday coming.
| rvense wrote:
| The doomsday that is coming is because of the pesticides.
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