[HN Gopher] Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down
___________________________________________________________________
Websites hosting major US climate reports taken down
Author : geox
Score : 524 points
Date : 2025-07-02 21:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| triceratops wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Look_Up
| NewJazz wrote:
| And two decades before that, Inconvenient Truth.
| pstuart wrote:
| And way before that,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here
| apgwoz wrote:
| The section of the population that needs to think about the
| Inconvenient Truth didn't watch the movie, because they don't
| watch documentaries unless it's about a Poop Cruise, or a
| celebrity.
| bko wrote:
| I think we rely too much on government mandated websites than
| we do practical common sense that could save lives.
|
| For instance, over 175,000 people die from heat exposure each
| year across the WHO European Region. Compare that to 1-2k in
| the US.
|
| In this case, the Don't Look Up scenario is that people don't
| want to get A/C and governments sometimes make it very hard for
| them, killing hundreds of thousands because... I don't know
| why. But at least EU has nice proclamations and accords on the
| risk of climate change.
|
| https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/01-08-2024-statement--h...
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2822854
| triceratops wrote:
| How do governments make it "very hard" to get A/C?
| billfor wrote:
| Cold still kills at least 2x the number of people in the same
| region. 363,800 deaths are attributed to cold exposure.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/21/heat.
| ..
| Brybry wrote:
| Couldn't they push heat pump units that cool and heat (with
| a bonus of not being reliant on wood or natural gas)?
|
| Or do the regions that matter the most get too cold for
| heat pumps?
| mayneack wrote:
| What does this have to do with government mandated websites?
| Seems that the US had a government website about climate and
| few heat deaths. If the number of heat deaths goes up this
| year without the websites would you think that is because the
| website went away (obviously not).
|
| Seems like a website with information about climate change
| without a mandate about max AC is a pretty conservative
| strategy all things considered.
| Rexxar wrote:
| The first number is based on statistical observation of
| mortality rate the second is based on classification by
| doctor at death. It's not comparable at all. For example, if
| there is an increase in heart related death when it's hot
| it's not accounted in second stats.
|
| WHO European region also covered Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan,
| Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine,
| Uzbekistan and other countries from central Asia so I don't
| see how you can conclude anything about EU with this piece of
| statistic.
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WHO_regions)
| Xss3 wrote:
| Awful misinformation.
|
| The WHO European Region includes Central Asia and Russia,
| massive populations that aren't in the EU.
|
| You cant draw ANY conclusions about the EU from this data.
| dottjt wrote:
| I liked the idea behind the movie, but the movie itself wasn't
| very good. It was a bit like the movie Mickey 17, it didn't
| quite know what it wanted to be and tried to be a lot of
| things, but none of it really stuck and it ended up being a bit
| incoherent. The ending I thought was powerful though.
| timr wrote:
| > I liked the idea behind the movie, but the movie itself
| wasn't very good.
|
| Agreed. My problem with it was that it was self-
| congratulatory and snobby, which is always what you want out
| of Hollywood actors.
|
| Being preached at about science by a population of people who
| probably mostly failed high school science is not a good
| time.
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| Why would you assume people that went on to have successful
| film careers failed high school science? Just because
| someone doesn't pursue science as a career doesn't mean
| they received bad grades in it, especially at a high school
| level.
| timr wrote:
| I'm not assuming anything - this is why I used words like
| "probably" and "mostly" - but let's just say that I've
| known my share of actors, and I'm willing to take the
| odds.
| jahsome wrote:
| It's so funny to me you'd whine about "preaching" and
| then take such a needlessly judgemental and demonstrably
| false stance, and then double down and lie when it's
| pointed out. Truly, a person of science.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Without regard to the broader point* in the particular
| case of Leo, I'd be surprised if he had great k-12
| science education. He was a child star already at that
| point, right? Only so many hours in the day.
|
| Of course, it isn't a universal rule, see Dolph Lundgren,
| etc etc.
|
| * I don't care if the actor delivering an
| environmentalist message in a movie is actually good at
| science for the same reason I don't care if Keanu Reaves
| knows king fu.
| p1necone wrote:
| People who complain about being "preached" at while the
| world burns behind them are exactly the kind of people the
| movie is poking fun at
| spankibalt wrote:
| Precisely. But just as scientific literacy, media
| literacy always was, and still is, a huge problem.
| triceratops wrote:
| Actors act, writers write. You seem to be confused about
| who was "preaching".
|
| I've confirmed that both writers of the movie graduated
| high school, and one of them even graduated college.
| timr wrote:
| Good for them?
|
| I guess we can infer that graduating from high school is
| no insurance against making a bad movie.
| nothrabannosir wrote:
| _> Being preached at about science by a population of
| people who probably mostly failed high school science is
| not a good time._
|
| I agree with the part about preaching, but fair is fair:
| they were preaching scientific consensus. They preach what
| is said by the overwhelming majority of active scientific
| researchers in this field.
|
| You didn't say they were wrong I agree, but still .. they
| were (/ are) right. And why should they be perfect, anyway?
| They are who they are, flawed and all, but they are right
| about this and they were right to make that movie and they
| were right about people being selfish.
|
| Ironically you could say that we are now basically
| reenacting the movie, proving its point. There's an
| asteroid heading for us and here we are, judging the high
| school grades of the people telling us about its
| trajectory.
|
| I thought it was very depressing and surprisingly self
| reflective and poignant in that sense.
| timr wrote:
| So? There's more to a movie than being right.
|
| It wasn't a documentary, and even if it were a
| documentary, a dreadful, preachy, insipid movie that is
| technically right is still bad.
|
| (I say "technically right", because let's not forget that
| this film was supposed to be a _satire_.)
| yongjik wrote:
| I don't think the movie was snobby: it was full of over-
| the-top gags, and it was clear to me that the movie was
| never taking itself too seriously.
|
| The main character (played by DiCaprio) is also depicted as
| a quite flawed and vain human being as well.
|
| Also honestly, who doesn't feel frustration at the whole
| real-world situation the movie is actually about?
| dspillett wrote:
| _> about science by a population of people who probably
| mostly failed high school science_
|
| Your assumption that actors (and writers, those where the
| ones "preaching" more than the people on screen) have
| failed highschool at a higher rate than the general
| population is, I think, rather flawed1. There are some very
| bright people in the entertainment industries for one
| reason or another (doing what they enjoy, and presumably
| are good at, instead of something else they are good at,
| being a common situation, there being more money in stardom
| being another).
|
| Hence a number successful stand-ups who have degrees (in
| the sciences, not necessarily "media studies" before
| someone pipe up with that), PhDs, law certifications, and
| such.
|
| Hedy Lamarr is the best known poster child for this, but
| too many think she is a singleton exception rather than an
| indicator that we shouldn't make too many assumptions about
| what acting talent might imply about other mental
| abilities.
|
| ----
|
| [1] And, in fact, more snobby than the film you are
| critiquing as being snobby!
| triceratops wrote:
| Agree, great idea, strong ending, kinda saggy middle.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Too many high price celebrities. I'm sure they're all great
| people, but I was more focused on them than the actual movies
| message which is an issue.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I loved the concept for that movie. I found the execution
| rather lacking, though. In the end, I wouldn't recommend
| watching it. Just watch the trailer instead, yo'll get the
| point without needing to finish the entire thing.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| The current administration is not merely racists, autocratic, and
| hell bent on insuring all wealth is held by the oligarch class,
|
| it is _also_ engaged in the most venal, short-sighted, and
| destructive assault on the basic functions of governance and
| civil society I can imagine.
|
| I don't care what one's view is on the appropriate scale and role
| of federal governance, some operations are best and only
| accomplished at that level,
|
| and this short of bullshit is not just a disservice to, it is an
| _attack_ on the citizenry.
| janice1999 wrote:
| Destroying federal governance seems on point for people who
| read Yarvin and want to rule feudal micro-states as techno-
| kings.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| I guess they see themselves as high officers in those states.
| I fail to understand how someone could read about living in a
| dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like that"
| jfengel wrote:
| You don't have to see yourself as a high officer. You just
| have to imagine that you will be restored to your deserved
| state. In that state you are slightly better than average,
| and only those who are morally defective suffer. (Those are
| the ones who are now unjustly keeping you from succeeding
| on your merits.)
|
| The high officials are the truly great ones who have
| restored the natural order. You don't need that. You just
| require being recognized as somewhat better than most.
| Larrikin wrote:
| This is how the entire history of racism worked in the
| United States. You may be a poor white person, living in
| a crappy neighborhood, with a crappy job, but atleast
| you're not black with things like Jim Crow, police, and
| redlining making sure legally your life is even worse.
| Plus your boss looks just like you and said you're a
| cultural fit so you may even be rich like him one day!
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Racists were just temporarily embarrassed by the civil
| war.
| e40 wrote:
| Were they? If so, embarrassed about what? Losing it?
| Hikikomori wrote:
| I think they and right wingers are only embarrassed by
| losing, it explain their behaviour.
| janice1999 wrote:
| You reminded me of the Lyndon B Johnson quote which seems
| more relevant that ever. "If you can convince the lowest
| white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't
| notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody
| to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The trouble with this quote is that it's too easy to
| misinterpret it exactly in favor of the people it's
| criticizing.
|
| Racism is a system for pitting poor white people and poor
| black people against each other. But the perpetrators are
| _not_ the people in the other tribe, they 're the people
| telling you that there should _be_ separate tribes.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Bacon's Rebellion [1] in colonial Virginia, 1676-7, was a
| a multi-race and cross-class uprising against the
| colonial government and the aritocratic planter class.
| The rebellion's failure was followed by measures that
| served to alienate the poor white population from the
| enslaved black population.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon%27s_Rebellion
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be _worse
| off_ in order to inflict a larger loss upon others. This
| paper makes for rather grim reading but imho provides a
| very useful heuristic for understanding the political
| enfironment in an era of mass communication.
|
| Humans display a reduced set of consistent behavioral
| phenotypes in dyadic games
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451
| spencerflem wrote:
| This really feels like the best explanation for what's
| happening right now :c
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Isn't 30% roughly the percent of people who voted for
| this situation?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Evidence suggests ~30% of people are content to be
| _worse off_ in order to inflict a larger loss upon
| others. This paper makes for rather grim reading but imho
| provides a very useful heuristic for understanding the
| political enfironment in an era of mass communication.
|
| Pinning this on human psychology is ignoring how the game
| is set up. If you structure something in such a way that
| the person who gets the most points wins and gets a
| prize, a move that causes you to lose one point but
| causes your only opponent to lose two points will put you
| ahead. That's arithmetic, not psychology.
|
| The issue, then, is when we allow things to be structured
| that way -- as zero sum games. Instead what we should be
| doing is stamping out anything that fosters artificial
| scarcity.
|
| Moreover, as the paper points out, that's what happens in
| _dyadic_ systems. Which is to say, two party systems. If
| you have the option to cost yourself a point but cost one
| of your opponents two points, that 's an advantageous
| move in a two-party system, but not in a five-party
| system even with a zero-sum game, because then you've
| cost yourself a point against three of the four other
| parties. So if you want to get rid of _that_ , have your
| state adopt score voting (specifically score voting, not
| IRV or any of that mess) instead of the existing voting
| system which mathematically constrains us to a two-party
| system.
| andrekandre wrote:
| > I fail to understand how someone could read about living
| in a dictatorship and go "yeah, I would like to live like
| that"
|
| fwiw there are religious people who read about the great
| kings in the bible and wish they had one of those today,
| and they vote (not endorsing, just sharing my experience)
| padjo wrote:
| There are also religious people who look forward to the
| coming of the "end times". They also vote.
| andrekandre wrote:
| yep, they definitely do
| cess11 wrote:
| More importantly, US oligarchs are religious. Mostly
| evangelical, mormon or some postmodern derivative, like
| Thiel, Yarvin, Musk and their ilk.
|
| In the US, even people who aren't very religious in
| practice still harbour religious beliefs like the state
| of Israel being a divine entity. I.e. like Ted Cruz, who
| knows some english biblical phrases but isn't religious
| enough to stop himself from playing golf with the
| pharaoh, and yet strongly holds on to the antisemitic
| zionist belief that jews must move to the state of Israel
| and eradicate their neighbours.
| g-b-r wrote:
| Partly being submissive, partly betting on being among the
| rulers, partly distaste for most of the world, and partly
| just idiocy and insanity
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Democracy is complicated. The world is complex, but you get
| only a limited set of choices (in some implementation a few
| more, in others a few less) which means the burden in the
| end is on you. Now you take the wannabe dictator, which
| takes that all of you "I'm like your dad and will care
| about all those problems, so you only have to care about
| your direct environment, doing your job, taking care of
| your family, all else will be handled"
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Wow, that's possibly the bleakest set of opinions I've ever
| seen detailed.
|
| I can't help but think that this is typical self-loathing and
| ensuing self-destruction turned towards society itself. I
| need to read his actual writing, though. I'm sure there's
| also some element of actively pandering towards people in
| power desperate to justify their hold through some ideology.
| zingababba wrote:
| Just read his Gray Mirror posts or watch a podcast with
| him. If you really want to get the full experience you need
| to go back to his unqualified reservations stuff but it can
| be VERY tedious.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| He is simply not that smart nor that interesting. Just a
| mega cringe-lord loser who got the ear of other cringe-
| lord losers who happen to be unfathomably wealthy.
| voidhorse wrote:
| Yeah, it's amazing to me that any of these clowns
| consider themselves intelligent when they end up holding
| philosophical and political beliefs that the average
| high-schooler could tell you are completely wack.
|
| The natural consequence of the worship of financial
| success, strong isolationist tendencies, and social
| atomization. When you "don't rely on anyone else" and
| managed to make billions with your "own wits" anything
| you think _must_ be genius or at least correct, right? It
| 's insane how our current socioeconomic structure has
| effectively let men with the social maturity of twelve
| year olds gain absurd amounts of influence and power.
| g-b-r wrote:
| So you don't know that the vice-president's mentor
| completely agrees with him
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Of course I know Thiel is probably one of the most evil
| people alive. But I suspect he's a lot more evil than
| he's let us know. But this guy seems to have built his
| career off of actively propagating resentment and hate.
| If you read about Thiel's upbringing it's entirely
| unsurprising the two get along so well.
|
| CF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swakopmund#Until_Namibia
| n_Inde...
|
| > Swakomund was known for its continued glorification of
| Nazism after World War II, including the celebration of
| Hitler's birthday and "Heil Hitler" Nazi salutes given by
| residents. In 1976, The New York Times quoted a German
| working in a Swakopmund hotel who described the city as
| "more German than Germany". As of the 1980s, Nazi
| paraphernalia was available to buy in shops.
| g-b-r wrote:
| Yeah, I knew where he grew up
| gsf_emergency_2 wrote:
| I can outbleak that! In 2 paragraphs!
|
| Although it seems more robust in the long term*, anti-
| intellectualism probably has a cliff of adaptivity, just
| like academia, ideology, or indeed any collection of values
|
| *The foundations of China's rise can ultimately be traced
| to the cultural revolution? Now we wait.
| SSilver2k2 wrote:
| Agreed.
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| If the US was a rebellious teenager then they are past their
| doing coke and doing corn phase and onto their face tattoo and
| smoking meth phase.
| pstuart wrote:
| The administration is so devoid of _any_ value it staggers the
| mind. The only thing that I can agree with is that our
| dependence on China is not a good thing (Oh yes, and minimizing
| governmental fraud and waste) -- the concepts, not any of the
| actions done to address these concerns.
|
| What makes this mess even more disheartening is that about of
| third of the population loves it.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Earlier, without discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44439836
| archildress wrote:
| I just feel extremely sad about the mass quantity of events like
| this happening right now because they are all aggregate to huge
| negative effects but the average person knows nothing of it. It
| feels so unfixable.
| beanjammin wrote:
| They certainly want us to feel like its unfixable, but it's
| not. Were govt to put the effort into the energy transition
| that we saw in the early days of covid we could zero our
| emissions, and relatively quickly. The technology is largely
| available, it needs to be implemented.
|
| The ties between the fossil fuel industry and the far right are
| clear. Apathy, indifference, inertia, they are all products of
| propaganda and updated Cambridge Analytica methods.
|
| Fossil fuel interests will stop at nothing to further their
| greed.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| I was hoping this would be the one silver lining of having
| Elon in government, that they would keep the renewable
| subsidies or at least keep the fossil fuel lobby in check,
| but no, Republicans gonna Republican.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You weren't paying attention to his Twitter, then. The far
| right turn was extremely obvious.
| epgui wrote:
| You can pinpoint, fairly easily, the year Elon turned
| from eccentric to insane to sometime in 2019 just by
| looking at his wiki page. It's so weird.
| ta1243 wrote:
| I think it was "pedo guy" which broke something in him.
| epgui wrote:
| Maybe... But to me that whole incident seems more like a
| symptom than a cause. IMHO (disclaimer: pure conjecture),
| Musk must have been "broken" prior to engaging in such
| behaviour.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Huh, makes me wonder about claims that it's a reaction to
| his daughter coming out as trans. That happened publicly
| in 2020, according to wikipedia, but it probably came up
| in private beforehand. The timing is close enough that it
| seems likely. It's interesting to note since I wasn't
| really familiar with the timeline of his villain arc.
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| No one becomes transphobic when a family member comes out
| as trans, it's usually the opposite
| bbatsell wrote:
| I agree that it's not the usual response, but given
| Musk's strong promotion of natalism and the fact that he
| has used IVF to select XY embryos for _all_ of his
| offspring...
| theossuary wrote:
| Am I misreading this it are you claiming the family of
| trans people becoming more transphobic when they find out
| not common? Because it's extremely common. There's a
| reason the joke exists: Don't like in-laws? Date a trans
| person and you won't have to worry about them!
| pjc50 wrote:
| ? It's uncommon for trans people to still be on good
| terms with their family. Coming out often gets terrible
| reactions.
| close04 wrote:
| > The ties between the fossil fuel industry and the far right
| are clear.
|
| The fossil fuel industry has ties to anyone who will promote
| their business.
|
| > Fossil fuel interests will stop at nothing to further their
| greed.
|
| Exactly. Nothing. If tomorrow the left advances their
| interest be sure that the fossil fuel industry will just as
| quickly attach to them.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Is there a term to describe "whataboutism but it's not even
| happening"?
| close04 wrote:
| > "whataboutism but it's not even happening"?
|
| What's not happening? I think you are confusing what
| "whataboutism" is? "Whatabout" the exact same fossil fuel
| industry OP referenced? I corrected a misconception that
| OP had, and I guess so do you: that the oil industry
| cares about political affiliation. To you this probably
| sounded like a support of the right, and whatabouting the
| left. Least effort interpretation meets trigger
| happiness.
|
| The oil industry has monetary affiliations and
| intrinsically sees no political color or affiliation
| except in the interest of making that money. The other
| way around, the US right has a strong preference for the
| oil industry, while the left has less. But I was clear
| that I'm looking at it from the industry's perspective:
| the oil industry doesn't care about right or left. They
| will without a doubt allow any tide to lift their boat
| without any moral argument. This distinction is
| important. Plenty of places in the world where the oil
| industry is affiliated to the center or left.
|
| Again, there's nothing intrinsically "right wing" about
| the oil industry, there something strongly "oil leaning"
| in the US right-wing.
|
| An example that captures this a bit is Musk publicly
| supporting and having ties to the democrat administration
| for years when it benefited him and the EV/green agenda.
| He had no qualms shifting to supporting the republicans
| when he thought this will benefit him even more despite
| the right being anti-green. You can bet that he'd try to
| switch back if the tides turn again although this time
| it's hard to come back from what he did.
|
| Source: worked in the oil industry for years.
| timeon wrote:
| 'whataboutism' was not correct term here just search
| vector for similar effect.
|
| I would call it maybe 'relativizing'. Like making
| everything so relative that anything could happen in
| theory while taking away attention from the fact (hence
| similarity with whataboutism) that it just (or mostly)
| happens in one specific case. So Oil industry would align
| with 'Left' if 'Left' aligned with Oil industry, but that
| is not relevant take since it is not happening.
|
| And using Musk is not example of this case because he is
| not part of oil industry.
| close04 wrote:
| > Like making everything so relative
|
| That industries shift affiliation if it brings them money
| is not "relative", it's just something they show again
| and again, some more than others. I don't care about US
| politics right/left but as someone who worked in the oil
| industry I can guarantee you that the industry will shift
| its affiliation towards the side that makes it more
| money. Many industries do this, much of the left leaning
| tech sector collectively kissed the boot of the Trump
| administration, shoveled money his way, and clapped on
| order at his inauguration. It probably wasn't ideological
| but pragmatic.
|
| > And using Musk is not example of this case because he
| is not part of oil industry.
|
| And yet he is, as the perfect example of changing
| affiliation for money. The poster child of the
| traditionally left EV/green industry slinking away to the
| famously non-green right. How many examples do you need?
| Worldwide the oil industry doesn't show a particular
| preference to the right, it does without exception show
| preference to the side making them more money.
| trust_bt_verify wrote:
| You are correct. The fossil fuel industry will fund
| anyone who will take their money and push their greedy
| agenda. The difference in the republicans are normally
| the only ones who will stoop that low to sell out future
| generations for power today. That's why no one cares
| about your false equivalency.
| const_cast wrote:
| I believe the term is "dishonesty".
| psadauskas wrote:
| All of this is extremely easily fixable, from a technical
| standpoint. But, every solution would make some rich guy very
| slightly less rich, so its going to be an uphill battle where
| we have to fight for each step.
|
| If there's some proposed legislation that would make things
| notably better for 50 million people, but would cost an
| insurance company 100 million dollars, then that insurance
| company can spend any amount less than 100 million fighting
| the bill and still come out ahead. Even 10 million can buy a
| lot of lobbyists, and almost guarantee torpedoing the bill.
|
| Meanwhile the 50 million people are working 80 hours/wk
| across three jobs just to put food on the table, are stressed
| about how to pay rent, and don't have the personal cell phone
| number of their congressperson even if they had the time and
| energy to call them.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The failure for Democrats has been to convert those 80
| hours/wk and poor economic conditions to support.
|
| Trump can increase inequality and make wealthy people
| wealthier, but says he's doing good for poor people. If
| things get better, it's because of him. If things get
| worse, it's because of someone else.
|
| Ergo, poor people support him.
| psadauskas wrote:
| I'm not sure "failure for Democrats" is the right way to
| frame it, because the system is working as intended, and
| the Democrats are responding to the lobbyists rather than
| the people, same as Republicans.
|
| Your choices are the party of billionaires, or the party
| of billionaires except we don't hate gay people quite as
| much.
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| The US is just going to become irrelevant for the next few
| decades. Anything important will move to the EU and China. No
| one can trust the US to function properly anymore.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| Doubt with the whole tech stack. Germany is using a lot more
| Palantir in the police. I'd love to see change.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Germany produces not much valuable SW yet their police
| surveillance state has no issues making use of foreign
| developed spyware tech (Palantir, Pegasus) against its
| citizens if they say the wrong things or are not part of
| the political establishment.
|
| Do you still get threatening letters with fines at home
| when you download a pirated movie?
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| I have been pirating on and off for almost 25 years. This
| wasn't a problem in my early years so I learned and know
| all the sides of it. I would have definitely got those in
| my early days. But the whole thing started way later and
| they should still be around.
| jordanb wrote:
| > EU
|
| Wishful thinking. Ukraine losing the war will be the end of
| Europe, and Europe will increasingly be ran by right-wing
| autocrats shredding the social state and blaming immigrants.
| ben_w wrote:
| That a Ukraine loss is seen as the end of a free Europe
| (because Russia wouldn't stop at least until at least DDR
| Germany borders), is why the other European nations are
| collectively increasing military spending.
|
| For a sense of scale (only scale, money is definitely not
| the most important criteria), the EU currently spends twice
| as much on their military as Russia: https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...
|
| So if (when) American support disappears, I expect Russia
| to continue to not go anywhere fast while wasting a lot of
| lives in the process. I also expect this to surprise Putin,
| as he thinks Russia is a Great Power and therefore can only
| be stalling if Ukraine is supported by another Great Power
| and doesn't recognise that (1) Russia isn't, and (2) the EU
| kinda is, sort of, when it feels like acting with unity
| rather than as 27 different nations.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| It makes no sense whatsoever for Russia to attack more
| states than Ukraine.
|
| The sole reason Russia invaded Ukraine was that it was
| flirting too much with NATO.
|
| Putin might be a lunatic, but he is not stupid.
| shafyy wrote:
| It also made "no sense" for Russia to attack Ukraine.
| This is not about rational thinking.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| If we are to be completely rational, what made no sense
| was Ukraine thinking it could be a part of NATO, or
| independent. It is the sad reality of existing next to a
| superpower. You cannot be independent. It would either be
| heavily influenced by Russia, or the option B they chose:
| in rubble.
| ben_w wrote:
| Russia stopped being a superpower with the fall of the
| USSR. And before anyone says so, "has a permanent seat on
| UN security council" doesn't count, the UK and France
| also have that status and even _combined_ were no longer
| superpowers by the time of the Suez crisis. Likewise
| "has nukes" is not sufficient.
|
| The EU is closer to being one than Russia is today, and
| even then the EU is only kinda a bit of one in some
| measures but not all.
| SirMaster wrote:
| Why does every source I can find list Russia as a
| superpower?
| ben_w wrote:
| To hazard a guess: because Google et al think you're the
| kind of person who clicks that kind of source.
|
| When I search for list of superpowers, I get superheroes
| -- obviously nobody on Marvel or DC is going to be listed
| as having "Russia" as their superpower, but this does
| illustrate what it is that search engines do these days,
| and it's not objective truth.
| SirMaster wrote:
| When you search for a list of superpowers? I mean did you
| not simply include the word countries?
|
| Do you have a good authoritative source that lists the
| superpower countries that does not include Russia?
| ben_w wrote:
| > When you search for a list of superpowers? I mean did
| you not simply include the word countries?
|
| Sure, but also in writing this reply, "cia superpower
| list" to see if they had anything "authoritative" got me
| CIA's paranormal research:
| https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-
| rdp96-00792r000...
|
| > Do you have a good authoritative source that lists the
| superpower countries that does not include Russia?
|
| In most cases, the statement I see is that the USA is "
| _the_ ", singular, superpower. So none of my sources are
| lists.
|
| What counts as a "good authoritative source", for you?
| And when?
|
| Samuel P. Huntington was highly rated in his day, but
| "The Lonely Superpower" was 1999:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20060427150630/http://www-
| stage....
|
| RAND I think still are, and this was 2019, "Russia Is a
| Rogue, Not a Peer; China Is a Peer, Not a Rogue":
| https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE310.html
|
| Is nationalinterest.org "authoritative"? "What Happens
| When America Is No Longer the Undisputed Super Power?",
| 2020: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-happens-
| when-ameri...
|
| I could link to Wikipedia, which says of Russia
| "potential" superpower (along with the EU, China, and
| India), not currently an extant superpower. But that's
| not what I'd call "authoritative".
|
| And this is the point where I got that link to the CIA's
| paranormal research. The CIA's World Factbook doesn't
| even describe _the USA_ as a "superpower", at least not
| at the time of writing: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-
| factbook/countries/united-stat...
| mopsi wrote:
| This line of reasoning is exactly why everyone bordering
| Russia is preparing for an invasion, and why no one
| deludes themselves with "Mr. Hitler will surely stop at
| Poland." It's not about NATO, ethnic Russians, or any
| other common excuse, but a fundamental collision between
| an imperialistic view of the world (represented by
| Putin's dictatorship) and a cooperative one (represented
| by the EU). Nations are naturally drawn to the EU, which
| does not force them to live under someone's boot, and
| Putin tries to stop that through raw violence.
| inigoalonso wrote:
| What of those two options did Finland choose? In reality
| Russia shares a land border with 14 countries, 6 of which
| are already NATO members (of the others the second
| largest border is with China). And the countries they
| have only a maritime border with are Japan and the USA.
| Marazan wrote:
| Latvia and Estonia are members.
|
| Finland is a member.
|
| Lithuania is a member.
|
| The sad reality is that your logic is just a twisted
| pretzel to support the position you wish to take which is
| you support Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| I do not support any invasion. This is why I do not
| support the US policy that caused this invasion. And
| countless others.
|
| The US military industrial complex is a huge beast that
| needs an enemy to exist. There is so much money in the
| game.
| Marazan wrote:
| If Russia attacked Ukraine because it considered applying
| for NATO membership that would be years of not decades
| away why did Russia not attack any other country that
| actually started the process of joining NATO and did
| actually join.
|
| The USA did not make Russia attack Ukraine.
| ben_w wrote:
| Which US policy do you think caused Russia to invade
| Ukraine?
|
| Was it the one where the USA, along with the UK and
| Russia, all jointly signed an agreement to respect
| Ukraine's (and several other post-USSR nations')
| independence and sovereignty in their existing borders
| (as of 5 December 1994), including an obligation to seek
| immediate Security Council action to provide assistance
| to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an
| act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression
| in which nuclear weapons are used", _so that Ukraine
| would give up the nuclear weapons it had accidentally
| inherited from the USSR?_
|
| Put it another way: given your stance on the US mil-ind
| complex, do you think this war would stop if the USA
| completely vanished from the international scene?
|
| Because the EU is _right next door_ and also doesn 't
| want Russia thinking it can do stuff like this.
| dataflow wrote:
| Finland? Didn't Finland apply to join NATO in 2022, after
| the start of the war?
| Marazan wrote:
| Yes, and Russia did not invade them. Weird.
| fnordian_slip wrote:
| The sole reason Germany annexed Czechoslovakia was was
| that there were atrocities being committed against the
| Sudeten[0].
|
| He even made a speech at the Sportpalast in Berlin in
| which he stated that the Sudetenland was "the last
| territorial demand I have to make in Europe". So all's
| fine, and we don't have to worry about Germany.
|
| 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_Munich
| berdario wrote:
| One big difference, is that the opposition to nazi
| Germany was relatively weak before the start of WW2:
|
| After Reginald Drax's mission to Moscow failed, the
| Soviet Union ended up signing its famous non-aggression
| pact.
|
| Italy was allied, Spain was neutral/aligned. Turkiye was
| neutral.
|
| Poland could only count on UK and France[0].
|
| Compare to now, where the NATO military bloc is massive.
| No one would dare risking a military confrontation in
| these circumstances.
|
| If anything, when there are any tensions between two non-
| NATO countries, it makes it more urgent for one to oppose
| the other joining NATO (attacking before they'd join NATO
| would stave off them joining, attacking after they'd join
| NATO would lead to an unwinnable fight).
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-
| Polish_military_alliance
| jskelly wrote:
| The article you cite says nothing about the /alleged/ [by
| Hitler as a pretext for annexation] atrocities against
| Sudeten Germans. The expulsion of Germans from
| Czechoslovakia _after_ World War II was an ugly chapter,
| but really -- there were no 'atrocities' being committed
| against that population /before/ the war. See also
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_German_uprising
| ben_w wrote:
| In addition to the other responses:
|
| > The sole reason Russia invaded Ukraine was that it was
| flirting too much with NATO.
|
| Which was only a problem for Putin _because_ Putin 's
| world view is that Great Powers (such as Russia, in his
| mind) should have a sphere of influence, whereas most
| everyone else thinks Ukraine is a sovereign nation who
| has the right to decide for itself which treaties it does
| or doesn't belong to.
|
| Even then, more like begging than flirting; the invasion
| made it much more likely. Likewise EU membership.
| pjc50 wrote:
| .. which has had the effect of forcing formerly neutral
| Finland, which shares a border with Russia, to join NATO.
|
| The claim that Russia has a right to dictate the
| alliances of other countries simply because they border
| it is ludicrous and violates international law.
|
| (Simo Hayha had something to say about last time Russia
| invaded Finland)
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| The same way the US has left all the countries around it
| alone ? Are you joking ?
|
| The list of US backed military coups in the Americas does
| not fit on an A4 page with a font size small enough to be
| unreadable.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Easy response: those were also wrong. As was the invasion
| of Iraq, which arguably ended up being used as a
| justification in the opposite direction.
| ben_w wrote:
| Another easy response to go with pjc50's: why do you
| think Cuba was so eager to get some Soviet nuclear
| missiles?
| triceratops wrote:
| > The sole reason Russia invaded Ukraine was that it was
| flirting too much with NATO.
|
| I don't understand, are you trying to make Russia sound
| like an incel? It's not a flattering look.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Putin (et al.) has already proven to be stupid : the
| invasion of Ukraine was going quite well for him since
| 2014, he could have continued salami slicing it while the
| EU was still mostly asleep (and not willing to make a
| fuss as a Russian hydrocarbons importer).
|
| But no, he went for a 'quick' victory instead, and ended
| up bogged in a much higher intensity war, made the
| Russian military a laughing stock, and kicked the EU/Nato
| bees nest so hard that another 2 countries immediately
| joined NATO.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Australia's social security system costs each working
| Australian about $11,600 per year.
|
| That's $5.80 per hour for a 38 hour work week over a year.
| That means every working Australian is working something
| like one day a week for social security, and another two
| days a week for the tax system more generally.
|
| It's not until _Thursday_ I'm working for my own benefit.
|
| The social security state needs to be shredded.
| aredox wrote:
| That's until you get disabled in an accident - or your
| son or daughter is.
|
| Then you'll suddenly convert to how benefits are
| essential.
|
| (In before: "I don't need a car insurance, I'll never get
| into any accident, I am too good a driver for that")
| nandomrumber wrote:
| So you're a fan of how we've dismantled the family in to
| units of 1?
|
| The number of elderly Australians who live alone with no
| family, or no family nearby, is truely disappointing.
| Disabled people too.
|
| We wouldn't need such a big welfare state if we had
| bigger, stronger, families that believed in the future.
|
| Australians have divorced the family and married the
| Government.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The number of elderly Australians who live alone with
| no family, or no family nearby, is truely disappointing.
|
| That's a thing across all Western societies, and we got
| unchecked rabid capitalism and a complete lack of
| industry structural politics to thank for that one. Young
| people not living in an urban area have little choice but
| to leave there to find employment and higher level
| education.
| aredox wrote:
| Who is "we"?
|
| The big welfare state was born in the post-war boom, a
| period of big, strong families that believed in the
| future.
|
| The dismantling of the Family and of the Welfare State,
| and of Unions, and of any kind of support and
| collaboration between salaried people go hand-in-hand.
| Late stage capitalism needs to extract everything from
| everyone, without opposition. Having people desperate for
| a job at any cost because they don't a a support network
| is the ideal state for our managers and bosses.
|
| Welcome to the anti-neoliberalism camp :)
| zbentley wrote:
| You didn't really answer GP's point, though. What if a
| big, strong family is struck by disaster (multiple
| earners lose jobs or die, or one member develops, say, an
| illness or huge debt which consumes the entire family's
| resources)?
|
| Those kind of scenarios aren't that rare even in places
| with very family-first social safety nets (which,
| incidentally, are often places with high poverty and low
| standard of living).
| therouwboat wrote:
| I have co-worker like this, he had minimal insurance,
| until he crashed his car and lost like 15k, doesn't need
| insurance for his cat until 2k vet bill, doesn't need
| doctors, until he gets sick..
|
| You think he would learn at some point, but no.
| Quarrel wrote:
| Ok, let's just take your facetious argument on face
| value.
|
| So that's $5.80 / hr in our land that has a minimum wage
| of $24.95 / hr. Still, a bit over 20%, crappy for sure
| (if it was true).
|
| Now, of course, most people are not on the minimum wage,
| and definitely not here on HN. The tax system benefits
| those at the low end more though, so let us look at
| median wages.
|
| Median hourly wages (in main job) are $40 / hr (Source:
| ABS - August 2024).
|
| Median incomes are actually a touch higher (because not
| just main job), at $102,742 / annum, which attracts a tax
| rate of 21%, before the MANY MANY middle class welfare
| rebates we get (Source ATO tax calculator for 2024-2025).
|
| So, for most of us, maybe we pay approximately our Monday
| to the State, but that gives us free school education,
| one of the world's best health systems per $ value
| (seriously, there are studies!), not to mention a
| relatively well functioning society (roads, police,
| firefighters, etc), on top of that we get the horrendous
| welfare state that you are bemoaning.
|
| That welfare state includes things like the NDIS, which
| is out of control and needs to find an equilibrium
| between all the rent-seekers, but the ambition is
| amazing! We SHOULD support all our disabled people to be
| the best they can in society! Meanwhile, even with such a
| fuckup, we're doing ok. Pull your head out, mate.
|
| Do we have issues? Hell yeah. But our terrible "social
| security state" is not the start of them at all.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| These are the facts:
|
| Australian social security budget: about $120 billion
|
| Australian NDIS budget: about $52 billion
|
| Number of working Australians: 14.6 million
|
| Number of welfare recipients in Australia: about 5.4
| million, or about the entire population of Melbourne.
|
| Number of NDIS recipients in Australia: about 661,000
|
| That's about $78,500 per NDIS recipient.
|
| Democracy can last only up to that point the majority
| realise they can vote themselves largess from the public
| purse.
| defrost wrote:
| G'day again :-)
|
| Just to clarify to all.
|
| > Number of welfare recipients in Australia: about 5.4
| million, or about the entire population of Melbourne.
|
| That's the number of unique Australians who get any form
| of income support at least once in a full reporting year,
| and there are a number of one off and short term payment
| types.
|
| It includes many people who are working, a number on
| pensions, likely children (I haven't dug deep, etc),
| students, and others.
|
| It's not the case that there are 5 million dole bludgers
| spending the year on the piss at the TAB, pulling bongs
| on the couch, etc.
|
| There's quite the list of support types here:
| https://www.dss.gov.au/income-support-payments
|
| It includes assistance for _real_ Job seekers and helps
| keep them from being a greater problem, assistence with
| starting small businesses, etc.
| aredox wrote:
| >Democracy can last only up to that point the majority
| realise they can vote themselves largess from the public
| purse.
|
| You wish people would go back to forming loving families,
| but you believe people will naturally leave others to die
| in poverty and sickness once their eyes open.
|
| Which one is it, nandomrumber?
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Where did I say that?
| user____name wrote:
| In other words, every year each Australian pays 12K to
| other Australians?
| csomar wrote:
| You being down-voted is more testament to the orientation
| of thinking clouding judgment here in HN. Ukraine losing
| the war will be a massive blow for Europe. Sibling
| commentator mentioned doubling of the military budget but
| this disregard readiness of engagement and unity[1]. Nato
| was the creation of the US and the US pulling out requires,
| probably, another entity with committed members.
|
| 1: https://www.politico.eu/article/italy-grand-plan-meet-
| nato-t...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Ukraine losing the war will be a massive blow for Europe
|
| There is no such thing. Even if Ukraine cannot recapture
| all of the lost territory, it's Russia who has already
| lost. That a country four times the population, ten times
| as rich has incurred a million casualties, switched to a
| war economy, has to throw tens of thousand of _North
| Koreans into a war in Europe_ , merely to creep forward
| by a few meters has to be the largest humiliation to an
| alleged "great power" in a century.
|
| All of this while Europe _has not even remilitarized_ ,
| with Ukraine becoming a major producer of military
| technology in its own right, the country is now largely
| self sufficient in terms of its drone output among other
| things, is one of the strongest signs of resilience of
| this continent.
| jajko wrote:
| So it will be the end of Europe or we will have right wing
| autocrats? You need to make up your mind. US has trump and
| I see no end of US anytime soon, sure some self-harm is
| happening right now but thats about it, that nation is
| stronger than that.
|
| Compared to hard focus on socialism that was (and still is)
| prevalent in EU, some better balance is required in these
| times. Pendulum has swung too far to the left, while the
| best long term place is as usually somewhere in the middle
| (which would still be extreme left by US standards but who
| cares about that).
|
| And russia... well they are bleeding their future right
| now, in a place they thought they could conquer in 3 days
| and failing to do so in 3 years, a place they will never
| really own without a proper genocide (which I think is part
| of the plan now). I am more than happy about that despite
| human toll, russia is a mafia state which wants to see the
| free world burn (or at least subjugate us subhumans, I've
| lived my childhood in one such state and let me tell you
| its utterly destructive to whole society on all levels even
| decades after it ended). Nah I am not worried about them,
| they are consistently unable to wage modern war to benefit
| of us all.
|
| In the meantime we arm and train ourselves, stronger Europe
| is always better for any future scenario, internally and
| externally. Strength is something even such simple people
| like puttin' understand. Plus economy will get some boost
| asimovfan wrote:
| can you please talk more about the socialism that is
| prevalent in the EU? what do you exactly mean by "hard
| focus on socialism"?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > US has trump and I see no end of US anytime soon, sure
| some self-harm is happening right now but thats about it,
| that nation is stronger than that.
|
| That remains to be seen. Trump and his goons are breaking
| apart the foundations of society as we speak, not to
| mention the decades of Republican gerrymandering. The
| complete and utter loss of trust in the US on the
| geopolitical stage is another huge issue, it will be a
| long time before Europe or Southern America trust the US
| again - the hope that Trump would be a short-term one-off
| event went out the window last year.
|
| > Compared to hard focus on socialism that was (and still
| is) prevalent in EU, some better balance is required in
| these times.
|
| Where outside of Spain does Europe actually have
| socialists even as part of the government?
|
| Most countries here are run by the far-right (e.g. Italy,
| Hungary, Slovakia, the Netherlands),
| centrists/conservatives (Germany, Poland, Croatia),
| Social Democrats, neoliberals (France) or coalitions of
| these.
|
| > Nah I am not worried about [Russia], they are
| consistently unable to wage modern war to benefit of us
| all.
|
| Never underestimate the willingness of Russian leaders to
| sacrifice their population for meat-grinder wars.
|
| > In the meantime we arm and train ourselves, stronger
| Europe is always better for any future scenario,
| internally and externally.
|
| Agreed, the problem is we can't be arsed to actually
| evolve to a truly federal society anywhere close to the
| US. Economically there has been a lot of integration
| happening, but politically... oh that's one hell of a
| clusterfuck.
| tromp wrote:
| > run by the far-right (e.g. Italy, Hungary, Slovakia,
| the Netherlands),
|
| Since the far right PVV stepped out of the Dutch
| governing coalition, they should now be placed with the
| centrists/conservatives.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Let's wait and see what happens over there with the
| upcoming elections, and VVD isn't centrist IMHO but
| center-right. The voters of Wilders aren't gone, there's
| still a sizable far-right potential that leads the other
| partys to follow Wilders (the same problem as in France
| or Italy, it doesn't work to copy the far-right, it only
| makes them stronger while eventually the democratic
| parties erode).
| shafyy wrote:
| > _Pendulum has swung too far to the left, while the best
| long term place is as usually somewhere in the middle
| (which would still be extreme left by US standards but
| who cares about that). "_
|
| Is there an EU state government where a left-wing party
| has the majority? I can't think of one, certainly not one
| of the bigger countries in EU like Germany, France,
| Italy, Spain, Poland...*
| hibikir wrote:
| So PSOE, the ones with a rose in their logo aren't left
| enough for you? They have a coalition with some parties
| that are quite a bit further left too.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Is there an EU state government where a left-wing
| party has the majority? I can't think of one,_
|
| A single party? No. But a coalition to form a leftist
| majority, yes.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| In Europe, "hard focus on socialism" would mean something
| akin to the USSR.
|
| I am not aware of any party that could hope to win
| elections in their county pushing for anything close to
| this ?
| briangriffinfan wrote:
| Promise?
| mrtksn wrote:
| >end of Europe
|
| How do you picture this? People in Paris disappear with a
| flash of light and baguettes falling on the ground? Or is
| ot more like the earth shakes and it all goes under the
| water? Or maybe something like Europeans collectively
| decide to do whatever Putin tells them? Or maybe suddenly
| adopt American and Russian way of life, like Italians burn
| their Fiat 500's and order Ford F-150's, throw away their
| wines and start brewing votka? Or maybe turn against each
| other and break down their functioning trade and cultural
| relations and just buy Russian and American stuff instead
| and pay with what?
|
| BTW the blaming immigrants and tearing down the social
| state doesn't work for long because you have finite number
| of immigrants and social services. If you actually get rid
| of those and things don't improve people start to notice. A
| common strategy is to keep blaming those when not doing
| anything about it or even increase it but the problem with
| that is, people get tired and actually change you with
| someone who actually will do something about it and you end
| up doing something. This something can be to fix the issues
| and remove the pressure or remove the immigrants and the
| social sistem and you get a very strong counter action and
| flushes away those who did it. However way it goes it's not
| an end or beginning of anything as EU isn't an empire like
| the US, just bunch of sovereign states in coordination.
| jordanb wrote:
| "End of Europe" as a coherent entity that's willing and
| able to look after its own interests. Even as Ukrainians
| die in the meat grinder and Germany is lauded as
| Ukraine's best friend in Europe, millions of dollars of
| dual-use technology products from Germany continue to
| transship into Russia via Kazakhstan. Imagine if it was
| 1942 and Britain was still shipping millions of dollars
| of weapons components into Germany via Sweden or
| Switzerland?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Europe is far from coherent, even if it is the most
| coherent that ever has been.
|
| Meanwhile, support rate for EU and Eurozone is highest
| ever among EU member states and Europe as a whole. If
| anything, people are annoyed that EU struggles to be
| decisive as Europeans want more EU, not less. This new
| situation even paved the way for collaboration previously
| thought to be far fetched dream.
|
| I don't know how all this will unfold but if tonight
| Europe ends as we know it, tomorrow we will have European
| federation and the discussions won't be about the petty
| local issues but thinks like EU army etc. as all
| Europeans are very annoyed by Russia, USA and the current
| state of affairs in Europe.
|
| Check the stats, Europeans don't buy into the agenda
| pushed by the American libertarians. People want bigger
| stronger EU to take over where USA abandoned.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> "End of Europe" as a coherent entity that's willing
| and able to look after its own interests. _
|
| Europe doesn't have coherent interests across the board
| but every country acts purely in its own interest even if
| it's at the expense of the other member states. EU is an
| org that replaced the battlefield so Europeans don't have
| another world war with each other but instead backstab
| themselves tough politics in the EU parlaiment.
|
| See the illegal immigration issue that still hasn't been
| solved since 2015 and instead of solving it, they just
| ban anti-illegal-immigration right wing candidates or
| parties from being allowed to take part in elections and
| pretend the issue went away.
|
| _> Imagine if it was 1942 and Britain was still shipping
| millions of dollars of weapons components into Germany
| via Sweden or Switzerland?_
|
| 1) Britain was at war directly with Germany in 1942, but
| Germany is not fighting Russia, Ukraine is, as the proxy,
| so German corporations can afford to profit form this war
| as the government looks away. Big difference. There's
| Realpolitik and then there's idealistic fantasy.
|
| 2) Britain could afford to declare war on Germany because
| Germany didn't have nukes, while now Russia has nukes and
| Germany doesn't. Even "better", Germany made its economy
| dependent on Russian gas. Britain didn't have its economy
| dependent on resources imported from Germany. Huge
| differences that make such comparisons not even in the
| same ballpark.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This looks plausible:
|
| > Europe will increasingly be ran by right-wing autocrats
| shredding the social state and blaming immigrants.
|
| This does not:
|
| > Ukraine losing the war will be the end of Europe
|
| Both the question of losing (the war is somewhat
| stalemated, and Europe itself is rearming .. although still
| not breaking dependency on Russian gas!) and the idea that
| this will somehow "end Europe". If anything, Brexit pretty
| much demolished similar movements across the EU. The EU's
| squishyness is mistaken for weakness by too many people who
| are fans of "muscular" rhetoric.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| > The US is just going to become irrelevant for the next few
| decades. Anything important will move to the EU and China. No
| one can trust the US to function properly anymore.
|
| Haha, care to elaborate? I'm legitimately curious how in the
| heck you came to that conclusion.
|
| Remember, the U.S. is currently still #1.
|
| How do you propose it becomes utterly irrelevant?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| https://fosstodon.org/@georgetakei@universeodon.com/1147848
| 2...
|
| (proposed/desired reductions in federally funded (NSF)
| science positions for FY 2026. 250,000 (75%) reduction in
| numbers)
|
| EDIT: see also: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-
| bang/american-science-bra...
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Pulling back on federally-funded research grants for the
| sciences does not address how the economy, hard power,
| and culture of the States will completely fall off the
| map leaving an "irrelevant nation" though.
| noobermin wrote:
| The US has no real exports. All of its economic might was
| because it has its top tier market, and all that wealth
| is essentially from its soft power and position. The more
| you peel off that soft power, the weaker that position
| especially as wealthy and educated people leave.
|
| I don't agree that the US won't be relevant, it's more
| like the US will resemble the position of Russia in the
| next decade than the position it is in right now.
| hollerith wrote:
| The US is exporting over $3 trillion worth of stuff per
| year:
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports
|
| China exports more, but China also must import more,
| including more of the things needed for the survival of
| its people, like food, fertilizer, fuel.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| The US exports aircraft, vehicles, and medicine, and the
| rest of the exports are just raw stuffs, like oil or
| corn. How's Boeing looking these days? Is the US auto
| industry where exciting new technologies are coming from?
| Unless the US is going to be great because we export more
| coal, then I too expect some decline.
|
| US exports: https://www.ondeck.com/resources/every-
| states-top-import-exp...
| hollerith wrote:
| The last big round of global innovation was internet
| services, of which I'm pretty sure (not having looked it
| up) that US exports represent the majority of world
| exports.
|
| Apple keeps half the sales price of every iPhone whereas
| the last I saw Foxconn gets only a few dollars per phone
| for the final assembly. It used to be that most of the
| expensive components (display, memory) in the iPhone were
| supplied by Japan, S Korea and Taiwan, but I admit that
| that might have changed over the years.
| garte wrote:
| It's about the "next big thing" not what happened 20
| years ago.
| hollerith wrote:
| Sure, but how are you and I supposed to know which
| country will win the export market for the next big
| thing?
|
| We could guess, but there's been a lot of guesses
| (confidently made out to be facts and inevitabilities)
| made in this thread so far. I'm trying to ground the
| discussion in actual facts.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| It looks like cell phone exports are about 30 billion
| dollars, which is 1% of the 3 trillion dollars mentioned
| earlier. I'm surprised it's so low. (I'm open to
| corrections on these numbers.)
| hollerith wrote:
| Here's my estimate, taken mostly from figures from
| Apple's 2024 annual report (as reported by Gemini Flash).
|
| Apple's total worldwide revenue for fiscal year 2024 was
| $391.035 billion. The Americas Segment (which includes
| the US) represented $167.05 billion of that, leaving $224
| billion for the rest of the world.
|
| Apple reports that their cost of goods sold was $210.352
| billion, leaving 180.68 billion as so-called "gross
| profit". The majority of this gross profit will be used
| to pay salaries and other expenses (e.g., office space)
| of having employees, most of which goes to Americans.
| (Most of the rest will be "retained earnings", which
| means it either goes back to investors or is used to try
| to generate new streams of revenue.)
|
| But only some of that gross profit will come from
| exports. Let's assume that exports are as profitable (per
| unit of revenue) as US sales are, which seems reasonable
| to me because competition (mostly from Android) would be
| the main thing keeping gross profit low, and Android is a
| major competitive force in the US market, so estimated
| gross profit derived from sales to the rest of the world
| would be 180.68 * (224 / 391.035) == $103.5 billion. That
| is revenue from all products and services, and Apple
| reports that revenue from the iPhone is 0.5145 of all
| revenue (worldwide) or about $53 billion per year flowing
| from the rest of the world to Apple (and to governments
| in the US in the form of taxes).
|
| To be clear, that's assuming that zero of the hardware
| (more precisely, zero of what accountants call the
| "variable cost") that goes into an iPhone is bought from
| US suppliers (which seems a reasonable assumption to me).
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Your argument is that Apple exports are 3% of exports
| then? Did I understand correctly?
| hollerith wrote:
| "Exports" is hiding a lot of complexity here. Some export
| statistics might add the entire price of an iPhone to the
| export figure for China because that is where the final
| assembly is done even though (like my previous comment
| shows) about half of the money from that sale ends up in
| the hands of Apple's investors, US-based employees of
| Apple and such US-based suppliers as the companies that
| built Apple's headquarters and the companies that supply
| Apple's offices and data centers with electricity.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If we go away back the argument was that the US has no
| real exports. You've been arguing that phones are an
| export, but you admit those are built by other countries.
| It seems fair that the country that makes a phone and
| then exports it would be given credit for that in the
| statistics.
|
| I'm not sure what the point of this thread is anymore, so
| I'll stop here.
| dragonshed wrote:
| To piggyback on what PaulDavisThe1st said.
|
| Record numbers of US citizens seeking to relocate to Canada
| & the UK. In the last couple months I remember seeing
| several news stories variously about Doctors, Professors
| and students applying and/or relocating.
|
| Layoffs in the tech sector haven't slowed at all, and
| couple that with the DOGE Govt layoffs and the recent jobs
| numbers stories.
|
| I feel quite certain that if the U.S. is actually measured
| "at #1" for anything good, it won't retain it much longer.
|
| Bias Disclaimer: I'm a former software engineer working an
| hourly labor job.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| US citizens relocating to Canada and the UK seems
| misguided at best.
|
| At least the US has at least a handful of themes to
| choose from among its many states.
| ben_w wrote:
| UK has a lot of themes, they're just all moist.
| protocolture wrote:
| >Remember, the U.S. is currently still #1.
|
| In what? Prisons per Hamburger?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Probably not prisons per hamburger, because both the
| numerator and denominator are unusually high. Prisons per
| days-of-maternity-leave, maybe? Hamburgers per
| preventative-healthcare-checkup, possibly?
| Tepix wrote:
| > Remember, the U.S. is currently still #1.
|
| You're right! #1 among high income countries in
| Cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, drug overdose
| deaths, Deaths from violence and accidents, Infant
| mortality, Obesity-related mortality.
|
| It also has its lowest-ever World Happiness Rankings. The
| U.S. is currently leading in global declines in reputation,
| trust, happiness, and perceived positive influence.
| cess11 wrote:
| In the early nineties Andrew L. Shapiro wrote an entire
| book on this theme:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Were-Number-One-Stands-
| Falls/dp/06797...
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Is that per capita or total?
| Ray20 wrote:
| > #1 among high income countries in Cardiovascular
| disease (CVD) mortality, drug overdose deaths, Deaths
| from violence and accidents, Infant mortality, Obesity-
| related mortality.
|
| It's all originates from each person's decisions. If a
| person wants to pay attention to their lifestyle and
| health, then in the US he will get one of the best
| results in the parameters you listed. That is just a
| fact.
|
| And if we want to maximize these parameters among
| everyone, we need a ultratotalitarian government that
| will put all the people into concentration camps where
| they will work under threat of execution in the open air
| and eat a specially designed low-calorie diet.
|
| > It also has its lowest-ever World Happiness Rankings.
|
| Yeas, and North Korea has the highest.
|
| > The U.S. is currently leading in global declines in
| reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive
| influence.
|
| And that's good thing. For decades US has been doing
| atrocities all over the world, to the approving cries of
| other Western countries. So the only problem with US
| declines in reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived
| positive influence I see is that this should have
| happened decades earlier
| zbentley wrote:
| > If a person wants to pay attention to their lifestyle
| and health, then in the US he will get one of the best
| results in the parameters you listed. That is just a
| fact.
|
| Is it? What are some obstacles to a similarly committed
| person attaining health/lifestyle benefits in other
| developed countries? What are the factors uniquely
| provided by the US that make this "fact" true? Are there
| factors in the US working against good outcomes for
| committed people?
| Ray20 wrote:
| > What are some obstacles to a similarly committed person
| attaining health/lifestyle benefits in other developed
| countries?
|
| Poverty, underdeveloped medicine, less variety of
| relevant goods and services
| sham1 wrote:
| > > #1 among high income countries in Cardiovascular
| disease (CVD) mortality, drug overdose deaths, Deaths
| from violence and accidents, Infant mortality, Obesity-
| related mortality. > > It's all originates from each
| person's decisions. If a person wants to pay attention to
| their lifestyle and health, then in the US he will get
| one of the best results in the parameters you listed.
| That is just a fact.
|
| If it is a fact, you should be able to back it up.
|
| > And if we want to maximize these parameters among
| everyone, we need a ultratotalitarian government that
| will put all the people into concentration camps where
| they will work under threat of execution in the open air
| and eat a specially designed low-calorie diet.
|
| Or the government could actually regulate things like
| food additives instead of just going with whatever
| industry lobbyists are saying. Sure, lobbying is of
| course a thing here as well, but clearly there are still
| differences there.
|
| Hell, things like infrastructure funding could be used to
| encourage things like walkability which also helps with
| the health and quality of life of the population, but
| alas.
|
| > > It also has its lowest-ever World Happiness Rankings.
| > > Yeas, and North Korea has the highest.
|
| No, Finland has the highest. North Korea is not even
| ranked in the World Happiness Report.
|
| > > The U.S. is currently leading in global declines in
| reputation, trust, happiness, and perceived positive
| influence. > > And that's good thing. For decades US has
| been doing atrocities all over the world, to the
| approving cries of other Western countries. So the only
| problem with US declines in reputation, trust, happiness,
| and perceived positive influence I see is that this
| should have happened decades earlier
|
| While I am sympathetic to this line of thinking as a
| European myself, the current way this is going on over in
| the US just looks a bit silly. Basically just going out
| of its way to shed any remaining goodwill and soft power
| because... what, exactly?
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| > #1 among high income countries in Cardiovascular
| disease (CVD) mortality, drug overdose deaths, Deaths
| from violence and accidents, Infant mortality, Obesity-
| related mortality.
|
| ...and also #1 in healthcare costs, which just adds an
| expensive insult to multiple injuries.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| So the U.S is number one in several largely irrelevant
| and in any case partly ambiguous rankings of X and Y, and
| this is your counterpoint to the very hard facts of it
| still being the world's richest, largest, most dominant
| economic and political power, and continuing to stay that
| way for the foreseeable future due to how hard it is for
| any other major country to just magically supplant such
| positions?
|
| The quality of reasoned political and economic debate on
| this site, so full of self-congratulatingly intelligent
| people, continues to be generally absurd, deplorable and
| full of cliched foolishness passing for opinion.
| otikik wrote:
| A, yes. Freedom, and freedom.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTjMqda19wk
| csomar wrote:
| The US is number #1 on income and tech (IT/Software in
| particular). It lags in many other areas.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Remember, the U.S. is currently still #1.
|
| Currently, but even then by nominal GDP not PPP (China's
| way ahead of the USA already by PPP). Nominal being
| different from PPP is not just about cost of living though:
| the US dollar is artificially high by about 10% due to
| being a dominant reserve currency, and China has a policy
| of keeping their currency weak. Flip both of those and
| China would be about equal nominal GDP as the USA.
|
| Also consider that the comment you're responding to said
| "next few decades", and consider that China's GDP grew at
| four times the rate of the USA economy in the two decades
| between 2003 and 2023: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i
| =Nominal+GDP+China+2023+...
|
| And that by GDP/capita, China has room to do the same again
| before reaching the top of the charts for existing
| countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_
| by_GDP_(nomi...
|
| --
|
| But the real critical thing, is that economies can fall
| _very fast_ when an a poor leader is empowered. Trump is
| purging anyone who says "no", which is already a dangerous
| place even if he was competent, rather than someone who
| tells such obvious lies on multiple health reports
| (recently his height(!), previously saying an exam had
| "only positive results" without knowing what positive means
| in a medical context), or facing a court case because he
| misrepresented the size of his penthouse apartment.
|
| You remember right at the start of his term, there were
| fires in LA? And he ordered dams in NoCal opened? That
| aren't hydrologically connected to LA? When that kind of
| decision is criticised, it gets stopped. When people around
| are afraid to say "no", it doesn't stop, and the dams
| empty. In this case, it would have led to Californian
| agriculture approximately ending for several years due to
| the drought, and consequently to food shortages.
|
| Same deal with the currently in progress attempt to
| deporting all the (Biden's team's estimate) 10-11 million
| undocumented migrant workers, many of whom are in low-paid
| agricultural roles, so kicking them out directly leads to
| less food and higher prices.
|
| Worse than that. Consider that he got RFK Jr as the health
| secretary: by itself this is likely to have a measurable
| negative impact on US life expectancy.
|
| Or the trillion dollar healthcare cuts (have they fully
| passed into law yet? Reporting from abroad is unclear how
| your system works): also likely to have a measurable
| negative impact on US life expectancy.
|
| Then there's the incompetent attempt at tariffs, not just
| Penguin Island, but also that they were without any
| commensurate attempt to support local industry.
|
| Or choosing a (defence) team so lax that they accidentally
| invited a journalist to a Signal discussion about active
| military engagement.
|
| Or that he's banned trans people from serving in the US
| armed forces despite the US armed forces having recruiting
| difficulties: https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/the-u-s-
| militarys-recrui...
|
| Or consider the reports that Iran's nuclear project wasn't
| as utterly destroyed as he likes to publicly claim: what
| happens if Iran does rebuild it all over the next few
| months, as others say? Does his ego prevent him from
| responding, letting them get their nuke?
|
| And of all this, only two examples ("positive results" and
| penthouse size) are more than 6 months old. When does
| congress get a chance to change, with the possibility of
| him being impeached (for a third time)?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| I don't entirely agree with all of your points, but at
| least here, an example of someone commenting with
| something well-argued, instead of the ridiculous vomit of
| cliches and emotional outrage that so many comments here
| put forth on any political/economic debate about the
| United States.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| The big problem is people tend to look at history as a singular
| event, or the final consequence of a series of events.
|
| When such events are clearly ongoing, people roll their eyes
| and say you're overreacting. Then when it all ends and
| consequences happen, people say now is the time for healing,
| nobody could've foreseen this, and it's too bad nothing
| could've been done.
|
| It's the same as being sober and trapped in a car with a drunk
| driver and their drunk friends. To them, it's fine. They're
| comfortable with what they're doing. You're the one being
| annoying for complaining. But their every action is not only
| endangering you and themselves, but it's endangering people on
| the perimeters who don't even know about the crisis that's
| happening within that 2 ton box. Some can see the swerving from
| far away, but there's nothing they can do. The only hope is the
| passenger trying to reason with an angry drunk to pull over,
| but it'll never happen. They'll just get more pissed off and
| drive more erratically to mess with you and to get some laughs
| from their friends. So it's a struggle between closing your
| eyes and hoping it's over soon, or trying to fight back and
| hope you can stop them. But neither option is easy and both
| shift the responsibility to someone other than the ones causing
| the chaos.
| wmoxam wrote:
| Don't look up!
| gmuslera wrote:
| It's not so severe, it was just that those servers and the people
| maintaining them, melt in the latest heatwave. Nothing to worry
| about.
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| That's some 1984 shit right there yo!
| russdill wrote:
| Really? I was thinking 4 or 5 decades before then
| mrtksn wrote:
| Right, nice savings and opportunities for fossil energy industry.
| Good job.
|
| So what is the plan for handling the US nuclear warhead stockpile
| as the empire crumbles? I'm worried about billionaires with
| nukes. Maybe not the person directly but people behind all that
| envision super wealthy city-states and I totally expect those to
| have nukes.
|
| The nuclear codes won't stop anyone with time and engineers.
| These are intended for physically arming the strong link in the
| warhead that is supposed to send the signal to the exclusion zone
| but someone with unrestricted access should be able to override
| it and send the signal directly. Although over the years the
| mechanical systems were replaced with electronics that eventually
| become encrypted microelectronics, IIUC the actual device that
| does the kaboom remained with its original design and applying
| voltage will be able to trigger it. Safe against rough
| handlers(i.e. crazy solders) but won't stop people with
| unrestricted access.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| There is no plan, and I am not sure why you'd think otherwise?
| mrtksn wrote:
| I think there must be a plan after the USSR collapse. Somehow
| they did not let rough agents obtaining the warheads but
| there were enough rumors, literature and media around it to
| prompt a consideration IMHO.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| tl;dr: the Soviet state didn't collapse in the manner of a
| zombie apocalypse or environmental catastrophe, it
| collapsed politically; there was continuity in command /
| control until the weapons were all moved back physically
| into Russia.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16mab9x/whe
| n...
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| By the time you could act it's too late, if you don't want
| to dismantle the nukes independently. It's a consequence of
| the existence.
|
| Just imagine Biden having commanded to trigger a process
| which destroys the nuclear material (by triggering some
| degeneratio process or something) would that have been
| accepted or would everybody have said that limits U.S.'s
| strategic options permantly in too high degree?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| China and India both know how to handle nuclear weapons and
| would be interested in ensuring safe handling.
| krisoft wrote:
| > IIUC the actual device that does the kaboom remained with its
| original design and applying voltage will be able to trigger it
|
| That is not my understanding. My understanding is that the
| proper implosion requires very precise timing of signals for
| each shaped charge element otherwise the implosion ends up
| being lopsided and the nuke fizzles instead of exploding. These
| timings depend not just on the shape of the charges, but also
| on the relative wire lengths from the detonator to the
| explosives. (In theory these wire lengths can be unique for
| each warhead, thus making the timings for each warhead unique).
| The detonation circuit is not just comparing the code with an
| expected one, but using it to create the right signal timings.
| In other words the right code plus the information in the
| electronics together gives the timings for the signals with
| which they propagate through the different length of wires such
| that they form the right implosion.
|
| To reverse engineer this you need to figure out when each
| explosive element needs to be triggered to form the explosion.
| Then you need to figure out when the signals need to leave the
| electronics such that it travels through the wiring looms just
| right to create the desired explosive pattern. And then you
| need to figure out what code you need to supply the electronics
| so it produces this desired electronic timing to achieve the
| above.
|
| That is three wickedly hard challenge. And you will only know
| if your people pulled each of them off corectly, when you try
| to detonate the warhead.
|
| > won't stop people with unrestricted access
|
| That is true. But it is not like all they would need to do is
| to apply voltage on a single line, like some crazy hot-wiring
| car tief. Their best and easiest bet is to dissasemble the
| warhead and use the fissile material from it inside of an
| implosion device of their own design.
| mrtksn wrote:
| You may be right, the reason I assumed that the controller
| that controls the detonation itself was contained in the
| exclusion zone since earlier safety mechanisms were
| mechanical. So if they modernized the safety mechanism maybe
| they didn't change the exploding part and all they need is
| power to prepare the device and then a simple signal to
| trigger it ?
| Havoc wrote:
| Gotta provide a smokescreen for "Drill baby drill"
| matcha-video wrote:
| It wasn't supposed to be literal :(
| deadbabe wrote:
| There are other countries.
| amarka wrote:
| Let me fill you in on a secret: one of the reasons behind US's
| dominance is that even though "there are other countries" that
| could do the hard science, the US is one of the only ones that
| did. Now the US is at risk of becoming just another one of
| those "other countries".
| timr wrote:
| Well, let's not do 30 seconds of trivial fact-gathering on the
| issue or anything, and instead jump to wild conclusions.
|
| The problem is that globalchange.gov is failing DNS lookup. The
| domain is still registered, and the nameservers are supposed to
| be these: nserver: A.NS.GOV 199.33.230.1
| nserver: B.NS.GOV 199.33.231.1 nserver: C.NS.GOV
| 199.33.232.1 nserver: D.NS.GOV 199.33.233.1
|
| Barring any evidence to the contrary, it could simply be a
| misconfiguration. This kind of stuff does happen, particularly
| when a government agency is running DNS.
|
| Edit: For those who _insist_ on downvoting facts, other, better
| articles have both found the report on a NOAA server [1], and had
| official response from government spokespeople about what is
| actually going on [2]. There 's no need to speculate.
|
| [1] https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/61592
|
| [2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-shutters-
| majo...
| bombcar wrote:
| If you see your hosts file what the DNS used to show, does the
| server respond?
|
| That's usually the real test.
| timr wrote:
| I don't know, it's a good question. I don't have the IP
| addresses cached.
|
| NPR notes that the report is here [1], so if someone is
| trying to hide it, they're not doing a particularly good job.
|
| [1] https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/61592
| bombcar wrote:
| https://dnshistory.org/historical-dns-
| records/a/globalchange...
|
| It seems to be maybe AWS, and manual IP action doesn't get
| anything.
| mulmen wrote:
| Sure, it _is_ always DNS. But are other sites on that DNS also
| down? How long has this site been down? Has anyone acknowledged
| this outage?
|
| If the DNS is up and the domain is registered it starts to look
| like a takedown instead of a mistake.
|
| I do know that the EPA took down their EJScreen [1] dataset so
| it's not like politically motivated takedowns are unprecedented
| under the current regime.
|
| [1]: https://screening-tools.com/epa-ejscreen
| Glant wrote:
| According to someone from NASA, it was in fact shut down. NASA
| will eventually re-publish the reports.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-shutters-majo...
| timr wrote:
| That's a better article than the link, since they actually
| bothered to get answers to the question from definitive
| sources. NPR also linked directly to the NOAA copy of the
| report, lending credence to the "sloppy relocation" theory of
| the case:
|
| https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/61592
| padjo wrote:
| Yes cancelling funding and firing all the people involved
| is indicative of an honest mistake when moving some stuff
| around.
| timr wrote:
| If they _already fired the staff of the agency_ , it's
| actually pretty believable that the dedicated website
| would get shut down. Talk about burying the lede.
| triceratops wrote:
| "As of this writing, NASA has not provided any details on
| when and where the reports will be available again or if the
| new assessment will proceed."
| roxolotl wrote:
| Is it really that unreasonable to believe that a government run
| by people who've regularly called climate change a hoax and has
| a history of pulling previously public data is pulling the
| public data about climate change? I don't disagree that jumping
| to conclusions is bad but intentionally discounting prior
| behavior seems just as reckless to me.
| toofy wrote:
| no, it isn't unreasonable at all.
|
| i've noticed a large uptick over the past couple years of
| some people insisting it's unreasonable to consider context
| and known past behaviors when we try to discuss things.
|
| again, no, it's not unreasonable. actually it would be
| incredibly silly, more unreasonable to ignore their past
| behaviors when discussing this.
| voidhorse wrote:
| Yeah. The copium and ignorance described as "reason" is
| strong.
|
| This administration really shows you that there are several
| people out there that are so dense and naive that they'd want
| to give their oppressors a "fair shake" and "look at the
| facts" (issued from the oppressors) before daring to question
| the justice of their own persecution.
|
| Some Americans and Europeans have apparently had things so
| cushy they can no longer discern when their systems and
| institutions are actively being destroyed. The very idea of
| systematic and active oppression is so foreign to them that
| their "reason" becomes unreasonable. The democratic
| establishment in the US is a blatant example of this. Let's
| allow the neofascists to do whatever they want on the ground
| of remaining "civil".
| timr wrote:
| I'm not "discounting prior behavior", I'm just not getting
| exorcised over shutdown of a website, particularly when the
| explanation is likely to be incompetence.
|
| Be real: do you honestly believe that this website was
| influencing any marginal opinions? I don't. Most of the
| people here who are so outraged _likely had no idea that this
| website existed before today._
|
| This is a case where a website is a political flag, and one
| side is upset that the other side took down their flag. It's
| all just tedious and dumb, has only tangential relationship
| to science, and makes exactly no difference to the world.
| MangoToupe wrote:
| What wild conclusions specifically are you objecting to? This
| seems an awful lot like burying your head in the sand.
| chaoskitty wrote:
| That's hopelessly naive. A "misconfiguration" is the excuse
| they use after the fact when there's enough outrage that they
| have to put things back the way they were.
| timr wrote:
| I'm not being hopelessly naive. It's certainly possible that
| they took it down with the explicit intention of hiding
| information on the internet, but that would also be pretty
| stupid, since various articles _have found the reports on
| other government servers_. So I assume incompetence before
| malice.
|
| What's _already known_ is that they fired the staff who
| prepared the report, and are presumably shutting down the
| agency. Is it really surprising that someone might have
| turned off the webserver before transferring the domain?
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Yes you are. If you're arguing in good faith then you
| should try to answer this question:
|
| How far does it have to go before you assume malice? Do
| they have to tell you "I am malicious"? And if someone
| malicious is using the "dont admit it" strategy are you
| fucked?
| voidhorse wrote:
| You are being repeatedly pummeled in the face by a gang of
| bullies and responding by pondering whether or not they may
| be continually assaulting you out of some kind of
| misunderstanding. lol
| padjo wrote:
| "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which
| coordinated the information in the assessments, did not respond
| to repeated inquiries"
|
| Nobody is jumping to conclusions, lots of climate related
| information is being scrubbed. This website has been down for
| at least 12 hours. The fact that the domain is still registered
| proves precisely nothing.
|
| Could it be a misconfiguration? Sure, but available evidence
| points to an ongoing attempt to erase everything related to
| climate change.
| timr wrote:
| > "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which
| coordinated the information in the assessments, did not
| respond to repeated inquiries"
|
| Except _they did_ , as I found an NPR article with official
| comment, and there's a link downthread to this much better
| article about the same thing, again with authoritative reply:
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-shutters-
| majo...
| padjo wrote:
| And they responded to say "yes we took it down" so what's
| your point again?
| timr wrote:
| No, they literally said "we're moving it to NASA".
|
| I'm not arguing that the overall fact pattern is good
| here. I'm saying this article is stupid and lazy.
| triceratops wrote:
| "As of this writing, NASA has not provided any details on
| when and where the reports will be available again or if
| the new assessment will proceed."
| timr wrote:
| Yeah, try reading a better source [1]:
|
| > NASA will now take over, Victoria LaCivita,
| communications director at the White House Office of
| Science and Technology Policy, told ABC News. "All
| preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website,
| ensuring compliance with statutorily required reporting,"
| LaCivita said, referring ABC News to NASA for more
| information.
|
| So, they're explicitly answering the second half of that
| question. Again, _not suggesting the fact pattern is
| good_ , just that this article is terrible. I assume the
| AP could have _also_ managed to get the same quote before
| running to press with speculation?
|
| [1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-
| shutters-majo...
| triceratops wrote:
| > Yeah, try reading a better source [1]:
|
| It's from _your_ source. It 's the very last sentence in
| the article as of right now.
| timr wrote:
| > It's from your source. It's the very last sentence in
| the article as of right now.
|
| Sorry, what? I don't have any affiliation with ABC.
| Someone else posted the link.
|
| NPR has the same basic comments [2]:
|
| > All five editions of the National Climate Assessment
| that have been published over the years will also be
| available on NASA's website, according to NASA
| spokesperson Bethany Stevens. NASA doesn't yet know when
| that website will be available to the public.
|
| How you get from _that_ to "we don't know if they'll
| ever publish it again!" is beyond me.
|
| [2]
| https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5453501/national-
| climat...
| triceratops wrote:
| > I don't have any affiliation with ABC
|
| I didn't say that. You've been posting it everywhere and
| called it a "better source" that we should all read.
| Calling it "your source" is a reasonable shorthand.
|
| > How you get from that to "we don't know if they'll ever
| publish it again!" is beyond me.
|
| I didn't say that either. I only pasted a direct quote
| from an article you urged everyone to read. How you get
| from that to what you're saying is beyond me.
| timr wrote:
| > I only pasted a direct quote from an article you urged
| everyone to read.
|
| Mea culpa, I missed the line because it was at stranded
| at the bottom of a bunch of blocked ads. About the only
| thing I can say is that "NASA" and "any details" is doing
| all of the heavy lifting in that sentence.
|
| The reporter _just quoted_ someone from the
| administration saying that they 'll follow the law. So
| the reporter runs over to NASA, doesn't get an immediate
| or exact answer, and says _" OK, I'll just make it sound
| like maybe they're being dodgy about following the law,
| then."_
|
| Its a fairly standard reporter trick, but it's sleazy
| nonetheless: _" At press time, we've received no answer
| from the man about when he stopped beating his wife."_
|
| > > How you get from that to "we don't know if they'll
| ever publish it again!" is beyond me.
|
| > I didn't say that either.
|
| I now realize that this language could be misconstrued. I
| wasn't literally talking about "you". I meant it as "how
| one gets from that statement to..", and I was talking
| about the reporters.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| > _How you get from that to "we don't know if they'll
| ever publish it again!" is beyond me._
|
| In case you've missed it, the current administration lies
| constantly and loves suppressing views it doesn't like.
| _Hosting a document_ is not rocket science. There is zero
| reason to take something down before having the new host
| up and running. That this has been done anyway suggests
| malign intent. And the current administration is long
| past getting the benefit of the doubt.
| padjo wrote:
| No you said it's probably a dns configuration, posted
| some pointless name server addresses and implied
| government sysadmins are incompetent.
|
| What actually happened is exactly what this article said
| and I wouldn't be surprised if they get no response from
| NOAA because of the administration's well documented feud
| with the AP.
|
| And if you believe NASA will publish anything beyond the
| most perfunctory version of this report under this
| administration I have a bridge to sell you.
| timr wrote:
| > No you said it's probably a dns configuration,
|
| I said that barring better information, you can't rule it
| out. Still true.
|
| > posted some pointless name server addresses
|
| They're government servers, is the point. And don't you
| find it _a little bit curious_ that someone bothered to
| change the NS records? It 's not the usual way that a
| website goes down. In fact, it's the sort of thing that
| happens when you're in the process of (potentially
| incompetently) moving a domain from one server to
| another.
|
| > What actually happened is exactly what this article
| said and I wouldn't be surprised if they get no response
| from NOAA
|
| Yet other reporters, from multiple different left-leaning
| news outlets, managed to get these elusive comments from
| super hard-to-reach people like...the White House press
| secretary for science policy. It's almost like there was
| a press conference or something.
|
| Sometimes you actually have to do work to be a reporter,
| and when you skip that part and jump directly to
| conspiracy, it's not defensible. It's just trash
| journalism.
| verdverm wrote:
| This administration has lost the benefit of the doubt
| because they lie so much and rarely follow through.
|
| Until they actually do it, it's more likely they will not
| and are just saying whatever comes to mind as a way to
| manipulate the narrative
| resters wrote:
| As the US slowly becomes N. Korea...
| monetus wrote:
| How in the world did Juche become our national philosophy? I'm
| not sure, but I think about it all the time now.
|
| I'm on HN, so I tend to want to blame the ad industry. It's
| pretty nebulous to think that "made in America" directly
| snowballed into this; so many things did. The freakier nativism
| in advertising really could use a break right about now though.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| There's no national philosophy. That's giving these people
| way too much credit.
|
| "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman is 100%
| predictive and descriptive of how we got where we are.
| i80and wrote:
| I do think USA-flavored Juche does some explanatory power
| for the group as a whole, even if the individuals lack any
| specific philosophy beyond hill climbing.
|
| I do also need to read Postman, though.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Likewise, "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer describes some of the
| political processes that got us here. That along with "The
| Family" by Jeff Sharlet to provide a little color to the
| religious side.
| resters wrote:
| I think the "advertising" was the billions spent on what were
| effectively _anti-brown_ ads to help sell the Iraq /Afghan
| wars. Meanwhile in the 2000s the GSEs did not disclose their
| financials bc if they had perhaps the people would have felt
| the wars had a cost.
|
| Since then it's been gradual attacks on press freedom (WL
| exposed fraud/propaganda in the Iraq/Afghan wars) and massive
| profits by the defense industry, resulting in dramatically
| more lobbying money. Not to mention the US automotive
| industry and major banks getting bailed out and preventing
| many small economic corrections that should have occurred.
|
| Then 20 years after 9/11 when the US has spent 10s of
| TRILLIONS on wars and virtually nothing on infrastructure,
| industrial policy, etc., everyone wonders why China appears
| to be close to leapfrogging. The anti-brown propaganda and
| "USA USA" jingoism back in the early 2000s is still fresh,
| benefitting candidates with xenophobic and jingoistic
| messages. Many feel real economic pain but don't understand
| that you don't spend $20T without consequences -- plus
| scapegoating the weakest members of society is apparently
| more emotionally satisfying.
|
| By the time we got the pandemic both parties realized that
| they had more to gain from fiscal irresponsibility, and the
| tribalism of the government's anti-brown propaganda combined
| with the "multicultural solidarity" focus over class warfare
| by Dems, led to increasing tribalism and tribe-focused media.
| Now a large percentage of the population lives in a complete
| information bubble and is close to worshiping its political
| favorites as though they are religious icons.
|
| Thus now regardless of which party is in power, there will be
| a shift to censor and suppress information that is viewed as
| harmful to society. I honestly blame both parties for their
| share of this, but the ultimate culprit is feed algorithms
| that are optimized for emotionally potent content that
| creates engagement (and ad dollars) and nothing more.
|
| What is actually fascinating about the orignal TikTok is that
| the algorithm was so much more useful at showing
| interesting/appealing content that it pretty much overtook
| Insta, YouTube, and Netflix and required government
| intervention to stop its growth. This shows us clearly how
| the major social media platforms were not just wrong about
| how to maximize profits but wrong on how to entertain and
| engage people, mistakes that are only possible when there is
| really not much competition, which is how we now do
| capitalism in the US -- and by the way if you win you get
| nationalized.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| US spent just under $2T in Iraq and just over $2T in
| Afghanistan, for a total of just over $4T.
| resters wrote:
| If you consider indirect costs I believe it ends up at
| $18T or more.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Sibling comment has it about right:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44450898
|
| One of the underlying contradictory elements in the national
| philosophy of America since its founding has been white
| supremacy. Yes, that conflicts with "believe all men are
| created equal". No, this hasn't been properly resolved
| despite periods of extreme violence. I believe it's the
| anniversary of Gettysburg about now?
|
| Hence the $45bn for putting people in camps. It's right there
| in the budget. Of course, that drip-fed in _bipartisan_
| fashion: there have been (smaller!) internments of immigrants
| for a long time.
| verdverm wrote:
| Hungary is a more accurate analogy.
|
| It's actually where the Heritage Foundation has been trying
| things out before using in America. The connection between
| Heritage, Orban, and Trump's circle is concerning. At this
| point, Trump is more their useful idiot who can be the populous
| frontman. He's a symptom of the larger frustration with govt
| and growth in inequality
| nektro wrote:
| i think what contributes the most to my sense of dread is the
| feeling that if you were to tell these decision makers in govt
| right now "but this'll kill people!" they'd respond "good"
| jmholla wrote:
| They don't care about people. Senator Joni Ernst when told that
| people would die due from the spending bill responded with,
| "Well, we are all going to die."
| mandeepj wrote:
| > Senator Joni Ernst when told that people would die due from
| the spending bill responded with, "Well, we are all going to
| die." reply
|
| Well, how many times has she seen a doctor in her life so
| far? Of course, more than one. Then, why did she do that if
| she is eventually going to die one day?
| rescripting wrote:
| Because she doesn't see herself as "one of them".
|
| She is the living embodiment of the Lord Farquaad meme:
| "Some of you are going to die, but that's a risk I'm
| willing to take"
| bix6 wrote:
| And then doubled down with a later Instagram post making fun
| of everyone. How are these people our elected officials? It's
| unbelievable.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >How are these people our elected officials? It's
| unbelievable.
|
| Voters are stupid?
| ryandrake wrote:
| They're not stupid. These voters see government as a
| means to enact cruelty on outgroups they don't like.
| That's why they vote for cruel people who don't care
| about hurting others. They are not stupid. They know
| exactly what they are voting for and are overwhelmingly
| supportive if it.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| That sounds so incredibly short sighted I think it could
| still be reasonably described as stupid.
| ryandrake wrote:
| We shouldn't excuse these voters as merely stupid, like
| they're just innocently ignorant or uninformed. They are
| deliberately malevolent, and vote specifically for cruel,
| terrible politicians because they, themselves are cruel
| and terrible people and desire such representation.
|
| And they are not just supporting cruelty. They are
| cheering and screaming for it. They want more.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| I feel like my understanding of politics dramatically
| improved once I considered that some voters are
| malevolent. Some voters consciously support inhumane
| policies, but due to social pressure, they feel that they
| can't be truthful about it.
|
| So they will claim to be in favor of more socially
| acceptable policies, but vote against those policies
| giving some nonsensical reason, and it gives the
| appearance of stupidity.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| It's no excuse at all, just pointing out that the
| malevolent/stupid dichotomy is a false one.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I've spent some time reading r/leopardsatemyface, and
| there's just an unending stream of people who say
| something like "I didn't vote for this. I voted to
| inflict this cruelty upon other people, but now that it's
| coming for me I'm upset. Please redirect this toward
| people who deserve it. That being said I still support
| Trump."
|
| This quote from 2019 really sums it up:
| "I voted for him, and he's the one who's doing this... I
| thought he was going to do good things. He's not hurting
| the people he needs to be hurting." [1]
|
| The "good thing" he needs to do to according to this
| voter is "hurt people who deserve it".
|
| I've honestly tried to avoid this conclusion for years,
| thinking there _has_ to be more to it, but at long last
| it seems there 's not. People want to hurt other people,
| and they see Trump as their vehicle to do so, because
| that's what he promises; "I am your justice...I am your
| retribution" was his literal campaign pitch. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
| politics/2019/1/8/18173678/tr...
|
| [2] https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2024/former-
| pres-trump-...
| bix6 wrote:
| I think many are single issue voters. I read a Reuters
| piece following 20 Trump voters and many voted because
| they thought he would make the economy better.
| Misinformation is strong.
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| That is the Wizard's First Rule for a reason.
|
| "Wizard's First Rule: people are stupid." Richard and
| Kahlan frowned even more. "People are stupid; given
| proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost
| anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a
| lie because they want to believe it's true, or because
| they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full
| of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is
| false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid;
| they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie
| and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and
| so are all the easier to fool."
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| > How are these people our elected officials? It's
| unbelievable.
|
| Because they know that the vast majority of people
| advocating for climate change to be a high priority issue
| is because they want to use that to slow down capitalism -
| the system that made the US the country they love.
|
| I never hear growth-minded solutions for climate change:
| Let's get rich enough so everyone (even European hotels)
| can afford AC? Drug companies make enough money so even
| poor Africans can afford medicines and theraputics?
| Deregulate the solar industry? Reduce regulatory barriers
| for autonomous vehicles? Fast track nuclear power? Stop the
| fight against ride-sharing?
|
| If the problem was climate change & it was a severe
| existential issue, I'd assume you'd support all of the
| above?
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| > Because they know that the vast majority of people
| advocating for climate change to be a high priority issue
| is because they want to use that to slow down capitalism
|
| Is this really what you think? That the people concerned
| about climate change are really just interested in
| changing economic policy? The _real_ motives of
| environmentalists is to erode capitalism? Respectfully:
| that 's nuts.
|
| > Let's get rich enough so everyone (even European
| hotels) can afford AC
|
| This "proposal" does nothing, and in fact makes things
| worse, if that AC is not clean energy! Your "growth-
| minded" solution is not only not a solution, it's a
| problem exacerbator. But yes, many of us do in fact
| advocate for deregulation of the solar industry (I have
| canvassed on this very issue), and support fast tracking
| nuclear power. And is there even a fight against ride-
| sharing to stop?
|
| I just feel like your comment is coming from a different
| world than my own.
| dmix wrote:
| > The real motives of environmentalists is to erode
| capitalism? Respectfully: that's nuts.
|
| Is that really controversial? Reducing consumption and
| crippling new economic developments like
| mining/pipelines/logging/large construction projects etc
| has always been a huge part of environmentalist movement.
|
| Even here in Canada whose economy depends heavily on oil,
| lumber, and mines...One of the biggest responses to US
| aggression is to try to reverse that as opposed to years
| our of GDP growth declining in favour of climate activism
| and interference by native groups stopping any new
| projects.
|
| You can't even build a road in BC without activists
| stopping it.
|
| idk about the US but it's hard to find any industry not
| impacted by it here.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Is it really controversial to say that most
| environmentalists want to protect ecosystems, not destroy
| capitalism? No, it's not controversial, it's just wrong.
| Must protecting ecosystems mean a hatred for capitalism?
| No.
|
| You're taking effects (slower pipelines, fewer logging
| permits) and making those effects the activists' "true"
| goal. In reality, many of the people campaigning for
| stronger environmental safeguards are business-friendly
| too, such as 1000s of economists (and many Nobel
| laureates) have backed a carbon tax because it uses
| market forces to cut emissions.
|
| Calling for long-term accounting of environmental costs
| isn't anti-capitalist.
| triceratops wrote:
| That's not a motive, it's a consequence. There's a
| difference.
|
| Is environmental destruction a motive of capitalism? Of
| course not, and it would be crazy to say that. So why say
| the opposite about environmentalists?
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| > Is this really what you think? That the people
| concerned about climate change > are really just
| interested in changing economic policy?
|
| Yes, Here's some examples:
|
| Environmental Justice and Economic Degrowth: An Alliance
| between Two Movements
|
| https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2011.648839
|
| You can read this wonderful socialist article
|
| https://monthlyreview.org/2023/04/01/marxian-ecology-
| dialect...
|
| Or from "International socialism"
|
| https://isj.org.uk/degrowth-and-marxism/
|
| Or you can get a degree!
|
| Master's Degree in Political Ecology Degrowth and
| Environmental Justice
|
| https://www.uab.cat/web/postgraduate/master-in-political-
| eco...
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| This is an irritating strawman. I never claimed that no
| environmentalists have socialist views, or that the
| movements don't sometimes overlap in policy preferences
| even when their motivations for such policies are wholly
| different.
|
| My point is simply that the vast majority of climate
| advocates are arguing for policies that conserve and
| preserve what we have into the future, and that demand
| the long-term costs of many of our current policies and
| practices are actually accounted for vs. kicking that
| externality to the future public. There is no hidden
| agenda to upend society.
|
| Many of the desires practices are growth-friendly fixes:
| carbon pricing, deregulating solar, advanced nuclear[1],
| electrifying transport, ceasing public subsidies for coal
| and oil. They aren't campaigning to upend capitalism
| itself, but to adapt our economy so we can continue to
| thrive without cooking the planet, destroying ecosystems,
| and damaging long-term health of the natural world we
| rely on for life, not just recreation.
|
| Pointing to a handful of degrowth manifestos or niche
| graduate programs doesn't prove that mainstream
| environmentalism is really a Trojan horse for anti-
| capitalism. If you're looking to debate climate policy,
| let's stick to the proposals most people are actually
| pushing--and whether they'll work--not whether some
| fringe authors happen to share an ideology.
|
| [1] Not all environmentalists support this, I'll grant,
| but I don't know any who don't personally
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Worse, AC in cities is counterproductive because it
| noticeably raises the surrounding temperature.
|
| (And then it's the poorest people, those that cannot
| afford AC, and there will always be some (starting with
| the homeless), that suffer because of it.)
| triceratops wrote:
| > the vast majority of people advocating for climate
| change to be a high priority issue is because they want
| to use that to slow down capitalism
|
| I feel like that's something you want to believe so that
| you can dismiss legitimate concerns about environmental
| destruction.
|
| Because that's like saying capitalists want to grow the
| economy faster to destroy the environment. Which is
| obviously crazy and untrue.
|
| I love capitalism. I'm also deeply concerned the way it's
| run currently will destroy the world my children will
| inherit. These aren't contradictory ideas. Why can't we
| capitalism better?
| krapp wrote:
| There is no other, better, more humane form of
| capitalism. Capitalism's only concern is the generation
| and control of capital by the capitalist class. It isn't
| that capitalists want to destroy the environment, it's
| that they don't care about the environment beyond it
| being a resource to be exploited and consumed. "Better
| capitalism" just means doing more of that exploitation
| faster and more efficiently.
|
| I don't know what you love and call capitalism but I
| suspect you've been convinced that as a system it has
| some inherently moral dimension. It does not, and cannot.
| It's a paperclip maximizer, that's all.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Exactly. To the extent that a politico-economic system is
| concerned with anything other than how the capitalist
| class can maintain control of society through control of
| the means of production, it is _not capitalism_. Of
| course, platonically pure capitalism is rare, and even
| _relatively_ pure capitalism is mostly a thing of the
| past since most of the places it was present replaced it
| with mixed economies in the mid-20th Century, but that 's
| not "kinder capitalism", but simply _less_ capitalism.
| triceratops wrote:
| > I don't know what you love and call capitalism
|
| Private property and competitive free markets. I just
| don't like where they end up. I think they need a firm
| hand to keep from turning into a paperclip maximizer.
| Maybe that's impossible, but we can't know until we
| really try.
|
| It's not like other systems have a better track record on
| environmental protection.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
| krapp wrote:
| >It's not like other systems have a better track record
| on environmental protection.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
|
| Socialism _is_ the firm hand keeping capitalism at bay.
| Environmental laws, labor laws and the abolition of child
| labor, the 8 hour workday, weekends, minimum wage and
| overtime, disability rights and social welfare (such as
| it exists in the US) are all due to socialist activism in
| spite of the free market. The Black Panthers are the
| reason American schools have free lunches.
| triceratops wrote:
| Well great let's have more of that _without_ losing
| private property or instituting central planning.
| morkalork wrote:
| >I really don't care, do you?
| ramchip wrote:
| It's not even hypothetical:
|
| https://www.latintimes.com/trump-ally-slammed-saying-alligat...
| amelius wrote:
| At least we know what to do with the guy when he finally gets
| convicted.
| metalman wrote:
| There is a very large amount of redundency in enviromental data
| gathering and reporting, plus given.the most basic facts that it
| is impossible to close source the information source, and that
| there are now countless sensors on.earth and in orbit that can be
| re calibrated to provide conitiniousl'y consistent new data to
| older ongoing studies, there is essentialy nothing that can be
| effected by a political directive to actualy stop reporting,
| short of martial law, and then people would start printing
| pamphlets with potatoes and coffee dregs
| perrygeo wrote:
| If this administration doesn't want to do anything to solve
| climate change, that's their choice. It's a terrible choice, but
| it's in their power to do so.
|
| However, there's a huge difference between dismissing the
| severity of the evidence vs. going out of your way to hide
| evidence. The first is born of arrogance. The later is naked
| cowardice - they know exactly how wrong they are. If they wanted
| to project strength, they could simply leave the reports up and
| say "we don't care". Instead they scurry around behind the
| curtains trying to cover their tracks. Fucking pathetic.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| They're still angry at Fauci for not going along with the
| world's dumbest coverup attempt in Feb 2020.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| That would only be true if you believed the reports were
| unbiased.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| The non-cowardly thing to do would be to engage
| scientifically rather than memory hole the consensus.
|
| Or create the impossible requirement that a study have _no_
| bias.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a fair argument. When social media takes
| down what it perceives as misinformation, the right uses the
| sunshine argument. "Leave it up and let the best argument
| win."
|
| In any event, just because you don't like the conclusion
| doesn't mean it is biased.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I was just pointing out the incorrect logic of the comment:
|
| If you believe they're biased, removing them is removing
| false legitimacy from biased content -- something the
| government has an interest in. And no different than a
| journal retracting a flawed paper.
|
| And since you want to discuss "fair argument": there's an
| obvious difference between allowing discourse on a public
| forum and publishing as an institution.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Journals remove papers that break rules, e.g. fabricating
| data or boning your postdocs. You seem to be waving at
| all of climate science and saying they all fail the same
| scrutiny. And you use the vaguest possible accusation:
| "they have bias", something that could be said or every
| scientific paper.
| amarka wrote:
| From the article: " The White House, which was responsible
| for the assessments, said the information will be housed
| within NASA to comply with the law, but gave no further
| details."
|
| It doesn't seem like the admin believes the reports are
| biased and need to be removed. Cool conspiracy though.
| regularjack wrote:
| You don't need to "believe" that there's bias, you look at
| the data and you can tell whether they're biased or not.
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| All (most?) bullies are cowards.
| EasyMark wrote:
| It's a real shame but at least there other nations still doing
| this work like China and various Euro countries. Sad to see the
| USA transition to a banana republic. This belief that MAGA party
| has that the US can't do big things any longer and only
| corporations and broligarchs know how to lead us forward is just
| sad.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| > This belief that MAGA party has that the US can't do big
| things any longer and only corporations and broligarchs know
| how to lead us forward is just sad.
|
| Especially given the Musk/DOGE recent experience.
|
| Musk takes over Twitter, fires 40% of the workforce, and
| nothing much happens.
|
| Musk takes over the US Govt, fires <10% of the workforce, and
| things stop working.
|
| From this we should conclude, obviously, that the government is
| run much, much more efficiently and with less slack than any of
| the Big Tech organisations (who are also all busy laying off
| 10s of % of their workforces, apparently with no ill effect).
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Sad to see the USA transition to a banana republic._
|
| I'm not sure banana republic is the best description of what is
| happening, the definition of the term only cover part of where
| things are heading.
|
| A comparison with NK seems more complete, especially given the
| current twits at the top, so I've taken to referring to the US
| as DPR-US.
| tialaramex wrote:
| An insistence - in spite of the reality - that you're a
| democracy seems likely prophetic.
|
| Right now though I think you can say the US is just back-
| sliding. Trump _threatened_ to arrest Mamdani for I guess
| being very popular or something but he doesn 't seem to have
| even attempted to actually do that. Once it's actually gone,
| Mamdani just gets imprisoned or executed so that Trump's
| preferred candidate "wins" regardless. The technology of
| democracy is still there, but the actual principles it
| supports are gone.
| Animats wrote:
| But Trump doesn't seem to have air conditioning on his golf carts
| yet.[1] So global warming can't be a big problem.
|
| [1] https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-
| polit...
| graycat wrote:
| Tell me more: At my PC, the weather URL
|
| https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.90615740000...
|
| still works.
| esalman wrote:
| NOAA released their budget estimate for FY 2026. Someone in our
| org ran it by copilot to summarize the impacts:
|
| * NOAA eliminates most climate, weather, and ocean labs and
| grants, causing major layoffs and loss of research capacity.
|
| * National climate research infrastructure is lost, with staff
| reductions.
|
| * Regional climate services, adaptation, and heat health programs
| end.
|
| * All climate research grants are cut.
|
| * Foundational ocean observation and Great Lakes research are
| terminated.
|
| * Sea Grant support for coastal resilience and aquaculture ends.
|
| * Aquaculture research and ocean science partnerships are
| stopped.
|
| * Funding for uncrewed systems R&D is eliminated.
|
| * Research computing for climate/ocean modeling is reduced or
| lost.
|
| * Many programs shift to operational focus (NOS/NWS), with
| layoffs in OAR.
|
| * Regional ocean observing systems and applied coastal research
| are ended, with grant losses and layoffs.
|
| * State coastal management, resilience, and estuarine reserve
| grants are terminated.
|
| * Support for coral reef grants and marine sanctuaries is
| reduced; no new sanctuaries.
|
| * Species/habitat research, salmon recovery, and habitat
| restoration programs are cut, with major layoffs.
|
| * Satellite/data services are reduced, with staff cuts.
|
| * NOAA Office of Education is closed; mission support staff
| reduced.
|
| * Overall, there is a major workforce reduction and elimination
| of many programs.
| ryandrake wrote:
| But look on the bright side: a relative handful of ultra-
| wealthy will pay slightly less in taxes. That's got to count as
| positive news for them!
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Speed-running global warming with our eyes closed. Fun.
| Shalomboy wrote:
| It just occurred to me that SEAMAP will be* gone, and I didn't
| notice because the people looking ahead at these sorts of
| things while I kept my head down and worked were all fired. I
| will need a new job.
|
| * I say will be, because it was already cut down to size last
| spring.
| alphadelphi wrote:
| when politics ban science you know things are messed up big time
| dspillett wrote:
| For those who prefer their news without pop-overs galore,
| autoplaying unrelated animation/video, requests to enable
| notifications with only yes/later options, claims to care about
| your privacy despite wanting to share your details with hundreds
| of other companies, etc.: https://archive.is/Tu51y
| jeroenhd wrote:
| As a non-American, the most painful thing about all of this is
| seeing how much the world has relied on America's charity for so
| long.
|
| Had other supposed economic powerhouses invested in their
| geographic and atmospheric science the same way the USA has, this
| would've been a rather annoying blip on the radar. We'd need to
| quickly get our backups out of storage and host them elsewhere,
| and go without American data points for a couple of years, but
| most things would be fine.
|
| Instead, it's now becoming clear how much just about any country
| but China, Russia, and Iran has relied on American scientific
| investments, and even those seem to freely incorporate American
| data when it's provided for free.
|
| I have no doubt that all of the atmospheric, oceanographic, and
| environmental science the American government has all been for
| strategic purposes, either directly providing information useful
| for the military of providing a believable excuse to install
| sensors all around the globe, some of which have been "enhanced".
| Still, as long as your country is friendly to the American
| regime, you were getting huge amounts of useful scientific data
| out of that deal, enough not to set up local alternatives.
|
| Here in the EU, scientists have been scrambling to safeguard data
| like this since the day of Trump's reelection, but it seems like
| governments here don't seem to be all that interested in funding
| any of the work the Americans have been doing.
| dspillett wrote:
| Remember folks: if it keeps happening, just dig your head further
| into the sand.
| dgb23 wrote:
| There are so many red flags with this administration that I lost
| count. Policing speech, suppressing information, cutting research
| funding, cutting social programs, increasing spending and
| intensity for deportations, deporting people for political
| affiliation, an unnecessarily disruptive economic policy and many
| reports of general incompetence, lying and corruption.
|
| It's all so bleak. Where is the payoff?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The new tax bill, which benefits asset owners (wealthy), older
| people, and the beneficiaries of the wealthy.
|
| When you have a population age histogram that is flattening and
| eventually an upside down triangle, you need some way of
| extracting labor from the young and giving it to the old (the
| chosen ones who can afford it) to maintain the socioeconomic
| hierarchy.
|
| The young without inheritances won't ever have it as good, so
| you'll need to distract them and otherwise fool them into
| believing it is their duty to transfer their earned income via
| earned income taxes to the elderly.
| epgui wrote:
| Right, because that's a "smart" way to tackle the demographic
| collapse/crisis while totally not making the problem worse.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I don't see a way to avoid population decline, assuming
| women have freedom and access to 100% effective birth
| control.
|
| The whole process of pregnancy/birth//breastfeeding/infant
| rearing sucks, so that most women will opt for 1 or 2, max.
|
| Then you have to account for all the men and women who opt
| to stay single (or queer or whatever). The number of women
| that need to have more than 2 kids to offset those with 0
| and 1 will never happen.
|
| The only possible mechanism to align incentives is to
| remove all old age benefits and wealth transfers, so that
| one likely has to depend on their children. But even then,
| I doubt it would work.
| epgui wrote:
| Immigration.
| pstuart wrote:
| Yes, that's part of it but helping to ease the economic
| burden of child rearing would definitely help.
|
| The documentary Idiocracy has some interesting insights
| into the issue -- it's worth the watch.
| triceratops wrote:
| Why do we need to "tackle" the demographic collapse? The
| CEO of Ford just said he expects 50% of white-collar jobs
| to be eliminated soon. Tax the AI and you'll have plenty of
| money for retirees. There's nothing wrong with naturally,
| and gradually, going back to the population levels of 1980
| or whatever.
| Loughla wrote:
| I don't think it really has a whole lot to do with
| socioeconomic hierarchy; I think that's just a happy
| accident.
|
| Old people vote. Old people vote in midterms and odd timed
| elections. Therefore, old people decide the candidates. Any
| politician would be smart to court them as a voting bloc.
|
| As for the benefits for the wealthy; that's just the same old
| bullshit in a new protectionist wrapper. Get my friends and
| family as much benefit as I can while I have the ability sort
| of thing.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Nice theory, however you're believing people vote for their
| best interests, and the above comment believes they're
| deluded by misinformation.
|
| I think both are occurring. Young white men went GOP, why
| is that? Anti vaxx leftists went with Kennedy, why is that?
| Why do anti-immigration and pro-economics claim the top two
| republican policy slots, when they're firmly opposed in
| their effects on the economy? This is the contradictory
| trend of delusion and cult of personality.
|
| If the BBB just passed is an indication, I think overall we
| are more on the deluded side, most of these deluded non-
| rich white folks are more anti-immigrant than pro-
| economics.
|
| Of course I do not believe GOP economic policies are better
| than the alternative, I'm not the one who voted for that
| policy regime however!
| pixelatedindex wrote:
| > Why do anti-immigration and pro-economics claim the top
| two republican policy slots
|
| Pro-economics? This admin can't tell supply from demand.
| Anti-immigration, definitely.
| pstuart wrote:
| > Anti-immigration, definitely.
|
| Hold on -- the regime recently welcomed refugees from
| Africa! If only we could understand why that group,
| versus the ones they're actively deporting. If only there
| was some pattern, a clue or hint as to what matters to
| them...
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/12/trump-
| administratio...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| >> _Why_
|
| Because Biden was much better at doing than talking about
| what was done, and in an absence of words any words
| dominate.
|
| The Democratic party needs to stop looking at election
| results as mistakes by underinformed voters, and start
| looking at them as feedback on engagement.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Old people voting in their own interests at the expense of
| young people is them trying to maintain their higher
| position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. There is a
| secondary component related to skin tone and ancestry as
| well.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The question is "for whom is the payoff?" and they've made that
| very clear.
| aisenik wrote:
| We're a country with official concentration camp merch. The
| payoff is very obviously genocide and the reestablishment of
| chattel slavery (what do you think kidnapping people and
| renditioning them to third-party countries to be tortured and
| work hard labor for private companies that contract prison
| labor _is_?). The US State Department now has an Office Of
| Remigration. Remigration is a neonazi term for ethnic
| cleansing.
|
| They claim empathy is a sin. We know from WW2 scholarship that
| the abandonment of empathy enables worse things than the most
| unimaginable obscenities. We're doing that, right now. This is
| what it looks like.
|
| Everyone who claimed fascism or called right-wing people Nazis
| for the past 50 years was correct, and everyone who shouted
| them down or mocked and dismissed them bears responsibility for
| the resurgence of Evil in America.
|
| They're openly calling for the internment and forced removal of
| 65 million people this week. That's not the end, there is no
| end when the goal is total domination. It's a mass psychogenic
| illness that presents an existential threat to all known life.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >The payoff is very obviously genocide and the
| reestablishment of chattel slavery
|
| The Trump administration is deplorable, corrupt, grotesque
| and ridiculous in so many ways, not to mention dangerous, but
| seriously, get off it with these kinds of declarations. Such
| hyperbolic nonsense just shuts down genuine possible inroads
| into protesting against this government's uglier things and
| paints those who oppose it as hysterical lunatics.
|
| Genocide has a real definition, and so too does chattel
| slavery. They're literal, specifically barbaric things whose
| definition only gets watered down by every random idiotic
| accusation of either happening because someone can't get a
| grip on their emotional outrages.
|
| I see zero sign of Trump's government committing or even
| planning for genocide at the present time, and likewise for
| chattel slavery.
|
| The deportations to third-party country are deportations, not
| mass slave sales.
| aisenik wrote:
| I would recommend a thorough examination of your media
| exposure. There's some sort of epistemic failure going on
| here.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Feel free to point me to a single instance of Trump
| administration genocide and i'll happily reconsider my
| thoughts. I'm no fan of this government, but hyperbole
| does nobody any good.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| The progressively worsening attacks on the ability of
| trans people to exist in daily life.
|
| Depending on how you define the Ten Stages of Genocide,
| we for sure have crossed the 3rd stage of genocide with
| all the state level anti trans bills and Trumps executive
| orders, and they've also engaged in stages 4 and 6.
| They're not pressing on the brake, there's a lead block
| on the gas pedal and they have repeatedly professed to
| wanting to erase us from public life. Trump released a
| campaign video about it in Feb/March of 2023.
|
| https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >The progressively worsening attacks on the ability of
| trans people to exist in daily life.
|
| Really? Care to name an example of their being persecuted
| legally by the administration in the way you claim? For
| example, there were multiple huge gay pride parades in
| the U.S just recently, which are visibly and vocally
| attended by trans people too, and I didn't see federal
| agents or police of any kind going at them at any point.
| spit2wind wrote:
| Regarding "persecuted legally", this administration is
| actively trying to dismantle the rule of law and flouts
| it.
|
| I appreciate you looking for examples. This podcast
| episode will give you some, as well as a lens through
| which you may spot others.
|
| https://www.dancarlin.com/product/common-sense-324-whats-
| goo...
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Arbitrarily overriding trans people's declared gender on
| passport applications?
|
| https://www.genderjusticeleague.org/trans-non-binary-
| passpor...
| ychnd wrote:
| Mass deportations are genocide, by definition. Start at
| Wikipedia if no better sources are available to you.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Amusingly, not even wikipedia backs up the definition you
| pulled out of a hat. That aside, mass deportation would
| actually be ethnic cleansing, not genocide, which is a
| partly different thing. And even if we focus on ethnic
| cleansing, you don't get to just label any example of
| many people being deported as a case of it. Currently,
| the Trump admin is actually deporting fewer illegal
| immigrants per month from the U.S than either the Biden
| or Obama admins did previously. Thus, were they also
| engaging in either ethnic cleansing or genocide
| (depending on how you want to frame your half-baked
| definitions)?
|
| The Trump administration is detestable, but these kinds
| of hysterical claims are just idiotic.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > Currently, the Trump admin is actually deporting fewer
| illegal immigrants per month from the U.S than either the
| Biden or Obama admins did previously.
|
| Interesting, got any source for this claim ?
|
| Whether current claims are overblown or not, I assume
| that it's what Trump 2 _might_ do next that is a cause of
| concern for a lot of people. Between his mercurial
| behaviour, disregard for the rule of law, and some of the
| previously stated goals...
|
| The situation is quite different of course, but one of
| the planned first "Jewish Solutions" by the Nazi regime
| was instead deporting them to... Madagascar. (A really
| weird alternative to consider to the current Israelo-
| Palestinian conflict, huh. Someone should perhaps write
| an alternative Man in a High Castle story about this...)
|
| Things can turn very bad quite quickly when previous
| norms of behaviour go out of the window...
| aisenik wrote:
| It is essential to understand the concepts involved:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
|
| And then you can take your pick of media outlets. The
| Office Of Remigration is happening, they aren't hiding
| it. For example:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/politics/rubio-lays-out-
| detai...
|
| This is just one clear-cut example of the administration
| prosecuting genocide. There are others, there's plenty of
| boogeymen.
|
| Assuming you disagree that this is proof of genocide-in-
| progress, please explain to me how an official policy of
| ethnic cleansing is not prosecuting genocide. It will be
| illustrative.
|
| In parting, a digestif, courtesy of the prominent far-
| right ideologue who's made public claims of a lurid
| sexual relationship with Trump:
|
| https://xcancel.com/LauraLoomer/status/193983158890210962
| 9#m
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Yes, I too know how to use Wikipedia to look up scary
| concepts.
|
| And no, nothing about the current deportations (which I
| oppose in many ways) is either genocide or ethnic
| cleansing. The United States is not engaging in a policy
| of trying to remove the country's latino population based
| on their ethnicity (good luck with something so
| ridiculous if they did try) and while its deportation
| practices against illegal immigrants are heavy handed as
| hell, they're nowhere near any sane definition of either
| genocide or ethnic cleansing. Get a fucking grip, or read
| a bit of history failing that.
|
| While we can debate what's morally and legally right for
| dealing with illegal immigrants in a country, By no
| rational definition of either ethnic cleansing or
| genocide is the current practice either genocidal or a
| case of mass ethnic cleansing, despite multiple trump
| admin illegalities and random bullshit from ICE.
|
| Redefining these real barbarities in these ways to suit a
| hysterical political argument of your own is an insult to
| those who have been victims of real genocides and ethnic
| cleansing campaigns.
| aisenik wrote:
| How is the nascent Office of Remigration not clear-cut
| evidence of genocide? Deposit your bolus or exit the
| john.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Literally not one single detail about the proposed legal
| and policy changes in the news article you linked to has
| anything at all to do with ethnic cleansing or genocide.
| Clarify your bullshit instead, because you simply took
| two totally separate pieces of content and invented a
| connection between them that has no existence.
|
| The CNN article about Rubio mentions policy choices about
| repatriating migrants to their countries of origin, in a
| clear reference to policies for illegal migrants, and the
| name of the office is just a name, not a plan for some
| mass ethnic cleansing. We can debate the morality of this
| in terms of open vs. closed borders, sure, but to call it
| an example of nascent ethnic cleansing is deluded, at
| least so far.
|
| I think the policies of this government bear enormous
| scrutiny, and immigration policy should always be humane
| while recognizing that a government does indeed have the
| right to control illegal influxes across its borders
| without this automatically being labeled "racist", but
| some of the hysterics, like yours and other's, in this
| comment thread go way beyond anything resembling rational
| vigilance and criticism.
| aisenik wrote:
| Is your argument that the Office of Remigration and the
| policy of mass deportations while coercing "self-
| deportations," consistent with the far-right extremist
| concept of "Remigration" which is understood to be a form
| of ethnic cleansing, is not engaging in ethnic cleansing?
|
| You might as well claim 2+2=5.
| navane wrote:
| On these wiki definitions:
|
| Ethnic cleansing: "with some researchers including and
| others excluding coercive assimilation or mass killings
| as a means of depopulating an area of a particular group"
|
| "Mass killings" is a big detail which is hard to
| overlook. If we can't agree where ethnic cleansing
| includes mass killing it's hard too agree if ethnic
| cleansing is taking place.
|
| Personally, ethnic cleansing to me sounds like Rwanda or
| Yugoslavia, which is not happening in the US yet.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I'm guessing that they want to keep 'genocide' for the
| worst cases ? While others want a more general term
| including it ?
|
| I think some also tried to push for the term 'ethnocide'
| for when mass killings were not involved ?
| const_cast wrote:
| I agree that "genocide" might be a bit hyperbolic, but I
| think it's important to note that pretty much all
| genocides historically were done covertly, and under the
| guise of legitimate policy. If there were a genocide
| going on right now, it's entirely possible most people
| would not know and it could even be hidden in plain
| sight.
| tastyface wrote:
| Not to be a dick, but these aren't "red flags" anymore: the
| actual thing is here, plainly visible.
| throwawayoldie wrote:
| There, climate problem solved! /s
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-03 23:02 UTC)