DarthFrodo

joined 2 years ago
[–] DarthFrodo 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

AfD: "refugee children should be shot at the border"

Also AfD: "The problem is that Hitler is depicted as absolute evil"

AfD supporters: "just because they defend nazis, and talk like nazis, and use slogans from nazis, that doesn't mean they are nazis. LOL"

[–] DarthFrodo 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Much worse for who?

My point is: if police were completely abolished, conservatives and the far right would feel very unsafe and immediately form militias that enforce their values. That would be much worse for everyone who doesn't share their values, of course.

I get that in many countries, police is badly regulated and you might say that this wouldn't actually change much, but I'd rather seek more accountability for police, compared to a complete abolishion, leaving a power vaccum that'll be filled by right wing militias with zero accountability.

Divesting seems good to me though, much of the police is certainly overfunded (due to law and order populism) and does useless shit (like the war on drugs), while education, social workers and programs against poverty are severely underfunded. Changing this would surely help a lot with crime reduction and other issues.

Thanks for the links by the way, I will look more into them when I have more time to see if my concerns regarding abolishion are addressed.

[–] DarthFrodo 14 points 1 year ago (15 children)

So what's the alternative to police? Just getting rid of them would just lead to militias taking their place which would be much worse.

[–] DarthFrodo 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

We could tax greenhouse gas emissions to internalize the environmental cost.

If the beef burger would cost 2x more than the plant-based burger (which basically tastes the same but has 90% fewer emissions), most people would choose the plant-based one. That would massively reduce food related ghg emissions, and also create a huge incentive to develop better alternatives/lab meat.

[–] DarthFrodo 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

There's no way they would do that since climate change is a "tradegy of the commons" problem.

The tragedy of the commons is a metaphoric label for a concept that is widely discussed in economics, ecology and other sciences. According to the concept, should a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. To exercise voluntary restraint is not a rational choice for individuals – if they did, the other users would merely supplant them – yet the predictable result is a tragedy for all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Currently, every country seeks to maximize the emissions that they are still allowed to have without being penalized (internationally, and by their own population).

[–] DarthFrodo 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'd be surprised if any country responded militarily. It's not in the interest of anyone to risk WW3 over Taiwan, and China knows this. In contrast to Russia, they are probably competent enough to take Taiwan in a day or two before anyone can send significant aid.

There would be massive economic implications though. The most effective deterrence that western countries have are sanctions, and they can't let China invade without consequences to keep the deterrence effective (also for other countries), so they'd have to be used. Investment in China would probably be banned for decades to reduce reliance.

If hundreds of millions of Chinese fall back into poverty due to the invasion, that would be a serious threat for political stability in China.

[–] DarthFrodo 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Even if they managed to recover all chip factories after a full scale invasion (which the Taiwanese could easily sabotage), the production is based on a lot of western technology, which they couldn't replicate for decades. So the factories would be of little use.

Chinas economy is also very reliant on exports to western countries (US, Japan, Europe), if they invaded Taiwan that would plunge the world economy into the worst crisis ever seen that would hit China especially hard. They're already struggling with serious demographic and other economic issues that will put them into a difficult spot in the next decades. Invading Taiwan would be very, very terrible for basically everyone, and suicide for the CCP.

[–] DarthFrodo 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So 0°F was defined as the freezing temperature of a solution of brine made from a mixture of water, ice, and ammonium chloride (why in the world?). Originally, 90°F was set as human body temperature, which was later changed first to 96°F, and now it's about 98.6°F.

Celsius is just: 0°C is the freezing temperature of water 100°C is the boiling temperature of water

Nobody uses a scale between -18 and 38. People in countries using Celsius just learned as a child that body temperature is 38°C, that's all. -18°C has no special meaning to us.

At 0°C outside it's freezing (32°F). 10°C is quite cool (50°F), you'll need a jacket. 20°C is a comfortable temperature for me, if it's sunny (68°F). 30°C is getting rather warm (86°F). 40°C is hell outside, or a bad fever (104°F). To boil water, heat it to 100°C (212°F).

I get that this seems confusing at first when you're used to completely different orientation points, but for people who are used to C, it's very intuitive.

[–] DarthFrodo 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The good ones tend to do something in-between, with a market based economy, but good regulations, solid welfare, and democracy. Scandinavian countries have the happiest populations in the world, maybe we should try to learn from them.

Unfortunately corporations get more power over time instead of less. They have an ever growing pile of money to buy media and politicians to push their interests, that's probably the greatest challenge of democracy.

[–] DarthFrodo 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

How is this anti western? Pretty much every country in the world is capitalist by now.

[–] DarthFrodo 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Do you really need to tell everybody?? They'll never give me the ring now...

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