In my teenage years I distanced myself from all of my friends after they started to get into hard drugs and I got in a long-term relationship. I didn’t know any better and my world centered around my then partner so I didn’t even try to make new friends; after 5 years, we broke up and I moved countries twice, and when I returned home, I felt I didn’t belong anywhere, moved town a few more times and have never managed to make lasting friends… I honestly think there’s something wrong with me…
That’s just how it is today dude. I grew up in rural Canada and had friends till I graduated. Then I moved to Calgary for college then to the coast for work. My other friends went elsewhere. I haven’t had true friends in probably 8 years now.
Same here. Moving cities is much more common nowadays and it’s almost guaranteed a hard reset on friendships. Even if put in the work of keeping in touch, distant friendships are not as fulfilling as present ones anyway.
I think it’s that way because of the world today promotes mental health issues. People are embarrassed about their life if they are not doing well and governments like to keep it that way.
True male friendship is paradoxical, in that it is intimate without intimacy. Men neither touch each other physically nor discuss anything directly – what is said out loud is trivial and everything important is unspoken. If a subtext is identified, it’s quickly ignored before moving on, since no man wants to turn a subtext into an actual text over a few beers.
Is that true male friendship, though? Taking that flaky relationship and labeling it true friendship might be a contributing factor to see them not surviving the many ebbs and flows of life. My best friendships, the ones that are alive and well, are exactly NOT like that.
It’s certainly something people have been taught is true male friendship and it can be difficult to unteach. One major contributor to this that I feel like I’ve experienced in my own life is how much extra mental labor it seems to take to navigate the masculine expectations of any given male relationship. I feel like things are fairly easy when you know you’re on the same page with the other person but it can take a significant amount of time to suss that out. Until you do it can be difficult to feel like you can operate on a level where you are ALLOWED to make the subtext textual.
That’s a horse shit take on true friendship. I tell my close male friends that I love them, we bro hug, we’ve cried together. Maybe that take is true for a lot of men but that doesn’t make it any good.
Hydrogen is a pretty complicated gas to deal with. The flame is nearly invisible in daylight meaning you could be standing in a Hydrogen fire and only tell because your skin is burning off. The molecule is so small that its hard to contain it because seals leak. Storage of hydrogen is also a problem. The density is also very very low in both gaseous and cryogenic liquid form which means you have to have very large containers compared to most other fuels.
The article proposes to graduate hydrogen to a utility grade fuel, which isn’t impossible, its just really really hard, and other alternatives are much easier to accomplish the same goal.
One approach may be to located hydrogen combustion or hydrogen fuel cells very close to the point of extraction turning it into electricity as soon as possible. That would bypass most of the storage challenges at least. However, this idea comes with its own challenges as hydrogen extraction points may not be near utility grade power lines for transport of the electricity produced.
You make some interesting points. Would you happen to know if it would be possible to add something to it to make it more visible? Kinda like they add that smelly thing to gas.
Everytime I read about hydrogen being the future I get the feeling of oil lobby selling the next “oil” because thats all they understand. Hydrogen has a future where its energy to weight ratio counts and that is aviation fuel. For now.
Hydrogen is going to be abused to white wash fossils, no doubt. It will also keep consumers dependent on gas station distribution. Certain types of companies like both of these things very much.
I don’t believe the prices presented in the article. P2X will eventually be able to produce much cheaper green hydrogen than the costs of drilling for white hydrogen. There really isn’t a limit to how cheap it can get.
White hydrogen is fine to replace the production of gray hydrogen right now, but I doubt it will continue to be the cheapest method in just a few years.
The quote is totally messed up for sure. What annoys me as well is that image is not even from that scene or the same person. Doesn’t it come from the “inconceivable” poison cup scene?
If you no longer need an audience, then why hang out with them?
Oof, I hope you don’t really believe that. Aside from “attention” that you get with friends, you should also get compassion, empathy, and love. And sometimes it’s just nice to have companionship.
White hydrogen is still a non-renewable energy and exploiting it will lead to environmental pollution.
Moreover countries with more hydrogen will gain leverage in the political game just like OPEC has currently, which has only been problems for everyone because of the tensions surrounding oil demand.
Solar and wind on the other hand can be harvested pretty much everywhere, which will give autonomy to most country and thus balance geopolitics.
Tldr: white hydrogen should keep sleeping underground
I don’t know that I entirely agree - yes white hydrogen is non-renewable and yes there are environmental concerns over harvesting it, but I don’t see as much of a risk in demand, given that anyone with a solar panel and some water can produce their own hydrogen.
My fear is that white hydrogen will be used as an excuse for continuing to harvest carbon-based fossil fuels - “we’re trying to extract hydrogen in this field but we’ve just gotta extract these pesky hydrocarbons in the process”. There would need to be a metric fuckton of regulations in place to get me even close to on board with the process, and odds are these regulations would make it much less “cost competitive” than promised.
It kind of screams co-opting by the fossil fuel industry, doesn’t it. Just like all of the efforts to make Alberta tar sands oil sound environmentally friendly, by pointing to the strong regulatory environment. Rather than focus on what will actually improve things the most, they want something that keeps them in business
Anyone can produce green hydrogen Indeed, but it will be much more expensive and therefore states will probably choose the cheapest option. I really fear it would just be “oil 2” with only a few a the issues of oil resolved. I agree it needs a lot of régulation to avoid doing the same errors all over again
So we trade one polluting mining operation for another, but we get a fuel that burns cleaner and doesn’t produce greenhouse gasses.
Look, I’d much prefer we switch to solar/hydrogen, but we can’t say that X is bad because X isn’t perfect, especially when the alternative is far worse.
I had the distinct misfortune of being a loner for my formative years. As I’ve aged, I never hit my stride or found my niche. I have plenty of hobbies and things I enjoy, but no place to share them… even if I find a convention or rare place to explore them with others, they are often filled with people who already found their people and aren’t seeking any new applicants. Or, more likely, these places are far from where I am.
It then returns the burden to me. Do I keep my job and pay and current possessions… or do I sell all of it and move closer to the places I can find others? No, not even that: give up stability and security for the chance to find places to find others. Not even guaranteedz
even if I find a convention or rare place to explore them with others, they are often filled with people who already found their people and aren’t seeking any new applicants
Any group like that doesn't deserve your awesomeness my fellow person ✊.
Sometimes I travel a long way to put myself in a situation I think will may result in meeting like minded people and then when I get there I do nothing but look around a bit and then go home.
It happens so often! You break out of the comfort zone and spend resources and energy to make the effort, only to have nothing to show for it. Coming away with something (or someone!) is never the intended goal, but you’d feel better if you did, right?
I never had the chance to gain friends in my formative years; I grew up in neighborhoods filled with what were apparently now proto-fascists - this community would recognize the toxic masculinity. They all hated me simply because my family was poor, or because I moved in from somewhere else. They were never clear on why. All I know is that I am hated wherever I go, no matter how kind I am to others. There is no place for me on Earth - not even the option to move far away, because the part of people that hates the “other” is universal.
More now than ever, you find people that are takers and not givers. I was raised that if you were kind and generous, that you would attract others. But when everyone takes what you give, but gives nothing in return, you burn out and feel used. Once you have nothing left to give, they go away.
You’re only welcome if you have something to offer. If you have nothing, you are nothing in their eyes. Hi lighting the differences between us all is a worrying trend.
This was true almost fifty years ago, when i was a child - and even the adults had no problem with taking from a child everything they wanted. They were soulless and amoral, like looking into the eyes of a shark.
Eh. Not the best article but I appreciate the sentiment.
I certainly agree with it. I think that there’s a level of friendship that I never allow others to crack unless they were bridged in as members when we were young.
All the people I meet now are “acquaintances”. They’re nice, I’m okay to reach out if I need anything, but more often then not they’re the partner of someone else. I smile at them. I tolerate them. I might even have a drink with them. But there’s a distance there that you can’t crack.
It’s like that great 80s movie, “Stand by me”: “I never had any friends later on like the ones when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” youtu.be/l7r-R61W1DQ
i think it's really simple.. we don't gather in order to accomplish things together.. not in the real world, solving real problems.. men become friends when they solve problems and build things together.. think barn building among the Amish.. and we basically can only drop the competitive thing if we're trying to work together, but then we get right to work.. and that's our normal socialization.. when we see one another, we immediately like to reminisce about something we fixed or conquered together.. back in my grandfather's day, they spent free time at the men's social club, to brag about exactly that and drink and play cards all evening.. we haven't figured out how to replace that stuff.. so we're all just adversaries all the time, learning how to get better at combat and shit..
right, games are the current substitute.. many men aren't interested in games, because there's nothing real about them, and i don't think it really suffices as a substitute in general..
I think part of this is a result of toxic masculinity issues. I remember reading a comment by a trans man on how his friendships had changed after he transitioned, and while part of it was how his friendships changed with women he had been friends with before he even transitioned, he also talked about how his friendships with men were missing a major part that had made his friendships with women before he transitioned so deep - and that was emotional vulnerability. Similar to what you’re saying, he found that it generally isn’t socially acceptable for men to form true, emotional connections with other men outside of scenarios that emulate life or death situations. Things like hunting, or sports that were originally created to keep soldiers fit outside of war are acceptable situations for men to build that camaraderie. Outside of these kinds of scenarios though, men aren’t allowed to be emotionally vulnerable with each other and make true friendships that go beyond a surface level, leaving them emotionally isolated and stunting their emotional growth and well-being. He also theorized that this is probably why men mistake women being friendly as them being flirtatious since women have that deep emotional connection in all their friendships, while men are only really allowed it with romantic partners, but that’s outside the scope of this conversation.
telegraph.co.uk
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