TheDemonBuer

TheDemonBuer , 4 hours ago

That’s exponential growth, for yuh. Fossil fuels could decline significantly as a percentage of total, global energy consumption but we could still be emitting several tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide every year, if global energy consumption continues to grow.

Here’s what I mean: between 2013 and 2023, global energy consumption increased 14%. As of 2023, fossil fuels accounted for 77% of global energy consumption. Now, let’s say that between 2024 and 2034 total global energy consumption increases another 14%, but over the same period the percentage of our total energy that comes from fossil fuels DECREASES from 77% to 65% (a fairly significant decrease, I think), the amount of energy that comes from fossil fuels would have only declined 3.2% between 2024 and 2034.

TheDemonBuer OP , 12 hours ago

"A reduction in the share of workers can lead to labor shortages, which may raise the bargaining power of employees and lift wages — all of which is ultimately inflationary,” Simona Paravani-Mellinghoff, managing director at BlackRock, wrote in an analysis last year.

And while net immigration has helped offset demographic problems facing rich countries in the past, the shrinking population is now a global phenomenon. “This is critical because it implies advanced economies may start to struggle to ‘import’ labour from such places either via migration or sourcing goods,” wrote Paravani-Mellinghoff.

This is just mask-off capitalism. They want people to have a lot of babies, and/or large numbers of poor and desperate people migrating into the country, so that they have a constant, reliable source of cheap labor.

TheDemonBuer OP , 12 hours ago

Right? They must not think AI and automation can replace very many human laborers, otherwise they wouldn’t consider declining birth rates to be such a crisis.

TheDemonBuer OP , 10 hours ago (edited 8 hours ago)

I think the consensus is that it’s mostly as a result of women having greater reproductive choices, greater access to family planning services, and more women choosing to delay having children or choosing to not have children at all, often so they can instead focus on a career.

Edit: I want to point out that what I’m describing is the consensus, as I understand it, of mainstream experts in the US. However, I believe there is evidence that this consensus opinion is not entirely accurate. If I’m not mistaken, surveys indicate that there are a fair number of people who would like to have children but are not because the right circumstances are not present for them to feel secure enough to have children. Many of the people who are not having children would have them if they felt more financially, romantically, and/or emotionally secure. Therefore, it’s possible that it’s not so much that people are choosing not to have children as it is that the necessary conditions for making people feel secure enough to have children are not present for a large number of people.

TheDemonBuer , 13 hours ago (edited 13 hours ago)

If it’s a secret that Israel wants all of the territory that was Mandatory Palestine, including the West Bank, then it’s the worst kept secret ever.

TheDemonBuer , 1 day ago

I’d rather pour hot sauce in my eyes than watch another debate between Biden and Trump.

TheDemonBuer , 2 days ago

I’m sorry but I’m going to have to stick with Windows for gaming.

That’s ok, I forgive you.

Seriously, Windows works better for a lot of people, and that’s fine. I went back to Windows several times before I made the switch permanently to Linux. You just gotta do what works for you.

If you decide to try Linux again, I would recommend a distro like chimera OS, nobara, or just vanilla fedora. I’ve personally had a lot of luck with those distros.

TheDemonBuer , 6 days ago

I don’t think the US needs more single family homes, I think we need more, or at least more affordable, multifamily housing. Suburbs are expensive, inefficient, and bad for the environment. What we need to be doing is bringing down the cost of housing in cities, as well as making cities as pedestrian friendly as possible, with walking and biking infrastructure, and public transportation.

TheDemonBuer , 6 days ago

I think we need a LOT more of this kind of housing, to make housing as affordable as possible for everyone.

TheDemonBuer , 7 days ago

…the Nato chief also announced that more than 20 nations are expected to meet a defence spending target of 2% this year - more than any other year since it was pledged in 2014.

“This is good for Europe and good for America, especially since much of this extra money is spent here in the United States,” he said.

And their true motivations are revealed.

TheDemonBuer , 7 days ago

Enforcing US hegemony and funneling money to the US military industrial complex are related causes.

TheDemonBuer , 12 days ago

The solution requires a new ideological paradigm, but transitioning into the right paradigm would be extremely difficult and it would likely take a very long time.

I think the US is already in the process of transitioning to a new paradigm, away from neoliberalism, which was the dominant paradigm over the past half century or so, to something else. However, I’m not sure we are transitioning into the “right” paradigm. I think the paradigm we are transitioning into is more protectionist than neoliberalism. We are moving away from globalization and towards something more like the cold war era, where the world was divided along ideological lines into a “first world” and a “second world.” I expect the new paradigm we are shifting into to be more antagonistic toward “unfriendly” nations. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to lead to some kind of major conflict.

TheDemonBuer , 15 days ago

“The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is comparable to where it was around 4.3 million years ago during the mid-Pliocene epoch,” NOAA said, “when sea level was about 75 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.”

TheDemonBuer , 19 days ago

We believe in the one person, one vote system of elections that our country was founded upon,” Missouri state Sen. Ben Brown, the ballot measure’s sponsor, said in an interview

Ranked choice is one person one vote. One person enters the voting booth and votes once. It’s not as though ranked choice voting gives some people the opportunity to vote multiple times, every voter is allowed to rank the candidates one time.

TheDemonBuer , 21 days ago (edited 20 days ago)

I certainly don’t expect things to turn around in my lifetime. The future I want would require radical, systemic changes, but most Americans don’t want anything to radically change. That doesn’t mean a majority of Americans are happy with things the way they are, not at all, but they don’t want to radically change anything, despite their unhappiness. The majority of Americans want things to get better without anything fundamentally changing. I believe that’s one of the definitions of insanity.

TheDemonBuer , 19 days ago

I’m certainly not suggesting that wanting change is all that’s required for change to happen, but it is a very necessary first step.

TheDemonBuer , 25 days ago

Sorry, no victory laps for someone who failed to beat one of the worst presidential candidates in American history.

TheDemonBuer , 27 days ago

Jobs suck. That’s not news, everyone has known that for a very long time. Sure, some jobs suck less than others, and some people genuinely enjoy their job, but generally jobs just suck. That’s why they have to pay you to do them. But it takes more than a paycheck to make a job worth it. There was a time in America where the average person could work a job (albeit, often a sucky one) making a decent wage working only 40 hours a week, take a vacation every year, own a home, have a family and a community, all the things that make working a sucky job worth it. Over the last fifty years or so, many or all of the things that make working a sucky job worth it have slowly become less and less accessible to many people.

I am one of those people. I worked full time. It sucked, as many jobs do, but after putting in a full day’s work I didn’t go home to a wife and kids or a life that made me feel happy and fulfilled. I would drive my hour commute, which I hated, pick up take out or fast food, come home and watch TV, play video games, smoke pot, and drink. I’d go to sleep, wake up the next day and do exactly the same thing. I did that for years. I was absolutely miserable. People can’t live like that.

TheDemonBuer , 26 days ago

If you’ll notice, I used past tense. I have made a number of changes to my life over the past several years. One of the first things I did was quit my job. My life now isn’t perfect, but it is improved. I drink less and I don’t smoke pot any more. I also don’t eat out hardly at all. I learned to cook and now I prepare nearly all of my own meals. I don’t know that I’d say I’m happy, but I’m certainly less miserable.

TheDemonBuer , 28 days ago

I have a feeling that “tragic mistakes” will keep happening until all the Palestinians are gone from the territories Israel wants to annex.

TheDemonBuer , 29 days ago

Consumer spending fuels economic growth…Job and wage growth helped counter the hit to consumers wallets from rising inflation, but a continued slowdown or reversal there could tip the scales…“While these indicators do not necessarily predict a recession, especially with a robust labor market, a weakening in employment conditions could exacerbate household financial instability,” said Gregory Daco, EY chief economist. “The combination of subdued job growth, sluggish income progression, and diminished savings could lead to increased delinquencies and a potential retrenchment in consumer spending.”…retail spending unexpectedly stalled in April in a sign of consumer fatigue and worry. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, has said its customers are spending more on necessities and less on discretionary goods like home furnishings and electronics.

Why does no one talk about the cost of housing? Housing is astronomically expensive, and the more people have to spend for housing, the less they will have to spend on everything else.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I live in a very rural area and I have very fast fiberoptic broadband, provided by a local, not-for-profit cooperative. Absolutely the best Internet service I’ve ever had.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

More than half of Americans — 56% — mistakenly believe the U.S. is currently in a recession…That’s not the case…The U.S. economy, as measured by GDP, is growing.

I think it shows that GDP is not necessarily a very good measure of how an economy, or society, is doing. GDP can go up for reasons that don’t really have anything to do with the lives of average people improving in any meaningful way. Plus, the rate of growth in Q1 was, what, like 1.5%? That’s very modest growth. The economy is not exactly roaring.

So GDP is growing and we’re not in a recession, but that doesn’t mean the economy is “good” or “strong,” necessarily. It takes much more to determine the strength of the economy than just looking at GDP figures.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I’m not down on the economy, the economy’s down on me.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

But until we come up with a better system, cheering for the collapse of the stock market hurts pretty much everyone

We’d better come up with a better system fast because regardless of who is or is not cheering for what, no asset market goes up in value forever. Market corrections are a natural part of any market cycle and many people believe the stock markets are generally overvalued at present. Some people would even say that the current market “bubble” is being propped up by people who don’t want a correction to occur because it would mean a decrease in their retirement savings, but all that does is all but guarantee that when the inevitable correction does occur, it will be more severe than it needed to be.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

i’m not about to liquidate my accounts just to stick it to the man.

I didn’t say you should. I am saying that under the current model, investors, including individuals whose retirement accounts are tied to the stock market, need to accept and allow for periodic market corrections, otherwise asset bubbles will form, making much more severe crashes inevitable. The problem is, investors don’t plan for or are willing to accept periodic corrections, they will only accept their accounts going up, at an increasing rate, forever. Needless to say, that is impossible.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

This is America. We’re all in a zero sum, winner take all contest for wealth, status, and power. It’s every man for himself. It’s not just that people don’t want to pay for other kids to get a good education, it’s that they want their kids to have every advantage possible. They will openly admit as much. They don’t just want their kids to get a good education, they want their kids to get a better education than everyone else. Inequality is the goal. Inequality doesn’t happen by accident, it’s completely intentional. When life is a competition, everyone is an opponent. You don’t help your opponent, you try to gain every advantage possible.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

It’s not zero sum - it’s just that rich fuckers steal so much value from the system that all we have are the scraps they leave behind.

That sounds zero sum to me.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

…an ongoing surge in demand from millennial home buyers has steadily pushed home prices higher

The thing is, housing is a universal human need, so as the population goes up, the demand for housing will go up as well.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

Nice try, Joe, but I will never buy a Tesla. Ever.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I would consider it, though they don’t currently sell anything I would consider to be affordable.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

Everyone always forgets the “it just works,” easy, normie distributions like Fedora. I guess people figure if you’re looking for an OS like that, you might as well just use Windows, but I’d rather not.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

What happens when distinctive cultural tradition collides with corporate America?

Corporations have a fiduciary obligation to maximize profit for shareholders. That is the primary reason for their existence. It is not to meet a need, promote well being, or respect cultural traditions, it’s only to maximize profit. If in the pursuit of maximum profits a corporation does end up meeting some need or promoting well being, it is incidental. Popular theory is that the companies that best meet their consumers needs will also be the most profitable, but reality is much more complicated than that and this theory often doesn’t hold up, which is unfortunate because it is the basis for our entire economic system. We have built our entire economic system on the idea that the pursuit of profit should be the highest ideal. I think we can now say conclusively that was a mistake.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

It certainly seems that in the vast majority of cases, shareholders feel their trust is best honored when profits are maximized, and that their trust is violated when profits are insufficient.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

But I think you can understand why three years of improvement after four decades of stagnation might not dramatically move peoples’ perception of the economy. Plus, are real wages up for everyone? Is it average real wages? Median? There’s a big difference. It’s entirely possible some people are experiencing much more real wage growth than others.

Edit: apparently a lot of you are confused. You seem to think that if wages are up for some, they must be up for all. That’s not how it works. Not everyone got a raise over the last three years. Some people did, others didn’t. Some people saw their income increase dramatically, some saw their income stay about the same, and some saw their income go down. And that’s true whether the incomes in question are measured in “real” (inflation adjusted) terms or are nominal figures.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

Ok, I looked it up. Here’s what I found from investopedia:

Real income is how much money an individual or entity makes after accounting for inflation and is sometimes called real wage when referring to an individual’s income. Individuals often closely track their nominal vs. real income to have the best understanding of their purchasing power.

Now that I have an exact definition, explain how anything I wrote was a “dumbass question.” Frankly, I don’t think I’m the dumbass here…

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I don’t think there are very many people in the US who are “anti-white.” I think a majority of Americans are against white supremacism, or a racial hegemony/hierarchy that has “whites” at the top. That doesn’t mean I want a hierarchy that has another group at the top, I want no hegemonic order at all. I think most Americans would prefer it if we could all just see each other as, well, Americans.

I realize that’s easier said than done in this very divided era. I can’t deny that I have a hard time seeing some people as my countryman, because their culture, beliefs, and ideals are so much different than mine. I’d like it if we could reach some kind of consensus on what it means to be an American. I think we will reach a consensus, but getting there is going to be… contentious.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I’m sick of these articles telling me what I value. You know what I really value? Stability, security, peace of mind. I don’t want a mansion, a million Instagram followers, or a passport full of stamps, I just want a decent, relatively simple life. I just want to be happy and content.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I wish I hadn’t installed the update. I was hoping it would make the game run better on the steam deck, but it’s actually worse. I think they’ve increased the graphical fidelity, but it’s come at the expense of the battery. I found a work around to get the game launcher to come up so I could lower the graphics settings to improve battery life, but that doesn’t fix the bugs. They seem to have gotten worse with the update. Never change, Bethesda. Never change.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

Heat up or cool off, who cares. It’s the rich who benefit, either way.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I know it’s not exactly the same but I worked for a credit union, they are member owned. All of the workers and customers are members and the members are the owners. It was a really good place to work. It was technically not-for-profit, so our surplus at the end of the year was reinvested into the institution, rather than being paid out to shareholders.

TheDemonBuer , 1 month ago

I’m not young, but I feel the same way as these young people. I don’t care about this country, I don’t care about its people, and I don’t care about its future. It’s like that Bob Dylan song, “I used to care, but things have changed.”

TheDemonBuer , 2 months ago

I will never understand Trump’s appeal to anyone, but it’s an undeniable fact that he is appealing to some people. I think we should try to figure out why, objectively.

TheDemonBuer , 2 months ago

I really don’t think cost-benefit analysis is going to sway very many people. A lot of people continue to believe in the idea that humans are wholly rational, calculating, utility maximizing individuals, and thus if we just show them how much money they can save, they’ll support climate mitigation efforts. But this model of rational economic man is wrong. Maybe it describes some people well enough, but I think it’s a poor representation of how most people think and behave.

Humans are not wholly “rational.” We are often influenced by emotions and our passions that can be decidedly irrational. But the thing I really take issue with is this continued narrative that humans are fully atomized individuals. It absolutely needs to stop, it’s simply untrue. Humans are social, hyper social, even. We form all sorts of interconnected relationships, we depend on them, even, and we are highly tribal by our nature. It is how we evolved, it is how we survived. We are here because our ancestors formed tightly connected groups of people, with common purpose, common culture, common language, and common belief systems.

Do you know why so many people continue to deny climate change and fight against climate mitigation efforts? Because it’s what their tribe tells them to do. They are being told by the members of their tribe that they respect and admire that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by an enemy tribe. They’re being told that climate mitigation efforts are an attack on their culture, their way of life, and they’re being told this by bad actors who deliberately use people’s tribal nature against them, to manipulate the people into supporting them and their interests. We need to use culture for progress, so that it can’t be weaponized against progress.

The sooner we shit-can the rational economic man model and start seeing people for what they really are: social beings who are highly motivated by emotions and passions, and the sooner we recognize the importance of culture and group identity, the closer we’ll be to an actual solution.

TheDemonBuer , 2 months ago

Even Kurzgesagt is now admitting that interstellar travel might be too difficult to be worth it, even for very technologically advanced civilizations.

TheDemonBuer , 2 months ago

I think this whole bathroom thing is just stupid. While I don’t really care who is shitting in the stall next to me, apparently some people do, but I think there’s a pretty simple solution: replace stalls with water closets. I mean, nobody likes the stalls. No one prefers them, and the total lack of privacy they provide is why bathrooms are gendered in the first place. Replace stalls with water closets, everyone gets their privacy, bathrooms don’t have to be gendered anymore, problem solved.

TheDemonBuer , 2 months ago

Most of the world’s carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels, so, yes, it would be those fossil fuel producers who would be linked to those emissions. I suppose we could all come together and force those companies to shut down and cease operations immediately. Global greenhouse gas emissions would plummet, but the global economy would collapse and there would be mass starvation and death.