Thanks for these!

Any good sources on this that you could recommend?

Also, YouTube ads are about the most random things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on YouTube for anything that I would actually buy. I’m not even nearly immune to ads, either. Show me a product that solves a problem for me and I’ll strongly consider it. Consciously and I’m sure subconsciously.

Google knows what I do for a living, where I live, and what I spend money on. Google also knows that I use YouTube primarily to watch videos in other languages. It’s not a secret to them. Yet they insist on trying to sell me products or services that have zero relevance to anything that I do. In English.

It makes me wonder if they’re even trying to profit through ads. I know the answer – no, not really – the advertiser is the customer, not me. It must be too complicated for them to realise that they could charge more for ads the more sales they led to.

We live distinctly under capitalism. No need for any other names that obscure that relation.

They want you to feel satisfied about doing your part in a way that earns them revenue, instead of focusing your energy on things that will cost the energy lobby money but actually have an effect.

What a perfect way to phrase it.

I see what you mean about those gas guzzlers. While they do make me irrationally upset, a much bigger problem is forcing millions upon millions of workers on daily commutes. This isn’t just about WFH, which would be a solution, but also of insisting on putting almost all employment opportunities at the end of the same clogged roads miles away from where anyone lives.

I think you’re right to point out that the argument against individualising the problem/solution should be applied evenly. It’s easy to individualise the problem when someone seems to be doing the exact opposite of helping.

That said, I’ve one challenge, which is about insulating your home. I’ve heard that a good air source heat pump will save more emissions than insulation (some leaky homes might be the exception) and at much lower overall cost to the consumer. They have to be set up right, though. Maybe it depends on building materials? It might be different for timber framed houses that have some insulation built in, anyway. Makes sense to put in better stuff during ordinary construction and maintenance of those.

It’s quite short. He did a TED talk, too, which presents a condensed version. The talk is also a bit liberalised to appeal to a wider, Canadian audience, but it’s an interesting listen nonetheless. (Interesting to note that he was attacked near his home today/yesterday by someone shouting his name. Looks like a political attack against a journalist. If it was, the forces of reaction are getting bolder again.)

I might disagree about the planet’s capacity. It may have one but we’re not close to it yet. The idea that it’s over populated is Malthusian and doesn’t lead to great conclusions. I don’t entirely disagree with you though, with your qualification:

…can no longer survive at the rate of current land/water use, not for long that is.

Destroying livable habitats so that Vegas and other dessert towns can can have water is a terrible project, for example. The problem is not the population but the political economy. The peoples indigenous to Turtle Island had a far more sustainable model than the current set of governors. The Red Nation’s manifiesto, The Red Deal, makes some powerful arguments. If you’re in the US, you might prefer starting with this than Bastani. (There’s a reasonably priced book and a pdf version on their site – the pdf is actually three pdfs but it’s the same content, if in a slightly different order to the book.)

I hope you enjoy either/both works.

Most likely the poster deleted the comment. The replies still exist in the lemmyverse but you need a direct link. If a mod deletes a post or comment, you’ll see it in the modlog (but you won’t be able to click through).

Real shame about the civilians. I can understand the will not to leave one’s home. But imagine just waiting on the edge of a battle not knowing whether the next missile will accidentally land in your flat. Traumatic. I wonder if people’s mind’s protect them by just zoning out the reality of it all.

Strange that the Ukrainians would only have one line. To my knowledge the Soviets learned this tactic fighting the Nazis. I’d have thought the Ukrainian military would not make the same mistakes as the early WWII Soviet army. If they do only have one line, it suggests that resources and reserves are in a dire condition. If Ukraine can only manage one line of defence, it would suggest that the war can’t last much longer, though—and it will be ‘easy’ for Russia to isolate troops and starve them out; and the sooner this shit ends, the better.

Thanks for the update. Do you know if civilians are still living in these areas? Or have they been evacuated in advance?

The problem is that phones are intentionally made to be addictive. There isn’t always a responsible way to use them at all if you have any apps other than ‘calls’.

Tackling the manufacturers and software designers would be more useful for everyone than an outright ban for children. Banning manufacturers and carriers from preloading and bloating phones with social media apps and any games would be a start. Platforms actually stopping (young) children from signing up might also help.

Or some of these things are made up?

What are the factors in the grain deal going wrong?

Homer was right –https://abcnews.go.com/US/us-heat-wave-latest-forecast/story?id=101598235 – it’s the hottest 21 days/3 weeks now. 🥵

I don’t agree with everything in it but you might want to read Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism. You’ll find that Marxists aren’t infatuated with growth for growth’s sake, nor with growth at the expense of the environment.

Well put. I think David Harvey explains this kind of thing in more depth in Rebel Cities. I’ll explain his work not as a correction, as I agree with you, but to add to what you said as a different summary might help you people who haven’t heard this before.

There’s a chapter on the ‘surplus capital absorption problem’. The successful capitalist ends every day with more money than they began with. What do they do with the extra, the surplus?

They can spend some, sure. But there are only so many things to buy. And if they don’t invest, inflation will make them poorer and their competition will become more competitive, stealing their resources, labour, and customers. Part of the surplus, then, must be invested.

But what in? Everything is already owned by someone. So that leaves new industries, and the destruction of other things that already exist.

New industries implies that it’s possible to keep building and building forever, leading always to use more and more scarce and harmful resources.

And destroying things only to re-build them isn’t always very nice for the people who live in and use those things. Destructive wars, and consumer goods that break every three years and can’t be replaced, are terrible for the environment.

But all this is the essence of capitalism. A system where commodities are produced for their exchange value, not their use value. This the ‘commodity form’. It’s the exchange of commodities for money that creates the opportunity to profit. It’s this profit that allows the successful capitalist to end every day with more money than which they began. The problem of climate change cannot be solved within this capitalist logic.

The essence of Marxism, one might say, is the critique of the ‘commodity form’ and everything that flows from it. (This is what Marx works out in Capital, Volume I.)

The essence of socialism is the attempt to dissolve the commodity form, to produce things for their use value, not their exchange value. When society makes things on the basis of need and use, several things can happen: no more war; we can make consumer items that last and that can be repaired; we can build habitable, green homes for people to live in, not for property developers to speculate; etc, etc.

The essence of communism is the society that comes after socialists have fully taken us beyond the commodity.

Hence the argument: socialism or extinction.

I remember reading a Mearsheimer article about the problem with offensives. Whoever defends, traditionally has a 3:1 advantage by virtue of staying still. But in a war like this, that can change from day to day or month to month. So while Ukraine doesn’t seem to be doing much of significance in its counter-offensive, I agree that Russia will have a hard time when it goes on the offensive again.

Still, the problem for Ukraine seems to be its size in comparison tp Russia. Going by the same article, Russia has a 5:1 to 10:1 artillery advantage and a 2:1 casualty rate in its favour. The longer the war, the greater Russia’s advantage, and every offensive and counter-offensive contributes to that advantage. What is 2:1 today will become 3:1, 4:1, etc, as the toll will always be worse for Ukraine, unless something drastic changes, which would come as a surprise if it happens.

As you say elsewhere, it’s all just a massive waste of lives. The sooner the decision-makers realise that and negotiate for peace, the better.

I wouldn’t rule that out with the cluster munitions which could easily slow them down.

Can’t say that would enjoy walking into that kind of maelstrom.

What are the potential targets of the build-up? Just advancing the line after Ukraine has exhausted a lot of it’s force on its counteroffensive? Or would there be a option between a few cities? Maybe cities that sit in the middle of several supply routes?

Not if Cuba bought the land to blast out “Havana Laugh Tracks: Top 100 Havana Syndrome Beats”.

If this was a one off, I’d entirely agree. But the choice selection of negative descriptors for anyone living outside the Anglo-European garden is incessant. So much so that it’s normalised.

To the extent that an article can use a word like circling to describe Chinese people in relation to the ocean so at to conjure up an image of sharks, and people will say, ‘you’re jumping at shadows; it’s just an innocent description’. This process is one of many that is used to perpetuate racism.

You posted an article about the need to mine for the materials used in car batteries, which are in increasingly high demand:

Demand for the minerals from which those batteries are made is soaring. Nickel in particular is in short supply. The element is used in the cathodes of high-quality electric-car batteries to boost capacity and cut weight.

Regardless, even if the article had not spoken of car batteries, the point still stands. Because one of the main factors in the notion of infinite expansion of mining is a political economy based on exponential growth. And this includes the exponential growth of the number of cars in use. Which is unsustainable. It would be fixed almost immediately by emphasizing maintainable and repairable public transport infrastructure.

Mining cannot be separated from the broader political economy. In the current political economy, public transport is far down the list of priorities. Thus it is erroneous to claim that the article does not concern another attempt to continue business as usual. Even if, I agree,

It’s possible to pursue several things at the same time…

Because that is not what is being discussed by the people who are writing about and doing the mining. Except, maybe, those Chinese miners, considering China’s phenomenal growth in HSR networks, unmatched and unseen anywhere else in the world except where China is building infrastructure.

money can’t be the final answer and reason for our actions especially when will still don’t use the current resources like we value them.

This is it. We need to radically rethink why we produce anything and what we should be using our precious resources on. For too long it’s been too easy for the profit-seekers to say, ‘I don’t care about this village or that ecosystem; how much money can I make if I destroy everything?’ It can’t continue.