Of course, and that’s part of the charm. They bag out like a pair of leather slippers. I read something recently about them using a shit ton more adhesive in the new Forester so maybe it’s improving? My 2015 isn’t that bad, but I hate driving in general so basic appliance standards is fine by me.

We’re talking about two different groups of people here. The working class trying to survive get a pass on individual actions because they have no means. They should probably vote and organize and get engaged to better their outcomes.

I’m talking about the millions of people that have the means, but just don’t because they quite literally don’t care. I see them every day. It’s the millions of people buying new $60k trucks and SUVs every few years, and large suburban homes, and who have trash cans that are 5x the size of mine that still can’t contain their mindless shopping detritus, and spend tons of money on trendy home furnishings but “don’t think solar makes sense” or don’t bother trying literally anything that reduces carbon.

I’m saying that giving millions of these people a pass because a billionaire is worse isn’t helpful, and expecting these folks to magically work towards sustainable collective action when they spend their entire lives living the opposite of sustainability is simply not going to work. If you can convince neighbors to get heat pumps solar and give them a test ride on your ebike and show them how easy it is to live without gas you can probably get them to vote for someone that is focused on the climate. Sitting around you and your neighbors matching F150s blaming China and Bezos and speaking in abstract terms about “collective action” seems less effective to me.

Sorry for the rant!

They’re not a distraction. Lots of us have solar, eliminated fossil fuels in the home, use public transit, don’t buy shit we don’t need, etc. Thats literally collective action, and we need a lot more people to do it. Nobody is pretending like their single action is going to magically fix everything.

What does collective action mean to you? We have tax incentives for electrification as a result of policies borne from voting correctly in 2020 - now actually getting those solar panels is an individual action that magically doesn’t matter? Or is it a result of collective action and it is ok?

Everyone should be doing as much as they possibly can given their means - personal and collective. It’s not an either or.

The point is that if everyone did what you (and I) do, we’d actually get somewhere. Seems like we’re in the minority though, unfortunately. That doesn’t make the person you replied to wrong, it just means most people continue to just blindly consume, and when they can’t consume as much as they want they blindly vote for asswipes promising them even more. That’s the cultural problem at the heart of this all. I’m running out of individual actions I can do too, but that doesn’t mean those were not helpful.

What kind of politicians are people voting for at the state level in GA? Separately, they’re also blowing ass loads of money on nuclear.

You’re absolutely right that he’s dumb. It would therefore be extremely easy for progressives to get their message out because Joe isn’t smart enough (nor cares to) push back. He just agrees with everything you say if you sound convincing. So why aren’t Democrats and progressives going on his show? We’ve entered this spiral where people like Kamala don’t want to “legitimize” him or whatever, despite him being the easiest person to talk to ever with a huge audience. Just play the game people! Ignoring this whole sphere isn’t working.

None of that changes the reality that they did not vote for harm reduction and now more harm will come to the people they purport to protect (and likely themselves, now that evangelical christians are in power). This is textbook shooting off your nose to spite your face. There is no rule saying you need to pass a moral purity test to earn a vote, that’s a dumb construct that is hampering progress. You can vote for harm reduction, it’s ok. The conservatives keep winning and moving further right. The democrats could win and move further left if their cranky coalition would accept not getting everything they want for once.

Lawyers hate this one weird trick! That wouldn’t work because you’re not actually being more “strict”, you’re still in opposition to the federal law. Being more “strict” means you’re still in compliance with federal law, you just do extra stuff on top. Semantics can’t change that.

How exactly does not voting/3rd party voting create any justice in your opinion? Opting out of our limited and imperfect democracy doesn’t magically create justice, it silences your own voice. Nobody here hates you, and broadly speaking the Democrats don’t hate you either. I can’t say the same for the cult of Trump. If you truly have a strong sense of justice, wouldn’t you want to at a bare minimum try to prevent am actual criminal from gaining power?

Who told you that your vote has to be based on morals and not practicality? It’s just a vote, you’re not swearing allegiance to them or agreeing with their every stance. It’s really not that complicated.

If you want to bring morals in, is it moral that women are literally dying because SCOTUS allowed states to deny women healthcare? Is deporting 11 million people moral? Seems like you get a lot of immorality when you let fundamentally immoral people have power.

What does this even mean? What TV shows are you even talking about? Indiana is a US state.

I’m too lazy to look this up, but I believe death rates were higher out of cities vs in cities. Half the reason hospitals were packed in cities is because rural people went where the ventilators were. Everywhere had all the covid waves, they just hit cities first.

Elderly tend to be more R, and D folks were more likely to mask and vaccinate. But elderly vaccinated pretty well across the board and the divide was bigger in the young. Lots of factors, but my money is on D making out slightly better as a broad cohort. Tragic all around though.

Ok I did some searching and excess mortality points to higher rural impact, but official cause of death data is mixed (too lazy to link though).

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-sas-comparing-urban-and-rural-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic

Unless the plan is something more like Terminator. If you “unshackle” AI and give them a mandate to get CO2 back to 250 ppm things are going to get real.

That’s entirely the wrong denominator for this comparison. IRS doesn’t write the budget nor do they write tax law, they just collect.

The original post I responded to was someone talking about how starlink lets them game in a rural RV. What about carbon emissions from thousands of rocket launches? What about atmospheric damage? What about astronomy? I’m saying the downsides don’t appear to be worth the upsides for these niche scenarios. Humanity survived just fine for quite some time before ultra remote Internet became a thing.

I’m not trying to alienate anyone, I’m trying to understand why low latency gaming needs for digital nomads is worth the real downsides of providing such a service (scientific, GHG, atmospheric tinkering, etc). I also believe that we should leave a lot more of the earth alone and that nature matters. I’m not trying to put people anywhere, just recognizing there are pros and cons to different living schemes, humans are social creatures, and population of 2 areas don’t warrant large societal investments. I’m similarly against a hypothetical drone sushi delivery service for rural Canadadian boreal forests if that happens to have real downsides too.

Scientists doing science > tech bro nomads cosplaying as explorers but actually just playing fortnite in a van. You’re also ignoring the other downsides besides spectral emissions. Read the article I linked.

The answer to what? If everyone does this, there won’t be a single remote place on earth that isn’t crawling with sprinter vans. It can’t scale, and it doesn’t need to be specifically catered to. You want the wilderness, you get the wilderness. You want low latency Internet, then get to a fiber connection. We don’t need every first world amenity everywhere.

Welp, I guess we’ll all have to suffer the consequences so that Lordkitsuna can game in the middle of nowhere. Truly first world problems.

https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-reentry-ozone-depletion-atmosphere

You’re right, 50k is the same as 30k, a 5ft tall hood is the same as 2.5ft, 40 mpg is the same as 20 mpg, and getting hit by a pickup is the same as a crosstrek. Look I ride a cargo bike most of the time and am very much fuckcars, but pretending like every since vehicle that isn’t a sedan is equally dangerous and polluting isn’t helpful.