91–100 of 141 posts
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Women’s rights, gay and trans rights and human rights were hard fought for. Defending them is progress.
Apart from human rights, it's up to those individual groups to defend them, not to society as a whole. That's why you've got Trump, because other parts of society are pissed off with DEI policies.
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You can hate the Chinese system for how it limits human rights, cracks down harshly on dissent, and stifles many creative outlets. Hating China or the Chinese people, which are like anywhere, generally lovely people, is silly. There's plenty of nonsense coming from the mouth of the Party, but it doesn't make the US news, because it's not aimed at the US. There's also a lot less news overall which discusses and critiq…
lol, abortion is perfectly legal in China, the government doesn't control women's bodies. Certain policies are more set and less up to discussion after a period of experimentation. Political system in China is more geared towards not letting human or interest groups desires reflected in national policies. Instead, national policies reflect the common good and common sense. And political system helps to unify common s…
Maybe I'm misreading, what do you mean by this? China has plenty of prostitution in case that's what you meant.
> the government doesn't control women's bodies.
Peng Shuai might have something to say about that. Or she would, if doing so wouldn't have cost her career.
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Uranium is pretty abundant. The US has a lot, China twice as much, Kazakhstan a lot more, and Australia puts everyone to shame. Thorium isn't ready to be fuel and must be enriched (granted, you need to do this for uranium too but some is naturally in a fissile state). So there's things like breeder reactors that enrich during the cycle but this is challenging and presents other issues such as turning it into weapons…
Isn't thorium also pretty abundant? Judging by this, the US has around six times as much thorium as uranium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_thorium_r... I've also never really gotten the proliferation concern. I mean, sure, you don't want to sell a breeder reactor to Iran. But why can't you sell one to PG&E? Are we that concerned that…
Well, good. It's a shame nobody else has stepped up to do this first. Maybe China doing it first will help get the ball rolling.
No one's really tried producing a commercial thorium reactor because it isn't really commercial so far - the costs are much higher than uranium.
I don't understand why the West hesitates with nuclear power.
The safety worries lead to excessive regulation and higher costs.
Here's how it's going in the UK with Hinkley C, our first new reactor for 30 years - "EDF now estimates that the cost could hit £46bn" for one reactor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68073279
Also while nuclear costs rise, renewables plummet https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=6053
From World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2024:
>Solar and wind power capacities alone grew by 73% and 51%, respectively, resulting in 460 gigawatts (GW) of combined new capacity versus the 1 GW decline in nuclear.
>In China, a major energy market, over 200 GW of solar capacity was added compared to 1 GW of additional nuclear capacity.
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"China's energy independence will threaten our national security!" -- trump, probably...
Well, at some non trivial level it’s also true. The petrodollar and the US’s central role in protecting/enabling it is great for US national security.
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You can hate the Chinese system for how it limits human rights, cracks down harshly on dissent, and stifles many creative outlets. Hating China or the Chinese people, which are like anywhere, generally lovely people, is silly. There's plenty of nonsense coming from the mouth of the Party, but it doesn't make the US news, because it's not aimed at the US. There's also a lot less news overall which discusses and critiq…
lol, abortion is perfectly legal in China, the government doesn't control women's bodies. Certain policies are more set and less up to discussion after a period of experimentation. Political system in China is more geared towards not letting human or interest groups desires reflected in national policies. Instead, national policies reflect the common good and common sense. And political system helps to unify common s…
Commence, maybe. Given their lead in pebble bed, I wonder why? Probably competing teams and competing funding and goals. Thorium was in test decades ago in the USA and its applicability to large scale power with lower proliferation risk is given. I think the article's pointing out how much usable thorium China has as a side effect of rare earth mining may get to the heart of things: people with giant trash piles look…
China has a portfolio strategy when it comes to nuclear technology (and energy systems in general).
It's almost a free for all without too much worries about regulation whether cars, nuclear, viral gain of function, high speed trains etc.
I don't understand why the West hesitates with nuclear power.
Two reasons - cost and safety worries as in Chernobyl/Fukushima/waste etc. The safety worries lead to excessive regulation and higher costs. Here's how it's going in the UK with Hinkley C, our first new reactor for 30 years - "EDF now estimates that the cost could hit £46bn" for one reactor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68073279 Also while nuclear costs rise, renewables plummet https://skepticalscience.com/pri…
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Well, at some non trivial level it’s also true. The petrodollar and the US’s central role in protecting/enabling it is great for US national security.
I think the petrodollar has been given more weight than it deserves. The dollar's utility enabling international trade has more to do with the stability, freedom and general availability, than with the US enforcing it in any way.
And has bases in every country in the Middle East except Iran - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_in...]
The dollar is strong because the US military is everywhere. The US military is everywhere because the dollar is strong.
And oil is the strongest and biggest motivation for all this, but not the only one.
Though the US military burns massive amounts of oil to operate.