Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.
Conservative people tend to protect their believes, no matter how wrong they are based on new evidence. Humanity has many examples of this happening through millennia, it is widely documented...
EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
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Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Obviously a lot of things can work more smoothly when people are willing to give away value for free. Obviously people are a lot more willing to give away value when it costs them virtually nothing (like roads in a rural area with definitionally extremely low traffic)
Somehow when the county maintains them, the "virtually free" roads somehow become enormously expensive. You can see the government having a monopoly and captive buyer causes them to be horribly inefficient, as they have no competition (and no private competitor will emerge when the price at point of use by their competitor is zero).
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.
Conservative people tend to protect their believes, no matter how wrong they are based on new evidence. Humanity has many examples of this happening through millennia, it is widely documented...
You can replace the label "Conservative" there with just about any ideology or political leaning.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conservative people tend to protect their believes, no matter how wrong they are based on new evidence. Humanity has many examples of this happening through millennia, it is widely documented...
right and so do libertans ,communists and socialists. Hanging on to false ideologies, no matter how disastrous, is not exclusive to right leaning its a human trait.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good. Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? And if that's about the products of coal burning, is it too hard to imagine breathing in hot air containing soot, fly ash, some obnoxious oxides, some unbu…
> I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD They do not, they have not, and they do not care. Those people livre purely in the world of words and rhetoric, where the only thing that matters is whether what you say gets a reaction out of people that will lead to you getting more power. Truth is what sounds good. I know, as a rational educated person…
That phrase is chilling, and perfectly describes what I've been feeling like where the society at large is heading.
Thank you for introducing it to me.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#96I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to think climate change is a hoax, and environmental regulations are in the way of earning money. Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good.
> Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good. Can somebody explain the psychology behind these beliefs? I'm pretty sure they know how coal is mined. They must surely have heard about the black lung disease and COPD. Where does this 'clean coal' concept come from? And if that's about the products of coal burning, is it too hard to imagine breathing in hot air containing soot, fly ash, some obnoxious oxides, some unbu…
They got bought out by coal and petroleum, so now they just lie to support them. I don't think anyone can legitimately believe these things.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#97I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to think climate change is a hoax, and environmental regulations are in the way of earning money. Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good.
In a way it is? Let me explain. The USA is big, but China bigger. If the USA over optimizes on reducing greenhouse gas today, at the expense of our long term economic and world power, China, who cares for less about preserving the world will continue to destroy the world and claim the most power simultaneously. So while we can reduce OUR footprint by taking ourselves out of the game, the world still loses. So now try…
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, now that taker states have figured out how to hack the system and bleed giver states while doing things such as neutering the EPA without facing electoral consequences, attitudes seem to be changing amongst people who previously were all right with subsidizing taker states on humanitarian grounds.
This is something baked into the constitution from the beginning. The entire reason we have the senate is because the less populated slave states didn't want to get steam rolled by the the more populated northern free states. It was an anti-democracy measure to ensure low population regions get over-represented.
i.e. California for a very long time, and even on rare occasion today, is constantly harassed by the DEA over intrastate commerce of marijuana despite the federal government having no power to do so. Californians were basically made to fund the extra-constitutional enforcement against them voted for by other states with per-capita outsized votes.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great idea. Who pays for it?
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Let's start off with the first point "They are just easements on private property" That's what most public roads are. They are still owned by the public (the government) and maintained by the public (the government). Where I'm from, we have plenty of dirt and gravel roads just like this. Once every 10 years or so the county comes in and re-gravels them. They are mostly only ever used by private individuals and they cross through private land, but they are ultimately public. There are actual dirt roads which are also publicly owned but unmaintained.
Where there are private roads, they've been an absolutely nightmare. What's happened with private roads is rich individuals tend to like to throw up gates and no trespassing signs on the roads. Particularly if it blocks off public land, which they don't own, and turns it into their playground. That happens all over the country. In particular you'll see it happen to lakes an on beaches all the time.
But finally, you benefit from the public road whether you want to admit it or not. And particularly when population density goes up, public roads become much MUCH more important. The model you propose is one that only works if we are in very rural locations. It completely breaks down as soon as you need to get goods into a grocery store or supermarket. We subsidize with our taxes the damage done to roads by shipping products and goods. Because I like eating fresh fruit and vegetables, I don't mind that I'm paying a little more taxes so I can have access to those goods. Along with amazon shipments and my mail.
There's a reason no ideal libertarian society exists, because they go to shit when they are tried (see Argentina who is currently looking for a bailout from the US because of their dumb economic policies that you likely support). There are plenty of failed "free town" experiments. The book "A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear" is an amusing story about exactly how this system ultimately turns into a trash heap city.
Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oooh I love this idea. We could have some sort of process where everyone gets a say in deciding how the money is spent. Except maybe rather than everyone doing that you could have instead people whose job it is to do it, and everyone gets a say in deciding who those people are. I wonder if this sort of thing has ever been tried.
It was tried once. Unfortunately it was ultimately killed off by a corrupt leader who took over the military and started deploying them the cities to stop crime. That leader ultimately strong armed the other elected officials into doing his bidding leading to the destruction of the once great nation. He ignored the law and the will of the people. He was ultimately assassinated in 44BC. I believe his name was Julius C…
Probably led to his downfall. Augustus made sure to squash all potential sources of opposition before taking over.