EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

Post by intermerda » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #32

Herring wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Study your history. Hurting yourself to hurt others is a well-established political practice in America. Climate issues hit the marginalized much harder than whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity_in_swimming

While I agree minorities are going to feel the brunt of climate change I’m not sure in modern political contexts the motivation is racial. There’s deep, growing resentment towards the entire so-called “Professional Managerial Class” - things like wind and solar power are a byproduct of their accomplishments. To kill these things off is a way to stick their finger in the eyes of undesirables; the fact that the externa…

Post by avmich » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

mothballed wrote: post #113

cogman10 wrote: post #99

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This is a bad idea. 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 in…

Honestly I will just thank my lucky stars most people believe this fiction you present, because it's keeping the more libertarian areas cheap and without too many busybodies. It seems you've not heard of public access private easements or private trash service, and you haven't learned how to shoot a bear. I pay like $50/month in property taxes and that's basically exclusively for public school and college, which whil…

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #124

andrewflnr wrote: post #103

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Kind of, but also, I've been watching my mainstream liberal friends update their beliefs about stuff, while conservatives still seem stuck. Certainly the point of being "progressive" is about being open to new ideas, and they don't entirely fail at their title. At least in America at the moment, I think the conservatives have it worse.

I think this has happened at times to all groups as well. Right now the conservatives are 'stuck' at least partially because of the cognitive dissonance required to elect and support the current admin. I think people on the left arguably did the same with various social justice initiatives. Things got crazier by the month for a while until people were genuinely afraid to speak, people were being cancelled for dubious…

Post by mothballed » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

avmich wrote: post #130

mothballed wrote: post #76

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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).

Are you questioning the idea of having goverments to solve tragedy of commons problem?

Post by mothballed » Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #119

mothballed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they paid private enterprises and didn't donate, they could recreate much of government functions, this time not under a monopoly with a captive buyer. I presume many people would want many of those services even if they chose to buy rather than donate them.

You tried that with healthcare. Turns out lots of people want to buy it, it just costs a large multiple of what everyone else in the world pay because actually a bunch of private sector middlemen doing the same adminstrative roles the government does isn't automatically more efficient.