Sconrad122

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

There are many leaders in each American political party, the leader of their representatives in the house, the leader of their senators, the leader of the party committee, the leader of the governor's association, etc. But when a party controls the White House, the president is generally considered the head honcho. Part of that is respect for the office, part of it is practicality (the president has the biggest ability of any one person to message a party's platform), and part of it is mechanics (every four years at the national convention, the party adopts the platform of their presidential candidate, essentially signing up to work for that person if and when they become president to support enacting that platform. Chuck Schumer is the Majority leader of the Democratic Senate caucus, which makes him very high ranking in the party, but Biden would still "outrank" him, so to speak. Jaime Harrison is the DNC chair, which is largely a fundraising and campaign strategy position vs. a position of power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Spending energy to convince conservatives to vote D is not a winning strategy. The idea is to convince those who are convincable, not to create some epiphany moment when all the Republicans stand up and say they were wrong and switch parties. This is naming and shaming as an electoral strategy, not as a punishment

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

It's easier to read if you read it as a line spoken by the Silicon Valley TV character Jian Yang

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

These aren't actually bills. The press release in question is documenting Rules that the mentioned agencies are proposing adding to the CFR, which is controlled by the executive branch (although Congress does have some oversight/ability to veto that has grown recently due to Conservatives wanting to curtail the ability of a Democratic executive to improve people's lives without negotiating through a Republican controlled filibuster) and separate from the US that is the set of laws controlled by the legislative branch. And these are separate rules within the CFR, probably not related to each other at all except for both being mentioned in the same press release.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

To be honest, I'm struggling to keep track of the points you are making because you brought in several tangential topics all at once without much context (shale gas vs. oil, oil exports, LCOE, Poland all in a thread about solar energy in Finland compared to fossil fuel energy in Texas). I'll just point out that the US is #4 in oil exports, by either barrels or export value (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_exports) and the number one oil producer (source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production), so I think it is pretty obvious that the investments into fossil fuel infrastructure in the US are well and above what is necessary for a "strategic reserve" use case

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Right now a lot of "renewable energy" sources are subsidized in Europe for only political reasons.

I can assure you the same is true for fossil fuels in Texas right now, so I don't see how this is a strike on renewable energy

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Respect to those folks. A miserable ride is often rewarding because it's one of those lows that is eminently temporary and gives you an appreciation for the highs, especially if you are dressed appropriately so as not to catch a cold or some such. Kind of like shoveling snow for that sweet sweet mug of hot chocolate on the sofa afterwards. But yeah, also a good city will provide alternative options for its citizens, trains, buses, rideshare even. If a 30 mile bike ride is the only alternative to driving from place A to place B, your government doesn't want you to have any kind of freedom to choose how you get from place A to place B, if there are no affordable housing options or good job opportunities that change that equation, your government is working on behalf of the big car manufacturers and dealers to keep you enslaved in debt to them, which is pretty fucked up

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

How quickly do you think these things happen? Billions of those dollars have gone to projects like CAHSR, Brightline West, and the NEC maintenance backlog, among a host of other projects. The fruits of this spending are something we will really see around 2030 for the most part. Also, worth pointing out that subways are usually funded separately from intercity rail, which was the focus of that announcement. Separately, that same act funded 700 million in new rail car purchases for 7 public transit systems (4 light rail systems, 2 subways, and 1 Commuter rail), 1.7 billion for new lower emissions buses for a number of systems across the US, 13 million for a new transit oriented development pilot program, and a number of other programs. It's not as flashy as the turn of the century subway system build outs in Atlanta, DC, and San Francisco, and there's just so much room for more because the US is absolutely starved for transit, but calling that an empty promise is just an absurd mistruth

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If a vote for Harris-Walz was a vote against an alternative that had a more positive plan for the Palestinian proletariat, sure. But let's be real, there is no clearer path to that presented as an option in this election, so securing more power for domestic workers is the most productive path towards bettering the position of both domestic and international workers. Nationalism is the focus on national success at the expense of the international good. It's not at all clear that there is an international opportunity cost here

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Only half serious, but saying "the highest number is best" next to a plot showing North Korea as second highest has to make you ask yourself if either the metric is flawed or your usage of the term best isn't in alignment with common parlance. A high density of medals per gdp per capita could be representative of an overinvestment into national prestige projects vs. other areas that may be more aligned to economic and social development. That probably goes for all three of the top three shown on this graph, to lesser or greater extents

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

Nvidia does not have a strong history of open sourcing things, to say the least. That last bit sounds like pure hopium

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

It's definitely not that. They are just pointing out that the right to free speech prevents the government from impeding someone's ability to say something, it doesn't (despite implications made by a lot of people who cry out that their right to free speech is being impeded) force others to listen to or agree with that thing being said. If anything, the people that abuse the name of free speech by implying that it means people need to agree with them, or need to amplify their message, are attacking free speech by mudding the water around what it means and making it harder for good faith entities to invoke that right

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