Right but “upgrading to the next level” is exactly the type of cognitive error that I’m against, it’s forward-looking Whig history. There is no “levels” of civilization, there’s only the arrangements we have now and the ones that will occur in the future. Maybe those arrangements will have different pros and cons than we have now, maybe they’ll have more sophisticated engineering practices, but there’s no objective “development score” that is being maximized it’s just more humanity.
Tech development != tech tree, history is nonlinear and ecological. Linear, unlockable "tech trees" are an ahistorical fantasy necessary to make some video games fun and digestible. Applying them to the real world is like trying to win a war by replicating the Battle of Helm's Deep or something.
From the article:
> We said criticality in 2026, electricity production in 2027, and power to the warfighter in 2028.
Are there any other examples of land-based militaries using nuclear power? Seems kind of like since they can't talk about the energy transition or w/e this has to be a military thing instead.
It's more of an engineering call than something that can be purely determined from inductive reasoning. I think most engineers working in the space would say "both" are needed, but partisans exist on both sides.
I think there’s a difference between full-on “bullying” and what I’d call “blunt criticism”. I think bullying requires an intent to silence or otherwise coerce through fear. Blunt criticism is more about skipping the niceties and saying it plainly, and accepting that your subject might get offended as a result. Calling someone “tacky” is way more in the blunt criticism camp I think. It’s certainly not “nice”, but there’s no way that I read this blog article as trying to change Mark Zuckerberg’s mind through fear. Nobody is getting pilloried for being tacky, and tackiness can even be repositioned as desirable through the lens of nostalgia or similar.
> The government is going to suck at funding the right things
I'm pretty sure you have this totally backwards. People who study scientific development seem to think that the government is actually a really effective funder of research, and covers gaps that would never be addressed by private industry. See for example:
I can think of a few angles that might have pushed them towards gas, mainly (a) they wanted on-demand generation cap, (b) they didn't want to get into the batteries game at the volume they'd require, or (c) they didn't want to deal with securing the space needed to produce 2.6GW of solar. Also yeah they're definitely not price-sensitive, any of the hyperscalars is more than happy to pay extra to get exactly what they want.
edit: for example that EIA list of new solar projects you linked indicates that the largest battery installations going up in '26 are all ~500MW, and that there are only four of them (of that size). I think the energy intensity of a multi-GW datacenter is the main reason that they're not going for solar here.
> Selling labor for money is the exact same transaction as walking into Walmart and buying a banana.
In the same comment you say that the government has to help guarantee that Walmart won't exploit you in this banana purchase transaction by outlawing price gouging and monopolization. If labor is the same type of transaction, it stands to reason that certain types of employment can be exploitative, despite the 'voluntary nature' of the transaction. Is your issue with the 'Uber exploits their contractors' framing simply based in the fact that Uber has not broken any labor laws?
Since you're having trouble following me I'll give a quick summary here. You initially said:
> if all these drivers are getting horribly exploited why are they doing it?
My point is simply that this is crap reasoning: people voluntarily participate in exploitative interactions all the time if they lack genuine alternatives.
> When we talk about labor negotiations, that word should indicate theres no exploitation happening
So in a world where no labor negotiation is happening, is exploitation possible? If Uber drivers had no legal recourse to form a union (or no avenue to otherwise participate in genuine negotiation with their employer), would it be fair to say that they might be in an exploitative employment relationship?
> Everyone working for Uber is doing so voluntarily.
Personally I don't feel that this precludes exploitation taking place. Exploiting someone is taking advantage of their hard circumstances or lack of alternatives to unethically profit (in the usage that I'm familiar with). For example I would consider hiding fare pricing breakdowns from employees and consumers, so that you can leverage their lack of information to increase your profit share, to be 'exploitative'; particularly if you hold a virtual monopoly on the taxi market in an area. For an example outside the gig-work world I'd point to price-gouging as another type of 'voluntary' exploitation; consumers may be 'consenting' to pay extremely elevated prices, but if they have no meaningful alternative and genuinely require what is being sold then it's not really 'consent' so much as 'resignation'. IMO true consent requires genuine options, not just that you signed your name on the dotted line.
Well it's the drivers themselves who voted to join the union, so presumably there's something they want to see changed. No need to speak for people who've already found their voice.
Not sure why you want to bring race into this, people from all backgrounds have the right to free association and deserve labor representation.
> No doubt good for them, but I am curious how this is realistically going to work.
Seems like kind of a pilot-program nationwide TBH. The article links to another article last year about an MA ballot measure which made it possible for gig-work drivers to unionize in the first place (since independent contractors aren't covered by the NLRB at a federal level). It seems that the state labor board intends to sponsor the negotiation process, and per the ballot measure text would be responsible for figuring out what to do if negotiations broke down. Summary of the question is here, if you're interested (full text of the law is linked there): https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/elections/publications...
It's not goodwill though, I'm paying for public services like the fire department through my taxes. I like them to be owned by the government instead of a private entity because I don't want to pay the capitalist rent for borrowing their money; if we pool our resources we can cut out the middle-man and just fund it ourselves. Very typical human living arrangement I believe.
A robust and aggressive consumer protections bureau is a handy way for me to feel secure while doing basic economic operations, without having to handle a ton of one-off research on my own. For example I'm strongly in favor of medical licensure, it seems nuts to me to say like "if an adult consented to a surgery who's the state to quibble over whether the surgical tools were properly sterilized". Similarly gambling licenses seem like a reasonable regulation to ensure honest behavior in an industry with many avenues for corruption and double-dealing (or at least provide legal avenues for recompense in cases where the house deviates from the guidelines required by their licensure).
> It's trendy to blame cars for this but the problem is fundamentally zoning
> you thereby need a car to leave the vicinity in order to get anywhere you can.
I hear your point but I think your causal model is misguided. It's two different things augmenting each other, not "one is a more primal cause than the other" (in my opinion, anyways). Like yes road diets in the suburbs won't 'solve' the problem by themselves, but the impact of the zoning changes you're pointing to may also have the impact of reducing car dependency in the area (although not guaranteed, I've seen USians drive even just half a mile). Cars collapse distance, and zoning policy eats up those gains greedily. SFH zoning spaces everything 10 miles apart, so all the residents buy cars because there's no alternatives. It's multiple threads reinforcing each other; I think if you dig into the ""trendy"" anti-car arguments you will find a lot of backing for mixed-used zoning policy as well because both types of changes are needed at once.
Extending an abstraction beyond its expressive capabilities is an error IMO.