Fried_out_Kombi @ Fried_out_Kombi @lemmy.world

embedded machine learning research engineer - georgist - urbanist - environ

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Joined

2 yr. ago

A big cast iron pan and two smaller carbon steel pans. I think I'll be able to pass them on to my grandkids.

That's a very good way of putting it. We've developed our cities in a fundamentally environmentally, socially, and fiscally unsustainable manner, but we were insulated from feeling the full impacts of it by being in relatively good times. But now those debts are quickly catching up with us with the climate crisis, housing crisis, widening inequality, rapidly degrading infrastructure, and quickly draining municipal budgets.

NIMBYs think if they just ban density that the 8 billion people in the world who need housing will just poof and disappear.

Personally, I prefer dense, walkable, transit-oriented cities so we can preserve as much nature as possible, and so the people living in cities aren't separated from nature by a sea of suburban sprawl.

No, a lot of people own condos. And even if you intentionally destroyed dense, urban areas for the sake of endless suburban sprawl, you would still have people needing or wanting to rent some of those houses. Students, people anticipating moving after a few years, lower-income folks, etc.

Me when mango, too

Yeah, I live in Montreal which gets like 90 inches of snow annually and can get down to the -20s Celsius regularly in the winter. And yet I (and many others) still bike throughout the winter. Turns out having good protected bike infrastructure and plowing it regularly in the winter makes biking perfectly practical even in the middle of a cold, snowy winter.

In fact, two of the best cities for biking in North America are Montreal and Minneapolis, both very cold and snowy in the winter.

Vote to allow more dense, mixed-use, transit-oriented development as well as more and better public transit. In many cases there's a chicken-and-egg problem of NIMBYs blocking new, denser development because of fears of bringing too much traffic, but the public transit that would allay those fears isn't built because there's not enough density.

And so what happens is places get stuck in a trap of perpetual car-dependence, which is bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and bad for social equality (cars are super expensive and thus a particular burden on lower income folks, and many people with disabilities simply can't drive).

The only way to break the cycle is for people to recognize what's happening and intentionally vote their way out of it.

Enshrinklification of the internet

What's kinda funny is we already have a mode of public transit almost everybody, even those who drive everywhere, use: elevators. Buses, trains, etc. are only seen as "yucky" because most people (at least in America) don't use them and refuse to spend their tax dollars on them, leaving them to be used primarily by the poor and desperate. But when you have public transit that is used by everybody, like elevators, you find they're well-funded and well-kept, and absolutely no one will bat an eye about having to use it.

Yeah, Canada and its closest allies (US, UK, etc.) have absolutely every reason to not want to stir the pot with India, considering India is considered critical in countering China in Asia. It'd be insane to pull a stunt like this unless they actually have damning evidence. I guess we'll all see what comes of this with time, but I'm strongly inclined to believe Canada for now.

That and India's response has basically been bald-faced whataboutism and "bUt He WaS a TeRrOriSt". Doesn't exactly endear me to believing India had nothing to do with this.

Oh yeah, I understood this is a pro nuclear meme. I agree with your meme.

Friendly reminder that air pollution from fossil fuels kill ~9 million people per year

Yeah, there's a ton of great journalism out there; you just gotta know who's doing it. One of the classic propaganda techniques isn't actually for a bad actor to convince you to trust them; rather, it's to make you distrust everyone else just as much, which now puts their propaganda on a level playing field with the legit journalism.

Like many things in life, the solution is nuance and understanding, not sweeping generalizations.

Exactly. It's stupid to be like libertarians and take a hardline stance on "regulations always bad!!" or "regulations always good!!". A regulation that bans building dense, walkable communities is bad and needs to be eliminated. Likewise, regulations that ban teachers from talking about the existence of gay people are also bad and need to be eliminated.

Just like we try to use regulations for good, many others use regulations for ill. It will always be context-specific specific whether we need more regulation or deregulation.

Honestly, I don't mind it, though. A lot of creators pour their hearts and souls into their content, and I'm sure social validation of their work feels wonderful to them.

This is exactly what I don't understand about people who want peace in Ukraine as soon as possible and at all costs: capitulation for the sake of short-term peace endangers long-term peace.

If we globally set the precedent that you can invade whomever you want and win just because you have nukes, that makes for a vastly more dangerous world. Every country with nukes will suddenly be more willing to go all imperialist, and all the countries without nukes will want to have them as a guarantee against invasion. And I don't know about y'all, but a world with way more nukes in way more hands is way more dangerous.

Plus, Putin has shown he'll keep on invading neighbors so long as he can get away with it. Delivering a crushing defeat to Russia and specifically Putin is the only way to achieve a more lasting peace.

Funny thing is it's actually bad for the economy at large to needlessly waste money. Money not spent on a new bike is money that could be spent on other things or other investments. But wasting your money is good for certain individuals, i.e., whoever sells you that new thing. We just have an economy structured around all of us acting like crabs in a bucket, pulling each other down just to try to get a little bit ahead ourselves. A better economy would be built upon cooperation and efficiency, not mutual sabotage and needless waste.

Parable of the broken window

Our they/them tanks can't be penetrated because they're all tops. Russian tanks are all bottoms.

Similarly, Russian ships and submarines are all bottoms... bottom of the ocean, that is.

You can tell a lot about how this person views the world by how they're utterly convinced that other men will look at their rolex with envy. I kind of pity people stuck in a frame of mind where they think they need flashy, conspicuous consumption to impress people.