Rob Bos @ rbos @lemmy.ca

Canadian, sysadmin, trans rights are human rights, puncha-the-nazis, cats a

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2 yr. ago

Even crazier that it's a logarithmic graph.

I can throw a rock and hit Vancouver!

Mind I'd have to walk a few minutes first.

Even with rolling stops, my tracking usually puts me around 20, 25 if I hustle a bit.

I was thinking more relaxed, city streets, stop signs every block. Average speed.

Downhill, maybe. I average like 20, though I don't push super hard.

That is not what I'm saying. And I'm done trying. Good luck.

I don't even have a driver's license so I can say it is technically possible to not drive!

And yeah I try to vacation close to home. Lots of great options. But nowhere warm in the winter.

I wish I could get somewhere tropical in the winter without flying. The USA is in the way.

Well, we're having different discussions then. Good luck.

You keep focusing on capitalism, but I'm working a little more generally than that. Any system that has markets would have the same issue, even anarchist ones. There has to be some feedback mechanism to reduce negative externalities on the commons. A centrally planned economy would struggle with it, as well as a fully distributed one.

We shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. We can do a lot of good with well thought-through taxes and regulations, and while it may not be ideal, it gets us toward a better world, a more sustainable world. We live in a highly dynamic system, and perfection is likely impossible and must take into account human irrationality.

Yeah, it's a problem. Our society is only sustainable to the extent to which we capture externalities through regulation and taxes, and efforts to undermine that entire concept is infuriating.

I agree that capitalism (as distinguished from straight markets) is the problem, yeah. Especially the part where the accumulation of capital influences the future accumulation of capital via the political process and externalizes cost to the commons.

Markets only work to the extent that they capture all costs in some form. If something is cheaper than the actual cost to society, you end up with problems.

So if (for an impractical example) oil producers had to pay to capture and sequester all the CO2 and methane implied by their oil and gas extraction, as well as repair all the direct damage their wells do, etc, the market might sort itself out. The "true" cost of oil might be $1000/barrel, and society would adjust accordingly. Of course, the time between point A and point B would involve a lot of misery with our current society.

Under capitalism, it would be difficult, but well regulated markets should be able to manage limited resources. The problem is that the negative externalities of meat are not being adequately captured, and meat producers are abusing the general Commons without recompense. That needs to be fixed with taxes or regulations. Then the market can balance around the true cost of providing meat, which would be much higher.

edit: grammatical typo, finished a sentence

Ngl my partner put a dishwasher pod on the counter the other day and I genuinely thought it was candy for an uncomfortably long second or so.

They murder so, so many birds.

If someone drive a truck full of money up to my house, I'd be hard pressed to say no. See Notch and Minecraft.

Amen. About the only thing that unites Quebec with the rest of Canada is a mutual distaste for the French.

The Anglo-Dutch wars. William of Orange landed troops in London in 1688 and took the throne with Mary II. It's more complicated than that, but it was a whole Thing. Charles II died, leaving James II in charge, but Catholicism was on the way out, and conveniently, William of Orange, a Protestant, was married to Mary II.

The undercurrent of anti-Dutch sentiment started back then still has remnants in the language. See "going Dutch" "Dutch courage" "Dutch treat" "Dutch uncle". :)

I'm mostly teasing. It's more funny than serious.

Have to capture the Dutch-Canadian.

Fun game. Hmm. Poutine van der Windmill.

Nobody does anti Dutch racism quite like the English. Comes of them being conquered by William of Orange back in the day.