• @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Almost every movie or show I’ve watched since I was a kid featured a cool shoot from the hip maverick that didn’t have time to do that nerd shit like making ethical safe choices or pondering over the legitimacy of some grand conspiracy. They never needed too. They all live in a world where grand conspiracy’s existed.

      30 years later my generation grew up and have a lot of media stored right next to actual memories. So egg heads are evil spineless nerds that work for evil faceless organization. The real hero’s are the guys that shoot first ask questions later.

    • Hyperreality
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      1 year ago

      Democracy. Everyone gets a vote, which leads people to think everyone’s opinion is equal.

      Insecurity. People don’t like feeling shit about themselves. It’s easier to find excuses to hate someone you suspect is better than you, than accept the sad truth that you’re less than them. We’re all narcissists to a degree.

      A lot of people fluctuate between narcissism and self-loathing.

      Vanity. It’s the devil’s favourite sin.

      • @[email protected]
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        151 year ago

        No democracy here.

        Democracy would mean that Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won their elections Just because more people voted for them.

        Republicans at every level of government get fewer votes yet hold more seats than Democrats.

        That’s not democracy, That’s something else.

    • @[email protected]
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      221 year ago

      Because generally the people with the money and power stand to lose by learning things they relied on for that money and power were bad.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 year ago

      It’s so much easier to sound completely sure of yourself and like you’re obviously right when you don’t know all the details. It’s profoundly easy to preach from mount stupid. Detail takes nuance, it comes with changing perspectives. It’s difficult and uncomfortable and requires humility. None of that is cool.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 year ago

      Ignorance is bliss. You can’t be depressed about what you know you won’t be able to or can’t achieve if you don’t know it. It’s even better when you don’t know that you don’t know it.

      Paint chip?

    • @[email protected]
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      41 year ago

      Tale as old as time unfortunately and it’s never any less depressing considering the advances we’ve had.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        When planes and distances get larger, hydrogen starts to make more and more sense. But I guess we won’t get that far and planes will stay with biofuel and synfuel.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 year ago

            You mean the famous accident where the thing that was completely different from an airplane was full of hydrogen and burned down for reasons completely unrelated to that hydrogen?

            • @[email protected]
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              01 year ago

              And no matter which therory you champion (sabotage, lighting, or static build up), the nature of hydrogen is to blow the fuck up with urgemcy.

              It is one of the most dangerous fuels.

              • @[email protected]
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                31 year ago

                Yeah, I was talking about this one. You should check it again, because the theory about it being caused by hydrogen is currently discredited.

                If by “one of the most dangerous fuels” you mean just after the more volatile fossil fuel ones, that’s right. It comes just after natural gas and gasoline. It’s safer than those exactly because it tends to leak from everywhere.

        • @[email protected]
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          121 year ago

          That’s unlikely to change for long distance flights.

          For short flights small electric planes are becoming viable already, and they will continue towards medium flights over time.

          But theres no serious concepts for a battery that could compete for long flights.

          That’s not to say that planes are doomed to be fossil dependent forever. But the likely solution will be a renewable high density fuel, possibly hydrogen or something easier to carry.

          It’ll be less efficient than batteries on a energy in to work out basis, but once the cost of carrying the weight is considered, that will always swing way in the favour of high density fuels regardless of battery efficiency (for long distance).

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            Honestly I wanna see the crazy logistics of using rocket fule, since it’s just liquid oxygen and hydrogen with a water byproduct

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Personally I doubt electric flight will ever be viable, but that’s because we should be using trains for short flights …. Says me from an urban area

            Me who grew up rural near a small city says …… what about connections from small city to an airport where I can go places?

            Me from when I worked at an investment management company and saw people with more money than they knew what to do with says …… I just need a quick hop down the Cape to my beach house (never mind that I was never one of those people)

            • @[email protected]
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              11 year ago

              There will always be people like that. There will also always be places where trains are impractical.

    • Fogle
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      111 year ago

      Yeah if it didn’t cost me 3 or 4 times as much and take a week instead of 5 hours I would much rather take a train than fly home across the country

      • @[email protected]
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        151 year ago

        Superconducting maglev trains can currently go about 70% the cruising speed of a 737, and could take you directly into a city center rather than an airport on the outskirts.

        Also, price isn’t only a function of supply and demand. We also choose to subsidize fossil fuels with public funds, to make them artificially cheaper.

        • Fogle
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          11 year ago

          I understand why the trains suck. I would love to make them better.

    • @[email protected]
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      371 year ago

      “people will always want to have a better society with less pollution so why even bother?”

      What a knob

  • @[email protected]
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    211 year ago

    https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/fossil-fuels-run/

    In figure 1 [4] we show the future energy reserves in billions of oil equivalent, Btoe, as a function of year. While we obliviously use up fossil fuels without taking stock of about what future reserves look like, we should take note of the endpoints shown here. These endpoints are dangerously close: Since our society is so dependent on fossil fuels, it therefore is extremely important for us to know when these fuels will run out according to [4]:

    Oil will end by 2052 – 30 years time

    Gas will end by 2060 – 40 years time

    Coal will last till 2090 – 70 years time

    However, according to BP [5], earth has 53 years of oil reserves left at current rate of consumption.

      • @[email protected]
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        221 year ago

        A lot of that extended when we discovered fracking. The industry will keep finding new and more expensive ways to locate and abuse natural oil and gas. I don’t think the world will “run out”, but it will certainly be too expensive for the majority of society. But that’s effectively the same.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        When I’m depressed, I think of it like …. We won’t run out, it just gets harder and more expensive to get, BUT we’ve already passed the point where we could recover in the event of civilization-wide catastrophe. We no longer have sufficient recoverable (as a less advanced society) energy sources to rebuild. If we fuck up now, that’s it for humanity

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Not just humanity. It might fuck up any other species that could give this civilisation thing a go after we’re gone.

      • @[email protected]OPM
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        51 year ago

        I think framing it as fossil fuels will run out in our lifetime, or the lifetime of the next generation stresses the urgency of the situation, and makes it more relatable than saying “fossil fuels will run out by year 20XX”. It feels harder to ignore that way.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      Another thing to think of is what it will look like as people grab at those last remaining drops. We already see it in loosening of restrictions to allow fracking, and moving villages and farms to scrape coal out of weaker and weaker deposits. The costs (not paid) of gathering this fuel will only increase and it’s already more than many are willing to tolerate, so the exact date of running out doesn’t matter at all.

    • @betz24
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      21 year ago

      What happens when we run out of fossil fuels? I understand fossil fuels are causing climate change/carbon issues. So why not just good riddance? Maybe I’m having a ‘shower moment’, but I think the change would force us to move to cleaner energy. Is there any intrinsic value to having pockets of sludge in the earth?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        What will happen, is 1000 more years of already changed climate, so that one’s not going back all that easily.

        Shutting down all fossil fuel use right now, would leave the world with a deficit of energy, meaning daily blackouts for starters, and a fleet of non-functioning cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes, with some industries getting severely crippled (cement, steel, aluminum production, or anything using electroplating processes).

        We’re already being forced to move to cleaner energy sources, because the high quality carbon and oil deposits are already gone; what’s left, is low quality stuff that’s more expensive to extract and less energy efficient. So a switch to renewables and nuclear it is for the foreseeable future.

        Is there any intrinsic value to having pockets of sludge in the earth?

        Other than not having it floating all around… not really. It’s likely going to get extracted until it stops being profitable, which is for a long time.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      You can throw up all over the place for all the difference it makes. Sure, there are benefits that sound great, but the reality is they don’t exist. I think India has the biggest investment in trying to figure it out, but it’s not there yet and may never be

      • Dr. Coomer
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        11 year ago

        What do you mean, thorium is far more common than uranium and require less processing to be used. Plus, it isn’t always active like uranium, meaning it can be controlled a little better. It’s worth looking into.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          That’s exactly what I mean. There are benefits that sound great. However there’s not a practical reactor based on that, yet.

          In some ways it seems like fusion. Every few years you see a flurry of headlines of how great it would be, and we’re only ten years away, but it hasn’t happened

  • @[email protected]
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    51 year ago

    I hate to spoil your fun, but these dates are always some what wanky. When my grandpa was in school, they told him that there ist still enough cpal for 40 years. When my dad whas in school tey told him that there is still enough coal for 50 Years. My elementry school teacher told me the same. If ypu look it up today, you will find that the coal reserves last for another 80 to 150 years. Resources dont run out. They get more expensive as the reserves dwindel leading to the developement of alternatives.