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Category: Society

Being Green in 2022

Being Green in 2022

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I recognize that most of the impacts from climate change can only be mitigated by governments making regulation changes. Without those regulations, landfill might continue to be cheaper than recycling, single-use plastics will remain cheaper than more sustainable alternatives, and gasoline (UK: petroleum) vehicles and machinery will continue to be easier to use than alternatives. A few companies are responsible for most of the world’s carbon emissions, and Americans are by far the largest polluters per head. This article is…

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The Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine

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Today, Russia invaded Ukraine. We have known for a while now that Russia was pondering invading. Ukraine, though not a perfect democracy, has expressed an interest in aligning more with the free countries of Europe and has been getting more democratic recently. As a result, Russia’s dictator, Putin, has decided that it needs to ‘protect’ not only those in the east who consider themselves Russian, but also those in the rest of the country who consider themselves Ukrainian. This sounds…

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lightbulb in focus
Why you know less than you think

Why you know less than you think

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Everything I know is learned. It’s an important thing to remember – it’s easy to forget and believe that everything you know is true in some fundamental and foundational way. Everything you know is learned too. Let’s unpack that. What do you know to be true? I know that I am writing this at the moment. Well, I think I am. Some dreams are pretty vivid, and hallucinations can be so vivid that people genuinely don’t know what’s going on….

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Our roof after the snow
How not to die because of your roof

How not to die because of your roof

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The title of this article may seem like an easy thing to achieve – don’t climb on it. But this is not about falling off your roof. Let me give you some background. I am from England. In England, the weather ranges from around 80°F (26°C) on occasional days in the summer, to around 32°F (0°C) on occasional days in the winter. Most of the year, the weather hovers around 50°F (10°C) to 60°F (15°C). The air is more humid…

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Measuring GDP is the wrong measure

Measuring GDP is the wrong measure

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I wrote recently about how the USA is a third world country by a lot of measures, and that it ranks low in most other comparisons with developed, healthy countries. You can read more about that here: Is the US a third world country? I feel commended now that Andrew Yang’s new Forward Party has said something similar. Here’s what they say on their “American Scorecard” page: You can’t fix something if you’re not measuring the right things. Right now,…

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Incongruous thinking about the EU

Incongruous thinking about the EU

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Some people believe, not inaccurately, that the people of the US are guilty of ignoring the rest of the world. As I discussed in an earlier post, if Americans knew how good the Scandinavians have it, they would not be voting the way they vote, or stomping around about the superiority of their country. The same is true of Britons. They vote against their best interests all the time, but the voting system there also reduces the need for compromise…

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Vaccine mandates

Vaccine mandates

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The US used a vaccine mandate to survive the war of independence. This from today’s New York Times (the full article, though behind a paywall, is worth a read): The rationale for workplace mandates revolves around those large benefits: Even in a country that prioritizes individual freedom as much as the U.S. does, citizens do not have the right to harm their colleagues or their colleagues’ families, friends and communities. One person’s right to a healthy life is greater than…

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Social Media and Vaccines

Social Media and Vaccines

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There are some concerns about the COVID-19 vaccines. Some of these concerns are legitimate (myocarditis in young men) and some are based on conspiracy theories that are demonstrably nonsense (tracking chips in the vaccine, or its supposed links to Satan). The myocarditis one is particularly interesting and, unfortunately, provides fuel to the blanket anti-vaxxers who are responsible for recent outbreaks of the previously-controlled, measles, and the current continuation of the global pandemic which has cost 1/500 Americans their lives. As…

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ESS, COVID-19

ESS, COVID-19

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I am reading The Selfish Gene at the moment. It’s a very good book, and beautifully written, as you would expect from Dawkins. This pair of sentences, though, stood out for their disappointing relevance to anti-vaccination, anti-mask, and otherwise anti-scientific individuals’ behavior. In the next paragraph, “ESS” means “evolutionary stable strategy”. In (too simple a summary), ESS means the strategy that evolution ‘settles upon’ which is most effective at reproducing the genes that regulate that strategy. “It is possible for…

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The filibuster

The filibuster

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I have to admit, I did not know about the filibuster’s history, nor its actual timing in the bill approval process. This video makes it very clear, and makes it very clear why it has to go: