All this does is guarantee a Trump win. The right aren’t staying home. They’re voting.

Greys. Sports. Almanac.

Heat pumps are efficient at very low temperatures now, and are suitable for the vast majority of homes.

However, in the literal Arctic you probably will need an additional heat source. This could be resistive electric, but tbh so few people live that far north that I’d be fine with them using fossil fuels. Their emissions would be a rounding error on a global scale.

If we want to completely ban fossil fuels then biomass could be another option for the Arctic in winter.

Could potentially be a legit use for CCS I guess. If it worked. Needs to get better first.

Although, if this displaces coal on the grid, I guess it’s a step in the right direction?

It’s not renewable but it is fossil free.

I broadly agree with you, but would point out that the conflict isn’t necessarily limited to Gaza. There’ve been rockets flying back and forth across the Lebanese border, sporadic violence in the West Bank, and there’s always tension over the Golan Heights. Israel could find itself fighting a multi-front war against Hamas in Gaza, Lebanon/Hezbollah in the north west, Syria in the north east and Jordan in the east.

Not to mention Egypt aren’t exactly their best buds either, and a US warship recently intercepted missiles coming towards Israel from Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Fair enough, thanks.

Why does the existence of currency presuppose a state? Let alone one that involves class dominance? People can easily trade precious metals or crypto without the existence of a state, because these things don’t need to be issued in order to represent value.

I see. In that case, I think the development of money is inevitable. People will want a standardized token of value that is universally accepted. If there is no state, something like gold or bitcoin will meet that need. Something rare but commoditized and fungible will inevitably become the standard unit of account that represents value, and a free market will mean that goods and services naturally find their own price.

The bay of pigs invasion and the red scare were attempts to stop communist ideology from spreading. This was done in order to perpetuate and protect the status quo in the USA for geopolitical reasons, but is not necessary for capitalism to function. Many nations start conflicts with each other because of a difference in ideology, and a perceived need to contain or counteract the ideology of the other nation, and this is not limited to capitalist societies. The USSR for example engaged in many conflicts with its neighbors in an attempt to export the revolution and spread its influence. Yet I wouldn’t say these conflicts were necessary for communism to function as a system, any more than the conflicts capitalist countries engaged in were necessary for capitalism to work.

I disagree that capitalism is not a natural state that things can revert to. I believe that if you were to take a random sample of humanity, wipe their memories and drop them on an alien world, capitalism would happen. Not because there’s a “system” making it happen, but because that’s just what people do.

I appreciate the recommendations. I’ll check out Pëtr Kropotkin.

Thanks for these thoughts.

How are Microsoft and CNN part of the state? Aren’t they just providing a service in exchange for money, in the same way a farmer, an actor or a mechanic does?

Your landlord example is interesting, and does illustrate how a state may be necessary to enforce private ownership, which is something I hadn’t considered about capitalism before. I suppose the landlord could pay private militia to enforce their ownership claims over the land, but at that point the landlord is basically a warlord and realistically wouldn’t need to pay for the land in the first place. The libertarian idea that everyone would voluntarily respect private property rights now seems as absurd as the communist idea that everyone would voluntarily share all property.

I don’t quite see how hoarding property could be considered violent, assuming it was acquired peacefully. Using what you’ve acquired to gain materially is not necessarily exploitative if those gains come from voluntary exchange of goods and labour. If someone wants to clean my windows in exchange for some money, I don’t see how it can be violent to enable that transaction. No one’s being forced to do anything in that scenario.

Definitely some interesting ideas though.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I hadn’t considered the difference between money and currency before. Maybe I still don’t fully understand it because I still think there would be an advantage to hoarding currency in any system where others are prepared to exchange goods or labour for that currency.

Trade would surely still occur, and it would be possible to profit from said trade. That profit would enable the trader to live a more luxurious life than those who make less or no profit, because he would be able to acquire more goods and have more work done for him by spending the profit. Consumerism would happen.

Even in a post-scarciry world I think we’d still have Ferengi.

I appreciate the reading recommendations. These are some fascinating ideas to understand for sure.

You’re right, I don’t have much knowledge of anarchism’s philosophical framework, but I do know that the definition of the word means that there is no authority.

In an anarchist society, what’s to stop me from accumulating wealth?

Furthermore, what would stop me from entering into voluntary contracts with others who agree to do labour in exchange for money?

Ultimately I think that without some authority (almost certainly a state) enforcing communism, the relationships we currently experience under capitalism will naturally reoccur. And (if my limited understanding of anarchy is correct, which I admit it might not be), under anarchism there can be no such authority preventing capitalism from happening.

Communism always needs to be enforced, it doesn’t happen naturally. Capitalism does. That’s why I don’t think communism can exist along with anarchy.

How can you have communism without a state forcing everyone to surrender their property?

If private property exists, that’s not communism. But to enforce communism you need a state so that’s not anarchy.

I believe anarchy and communism are polar opposites, and cannot co-exist. You’re either for anarchy (which ultimately leads to individualism and capitalism) or communism, which requires a huge controlling state to exist.

I use Mail-in-a-Box on a VM at home. Static IP from my ISP. Been working well for years now. I recommend it.

If your IP isn’t trusted you could always use an SMTP relay somewhere else.

Good.

They may be the biggest installer of renewable energy, but what percentage of their electricity comes from renewables? If they’re installing more coal than renewables then it’s still not better.

They’re also deploying coal faster than anyone else.

I’ve heard this argument before about the efficiency of burning centrally, usually in a European context to defend running EVs on a grid powered mostly by natural gas, but not for coal.

Now I’m genuinely curious whether efficiently burning coal to power EVs is less bad for the environment than burning petrol in ICE cars. Is there any research on that?

I agree that ultimately EVs are the future, and I do drive one myself and strive to charge it on renewables whenever possible. However, in places with dirtier grids I’m not sure they’re a great idea.

I like Mailinabox

You can use it in the cloud or fully self-host on your own hardware if you want. (Assuming your ISP allows this)

Yes, this is vitally important. Switching from petrol to EVs will be a net negative for the environment if all that energy comes from burning coal.

They have to clean up their grid, which unfortunately isn’t happening at the moment. They’re building new coal plants.