You are making the mistake to believe the EU can only compete by becoming what it despises.

shrug I don’t see a path away from it; separate, the individual nations aren’t big enough to be relevant. China isn’t going to be supplanted for the manufacturing hub nor the US as the financial hub without more cohesion, and so Europe will continue to lose relevancy in terms of ability to influence world geopolitics.

We’ve seen time and time again promising European countries jump ship for the US when it’s time to go public… the money is here in Europe but broken into fractured markets with just as fractured rules and regulations. Why would a company looking for investment bother when they can just go to the US and get one big pile of it?

This isn’t even addressing even more practical problems like military.

Confederacies just don’t last very long historically. They either break or become more centralised eventually.

If 48% of the people are having their authority to rule superceded by the 52% then how can you say it’s rule by the people? It’s rule only by the majority.

Wouldn’t a more elegant solution be more thought put into what kind of votes need a supermajority or some specific % over 50 to need a successful vote? Surely at some point, for it to be a democracy, you do need the majority rule to win the day, right++? I’d argue one or two nations vetoing a thing agreed upon by everyone else is more explicitly anti democratic than those nations needing to abide by a vote they handily lost.

I think the EU is at the limits of what a loose confederation can do, we’ve seen historically these arrangements just can’t really function long term on a large scale. And the argument here is that for Europe to stay relevant in a world where the US and China, not to mention Russia, exists if not as outright adversaries then stiff competitors, there needs to be a better ability to coordinate this like military and money. Especially the latter, I’d argue… how many European start ups immediately abandon ship for the US as soon as they go public because there’s a pile of investment money there rather than the fractured markets of Europe? That problem is never going away on its own, even with the US playing target practice with its feet (slight digression there, but I think it’s one of the most obvious examples of why the EU needs reform towards stronger federal power).

At a certain point, if you want a large functioning democratic body with any power, you need to submit to the decisions of that power whether you agree with the decision or not. That’s not just colloquial versus not, that’s the very essence of democracy imo. If you can just opt out of decisions you don’t like, that’s not really democratic rule, that’s just a forum for discussion.

++(Obviously, this implicitly needs rights and protections to prevent one group from outright repressing another, but still, a veto seems like a really, really inelegant solution to avoiding tyranny of the majority situations.)

Personally, I’ve just started downloading the local app… it sometimes has outages that haven’t been put into Google yet and as a bonus you can usually get things like tickets right there.

Maps is still hard to beat for smaller transit systems that might not have a dedicated app with navigation, though…

I’ve heard the argument that if you aren’t pirating via torrent but simply downloading a file (no seeding), there really aren’t any damages that can be claimed aside from the price of the thing you’ve pirated, hence completely not worth any action. The danger is if you’re uploading stuff you can be on the hook based on the number of downloads of that file.

No idea if that’s true, though it sounds reasonable. Thankfully, I’m in a country that could not give less of a shit about piracy… one of the few upsides here lol.

Says who? I’ve certainly argued with many that would use it in exactly that sense. They argue things like the FDA and EPA aren’t necessary because markets will self regulate due to losing customers if their actions are antithetical to what society wants (I’ve seen the same argument regarding why civil rights wasn’t necessary and that the market would drive racists out of business, despite years of… that not happening).

Definitely arguable whether libertarians are reasonable or not, but they absolutely do use it in this way. I know because I both argue with them and unfortunately I’m a recovering libertarian myself.

it’s a spaghetti mess here

I mean, considering the chili…

This entire thread is so bizarre. People pick the oddest hills to die on sometimes…

Jury nullification? Never heard of her!

Because for important data, most people don’t have off site storage available that’s not a cloud unless they go to the trouble of renting a safe deposit box with a hard drive or something, which most won’t. No off site means one bad fire or burglary could wipe you out.

It doesn’t replace everything, but Nebula replaced maybe half of my YouTube viewing.

I have absolutely no idea where you’re getting “nearly a third” from.

Private aviation is 2% you said. Air conditioning is 7%. That’s between 1/3 and 1/4. And that’s for a frivolity vs a thing that measurably reduces deaths.

You suggest meat, but livestock is about 4.2% of US emissions.

This number doesn’t cover the actual impact though as it doesn’t account for imports, opportunity cost of land, or the amount of agriculture necessary to support that livestock. As I recall from my ecology days, only about ~10% of energy makes it to the next step in the food chain. So you need a much larger amount of land, energy, and water to grow crops in addition to direct emissions from livestock industry for the same calories.

we absolutely should criticise people for eating meat

Minor point of contention, but no; I’m suggesting we should encourage people to eat less meat.

but absolutely shouldn’t criticise people for using AC

The difference being very, very few people need meat to live, certainly not more than one a week or so barring some specific medical conditions. Much of the US experiences summers where 40C is normal and 45+C isn’t abnormal. It is literally a necessity in much of the US unless you’re just willing to accept a lot of extra deaths due to heat.

And even where it isn’t strictly necessary for health reasons, we’re talking hot enough to be extremely uncomfortable; I’m not going to browbeat people for using AC in that kind of heat while we’re literally building data centers that are using diesel generators and allowing various much more frivolous use of electricity.

It’s not like this is purely Americans Americanning with overconsumption either; southern Europe sees almost ubiquitous use of AC for the same reasons. It varies from actually dangerous to bloody miserable without it.

Do we expect northerners to not use any heating until wearing their parka indoors is no longer effective? Or can we afford some degree of comfort to the unwashed masses?

That doesn’t make sense to me given that, where I live (not in the US), AC is definitely not necessary for most people at home.

With respect, this may be why you’re not treating this with the seriousness it deserves and see it as “not willing to be a bit sweaty”. I come from a place where, even before the kind of climate change we’re seeing today, a week or more of 45C weather wasn’t unusual, 40C was very normal, and deaths from heat stroke happened every year. That’s a big chunk of the US. Obviously, in places like San Francisco, air conditioning is much less ubiquitous and it isn’t unusual at all to have as home without it.

Look, I’m starting to be over this conversation if I’m being honest, so I’ll sum it up as such: AC use is less frivolous than you seemed to be implying and is a necessity in many places, witnessed by Europe going through a bit of a crisis with heat deaths as we catch up and change our culture to adapt to a new climate reality. Even where it isn’t strictly necessary, it is often required for any level of comfort. Considering that, the portion of energy it uses is relatively small; the other things I’ve listed are almost purely frivolities. They simply aren’t necessary in all but the rarest circumstances (remote Alaskans needing private planes, some medical conditions requiring more meat consumption, etc). If the energy use of AC was much higher, I might be with you, but telling people they need to live in misery when there are bigger fish to fry… no.

Remember, my whole premise here is mass cultural changes are relatively ineffective… I cited meat eating culture changing as one of the few that are somewhat, not as a keystone or anything (and again, there are reasons that 7% isn’t comparable to 4.5%… the latter isn’t accounting for a lot of factors that hide its true impact and the former has at least some % of truly necessary use baked into it). It would be far more effective to push systemic change like eliminating fossil fuels for energy production entirely, as electricity production is still one of the biggest emitters. It would be far more effective to work to reduce private auto use, especially for solo trips, and more conversion into electric vehicles powered by non emitting sources. We have better solutions that don’t require misery or death from the masses.

yet flying accounts for 4% of global emissions, and private aircraft (so, little Cessnas as well as private jets) account for under 2% of that.

So in other words, the unnecessary actions of a very, very limited few alone consume nearly a third of the entire country’s use of a pretty basic comfort.

I see this as rather damning if I’m being honest.

But the fact is that we can’t afford to wait for the ultra-rich

No, the fact is reducing a portion of 7% of energy use (because again, we’re excluding health reasons and such which are ever more relevant in 40+C summers) will not have any noticeable impact on climate change. It just won’t. And let’s keep in mind this is in the shadow of many deaths here in Europe this summer… nah man, we just do not share the same principles here, I flat out disagree that’s in any way a good take.

There are some cultural changes that can make a big impact; if we convinced most people in the industrial world to only eat meat once a week or go vegetarian entirely, this would definitely make a large impact. AC use will not. For the most part, systemic change is the only thing getting us out of this. And yes, our odds of accomplishing it don’t look good… you not using AC in extremely hot weather will have no impact on that outcome at all, not measurably anyway.

Of course reducing energy consumption is always nice, but

then you deserve criticism.

Nah, this is the thing. This is pushing off responsibility for huge corporate energy consumption onto consumers. Even in very AC heavy America, it accounts for something like 7% of energy use. Imo, fuck telling people to just deal with the heat over 7% of energy use while private jets are allowed to flit around and data centers are gobbling up power, often very energy inefficiently. It’s a comparative drop in the bucket.

You’re doing the thing the comic is making fun of here.

Both cloudflare stats and statcounter show desktops with roughly 46% of the marketshare. This is definitely not dead, definitely not an “absolute dinosaurs” thing.

That would depend on the average age of a desktop owner. If it’s all us oldies, I think it still qualifies.

No comment on whether it is true or not, I’m not in touch with trends, just saying that you could maybe find similar rates of ownership of disco records in the 80s, for example, but it was definitely dead as a trend by then…

“Just don’t use AC (during a heat wave killing thousands) and you can save the Earth!” (2026)

In fairness, that could be said of some of the know-it-all summaries as well. 😅

Your grandad’s AI summary, if you will.

I’m sorry but you really don’t understand

For what it’s worth, I stopped reading after this, so the rest was a waste of time on your part, and a possible opportunity for interesting conversation was missed. After I left reddit years ago, I just learned to stop engaging when people have shown this kind of unnecessarily adversarial attitude instead of just accepting another person might understand your position while disagreeing with it. It just doesn’t accomplish anything.

Just a suggestion, but if you want people to engage with you and not just a mindless Monty Python-esque argument, this isn’t the way to do it. You’d be served by some good faith assumptions of the people you talk to.

The conversation moved there though because you said there was no primary; there was, it’s just the left didn’t use it at all and then didn’t show up to the general because they didn’t like the uncontested candidate they chose (or his continuation).

My original point (aside from pointing out it was often the abstainers making moral superiority arguments) was that people who abstain from voting in the general with the idea that withholding their vote will change the party are going about it wrong. The primary is purpose built for this. Even if there was no other candidate in the primary, as in '24, not voting still isn’t going to motivate the party to change. They already did that with Clinton and the next candidate was Biden; while Biden was left of her in some ways, he was clearly another deeply established pick. I’d argue withholding the vote for Clinton did nothing to change the party. I think voting in people like Mamdani, Nixon, and el-Sayed has already done so.

I do understand the argument that allowing the mainstream to shoot themselves in the foot boosts left politics, but I think it’s so diffuse of an effect it isn’t worth taking things on the chin like losing abortion rights that come with that strategy when we have a process right there we can use that’s a lot more effective.

The primary where nobody except Biden actually ran.

This is exactly part of my criticism, though. Everybody is waiting for someone else to run. That’s why we’ve been stuck voting for the same candidates the party leadership approves of every year; what we’re witnessing now with people like Nixon and el-Sayed is that it’s always been possible to challenge them, but you’ve got to actually run to do it. AOC has mixed reception now, but when she was elected she was on a very progressive platform against a deeply established party candidate and won.

Those are not particularly groomed candidates. AOC was a fucking bartender for crying out loud.

My whole point is the left has, until recently, really sucked at using the primary process to change the party. We see now it’s worth doing. There shouldn’t be unchallenged party leadership picks anywhere, essentially.

There absolutely was a primary… the left didn’t utilize it.