HowardStark

*I am not going into immense detail here. It is admittedly a bit more complex than this, but this is a reasonable summary

The following sentence admittedly muddies it a bit, but in general the suggestion that John Deere can still be the arbiter for when the machine can / cannot run without the environmental system in the loop seems like a significantly less meaningful change than what is described on the EPA.gov website.

One of my favorite features is `SELECT ... FROM s3Cluster('<ch cluster>', 'https://...<s3 url>.../data//.json', ..., 'JSON')`[0] which lets you wildcard ingest from an S3 bucket and distributes the processing across nodes in your configured cluster. Also, I think it works with `schema_inference_mode` (mentioned below) though I haven't tried it. Very cool time for databases / DB tooling.

(I actually wasn't familiar with `union_by_name` but it looks to be like Clickhouse has implemented that as well [1,2] Neat feature in either case!)

In practice, the extra networking features + better first class peer config management baked in is very nice (Nebula’s “lighthouses” are configured with a tool similar to DSNet for Wireguard[1])

I think there's two important points you made that I'd like to address:

1. Failures to apply meaningful penalties / punishment to transnational corporations

2. Individual culpability for oil consumption

To start, I think it's worth looking at how punishments for corporate wrongdoings might look in a brighter world. Not having faith in the system is _completely_ understandable, and I think it can be easy to forget what it is we _do_ want after being shown what we _don't_ want over and over.

Off-the-cuff, I envision something like the forced closure and seizure of all Exxon assets by the federal government. These assets could be sold off to pay for the settlements of the multiple class-action lawsuits against Exxon focused on public health and environmental wrongdoing[1][2]. I'd love to see criminal charges for those at the top

There are past examples of companies doing wrong and being forced to close "with prejudice", or not being allowed to restructure into another entity with a different name. A famous example is the forced closure of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI)[3]. Another is Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which was restructured into a public beneficiary trust that would administer payouts to "opioid creditors" or people who suffered from the opioid epidemic[4]. And hearteningly, there are also examples of executives facing jail time. Enron[5] is the most famous example, and though there are critiques that it wasn't far enough, Skilling was a fall guy, etc., it serves as a good reminder that even within our system today, there is already precedent. Theranos is another example of criminal proceedings against executives[6].

All this is to emphasize that though pessimism is understandable, optimism can help us push the system in the right direction, and doesn't have to mean having all the answers.

Now we can look at individual culpability.

I wanted to look at this point second because I think it becomes more approachable once we've seen what widespread change can look like. I don't have citations, or evidence to bring here. Just my own experience. I find it much easier to start taking personal responsibility when I know that there is some effort being made to offer me a mode of life where I don't induce second order demand for oil (i.e. I need to buy groceries, those groceries may come packaged in plastic). I find it much easier to take a freezing half-mile walk to the store when I see the companies inducing oil demand many orders of magnitude beyond what I'll ever use or need begin to face consequences.