markvdb

First trickle down economics, now trickle down security!

The bittersweet irony of an explosion of scientific progress under anti-intellectual political leadership.

> Democracy in the US is dead. People are incredibly dumb[...]

So what alternative or incremental improvement to democracy would you propose? And more importantly, how would you like to get there?

If Chinese companies can build a 10k€ car somewhat profitably, why wouldn't European ones be able to?

- The battery and motor ecosystem is dominated by Chinese companies. These will happily build EU factories. Embrace and learn.

- Market size is not too much of the problem.The Chinese market is a lot larger, but not ten times.

Perhaps regulatory capture in the EU by large established players is a big part of the problem?

Then why is the insurance for every single reactor public sector based?

s/\ without\ even\ realising\ it//

Good. Now what about fscking smartphones? There's 1000 times more of those, most with dual cameras and microphones.

I have "Hey Siri!" enthousiasts visiting soon. They can leave their iPhones in a nice Faraday cage at the entrance.

The part where the bat wielding despot required payment using the money of his issue was left out.

One, the other, or a mix of both! If I were a foreign agent wanting to sow chaos, I'd look for the easy to press buttons. Encouraging pissed-off Dutch citizens would be an obvious part of the plan.

> Technology only proceeds in one direction: unfettered growth, which necessitates unsustainable resource extraction.

The direction of technological progress is not just linearly/exponentially upwards. Significant global technological fallbacks have happened, as in knowledge and processes disappearing for hundreds of years. This could happen again.

Even on the trajectory of unfettered growth fed by unsustainable resource extraction, tech and innovation might potentially take us beyond local pessima. That seems to be happening with solar, wind and batteries replacing inferior tech today. Still unfettered growth of energy production and consumption. Still fed by unsustainable resource extraction. Less harmful growth than the inferior tech being pushed out.

I observe mostly short term opportunism. Powerful people deliberately injecting chaos for financial profit.

Negative externalities:

- loss of trust

- loss of evidence based policy

- loss of long-term planning

- loss of talent

- financial loss for almost all except the rare insiders

No. A cynic might think a significant part of this half-arsed Iran war was:

- make sure fuel prices increase globally

- The US economy is relatively well-shielded from the fallout by its own fossil fuel sources, local and in colonies like Venezuela.

- export more US fossil fuels, especially to Europe, at inflated prices. US insiders reap the profits.

- further kneecap European competitiveness in energy intensive sectors, steal market share. Oh well, small gift to China here too, but still a net win for the US.

Current US leadership has very much failed ordinary people in the US and allied states.

Incompetence or malice? Both is also possible...

Dr. Michael Greger's "How not to die" is interesting.