> the EPA’s 2009 decision says that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane are heating the Earth and that warming threatens public health and welfare
I’ll wait until the actual action is taken before deciding where I stand on this.
The above is actually two statements: that greenhouse gasses cause warming, and that warming is harmful overall. I could see reversing the latter as consistent with this administration’s positions - the former is, as far as I know, not really up for debate.
> If you're not around rural America a lot, it can be hard to believe how deeply, at an existential level, ideas like those conveyed by a Gadsden flag are held.
This neatly encapsulates a big part of what I’ve been trying to say on HN for years: those outside “rural America”/“red states” simply do not understand those inside - and to only a slightly lesser degree, vice-versa.
When we say “Don’t Tread on Me”, it’s largely not a political slogan; it’s a shorthand that represents an entire worldview. When others see that as on par with “Yes we can”, “I can’t breathe”, or “Defund the police”, they’re making a mistake.
What’s seen as politics on the coasts is seen as a direct attack on our culture and way of life in the middle of the country.
As always, I want to be clear and say that I’m neither complaining nor offended here. My fear is that the factions in the US will cross each others’ red lines without even understanding what they’re doing. Historically, that’s been the left doing something the right finds untenable without realizing the consequences. These days the opposite is looking more and more likely.
> What’s seen as politics on the coasts is seen as a direct attack on our culture and way of life in the middle of the country.
And the framing of "middle of the country" matters, too. There are many rural parts of New York and California, too, some of which are as deep a shade of red as parts of the South.
Yeah, I was trying to be as inclusive as possible.
I'm in the South - Arkansas - but have lived in other areas (Appalachia). This applies to both Southern and Midwestern cultures to my knowledge, and likely others.
Obviously, I'm greatly generalizing here, but I think what I'm saying is clear enough to be understood.
A good litmus test is their position on solar panels, batteries, wind mills et cetera.
They'll save you money, increase your independence and increase your resilience.
Those are 3 core rural values. In practice, in my experience, most rural folk tend to be anti-solar. But there are a sizeable chunk of highly conservatively voting rural folk who are proponents of solar.
I'm not exactly "conservative" in my beliefs, but definitely align more closely with conservative communities.
I'm pro-solar in that I see no reason to see it in a poor light. There are definitely applications that don't make sense that are being pursued, but I'm dealing with a roof leak now and am considering either replacing my asphalt shingles with solar shingles, or will get a roof that will support solar installation in the future if and when the economics make sense. I've not done the math yet, so that may be now.
I'm pro-EV, too, but again - context matters. I drive a '91 GMC pickup because it fits my needs, is in good condition, and I drive very little compared to most people in my situation. The numbers don't work for me to buy an EV. When I bought a car for my daughter, I went with an ICE vehicle because that's what made sense given the requirements (fairly small, "peppy" (esp. acceleration), capable off-road and in snow and ice, reliable, and as inexpensive as practical. I went with a '24 Subaru Crosstrek Wilderness not because it was ICE, but because it was by far the best value I found and met all her needs.
But yes, I know what you're saying - lots of people here are politically motivated and wouldn't even consider installing solar or getting an EV. I see those people as being defined by the political alignment, and that's not really who I'm talking about. The vast majority of people feel like they're more "center" than they really are, which means they're not tied to illogical positions as a result. That's a good thing.
I know several wealthy MAGA families who have nearly grid-independent solar on their rural northern cabins. They understand the money aspect, if little else. These properties are often passed through generations, so a 10 or 20 year payoff still makes sense.
Not "MAGA" here, but many people would undoubtably consider it a distinction without difference.
I don't have solar now because I live in a neighborhood. It's a quiet, older neighborhood in a small town, but a neighborhood nonetheless. I'm planning on investing in long-term stuff like that once I find the right property to start a farm and ultimately turn into a "family compound". It makes little sense to invest $20-40k in a solar system for a home that I may well sell in the next couple of years - especially since that particular improvement doesn't translate into a higher sale price in this market.
>those outside “rural America”/“red states” simply do not understand those inside - and to only a slightly lesser degree, vice-versa.
I don't know, a lot of people say that "city-dwellers" (an obnoxious term) don't understand rural Americans and the left doesn't understand the right, but from where I sit the left has been trying to warn everyone about the creeping approach of fascism and the far right within the Republican party for years, and rural people are the ones just now realizing the leopards are coming for their faces too.
Rural Americans still talk about Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment as if it were the greatest insult to their honor and dignity since the burning of Atlanta, but she was spot on. And predictably, rather than clean their own house, rural Americans preferred to trauma bond with Nazis and pedophiles than admit a "New York liberal" could have a point.
Rural people aren't as special as they think, you'll find Gadsden and Confederate battle flags in big cities everywhere. I promise you that people in Portland and New York understand "Don't Tread on Me" and that "Defund the Police" came from just as serious a place. It just happens that black activism gets commoditized, sanitized and rendered inconsequential by the same system that romanticizes the Lost Cause and right-wing activism.
> I don’t see how a social network for AI bots benefits society at all. It’s a complete waste of a very valuable resource.
I don’t know what will happen, though I have ideas. I’m curious what hooking up my own with access to a (copy of) my dev environment and directing it to optimize by talking with other bots might result in.
But the fact that this is unique and new is sufficient justification in my opinion. AI is a transformative technology, and we should be focused on spending our energy and resources on improving and understanding it as fully as possible, as quickly as possible.
I don’t know if they’re willing to “yoke themselves”. It appears they are - and if so, it’s important to keep it decentralized and ensure others can benefit, not just the first and wealthiest.
This is misleading. While there are privately owned tanks, they are all old, and lack any weapons (other than as a battering ram).
They likely could cause a lot of trouble for a local police force, but would not stand up to any infantry force in the world.
So in an actual conflict with the U.S. government, none of those tanks would be more than symbolic. And whole a general gorilla insurrection in the U.S. would be nasty, examples like Wako demonstrate that even mid-sized stands would be severely overwhelmed.
The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.
It is misleading, but not for the reasons you state.
There are private tanks in the US with functional weapons, including both mounted MGs and the cannon. In fact, there’s a place in Uvalde, TX that will let you come drive and shoot theirs for a couple grand.
> none of those tanks would be more than symbolic
Correct, but that’s not why. A tank would be worse than useless in an insurgency.
> The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.
No one is seriously suggesting going up against the US military with an irregular force in the US. The point is that an armed citizenry cannot be subjugated without destroying everything worth having. It’s a suicide pact between the People and the state.
I thought the point of an armed citizenry is so that they could shoot at each other as both sides think the other has gone bad. Let’s face it, even right now it isn’t the people unified for or against the government, it’s roughly two groups of people that hate each other, one side has control of the federal government, the other side has control of some local and state governments, either side sees the other as tyrannical, and it’s just luck that they haven’t started shooting at each other yet.
This idea that citizens would somehow unite against a tyrannical government has always been a fantasy, even during the revolutionary war.
I live in Arkansas, and both know people have been in the state prison system and have family that work in it.
This didn't come out of nowhere. Book and letters have both been used in the past to smuggle in drugs - including soaking the paper in liquids and then extracting them or using them directly inside.
It sounds like this prevents books from being sent to prisoners no matter who the sender is.
In California you are not allowed to mail books directly to prisoners, but you can order books from Amazon (or a few other large sellers) for shipment to the prisoner. They figure a shipment directly from those places should be contraband free. Hopefully they have some kind of anti-spoofing scheme.
I think the CA policy is pretty common, so Arkansas must be going further.
If you can process drugs and get high in prison then you're not actually in any form of custody. You're just left to your own devices in an unsupervised locked box. It's not hard to figure out why our recidivism rate is so embarrassing.
Anyways, I'm sure this will /completely/ prevent drugs from getting in, so I guess that justifies the destruction of prisoner rights?
I’ll wait until the actual action is taken before deciding where I stand on this.
The above is actually two statements: that greenhouse gasses cause warming, and that warming is harmful overall. I could see reversing the latter as consistent with this administration’s positions - the former is, as far as I know, not really up for debate.
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