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There are 100 black, 100 brown and 100 green balls. We take out 50 black and brown balls, and replace them with 100 green balls. But wait, actually the brown ba

There are 100 black, 100 brown and 100 green balls. We take out 50 black and brown balls, and replace them with 100 green balls. But wait, actually the brown balls replaced the black balls because that's the idea I like. But liking has nothing to do with math. Something that decreased needs a replacement, it cannot be a replacement itself, since it was already there. You don't even understand how insurance works. Added costs or whatever have no influence on the potential payout after an accident would occur. When even something nuclear proponents call benign like Fukushima costs $200B to cleanup imagine how much Chernobyl would cost today. We are easily talking trillions. Insurances are not lobby driven business like nuclear plants, whose main business model is dumping external costs on the public. E.g. nuclear waste, accident cleanup etc.

fsflover 5y ago
The difference from your balls is that different "colors" have real-world, serious consequences. When you choose to remove harmless "balls" but not to remove actively harmful "balls", you effectively endorse the latter ones. This is not just a theoretical thing. Due to this choice, millions and millions of tons of CO2 and a lot of radiation were released into the environment and billions of euro put into the pockets of the coal lobby. > like nuclear plants, whose main business model is dumping external costs on the public. Actually, this is even more true for the coal. According to available statistics, coal results in more deaths, more CO2, more damage. I admit that I don't know how the insurance works. Where do all those costs for nuclear insurance come from, while the coal insurance is cheap and more damaging?
- locallost 5y ago
  > When you choose to remove harmless "balls" but not to remove actively harmful "balls Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. What happened to them if they weren't removed? Are you always in disagreement with reality or is this an exception? This is even weirder than the person that claimed a decrease is an increase because it wasn't big enough.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. Ok, maybe you understand it better if I reformulate: When you choose to remove more harmless "balls" and less harmful "balls", it means you support the latter, even if both numbers decreased. How else would you call it if not supporting? Those got money and resources which they should not have obtained. > Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. What happened to them if they weren't removed? In this hypothetical case, they would be also be unreasonably supported, even stronger. It's better now than that, but not nearly good enough. Personal attacks are against HN rules. It's always easy to claim that the opponent is stupid and you are a genius. Try to understand instead (as I do).
    - locallost 5y ago
      It's not a personal attack to say it's weird to call removing something, I quote: "not to remove actively harmful "balls"". If calling this weird is against HN rules, I don't want to be here in that case. This is really only about you googling for stories that coal use in Germany went up, reading half the headline and not realizing it's not saying what you want it to say, and that coal is in fact drastically down. To call yourself understanding in that case is, uh... So now I am faced with a living breathing example of backfire effect, which is potentially annoying, but not really as the bottom line is this: last year renewables almost 300GW of new capacity, nuclear roughly 0GW (I did not actually check the numbers, but am pretty confident it's almost 0 since it almost always is). To quote Amory Lovins: "it's game over".
      - fsflover 5y ago
        > that coal is in fact drastically down Did I say otherwise? I didn't. I said it's not down enough, even if you think it's down "drastically". I didn't understand one thing. Do you actually accept or deny that due to not enough decrease of coal the world got a lot unnecessary harmful CO2 and radiatioin, or not? > To quote Amory Lovins: "it's game over". Maybe in Germany, but not necessarily elsewhere.
        5y ago

fsflover 5y ago

The difference from your balls is that different "colors" have real-world, serious consequences. When you choose to remove harmless "balls" but not to remove actively harmful "balls", you effectively endorse the latter ones. This is not just a theoretical thing. Due to this choice, millions and millions of tons of CO2 and a lot of radiation were released into the environment and billions of euro put into the pockets of the coal lobby. > like nuclear plants, whose main business model is dumping external costs on the public. Actually, this is even more true for the coal. According to available statistics, coal results in more deaths, more CO2, more damage. I admit that I don't know how the insurance works. Where do all those costs for nuclear insurance come from, while the coal insurance is cheap and more damaging?

locallost 5y ago
> When you choose to remove harmless "balls" but not to remove actively harmful "balls Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. What happened to them if they weren't removed? Are you always in disagreement with reality or is this an exception? This is even weirder than the person that claimed a decrease is an increase because it wasn't big enough.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. Ok, maybe you understand it better if I reformulate: When you choose to remove more harmless "balls" and less harmful "balls", it means you support the latter, even if both numbers decreased. How else would you call it if not supporting? Those got money and resources which they should not have obtained. > Yet somehow there is less of what you call harmful balls. What happened to them if they weren't removed? In this hypothetical case, they would be also be unreasonably supported, even stronger. It's better now than that, but not nearly good enough. Personal attacks are against HN rules. It's always easy to claim that the opponent is stupid and you are a genius. Try to understand instead (as I do).
  - locallost 5y ago
    It's not a personal attack to say it's weird to call removing something, I quote: "not to remove actively harmful "balls"". If calling this weird is against HN rules, I don't want to be here in that case. This is really only about you googling for stories that coal use in Germany went up, reading half the headline and not realizing it's not saying what you want it to say, and that coal is in fact drastically down. To call yourself understanding in that case is, uh... So now I am faced with a living breathing example of backfire effect, which is potentially annoying, but not really as the bottom line is this: last year renewables almost 300GW of new capacity, nuclear roughly 0GW (I did not actually check the numbers, but am pretty confident it's almost 0 since it almost always is). To quote Amory Lovins: "it's game over".
    - fsflover 5y ago
      > that coal is in fact drastically down Did I say otherwise? I didn't. I said it's not down enough, even if you think it's down "drastically". I didn't understand one thing. Do you actually accept or deny that due to not enough decrease of coal the world got a lot unnecessary harmful CO2 and radiatioin, or not? > To quote Amory Lovins: "it's game over". Maybe in Germany, but not necessarily elsewhere.
      - 5y ago