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The CCP is watching this go down with the understanding that if they invade Taiwan the world won’t stop buying their stuff because money matters more than peopl
by whodunnit 4y ago
The CCP is watching this go down with the understanding that if they invade Taiwan the world won’t stop buying their stuff because money matters more than people.
- hyperdunc 4y agoIt's also that Europeans aren't willing to suspend their gas-fuelled comforts.
- ricardobayes 4y agoWell what do you suggest? An 80-year old man in Brussels should freeze to death in their apartment because Russia invaded Ukraine?
- hyperdunc 4y agoThat's not where most of the gas is going. It would have been smart to invest in energy diversity before the war started. Too late for that now.
- HyprMusic 4y agoIt is overwhelmingly used for heating, followed by boiling water and cooking. Please spend 5 minutes googling before throwing out baseless claims. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_consumption_in_households#Energy_consumption_in_households_by_type_of_end-use https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- empiricus 4y agofrom the link: "final energy consumption in residential sector" - so it does not include the industrial usage
- mdorazio 4y agoFrom the Highlights section in your link: "In 2019, households represented 26% of final energy consumption, or 17% of gross inland energy consumption, in the EU". So 74% of consumption is not households. What am I missing?
- MrYellowP 4y ago> That's not where most of the gas is going. Translated: It doesn't matter if people freeze, to death or otherwise. I guess you also don't mind food shortages, as long as they don't affect you personally.
- hyperdunc 4y agoWould you turn off all the gas? Are there no other ways to light the metaphorical fire? Isn't it interesting how you admit that the lives of so many depend on natural resources they don't control?
- jamesmishra 4y agoShould people in Ukraine be killed by missiles?
- phero_cnstrcts 4y agoNo, but that is not the fault of the 80-year old man in Brussels.
- jamesmishra 4y agoI don't think a natural gas tariff would kill anybody in Brussels. Not a single person. But if burnt corpses start piling up in Brussels, I'll come back to this thread and admit to being wrong.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThe 80-year-old man in this analogy is just a casualty of war, war has consequences, and the response will be emergent and unpredictable.
- ilammy 4y agoYou're overdramatizing. At worst, your 80-year old man would get double or triple the heating bill, then probably demand that to be paid from taxes via subsidies. And that is what people don't want.
- munch117 4y agoTriple the heating bill is what we're seeing right now for natural gas consumers. The at worst scenario is way beyond that.
- IAmEveryone 4y agoMoney doesn't create natural gas. If you shut down a pipeline bringing in some amount <x>, and you cannot find a new source to get that amount, somthing has to give, somewhere, you have to use less of the stuff.
- ilammy 4y agoYou don't need natural gas for housing heating. Buy an electrical heater, pay "exorbitant" electricity bills, get electricity rerouted from other sources (you could still, like, import coal by sea if you don't like nuclear). True, industrial users can't just start using something else instead of gas in their processes. And if they go out of business, that's production gone, supply chains gone, workplaces gone. Certainly not a good thing, but please – it's not elderly frozen to death by this Christmas.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoDo electric heaters magically appear? You do know that stores don't stock enough electric heaters for an entire country to go out and buy them, right? An economic and manufacturing powerhouse like the US couldn't even deal with people buying extra toilet paper. What would happen if everyone in the EU all at once tried to buy electric heaters?
- ilammy 4y ago
- madaxe_again 4y agoHow can you expect a man who is warm to understand one who is freezing?
- rosndo 4y agoWhy would that 80-year old man just not wear more clothes instead of freezing to death? Is the implication that he lacks the mental capacity to do so because of old age? Does the old man just not own enough clothes? If so, why would gas prices be the problem instead of his lack of clothes?
- markvdb 4y agoI'd wager most Europeans are willing to sacrifice comforts. I'm not aware of EU wide polling around this theme, but look at page 7 of the latest Infratest-Dimap survey[0] for example. A majority of Germans want an oil boycott, even if that is forecast to bring a -3% negative effect on German GDP. The only population subgroup with a clear majority against a boycott are AfD supporters. [0] https://www.infratest-dimap.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DT2204_Report.pdf https://www.infratest-dimap.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DT2204_...
- scandox 4y agoI haven't run my gas boiler in 30 days. No heating. No warm showers. Sadly most people I have suggested this to think I'm nuts. And Ireland isn't that cold.
- beckman466 4y ago> I haven't run my gas boiler in 30 days. No heating. No warm showers. > Sadly most people I have suggested this to think I'm nuts. there's probably thousands of times more gas used to produce all the commodities you buy and use in your everyday life. so this strategy of individualist 'sacrifice' (vs. systemic change) is merely a fart in the wind.
- ilammy 4y agoExactly. Thank you for reusing cardboard while the airlines fly empty planes just to maintain their slots. It makes you feel better for having a moral high ground, sure. Objectively it's not that big of a change, while systemic social changes take time. For the most people, it feels like not in their lifetime.
- scandox 4y ago40% of gas usage in Europe is domestic. I think that's not insignificant. I agree my individual action is not very relevant but I think a widespread adoption of such measures would have an impact on political thinking in Europe. Obviously that hasn't happened.
- 4y ago
- DocTomoe 4y agoSo, what are Americans suspending? After all, American expansionism is what got us into this mess. That being said: the problem is not necessarily gas-powered heating. The problem is an industry that is hugely dependant on gas, and - specific Ural-originated gas (yes, the factories can be modified to accept gas with a different chemical composition, but that takes time and money).
- crossroadsguy 4y agoAmericans are suspending those skipped breaths during the minutes when they were busy registering their outrage online.
- sofixa 4y ago> After all, American expansionism is what got us into this mess. Absolutely not. American expansionism got us into the migrant crisis mess, but Russia invading Ukraine is 100% on Russia.
- rosndo 4y agoWhat American expansionism are you referring to? It’s been a long time since the US gained more territories.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago> What American expansionism are you referring to? It’s been a long time since the US gained more territories. In Puttin's point of view, any new NATO member is yet another US territory to deploy weapons from.
- robbedpeter 4y agoPutin is a paranoid tyrant who should be put down like a rabid wolf. Nobody should care what Putin thinks or wants. After he's gone let's see what shakes out.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
- sitic 4y agoHave a look at Italy. 40% of the electricity is generated from natural gas, which largely comes from Russia. https://ember-climate.org/data/data-explorer/ https://ember-climate.org/data/data-explorer/ https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-italy-milan-lifestyle-5f7febf726aa02df8cb9d9599cfe3912 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-italy-mil... How could one overcome this in a short period of time without shutting down the whole economy? These aren't "comforts", they are necessities.
- croes 4y agoYou do realize what all comes from China. A sudden stop would have a bigger effect that just losing money. The pandemic already showed that. This can only be solved in the long run and not in the short term. But I doubt that will happen because this wouldn't need questioning the principles of capitalism. Totalitarianism and capitalism always worked well together.
- Hypocritelefty 4y ago
- CryptoPunk 4y ago>>Totalitarianism and capitalism always worked well together. The most totalitarian states were the most anti-capitalist. Capitalism means tolerating the emergence of independent centers of economic power, which is a threat to totalitarian control. That is why the PRC has been arresting wealthy tech founder-CEOs in China.
- croes 4y agoI think you misunderstand me. I don't mean that the totalitarian and capitalist state are the same but capitalist states work well together with totalitarian states. Cheap labor is easier to get in totalitarian states, that's why China is the workbench of the world and that's why the FRG let produce in the GDR and even gave it credits so that the production could continue.
- CryptoPunk 4y agoOkay I understand your point. I think you're technically right, but what you're implying is not. States following all kinds of economic systems work well together. For example, Venezuela works well with Russia and China, and is a fully socialist state. And while you are right about capitalist states benefiting from the cheap labor of totalitarian states, capitalist states benefit even more from the capital skilled work forces from other capitalist states.
- quantum_solanum 4y ago
- Synaesthesia 4y agoDid the world stop buying US products when it carried out worse crimes than Russia ie invading Iraq or Vietnam?
- jamesmishra 4y agoWhy do you ask? Do you believe invading militaries should not be opposed? Or do you see the Russian military as the good guy here?
- DocTomoe 4y agoHe is pointing out hypocrisy. Why is there a moral imperative to cripple your own economy because country A invaded country B, when you did not do so the 20 times country C did the same and worse?
- 0dayz 4y agoIf so why wasn't Russia sanctioning the USA for iraq? And instead gave them the greenlight?
- BlinkenBlinken 4y agoProbably because they have different morals.
- jamesmishra 4y agoFrom your perspective, is the Russian military doing a good thing or a bad thing? If they are doing something bad, should they avoid punishment?
- DocTomoe 4y ago"Good" and "bad" are unhelpful, moralistic categories to gauge this kind of thing. Morals are culture- and society-specific. If I was a Raytheon stockholder, I would be ecstatic right now and would cheer the Russians on to keep kindling that flame. If I lived in Ukraine, I would have a very different opinion. So, which categories can we apply? In the end, much like standard crime, there can be only one: Are they following the standards set by international law, or are they not? And that we cannot honestly answer as of now. Consider these basic questions: 1. Is the Russian military responsible for the decision to wage what we in the west consider a "war of aggression" against Ukraine? To parse that question lightly more pointed: Has every member of the Russian forces currently engaged in the Ukraine theatre signed off the decision to invade? 2. Is the Russian military collectively responsible for any action the Russian military and/or the Russian political leadership takes? 3. Can we be certain that all the information we get is truthful, especially when it comes to information that would suggest Russian military war crimes? 4. Which amount of civilian casualties is "acceptable" before it becomes a punishable war crime? When "we" kill civilians, "we" call it "collateral damage". At which point does collateral damage become a war crime? 5. Is the Ukraine war illegitimate? When considering this question, please take into account that we may have several gaps in our understanding of the situation, and that we tend to wave away Russian sources as "enemy propaganda". If they are breaking international law, the decision makers in the Russian political leadership and military should be judged and potentially punished by an international court of law. Unfortunately, that only works as long as they are a member of that court (or are thoroughly defeated), and Russia isn't - much like the US - (and is unlikely to be defeated).