3 ms·

It’s kind of amazing and horrifying at the same time that a democratic country like the U.S. is doing all these shenanigans like blocking clean zero carbon ener

It’s kind of amazing and horrifying at the same time that a democratic country like the U.S. is doing all these shenanigans like blocking clean zero carbon energy, while a communist authoritarian country is massively moving towards clean energy. Based on what our media and our education system teaches us, one would have assumed that common sense and sound logic would prevail in a democracy, but rather what we see is insane nonsense, paranoia, and misinformation (including about vaccines) prevail in the U.S., to the point of burning piles of money (including the 1.2B in this case) just to satisfy a childish and bully like need to spite and trigger the progressive side (like talking about causing more pollution with the goal of “owning the libs” or triggering “delicious liberal tears”). And we’re talking about massive negative externalities with increased pollution. This kind of childish bully behavior is as though you had a neighbor who cared about not littering in public and the streets being clean, and you just threw garbage on the streets to upset her. A ridiculous level of immaturity, truly. Meanwhile, we have totalitarian dictatorships (like the Emirates which has heavily moved toward zero carbon electricity sources like solar and nuclear) behaving far more logically, rationally, and soundly with a view towards the long-term rather than the short-term.

basilgohar 2mo ago
It's almost like we've been sold a lie about good guys and bad guys, us vs them, and so on.
- winter_blue 2mo ago
  I do think authoritarianism on its own is bad. I want the freedom to criticize my government, and I want the freedom to run for elections or to advocate for changes I want to see. I think democracy and logical long-term thinking shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I feel democracy and sensible behavior are two not connected things. You can have idiotic authoritarian governments that ruin the economy. China and Vietnam were exceptions among communist countries, who switched to a form of market economy, when they saw that central planning was poverty-inducing and nigh impossible to do. The problems we're seeing in democracies might lie with the level of disinformation for electioneering purposes that is permitted under free speech today.
- dzhiurgis 2mo ago
  Oh please. You wouldn’t survive in the regime 15seconds.
  - TitaRusell 2mo ago
    As an atheist I wouldn't survive in Texas for 15 seconds lol. I think I'll stick to my little Euro socialist country where politicians don't swear on a bible.
    - parineum 2mo ago
      That's a funny thing to say about a place you've obviously not been for 15 seconds. Also, you can swear on whatever you want here. It's the person's choice. You could swear on a copy of hitchiker's guide to the galaxy if you wanted.
- prmoustache 2mo ago
  It has always been about where you lived and not how the guys really were.
OroPla 2mo ago
The thing we have called "democracy" for the past three hundred or so years is basically just shadow government by whoever has the deepest pockets to influence public opinion with propaganda and pay politicians to do what they want. The politicians get blamed and cycled out while everything continues as before.
- parineum 2mo ago
  If that were true Hillary Clinton would have been president.
  - waffletower 2mo ago
    Money is deep on both "sides". It didn't help Harris to have the most either. But you can't deny that some political steerage toward donor agendas occurs.
  - imglorp 2mo ago
    She won the popular vote by a mile, he won the electoral vote. Some would say she should have been.
    - nomel 2mo ago
      Nobody with cursory knowledge of the US voting system would though. Edit: to the downvotes, our system doesn't care about popular vote, and neither do the most democratic/left left leaning states, who don't care to use proportional voting.
- dathinab 2mo ago
  no this way of thinking, is not very useful and can be pretty harmful, just because something is imperfect doesn't mean it's fully broken. Just because people have always manipulated democracy doesn't mean it "basically just shadow government". And sure, the US is a very bad case, _especially_ in recent years. But also let's not forgot that for most of it's history just one of the countless scandals of Trump would have been enough to highly risk impeachment for a president and be equal to political suicide. I.e. there has been quite a bit of limits on corruption and influences from behind the scene. It's just that the US went and broke itself. And yes a two party system was never truly democratic, it's still better then a one party system nor the same as a full shadow government. Which brings us to another point, there never was "the" shadow government, just many different people which had way to much influence behind the scene in not so democratic ways. A shadow government implies some form of organization/structure which actually governs and then puppets in front, but that was never really the case in the US AFIK. Even today it isn't as a lot of the escalating corruption is just pretty much out in the open by the governing people, instead of in any shadow, by people not in a official position.
throw1234567891 2mo ago
That communist country is sitting on a year’s worth of oil reserves, and rolls out a ton of coal for when they run out of oil. Makes you wonder why… almost looks like they know they’re going to be under complete sanctions sometime soon! That communist country also likes the current war in Iran. They get all that oil cheap for their reserves stockpile.
- kelseyfrog 2mo ago
  The enemy is both weak and powerful.
pineaux 2mo ago
Its because democracies werent and arent really democracies. But that aside. Corruption is rampant, the oil sector has politians in their pocket for a long long time and since the cold war, a counter narrative doesnt really put any weight in the scale. The billionaires arent afraid anymore.
DANmode 2mo ago
> Meanwhile, we have totalitarian dictatorships (like the Emirates which has heavily moved toward zero carbon electricity sources like solar and nuclear) behaving far more logically, rationally, and soundly with a view towards the long-term rather than the short-term. The difference you’re spotting is the leaders of those nations have some remaining incentive to care about the wealth and wellbeing of the country they’re leading beyond the expiration date of a 4 or 8 year term. For better and for worse, they have that, the US doesn’t.
- bryanlarsen 2mo ago
  It's been a common saying for a long time that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government and a tyrannical dictatorship the worst. Democracy exists primarily to avoid the latter, not that it's better than the former. Neither China nor the UAE can be said to have a purely benevolent dictatorship but it's not purely tyrannical either. So not surprisingly they're better than democracies in some aspects and worse in others.
tedggh 2mo ago
I work in renewables in the US. The current picture is actually a lot more positive than people believe. But good news are usually boring at not good for click bait, so they aren’t covered by the media. There’s a lot of work on solar energy currently and the forecast is VERY good. We do have some issues like grid connectivity and shifting policies but the market economics are working extremely well. The fact is solar is too cheap and, unlike wind, very easy to deploy, so it doesn’t matter what your political views are, you will eventually support it. Texas for example, the conservative oil and gas hub of the US, is already outpacing California in total capacity additions because 1) they have tons of land and 2) no BS, quick local permits. So if you are a solar builder, you go to Texas not California. And yes, Texas is still pro fossil fuels, but the laws of supply and demand will continue favoring solar so that’s where the money will flow to.
- dathinab 2mo ago
  > fact is solar is too cheap and, unlike wind, very easy to deploy, so it doesn’t matter what your political views are, you will eventually support it this is my point, too renewables, especially solar, just have gotten very competitive to a point they will gain ground even if not subsidized and I believe we will see (and in some niches have already seen) this happening for electric cars, too. They are plain simple just better technology which for now is still in the earlier stages. How much relevance wind will have we have to see, it's less advantages then solar and less easy to deploy. It's pretty good in some very windy northern (i.e. also less solar efficient) places and often iff it's extremely windy it's not extremely sunny and if extremely sunny it's often not extremely windy. This makes them complement each other quite nicely. So I still see a future for it even outside of the more northern regions.
  - Animats 2mo ago
    California has only four really good wind sites, and they already have wind farms on them. The real US wind belt is from the Texas panhandle northward to Canada. Look at a wind map of the US.[1] Grid-scale battery storage just keeps getting installed at an increasing rate.[1] 9.7 gigawatt-hours installed in Q1 2026.[2] It's not very visible. It's just shipping containers laid out on cement pads. It doesn't take up that much space. It can be placed anywhere there's good access to transmission lines. It's profitable if you can buy cheap solar power in the daytime and sell it at night. It's safe now that it uses lithium-iron phosphate batteries. 88 days to the midterm elections. Trump will still be in office for a while longer, but with less power to make trouble. [1] https://energy.maryland.gov/SiteAssets/Pages/Info/renewable/windmaps/U.S.%20Wind%20Power%20Resource%20at%20100-meter%20Hub%20Height.png https://energy.maryland.gov/SiteAssets/Pages/Info/renewable/... [2] https://gcn.com/america-s-grid-batteries-strongest-first/20423/ https://gcn.com/america-s-grid-batteries-strongest-first/204...
jhoechtl 2mo ago
The sweet spot is representative democracy with a tendency of socialism, to mildly distribute welath and assure social coherence. A voting system which results in a division of force, representing the voters will. The current US administration calls such things comunism.
- winter_blue 2mo ago
  > The sweet spot is representative democracy with a tendency of socialism, to mildly distribute wealth and assure social coherence. This would be perfect.

basilgohar 2mo ago

It's almost like we've been sold a lie about good guys and bad guys, us vs them, and so on.

winter_blue 2mo ago
I do think authoritarianism on its own is bad. I want the freedom to criticize my government, and I want the freedom to run for elections or to advocate for changes I want to see. I think democracy and logical long-term thinking shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I feel democracy and sensible behavior are two not connected things. You can have idiotic authoritarian governments that ruin the economy. China and Vietnam were exceptions among communist countries, who switched to a form of market economy, when they saw that central planning was poverty-inducing and nigh impossible to do. The problems we're seeing in democracies might lie with the level of disinformation for electioneering purposes that is permitted under free speech today.
dzhiurgis 2mo ago
Oh please. You wouldn’t survive in the regime 15seconds.
- TitaRusell 2mo ago
  As an atheist I wouldn't survive in Texas for 15 seconds lol. I think I'll stick to my little Euro socialist country where politicians don't swear on a bible.
  - parineum 2mo ago
    That's a funny thing to say about a place you've obviously not been for 15 seconds. Also, you can swear on whatever you want here. It's the person's choice. You could swear on a copy of hitchiker's guide to the galaxy if you wanted.
prmoustache 2mo ago
It has always been about where you lived and not how the guys really were.

OroPla 2mo ago

The thing we have called "democracy" for the past three hundred or so years is basically just shadow government by whoever has the deepest pockets to influence public opinion with propaganda and pay politicians to do what they want. The politicians get blamed and cycled out while everything continues as before.

parineum 2mo ago
If that were true Hillary Clinton would have been president.
- waffletower 2mo ago
  Money is deep on both "sides". It didn't help Harris to have the most either. But you can't deny that some political steerage toward donor agendas occurs.
- imglorp 2mo ago
  She won the popular vote by a mile, he won the electoral vote. Some would say she should have been.
  - nomel 2mo ago
    Nobody with cursory knowledge of the US voting system would though. Edit: to the downvotes, our system doesn't care about popular vote, and neither do the most democratic/left left leaning states, who don't care to use proportional voting.
dathinab 2mo ago
no this way of thinking, is not very useful and can be pretty harmful, just because something is imperfect doesn't mean it's fully broken. Just because people have always manipulated democracy doesn't mean it "basically just shadow government". And sure, the US is a very bad case, _especially_ in recent years. But also let's not forgot that for most of it's history just one of the countless scandals of Trump would have been enough to highly risk impeachment for a president and be equal to political suicide. I.e. there has been quite a bit of limits on corruption and influences from behind the scene. It's just that the US went and broke itself. And yes a two party system was never truly democratic, it's still better then a one party system nor the same as a full shadow government. Which brings us to another point, there never was "the" shadow government, just many different people which had way to much influence behind the scene in not so democratic ways. A shadow government implies some form of organization/structure which actually governs and then puppets in front, but that was never really the case in the US AFIK. Even today it isn't as a lot of the escalating corruption is just pretty much out in the open by the governing people, instead of in any shadow, by people not in a official position.

throw1234567891 2mo ago

That communist country is sitting on a year’s worth of oil reserves, and rolls out a ton of coal for when they run out of oil. Makes you wonder why… almost looks like they know they’re going to be under complete sanctions sometime soon! That communist country also likes the current war in Iran. They get all that oil cheap for their reserves stockpile.

kelseyfrog 2mo ago
The enemy is both weak and powerful.

pineaux 2mo ago

Its because democracies werent and arent really democracies. But that aside. Corruption is rampant, the oil sector has politians in their pocket for a long long time and since the cold war, a counter narrative doesnt really put any weight in the scale. The billionaires arent afraid anymore.

DANmode 2mo ago

> Meanwhile, we have totalitarian dictatorships (like the Emirates which has heavily moved toward zero carbon electricity sources like solar and nuclear) behaving far more logically, rationally, and soundly with a view towards the long-term rather than the short-term. The difference you’re spotting is the leaders of those nations have some remaining incentive to care about the wealth and wellbeing of the country they’re leading beyond the expiration date of a 4 or 8 year term. For better and for worse, they have that, the US doesn’t.

bryanlarsen 2mo ago
It's been a common saying for a long time that a benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government and a tyrannical dictatorship the worst. Democracy exists primarily to avoid the latter, not that it's better than the former. Neither China nor the UAE can be said to have a purely benevolent dictatorship but it's not purely tyrannical either. So not surprisingly they're better than democracies in some aspects and worse in others.

tedggh 2mo ago

I work in renewables in the US. The current picture is actually a lot more positive than people believe. But good news are usually boring at not good for click bait, so they aren’t covered by the media. There’s a lot of work on solar energy currently and the forecast is VERY good. We do have some issues like grid connectivity and shifting policies but the market economics are working extremely well. The fact is solar is too cheap and, unlike wind, very easy to deploy, so it doesn’t matter what your political views are, you will eventually support it. Texas for example, the conservative oil and gas hub of the US, is already outpacing California in total capacity additions because 1) they have tons of land and 2) no BS, quick local permits. So if you are a solar builder, you go to Texas not California. And yes, Texas is still pro fossil fuels, but the laws of supply and demand will continue favoring solar so that’s where the money will flow to.

dathinab 2mo ago
> fact is solar is too cheap and, unlike wind, very easy to deploy, so it doesn’t matter what your political views are, you will eventually support it this is my point, too renewables, especially solar, just have gotten very competitive to a point they will gain ground even if not subsidized and I believe we will see (and in some niches have already seen) this happening for electric cars, too. They are plain simple just better technology which for now is still in the earlier stages. How much relevance wind will have we have to see, it's less advantages then solar and less easy to deploy. It's pretty good in some very windy northern (i.e. also less solar efficient) places and often iff it's extremely windy it's not extremely sunny and if extremely sunny it's often not extremely windy. This makes them complement each other quite nicely. So I still see a future for it even outside of the more northern regions.
- Animats 2mo ago
  California has only four really good wind sites, and they already have wind farms on them. The real US wind belt is from the Texas panhandle northward to Canada. Look at a wind map of the US.[1] Grid-scale battery storage just keeps getting installed at an increasing rate.[1] 9.7 gigawatt-hours installed in Q1 2026.[2] It's not very visible. It's just shipping containers laid out on cement pads. It doesn't take up that much space. It can be placed anywhere there's good access to transmission lines. It's profitable if you can buy cheap solar power in the daytime and sell it at night. It's safe now that it uses lithium-iron phosphate batteries. 88 days to the midterm elections. Trump will still be in office for a while longer, but with less power to make trouble. [1] https://energy.maryland.gov/SiteAssets/Pages/Info/renewable/windmaps/U.S.%20Wind%20Power%20Resource%20at%20100-meter%20Hub%20Height.png https://energy.maryland.gov/SiteAssets/Pages/Info/renewable/... [2] https://gcn.com/america-s-grid-batteries-strongest-first/20423/ https://gcn.com/america-s-grid-batteries-strongest-first/204...

jhoechtl 2mo ago

The sweet spot is representative democracy with a tendency of socialism, to mildly distribute welath and assure social coherence. A voting system which results in a division of force, representing the voters will. The current US administration calls such things comunism.

winter_blue 2mo ago
> The sweet spot is representative democracy with a tendency of socialism, to mildly distribute wealth and assure social coherence. This would be perfect.