@janrosenow@semoxenaar@RegulatoryAssistanceProject Use has barely declined. But production has collapsed. This is not a good trend to see. It means greater dependency on outside regimes, such as Russia. It's NIMBYism at its worst. In the middle of a war.
On #Bluesky, a few months ago, #XKCD author Randall Munroe wrote a long story about the "Case of the Missing Hit", a song with the chorus "#LOL" with specific lyrics and style aspects, which other people seem to have also heard - yet the song doesn't seem to exist.
The whole idea that EU/NATO forces downing Shahed drones and cruise missiles in the air in western Ukraine, would cause World War 3 is ridiculous in my opinion. Putin is never able to control western Ukraine anyway. Also little or no ground forces need to be involved. #geopolitics#ukraine@Geopolitics#russia#EU#NATO
@ErikJonker@Geopolitics I've been advocating for a NATO presence in western Ukraine since Day 1.
Pick a distance from the frontline well out of artillery and SHORAD range. Draw a line in Ukraine. Literally if you need to, even visible from space if one must. NATO mans the sky and ground behind the line, Ukraine in front of it. All of Ukraine's resources in the rear now go to the front, and Russia knows that even in the best case it can't advance very far in Ukraine.
The EU vs #Ukraine grain debate hosts one category of participants who are just as destructive as they are tragicomically detached from reality - I call them “big farm libertarians”. Here’s one example, Alex Lissitsa, head of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club:
Protectionism won’t save the EU’s agricultural sector, Lissitsa said. “Polish farmers are too small to be real players in the global grain market, where they have to compete with countries like Ukraine, Brazil or Russia,” he said. They’d be better off specializing in the production of flowers, fruits or vegetables, he added. “Or even marijuana.”
Every his single statement quoted here displays not only an utter arrogance but also complete misunderstanding of EU Common Agricultural Policy goals and operation. Protectionism on the EU farming market is not an obstacle, it’s an entirely intentional mechanism that prevents dog-eat-dog competition between EU member states and, most importantly, keeps the farming industry in house, thus securing a critical supply chain - food - inside EU. And it’s not only EU who’s doing it - Switzerland has one of them most protectionist farming industries in the world and Russia has just laboriously rebuilt it farming industry over the last decade to remove the strategic dependence on imports… from EU.
@kravietz Producing a good in a place where it takes less labour and smaller amounts of / cheaper inputs, and/or less expensive labour and/or less expensive inputs, to produce a given amount of a given product, is efficient. It means you get a greater amount of the good per unit input, aka greater net GDP productivity, aka greater ability to deliver quality of life.
@kravietz Of course you can (and should) charge for externalities (pollution, national security, etc). But exactly what externality are you positing to Europe when talking about its grain being produced in Poland vs. in Ukraine?
@kravietz No. Protectionism is ALWAYS inefficient. The inefficiency didn't even remotely begin with Ukraine.
The invention of the spinning loom made many spinners unemployed. Does that mean that we should have banned looms? OF COURSE not. Mandating inefficiency IS wrong and stupid, period. It hurts the overall economy, which hurts EVERYONE.
By all means, tax EXTERNALITIES. National security, pollution, etc - define them and tax them. But don't MANDATE INEFFICIENCY. It's mind-bogglingly dumb.
@kravietz Ukraine isn't cheap because of pollution. It's not cheap because of exploitation. It's not cheap because of some government-subisidized attempt to undercut the national security of the EU. It's cheap because grain grows better there and the average Ukrainian farmer is less well off than the average Polish farmer. You get more grain per euro, and people who are less well off benefit the most (income equality). BOTH are very much Good Things(TM).
@kravietz By mandating inefficiency, you ensure that everyone drops vs. the net ecocomic potential if inefficiency wasn't mandated.
If every industry was mandated to be 50% as efficient due to protectionism, then the economy would be half the size and the average person would have half the income in terms of purchasing power parity.
#Tennessee Republicans, spurred on by #chemtrail advocates, pass a bill that, on the face of it, appears to unintentionally ban all #CO2 emissions ("injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals into the air affecting temperature, weather, or the intensity of the sunlight")
If you want to clarify, you have to either say "eldgos" (lit. "Fire-Eruption") vs. "gosdrykkur" (lit. "Eruption-Drink") :) The latter isn't very common, you normally just ask for an #eruption :)
The cars are great (I own one), and consistently get top owner satisfaction marks. People talk about products they like. Get over it Also, Tesla is not a physical incarnation of Elon. He barely even shows up for work and only owns like a fifth of the company. The fact that you define your online presence around the guy is just sad.
@FuckElon@stevenschwenke@JavaLandConf If your goal is to avoid products (let alone define your life about raging against them) because a fifth of the stock is held by someone who's an arse, well, good friggin' luck with that. Volkswagen was gassing monkeys with car exhaust for whitewashing in their campaign to hide the fact that they were secretly illegally choking cities with smog and killing people, and you pick Tesla to rage against?
@FuckElon@stevenschwenke@JavaLandConf You're totally right, Volkswagen was trying to cure paralysis and lock-in patients and was conducting experiments required by the FDA :Þ
You also seem to think that Neuralink is run by Tesla (a company of something like 150 thousand people). Because again you have a pathological obsession with Musk. Literally, just look at your profile.
Get help and stop harassing people because you're obsessed with the 20% owner of the company that made their car.
