You know when we first started seeing growing populations and development of agriculture? When the climate started an exceptionally long stable period. Guess what’s going put of the window now? Planting for draught because that’s the “new normal” won’t get you far if the next year happens to be the wettest on record. Let alone that stronger storms than ever seen before aren’t exactly great for harvests either. And that’s just agriculture. Climate related disasters can wipe out key infrastructure, with unexpected consequences down the line (e.g. no car production because of a certain specific part of almost all cars comes from that one specific place). And then there’s the refugee problem on top of all that.

How would making states, towns or neighborhoods look richer cause outrage? For income statistics, median us a much better measure in most cases, because it reflects “the average experience” much better. If you want to highlight income inequality, there’s plenty of other stats you can use, e.g. the percentage of all income going to the top 1%.

There’s millions of Venezuelans in Colombia, Ecuador and further South. But their options there are for more limited than in the US.

Didn’t he basically campaign with this?

As someone who lives under representative representation, I totally agree that FPTP should go. But being against that system doesn’t have to ve a leftist strategy. I think everyone who does not feel represent by the two big parties can get behind a change there. Pushing that idea across the spectrum could be helpful. It might even be an idea to start an alliance party with as only program point an overdue constitutional reform. You wouldn’t need other policies: simply reform & hold new elections as soon as possible afterwards

Made me wonder: how likely would it be that a modern ginkgo could not reproduce with an ancient one?

Someone should invent a game, that while playing demonstrates how much monopolies suck for everyone involved (except the monopolist)

That’s a short but touching poem.

NDA, not BJP, got 293 seats

It makes little sense to vote third party in your current system. Electoral reform is needed to break the cycle. For example with proportional representation instead of winner takes all.

“Made unusable”: that’s not how it works. Even with occasional vandalism, there’s so much more people positively contributing, that overall the map just keeps on getting better and better.

While we should absolutely use our backyards to make some space for nature, there’s going on more than this. Even in nature reserves, insect counts seem to be going down. Last I heard, it’s still not entirely clear what’s going on, but probably related to certain types of pesticides.

Ancient AI proven

It won’t, but at least you’re not part of the problem anymore. You might inspire other people to. And every person who goes plantbased makes it more politically viable to enact policies to encourage plant based over the most destructive other foods. Try to avoid discouraging people who try to do the right thing, help them make a bigger impact instead.

Didn’t they have 3% economic growth last year?

I get the reasoning, but not a single country has ever been kicked out of the UN for having crazy/terrorist/genocidal leaders. So why should having a palatable government be a criterium to join? And anyway, I thought Hamas only controls Gaza. The West Bank is larger, and has a slightly larger population, and it is controlled by Fatah (AFAIK). So the seat would likely end up under Fatah control, no?

IIRC, this actually happens. When the balance is disturbed, the mushrooms go wild and destroy young sapplings. Could be I recall incorrectly and it’s actually other species. I cannot recommend The Mother Tree enough, it goes into great detail of the history of research into this

Ironically, De Croo was also criticised here in Belgium for that speech being way too soft.