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Hyperreality

@ Hyperreality @kbin.social

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Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Earth Was Due for Another Year of Record Warmth. But This Warm? Scientists are already busy trying to understand whether 2023’s off-the-charts heat is a sign that global warming is accelerating.

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  • Relevant bits:

    As extreme as this year’s temperatures were, they did not catch researchers off guard. Scientists’ ... 2023’s heat is still broadly within this range, albeit on the high end. ... one exceptional year would not be enough to suggest something was faulty with the computer models ... Global temperatures have long bobbed up and down around a steady warming trend because of cyclical factors like El Niño ... has intensified since, possibly signaling more record heat to come in 2024. ... “I’m not willing to say that we’ve ‘broken the climate’ or there’s anything weird going on until more evidence comes in.” ... Until the current El Niño is over, “it’s unlikely we’ll be able to make definitive claims,” he said.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • Read the article you posted. It doesn't say France is selling Sudan weapons.

    It says "Amnesty International representatives call on France and its European partners to press for an effective international arms embargo to be imposed on Sudan" and that "France and its European partners should urgently pressure states concerned by these sales, and international bodies, to impose an effective international arms embargo on Sudan."

    The article mentions who those states are. The UAE, Russia/Wagner, China, and Libya. It also mentions that a lot of the weapons are of Soviet and Iranian design. It does not mention France supplying Sudan weapons.

    Also, how is France supposed to impose a weapons embargo without a military to monitor shipments? That was a rhetorical question. No need to answer.

    Anyway, agree to disagree and all that. No point continuing this discussion.

  • EV Batteries Are Dangerous to Repair. Here’s Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway

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  • It's cheaper, but not that much cheaper. Anecdotally, my current car is 8 years old and has cost me roughly 400 euros a year in repairs and servicing. Manual gearbox is fine and should outlast the car.

    Also, if I do a simulation for extended warranty and servicing (8 years/210k km) on the manufacturers website for a petrol car and for an equivalent electric car, the difference is roughly 600 euros per year. I suspect that'll be down to the battery. Traditional car the costs are spread over a longer period. Electric the battery or whatever sneaks up on you. The whole thing becomes doubly annoying when you factor in high electricity prices, meaning (sometimes) fuel costs are lower than electricity costs.

    To be clear, electric is the future, it's a good thing they'll be banning the sale of new ICE cars here in the foreseeable future, and an electric car almost certainly is cheaper to run. It's just not that much cheaper. I assume prices will come down when they're forced to start making more of them and competing with the Chinese.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • War has never been beneficial to an economy unless they’re selling the weapons instead of waging war with them.

    Which is why you need a strong military as a deterrent. It demonstrably reduces the risk of war.

    The west has been massively oppressing other countries for about a century now with their “defense”.

    Imperialism is wrong, whether it's the west, the Russians, or the Chinese doing it.

    There is already a job shortage and you say we need to waste even more workers on making weapons because jobs? Because bombs are going to build houses or something? Especially now the economy is stagnating

    You need to increase military spending to prevent war, not for jobs.

    But if the economy stagnates or goes into recession, this will lead to job losses, so this argument doesn't make much sense.

    It is possible to build more houses and spend money on defense. Once again, this is the false choice fallacy.

    Afghanistan and Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and many others don’t exist according to you.

    Would the Israelis be carpet bombing Gaza right now, if the Palestinians had a very strong military?

    Would the Soviets or Americans have been more or less likely to invade if Afghanistan had a very powerful military?

    Sudan has been ruined by France and NATO for the last few decades.

    What is now Sudan was a British and not a French colony.

    It sounds like you're confusing Sudan with French Sudan, which is present day Mali, or perhaps Niger which has been in the news recently.

    In any case, Sudan broke off relations with the west in 1967. They were in the Soviet sphere of influence for decades after that. They've had close ties with Russia and China for years now.

    This extra spending has nothing to do with previous purchases.

    The F16s were going to be put out of service. That decision was made decades ago.

    If the F16 wasn't being replaced with the F35, Rutte wouldn't be sending them to Ukraine. So as a matter of fact, Rutte sending F16s has a lot to do with the previous purchase of F35s.

    Increasing military spending to 2% was agreed upon years ago, before Rutte became PM.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • EV Batteries Are Dangerous to Repair. Here’s Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway

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  • I loved how Renault solved this for the Twizzy (and other cars). You bought the car. You leased the battery for something like 50 euros a month. (Probably more now).

    Sure, that sounds expensive, but I suspect it worked out less than replacing the battery after a decade.

    Suspect it also helped resale value. The most expensive repair to worry about for a second hand buyer, is the battery. Making that a lease removes that worry entirely. You know exactly how much it's going to cost.

    Of course, having to pay that monthly lease fee for the battery, does make it more obvious that electric cars aren't necessarily that much cheaper to run than an ICE.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • Rutte heavily destroyed the country’s Healthcare system and introduced student loans. The Dutch healthcare system is starting to look more like the American one every year.

    Correct, but irrelevant to military spending.

    Military spending is still low and it is possible for a country to spend a bit more on defense and have a good healthcare system.

    Giving Ukraine some 30 year old F16s, which were going to be scrapped anyway, costs almost nothing compared to what is spent on healthcare. Suggesting you have to choose is a logical fallacy.

    If anything, giving Ukraine some more military aid, reduces the risk of Russian invasion or increased provocations, which in turn reduces the need to increase military spending in the long term. Giving Ukraine some more military aid now, ultimately means we will almost certainly have MORE money to spend on healthcare.

    He randomly let the entire cabinet fall on a non-issue that his party now doesn’t even care about anymore to get a new coalition going.

    Correct. But this has little to do with buying new planes, a decision which was made decades ago (if it wasn't the brits would still be using spitfires), or sending Ukraine a few 30 year old planes.

    The requirement for peace isn’t more war planes

    Incorrect. The best way to ensure peace, is to ensure your military is strong enough to deter foreign countries from invading.

    Eg. North Korea vs. Ukraine.

    One has nukes. One had nukes. Guess which one was invaded?

    Appeasement doesn't work. Claiming you're neutral doesn't work either.

    Didn't work the Belgians during WWI.

    Didn't work for the Netherlands during WWII.

    Didn't work for Latvia. Didn't work for Lithuania.

    Didn't work for Hungary in 1956.

    Didn't work for Ukraine in 2014.

    Westerners can not seem to imagine having peace with anyone by not violently oppressing them.

    The Chinese and Russians certainly can't, judging by what they've been up to in Ukraine, South East Asia, Xinjiang and Sudan.

    The problem seems to be that a lot of people assume European supremacy and can't conceive of us being the victims who need to defend ourselves from Imperial powers. That's why like you they can't grasp needing planes for anything other than foreign wars. Because you've never experienced war, you don't seem to grasp what the primary purpose of a country's military is defence not foreign interventions or humanitarian missions.

    The reality is that we are incredibly weak because we've spent far too little on defense for decades, and because Europe has been stagnating in relative terms, and has been for years. And yes, that is costing us money and jobs.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • Rutte is a twat.

    The F35 was ordered a decade ago. The decision to replace the ageing F16 was basically already made twenty years ago, IRC one of the Balkenende governments:

    Archived Dutch article.

    The Netherlands is part of the nuclear sharing agreement with the US. The F16 is nuclear capable but over 30 years old. The F35 is also nuclear capable and replaced it. The Dutch government would have had to withdraw from nuclear sharing and seriously damaged its relationship with the US.

    and make Europe more like America without Healthcare.

    The US spends almost twice as much on healthcare as the Netherlands. Saying that the Netherlands or the US must choose between healthcare and defense, is a false dichotomy. One often pushed by Russian and Chinese propagandists.

    Last time I checked, the Netherlands spends less than 1.5% of GDP on defense. That's still less than the 2% agreed upon by Balkenende in 2014.

    You invest in defense, or you get pushed around by countries like China or Russia. That means more expensive fuel, imports, less ability to export, etc. It means less jobs and everyone's poorer. If they think you're weak, they're also more likely to make stupid mistakes, like blow up another civilian airliner or use a toxic nerve agent that could have killed thousands near a UK military base in a show of force. If you're strong, they're more careful, and we can all live in peace for a while longer.

    If Trump gets re-elected, which isn't unlikely, he will continue to undermine NATO. If Ukraine falls, Putin will become emboldened. Russia has lost a lot of troops in Ukraine, but they have increased conscription. According to the experts, they've moved their economy to a war footing. If they win in Ukraine, they will be stronger, more experienced, and more dangerous than they've been in decades. When that happens, that 1.5% will likely have to be double or even tripled to ensure things stay stable and mistakes aren't made.

    Honestly, this reminds me a lot of climate change. People burying their heads in the sand, rather than admit the reality. Even after countless warnings and half a million casulties in a European war, people are still trying to pretend nothing's changed.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • What SMillerNL said. Also: he didn't gain an absolute majority, and as the Netherlands doesn't use a first past the post system like the US or UK, he'll need to form a coalition government to be able to rule the country.

  • Putin could attack Baltics and Moldova next, says Belgian army chief

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  • They're not winning, yet.

    No one ever won a war by underestimating the enemy. Alarm bells should be going off across the west. They should have been going off a decade ago.

  • Ukraine Awaits Delivery Of First F-16 Jets In Coming Days As Kyiv Seeks To Counter Russian Air Superiority

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  • The reason Rutte is pushing this through ASAP is because Wilders 'won' the last election, and might become the next PM. He's widely seen as pro-Putin.

  • Putin could attack Baltics and Moldova next, says Belgian army chief

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  • Not a democracy.

  • Putin could attack Baltics and Moldova next, says Belgian army chief

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  • They're replenishing troops:

    https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-army-expansion-a2bf0b035aabab20c8b120a1c86c9e38

    And their arms and defense industry is ramping up heavily:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-ramps-up-output-some-military-hardware-by-more-than-tenfold-state-company-2023-09-19/

    They've lost a lot of troops. Putin doesn't care, he can always send more of his countrymen to their deaths.

    They've lost a lot of equipment. Putin doesn't care, the Soviet Union spent far far more than Russia as a proportion of GDP and maintained that spending for decades.

    They are not to be underestimated, especially if Trump wins and further undermines NATO.

  • Japan approves record $56 billion military spending

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  • So unless a president does something stupid,

    A president did something stupid:

    In Tokyo, such concerns have been often raised by former high-ranking national security officials. Most notably, in November, retired admiral Kawano Katsutoshi, the longest-serving chief of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces’ Joint Staff under the Abe Shinzo administration, cast doubt on the effectiveness of the current U.S. nuclear deterrence. ... “Regarding the United States’ nuclear umbrella, even if Washington says, ‘you don’t have to worry about it,’ a suspicion crosses my mind. Is it really okay?” Kawano said in a speech in Tokyo on November 20. “Even if the U.S. government says it will guarantee it 100 percent, a US president changes every four or eight years. It’s a democratic country, so its domestic public opinion always sways. The U.S. Congress is greatly influenced by public opinion,” Kawano said. The retired admiral specifically pointed out that former U.S. President Donald Trump used to profess Americans shouldn’t sacrifice their lives to fight for other nations under his “America First” policy. The late Abe Shinzo, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, said in late February 2022 that Tokyo should break a long-standing taboo and hold an open discussion on nuclear weapons – including a possible “nuclear-sharing” program similar to that of NATO – in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  • Japan approves record $56 billion military spending

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  • I wonder if and when they'll get nukes. They're more than capable of making them, they've been buying missiles and planes that can deliver them, and there's been discussions about if for a while now.

  • Study shows Tesla owners have most car accidents, but Ram has the worst drivers

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  • Super car acceleration, normal car braking.

    It's not a great combination in a car that's heavy, but I guess you don't sell cars by bragging about braking distances.

  • Mother, daughter killed by Israel army in Gaza church grounds: patriarchate

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  • Congress approves bill barring any president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO

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  • This deterrent effect doesn’t come just from the NATO treaty ... Deterrence comes from the Kremlin’s conviction that Americans really believe in collective defense, that the U.S. military really is prepared for collective defense, and that the U.S. president really is committed to act if collective security is challenged. Trump could end that conviction with a single speech, a single comment, even a single Truth Social post, and it won’t matter if Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of withdrawing from NATO. Once the commander in chief says “I will not come to an ally’s aid if attacked,” why would anyone fear NATO, regardless of what obligations still exist on paper? ... When I asked several people with deep links to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, to Ukraine, and even to Taiwan and South Korea if Trump declared his refusal to observe Article 5, all of them agreed that faith in collective defense could evaporate quickly. Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a former deputy secretary-general of NATO, pointed out that Trump could pull the American ambassador from his post, prevent diplomats from attending meetings, or stop contributing to the cost of the Brussels headquarters, all before Congress was able to block him: “He wouldn’t be in any way legally constrained from doing that.” Closing American bases in Europe and transferring thousands of soldiers would take longer, of course, but all of the political bodies in the alliance would nevertheless have to change the way they operate overnight. James Goldgeier, an international-relations professor at American University and the author of several books on NATO, thinks the result would be chaotic. “It’s not like you can say, ‘Okay, now we have another plan for how to deal with this,’ ” he told me. There is no alternative leadership available, no alternative source of command-and-control systems, no alternative space weapons, not even an alternative supply of ammunition. Europe would immediately be exposed to a possible Russian attack for which it is not prepared, and for which it would not be prepared for many years.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/01/trump-2024-reelection-pull-out-of-nato-membership/676120/

  • Fear of cheap Chinese EVs spurs automaker dash for affordable cars

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  • Chinese EVs are being sold at a loss of up to 35k per car:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/business/nio-china-electric-vehicles.html

    The Chinese government is subsidising their car industry, so they can engage in dumping, and decimate our car industries. When our domestic car industries are dead, they'll raise prices. It's like Amazon or any other scummy megacorp that kills local businesses.

    This being said, it's hard to feel sorry for companies who also receive plenty of government subsidies and tax breaks, broke the law on emissions testing and likely killed a lot of people because of it, and refused to innovate or lower prices out of sheer greed.