excellent points. just want to help people contextualize here. roughly 3/4 of all that water you're talking about is for industrial scale agriculture. we could almost halve the water usage with restrictions on which crops can or can't be grown.
Irrigated agriculture is responsible for 74% of direct human uses and 52% of overall water consumption. Water consumed for agriculture amounts to three times all other direct uses combined. Cattle feed crops including alfalfa and other grass hays account for 46% of all direct water consumption.
in other words, there's a fuckton of water available for human use... but not enough for humans AND cows. not enough to satiate the endless global demand for cheeseburgers and steaks. our mis management of the water supply is steering the entire southwestern US into a man made disaster with catastrophic knock on effects for global meat consumption. some folks say "cattle ranching made The West. seems fitting that cattle will be it's unmaking.
because Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (billionaire former hedge mgr) is friends with another billionaire (Rob Citrone) who is heavily invested in the right wing Milei government.
The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models.
Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided “at all costs”. It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.
this is not the conversation ending truth-bomb some people make it out to be.
scholars have contested the selection methods and conclusions reached in that original survey/article. for example, several of the "successful" countries on their list have since regressed into dictatorships/unrest.
not trying to debate or be contrarian, but I think folks who lean heavily on the non-violence strategy should consider that the success of nonviolent moderate protest movements may have something to do with them being perceived as more palatable to the ruling class than the violent opposition alternatives. therefore, simply making violent alternatives widely known and believed to be credible threats, actually serves to push moderate people towards the less scary less radical faction of the movement.
the difference, is whether someone is punching up (ridiculing powerful billionaires) vs punching down/sideways (diverse and marginalized peeps). seems like pretty basic and consistent application of a worldview to me.
no comment on celebrities. i don't give two flying fucks at rolling donut about celebrities.
interesting note: a flavor of techno fascism actually started in the 30s, it was called Technocracy, Inc.
The technocracy movement was a social movement active in the United States and Canada in the 1930s which favored technocracy as a system of government over representative democracy [...] a California engineer, invented the word technocracy in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers"
here's an article explaining how Musk, Thiel, and Andreessen (and other tech billionaires) have adopted a similar philosophy with the "Charter Cities" ancap utopianism they're working to replace democracy with.
I'm so sick and fucking tired of "the drug problem" being used over and over and over again to justify anything the government wants.
the US has been fighting a war on drugs to the cost of trillions of dollars over 50 years and what has it led to? massive expansion and militarization of the border at taxpayers expense, and more people do drugs today than EVER!
we need to stop letting the propagandists win by nodding along to this 'fentanyl is America's #1' enemy bullshit. people are on drugs because theyre fucking miserable! they don't have safety nets, homes, communities, support to quit, or meaningful work. enough is enough!
they probably mean "culturally progressive", as in, woke leaning. bombs with rainbows painted on them.
the US was only very briefly controlled by a progressive govt and it took a great depression and threats of mob violence against the ruling class to get that much.
it actually does hint that perhaps the path to overthrowing Trumpism is to radicalize the merchant class (aka petit bourgeoisie) against his agendas and force direct action. it's not so far fetched. for instance, Patriotic Millionaires.<- links to a short article about their plan to reduce inequality by taxing wealth
the rich are not a monolith. they each have their own special interests. there are many outside Trump's inner circle who depends on certain aspects of the economy being stable and profitable. maybe some of those angry multi-millionaites will switch loyalties now they see how bad Elonazi is for their bottom line?
everything he says is laundered and repackaged through an army of spin doctors to make it seem more convincing and articulate.
Hitler had Goebbels. one guy. with the rise of for profit, 24/7, ubiquitous social media, there's now 10,000 Goebbels with their own podcast or content channel.
and because these apologists and sane-washers get paid by tech companies (in advertising/ clicks) they have incentives to keep churning it out without any direct orders from a central authority - "Smash that subscribe button!, we got weekly hot takes on what glorious leader actually meant when he said 'death to my enemies!'"