https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(Marxism)

Lithium mining is not good for the environment.

I am so sick of seeing our deserts destroyed, as though it’s somehow “empty” land. There are a million square miles of parking lots and building roofs in this country that we could cover with these things, and yet we would rather destroy ecosystems that are already delicate and millions of years old, with species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. And then call it “green” while we do it. All of this because the government can’t be bothered to deal with (read: compensate) private property owners to cover their parking lots and roofs with solar.

They can say they’ll stay away from “sensitive resources” all they want, but that’s proven to be false in the past, so why should we believe them now? They’re only putting them within ten miles of existing transmission lines - next time, it will be within ten miles of the ones they’re building now, and so on until there’s nothing left. The sad part is that this comment will be immediately taken as being against solar and renewables, when it’s actually against destroying more of our untouched land and history for profit.

There’s already tons of solar fields and wind fields in the desert. Now they’re starting to open up old gold mines and create new ones, in the Sierras as well as the desert. Look at Grass Valley and Nevada City, where not a single resident wants some giant mining company threatening their town and their rivers, but apparently they don’t get a say about their own homes. Joshua trees have been destroyed by fires caused by climate change, and none of us will see them grow back in our lifetimes. They’ve destroyed important historical sites like the petroglyphs at China Lake and display fake ones for tourists. They’ve built Las Vegas nearly up to the edge of Red Rocks and there’s ugly mansions popping up on the way to Mt Charleston. They’re building a train straight through some of the last open desert in California east of San Diego and through the agricultural region of San Joaquin valley. They’re “cleaning up” the Salton Sea, but of course you can’t just trust that they’re not going to fill the area with McMansions after that so they can expand the tourist dollars of Palm Springs. They’re turning the western terminus of the original transcontinental railroad into a fucking strip mall called The Railyards and putting a farmer’s market in the old Southern Pacific buildings. Some Silicon Valley douchebags are building a “utopia” in the middle of the wetlands east of SF, destroying the ecosystems and birds’ migratory pattens that the region has tried so hard to protect.

In the next fifty years, there will not be any open land left in the US unless it is a lucrative tourist attraction like Yosemite. There is already hardly anywhere on the SoCal coast that doesn’t cost $20 to get near it, and half of it is private property when private beaches are supposedly illegal in California. Ironically, the last piece of wild coastline in OC is owned by the military. It’s just a blatant “fuck you” to our country’s wilderness, ecosystems, and history, and especially, it seems, to the American Southwest.

There’s a station in Orange County they just shut down after it sat there unused for however many years. They already bury nuclear waste in the Arizona desert, they can’t act like that’s somehow off limits when they’re willing to destroy the rest of the desert with solar panels, wind farms, and lithium mines. It’s bullshit that the American desert is viewed as being empty and without value, unless it’s pretty enough to charge tourists and entry fee. There’s zero excuse for destroying what little we have left of our open land in the US. It will be completely gone before we even have time to realize it.

Why are these solar panels not going on top of buildings? On parking lots and parking garages? We never seem to have a problem finding more room for those? I know the answer is that it will cost more and they would need some kind of rights from the property owners. That’s still not an excuse to destroy the land, the ecosystems, and the species that live there. It’s fucking disgusting, soulless, and short sighted. Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.

If it’s at all profitable it will end up being companies making up a bunch of new personas eventually. That might be good in that it’s more jobs per “influencer,” but also maybe lower paying.

Although I’m pretty sure this already happened with fake Instagram models and I don’t think it ever really went anywhere. It was just a novel thing for awhile.

The new generation of “clean your plate, there’s starving children in Africa.”

Saying “don’t complain because someone else has it worse” is the worst form of bad faith, uneducated argument. You’re the problem.

You should consider going back to college. Or just going to college. Or just reading a single book.

It’s a reference to the fact that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed into a different form.

“The way I interpret this comment is” if this is all there is to it, then we should all be the same weight all the time, apparently.

It’s amazing what people think they can “interpret” about another whole entire anonymous human being they know literally nothing about, other than “thin.”

These comments are totally proving the OC’s point though.

Thank you. There’s apparently been a fine line between promoting body acceptance and shitting on thin body types. Some people seem to think it’s not even a natural body type at all and anyone who’s thin is just anorexic. It’s like we’ve been completely left out of the equation unless we’re being looked down on. Yeah, I’m right there with you on this.

It sounds ridiculous because they’re hitting on good critiques of capitailsm, but using the language of capitalism itself.

I think there was someone who wrote a book like this, circa 1865

What happens when social security does run out and the millennials and gen z who have paid into it for years get 0 benefit? Ok, we’ve helped the boomers retire. But then when we need it it’s not going to be there.

entitled customers who can’t do basic research deserve wrong answers

Yes everyone should know everything at all times, and whoever doesn’t is entitled for asking questions.

Where the info comes from doesn’t exactly change that it’s a problem.

You can talk about media literacy, but why even have the thing exist if it can’t provide correct answers. That’s its only reason for existing.

The part that got me is when they quoted the text of the bill and then linked to the bill.

But yes, the constant “slamming” of democrats is pretty biased. I can’t say I wholly disagree with that first paragraph, but anything that uses “land of the free” unironically usually has an angle.

My man needs treatment, not tough love.

This is true for so many things. Tough love rarely works for anyone, for any reason. I can’t wait for the day when it’s no longer so deeply ingrained in American culture as the answer to every single problem. It can really fuck people up far worse than they were to begin with, especially kids. I don’t know what the fuck people are thinking when they decide that treating someone like crap will make them a better person.

I see so many of these comments I can’t help but wonder if it’s an ad campaign by Kagi.

I would add: teaching that romantic relationships are not the end all and be all of life.

I feel like this is part of the problem, because it creates misogyny, incels and depression when people have their entire self-worth wrapped up in another person liking them. Any person. All of our media pushes this message, especially to young people. I was a serial monogamist all my life until several years ago. I’ve been more productive and accomplished and more in touch with who I am than I’ve ever been. I don’t have the need fpr another person in my life, and that’s how it should be. A partner should be an addition to a person and a life that is already functional. I can’t help but notice now how every. single. song, movie, show, book, etc. is not just about romance, but about another person making someone’s life worth living. It’s fucked up and we need to teach kids that they are enough, by themselves, and that being in a relationship is a choice. It’s not mandatory.

You should move there and leave the internet to the rest of us then. Why keep hanging out in the giant propaganda machine, right?

I’m sure they just weren’t aware that starving your whole population is simply a “differing political ideology.” Cut them some slack.

Wtf is the point of this. Even if they wanted to save on labor costs of wait staff and everything why not just use your own card instead of trading it for a temporary card.

It’s like this pizza place I went to recently. They had a little arcade so I went to put some quarters in and realized I had to go buy tokens at a machine first. It wasn’t Dave and Busters or anything, just a hole in the wall with a few games in a corner. I didn’t buy any tokens. Same with laundromats that now want you to buy tokens ahead of time.

There isn’t a single business anymore that isn’t trying to just blatantly scam you out of your money. They used to at least be more subtle about it.