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MeteorOnMars t1_j1ybgib wrote

For years, when listing the reasons to switch off fossil fuels, I’d mention “bad actor suppliers like Russia and Saudi Arabia”.

But, I kinda gave up trying to convince people this was a serious point.

Then Russia sadly made that abstract argument blindingly obvious.

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Kidrellik t1_j1zpj01 wrote

Thing is, nobody really cares about "Bad actor suppliers" as long they don't do what they're doing in their neighborhood. At least nobody in power. If Russia invaded a place like Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan instead, the sanctions would have been much less harsh just like with what happened in Georgia. But instead they invaded a country in Europe and forced another massive migration crisis right after a global pandamic without doing the usual steady stream of propaganda for 3 or 4 years to lay the groundwork.

I think it was because they thought they could steam roll Ukraine with half the troops they had and by just YOLO running to Kyiv like they did with the Crimea but Ukraine was ready this time and it ended up being a disaster.

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Northstar1989 t1_j1zx47j wrote

>think it was because they thought they could steam roll Ukraine with half the troops they had and by just YOLO running to Kyiv like they did with the Crimea but Ukraine was ready this time and it ended up being a disaster.

It has more to do with the fact that both the US and European NATO countries have spent a significant portion of the last 8 years arming Ukraine to the teeth in preparation for further Russian attacks.

Also, the only real difference between Ukraine and Kazakhstan here that matters is Ukrainians are white. The US does more than enough naked Imperialism in brown countries that there's no way a similar level of support could have been mustered for Kazakhstan, due to racism...

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Kidrellik t1_j1zy77e wrote

>Also, the only real difference between Ukraine and Kazakhstan here that matters is Ukrainians are white.

Well that and it's also much harder to arm a place like Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan. How are you going to do that? You can't go through Central Asia, China isn't going to let you and neither is Iran. Turkey probably will but they're going to charge extremely handsomely.

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provocative_bear t1_j20ebbn wrote

The West responded harshly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because they were increasingly aligned with the West. If Russia attacks a province that’s already Russian-aligned, it gets a finger wag, if they attack a nation that we’re actually invested in, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

As for whiteness... I don’t think there would just be a simple finger wag if China attacked Taiwan, I think that it would be a full-on proxy war and a diplo-economic disaster for the world.

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neglectedselenium t1_j20bgfm wrote

You're wrong, Ukraine was not armed to the teeth. That's BS. They still largely use soviet era tanks, aircraft, etc. A couple of thousands of Javelins and Stingers ≠ armed to the teeth. Another BS is your assertion that the US wouldn't help the brown/non-white people in case of a hypothetical russian invasion. Also wrong.

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TheSensibleTurk t1_j2187ix wrote

As a middle eastern native who was on the receiving end of that US imperialism, I can attest that we owe to the US a lot.

The US repaired my grandparents' farm with the Marshall Aid in the 40s.

The US subsidized my dad's medical school tuition and my mom's pharmacy major tuition via USAID funds allocated to urbanization projects.

The US saved my dad's Kurdish relatives in Iraq first during the Gulf War, secondly after the US oversaw the creation of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The US brought me as a then-15 year old Turkish kid to America for a public diplomacy program in 2008.

The US gave me citizenship through the MAVNI program.

I am proud to call myself an American today and I believe that the projection of US power is a good thing for humankind.

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Northstar1989 t1_j252xgf wrote

The Kurds are one of the very few groups of brown-skinned people that have, on the balance, largely benefitted from US Imperialism. Until the US abandoned Kurdistan almost entirely to its own fate at the end of the Second Gulf War instead of backing their dream of an independent state, directly leading to ISIS murdering enormous numbers of Kurdistan soon thereafter, of course..

Your experience is largely unique- and would not have occurred if you were a brown person from nearly any other part of the world.

At the same time the US was investing in Kurdish farmers like your grandfather and sending your parents to college, it was doing things like backing a literal genocidal regime in Indonesia, behaving in an initially friendly manner to Apartheid South Africa (until public pressure caused the US to finally start enforcing sanctions), and overthrowing the legitimately-elected Democratic Socialist government of Chile and replacing it with the murderous Pinochet far-right dictatorship that set up concentration camps across the country...

Just because a few lucky family like yours benefitted does NOT mean US influence was a net positive for most people.

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TheSensibleTurk t1_j25o8i1 wrote

I'm Turkish, and my grandparents were in Turkey.

Without the US, we would have ended up as a Soviet satellite.

The deposition of Allende was a legitimate act to counter the USSR. Communism is a totalitarian ideology and totalitarian ideologies require extraordinary methods to be combated.

As a soon to be minted foreign service officer and a reservist lieutenant, I will strive until my last breath to see Pax Americana perpetuated.

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Northstar1989 t1_j25p9d4 wrote

>The deposition of Allende was a legitimate act to counter the USSR. Communism is a totalitarian ideology and totalitarian ideologies require extraordinary methods to be combated.

Allende was a Democratic Socialist not a "Communist" (by which you mean Authoritarian Socialist, in the style of the USSR) you troll.

His ideology was in no way Totalitarian, and he actively worked to maintain the institutions of Democracy.

Whereas PINOCHET the far-right "Capitalist" dixtator installed by the CIA was absolutely 100% a Totalitarian. He built Concentration Camps.

So by your own words, Pinochet should have been opposed by "extraordinary methods", not been actively supported and installed in the first place by the CIA.

Funny how you right-wing trolls twist morality in on itself so it becomes somehow right to depose a leftist Democracy to replace it with right-wing Totalitarianism.

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TheSensibleTurk t1_j25qktq wrote

Sure, in the same way that the so called Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democratic entity.

Soviet sponsored proletarian revolutions had to be contained.

It happened in Turkey too. Before the 1980 coup, Soviet backed guerillas were wreaking havoc. My father was working at a rural government clinic at the time and he was kidnapped by the revolutionaries and held for ransom. At the height of it, the revolutionaries would set up checkpoints and execute any state employee, Katyn style.

Who put an end to that? Kenan Evren. Look him up.

You cannot treat cancer with antibiotics or painkillers. You treat it with chemotherapy which can hurt like hell. So it is with countering revolutionary Marxism.

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Northstar1989 t1_j25s01l wrote

>Sure, in the same way that the so called Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democratic entity.

Not at all.

There was nothing Totalitarian about Allende's government. Free, multi-party elections continued. The Constitution remained in force (in fact, it was ardent Constitutionalists in the government who fouled the first CIA Coup attempt).

Stop spreading file hatred and right-wing propaganda just because you are unable to face facts.

This has gone on too long. You are clearly a troll, likely a PAID troll. Nothing will stop you from repeating the same nonsense over and over, completely unsupported by facts and heedless of counterarguments.

You are being blocked. Good riddance.

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FSOAspirant t1_j25sw9v wrote

You can block a reddit account. You cannot block the continued march of neoliberalism.

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grundar t1_j22ftn2 wrote

> Also, the only real difference between Ukraine and Kazakhstan here that matters is Ukrainians are white.

Well, that and the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine.

(Russia sent >100,000 troops to Ukraine in a full-scale invasion, whereas it sent 2,500 troops for 1 week as part of CSTO at the invitation of the Khazakstan government. The situations are not remotely similar, and it's disengenuous at best to pretend otherwise.)

EDIT:

> You're just trolling and not even reading what I wrote.

No, I'm pointing out -- with sources -- how lazy and uninformed your assumption of racism is.

There are fundamental differences between Ukraine and Kazakhstan in terms of their relationships to Russia and the West; to assert that the only relevant difference between them is "Ukraine is white" is verifiably wrong.

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Northstar1989 t1_j253im9 wrote

You're just trolling and not even reading what I wrote.

I compared how the US would have responded if Kazakhstan had been invaded instead of Ukraine, I didn't say it had been invaded.

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bjplague t1_j2d1myc wrote

more about culture then race really.

slapping the racist label on something then think you drove home your point and move on is lazy work.

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MeteorOnMars t1_j21mf2t wrote

The locality delusion is one of the reasons I advocate cutting fossil fuel use regardless of where you live.

If you don’t buy gas at your local pump, the effect ripples through the whole system and is felt by every supplier.

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AdmiralKurita t1_j20gt4h wrote

Here's a nice clip from Thank You For Smoking.

Jeff: Mr. Naylor is here to see if we can get cigarettes into hands of somebody other than the usual RAVs.

Nick Naylor: RAVs?

Jeff: Russians, Arabs, and villains.

Naylor: Yes, oh well, then, yes. I guess that is why I'm here.

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DynamicResonater t1_j20p28n wrote

My best friend, not an educated man, just dumped $60K into a 3500 HD 4x4 truck he uses twice a year to actually haul something. I bought a Tesla that gets used constantly. He gave me static about it and laughed. I asked him how many foot rubs he has to give MBS to fill his tank. No laughs that time.

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MeteorOnMars t1_j21mu2x wrote

I bet his truck uses more electricity per mile than your Tesla does (because refining his gas requires electricity).

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DynamicResonater t1_j257zok wrote

Not only that, but as the low-hanging fruit of easily-accessed oil dries up, it's going to take more and more energy to acquire and refine new sources of oil at higher costs. Like you say, oil requires a hell of a lot of energy to refine.

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boersc t1_j22orcd wrote

Then again, how is that tesla's electricity made? Coal and other fossil fuels.

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ForHidingSquirrels t1_j23szd0 wrote

In the US it’s filled with 45% emission free electricity

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boersc t1_j248u62 wrote

As it's extra electricity, you can only take into account the variable fuel. Wind and solar are always at their max, whether there are electric cars or not. So, for now, extra electric cars means more fossil fuels burnt.

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ForHidingSquirrels t1_j24h3bk wrote

Did you have chatgpt make that up since you’ve got no idea how to respond to reality?

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boersc t1_j24z50j wrote

Sorry to burst your bubble, but for now this IS reality. Every extra usage of electricity means extra fossil fuels burnt, not extra solar energy or wind.

How else would the extra demand be met? Right now, we don't have a flexible renewable energysource that we can throttle.

In the long run, when we're approaching 100% renewable energy, sure. But for now, the sole benefit of electric cars is that the energy is created at a central place, where it is made more efficiently than in a car.

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DynamicResonater t1_j26u6sc wrote

There's such things as energy storage facilities that can be throttled faster and more efficiently than conventional baseline plants. California has several, for instance, and Australia is a world leader in it. Even so, EV's cause less fossil fuels to be burned than a new ICE, you know that right? It sounds like you do, given your last sentence, which somewhat counters your first.

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DynamicResonater t1_j25bh0p wrote

My power mix in California is:

  • Renewable (Bio/Geo/Hydro/Solar/Wind) = 33.6%
  • Large Hydro = 9.2%
  • Nuclear = 9.3
  • Other = 7%
  • Natural Gas = 37.9
  • Coal = 3%

Even if EV's ran only on coal or natural gas they would still be far cleaner than ICE vehicles. Sorry, but I've seen your argument dozens of times and it's been refuted repeatedly by legitimate scientific organizations.

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burning_legiion t1_j23dakb wrote

Tesla's are shit compaired to ACTUAL car companies, the quality is absolutely subpar for the cost. If somebody like, say, VW, or Toyota, wanted to make an actual electric vehicle, whether it be for the masses or the rich, they would do it much better in much less time than it took Tesla to do it.
That said, only EVs are NOT the answer, as they as well require a hell of a lot of energy, and that would drive up the prices as well. Not mentioning the cost of manufacturing, the battery replacement/storage problem, etc.

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DynamicResonater t1_j258pj4 wrote

I'll agree with you that Tesla's QC could be better, but I've seen far worse from the Big 3. Just FYI: Toyota and VW both make EV's and they're not that great, certainly not better than Tesla. I agree that EV only is not the answer, we'll likely need syn-fuels, and H2 to fill the gap until EV's are ready to replace ICE's completely, which is very likely based on the current state of battery research still in the lab. You might want to do more research on EV's so you're more up to speed before commenting.

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burning_legiion t1_j26d3yg wrote

What I'm saying is that IF the established large car manufacturers actually wanted to switch to all EV, they would make a much better car than Tesla very quickly, it's just a fact for obvious reasons. But it's not their main goal at the moment, and thus the difference. The quality of materials in Tesla for the price is not up to par compared to an actual car manufacturer. Take a BMW for the same price as you paid that Tesla, if you can tell me with a straight face that the build quality and assurance of that Tesla is better, then fine, but it's not, and we both know it. But OK, I'm glad you're happy with your purchase either way.
I did my research, ain't getting one in the near future without EVs solving several crucial problems, that's for sure.

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DynamicResonater t1_j26px0l wrote

I worked at BMW in Munich and was in QC for a while. The problems I've found in my Tesla are minor compared with what was passed off on the assembly line in the Munich 3 series plant. Also, the Model 3 is considered one of the most reliable EV's in the US. Sorry, bro, but your "if-they-only" arguments are worthless in the real world. I'll put my Model 3 against anything in its price class.

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