You sure? Assume that current models are accurate and dark energy will expand the universe for infinite time. Further assume that QM is correct (it sure does seem to be) and everything at the quantum level is simply a probably field leaving literally anything possible - even if the vast majority of possibilities are indescribably improbable. Over the course of infinite time, quantum fluctuation will produce every possible configuration of matter and energy in the universe.

Kurzgesagt recently covered this concept here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

MORE taxes. MORE regulation. That'll solve it!

If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.

You also get individuals who suffer from Galactosemia and cannot be breastfed.

We don't redefine the taxonomy class Mammalia to account for the fact that these specific individual members don't conform to the normal definition. Nor do we suddenly pretend that humans aren't mammals because these individuals exist. Yes, you can get people with genetic abnormalities who develop in extremely unusual ways. That doesn't mean that male and female don't exist in nature. That doesn't mean that they don't have well understood, well defined differences. Reality continues to exist no matter how many words get redefined to make a microscopic minority feel slightly better about themselves.

Homo sapien is a bipedal species regardless of the microscopic minority born without two functioning legs. The exception doesn't make or unmake the rule. Let people identify and live as they like, but trying to force others to accept their feelings-based identity as biological reality is never going to work. Males are still male; females are still female. If someone who is biologically male lives a happier life living as a female, more power to them. Girls and women still also maintain a right to feel safe in their own spaces. Trying to force them to just accept a biological male with his penis out in a female locker room is going to create problems. Trying to force them to accept losing in sports to a biological male is going to create problems. Trying to silence them for expressing how they feel about these situations is unconscionable.

Nah, let's instead force all of human civilization to completely alter fundamental aspects of how it's structured including all human communication in order to make this microscopically small minority feel slightly better about themselves.

SOME biological functions.

SOME. But especially when started after puberty, these changes are relatively small and will never equal that of an average biological male. And the reverse (moving male to female) is even more true. Muscle mass and bone density changes are small when hormone therapy begins post puberty.

False. Skeletal structure is set during puberty. In particular, the pelvis shape is set in stone. You can give the person lethal doses of testosterone and not alter the pelvis to look like that of a male. You don't know what you're talking about.

100% false. Hormones regulate a subset of biological processes. If I give you the hormones of a bird, you will not take flight. You can make more significant changes if you're giving hormones to per-pubescent children, but that idea is highly controversial. Post-puberty, you can cause some level of soft tissue changes with hormones. You cannot change brain structure or skeletal structure. It just isn't a thing that's real.

And none of that is to say that a person who transitions doesn't deserve love, respect, support, safety, etc. They absolutely do. They deserve basic human dignity and compassion. But love, respect, and compassion do not include forcing others to accept bullshit claims about biology. It is Orwellian to attempt to force it.

There. Are. Four. Lights.

There was not a single transphobic word in the whole post. There's just some of you muppets who call everything you disagree with transphobic the same way some people called everything they didn't agree with racist. And this is why you didn't quote anything: there was nothing transphobic to quote. You certainly didn't quote where I said: "She's welcome to identify as and live as whatever she chooses. If she feels happier identifying as a man, taking male hormones, dressing as a man, and acting as a man, then more power to her. If that truly makes her a happier human being, I'm behind her 100%." So knock off your bullshit.

You're fucking illiterate. Did you miss this: "If that truly makes her a happier human being, I'm behind her 100%."???

Then grow wings and fly ya fuckin' moron.

No, mind doesn't "beat biology". Social, hormonal, and even surgical transitioning don't affect bone density, pelvic shape, hippocampus structure, or any of the other underlying biology. Nor does it alter your 23rd chromosome pair. You can choose to be delusional, but reality will continue to exist. And you can't shout me down from saying so with bullshit accusations of transphobia. The only thing I'm phobic about is science denying, reality denying morons fucking up centuries of scientific and technological progress with a bunch of feel-good delusional bullshit.

As bad as I feel for the female competitors in that league right now, I'm glad it happened. People need to see what a stupid policy this is and what the immediate effect is. A policy like this will erase every accomplishment of biological women and exclude them from any chance at winning in the future. This is the antithesis of the purpose of having a separate league for women.

Chess isn't a measure of intelligence. Spatial reasoning is a major input into success and men have more development there. Women rarely break into the top 10 of the open league. However, the main reason a women's league was created was that the culture in competitive chess has not historically been welcoming to women. Dismissive, sexist, even sexually aggressive men have made that league a very uncomfortable place for a lot of women, so having a women-only competition space (which has lower ELO requirements by the way - 2300 ELO for the title of Woman Grandmaster), is a crucial part of bringing more women into chess and helping them develop their skills in a space where they're comfortable.

And a foundational principle of the right to free assembly is that you can choose who gains access to a private group. Should this group choose to only accept biological females, they are 100% within their rights to do so. If that's what their membership needs or wants in order to continue to succeed in their mission, then they absolutely should. However, my understanding is that they have NOT actually barred trans women. Rather, they have a review process for accepting trans women such that you can't simply walk in the door. But to say no trans women are allowed is false.

Was she born with a uterus?

What defines a human? Merriam Webster states that a human is "a bipedal primate mammal". But a baby doesn't walk yet, so it crawls. Is it not human?

No, that's fucking stupid. We define humans as a bipedal primate because that's what we are, even if not every single fucking one of us is bipedal at every moment in our lives, we're still human. If a person loses both their legs, they don't become not human. They're still the thing they always were. If your wife was born with a uterus, or was born with a body which should - barring genetic abnormality or environmental interference - have one, she's female. If disease or surgery damages or destroys/removes her uterus, she's still female just as she's still human if disease or surgery damages or destroys/removes her legs. And if you push enough testosterone into her that she grows more hair and bigger muscles, she's still female then as well.

She's welcome to identify as and live as whatever she chooses. If she feels happier identifying as a man, taking male hormones, dressing as a man, and acting as a man, then more power to her. If that truly makes her a happier human being, I'm behind her 100%. But biology still fucking exists. She still has the bone density of a human female. She still has the hippocampus of a human female. She still has the pelvic structure of a human female. She still has the genetics of a human female. Biology still fucking exists.

I don't understand why this is a point of contention: biology is a real fucking thing. It's reality. Why it is that radical trans activists are as Hell-bent on denying basic scientific facts as the anti-evolution, anti-climate change right is beyond me and absolutely fucking infuriating. Bunch of fucking flat-Earthers. But somehow people with a university education, who are even TEACHING at universities, have CHOSEN to deny fucking BIOLOGICAL FACTS because those facts make some people sad. Reality doesn't give a FUCK about your FEELINGS. That applies whether you feel sad that humans and earthworms share a common ancestor or whether you feel sad that taking some testosterone blockers fails to alter your underlying physical structure.

If a biological male is happier living as a female or vice versa, more power to them. But the denial of basic scientific fact is leading us into a fucking DARK AGE where progress halts because feelings replace facts and we all become convinced we get to live in our own special reality. Reality doesn't fucking care about your feelings. Reality is what continues to exist even when nobody believes in it. And it will be the death of us as a species to continue down that road because you can't solve major problems if you can't live in reality.

Rooftop solar by itself cannot operate when the electric utility goes down. This shutdown happens at the inverter to prevent backfeeding electrical power onto the offline grid and killing workers who expect lines to no longer be energized. Backfeeding to downed power lines also risks starting fires and killing other people who happen upon them. Technically, adding a battery by itself does nothing to change the situation, but in virtually every implementation of solar+battery you get an inverter capable of islanding the solution; effectively severing the utility connection and operating exclusively internally. If the batteries fill, the solar panels are still disabled because there's nowhere for the power to go.

I do have a solar+battery solution capable of islanding, which is the only reason I still have power when the utility cuts out. However, Powerwalls are expensive and I already have a Tesla vehicle with a massive 82kWh battery sitting on it that would be wonderful to tap in case of emergency. There's no real technical hurdle to simply pulling power from the car to the Tesla Energy Gateway where it can trickle-fill the Powerwalls to a given threshold when they get below a certain point. The cycling on the EV battery should be minimal as long as it's not happening all the time and as long as the feed isn't too rapid. The Model 3 Performance motor can draw (ballpark) 340kW from the pack at max output, but it more likely will draw around 20kW during normal driving conditions. If you pull max 10kW from it, that will feed enough power for nearly any home while charging the Powerwalls and not stressing the battery pack in the slightest.

Whether my AC runs all night depends on the night. If the low temperature at night remains above 90 degrees, my very efficient heat pump HVAC will operate throughout much of the night in a low stepping mode for the condenser and the air handler, gently feeding cool air to maintain the desired internal temperatures indoors. My house isn't massive and it's as insulated as it's economically feasible to make it.

There are no basements in any houses here; all slab-on-grade. Constructing a basement would involve demolishing the existing foundation in place and digging out a basement with the house still standing. Assuming you could find anyone crazy enough to do this work, it would likely cost more than the house itself.

Every oversimplified bullshit "solution" you come up with reinforces how ignorant you are about the real world. You know nothing, but supply flippant answers as though they're realistic or based on anything not pulled directly from your own ass.

I see the problem now: you're an asshole with no life experience and no functional knowledge.

Solar doesn't work during a power outage:
https://www.sunrun.com/go-sola...

You're a fucking idiot who has no idea how residential rooftop solar works.

Go to a hotel with working AC so my newborn baby and son with asthma don't die. Because vulnerable people die in extreme heat: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/10...

You're a fucking idiot who has no idea how the human body works.

Two Powerwalls installed is about $17,000. The cost to fully renovate a 35 year old home to achieve anywhere near 1 or 2 ACH50, including replacing all existing insulation, air sealing and ventilation system install, replacement of all windows and doors with modern energy efficient ones, duct sealing, foundation insulation, etc. is between $70,000 and $90,000. And even doing all that won't help the loads of thermal bridges present in the original construction, so you'll still see massive heat exchange when you're looking at a 30+ degree gradient. Yeah, I looked into it.

You're a fucking idiot who has no idea how home construction works.

You know hundreds of thousands die each year due to heat related causes even today? Including plenty in the US in places that are used to seeing high temperatures like Arizona: https://www.azfamily.com/2023/...

Particularly when you look at vulnerable populations like the elderly, newborns, and people with respiratory issues like asthma.

You're a fucking idiot who has no idea that people die every single day due to heat and have for as long as humans have been a species.

Groceries are expensive, which you would know if mommy and daddy didn't buy all yours.

No they don't, ya fuckin' retard. That's not how they work. Again, no life experience.

Milk supply can drop suddenly: https://onewillow.com/blog/wha...
It can even stop with little or no warning due to stress and lack of sleep: https://utswmed.org/medblog/de...

Further, if a mother is working and exhausts the available time off, but still wants her baby consuming what every bit of scientific research on planet Earth has said is best, she needs to have a stockpile of breastmilk available.

So, again, you're a fucking idiot who has no real experience, no real knowledge, no real concept for how humans, houses, or technology work. Do the human race a favor and go win yourself a Darwin award before you infect the gene pool.

I live in an area that regularly exceeds 105 degrees in the summer, have an unreliable power company, and I have small children including an infant and a child with asthma. If my power goes out for any extended period of time, I have to leave my home. I have two Powerwalls and solar to keep the lights and AC on for a period of time, but it doesn't go indefinitely. If I can use my car's battery for emergency backup, we can survive for far longer without utility power.

It's not just AC. It's charging phones for news updates (e.g., when the power might come back on or if we're in the path of a wild fire). It's freezers and refrigerators with hundreds of dollars of perishable foods. It's hundreds of hours of my wife's breastmilk storage. These are important. It's not a Playstation.

There's only about 8,000 homeless people in San Francisco at any given time. Just give each of them $5,000 cash.

$40 million to cut the number of homeless people in half? You'd think people would jump at the chance!

The high cost of housing is due to rising construction costs (materials and labor) and land prices, along with an imbalance between supply and demand. And the market isn't crashing again, at least not in any widespread sense. Some markets will see short term value declines, but that will halt new housing starts anyway, because you don't build a house that costs you $400,000 to make if you have to sit on it for a year to make any profit.

And your solution for all this? You're endorsing a nightmare scenario where private property rights are trampled on and land is seized by a totalitarian government? That's a haunting echo of Mao's disastrous policies in the late 1950s. This disastrous experiment in state control resulted in one of the deadliest famines in human history, wiping out an estimated 60 million lives. Yet here we are, decades later, with the same doomed ideas being paraded around as if they're fresh and innovative. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and it's alarming to see just how many people are willing to march blindly down a path that we know ends in catastrophe. It's a sobering reflection of the state of education when failed, lethal ideas from the past are presented as new and revolutionary solutions for the future.

At a time when housing affordability is at its worst in history and when commercial real estate stands on the edge of oblivion, and industrial manufacturing is being moved to places around the world to cut costs, you want to massively jack up costs for all new construction?

That's why we don't just default to all new buildings having solar panels: most people can't begin to afford that. You speak from the same place of privilege a lot of green energy activists do; shouting down from your ivory tower about why the people barely hanging on don't fork out five figures to implement a solution you find agreeable.

Tell ya what, if you want most people (who can't afford a $1,000 unexpected expense) to make a five-figure investment in solar, YOU BUY IT. I'm sure they'll be happy to accept your gift.