It's been a decade and a half. Just because a person knows how to compile a kernel doesn't mean they can't also be a Luddite at the same time.

Well that escalated quickly.

Try using sentences that encompass complete concepts. I can't tell what you're talking about.

Looks like a truck/pickup body on a regular car platform. What they call a "Ute" Down Under.

How is that a lie? I have literally spoken to multiple people who insisted that they had been through being sprayed with pepper spray, or other less lethal weapons who eventually admitted that they got the inert versions or special safety circumstances like wearing padding, etc. In this discussion, someone mentioned training where they were exposed to tear gas, if I recall correctly. They themselves pointed out that it was a weakened version for training. In that case, they weren't using their experience to belittle people who have been through the actual experience, but I've encountered plenty who do. One of my favorites for that kind of attitude is people claiming that torture isn't a problem because special forces guys go through things like waterboarding in training. My usual argument about that is that it's like saying that rape isn't bad because some people have consensual sex. But another important point there is that the experience is a controlled one conducted by friendlies and with a predefined start and end point rather than days, months, weeks, years, or even decades of unpredictable assaults conducted by torturers who don't really care if the victim dies. There's obviously a very big difference in the watered down training experience both in substance and in stakes, but some people still want to play pretend that they're somehow equivalent.

There are, indeed, situations where plastics have served important functions and saved lives. At this point I can't even count the number of plastic things that have been shoved into and implanted in my body that have saved my life or helped me medically, and I recognize that there's no good substitute for them. At one point I was going through more than a quarter of a ton of medical supplies a month, and basically all of it came surrounded in plastic in one way or another (to be clear, it's not a quarter ton of plastic waste, the supplies weighed a lot more than the plastic, but it was still a massive amount of plastic. That doesn't mean that plastic should be improperly disposed of so it ends up in the environment as solids. Or, for that matter, that the mostly CO2 it was converted to afterwards isn't an environmental issue. In general, plastic should always be properly disposed of, not to mention that its use should be minimized. Whatever might be vitally needed, there's a massive amount of plastic out there that's used completely unnecessarily. Many things made of plastic that don't need to be, massive amounts used in packaging that's completely useless, etc.

As for the rest of the shit we litter all over the world, we shouldn't be doing any of that, so your question is a bit silly. Still, it's a question of categories. Biodegradable waste, where it doesn't overwhelm the local environments ability to safely handle it is generally less of a problem than plastic. Some metals also aren't that much of a problem because they corrode and eventually just join back up with the ground again. However there are plenty of things like copper, arsenic, lead, mercury, etc. that can be much worse than plastics. For absolutely all of these, it's better to have a plan rather than overproducing and/or randomly dumping.

It's widely detrimental changes to the environment, and houses can, in fact, count. Generally anyone with a realistic understanding knows that calling some things pollution over others is a matter of degree. For example, all coolants being released into the air are technically pollution, but some are hundreds or thousands of times worse than others. In the end, it comes down to effects and equilibrium/homeostasis. For example, are you releasing something into the environment at a rate where the effects build up, or do they just stay at current levels? If levels are rising, where will they reach homeostasis if at all. Are the levels at homeostasis acceptable, or do they produce unacceptable problems? Are there potentially unknown issues? Issues where A at a certain level and B at a certain level are fine alone, but both together at that level is a problem?

All of these things and more need to be considered. These are complex questions and how things are categorized can vary and be situation dependent. The simple rule though, is, if you must err, err on the side of caution.

It's becoming a booming industry in China. They achieved 6N9-grade purity hydrogen from their natural gas fields, which have a content of less than 0.05 percent (other exploited fields have content of 1.0-7 percent), at a commercially viable cost a year ago. That's your "rubbish quality helium". Now there are a dozen companies replicating their work.

I mean, do you read what you write to yourself? "...questioning the safety of vaccines...". As if vaccines are some monolithic entity. Hey, if you want to do a meta-analysis or scientific review of all published papers on vaccine safety, be our guest. That could be interesting. Likewise, if you want to consider a single, specific vaccine, and seriously discuss the safety details and the public health ramifications or even just the philosophy of public health, also be our guest.

If however, you think you're making a contribution by "questioning" the very concept of whether or not vaccines can be safe without actually presenting research or even theories or anything like that... Well it seems like you're just being a pseudo-intellectual who isn't even operating at a grade school level, but somehow thinks that you actually have some superior towering intellect that the rest of us lack. This may be reading way too much into what you said, but most people who say things like what you said are ignorant of the vast scientific apparatus and actual expert discussion that actually exists on the topic. Very often that ignorance is intentional. Also, very often, the person saying such things simultaneously thinks that they're some sort of amazing original thinker, while explicitly using the verbal shortcuts and dog whistles of the groupthink echo chambers they belong to and get frustrated when people in outgroups don't instantly align with the same groupthink when the magic words are spoken.

If you have something to actually say about either vaccines or the actual topic, go ahead. There have, in the past been plenty of discussions on things like vaccines that actually discuss real concerns. If you have that, go ahead and if there's any substance, it can be discussed.

Both you and the GP are following a fairly Eurocentric perspective though. I mean, you even note sugar as a luxury, but the reason it was a luxury in Europe was because sugar cane did not grow well there and, as you note, sugar beets weren't a thing yet, so the sugar they did have was part of the spice trade from areas where sugar cane and the other spice plants grew. There was heavy sugar production a thousand years ago in the middle east (where they basically invented the modern idea of dessert). China had heavy sugar production around the same time. India was producing sugar at high levels over two thousand years ago. Observations of the health risks of excessive sugar consumption such as diabetes goes back over two thousand years.

Production in the Caribbean lead to high availability in Europe through an increase of what we would today call vertical integration. Instead of having to deal with trade through the Middle East and numerous middle men, Europeans owned the plantations, the people working on them, the refineries, and the transportation networks. So, through mercantalism, slavery, and just general exploitation all around, cheap granular sugar came to Europe, but it was not the first time in history that it was widely available to populations.

Adding sweeteners to foods does go back thousands of years even in Europe though. The ancient Romans, for example, often used a calorie-free, non-nutritive artificial sweetener. Of course, it was lead acetate, so it had some health problems of its own.

It's become a major industry in China, it's large enough that they've managed to reduce their imports even while consumption rises. Of course they have the cheapest electricity on Earth.

What is non-Fauci-ized science? Do you mean not watered down for mass public consumption? That would be a fair thing to request, the job of communicating science to a broad population does often include pushing the descriptions towards what the lowest common denominator might understand. Still, it's odd to specifically mention Fauci there. He's hardly the first person to need to explain public health/science policy to the population. Or do you have something more specific in mind invoking Fauci? If so, you need to be more explicit because you're probably assuming that others are on the same page as you when they're not even reading the same book.

Well, after it was broken up into "baby Bells", the parts mostly merged back together. Sure, the part that originally kept the AT&T name was technically absorbed by one of the other parts, but the result was more or less the same. A couple of bits formed Verizon. The original shareholders ultimately profited unless they sold at just the wrong time. The rise of cellular service completely altered the landscape and allowed a new round of corporate control. The situation of people in the US having to rent a phone from the phone company was briefly interrupted, but now most people in the US "buy" their phone in an arrangement that's basically a rental ("buy" on an installment plan, get an "upgrade" offer as soon as it's paid off). Also, partly due to this arrangement, most people buy one brand of phone from one manufacturer. They get away with advertising fake prices and then tacking on all of their operating expenses as arbitrarily alterable "fees" on top of the agreed upon price. They regularly receive massive sums of our tax money in exchange for projects which they almost never complete. Everyone who uses their services or those of any of their competitors is subject to what is effectively a contract of adhesion which includes numerous anti-consumer provisions, including waiving the constitutional right to sue. Not to mention that a large number of those bound by such contracts are minors.

Basically, the largest, most dramatic use of the Sherman Antitrust Act in US history did tick the needle in one direction, but it swung back hard the other way. It was the exception, not the rule.

At this point a lot of Ukrainians would welcome the latter as well.

The joy of letting lawyers and generals with no real-world experience run a society and an economy they don't understand and have no interest in learning about.

Space Farce (spelling deliberate) budget - $32 billion
NASA budget - $24 billion
2026 Pentagram budget - $780 billion (without the Black Budget, nuclear weapons, 18 intel agencies, or mercenary scum hired by Sec of State)
All NASA budgets combined since foundation - $670 billion (including Apollo, ISS, and *much* R&D for the military)

This is why we can't have nice things.