The status of existing [nuclear] plants has big implications: Including Indian Point, seven gigawatts of nuclear power are in danger of going offline before 2026 due to depressed electricity prices.
“Taking out nuclear power plants completely destroys gains with renewables,” Buongiorno says. When the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which produced about 8 percent of California’s electricity, closed in 2013, the local cost of electricity increased, and carbon dioxide emissions in California increased by 9.2 million tons the following year.
The MIT report found that in the next decade, the most cost-efficient, reliable grid comes from an energy mix. “Our analysis shows a big share of nuclear, a big share of renewables, and some storage is the best mix that is low-carbon, reliable, and at the lowest cost,” Buongiorno says."
For a related recent post discussing the views of Mike Shellenberger, see here.
Gosh, what harm could it possibly do to a reasonably well-functioning society to divide people into colors and to treat them differently based on their looks? Tap on this image and behold. This woman is well educated and drives a very nice car. Presumably, she is a person of significant means, both educationally and materially. Listen to how she addresses this polite police officer in this traffic stop. This appears to be the end game of a society permeated with Critical Race Theory:
Perhaps some people will argue that this woman is an outlier, someone who misunderstood CRT, perhaps as it is taught in the school where she is a "teacher." To that, I would suggest that the doubter should consider what is being taught, coast to coast, as part of Critical Race Theory: Categorize all people into racial silos and obsess about these "identities." See here and here. Also, all police officers are racist and all of them are hunting down "black" people as a matter of doing their job on an every day basis. This motorist exemplifies these CRT teachings perfectly.
Check out this video of Joe Rogan clarifying his views on the COVID vaccines.
I'll focus on this excerpt at the 2:50 min mark
Here's the thing. These are not like planned statements. Let's be real clear. When I say something stupid, I’m not thinking about what I'm going to say before I say it. I'm just. saying it, right? I don't have an off-air and an on-air voice. I don't. I have me. This is it. I got through the fucking net and I'm swimming in open waters, okay? And that's just how I live. If you say you disagree with me, I probably disagree with me too. I disagree with me all the time.
This illustrates a big problem. Way too many of us are walking around thinking that we need to talk only in prepared statements that are approved by our tribe. This is abnormal and stifled conversation, unhealthy for civilization. We need to get back to the idea that conversation is a collaborative enterprise where we listen charitably and test each others' statements with the aim being that we can figure something out together, rather than trying to "win." Meaningful conversations are always somewhat messy works in progress. This is the HxA way.
We need to reset the dial so that our public conversations better resemble our private thoughts. Currently, many people are out there listening in order to harpoon you as though the only thing you uttered (out of 100 things) is that one clunky thing that offended them, ignoring that conversation and thinking are processes by which we should be incrementally working our way toward truth, together.
Thus, I appreciate what Joe Rogan said in this clip. When we have conversations, we should not reading prepared inner scripts. That would not be real conversation. There should be a lot of missteps, especially when we are grappling with complex issues. We should always be charitable listeners, giving the speaker their best foot forward (until and unless they exhibit bad faith). We should always be willing to point out where we agree with the others before criticizing the one thing we disagree with. That establishes trust and opens up a robust conversation where all participants come away with a changed understanding of the others or of the world. This approach exhibits basic decency--it is the approach marriage counselors urge in order to keep marriages healthy, as indicated by John Gottman. It applies to the rest of us too.
One last thing. There are a lot of people out there engaging in nasty sport rather than conversation. They are wearing their language police hats, demanding compliance with their own standards of political propriety. I often wonder how they talk with each other in the privacy of their own homes, however. Do they demand trigger warnings from each other in their living rooms? Do they jump on each other for failing to use the proper pronoun? I suspect that they freely and privately admit facts that they condemn in public.
We need to urge each other to see live-time public conversation as an opportunity to learn from each other and to freely admit our low confidence levels and ignorance of some of the things we'd like to believe. We need to speak in public much more like the way we think and converse privately.
We need George Carlin like never before, but he is no longer with us. He was willing to ignore propriety and power centers and to pull the scabs off social absurdities with polished eloquence. He was able to do this because he no longer "had a stake in the outcome" of the "freak show." We need someone like Carlin to expose and ridicule the absurdities of modern wokeness, especially on college campuses. Unfortunately, some prominent comedians, including Chris Rock, have given up on performing for college students because they have become so Woke. I believe I heard Ricky Gervais express this same reluctance in a discussion with Sam Harris (in these notes, he discusses the minefield encountered by modern comedians). The following short video illustrates what comedians are up against on campus.
Check out 3:40 of this video, the speaker is talking about what "they" want and the interviewer challenged her: "They don't speak with one voice, do they?" She then claims that 18-21 year olds are "diverse." This is a deep issue, perhaps the defining issue of today: For many people today, "diversity" does not include intellectual diversity. Her comment revealed the intense tribal energy in our coddled young people, as well as their desperate felt need to be protected ideas they consider offensive.
Abigail Shrier discussed Gen Z with Harold Bursztajn, M.D., a psychiatrist. Bursztajn is concerned about Gen Z and he identifies smart phones and social media as two of the major culprits. How bad is this environment?
This generation seems helpless and hopeless. Why — I asked him — did this generation possess the highest recorded rates of anxiety, depression and suicide—and the lowest rates of sex or physical intimacy? These young Americans may be as radical as Flower Children, but they seem incapable of organizing a Woodstock or hosting a “Love In.” Where was their Kumbaya? What put the damper on their “Good Vibrations”?
Based on his thousands of hours administering psychotherapy to university students, Bursztajn believes it is the online life they lead which renders them anxious, unhappy, and emotionally malnourished. Social media trains them to divide humanity into allies and enemies. It offers them little basis for hope. Their online world is not a new-age vista of possibility, but rigid series of high-stakes social contests, in which players rack up “likes” and form alliances, but never actual friendships. “To the extent that you’re dealing with a culture of algorithms, not all things are possible—only the things in the algorithms,” he explained.
Bursztajn's conclusions thus mesh well with those of Jonathan Haidt and Tristan Harris, both of whom blame social media for siloed thinking and high rates of anxiety.
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