the brain is plastic, so it seems far more likely to me that being in conservative circles causes the amygdala to enlarge than the opposite

There's also the problem that all of the best spots for hydro have already been dammed. The spots that remain are much more marginal, and with other water issues getting worse worldwide hydroelectricity is in competition with other forms of water use.

Solar with storage has an EROEI of 4:1,

This is a worst-case estimate, a properly distributed system of storage gets an eroei of up to 15:1, which is equivalent to fossil fuels with far fewer externalities.

Nuclear can get more, true, but the externalities are pretty bad compared to panels and wind farms.

I used to be on team "we really need nuclear", and maybe that was true at one point in time, but the production scale of solar and wind and energy storage have reached the point where it is 100% viable to power a modern nation without it.

You can't even complain about the land use taking away from agriculture anymore either - agriculture and agrivoltaics have advanced enough to make that a moot point too.

Iran has made exceptions to the blockade for Russia and China, and now India.

Just when you think they've broken every single norm they could break, THEY FIND ANOTHER!

I just learned that we (America vua USAID) sent text books to Afghanistan in the 80s "which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines"??? What the fuck? That's literally Saturday morning cartoon villain shit, like even Skeletor would have told USAID to chill the fuck out over that idea.

Okay Russia is understandable cuz they're in a war, USA understandable cuz they're saber rattling, but genuinely what is China doing besides minding their own business?

USAID money ran out.

I have a hypothesis that college can solve this problem by "inversing" lectures and homework.

edit: sounds like a lot of places do this already so that's cool.

Have your students watch lectures and do reading on their own time. Hell, they can ask ChatGPT to summarize it for them if "it's just a tool" and they want to use it! But everything that gets a grade should be done in class. You will write the essay by hand, you will do the math with no more powerful a calculator than a TI-83, you will give a presentation to show that you understand the material. Book is open, accommodations for special needs are available, and the teacher is here to help and give guidance and clarification, but internet connections are banned.

Buuuuut ~~American colleges would never do this because~~ ensuring that your graduates actually learn things was never the point.

China and the Soviets got it right. You gotta treat religious institutions as every bit as backward and reactionary as you treat capitalist ones. That doesn't mean you ban them outright, but you bring them under control of the state and keep them from preaching anything out of line or using their cultural influence against the DOTP.

I'm disappointed that the senator wasn't willing to cause an international incident over this. Like handcuffing himself to Kilmar and leading him back to his plane, daring the el salvador cops to do something about it.