For people who use electric cars

[StarStruck]

What do you think?

 

[Leo Gura]

Two can play this game

[Devin]

8 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

What do you think?

 

Looks like they're having fun to me.

[StarStruck]

21 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Two can play this game

If I have to choose between the beast and the human I would choose the human.

21 minutes ago, Devin said:

Looks like they're having fun to me.

They are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

[Leo Gura]

13 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

If I have to choose between the beast and the human I would choose the human.

Don't forget to consider how gasoline production and climate change harms humans.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Devin]

12 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

They are trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Starving in Africa?

[zurew]

This is not a good faith way to explore and to have an inquiry about all the effects of electric car production and usage.

Here is a question: Do you have a smartphone? If you do, then you are contributing to a big market, that uses child labour to produce necessary parts for your phone and thats just one bad industry from many, that could be brought up.

You not owning an electric car won't change the systemic issues that are in Congo. If you really care, then we should talk about the systemic issues and not about guilt-trapping people who own electric cars (just to be clear I don't).

Unfortunately people are doing this work there, because they probably don't have a better option to earn enough money, and without addressing the systemic issues there, even if hypothetically you would manage to shut these mines down, the only thing you would achieve with that, is that you would take away a money earning opportunity from these people without actually giving them an alternative or better option.

57 minutes ago, StarStruck said:

If I have to choose between the beast and the human I would choose the human.

We can talk about direct and indirect effects. Regarding the indirect effects: we have an interconnected ecosystem, and if you start to fuck with certain parts of that system, then the effects of that will be  eventually felt everywhere, but even if we would to  ignore the indirect effects, there are direct bad effects of using gasoline.

Edited March 26, 2023 by zurew

[Devin]

 

[Devin]

ProPublica

www.propublica.org

Blast at BP Texas Refinery in '05 Foreshadowed Gulf Disaster

Jul 2, 2010 — A 2005 blast that killed 15 at a Texas BP refinery in 2005 holds many similarities with the Deepwater Horizon blast

[Girzo]

We need both oil and copious amount of materials for batteries. There's no discussion on either one of that, really. That's why humanity as a whole continues to extract more and more of the resources.

We are in such a situation that abruptly stopping any of these processes would have consequences much more dire for civilization than deaths in cobalt mines or oil spills into environment.

Apart from that, the issue with those mines is capitalism and government, not the fact of mining cobalt itself.

And to top it, new battery chemistries are slowly being deployed commercially, moving on from lithium-cobalt chemistry.

So this discussion framed in that way has no point. There are better ways to discuss these issues.

[DocWatts]

The problem comes from taking something like cobalt mining in vacuum, and not placing it in a larger context of the trade offs that necessarily take place in the real world.

To list just one example I could mention the fact that around 7 million people die premature deaths from air pollution every single year.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths

While we can and should care about the exploitation of people who are living in developing countries, and work to reform (or even completely rework) institutions like the WTO which obstruct the development of poor nations, it's not like fossil fuels operate on a different set of socio-economic principles than cobalt extraction.

And that's of course leaving aside the civilization ending climate apocalypse that awaits us if we stick to business as usual.

Edited March 27, 2023 by DocWatts

[Devin]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

The problem comes from taking something like cobalt mining in vacuum, and not placing it in a larger context of the trade offs that necessarily take place in the real world.

To list just one example I could mention the fact that around 7 million people die premature deaths from air pollution every single year.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-review-air-pollution-deaths

While we can and should care about the exploitation of people who are living in developing countries, and work to reform (or even completely rework) institutions like the WTO which obstruct the development of poor nations, it's not like fossil fuels operate on a different set of socio-economic principles than cobalt extraction.

And that's of course leaving aside the civilization ending climate apocalypse that awaits us if we stick to business as usual.

How does WTO obstruct development?

[DocWatts]

1 hour ago, Devin said:

How does WTO obstruct development?

 

1 hour ago, Devin said:

 

Below is an article that goes into more detail about it, but the gist of it is that the WTO along with the IMF uses loans and debt as leverage to pressure developing countries into passing Free Trade economic policies which primarily benefit multinational corporations.

Countries like the United States, Japan, and South Korea were able to build advanced economies partly by using protectionist policies to develop  domestic industries without having to compete with the rest of the world before they could do so on a relatively even playing field.

So this results in a situation where developed countries which used protectionist policies to develop their own industries pressure developing countries into opening up their economies to Free Trade before they have an opportunity to compete on a more even playing field, with developed nations effectively pulling the ladder up after them, so to speak.

Additionally, loans and aid that isn't tied to requirements of good governance and democratization effectively serve to enable corrupt/ incompetent leaders hold to on to power, since they can continue to pay off key supporters to the (small) coalition of essentials that keeps them in power.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/4/trade/criticisms-of-wto/

Edited March 27, 2023 by DocWatts

[Devin]

5 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

 

Below is an article that goes into more detail about it, but the gist of it is that the WTO along with the IMF uses loans and debt as leverage to pressure developing countries into passing Free Trade economic policies which primarily benefit multinational corporations.

Countries like the United States, Japan, and South Korea were able to build advanced economies partly by using protectionist policies to develop  domestic industries without having to compete with the rest of the world before they could do so on a relatively even playing field.

Additionally, loans and aid that isn't tied to requirements of good governance and democratization effectively serve to enable corrupt and incompetent leaders and government in power, since they can continue to pay off key supporters to the (small) coalition of essentials that keeps them in power.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/4/trade/criticisms-of-wto/

Is "obstruct" the right word? Of course the larger countries take advantage they're not charities.

[Leo Gura]

This thread is a good example of what I mean by watching the double-standards of your mind. The mind will cherrypick how it looks at things, and thereby trick itself.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Tanz]

In conclusion, humans are the alpha predators of the planet, some more alpha than others, and as a collective, we suck.  

When we thrive, others suffer, if not other humans, than other animals.  

I believe the primary sin is consumption and greed.  

[Leo Gura]

@Tanz Once again, watch your double-standards. The entire animal kingdom is built on killing, exploiting, and stealing energy from other creatures. All animal survival is basically theft.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Tanz]

@Leo Gura That is certainly so, I wouldn't deny any of that. But at the same time, humans have something called an imagination, which lends to excessive greed and craving.  

Culturally we find it difficult to talk about these things and often deny their existence for fear of feeling uncomfortable.  Like climate change deniers, EV-crazed people fall under the same biases as those they judge.

A way to reduce suffering would be to buy a car every ten or even 20 years instead of buying 4 or 5 of them every ten years would be better for the environment, but that isn't a conversation that is had because it would make less money and be worse for the economy.  

 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, Tanz said:

A way to reduce suffering would be to buy a car every ten or even 20 years instead of buying 4 or 5 of them every ten years would be better for the environment, but that isn't a conversation that is had because it would make less money and be worse for the economy.  

Things may not be so simple.

Buying more cars leads to the development of better, safer, more efficient cars. In 100 years will we have very clean cars via this process.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Devin]

Most people won't need cars in the future

"The 15-minute city is an urban planning concept in which most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk or bike ride from any point in the city. Wikipedia"

The 15 minute city is something the WEF talks about for urban development. And we can figure out how to recycle cobalt batteries easier once we get enough in circulation.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Devin