The article title buries the lede.

Even so, coal use is still rising in absolute terms. Output from thermal power plants increased in the first half as electricity demand grew, partly driven by high-tech manufacturing, electric-vehicle charging and data centers. Coal’s share fell as cleaner sources expanded even faster.

China is still using more coal, creating more gaseous carbon, and building new coal-fired power plants than ever before.

They’ve always had trouble transferring power from their mega solar projects in Tibet to their coastal population centers. Upgrading their grid was never a priority, and a large percentage of their solar output went to waste.

The implication from these numbers is that they’ve built AI datacenters near the solar megaprojects that are putting that unused solar energy to use, in addition to increasing China’s fossil energy use. This is a classic case of Jevons-y solar energy production creating more environmental devastation while being falsely touted as a green victory.

Two years ago, Lemmy.world tried a similar move with their MediaBiasFactCheck bot. It was soundly rejected by the community, and they finally relented after weeks of outcry. Why is @Rimu putting us through this again?

“We can’t return what we stole, if we did, they’d do ethnic cleansing to us.”

– jimmy90

“it is easy to call land stolen, but what about the innocent purchasers who acquired in good faith in the interim? Are they thieves?”

This is the kind of shit that makes me think capitalists don’t actually believe in property. They only have an issue with theft when the loot isn’t laundered properly. ‘Civilization’ is just a word that means ‘fence’ to them.

I agree and I’m aware it has negative connotations – it is inseparable from modern methods of administering power. Without records, how can you demonstrate you’re distributing resources equitably? I recognize that my role as admin is basically an anarchist bureaucrat – approving applications, responding to reports, writing reports on progress for the community each month; it’s done digitally now, but it’s the stuff that would otherwise be the paperwork for which bureaucracy was made famous.

Bureaucracy was invented in France during the reign of kings, in hopes that it might quell the frequent revolutionary uprisings. It used to be that the only way you could get a license to do anything was through an audience with the king, or access via one of his courtiers – a role similar to modern lobbyists. This exclusivity of access meant the richest and most well connected were granted corporate charters, business licenses, or land titles, creating extremely stark class division between the bourgeoisie and even the petit bourgeoisie.

The role of bureaucracy (named after the drawers where they kept the mountains of paper this activity generated) was to ‘democratize’ distribution of licensing and grants to everyone based on meeting the same requirements and paying the same fees. It was popular enough to get grafted into the organs of the new republic once one of the uprisings hit the mark.

It was ‘democratic’ in the same sense that electoral ‘democracy’ is democratic - that is, it is closer to the ideal of freedom than autocratic rule. But citizens are still vulnerable to the whims of tyrannical bureaucrats. Even at the local level and at small scale, a bureaucrat can do a lot of damage if there isn’t popular power prepared to resist him.

For example in Chennai, the Zero Rupee was invented to build popular power against a culture of compulsive bribery that is endemic to all levels of the state bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is a burden that’s accepted because the alternative is clearly worse, like the French kings of old. But all bureaucracies are not the same, and merely making them smaller or ‘distributed’ does not solve the problems that can arise when they are not open to public challenge.

The primary purpose of distribution centers is to serve capital, and there are plenty of private libraries. In the case of a library or dispensary, a bureaucracy can definitely increase the equanimity of the distribution of wealth in a society, but that relies on both the bureaucrats and the public they are supposed to serve to be willing to fight for that ideal.

I think wider discussion of micro-bureaucracies would be valuable. During the November meta, a member requested some kind of vote on our descision to defederate nazi instances, which I think was adequately discussed and concluded. It stood out to me that the member objected to my description of voting in this manner as ‘bureaucratic’ – a word I felt I was using descriptively, but was interpreted as pejorative. I think it’s interesting that different people have different definitions of bureaucracy.

What is bureaucracy?

No more math!

Produced and consumed in Morocco, replaces another energy reclamation method, no mention of quickly approaching peak phosphorus.

Mulberry pie, delicious.

If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

– Mikhail Bakunin

Tucker Carlson is one of the more competent fascists. His program record demonstrates he’s never cared about free speech. Now that the Overton window has shifted so far right and the bar has been set so low, people will vote for a man like Tucker and feel like they’re doing harm reduction / restoring democracy.

Read The Shock Doctrine. Unless there is a major correction, Tucker will continue Trumps’ mission – and people traumatized by Donald’s chaos will embrace him.

A guide for how not to peat a dead horse.

Thank you for continually putting your account at risk for the benefit of the Fediverse.

The speed of technological progress tends toward an exponential curve, and Frank Herbert understood and knew this, but wanted to write a serious medieval saga set in the distant future. The Butlerian Jihad was always a plot contrivance to explain why in the thousands of years of intergalactic civilization, human life is still recognizable to us, and still recognizable from their in-story ancestors.

But just because AI was treated as an enemy by fictional fascists, doesn’t mean it was good. Fascists are enemies to other fascists. It’s an ideology that is always seeking enemies, and will either invade outwards or purge inwards - but their enemies don’t need to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ they only need to be ‘other.’

It can both be true that a technocratic class using thinking machines would have dominated the human race, and the force that prevented their rule is a theofascist eugenic autocracy. The theme Herbert I think would have appreciated his readers noticing is that there is no real difference between a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under an inhuman technocratic class, and a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under a charismatic leader and a religious cult.

Even the right-wing reviewers who hate the premise admit it’s a well written film in the vein of heist thrillers.

It’s a really good movie. Not particularly useful if you actually want to destroy something - they were careful to get a consultant to make sure they didn’t break any laws or create liability for themselves or the studio. If you didn’t see it in theatre, you missed out! I’m really glad the feds are wringing their hooves over it, it deserved much better marketing. It is destined to become a cult classic.

The eyes, wet hairstyle, and webbed fingers show nice attention to detail. Using a harpoon as a tool is a clever addition too.

Solution? Sewing DIY bags from old clothing.

More reusable and personal than a factory bag, and you already know how to mend it to keep it going. Uses less raw resources than a plastic bag, as it was going to the trash anyways. It’s a great beginner sewing project.

Behind those numbers is a rapidly changing energy landscape that could lead to a much less carbon-intensive future.

The word could is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. On paper, China has already built enough PV to power half the country, but uses less than half of their built power. China is building new coal plants, which should be widely reported, but that’s half the story. The other half is acres and acres of dark PV.

Always look at these propagandistic graphs and check if they’re a report of energy used or things like ‘installed’ and ‘capacity’ – because they’re certainly not using it. China chooses to continue to fuel its industrialization with coal.

The coal for ‘local control’ angle sounds new and curious. What does it say about their TWs of potential ‘solar capacity’ when they still have blackouts when local private coal plant operators skimp on their coal deliveries? Are they building solar projects in regions where it isn’t needed and leaving regions where it is needed under-supplied due to government incompetence? Are they installing potemkin solar farms that are built with panels that didn’t meet standards for export and will never be reliable? Are they trying to get as much coal out of the ground as they can before other countries force them to stop? I’d be impressed if a journalist could find the answer to these questions.

Electric vehicle and train increases would be much more inspiring if the former wasn’t the case. It’s much better for the respiratory health of people in city centers, but for the purposes of carbonization, they’re effectively machines that run on coal.

Britain with no irony: “You can’t come to a land and act like its yours! We were living here first!”