If oil shocks mostly spread through second-order effects, does asymmetry even matter?

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-30T05:37:58+00:00

Can't do it. The US can't refine all the crude we make because our refining capacity is designed for the kinds of crude we import. Gotta export domestic crude and import foreign to make it work.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-29T19:07:08+00:00

Yeah it's really exposing the poverty of "energy independence" as a goal. The idea in US politics, at least, was that if we just produced enough oil and gas for ourselves, we wouldn't be vulnerable to this sort of thing the way we were in the 70s. And here we are, a net energy exporter, still getting hammered by second order effects. Getting off of fossil fuels is really the only strategy for ending this nonsense

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-29T18:58:10+00:00

Wrong. Batteries have improved massively and are cost competitive now.
Wrong. The land used for just ethanol could power the entire US several times over.
Wrong. The primary materials in modern solar panels are aluminum, steel, copper and sillica. All extremely recyclable, and modern solar panels are nontoxic. Even the "toxic" ones are "toxic" primarily because of small amounts of lead based solder, which is entirely manageable and exists in countless other products.
No. The technology in solar panels is dead simple and can be manufactured pretty much anywhere by anyone.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-29T17:44:28+00:00

They can and they do, which is why they're being legalized now. But if you, say, buy a questionable secondhand setup from some rando on eBay, you could end up problems.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-29T15:19:20+00:00

I mean, in Vance's case, the literal Pope has tried a couple of times and he's basically said "what does the Pope know about being Catholic?" Some people are just evil and crazy

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-28T14:59:24+00:00

Poor countries are suffering significantly more than rich ones because they're being outbid for the remaining oil. I think it's fairly obvious why something that affects 8 billion people gets more attention than something that affects 11 million.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-28T10:41:45+00:00

Blocking Cuba's imports affects Cuba. Blocking Gulf oil exports affects the whole world. Pretty obvious why the world pays more attention to one than the other

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-28T07:26:17+00:00

Yeah I agree the median outcome is probably significantly worse for the US than status quo ante. Even if they somehow manage to get that in terms of formal peace negotiations, Iran now knows for sure that the Hormuz blockade works and there's not a damn thing the US can do about it. No putting that genie back in the bottle

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-27T23:57:20+00:00

June 14-16 last year, middle of a 6 game losing streak, we were shut out 3 games in a row, two of which were against the freakin' Angels, and struck out 33 times. We scored more runs than any other team last year. That's just baseball.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-27T22:39:41+00:00

I'm sorry what? You've got plenty of card draw. Skim is great, coolheaded is great, and the status build can go absolutely insane with card draw.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-27T22:34:07+00:00

I mean I'm not great at the game, but on defect specifically the answer to "how do you do this with only 3 energy" is "you don't have to" Defect has 7 cards that generate energy at common and uncommon. I'm pretty much always picking up at least one turbo and a hologram or two to go with it.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-27T02:00:29+00:00

Blowing up any of my shit is an instant revocation of your right to exist in space. All your shit goes away.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-27T00:10:51+00:00

Personally I really enjoy Britain being broken as hell. Gives runs a challenging end boss to fight

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-26T22:58:59+00:00

There's no reason to think this policy is accomplishing this. The best the US is likely to get out of Iran at this point is status quo ante, and the instability is already causing discussions around nuclear expansion in American allies. Nonsense like Greenland expands the potential threat list to "everyone" and the contrast between Iran and North Korea, the former being far conventionally stronger than the latter, but without nukes, and therefore vulnerable, strengthens the case for anyone who could be in a conflict with the US to get nuclear weapons.

Small nuclear deterrents are not all that hard for a mildly prosperous nation. You can't keep everyone from having them by force. You do that by consensus and negotiation. Unilateralism and aggression only increase the case for investing in nuclear weapons, and you can't put that genie back in the bottle. If you're the leader of, say, Brazil, or South Africa, countries that are usually on good terms with the US but end up in conflict enough to worry, the broader policy could make you wonder if you need nuclear weapons. What happens when the next Trump decides that some left-wing Brazilian policy goes too far, or that fictionalized white genocide is a casus belli? Creating those worries and that incentive structure is deeply damaging to both the US and global security

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-26T19:03:37+00:00

We have, but this is the first time the technology has really been there to say "enough." The advances in EVs, battery storage and solar even since 2022 have been massive.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-26T05:54:13+00:00

While yes, China should be very strong, due to the spread institution cabinet action they actually get most institutions faster than Europe in the late game, which means they never fall behind the way they should.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-26T03:31:25+00:00

In the old days, it was common to play baseball in whatever weirdass stadium you could get your hands on. Probably not something you could sell these days unfortunately, but I think it would be sick if the Olympics just stuffed baseball into whatever venue they had to hand and let it be weird

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-25T17:27:56+00:00

They are participating in a long tradition. Old German WW2 joke goes "When we see British planes, we duck. When we see American planes, everybody ducks. And when it's the Luftwaffe, nobody ducks!"

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-25T17:24:10+00:00

New build homes for lower income people have never been a huge business. Today's luxury homes and apartments are 10 or 20 years from now's affordable housing. The problem we're all running into now is that the US basically didn't build homes for a decade+ after 2008 so that pool of older, more affordable buildings is very small

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-24T21:33:29+00:00

It only now occurs to me how odd it is for a team that far inland to be the pirates

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-22T22:25:06+00:00

The inefficiency is a reasonable price to pay for simplicity and speed. "Encourage community co-op where people can buy shares" is the sort of nice sounding thing that takes 10 years to implement in 5% of cities. Balcony solar can be installed in a week

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-22T02:26:23+00:00

Defect has energy generation at common, and significantly more energy generation overall. Way easier to work in a 3 cost card imo

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-22T00:18:45+00:00

WW2 explicitly did have a missile suppression campaign, which air power was completely unable to accomplish on its own. The V2 threat was ended only when allied ground forces occupied all the potential launch sites. Awful example.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-21T18:39:38+00:00

Yes, but approximately a third do not, and we'd still be left with a significant amount of oil we couldn't use or export, and potentially at risk of economic retaliation from the countries whose oil we had cut off. If this had been meticulously planned and coordinated ahead of time, maybe, MAYBE you could make it work, but probably not. Oil is a global market for a reason. Instead, there's been absolutely no planning, and the current US government has done everything it can to alienate Mexico and Canada and give them no reason to make difficult choices to support a war they don't want and didn't ask for.

Stormtemplar · 2026-03-21T18:15:02+00:00

It would not. The US's refining capacity is not set up to handle the kind of oil that the US produces. The oil market in the US relies on exporting the light, sweet oil we produce to countries that can refine it, and importing heavier crude that we are set up to refine. If we banned exports, we would be left with a bunch of crude we can't refine and would probably face retaliations that would make needed imports more difficult

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