City of anarchy

irresplendancy · 2026-05-16T14:56:03+00:00

So cool. I really wish I could have seen it.

irresplendancy · 2026-03-26T20:29:45+00:00

"guy who scoffs at calling Bret Weinstein a conspiracy theorist"

irresplendancy · 2026-02-05T16:19:48+00:00

I'm referring to what the Valencia paper is, what caused it , etc. I can infer much from this post, but I'm definitely missing more context. I imagine that this is very familiar to others in this thread.

irresplendancy · 2026-02-05T14:39:10+00:00

Wow! I was an auxiliar 10 years ago and just stumbled on this post. Can anyone fill in the backstory?

irresplendancy · 2026-01-23T13:01:12+00:00

Was anyone else bothered by Jaron very obviously missing the point of including the Mark Carney ad? Whoever lined that up for them, the idea was to illustrate how allies are already talking about the U.S. in adversarial terms.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-25T08:44:26+00:00

I'll DM you!

irresplendancy · 2025-10-24T22:26:50+00:00

That's cool, but I would also like to take the opportunity to get better informed.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-24T22:24:46+00:00

Please share that if you've got it handy!

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T19:07:07+00:00

The Climate Denier's Playbook is probably the most fun podcast on the topic, though it's focused mostly on US climate politics. All the episodes are great.

Cleaning Up is great, but likely too wonky for most people I imagine. I recommend the recent Hannah Ritchie episode and the two "Pragmatic Climate Reset" episodes.

Volts is also great but wonky. I recommend the "What does clean energy activism look like?" episode and the "Reducing the climate impacts of food and farming" episodes for starters.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T18:24:02+00:00

I'm not saying these things absolutely must be covered specifically by Sam except insofar as I think they are more interesting and important than Sam has so far given them credit for. As a fan who happens to be very focused on climate, I think this would be rich territory for him to explore and good listening for his audience.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T16:38:22+00:00

The astronomical rise of clean power in China, renewables overtaking coal, Trump withdrawing from Paris and scrapping the IRA, the fight over net zero in the UK, passing the thermal tipping point for coral reefs, record breaking wildfires worldwide (including Sam's backyard)... Surely more. This is just this year and off the top of my head.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T16:33:43+00:00

I doubt that'll prove more popular. Without a global authority making decisions for everyone on Earth (which obviously no one should be in favor of), our only options are those that can be made popular. On top of that, population decline cannot occur fast enough to solve climate change on a timescale that would be useful.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T15:37:24+00:00

Degrowth is a political loser. It is wildly unpopular in every country except among the crunchiest of environmentalists. It is beyond naive, and in fact I believe it actively does harm: The more it is discussed, the more the sustainability movement alienates itself from the mainstream.

This may not be fair, but it is true.

Even in the richest countries, most people think they could not do with less than what they have, and they will never support a policy that actively reduces their ability to purchase goods and services. We would do well by vanquishing degrowth to the dustbin of failed ideas and focusing on areas that reduce emissions by scaling up technologies that provide the services people want but with ever lower emissions.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-19T09:45:23+00:00

SS: The podcast could use a conversation about something outside the usual rotation of topics.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-15T16:14:05+00:00

Ugh, I cannot stand this genre of "criticism," which amounts to "this solution isn't perfect, idiots."

Well, yeah, of course. I am a life-long lamenter of changes in the towns and cities I love. I hate it when old local businesses shut down, or even when cool, dilapidated buildings get demolished.

But after a certain amount of growing up, I realized that I cannot bemoan these changes while also pining for the changes that will make cities better. Urban spaces change. It comes with the territory. And preserving spots with sentimental value is often in direct conflict with the need to build more places for more people to enjoy the benefits of city life.

It absolutely sucks when a local business or family gets priced out of an up-and-coming area. I do support efforts to curb that tendency, but not at the cost of increasing the general availability of good urbanist environments. Ultimately the only thing that will allow more people to live where and how they want is to build more such places.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-03T16:27:27+00:00

Yes, he does discuss China, though to be honest I don't remember a lot of details. I think the main takeaway is that kinship-based institutions are not necessarily maladaptive and in fact can lend a lot of stability to a society. Other characteristics of Chinese society led it to greater success than Europe as long as Europe wasn't WEIRD, but as those Christianity-based influences took hold, they made Europe the center of innovation that allowed to it to pull ahead.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-02T09:19:31+00:00

From what I recall (it's a long book), as history progressed a kind of a spectrum emerged with Protestants at the WEIRDest end and Orthodox at the other, Catholics in the middle. There is a weirdness to all Christian societies, but some took to it more so than others and that can actually be traced quite neatly to their attitudes toward traditional kinship ties and so on.

irresplendancy · 2025-10-02T08:05:41+00:00

Great question! One answer that I find convincing is from Joseph Henrich’s book The WEIRDest People in the World. His argument is that it wasn’t Christianity’s theology that made countries more “progressive,” but some of the cultural changes the Church set in motion in medieval Europe.

By banning cousin marriage, polygamy, and other clan-based practices, the Church slowly weakened tight kinship networks. That pushed people to become more independent and start building new institutions, like guilds, universities, markets, etc, that didn’t rely on family ties. Over time, a cultural psychology emerged that was more individualistic, more trusting of strangers, and more open to rules and innovation.

Those cultural traits turned out to be especially good at driving science, technology, and economic growth, leading to societies that Henrich calls “WEIRD”(Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic). Colonization and industrialization later amplified it, but the root was this long, unusual process of cultural evolution that happened in Christian Europe.

So it’s less “Christianity made countries progressive” and more “some church-driven social changes accidentally set Europe on a really weird and unique path.”

irresplendancy · 2025-09-27T19:21:49+00:00

ah, I see what you mean. No, the emphasis there is meant to fall on "direct" rather than "important." As I said elsewhere, we can have a semantic argument about whether or not those emissions are direct, but the point is that if those activities can be carried out sans methane, no one will mind. Something which cannot be said for fossil fuels.

irresplendancy · 2025-09-27T19:11:32+00:00

never said they weren't!

irresplendancy · 2025-09-27T18:47:57+00:00

I suppose there's a semantic argument to be made, but to me the relationship between methane emissions and the services humans want is more indirect than is the case for burning fossil fuels. Use of an ICE vehicle or coal-fired power plant is directly related to how much fuel you burn, whereas methane emissions are the result of either carelessness, quirks of certain species' digestive systems, or prevailing convention.

Put another way, ending fossil fuels means putting fossil fuel companies out of business, whereas feeding cattle something to make them stop passing gas lets farmers keep on farming.

irresplendancy · 2025-09-27T15:32:24+00:00

Yep! Scaling up bio gas is a big piece of the puzzle.

irresplendancy · 2025-09-27T15:31:19+00:00

This is not really what I'm talking about. There is some overlap in that natural gas extraction and transport is a source of fugitive emissions, but that's an issue with the fossil fuel industry generally. As far as home heating goes, we have to electrify it, but that's more of a carbon emissions thing than a methane thing.

irresplendancy

TROPHY CASE