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Climate change kills people. Each kilotonne of CO2 is calculated to lead to one extra death from climate change:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.0232...

So these protestors saved 26 lives.

Of course, the potential death toll from climate change is infinite, since we will never be able to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere in any meaningful way (we would need to recreate the Carboniferous period or the Azolla event).

We're running out of time to wait for the established political class to do something about this.

We need people power - shutting down coal plants by blockading entry of personnel and deliveries, and disabling equipment.

It took just 5 people to shut down this power plant in Germany: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/04/no-regre...

Saving 26,000 tonnes of CO2.

There are about 300 coal power plants in Europe, so with just 1,500 people they could all be shut down at least temporarily. Meanwhile we get some 'climate marches' with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance.

If AI is suitable for 99% of driving, why not use remote drivers for the remaining 1%? (eg. accidents, construction, adverse weather)

You could have a central office in a cheap location of the USA for professional drivers to take control as required. We already do it military for drone strikes...

One of the problems of recycling (glass, plastics, etc.) is that each container uses a different type of material, and shape.

We should mandate an international standard size container for food and beverages, so that eg. glass bottles can be reused by multiple brands, just with a different paper logo glued on.

After a decade of struggle with skin conditions, what works for me:

- Eliminate all foods that contain added sugar, including milk (lactose)

- Have cold/lukewarm showers, every 2nd day

- Use a rough washcloth and Nivea Sensitive Men's facewash

- Occasionally use anti-dandruff Ketaconazole shampoo, but otherwise a 'natural' shampoo and conditioner without Sodium Lauryl Sulfate

- Wash face each night before bed with warm water. Use the washcloth once, then wash in 95c water

- Change bedsheets every 5 days, wash pillows and quilts every ~2 months (all on hot)

- Moisturise face after shower with beard oil. Water-based moisturisers don't last.

- Minimise ejaculation instances, to conserve zinc and other minerals

After reading this article, Afghanistan doesn't seem inherently like a war of attrition at all.

"Men fought, men switched sides, men lined up and fought again. War in Afghanistan often seemed like a game of pickup basketball, a contest among friends"

It seems more like renaissance Europe, where armies of Condottiero would parade against eachother, and the smaller or less extravagant side would back down.

This probably didn't suit the USA, who wanted real, bloody war, to justify trillions of dollars of military spending. Just like Vietnam: 'body count'.

"The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war"

- Julian Assange, 2011

Rapid takeover by the Taliban instead of months of dragged out death and destruction is a fair outcome for the country.

No one needs masks anywhere, except perhaps those currently symptomatic and needing to travel in public to access treatment.

Children certainly don't:

"Distancing, hybrid models, classroom barriers, HEPA filters, and, most notably, requiring student masking were each found to not have a statistically significant benefit"

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-maski...

Its possible that the lack of regular human contact and connection (including not being able to see people's faces) is having seriously negative cognitive and development impacts on children; https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2031

Florida has a higher age 65+ Vaccination rate than California or New York:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...

We're rehashing all of the same arguments from 2020. The Southern States peak earlier in the year for respiratory viruses due to latitude:

https://youtu.be/013L9J7WhuU

So what's happening in the South now is a preview of what will happen in the Northern States, perhaps even worse since the vaccines will further drop in effectiveness due to time duration (hence the need for 'boosters').

The problem will multiply. If people are incapable of integrating into one of the richest, most well-run, and liberal countries on the planet, then entire family groups should be sent back, with a once-off €50,000 as motivation (still representing a substantial saving in lifetime welfare costs for society).

It doesn't make sense to be taking care of refugees in Germany when they could take care of themselves for a fraction of the price in their regional homeland.

As long as these groups have food, they will continue to multiply, until the generous capacity of the host population is extinguished. Its classic R vs K reproduction strategy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

If you examine ancient (ie. 'pre-COVID') CDC documents for recommended responses to influenza Categories, based on the global CFR of 0.66 COVID is classed a 'category 3' influenza variant.

Go to page 9 and see what was mandated for that: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mit...

It was voluntary isolation of the sick, 'consider' shutting down of schools but only for 4 weeks or less, and to 'consider' social distancing - based only on the age profile of virus deaths.

We've ignored everything previously established for pandemic response.

You'll also note that in this document, there is zero mention of contact tracing. Its basically impossible and fruitless for a respiratory virus. Attempting contact tracing is really just about pushing acceptance of general location tracking onto the population.

Florida has a higher age 65+ vaccination rate than California or New York: https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-trac...

Respiratory viruses peak earlier before Winter in the tropics (ie. the South USA) whereas they peak during the Winter in the North.

Southern USA will peak and fall, and then this Winter you'll see the same thing in the Northern USA. Its just the seasonality of colds/flus which has been known for decades.

Be prepared because this Winter seasonal peak will be blamed on a new 'variant', and used to push either new lockdowns/restrictions, or booster shots.

And take them where? How many Afghans nationals were on the US payroll? Its not our responsibility to take them all into the USA or elsewhere where they can represent a continued burden to those societies, and the ranks of collaborators in Afghanistan were repeatedly infiltrated by Taliban operatives. How many of them will sneak through to the West and cause terror if we let them?

Collaborating with America should not come with a promise of a Green Card. It sets up conflicting motivations - if the 'nation building' fails, the collaborators can bug out to a much better country anyway.

In terms of cutting costs, the way we exited Afghanistan is the best way to do it. Pull out overnight, abandon all the equipment, and the rapid takeover by the Taliban means we don't need to keep running bombing missions to support a slowly retreating national army.

In that regard I'd see the current situation as a success, not a failure. It also seems like the Taliban have chilled out a bit, since we're not seeing widescale reprisals.

US forces abandoned the country 'overnight' - leaving behind all of the military equipment the Taliban would need for their reconquest:

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210814-weapon-seizur...

Why wasn't all this equipment repatriated or destroyed? Why were the bases just abandoned without proper transition to Afghan Control, so that in some cases they were even looted by civilians?

Possible explanations:

1. Extreme incompetence or total apathy by US Commanders/Politicians

2. There was no land/sea transport route through Pakistan to retrieve all the equipment

3. The US Military-Industrial Complex was happy for all this stuff to be lost, so it could be reordered

4. The US wanted the Taliban to reconquer the country quickly, so that any power vaccuum could not be filled by China or Russia

5. Managed decline of the US Empire, requiring deliberate humiliation and demoralization of the US forces, enabled by corrupt senior US commanders and politicians who have made deals with China.

What % of African Americans have already been exposed to COVID and thus have natural immunity?

Why not just allow antibody tests to be regarded the same as vaccines? Carving out this kind of exclusion would solve the problem, and allow vaccines to be redistributed.

The CDC estimates that 33% of the American population has been exposed to COVID, and for the African American population its probably about 50% when extrapolating from case counts [2]

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/king-county...

Easiest solution to diabetes: Sugar tax.

Easiest solution to climate change: Carbon tax.

If we havn't used these solutions, someone high up in the food chain is placing a greater emphasis on profits from the status quo instead of the wellbeing of the population.

Living conditions for the working class will eventually equalise with that of Mexico. With the scale of immigration into the country, its inevitable. Labour rates will be driven down, and housing prices (in markets with supply restrictions) driven up.

This should at least be controlled with legal temporary migration and removal of birth citizenship (which very few Western countries have), instead of a free-for-all with a large criminal element.