rpgamer

(just picking a random post that's easy to quote) I'd argue that there's room for distinction between what is socially popular/extreme and what is politically popular/extreme, and that you're trying to blur the line. More, just because it is not popular does not make it extreme. That's far too black and white. Further, a case could be made that "approval" is itself too narrow a term. Where is the line between "approve" and "disapprove," and is there room for simply "acceptable"? Anyway, point is, despite what marketing would have you believe, calling something "extreme" doesn't make it extreme.

Not sure if I'm dumb, blind, or just not paying attention, but. Is that argument "socialist policies are becoming popular, meaning establishment policies are now extreme"?

Have noticed lately my tv viewing habits have largely dwindled, to the point where I mostly just watch Toonami and maybe a couple other things scattered here and there. Went with cable for DVR reasons, but wondering if I can cut some expenses. I know there's Sling, but the user experience was just awful. App just constantly crashing, DVR functionality clunky, would rather avoid going back to that if possible. Is pretty much everything aired already on crunchyroll or netflix or something else? Preferably not scattered across several services. Not sure if [as] app/site is viable at all. Am I missing any alternatives?

Considering the closest we have to this season (2005) didn't close out until New Year's, I'd say strap in. That year had three storms blow up after this date, Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta. And we've already smashed past that with three storms further. The "season" is only when we've typically expected storms. Expect the "season" to shift as the climate keeps adjusting. All that said, NHC isn't showing any disturbances, so, who knows. Not sure I'd rule out any December storms, tho. It's 20fucking20 after all.

Up next would be Kappa. I just wanna see some corners of twitch going crazy after that one's named

Guys, they were all just really hard to see.

This thread may be providing the wrong context for that statement.

What is it with you and gas stations? I don't think I've ever been within twenty feet of another person while filling up. Masks certainly make no difference at that point.

All I see is an input/output equation. Or balancing a chemical equation. By adding carbon, via burning fossil fuels, which were effectively removed from use, there is necessarily a rebalancing taking place. The end result is naturally going to be a different equation. There's literally no means of correcting that back to the previous equation, without once again physically removing the same amount of resources we've added to the system. But, admittedly, I also view "chance of survival as a species" on much broader terms. In the grand scheme, there is no chance. Sure, short term, we might still have several thousand years ahead of us. But looking at climate scales, geologic scales, planetary scales, we're nothing. This planet has swung through some wild changes in the past, and it's pure arrogance to think we have any possible means of maintaining the narrow set of livable parameters necessary for our survival for any significant length of time. We haven't even seen the worst this planet has lived through, much of which we know is on a repeating cycle. Sure, maybe we survive through changing climate for a few thousand years. That will pale in comparison to surviving a magnetic polarity shift. We're one bad supervolcano eruption in any given location from millions being wiped out. Simply existing in space is like playing Russian roulette, never knowing when the next loaded chamber is coming up with something to smash into us. In that sense, climate change is a small scale problem. Even surviving through it doesn't guarantee any "survival as a species." We are small. Will will continue on for as long as possible, and it will be very long, on our scale, because we are good at survival and adaptation. But that only carries us so far.

Oh. See. There's your mistake. I'm not here to propose alternatives. I'm here to criticize the proposals. Because they're shortsighted. Because my conclusion is, we're fucked. Mitigation efforts will all be a bust. Adaptation is the only way forward. It's what we're good at. Planet is going to try its damnedest to shake us off over the coming centuries. It's going to be hell. Some will survive. Some won't. Through it all, we continue learning how to survive in a changing environment.

I know how trees work, dude. The point is that the carbon, the important part of the molecular chain in fossil fuels, remains part of the usable biosphere. They don't just "turn carbon dioxide into oxygen." They break it down, releasing the oxygen and utilizing the carbon. But the carbon isn't being totally removed from the system. All the carbon they "store" by producing leaves, gets released right back into the system, as carbon dioxide, once those leaves fall and decay. Trees that die suffer the same, the carbon stored as wood is slowly released back into the atmosphere through decay. Sure, maybe some small amount may remain deposited, but overall, the total amount of available carbon in the system doesn't significantly change. Because we've continued adding carbon that was not part of the cycle. And no, sticking it back in the ground isn't largely possible on the scale necessary. That's why we're boned.

It's weird how this entire branch of the argument has stemmed from the idea that "none of these options will make any difference once the system reaches equilibrium." Resources will be better spent learning how to adapt, not trying to stall. Burn everything or burn nothing, we're still headed for the same end result. Make literally everything on the planet vegan, it won't change how fucked we are.

No, I'm using hyperbole to make the point that trees aren't the answer. Look at it like an equation to balance. At one point, things were stable (as stable as a living ecosystem can be, anyway). And then humans come along and start digging up carbon reserves that have been stashed away for millenia. All that carbon has been added to the total system one way or another. Trees are, at best, a temporary solution. They're not immortal. And when the tree dies, and carbon it's managed to "store" is effectively released back to the system. Trees aren't going to solve anything because they're still a part of the system that is no longer in balance. The only conceivably viable solution is, essentially, to put the carbon back where we found it. Pumping carbon dioxide into underground/seabed reservoirs is the only way of tipping the equation back towards the old balance. Because literally all other methods still end with the carbon being an active part of the system in some way, which does us no good. Even this solution of sequestering is dubious, since we know fuck all about long term or environmental impacts. Moral of the story is, you can't take a resource that was effectively totally removed from the system, add it back to the system, and expect to find any meaningful mitigation techniques short of once again removing said resource from the system. tl;dr, there's no stopping this train. Even putting a full stop on all fossil fuel use leaves us with a system that has yet to fully balance out for all the carbon we've already reintroduced.

This is nice and all, but the idea of "carbon banks" is dumb as shit. We're taking carbon reserves that have been buried for literally millions of years and pumping them back into the system. Planting loads of trees doesn't really do anything to remove any of that carbon from the active system.