In the beginning of COVID I ran out of tea once and since then I got used to just drink warm water from the tap in most cases. 🚰

I never said that I want to just wait. We should leverage all possibilities in parallel to reduce the carbon footprint:

• Increase green energy: solar power, wind turbines, tidal power etc.
• Reduce energy consumption
• Find ways to increase prices of products and services that are bad for the environment (not only CO2, but also methane, PTFE etc.)
• Fine companies which violate environmental laws or thresholds with significantly higher amounts than today
• Increase tolls in imported products and ban imports of products that do not meet sustainability criteria […]

All these measures are important steps to take to reduce the average footprint. But still on top of all these things the total number of humans is a signicifant multipler for the total footprint.

A human can only use less ressources only no human will take no ressources.

Once again: I do not promote state-forced birth control, I do not condemn parents, children etc. I’m simply saying that if people voluntarily decide to reproduce at a lower scale, that that has a positive impact on the planet and in the end helps the future generations.

If we simply just stopped using fossil fuels today without a smooth transition to green energies, all supply chains will shatter immediately, people will freeze to death, you’ll have a world-wide famine and neighbors fighting for the last remaining ressources.

Furthermore, the only way to force such an immediate exit from fossils would be to establish a violent dictatorship as there’s no democratic majority for it.

As much as I’d like the transition to happen as soon as possible, it’s pretty obvious that the solution can’t be as simple as ‘just forbid using fossils’.

I think the majority of people would prefer to use green energy but - as said in my previous - I do not think that the same majority is willing to accept significant cut backs on their lifestyle. As long as they can continue to live as they’re used to they’re all in on the green deal. But when they are asked to use less individual transportation in favor of public transport, lower their heating by a few degrees and wear a sweater instead or buy regional food over stuff that is imported from overseas, then unfortunately a lot of people react in a rejective or even aggressive way. Green politicians in Germany for instance are confronted with a lot of hate for all attempts to initiate some change.

So to me it seems like phasing out fossils in a democratic manner is only possible over a longer period of time, unfortunately probably several decades.

I do agree that these companies are at fault. But wouldn’t even the emissions of the most evil companies in the world go down with a smaller humanity? If you look at the top 5 in the ranking, it’s all fossil fuel companies. Do you think if we had 25% less humans, the remaining 75% would still burn 100% of fossils?

And I am not not fingerpointing at anyone. I neither condemn parents nor children. Just saying that less people have less impact than more people.

I have no clue why you’re now bringing up eugenics. Like WTF! Where the hell did I write anything even remotely related to that? Or anything against queer folks?

And just because the richest people are by far the worst polluters doesn’t invalidate my argument at all. If the overall number of humans changes over time, that also impacts the number of the super rich. If we have 10 billion humans instead of 8, there will be more rich people, more middle class and more people suffering from poverty.

On top of that more people mean more natural ressources have to be consumed for heating, agriculture, transportation etc.

We definitely should change society in a way that the super polluters are held accountable for their damage but that doesn’t mean that this is the only relevant figure and the only thing that helps.

A slowly shrinking humanity has definitely a better ecological impact than a growing one. And as long as that happens without external force, that’s a positive thing for me.

I read through the article and still can’t see how my post is related to facism. If we assume a number of X humans with an average environmental footprint of Y that leads to an overall footprint for humanity of X * Y.

If we want to bring that number down, this can by achieved by lowering either of the factors. If you want to cut pollution by let’s say 50% with a constant polulation, it goes along with harsher cut backs for the individuals’ lifestyle. Looking at the current discourse, such cut backs are highly controverse and measures in that direction are rarely accepted (‘they want to take out meat’, ‘they want to take our cars’ etc.).

If the number of humans decreased by 25% due to a naturally lowered birth rate, it means that the individual pollution must be lowered only by 33% instead of 50% to achieve the same result. I would argue that less individual impact will lead to a higher acceptance for a environment-friendly humanity.

If I wrote ‘kill the poor’ or something like that I’d get your point but I just said that fewer people will have a positive impact on nature. Which is not facism but a simple fact.

By the way. Your liked Wikipedia article also warns about the term ‘ecofacism’ being misused by the far right to discredit any form of pro-environment statements. So, please think twice before if you really want to use that term and call random people fascists.

Detractors on the political right tend to use the term “ecofascism” as a hyperbolic general pejorative against all environmental activists, including more mainstream groups such as Greenpeace, prominent activists such as Greta Thunberg, and government agencies tasked with protecting environmental resources.

What exactly is facism about naturally (non-enforced) lowering birth rates?

While lower birth rates may lead to economic issues on a medium term (too many old people VS. too few young people), it’s probably one of the most efficient measures to combat climate change. Less people comsuming ressources means less pollution and hopefully also less competition and conflicts for said ressources.

Even though I’ll be probably one of the many old people one day that the society may not be able to support adequately, I think that it’s positive news for humanity.

From my perspective, the best way to deal with a shrinking population would be a shift away from capitalism in its current form. Infinite growth, bigger, faster etc. is not a realistic and definitely not a sustainable target.

We should focus on the basic needs to make food, housing, care etc. affordable for everyone with as few working hours as possible, so that less people are able to do the job.

That’s new to me. For me so far it was sufficient to follow this part from the linked article…

Or, if Windows is already installed, from either the Sign on screen or the Start menu, select Power (Power button icon) > hold Shift while selecting Restart. Select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware settings.

As you’re currently using Windows on your PC, you might have to do an extended reboot. By default Windows skips the UEFI/USB step in the boot sequence to make Windows boot slightly faster.

Check out this link for reference’ https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/boot-to-uefi-mode-or-legacy-bios-mode?view=windows-11

From my perspective mails are federated. If I want to explain federation as a concept to someone I always use mail as an example because everyone can write to everyone independent of the provider, you can selfhost it easily, you could move from one company to another (if you use your own domain), protocols are all FOSS.

So at least it’s an open and distributed system. What would be missing for it to count as federated?

The problem with most crypto compared to regular money is that it’s often seen as an investment. However, one of the most important factors for a currency that is used in everyday transactions is stability and predictability. Money is supposed to ease trading goods and services as a universal middleman. It’s not supposed to make someone rich who invested first.

Of course there’s also inflation and deflation with regular money but as soon as that’s getting out of control, it typically leads to serious economic issues.

For people without IT background, I can recommend Mozilla common voice. They plan to release an advanced AI model for text-to-speech or speech-to-text conversion, e.g. for an offline, open source alternative to Amazon Echo, Siri etc.

To train the model they need at least 10000 hours of speech samples per language. So you can donate your voice by reading aloud small snippets, checking already recorded samples or making up new sentences.

https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/

I think it’s always about absolutes in the end. If a vegan drives by car 100000 miles and takes several flights a year that’s definitely worse than an omnivore staying at home all day. Ideally, you stay at or around home AND be a vegan AND only buy second hand AND avoid electronics etc.

If you are interested in how your personal lifestyle ranks against the average, just google for CO2 footprint calculator. If you want to do a good one, it will take at least 30 minutes as you have to answer quite some questions. This will give you not only an indication of where you are right now but also in which areas you have most room for improvement.

I think if everyone seriously tries their best and actually tried to improve their lifestyle it would have an immense impact. Unfortunately, most people seem to just blame “the industry” or “the politicians”. Of couse, they also play a role but we’ll never get a better world overall, if people aren’t willing to cut back on their lifestyle. And cutting back involves many many aspects. Veganism ist just one of them.

I also don’t understand the comparison to piracy but I think being a vegetarian is definitely more ethical than being an omnivore as long as you don’t overcompensate meat with other animal products. If you stop eating chicken and in exchange start to eat an additional 3 eggs a day, that’s probably worse for animals and nature.

If you just cut back on meat and replace it with vegan alternatives while eating the same amount of cheese, eggs etc. as before it DOES have a positive impact and we should appeciate one’s efforts.

Hell, even flexitarians have a positive impact. Right now, there’s around 90% omnivores worldwide. If all these omnivores reduced their consumption of animal products by let’s say 20%, it would have a far bigger impact than another 2% going full blown vegan.

Furthermore, it can be tough to go vegan all of a sudden. It takes time to change your diet, learn about healthy protein sources, essential nutrients and stuff. Going flexitarian first, then vegetarian and potentially vegan allows you to take one step at a time.

Also being vegan is not where it ends in terms of caring for the environment. You can keep reducing your personal footprint indefinitely. No more flights, no car, less electricity, less shopping. Everything helps. And everyone should try to contribute in the way that feels the most manageable for your personal circumstances.

Yeah but with much slower shipping and I wouldn’t expect working conditions in China to be any better than in US / EU amazon logistic centers.

Not sure about that. Sure, you might drive up your short term sales if consumers think they’re getting a great 5* product at a bargain. But in the long run, your customers will be disappointed by the quality and turn away from the platform. I hear more and more complaints about fake products being delivered, service degrading and real brands being drowned in the search results with Wish/Temu-like rubbish on Amazon.

I am still a regular customers at Amazon and I even still pay for the Prime membership but my shopping behavior has changed a lot over the years. Instead of buying expensive stuff like TVs, notebooks, sport equipment etc. I nowadays mostly buy cheap stuff due to the “free” shipping. Super glue, adapters, a cable here and there, little kitchen supplies etc.

I don’t trust Amazon anymore for bigger things which from they’d profit the most.

Also Prime memberships are questioned more and more across my friends and family. And I think fake ratings are one important aspect for that. Among others like treating their employees like shit, having a horrible person as CEO, etc.

From my perspective deep fakes will lead to a short but massive peak of harassment until everyone is aware of the technology and its capabilities. Once the technology reaches the mainstream and everyone is able to generate such content with ease, people will just stop caring. If these videos are everywhere, it’s easy to play it off as a fake. It might even help victims of actual revenge porn. Virtual nudity will become less of a deal, probably even in real life.

From my perspective the bigger issue of deep fakes is news. We already have a huge issue with lies on social media and even TV and newspapers today and once we can no longer trust what we see it will be incredibly hard to build up trust for any sources.

Fake videos of politicians being spread to harm their credibility, fake videos of war crimes to justify an attack. Or vice versa if there’s an authentic video of a crime the offenders will just deny the authenticity. But in contrast to Trump’s “fake news” claims today, it will be more or less impossible for normal people to fake check anything.

If you can run EXE filles on your work PC and you just don’t have administrator rights to install software, you should be able to download a portable version of your favorite browser.

I used portable Firefox, Chrome, Notepad++, Eclipse, Sysinternals stuff and many more without problems that way.

Disclaimer: Althought this probably works technically, it might still violate some company policy.