Lithium mining is not good for the environment.

I am so sick of seeing our deserts destroyed, as though it’s somehow “empty” land. There are a million square miles of parking lots and building roofs in this country that we could cover with these things, and yet we would rather destroy ecosystems that are already delicate and millions of years old, with species that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. And then call it “green” while we do it. All of this because the government can’t be bothered to deal with (read: compensate) private property owners to cover their parking lots and roofs with solar.

They can say they’ll stay away from “sensitive resources” all they want, but that’s proven to be false in the past, so why should we believe them now? They’re only putting them within ten miles of existing transmission lines - next time, it will be within ten miles of the ones they’re building now, and so on until there’s nothing left. The sad part is that this comment will be immediately taken as being against solar and renewables, when it’s actually against destroying more of our untouched land and history for profit.

There’s already tons of solar fields and wind fields in the desert. Now they’re starting to open up old gold mines and create new ones, in the Sierras as well as the desert. Look at Grass Valley and Nevada City, where not a single resident wants some giant mining company threatening their town and their rivers, but apparently they don’t get a say about their own homes. Joshua trees have been destroyed by fires caused by climate change, and none of us will see them grow back in our lifetimes. They’ve destroyed important historical sites like the petroglyphs at China Lake and display fake ones for tourists. They’ve built Las Vegas nearly up to the edge of Red Rocks and there’s ugly mansions popping up on the way to Mt Charleston. They’re building a train straight through some of the last open desert in California east of San Diego and through the agricultural region of San Joaquin valley. They’re “cleaning up” the Salton Sea, but of course you can’t just trust that they’re not going to fill the area with McMansions after that so they can expand the tourist dollars of Palm Springs. They’re turning the western terminus of the original transcontinental railroad into a fucking strip mall called The Railyards and putting a farmer’s market in the old Southern Pacific buildings. Some Silicon Valley douchebags are building a “utopia” in the middle of the wetlands east of SF, destroying the ecosystems and birds’ migratory pattens that the region has tried so hard to protect.

In the next fifty years, there will not be any open land left in the US unless it is a lucrative tourist attraction like Yosemite. There is already hardly anywhere on the SoCal coast that doesn’t cost $20 to get near it, and half of it is private property when private beaches are supposedly illegal in California. Ironically, the last piece of wild coastline in OC is owned by the military. It’s just a blatant “fuck you” to our country’s wilderness, ecosystems, and history, and especially, it seems, to the American Southwest.

There’s a station in Orange County they just shut down after it sat there unused for however many years. They already bury nuclear waste in the Arizona desert, they can’t act like that’s somehow off limits when they’re willing to destroy the rest of the desert with solar panels, wind farms, and lithium mines. It’s bullshit that the American desert is viewed as being empty and without value, unless it’s pretty enough to charge tourists and entry fee. There’s zero excuse for destroying what little we have left of our open land in the US. It will be completely gone before we even have time to realize it.

Why are these solar panels not going on top of buildings? On parking lots and parking garages? We never seem to have a problem finding more room for those? I know the answer is that it will cost more and they would need some kind of rights from the property owners. That’s still not an excuse to destroy the land, the ecosystems, and the species that live there. It’s fucking disgusting, soulless, and short sighted. Teddy Roosevelt is rolling in his grave.

If it’s at all profitable it will end up being companies making up a bunch of new personas eventually. That might be good in that it’s more jobs per “influencer,” but also maybe lower paying.

Although I’m pretty sure this already happened with fake Instagram models and I don’t think it ever really went anywhere. It was just a novel thing for awhile.

entitled customers who can’t do basic research deserve wrong answers

Yes everyone should know everything at all times, and whoever doesn’t is entitled for asking questions.

Where the info comes from doesn’t exactly change that it’s a problem.

You can talk about media literacy, but why even have the thing exist if it can’t provide correct answers. That’s its only reason for existing.

The part that got me is when they quoted the text of the bill and then linked to the bill.

But yes, the constant “slamming” of democrats is pretty biased. I can’t say I wholly disagree with that first paragraph, but anything that uses “land of the free” unironically usually has an angle.

I see so many of these comments I can’t help but wonder if it’s an ad campaign by Kagi.

You should move there and leave the internet to the rest of us then. Why keep hanging out in the giant propaganda machine, right?

I’m sure they just weren’t aware that starving your whole population is simply a “differing political ideology.” Cut them some slack.

These arguments that always try to absolve giant corporations of any responsibility are so tired, and so nonsensical. They decided to start a company that hosts random people’s content, then they and the content creators can take responsibility for it and face the consequences of allowing for, and profiting off of, the exploitation of vulnerable people, bigotry, violence, hate speech, etc etc. There has to be a line drawn somewhere or else you end up with “free speech absolutists” who only allow alt right content on their platform. Gee, where have we seen that one before.

Finally someone is noticing this.

I report this garbage every time it gets recommended to me on YT, which is way too often. These are real human beings going through the most difficult and humiliating experiences of their lives.

One thing that’s always overlooked about homelessness is the complete, total, utter lack of any privacy whatsoever. It seems obvious when you say it out loud, but no one seems to acknowledge it. Imagine every bad day you have, you have an audience. When you wake up in the morning after a shit night of sleep, everyone gets to walk by you, judge you, and gawk at how shitty you look. I’m sure not everyone in these videos is homeless (likely fewer than people would automatically assume), but probably a significant enough number.

The fact that there is anyone out there who believes treating people like they’re in a zoo and then profiting off of their suffering for “entertainment” is an actual, unfeeling psychopath.

The worst part is that there are a bunch of channels like this and even more videos. They’re not limited to addiction but exploit any marginalized people they can. I blame Vice for having constant drug/addiction content with no real message besides “watch this person shoot up for some reason. No, we’re not blurring their face.” Wtf.

Sometimes this is referred to as “grad school.”

It worked for me, but I think there may be an issue with question 4. I used Firefox btw, but it did take a little while to load.

Good luck with your research

They just did for selling those coal rolling kits. I don’t see why this would be any different. They’re facilitating the sale. It’s their platform. They have a responsibility to the people who use it, as well as a responsibility to treat their workers like human beings.

Also read “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison

One of the most deeply disturbing and fascinating things I’ve ever read. Something about it just stuck with me and I think about it randomly, but I can’t reread it.

Also the “Newsom ordered most businesses to close.” I guess I thought it was a pandemic that had ordered most businesses to close?

I take it you don’t work in academia

I hope this is a joke.

Because it is weird. It’s even weirder for any average person to defend it.