Imagine becoming a dissident in a totalitarian society where you can be cut off from all commercial transactions with the click of a button (i.e. cash has a broader purpose).
You don’t have to imagine; it has been done many times now against dissidents in the USA through the never before crossed lines of “debanking” in the partial digital currency American economy, the tyrannical cases of the EU sanctioning and effectively turning Jacques Baud and Hüseyin Doğru into 1984 style unpersons, the even more abusive and seemingly tyrants’ template in the targeting of Martin Sellner, where the EU has been targeting him personally across even non-member states in the most tyrannical way. And there are several other smaller, less prominent cases.
As you described, one click cut off from commercial transactions and in the cases of the EU sanctioning its own citizens where even helping them feed themselves or their children is an illegal act.
And most people are totally oblivious to most of these massive shifts in the fundamental assumptions of democratic society, and may even support the tyranny they presumably must believe will never be turned on them, even though no one knows more what a loathsome person a traitor is than those who the traitor has served in his betrayal.
The ICC is just a made up organization - it only has power, like any international entity, to the extent that it can utilize that power. With countries such as China, Russia, and the United States not being signatories to the ICC if the ICC were to, oh, idk, prosecute Xi Jingping for the genocide of Uighur Muslims China would also execute similar actions as the US or Israel.
And even in cases like Maduro who is a wanted criminal and I believe would be easily proven to have committed crimes against humanity, the lack of public indictment and backlash against the United States for bringing that piece of shit to justice discredits the ICC. It can’t be an organization where it applies universal human rights declarations only when Israel is involved. That’s stupid and that’s exactly why the organization is a failure.
As well as big sounding words, 125 countries have signed up. The US is sanctioning it because they are worried it's a threat to their power to do as they wish.
Yea sure but the countries with power say no. If the ICC wants to prosecute Maduro or the IRGC they should do so. Until then who cares what they think?
I wonder why Trump sanctioned it then? Don't suppose it could be related to an arrest warrant in 125 countries for the guy he rolls out red carpets for?
Funny thing is, a good way of making someone hover their finger over that button is to try to deposit any significant amount of cash to your bank account. One part of the system says "Use cash!", another part says "What is this cash? How did you get it? From whom? Did you give them a receipt? Can you prove that?"
If "the electronics" break down, shops usually can't accept any form of payment at all, because that would be illegal with their on-line cash registers being offline...
Say, hypothetically, I'm a farmer with 2,000ha of barley at 3.3 tonne per ha, are you actually planning on paying $2 million in cash for 6,600 tonne to make beer?
Or are you thinking more of a "farmer" as someone selling individual artisan carrots?
Sticking with farmers as I'm in a rural area, still to this day large exchanges of labour and produce take place with neither physical cash nor e-cash forms, maybe at most a ledger note or IOU marker - in the great wash and flow of the seasons emergency mechanical work at harvest time can be repaid with a sheep some months later.
Yeah, I think a lot of people regular people when dealing other regular people they trust, the principle of it comes out in the wash somewhere applies a lot.
Col. Jacques Baud is living it right now. He's been cut off from his pension and bank accounts completely in Belgium and is prohibited from crossing borders.
how can you be prohibited from crossing schengen border when there is nobody to check you? he should have no problem to get to switzerland/germany border crossing
also article you link:
"It is unclear if Baud is a resident of Switzerland."
so not sure why he should be returning to switzerland
In several interviews about his predicament he talked about the ban on crossing borders to go back to Switzerland, where he still has funds. Switzerland is not part of Schengen, so I guess he would be intercepted and then persecuted for trying to escape this medieval punishment.
Right now in Belgium he can't even buy food, as his EU accounts have been locked. He's been fed by friends and neighbours (who might also find themselves in trouble).
if he is Swiss citizen then not sure why they mention in article whether he is Swiss resident, it is completely irelevant information, surely Switzerland can't deny entry to their own citizen regardless of his current residence status, which is matter of one application in some bureau, I am also citizen of other country having permanent residence in second country, which has still nothing to do with my citizenship and it is absolutely irelevant for my return to my home country, I have no obligation to country where I have permanent residence
as for ban on crossing border, I still fail to see what is he charged with (Google results says nothing), if he is not charged with breaking some law or detained, there is no lawful way to stop him from crossing the border legally, let alone don't understand why he just doesn't flee and doesn't cross border illegaly (I mean can you even cross border illegaly when entering your own country? I guess it could be illegally exiting Germany)
seems to be guy with same name born in 1995? though pictures I found everywhere show guy in 50-60s, so I guess they can't even properly write sanctions since they are for 40 years younger man?
and I still dont get why anyone would be sanctioned for being:
"Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and strategic analyst, is a regular guest on pro-Russian television and radio programmes. He acts as a mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda and makes conspiracy theories, for example accusing Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO."
what is illegal about EU citizens talking to Russian TVs/radios, being mouthpiece of whatever propaganda or making consipiracy theories, all of those seem like pretty ridiculous reasons to put sanctions on someone, they can sanction then like 1/3rd of Bulgarian or Slovak population
I was debanked about 26 years ago. I had one too many issues with returned bad checks, and a report was filed with an agency called ChexSystems. For years afterwards, I was prohibited from holding a legitimate checking account anywhere in the US.
But if we are going to view the government as the enemy in this context and thus cash is a way to avoid “control” it also follows that the same are espousing avoidance of paying taxes and the control government and taxes have over you as well.
It’s interesting to see folks talking about the “disadvantaged” such as immigrants (presumably illegal because legal immigrants have varying levels of bank access) who of course deserve to use cash as a moral imperative against the totalitarian government but then if someone says well I disagree with and don’t want to pay taxes (give me cash) because of that same anti-totalitarian point of view they’d be labeled all sorts of negative things like being a non-contributor or something similar.
We have to align on consistent moral claims. If you want to argue well so and so is part of the totalitarian government apparatus then all you are doing is creating an “other” who uses cash to avoid “totalitarianism” and in which case the so-called “totalitarian” apparatus is justified in its hostility toward entities which seek to destroy it.
Sorry I will decline to provide specific examples. This is common knowledge. You can read about things that the Chinese authoritarian government does, you can search in Google for things like China’s social credit score, and more.
It is happening in the EU right now. Martin Sellner has denied or closed by 109 banks for his opinion that Europe should stay European.
Prophecy: some people here may argue that's a good thing, and we should differentiate between a good and bad debanking.
Edit: as expected, if you want to push for more autocracy and control, you need to find the right bogeyman. And suddenly, people claiming they are liberal and pro freedom will start supporting authoritarian policies, but "just in some cases", whether those people are terrorists, "far rights" or paedophiles.
A cursory look up of the dude very quickly turned up links with far-right terrorist and Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant, including receiving money from him, so I don't think it's the "opinion" that's the issue.
Replying to your edit: this is not a discussion about whether debanking or state control of the financial system is good or bad in general. I don't have a much opinion on such a complex topic (though I do hope that your principled opposition to state debanking also extends to muslims). What I replied to is your allegation of that he was debanked for his "opinions", which is categorically false. He was put on some sort of list, rightly or wrongly, because he had links with a far-right terrorist* who shot and killed dozens of people at a mosque. You omitting that fact and crying about authoritarianism when confronted leads me to think that you are not arguing in good faith.
*in the strictest definition of the word: openly subscribing (and self-describing) to far-right ideologies, and committing acts of terror
> though I do hope that your principled opposition to state debanking also extends to muslims).
Of course. With the restriction that Muslims in non-Muslim countries are not entitled to Islamic banking if no bank provides it, as well as non-Muslims in Muslim countries are not entitled to non-Islamic banking.
Back to Sellner. If he is a far-right terrorist, arrest him for God's sake. Don't leave it to banks to emulate justice in their own internal processes.
I don't have a horse in this race and didn't even know who this noname Austrian firebrand was prior to this discussion but the evidence is not exactly hard to find. By all means feel free to deny, shoot the messenger, call me names, etc. Won't change anything, people can just fact check stuff themselves
That's the whole point, which you obviously didn't understand.
It's unfortunate that many people, including you, would support authoritarian methods and reducing of human rights like free speech, privacy, etc, as long as that is framed against "bad" people, and not "good".
Of course, that same totalitarian regime may tomorrow decide you are "bad", or at least not "good enough".
I'm not arguing about Sellner, I picked him because I knew it would provoke this kind of response.
But if he did something illegal, state should arrest him, bring him to court, and put him in jail. Legally and fine, that's why we pay taxes.
But since he is not convinced, and not jailed, harassing him because some people don't like him is pure tyranny. Approved by the people who think they are better than North Korea.
> It's unfortunate that many people, including you, would support authoritarian methods and reducing of human rights like free speech, privacy, etc, as long as that is framed against "bad" people, and not "good".
This would only be unfortunate if I believed that free speech is an absolute right, which I definitely don't. And reducing it to an authoritarian view is not going to advance this discussion.
I view society as a compromise. By living in a society I actively choose to curtail many freedoms that I would (or should) otherwise have. Some of those are imposed by the state as laws and regulations, some are imposed by societal norms. In other words, if I show up for a job interview wearing only a thong, I will not get that job.
Following your rationale, any law or regulation is tyrannical as it curtails freedom. Whether this is true or not, that is not something I am willing to settle. I would still prefer to live in a tyrannical society (by what you seem to believe is tyranny) than in a chaotic anarchy.
And part of that compromise that society enforces is limitations on speech. If a racist freak is allowed to spread his advocacy for ethinical cleansing, is it a slippery slope to believe he might succeed in his goals? Let us remember that the Final Solution of Nazi Germany was final because it was the not the original solution. Initially the idea was a mass deportation based on ethnicity. Should we allow those seeds to root again based on some misguided idea of "it will be tyrannical to not allow this bullshit to be advocated for freely"?
Perhaps he should be trialed and properly convicted for his advocacy. If the laws are not in place for it, I am fine with debanking this asshole.
> Perhaps he should be trialed and properly convicted for his advocacy. If the laws are not in place for it, I am fine with debanking this asshole.
Wouldn't it be better to update the laws than let the corporation do self-justice by punishing "assholes" who didn't do anything illegal?
If corporations like banks are allowed to do self-justice, why not individuals? And what is an appropriate punishment for someone who is an asshole, but didn't do anything illegal? Debanking? Fine. Removing from social media? Fine. Not allowing to rent a place to live? Fine? Beating? Not fine. A little beating, just an "appropriate" amount of beating? Maybe also fine?
I'd rather have a state properly process and handle these cases than big corps or some "society".
> Wouldn't it be better to update the laws than let the corporation do self-justice by punishing "assholes" who didn't do anything illegal?
Generally, yes.
> If corporations like banks are allowed to do self-justice, why not individuals? And what is an appropriate punishment for someone who is an asshole, but didn't do anything illegal? Debanking? Fine. Removing from social media? Fine. Not allowing to rent a place to live? Fine? Beating? Not fine. A little beating, just an "appropriate" amount of beating? Maybe also fine?
Perhaps this will be news to you, but being socially ostracized is not exactly new.
While I don't exactly think this is the best course of action, I will not pretend this is unprecedented.
And you know, we are taking about some hypothetical here. Banks may have found it complicated to handle donations that he was receiving.
People in general, thankfully, find views such as "let's mass deport certain ethnicities in an ethinical cleansing" a view that is too repulsive and would prefer not to be anywhere close to it.
> I'd rather have a state properly process and handle these cases than big corps or some "society".
No need for scary quotes around society. You likely live in one, its all around you, and it's what the government generally is meant to represent.
I don't disagree, I just don't like hidden greyzone punishments. The state should come out and show their hand in public based on the rule of law and arrest such people if they don't like it.
Chipping away at people from the shadows (i.e. taking away their banking) isn't how a civilized society should act.
I also think it's a very very dangerous path if we let banks, tech companies, etc decide what rights we're allowed in society.
yes, even racist or whatever freaks have right to have bank accounts and not being discriminated for their crazy opinions, if they didn't break the law, in developed world we have courts to judge whether someone is guilty or not of breaking some law, not the banks, ISPs or social media companies, this just came to my mind:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
The nerve to even attempt to equate this with "racists and whatever freaks", and to invoke Niemöller without even giving him credit.
First the people who despise democracy and plurality, the people you belittle as "racists or whatever freaks", came for one group, then the next. And that is why people who come for Nazis also become Nazis in the same way an oncologist who cuts out cancer becomes cancer: not at all.
> Though we are aware that the might of National Socialism must be broken militarily, we seek to achieve a revival of the deeply wounded German spirit from within. However, this rebirth must be preceded by a clear confession of all the guilt the German nation has incurred and by a ruthless battle against Hitler and his too-numerous helpers’ helpers, Party members, Quislings, et al. The chasm between the better part of the nation and everything connected with National Socialism must be brutally forced open. There is no punishment on this earth that is adequate for the deeds of Hitler and his followers. Out of love for the generations to come, we must make an example [of them] after the conclusion of the war so that no one will ever have the slightest desire to attempt something similar.
-- The White Rose
They also called Nazis "subhumans", by the way. And that is perfectly fine by me, I think those leaflets have aged perfectly well.
How about this: drones that fly up to people and tell them "isn't Hitler great" or whatever, and when that person grins and their pupils dilate, and some follow-up tests also succeed, they get zapped on the spot. Just turned to ash. Deal? That would be actually honouring what people in those times were saying.
I tried searching for what exactly he is accused of, and all I can see is he supports the extradition of illegal migrants to their home countries according to the existing law, but the "elites" and "the ones in power" decided to ignore.
I didn't find any direct reference to him supporting anything like athletic cleansing.
After quoting Niemöller? What? Even I would say I laid it on a bit thick, teetering on the edge of self-righteousness if not having falled of it, but "oh no, a nazi comparison"? If you can't compare anything to the Nazis, never speak of them again. They're not to be put behind glass, as something magically different from all other things, some unique anomaly in space time.
No single Nazi murdered millions or started a war, they all just did a bunch of things with a few others, and before you know it, a continent is on fire and tens of millions are murdered. None of them wanted that (some actually didn't, I bet you; they may have been fine with murder and conquest but not Auschwitz and Germany in ashes), and that is why when we see this disease (and I really think it's a sort of mental illness produced by mass society), we already know the infected people will not take responsibility for the whole group. They will not actually lift their eyes and view all their peers in the context of all of history. They will, again, just do a few things each, and then, again, be completely fucking useless when it comes to cleaning up their mess, and mourning the dead they owe. They didn't study what they are, so they have no fucking clue. And knowing that, we have no right to let them.
banks declined to do business with him (and/or with the movement he is associated with) not for "his opinion", but for his actions
IMHO it's obvious that there should be a limited minimum/basic account provided by the state unconditionally, and that the current practice of using AML regulations to effectively ban people from having bank cards and bank accounts goes against the spirit of due process.
it's quite farcical that private banks are used as mandatory designated sin-eaters (scapegoats) for this. they don't want to and mostly can't comment on the specifics (because SAR - suspicious activity reporting - and the various national equivalents, usually immediately triggers the requirement to play dumb, since that's the only way to ensure that the bank cannot be later dragged in front of whatever authority for not cooperating with the investigation) but everyone knows it, since it's in the fucking news.
and the actual legal actions tend to be overturned.
all of which in total end up helping these organizations (and these politicians) to farm reputation.
It is rather ironic that you excuse and rationalize the tyrannical state.
You think that “actual legal actions tend to be overturned” is an acceptable state of affairs?? Think about what you said right there? Read it again. And then again!
It’s astonishing you would say such a thing. You think you would somehow be immune from the tyrant you support?
i am using that as support for my claim that this extralegal proscription of access to financial services would likely also not survive the courts.
my position on this is simple. if the state claims there's something illegal then they should charge him/them, if not then pressuring private parties to stop exercising their freedom of assembly and association obviously goes against the spirit of civil rights and the rule of law.
(and I know the problem is convoluted, hard and obviously a realpolitik minefield, but ... again, obviously whatever the last 20 years of elected governments were/are doing did not solve the problems.)
Banks are also afraid of repercussions from US if they have customers that are on some US list, refer to case of Karim Khan, the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Wouldn't an increase in co2 in the atmosphere spur a massive plant growth, both on land and in the oceans? I have no qualifications nor merit in this field as well, so anyone please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Yes it already has. Earth has greened considerably, agriculture, forests have all been boosted the last forty years.
Here chat 4:
Piao, S., Liu, Z., Wang, Y. et al. (2020). Plant phenology and global climate change: Current progresses and challenges. Global Change Biology, 26, 1928–1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15004
This review paper discusses the impact of global climate change on plant phenology, which includes effects of elevated CO2 levels.
Zhu, Z., Piao, S., Myneni, R. B., Huang, M., Zeng, Z., Canadell, J. G., ... & Zeng, N. (2016). Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nature Climate Change, 6(8), 791-795. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3004
This article provides evidence for the 'greening' of the Earth over a period of 33 years, attributing roughly 70% of this greening to increased atmospheric CO2.
Smith, P., House, J. I., Bustamante, M., Sobocká, J., Harper, R., Pan, G., ... & Popp, A. (2016). Global change pressures on soils from land use and management. Global Change Biology, 22(3), 1008-1028. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13068
This article discusses the effects of global change pressures on soils, including the impacts of increasing CO2.
Just to makes sure no one things that this means that extra CO2 is good because of this: Elevated CO2 levels drastically change the climate and will make Earth inhabitable for humans at some point if not reduced. It's good for some plants in some places but their growth does not fix the underlying and future issues with CO2 in our atmosphere.
Please stop "making sure" when it comes to MY thinking. Also on behalf of everyone who doesn't like being told what or how to think, please stop "making sure".
If you really need to "make" something "sure" please pick something real and not a political football.
In the early 70's alarmists were "making sure" everyone was panicking about an ice age.
See..no ice...
Wait a while....I predict the alarmists will change to something else when people no longer buy the current looming disaster.
Please stop participating in the most recent fashionable doomsday fantasy.
In the 70s the gradually forming consensus was still that global warming was real. The popular press just ran with cooling more, so the lay person believed it. The modern "the 70s predicted cooling so can we believe anything these 'scientists' say?" talking point is based upon a false premise.
But there is considerable evidence that this warm period is passing and that temperatures on the whole will get colder. For example, in the last 100 years mid‐latitude air temperatures peaked at an all‐time warm point in the 1940's and‐have been cooling ever since.
[Climatologists] are predicting greater fluctuations, and a cooling trend for the northern hemisphere.
The most imminent and far reaching [danger] is the possibility of a food‐climate crisis that would burden the well to do countries with unprecedented hikes in food prices, but could mean famine and political instability for many parts of the non-industrialized world.”
So writes Stephen Schneider, a young climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., reflecting the consensus of the climatological community in his new book, “The Genesis Strategy.”
If you're using that as evidence that media over-represented bad science, then I think that's a great example. Even before 1976 Schneider had already apologized and said that his assumptions regarding global cooling were overestimated and heating underestimate. Wikipedia also mentions that the book considers both global warming and cooling, it seems like the review was aiming at a particular popular angle. I don't know if I'd use a book review as an indicator of the actual scientific consensus of the time, but rather the media's understanding of the scientific consensus.
Every time I post that story here someone quickly reads Wikipedia, doesn't think about what they just read and then immediately attempts an AI-quality refutation.
Yes Wikipedia claims that "Having found that recalculation showed that global warming was the more likely outcome, he published a retraction of his earlier findings in 1974". Yet there he is in 1976 - two years after this supposed retraction - telling the NY Times that there's an absolute scientific consensus on global cooling.
Wikipedia isn't reliable for anything climate related or on many other topics. Their citation for this claim of a retraction doesn't go to any retraction, but rather a book written by a Guardian journalist.
It's really depressing how systematic this problem is. I'd try to fix Wikipedia with a link to the 1976 interview but there's no point, it'd get reverted quickly for sure.
For the wider point here see my other comment. According to present day understanding not only the media but also scientists were massively misleading the public about the climate and what other scientists believed. So how do you know it's not still happening?
Cool, we're going to be like that. What's depressing is that I made the effort when you tried to pull things off into a rabbit trail of to a single book review.
To be clear you didn't refute my initial argument here which looked at the state of the scientific community, you threw out a (from the sounds of things favorite cherry picked) book review from the New York Times.
> So how do you know it's not still happening?
Because it's much easier for scientists to have their own independent voices and easier to hear from the scientific community directly. Our ability to communicate these points, much like the science itself, is greatly improved from the 70s.
There are two book reviews on the page I linked, both about global cooling. This is what I mean. You're trying to argue using sources but not reading those sources.
This point is relevant because you can't directly measure what the scientific community believes. It's not even a well defined group to begin with. So in practice everyone relies on summaries, articles, assertions by scientists about what other scientists believe and so on. If you read HN discussions on climate you'll see all kinds of things stated with 100% certainty that everyone believes those things, but it's easy to find research papers refuting them or providing contradictory evidence. Whilst communication abilities are indeed better than the 1970s this does not lead to more rational discussion because attempts to bring up the complexities and contradictions of the actual evidence base are invariably suppressed, along with people pointing out the unreliability of the climatological community. Many scientists today in climate will tell you point blank that their views are never brought to public attention and even actively suppressed.
I see you still didn't read MY SOURCE, which highlights it wasn't 100% consensus by looking at papers throughout the decade. As you're not trying to engage with my information in good faith, I'm going to have to say good day to you.
It's not a "talking point." It's my point of view because the preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the media, as a group, cannot be trusted.
It's not a debate. Wake up. Much (most?) of the info going into your brain is not just false, it's deliberately manipulative.
> the media, as a group
Is a ridiculously false assumption. You are also consuming some media, who are you to decide which publications fall into the bad group and which into the good group? Feelings of trust? Feelings of familiarity? Feelings of reassurance of existing viewpoints?
> It's not a debate.
I am glad you do realise that human-induced climate change is real and a threat.
> Much (most?) of the info going into your brain is not just false, it's deliberately manipulative.
You might want to find better sources of information then.
I imagine one must spend most time running in particular self-confirming circles to expect to be taken seriously when retorting with "in the 70's 'they' said there would be a new ice age, yuk, yuk, yuk", especially around HN. It's been refuted repeatedly, and I see someone already got to it while I was typing this.
I mean, in the 70's people had leaded gasoline in cars, lead paint in the walls, washed their hands with DDT, blew a hole in the ozone layer and doused countries in unknown chemical blends, so relying on the things that were common ideas at that time as signs of good ideas may not be the right call.
Future Person 1: "They did the best they could with PCBs in their bloodstreams, a credit card sized hunk of plastic in their brains, breathing 60% more carbon dioxide with every breath than their great grandparents, having their food so processed and imbalanced that it lead to a multitude of diseases while wildy disrupting their gut biomes, and random chemicals in every drop of water on the planet disrupting their hormones and causing all manner of endocrine disorders."
Future Person 2: "Wow! I'm glad they got all of that fixed! That must have sucked living through!"
Future Person 3: "I'm so glad they finally threw off the mental chains and ran the shills out of town on a rail so we could finally see what was really happening."
Future Person 2: "Yeah, some people were seriously deluded by conspiracy theories back then. I am glad we reached a scientific consensus where misguided hate and fascism are not a thing anymore."
> There were international conferences on the possibility, presented to the US President
Out of curiosity, do you remember the date and place of such a conference ? And the name of the US President ?
> Note that these days climatologists have erased the cooling trend from the old temperature records that these scientists were talking about.
Not sure what you mean there. Has the data been dubbed irrelevant and replaced with, supposedly, more accurate data, or was it maliciously "erased" from records ?
It probably would, but if you're implying this would absorb a lot of CO2, I don't think so, plants die and when they do they decompose and release the CO2 back into the atmosphere. The conditions are not really met for a new carboniferous era right now and it took millions of years.
No because plant levels settle at a higher equilibrium. Plants may decompose but there are more plants growing at the same time, so it still ends up being more.
Higher CO2 levels are said to have led to a "global greening", in which crop yields have gone up a lot. This is especially true in Africa, so that reduces global hunger and increases wealth. The idea that more CO2 = less life is not as simple as it's made out to be. Climate doomers ignores this type of thing because they are convinced society can't handle complexity, so have to insist that CO2 is always bad even when it's not.
Oh my.. few serious educated persons would refute the increased greening, yes, but there it stops already.
Crop yields have gone up a lot? Unfortunatly our farming has even more problems, but let's leave it at the increased greening: How much have crop yields increased by that please, any numbers? Or at least how much the increase of greening is?
Do you know our crops vs the plants that mostly benefit from this and will also thrive in the future weather conditions, that is more than the CO2 level?
Hunger in Africa has already reduced? Please wtf, any numbers?
And that this will outweigh the other bad consequences.. no comment.
Even your reference doesn't get to anything more concrete than wishful but hilarious extrapolation based on ... just opinion (vs facts of.. but I think it is not worth continiueing, right? :/ )
Some people can handle complexity, but I think they're in the minority. I'm not sure that tacking on "oh, but also climate change will be good in a few ways" is helpful in getting people to take action. So there are sure to be some misinformed climate activists out there who don't know about greening, but that may be a preferable situation to everyone being very informed about the nuance and therefore feeling like this is a smaller problem than it really is.
... ideally, during a carboniferous epoch, you have lots of bogs and places where plants can decompose into oil for future civilizations to enjoy... And re-release I to the atmosphere.
From what I've read that can't really happen again. In the prehistoric past, plants could die and would build up into massive layers. Over time those wound up in various geologic processes that caused them to become oil. Nowadays the Earth has plenty of microbes that will quickly decompose the plants into something that is not oil and that's the end of the process.
Yes, we expect increased some degree of photosynthesis. However, we hardly expect to see an proportionate increase of photosynthesis (or plant mass?) - if nothing else, we'd expect there to still be a bottleneck from nitrogen.
Logically, yes. The energy will be transformed by nature if humans don't do it. However, this might not happen in a timely fashion for us to survive as a specie. Remember, earth timelines are wildly different than human ones.
An incredibly strong feedback mechanism exists (see article above).
Societal problems, yes. Extinction to the human species? I think that’s extreme hyperbole. What would the mechanism even be, to eradicate all humans, across the globe?
Climate change is real, things will be bad, etc, but the possible end of the species is an incredible claim, that doesn’t follow logic.
Okay so it won't make us go extinct. What if it makes life full of significant suffering. I find this kind of argument quite annoying. It's the same thing was happened with COVID19. Sure, I'm not going to die from it. That doesn't mean I want to live a life without my taste or smell. I enjoy those things. Likewise I want to live on a good Earth and leave that to the people after me.
What is "this kind of argument"? Something ridiculous was stated, and I pointed out an apparently annoying reality. The argument that you seem to want to have is unrelated to what was said and my response to it. I don't think hyperbole has a place on meaningful discussions. Relevant points should be made without theatrics.
No one justified lockdowns based on people losing taste or smell though. If the justification turned out to be incorrect, it is reasonable to be mad about that. While you personally may be fine with lockdowns based on whatever percent of people lose taste or smell permanently, if that was the justification provided for lockdowns instead of risk of death I think a majority would have been opposed, don’t you?
Yes, but in the worst way. Giving large amounts of CO2 to plants is kind of like giving huge doses of steroids to athletes. They grow abnormally and become unhealthy and short lived.
My cannabis plants flower with 15 to 20% yield improvement and no abnormalities at 1500ppm CO2.
Edit One of the side effects of CO2 infusion ironically, is tolerance of higher temperatures.
These statistics [1] would suggest that sociological factors are in play, especially if you look at the graphs for young people. The number of young men not having sex is at record numbers.
In terms of implementation, one key difference is that Cloudflare sits between your servers and your users, whereas with Gatekeeper, your servers query Gatekeeper before deciding what response to send to users. One of the ramifications is that with Gatekeeper, your users never see a third-party page about verifying that they are not bots. It also means that when using Gatekeeper, you can actually debug if/when something unexpected happens.
Gatekeeper also allows you to look over previous traffic patterns and adjust your custom rules. Philosophically, our assumption is that website operators know their sites the best, and know what content they are sensitive about and Gatekeeper is a tool to help review traffic and express custom rules. I think Cloudflare is a better fit for operators who don't want to spend time fiddling with various very granular knobs to optimize for their specific site and their specific concerns.
Gatekeeper can also be used for other purposes. For example, the idea behind Gatekeeper originated because we have a site where we want to make information freely available to humans, but not to scrapers. However, Gatekeeper could also be used to upsell users who frequent your site (e.g. "We noticed you've viewed 10 articles in the past week, please subscribe!").
If you're considering custom logic like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33160679 , Gatekeeper already has a rules engine so that you specify such policies without having to write your own infrastructure.
I'd be happy to chat further to learn more about what you're looking for and to see if Gatekeeper might be able to help. Feel free to reach out via email (in profile) if you'd like to talk more.
