Okay so I’m asking you for the second time: what are you disputing? What are you arguing? You call bullshit without telling me what you think is wrong, forcing me to try to rebut a ghost. Given the fact you refuse to articulate what you’re arguing, I surmise you know I’m correct and you won’t be specific because you know I’ll produce peer reviewed research.

Did you look it up on Instagram? Which part is bullshit? Be specific so I know which evidence you’d like me to produce.

Let’s start with income. Here are dozens and dozens of citations showing that IQ is the single most important correlate for income. Do you know what income is highly correlated with? Low crime, high employment, long life span, better health, and a hundred other important quality of life factors. Are you disputing that too?

I’m not sure if you don’t understand what I’m writing or if we’re talking past each other. To put it plainly, IQ is the single greatest determinant of income. Income is one of the (and arguably the) greatest determinant of a host of other life outcomes.

I know it’s never been a good indicator of success

I suppose you might define “success” in an unusual way, but IQ is the single highest correlate with income of all factors. Higher than parental income, race, or residential location.

If you’re interesting in learning more I recommend this article. They cite a lot of data and research. I’m happy to walk you through the directionality topic as well if you’re interested.

Why wouldn’t it be? It is the single most research metric in all of sociology. We have more evidence for the existence of the g factor (and its causal and correlative effects) than any other phenomenon in that entire school of science.

Don’t confuse the criticism of measurement tools with the premise that g doesn’t exist.

while the other faced hardships with her adoptive family and parents

Does anyone have more info? Abuse, neglect, and malnutrition are proven to reduce IQ. So are the concussions referenced in the article. I would be dubious to make any statements on the back of a single case like this. This is not even outside the realm of possibility of twin IQ variance - albeit unlikely.

It is the single greatest correlate for life outcomes. Higher income, longer lifespan, lower addiction, higher employment, higher wealth, lower crime, better physical health on every metric, and lower rates of fatherlessness. These effects all compound the next generation too. There is nothing else in sociology which comes even close to IQ in predicting life outcomes. Not income, race, location, education, or fatherlessness.

Of course nothing guarantees a “better” life.

Yeah I don’t see how this won’t happen now. As soon as parents are given the option to prevent systemic genetic diseases like congenital blindness, the next question will be, “do you want them to be a bit smarter?” Very few parents are going to say no.

You didn’t just “contextualize.” You minimised the number: “Yeah, that totally sounds like a lot in a country of 84m. /s” Those are your words, verbatim.

It was 3,000 officers. Germany has 333,000 full time officers. That’s 0.9% of the force. Hardly grossly disproportionate to the benefit. There are undoubtedly far less “efficient” endeavours they use police resources on. The clearance rate for burglary in Germany, for example, was 19.5% in 2001. If we extend your logic, police should just stop investigating burglaries. I might even agree. I consider catching smugglers and terrorists more important.

I see, so you believe it has low benefit for the cost? Surely you would need to know the cost (e.g. number of personnel deployed) to make that judgement?

I would also caution you against attempting to hide big numbers behind even bigger numbers. 35 arrests a day is 12,775 per year. That might not be a proportionally big number, but it is a big number. Especially when we remember that the majority of violent crime is committed by just 1% of the population. Detecting and arresting criminals is often even more effective than harsh sentences.

I think criminals of all levels should be appropriately punished. Otherwise the law should change to reflect what is and is not criminal.

It doesn’t look like any were turned away, but please correct me if you have another source. In this case it’s hard to imagine those smugglers and terrorists were about to turn their lives around and begin taking care of elderly people.

I don’t understand what you’re arguing. That because Germany has 84M people they should just let smugglers, people with open arrest warrants, terrorists, and extremists into the country as they please? Why? That seems crazy to me.

I don’t know how old your kids are but it gets easier. You’re probably in that survival mode right now. Little time for anything but keeping the family alive. There’s research showing that age 50 is on average the least happy time, with things getting much better from there. Kids eventually move out or at least become self-sufficient. You’ll have more time for date nights and working on your relationship. With fewer costs there will be less financial stress so you can find a better job (either one with less stress or more money or both). Inflation will eat away at your mortgage over time and eventually you’ll be like “it’s only $300k now?? That’s nothing!”

Don’t be afraid of making some big changes if necessary. If your job isn’t paying you enough to survive where you live, consider moving somewhere with a lower cost of living. The wage is much less important than the ratio of that wage to living costs. There are lots of places with cheap houses where you might be able to live mortgage free, depending on your current equity.

I’m sure it goes without saying, but do your very best to prioritise your health. Sleep eight hours. Exercise a few times a week (even a brisk walk). Limit alcohol. Take a multivitamin. Reduce sugar and carbs. Etc. You will feel much more mentally resilient. It’s hard though, where you are, I know.

Best of us! You’re in the hardest phase. It gets easier from here.

Yeah I preferred that time before capitalism without medicine and the internet where we died young from preventable diseases.

Bild reported that over two days, authorities also detained 14 smugglers, carried out 48 open arrest warrants, and apprehended nine individuals under extremism laws targeting hard-left, far-right, and Islamist ideologies, among others.

Holy shit. Two days. Imagine how many more criminals and terrorists they’re going to find if they retain this policy. Previously these people just came and went as they pleased.

Renewables correct prices downward from where a fossil-only system would price electricity …

They would, if they weren’t four times more expensive than nuclear, and 13 times more expensive than gas.

… so that’s the heart of the matter: Russia’s actions increasing the price of fossil fuels.

It’s certainly one of the issues, but not the only issue. The gas price is close to historical averages now, yet UK electricity prices remain very high.

And does that make any sense at all, given Russia’s domination of nuclear supply chains? France’s nuclear program is mortally dependent on Russian cooperation in a lot of ways too.

Russia controls approximately 22% of the world’s uranium conversion capacity and 44% of its enrichment capacity. This is hardly insurmountable. It should spur investment from other nations. China accounts for approximately 70–90% of the global market across all stages of the lithium-ion battery value chain. Does that mean the world should give up on EVs and battery storage? Surely not.

Meanwhile over here in Germany, the designated chancellor and his “Christian Democrat” party quickly stowed away their pre-election rhetoric about building new nuclear plants/reviving existing plants, after an informal paper from their own party made the rounds, outlining that reviving nuclear in Germany would necessitate massive state aid or even having the state itself run the plants.

I don’t know what you mean by “stowed away,” but their policy shows they are still very much open to nuclear energy.

But realistically, I think they’d need 2 or 3 times that, right? Afaik, France is currently building just a single domestic plant and they’re not exactly executing there. Neither are they executing on the Hinkley Point project. And Olkiluoto was a massive shitshow where French taxpayers financed the 3/4 of the costs that constituted the cost overrun. There are basically two countries that still know how to build nuclear reactors, those are Russia and China, everyone else just incurs perverse cost and build-time overruns. And it does make sense: A centralized, dangerous, expensive technology that works best for centralized, authoritarian regimes that can afford to put all their state power behind these projects. (And yet, China is building out solar/wind much more aggressively than nuclear.)

France definitely doesn’t need 2-3 times that based on current implementation of renewables.

You won’t catch me defending the speed of large reactor roll-outs. Despite this, and the high costs, it’s still much cheaper than renewables. SMRs will be much faster to deploy, much more flexible, much cheaper, and require much less planning.

China is also building two “mega” coal lignite power plants per week. I don’t think we should use them as a role model.

New nuclear plants are also completely useless against climate change, given their decade/multi-decade build times, especially compared to renewables where plants can be rolled out in a matter of months. Meanwhile, existing French reactors need to be taken offline in summer because their water consumption is woefully ill-adjusted to climate change and they turn France’s rivers into bouillabaisse.

CO2 production is expected to continue to climb for 50-100 years, and we won’t reach CO2 neutrality for hundreds of years, if ever. A 7-10 year timespan is very little compared to the enormous environmental benefits.

Nuclear capacity has been flatlining (at best) for two decades, while renewables have exploded. Even if you assume just 10% utilization for the renewable plants, yesteryear’s addition of 6GW nuclear capacity pales in comparison to the 600GWp PV/wind capacity.

This is a political decision, not one based in science or finance. Despite renewables being far from ready to replace Germany’s nuclear generation, the public voted to switch to much more environmentally damaging gas generation. That gas was primarily coming from a hostile, authoritarian nation. The public voted to place the economic prosperity of Germany in the hands of Russia. It was one of the most tragic examples of democratic self immolation in all of history.

Even the author of that study admits to (latently pro-fashy shitrag) NZZ that cheaper batteries would solve the issue. Incidentally, what we’ve been seeing over the past decade is steadily decreasing battery prices, as scale goes up and cheaper materials substitute more expensive ones.

And I fully agree with the author. In 30-50 years when battery technology becomes cost effective at grid scale, we’ll be having a very different discussion.

I don’t really want to know what else is wrong with that study of his, given that the largest part of it is concerned with the near-pointless thought experiment of using 100%/95% exclusively solar+batteries. It seems massively more pertinent to worry about the final 10% renewables when the time has come. One major bit that I don’t see reflected in the study is flexibilization of demand e.g., which is a thing already. I recently saw a documentary that e.g. included a cold warehouse that could scale up/down its cooling in response to renewables availability. I visited a company producing electric componentry which is doing its electronic component testing on sunny days where they have a lot of solar. I know similar concepts exist for aluminum smelters.

That’s fair. It expands on the even more flawed LCOE metric which is widely (and incorrectly) used to compare wind/solar with nuclear/gas/coal.

Are there even SMR projects that haven’t been cancelled?

Rolls Royce isn’t due to deliver commercial SMRs until the early 2030s. Until then designs are either bespoke (and expensive, and untested), or using the GE Hitachi BWRX-300, which is also very expensive because it’s only licensed, and built on site to spec. It has many of the same issues as traditional large reactors. GE began licensing that design in 2020, and the most advanced project is I think in Canada, due to be completed in 2028. Once RR figures out their production lines, I think we see huge efficiencies of scale and much easier planning.

I feel like using teslas as the pic for this was somewhat misguided - they regularly rank as one of the least reliable cars going.

It depends on the segment and time range and market. MotorEasy conducted a survey in 2024 in the U.K. with 29,967 respondents. The Tesla Model Y was the 9th (equal) most reliable car. However Teslas tend to fare poorly in the Consumer Reports survey in the U.S. I suspect one of the reasons for the discrepancy between this market and the U.S. is that the U.K. received Tesla shipments a lot later for new models - years, in fact. This gave Tesla time to iron out first-model issues. Another is potentially the location of manufacture. Most Teslas sold in the U.K. come from China and Germany. Most Teslas sold in the U.S. come from Fremont, California. There were widespread reports of strange manufacturing practises at the Fremont plan during the covid outbreak, like spray-painting cars in makeshift tents.

Interestingly, MotorEasy found that gas and hybrids were the most reliable. Diesel were the least reliable.

I’m much more optimistic about nuclear power in Europe. Given the high pricing volatility induced by renewables and the gas supply shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nine European countries are now intending to build new reactors. Even Denmark is softening its stance on nuclear power, with the entire right wing bloc proposing lifting the ban. France intends to build 14 new reactors by 2050. While conventional reactors are expensive, they’re four times cheaper than solar and wind with all costs imputed. Further, we are about to enter a new age of SMRs, and all preliminary data suggesting a per unit capex cost of almost half, and the ability to extend networks as needed far more flexibly to better align with modern grids comprised of more renewables.

Ironically, I think Fediverse suffers from a high amount of tech expertise and not enough project managers, lol.

I 1,000% agree. FOSS projects are dominated by skilled developers who have to work under the direction of managers in their day jobs and FUCKING HATE IT. They dream about breaking the shackles of idiotic managers who are suppressing their talent and creativity, so they work on FOSS projects. Only to learn that developers without clear direction is like herding angry cats at a Metallica concert. The end result is a patchwork of features each developer would personally like, but normal people hate.

I am probably biased here because I am one of those managers. The reason we don’t work on FOSS projects is because 1) they don’t want us working on them, and 2) we fucking hate our jobs as-is, and don’t want to spend one more minute than necessary herding angry cats.

Well spotted. The difference between the UK and the rest of the EU is that the latter relies more heavily on contracts for difference. Renewable projects and installations negotiate a strike price up front (and often on an ongoing or scheduled basis). If the highest bid price (e.g. gas) exceeds the strike price, the renewable installation repays or foregoes the difference. The UK is very slowly moving in this direction, but has been criticised for its lack of action on older installations (which retain their direct pricing mechanisms), and slow pace of change for newer installations.

This is compounded by the UK’s comparative lack of EU interconnections which help these other countries smooth out volatility. By, for example, relying more on France’s nuclear power generation. This means the UK more frequently sees high clearing prices.

This one is pretty good.