MLK: Another Cosby Moment?

[Sparko]

It's all chrono-bigotry.


What will future generations condemn us for that we consider perfectly normal?

[Leonhard]

What will future generations condemn us for that we consider perfectly normal?

What we did to the environment. And could have done to prevent the collapse of a lot of beautiful biodiversity.

The albatross dying because they're feeding their young plastic.

[Sparko]

What we did to the environment.

I am sure it will be something that we don't even consider a problem. Something we consider "good"

Maybe they will condemn us for pushing solar and wind power instead of nuclear.

More likely something to do with morality though. And the way society seems to be heading it will be something along the lines of "My God, those people condemned pedophilia! They denied Children the choice to have sex with adults! How horrible!"

[Leonhard]

There appears to be, however, a storm on the horizon (there have already been some dark clouds) with regards to MLK's legacy.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Leonhard]

I am sure it will be something that we don't even consider a problem. Something we consider "good"

I honestly don't think all Southerners considered slavery good. There was enough resistance too it, and enough movement to get the slaves educated, and even people helping them escape to the North, for me to think there must have been some God granted sense of 'wrongness' burning in people's hearts about it.

I think most people want to do something for the environment. They at least like to think about it. Nobody wants to pay though.

Maybe they will condemn us for pushing solar and wind power instead of nuclear.

That's fair, if Denmark had gone ahead, we'd have been 100% green back in the nineties. Now at the current rate it won't be until 2050 when the last coal plant will close.

More likely something to do with morality though. And the way society seems to be heading it will be something along the lines of "My God, those people condemned pedophilia! They denied Children the choice to have sex with adults! How horrible!"

[Sparko]

I honestly don't think all Southerners considered slavery good. There was enough resistance too it, and enough movement to get the slaves educated, and even people helping them escape to the North, for me to think there must have been some God granted sense of 'wrongness' burning in people's hearts about it.

I think most people want to do something for the environment. They at least like to think about it. Nobody wants to pay though.



That's fair, if Denmark had gone ahead, we'd have been 100% green back in the nineties. Now at the current rate it won't be until 2050 when the last coal plant will close.

off topic but interesting article about renewable energy in Germany and how it is failing:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael.../#235acf68ea2b

[Leonhard]

off topic but interesting article about renewable energy in Germany and how it is failing:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael.../#235acf68ea2b

Oh that's Michael Shallenberger, he's had it against photovoltaics since forever. But lemme dig into it a little bit.

I'm not sure how you can say its failing when its gone up from 7% to 35%. I remember back when it was at 20% and anti-renewable energy commentators were arguing that it was absolutely impossible add anymore renewable energy to the electrical grid without causing brown outs and all sorts of chaos. And here we are with Germany having nearly twice that.

A few weeks ago Denmark hit 80%, but that was during a very wind heavy day. We'll still need three times as many wind turbines until we have a stable supply, and we'll need a lot more grid storage than we have today to make it really stable for day and week cycles. The plan is to get there by 2050.

The article is largely right about how hard is to get permission to build wind turbines. People just don't like living near them. For Germany, I honestly don't believe they have any alternative other than building nuclear power. Unfortunately Germany has also had been pretty much dephasing their nuclear power ever since the Chernobyl disaster. Fukushima didn't exactly help either.

We have an easier time with wind turbines in Denmark simply because we have so many shores, and shallow water for a lot of it. So we can place the wind turbines fourteen miles off coast, with only mild complaints about people being able to see them in the flat horizon.

The point about solar panels and nuclear power plants isn't true. Due to the several mile wide safety bufferzone that nuclear power plants have to be built with (ever since Three Mile Island, Sellafield, Chernobyl, etc...), they're actually about equal in a place with a lot of sun like Arizona.

Of course if you ignore all red tape, and you don't mind people building houses right next to the power plant (and believe people will actually do that)... In a world where a nuclear power plant has to compete against the amount of solar panels that can be put on the roof of that power plant?

In that case the power plant wins, but it doesn't matter. We have plenty of space. The amount of solar panels needed is a lot, but in comparison to the size of the US its nothing at all. Its a dot on the map, and the amount of batteries needed to store a day cycle would be a pin prick in that dot.




** I zoned out on the part of the article that talked about renewable energy as a conspiracy to turn the world into an agrarian society.

[Sparko]

I wasn't trying to drag this off topic. I just gave you the link for your information, so I am not going to respond.

[Leonhard]

I wasn't trying to drag this off topic. I just gave you the link for your information, so I am not going to respond.

Well I'm not going to respond to your not responding to me.

[Sparko]

Well I'm not going to respond to your not responding to me.

Good!

[Leonhard]

Good!

Great!

[Sparko]

Great!

You also might want to read the original Der Spiegel article linked in it.

[rogue06]

The flip side of that is - why tear down statues and rename schools because we had some very good people who did wonderful things for our country, but had some very serious flaws and owned slaves.

There was only one who was blameless and sinless. Everybody else was and is flawed. Maybe one day we'll figure that out.

[rogue06]

At least General Robert E. Lee, though he beat slaves himself, and had some escaped slaves captured and re-enslaved, was against them not being given an education. From our lofty vantage point he has what I definitely experience as a rather patronizing view that it was the 'whites burden' to help the slaves become civilized (being slaves was a step in that process), until eventually they could become part of the lower working class.

So its possible to acknowledge that while General Lee was a product of his time, he did also move beyond it, and didn't see slavery as a permanent or god-ordained institution, but more as a temporary transition.

Also when it comes to slavery in the South, its wrong to talk about it without acknowledging that the slaves they bought they often bough from the Northerners who were getting rid of theirs. A lot of slaves were sold before they had a chance to become free.

Probably just saying stuff you already know Cow Poke, but I've been doing my own reading into American history. I still aim to come to the US to work there for some years in a few years.

One interesting tidbit to keep in mind: "In 1703, 42 percent of New York [City's] households had slaves, much more than Philadelphia and Boston combined. Among the colonies’ cities, only Charleston, South Carolina, had more."

[Cow Poke]

There was only one who was blameless and sinless. Everybody else was and is flawed. Maybe one day we'll figure that out.

Reminds me of the parody of Dragnet --- Ladies and Gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true.... ...The names will not be changed, because only One was innocent.