You are just making the case for a leviathan which is clearly cited in much of the "libertarian bs" you disparage - but I assume it's an area of political science you don't actually read. The government IS this leviathan and that is its justified role. You need to have something above corporations that has the ability to actually enforce contracts. That doesn't mean it needs to be the worlds largest employer - or generally distort every market signal critical to its citizens lives. Government that can fulfill it's justified role(s), and a totalitarian government are different things.
Many of the same people that want to attempt to reduce mass shootings by directly undermining the obvious literal intent of the second amendment almost without exception want to expand the government for their own ends. It wasn't "someone somewhere" - it was very specific political movements that had often had heavy endorsement from the government itself. You can't honestly say gun owners haven't cared as long as no one touches their guns - that's just dishonest and plainly historically illiterate.
do you really not understand the monopoly on violence that governments have that corporations in large part completely lack? are you being purposefully obtuse?
Never once said shrinking should happen at any rate that people lose their livelihood, you totally read that in yourself. The first step is recognizing that it's actually a problem worth solving. The simple idea the government should be laser focused on key areas of effort and avoid expanding to all areas of life should be obvious but it isn't for perverse reasons.
I in no way endorse taking people's jobs away once they have them. I'm saying the situation itself is absurd to begin with - now we are in a terrible situation where it can only be shrunk across a long timespan where people retire and orgs shrink naturally.
You will get downvoted to oblivion for even suggesting it here but it's so obviously a take that maps on cleanly to reality. Massive power centralization in government makes everything dual use in the service of a police state. The easiest thing to do is resist massive centralization of power in a government.
Defaulting to discussing the US here: let's start with reducing the state's size - it shouldn't be the world's largest employer, it shouldn't be able to run an unfathomably large deficit, it shouldn't be able to declare war without congressional approval. Technology to run a police state is just the last step in a long line of ridiculously unacceptable steps.
I read up until the term "late capitalism" then stopped and rolled my eyes and closed the page. Coin clippers control the money supply and mainstream economics is the sham - it really is that simple. Mass enshittification will continue until monetary debasement and ensuing Cantillon effect is halted and pricing mechanisms can function.
Do we really have to engage in this level of mental gymnastics before we just genuinely look at the banking system consolidating and producing money out of thin air? Does the explanation really need to get this complex?
Your figures for China's mix are meaningless because you don't bother to mention when you think "saturation" occurs. They are on track to build far more Nuclear than 2-3% of their current mix in the next 20 years - and this is as the world's top manufacturer of solar and wind products.
It's too costly to build high speed rail in many parts of the world (California for instance). It's not because high speed rail isn't a viable solution, it's regulation.
The article you posted from sciencedirect supports this. The study points primarily to a changing complex regulation landscape as a primary driver of costs. Meanwhile, France is in an excellent position in the EU in terms of energy in large part because it stuck with nuclear instead of attempting unsuccessfully to transfer to wind and solar like some of it's neighbors (who now burn lignite to meet energy demands).
Solar panels, for instance, are mostly made in places where actual costs of construction are externalized to the environment and workers with depressed wages. Nuclear plants need to be built and decommissioned in the same place - places that are often actively hostile with complex regulation meant to curtail nuclear specifically for the sake of non-proliferation. SMRs help sidestep a portion of this hostile regulation but there are countless reactor designs that are possible that we can't even begin to explore until regulation is made reasonable.
The cost of nuclear is primarily from regulation/human decision making that prevents it from externalizing its costs onto the environment (decom costs, waste handling) not physics. Wind and solar are limited severely by physics and they are much more vulnerable to a changing climate. China eating its own dogfood with heavy investments in renewables is meaningful but only illuminates some of what is happening. A significant amount of this stuff is going into the ground in 25 years and it won't be handled with nearly the safety and care as waste streams from nuclear power.
You are being purposefully aggravating here because your argument is weak but it's been socially supported for some time now. Nuclear power lagged behind renewables due primarily to proliferation fears and subsequent over-regulation in most of the world, not technical flaws, missing out on innovations like modular reactors. China’s pushing ahead with 150 GW by 2030, leveraging nuclear’s advantages: it’s compact (1-4 sq mi/GW vs. solar’s 10-20), reliable, and resilient to extreme (and simply changing) weather, without reliance on rare earths or massive storage (with their own host externalizations and supply risks). Costs can drop to $50-100/MWh with new tech and long lifespans, rivaling renewables when accounting for their hidden expenses (storage, grid upgrades). Proliferation risks exist but can be managed with oversight. Nuclear remains the best bet for scalable, clean energy.
We were originally discussing offshore wind. These things have to function in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. We don't really fully understand how weather patterns will change over time with climate change. The idea that these factors won't represent serious risks to output over 50-year lifespans is delusional. We should be building modern nuclear reactors. Small scale distributed solar in sunny environments is fine - the rest of this stuff is just a massive waste.
I am suggesting it as a way to do a back of the envelope calculation that can be thoroughly checked manually. It's very easy to check the numbers yourself.
You distribute pv and wind over large areas and they get destroyed by weather, get dirty, require significant maintenance. If individuals want to have wind turbines or pv installations that's great - but these things are a giant mess at grid scale - absolutely awful.
I did read. I think the fraction you are mentioning is quite small if it exists at all. Elon was the reason for a vast majority of the people I know voting for him - it's not even close
We aren't even in the same dimension as perfection here. It's a historically obvious phenomenon. Basically all human organizations tend toward inefficiency and waste eventually. The US government is the largest employer in the world. The reasoning would be no different if it was a corporation.
The UK seems to be actively covering up the mass rape of little girls and throwing dissidents in prison. They've sustained mass immigration for decades against their own peoples' will. The US just shook off, at least in part, the same mass immigration and the same clamping down of free speech in the US. It's not the only bar, but I would definitely consider it a resounding success. I can't help but think the 1st and 2nd amendment play a part because the 1st is obviously implicated and the 2nd is required to maintain the 1st.
The people advocating the "approach of surrender absolutely everything to Putin preemptively" and "people saying helping Ukraine should be avoided" are very different - and are both still pretty strong interpretations. Instead of looking at cartoonish arguments people have - what's the best argument you've come across for not supplying Ukraine with weapons? Have you heard any that seem reasonable at all to you? Which is the most reasonable?