Surprising to see how many commenters are in favour and supportive towards policy of prioritising short term profits vs. Long-term research.
I understand Meta's not academia nor charity, but come on, how much profit do they need to make so we can expect them to allocate part of their resources towards some long term goals beneficial for society,.not only for shareholders?
Hasn't that narrow focus and chasing the profits get us in trouble already?
Interesting, it seems that extremely rich americans are discovering what scandinavian countries solve through taxation and effective government.
They used to have it in some form with 'new deal' and 'great society' until ~1970, but now they can't because of the very same reasons that are making them extremely rich.
Plus there's some fetisishation of efficiency of the private sector vs public one and distrust in public institutions, while in some areas I don't think it's warranted, it's just that public insititutions are more transparent than the private sector imo.
I'm not sure I understand why they're using java if they avoid GC? Doesn't sound like the best fit, especially the foreign memory in java isn't too pleasant to work with.
The Spanish flu largely overlapped with the WW1, and since its 2nd wave had a high toll among people with strong immune system (ex. young male) the perception was to a large degree mixed with the perception of war and its casualties, at least in Europe.
The name 'spanish flu' itself also stems from the fact that most countries involved in the war didn't want to talk too much about the Flu, while Spain retained neutrality and didn't have incentives to keep it in the dark - this could also be a reason that people were putting the aftermath of the pandemic in the same bucket as the outcome of the Great War imo.
Sun isn't shining at night and it's not always windy, hence other sources, mainly natural gas is used to balance the grid, but it's deepening our dependance on fossil fuels. Nuclear is the only power source at the moment that is clean and stable.
Even if there was, you need to be aware that the DNA has much more personal information than your name and surname, there can be multiple Joe Does, but probably just you with your DNA. Also Joe Doe doesn't tell anything about your race, sex, appearance, nor conditions while DNA can. Using the DNA you can be traced even if you submit it anonymously e.g. one of your relatives may upload their DNA which will point to you.
Wind and solar do not work on demand. It's a huge difference. It's not always sunny nor windy. Only coal, natural gas or hydro in some cases can be a viable baseline energy sources.
1) From Russian perspective the biggest risk of having Poland and Ukraine as transit countries is that it limits the political costs of aggression towards Eastern European countries, period. It is not a good thing, because it decreases the stability in Europe, which serves only Russia as their strongest cards, such as military power, disinformation and intelligence services, can be played most effectively only in these circumstances.
2) It does not need to be a military aggression. I see your stance against Ukraine, but let's be clear Russia for a long time was involved in Ukrainian political processes as it tried to be in the USA, UK and around the world. It was Russia that annexed part of its territory and this is unacceptable.
5) If you need natural gas to balance the only other energy source you have - the renewables that's dependency. Poland is whole other topic - it limits natural gas usage to not be as you call it on "Russian leash" that much and will be seeking nuclear as the way out of that problem.
6) The nice political bonuses will potentially enable aggression in eastern part of Europe. I guess that's fine for you, but it's a very Russian perspective.
The rest basically is the argumentation based on "what you're saying is a US propaganda" so I'm not even going into that. Cheers. EOT.
You're saying about 'US propaganda' and 'the leash', which pretty much explains clearly why your perspective is a bit distorted, but let me mention a couple of facts:
1. Cost of building the pipe on the sea bed, potential ecological issues and costs of maintenance are much higher than putting it on land. It was quite a lot of effort to do that.
2. Bypassing Ukraine and Poland decreases the political costs of Russian aggression towards these countries, of course it's a good thing from Russian or German perspective, but there's no doubt it increases the probability of military conflict in Eastern Europe. Obviously, as you mentioned, the fact that these countries can no longer influence the German-Russian natural gas transit is the biggest advantage for Russia.
3. It was Russia that seized a part of Ukrainian territory recently, not the other way around, and natural gas was always used as one of the means of Russian influence in the region. In that context saying that Poland and Ukraine are hostile towards Russia introduces a bit of distortion. Why shouldn't they be? Is it not enough reason? This is what will be worse because of that pipe.
4. It is going to increase western Europe dependency on Russian natural gas , if you increase supply that's what happens. Natural gas is the obvious choice to balance the renewables in the grid. Even some German politicians recently mentioned that it may tie German and Russian energy sectors too much.
5. It all plays nicely with German policy to phase out the Nuclear as they will in fact become a major natural gas hub in Europe. It is against the climate and may jeopardise efforts to slow down global warming. They want the same policy for whole European Union.
6. The fact that from Russian perspective there are clear geopolitical benefits doesn't mean that western european companies cannot make money on it. I don't think that potential to destabilize any region or benefit from global warming was ever concern to the oil and gas companies or investment banks. Of cour
7. The list of German and Austrian politicians that received personal benefits out of that project is quite long: https://euobserver.com/foreign/151123
If it was just an economic project, would that be necessary?
What is more, the Nord Stream I and II pipes were put under the Baltic Sea to bypass Poland and Ukraine and avoid extending existing pipes, not because it was economically viable.
This is a political decision that hits Ukraine geopolitically.
It increased German and European dependency on Russian natural gas and decreases political costs of Russian hostility against Ukraine significantly.
There are victims of coal / natural gas pollution and climate change as well, it's just not that spectacular.
Nuclear kills when there's unlikely accident, fossil fuels kill when everything goes according to the plan.
1. Renewables receive huge subsidies as well, especially in Europe. It is rarely being taken into account, but that's essentially what allowed it to become that cheap. The Nuclear would also be much cheaper if we were investing more in it.
2. There are countries that cannot rely on renewables because there's not enough wind or sun.
3. Renewables don't really work at the moment without stable source that can quickly kick in when there's no sun or no wind. The Nuclear energy is stable and clean. That combination of features is hugely underappreciated in favour of natural gas mostly for political reasons (at least in Europe). Natural Gas is not clean and won't prevent the global warming. Also Natural Gas and Coal have environmental impact and kill people all the time, not only when there's highly unlikely accident.
4. The small modular reactors (SMRs) may be the solution for a huge capital cost required for building a classic Nuclear Powerplant.
I understand Meta's not academia nor charity, but come on, how much profit do they need to make so we can expect them to allocate part of their resources towards some long term goals beneficial for society,.not only for shareholders?
Hasn't that narrow focus and chasing the profits get us in trouble already?