I have a gut feeling that his talk of tariffs is a bluff. Even if it’s not my gut still tells me there’s going to be exceptions for certain things that are big money makers for Trump and his allies. Trump’s administration is not going to tax themselves unless they can provide a loophole to get themselves out of it. Ultimately it’s the consumer who pays for tariffs, but they’re entire purpose is to slow down trade and if that costs Trump and his allies too much of their wealth it won’t happen.

Trump is as predictable as he is unpredictable because he doesn’t stay consistent. He changes what he says and does to be perceived as best he can in that moment. Which makes understanding his actions a little easier, his past actions are irrelevant to his future decisions, it’s just about what’s in his head in the moment. Which is just a lot of words to say that Trump, his administration, and his allies are just chaos, and you never really know what chaos will bring except a change in the status quo. It’s not looking optimistic though.

Biology isn’t that simple. A person can have one fewer sex chromosome, monosomy, one extra, trisomy, and many extra, polysomy. In fact it’s starting to show that a significant minority of people have trisomy 47 (the name for having one extra sex chromosome) but live perfectly normal lives because those extra genes are suppressed. You could have an extra x chromosome and never know it, does that exclude you from being a man or a woman? Which brings up the topic of gene expression and epigenetics which is even more complicated. If you’re looking at science to give you a certainty about sex and gender you’re in for a long search.

Being real for a moment, the way that the next election cycle begins immediately once the previous one ends is a bit of a burden. I’m already tired of hearing about ‘Decision 2028’.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone who is trying to discuss the election with you in good faith paints you as just another MAGA American. We know some Americans faught tooth and nail to stop this. Now you could be lying just as easily as you could be telling the truth, although I have no reason to think you are lying. So assuming you’re telling the truth, as crushing as a second Trump presidency is for me, someone who doesn’t live in the US, who literally can’t do anything about him, it must be so much more worse for you.

I know you’re tired but your fight against fascism is just beginning, it’s far from over. I hope you can find the strength to keep going. As an outsider all I can do is tell you that some of us see you and know that you’re not well right now. Gandalf put it best;

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

…How old do you think millennials are? The oldest millennials are at least 20 years away from retirement.

I’m going to need a charisma check with double disadvantage on that. Good luck.

It definitely creeps up every once in a while on my Windows computer. It’s really not a common occurrence and only happens when I’m doing something that’s not recommended.

… failing to pass a cognitive test, or not being able to answer what the nuclear triad is while he was a sitting president, or being impeached twice, or talking to boy scouts about sexy yacht parties, or using the US armed forces against US citizens, or…

Perhaps not the UN, but I agree that I am uncomfortable with Elon Musk at the helm. I’d prefer to see an international non-profit take control. Even just a regular boring board of directors, at least then it would be the devil that we know.

Yeah I’m going to agree with you on this one. It blows my mind that as a species we have changed the night sky. When I was a child seeing a satellite dart across the sky was exciting because it was as rare as a shooting star. Now I look up and see a satellite every few minutes. That said, there have been a few times recently that Star Link was the only method of communication I’ve had in remote areas. It has been very helpful. I think as poorly of Musk as much as the next person but I can at least recognize the ingenuity SpaceX and Star Link.

I can’t find the source but I remember an article thatdiscussed the rate solar energy is adopted. The researchers made lower and upper bound predictions, and what if all solar PV development stopped immediately. The worst case scenario based on availabile data suggested a three fold increase in solar PV electricity generation, the number used by the article you cited, to a best case scenario of solar PV increasing to the power of three, really big exponential growth. Now the optimistic model seemed a bit too optimistic for me, but it at least suggested that there is a lot more capacity to build out solar PV. If that capacity is realized or wasted was the biggest unknown factor in that study, which like duh. Still, I took it to mean that the future will probably be a little bit more optimistic than the most pessimistic projections. It’s a small comfort.