John Oliver's Last Week Tonight

I don't know, but if I were a world leader right now I'd be trying to reduce my exposure to a Chinese collapse given what's going on in their economy (Krugman, NYT Opinion). Of course, it's not the first time someone has made those kinds of predictions and China keeps stubbornly failing to fall apart.

It's very difficult for a big country to truly fall apart. That's always been true, but I imagine modern communications and record-keeping enhance it.

It is possible that they'll reach a point where maintaining an iron grip on Taiwan and similar territories will be too expensive... or they'll get them in a death grip and try to drag them down with them.

In which he tackles the homeless problems, the demonization of homelessness, the policy failures that exacerbate homelessness, and what we can do.

That woman making a comment about how living amongst the homeless makes her less liberal may seem mean, but I think it is a fairly realistic and common response for privileged and somewhat sheltered (and very likely, white) liberals. It is one thing to be tolerant and understanding at a distance, but quite another to continue to feel that way when you're in the middle of it, and experiencing the more unpleasant side of it (and no, I don't mean human shit).

I mean commitments have been made that Tawain will be protected from Chinese expansion. At some point it will be tested so the best thing to do is make it clear there will never be a takeover allowed.

Yeah, I remember going to a Christmas thing with family and after I gave some money to a homeless guy the borderline communist family member said "You know he's just going to use that on drugs, right?"

Honestly the NIMBY thing could most easily be solved if it was a requirement for *all* towns to have affordable housing. Though I doubt that would make a law through state legislature, necessarily- I know New Jersey's affordable housing requirements come from a state supreme court ruling.

Which is extra ironic considering liberals' infatuation with legalization of marijuana.

Or the widespread use of recreational drugs in places like colleges and just in general. Of course, as Oliver mentioned, homelessness can lead to drug use.

(Admittedly, I am pro legalization of marijuana, because the War on Drugs is stupid and that sweet sweet tax money.)

I'm a bit on the fence on that one, though I suppose its fine as long as people use it responsibly. But it is a bit rich to advocate legalization of weed and then turn around and excoriate the homeless for using drugs.

I don't know about that, actually. It's perfectly possible to think of cannabis as so distinct from other illegal drugs that one simultaneously thinks that cannabis should be legal and heroin use is awful.

I also suspect that most people who criticize homeless people for alcohol consumption would not be in favour of making alcohol illegal. Do you think that combination of stances is likewise an odd one?

If they drank and got drunk themselves, then it would be a little hypocritical to criticize people for drinking who are far worse off than them, yes.

Vices always seem to be judged more harshly in the less fortunate.

The thing about marijuana is that it should be something that everyone agrees with. Liberals like it because yay, the pot smoking and Conservatives should like it since it's a case of personal freedom and the government imposing its will on its citizenry.

It's somewhat like illegal immigration: objectively a net positive to both sides of the aisle but one side really doesn't like it for some reason.

I'm a bit wary of it because I've known people who basically use it to self-medicate when what they really need is a therapist. It can become somewhat of a mental crutch that way.

At that point the issue might be lack of access to a therapist or they don't want to see one. And if they didn't use pot they'd use something else.

Yeah, people are hypocritical about drugs and the homeless though. One person will say 'I need an occasional drink to get through all the stress' and then shade a homeless person for apparently doing the same.

Question, didn't Utah (or some state out west) do a program to house all the homeless?

The short version is that America's two-party system has forced a number of only vaguely related political ideologies to share the same tent. "Personal freedom" conservatives want to legalize weed, "moral hazard" conservatives want to keep it illegal. Generally speaking, the moral hazard people are angrier, which means they're louder, which means they guide the party more. Especially on relatively minor issues like this.

The primary uniting force in conservative politics is corporate interests, so that's usually what wins out. With illegal immigration, too many industries make too much money off of cheap immigrant labor to want them legalized, and it's always useful to have someone to blame for everything anyway.

Let's bring forth the start of Infrastructure Week with a dose of our woefully inadequate and horrendously aging power grid.

Edited by terumokou on Nov 8th 2021 at 12:08:39 PM

John is completely right here, of course. That idiot demanding a quantifiable ROI on transmission line investment is symptomatic of the problem, as is that idiot asking, "Why should stuff go on my land that benefits other people?"

Modern lines are necessary especially if we are to widely adopt local power generation such as home solar and to replace our internal combustion engine vehicles with battery-electric ones.

It is important to consider that home solar in particular can come with home battery storage, and those plus the cars can feed a lot of power back into the grid, creating "microgrids", as he calls them. These can backstop electricity supply in the event of an outage or shortfall and can make a huge difference when they complement grid-scale storage. But they need modern infrastructure to work properly.

In some areas, you can't supply electricity back to your local grid from your solar or battery because the grid simply can't handle it.

As an aside, while the dig on Elon Musk is apt, I'm glad John didn't go after Tesla the company, which is making electric cars, home solar, and battery storage.

Those balloons were probably mylar, as this article points out their danger:

Mylar Balloons Cause Thousands of Outages Every Year

Man, who knew? I bet that's not on the label...

The whole "Nikola Tesla is weird for nursing injured pigeons" thing kinda fell flat for me, not gonna lie.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 8th 2021 at 11:52:50 AM

Tbf that sounds more adorable then weird.

That it does.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 8th 2021 at 12:08:25 PM

Especially since Tesla was a bonafide mad scientist.

The grid aspect is interesting, since I didn't know about that. I knew solar panels were getting more popular around here- my stepdad adores his since it both reduces electricity costs and means that the attic isn't an oven in the summer. Didn't think about the long flow of renewables, giving it back, etc. effect.

The "but what is the ROI?!?" is like saying "what's the ROI on me getting this heart transplant?!?"

But of course, they never ask for an ROI on Republican policies...

The ROI is we all still have usable power in 15 years. Congress needs term limits so damn bad.