What do you mean? If it is the research required, it is such a tiny fraction of the cost of the cost of possible damage to society and the environment that it is completely insignificant.

I think that certainly can provide a valid point in a discussion, without being any attempt to shut it down.

And for some of us, with some specific personality traits, using it as a mantra is how we get anything at all done some days.

Why do you think the app they call a clone of Reddit do all of those things, or most, or any?

I was thinking the exact same thing. Moltbook isn't that sophisticated. We're moving goal posts a lot here.

However, I do think 1 week is ambitious, even for a bad clone.

So if Reddit is just a CRUD app, what is Moltbook?

An impressive MVP of Reddit, with zero sophistication. It's a CRAP app.

My point exactly. But if you're semi-capable and have a week of spare time, you can build a better Reddit clone, or so I heard.

I've long suspected that the ban of plastic drinking straws was a manufactured distraction to turn people against environmentalists. The environmental and economical effects are so small, while it so distinctly affects so many Americans every day.

I'm sure you're saying that fully tongue-in-cheek and not genuinely proposing a coordinated anti-environmentalist false-flag conspiracy.

But it is funny to me that, under the interpretation you're (facetiously!) suggesting, if someone believed that sincerely then they would essentially be trying to "attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence"... Presumably because that has the benefit of assigning the fault to whichever side this particular person happens to like less.

Out-group's malice is much easier for many to stomach than in-group's stupidity.

In this particular case, it is likely that it started as a genuine campaign. But the reason it actually was successful I suspect that some corporate strategiests realised the many things this could do for them:

1. Give them some goodwill for doing something for the environment.

2. Distract from the things that did matter. They were happy to replace the straws in their drinks if that meant that people thought less about the burning of Amazonas to create graze-land for their hamburgers.

3. It made the environmentalists look like fools.

I don't question the "in-group stupidity" (I can think of some other examples of, let us say, misdirected campaigns.) On the other hand, considering what we have learned from the actions of anything from tobacco to fossil to pharmaceutical, you don't need to be particularly paranoid to suspect conspiracies both here and there.

The Montreal protocol contains exceptions for essential use, and many thousands of those were granted for many years, so I'm not sure what exactly you are whining about. Did some poor company make less money than they would have if they were allowed to destroy some more?

It is fair and reasonable to demand that releasing a substance with new and unknown effects into the environment justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data that it is safe, or else get chopped.

I think people's health is more important than corporate profits. If corporations played fair, I'd be more tempted to agree with your formulation than with mine, but history has shown that that isn't the case. Take a current example like PFAS, where as soon there is enough evidence to prohibit one variety because it is harmful, the industry just starts using a very similar one that the legislature hasn't had time to collect evidence against.

I don't disagree at all in principle with what you're saying.

And, some people think that over-regulation on the insecticide use of DDT (which, to be perfectly fair is a nasty chemical and pretty much confirmed carcinogen, also was having negative effects on birds who were eating the poisoned insects and thereby getting unintended higher doses of the stuff) directly facilitated a rebound in mosquito populations in Africa, downstream from that a rebound in mosquito-borne malaria, and downstream from that a death toll debatably as bad or worse in terms of loss of human life than might've been had DDT use been more controlled and less banned outright.

Or think about how the banning of sulfur from cargo ship fuel in 2020 led to an 80% decrease in SO2 emissions... which is great for cutting harmful pollution around ports and such... But caused a measurable RISE in global temperatures because the sulfate aerosols had been reflecting sunlight off of the atmosphere, delaying global warming.

I don't know man, I don't have all the answers and I'm not trying to shill for mustache-twirlingly evil corporations who would turn us all into Soylent Green if it meant ten basis points more profit this quarter. I am just saying that there's gotta be a balance, and we have to recognize that there's no automatic, turn-your-brain-off safe side to default to. We always need science to verify that what we thought would happen happened, and that nothing we didn't intend to happen did, and in cases where the unforseen second-order effects should cause us to revisit the policy decisions we've made, even if just to revise and improve them rather than completely reverse course, we should actually do that rather than let political momentum override scientific validation and feedback.

He'll be gone. The trust in the US won't come back. If your constitution and political system allow such a moron to wreak so much havoc in such a little time, why would we ever trust you again?

I don't disagree. I'm referring specially to the (famously short-sighted) stock market.

> but vendors are just as fallible as the rest of us

Isn’t the point that they shouldn’t be. They should have specialists dedicated to running these kind of things, test upgrades before rolling out, et c., while for the rest of us it’s just one of many things we try to handle.

The energy demand doesn’t decrease.

They do quite soon after they have become managers or product owners or “architects”.

Those were probably senior only in age.