maol

Eurgh!

From a piece by Scott Alexander, I think.

I read his Wikipedia recently and he just seemed like a user who was careless with the people in his life. His philosophy was "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", which is obviously open to abuse and exploitation.

I use tuta and they seem mostly ok.

As the saying goes, the only people who make money in a gold rush are the people selling shovels. I guess this bloke is one of the people selling shovels.

I nearly downvoted this post on reflex

landlord crisis and a vulture fund crisis. don't get me started because I'll be frothing at the mouth in seconds

Yeah imo Ireland has never had a left-wing government, we tend towards right-populist/right centrist/neoliberal. "Stable but shit" is how I described it to my brother just this hour gone while discussing politics. We're currently seeing the beginnings of an organized racist right as well

We're actually having a housing crisis at the moment (like everywhere else) so I dunno about property prices...I think it's the extremely receptive attitude of the Irish government.

Our entire economy since the 80s has been reliant on neo-colonial relationships with multinational companies unfortunately

I think it was Upton Sinclair who said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". I've never studied history or philosophy, but I think it's clear that if someone's class interests require burning the world down, they will do it. They are doing it - we are doing it - with regret, with sympathy, with an appreciation of the ironies. We don't need a greater appreciation of Heidegger, we need real-world social restraints on the behaviour of the powerful.

I live in Ireland and these companies keep trying to build data centres here even though they are using way too much of our energy as is :)) From an Irish environmental org:

A few years ago when researching new gas power stations in Ireland, we noticed that many of these developments were being proposed alongside another type of infrastructure: data centres. [...] As of June 2023, there are 82 operational data centres in Ireland, with another 14 under construction. Additionally, 40 data centres have had planning permission approved with another 12 awaiting a decision. [...] Data centres account for 18% of all electricity use in Ireland [...] This is putting unprecedented strain on the electricity grid, with grid operator Eirgrid estimating that data centres may account for up to 27% of Ireland’s electricity demand by 2028. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) in Ireland has noted a risk of rolling electricity blackouts...