I’m convinced there’s almost nothing they could do to lose net subscribers. The average person seems perfectly fine with this stuff.

You didn’t just “contextualize.” You minimised the number: “Yeah, that totally sounds like a lot in a country of 84m. /s” Those are your words, verbatim.

It was 3,000 officers. Germany has 333,000 full time officers. That’s 0.9% of the force. Hardly grossly disproportionate to the benefit. There are undoubtedly far less “efficient” endeavours they use police resources on. The clearance rate for burglary in Germany, for example, was 19.5% in 2001. If we extend your logic, police should just stop investigating burglaries. I might even agree. I consider catching smugglers and terrorists more important.

I see, so you believe it has low benefit for the cost? Surely you would need to know the cost (e.g. number of personnel deployed) to make that judgement?

I would also caution you against attempting to hide big numbers behind even bigger numbers. 35 arrests a day is 12,775 per year. That might not be a proportionally big number, but it is a big number. Especially when we remember that the majority of violent crime is committed by just 1% of the population. Detecting and arresting criminals is often even more effective than harsh sentences.

I think criminals of all levels should be appropriately punished. Otherwise the law should change to reflect what is and is not criminal.

It doesn’t look like any were turned away, but please correct me if you have another source. In this case it’s hard to imagine those smugglers and terrorists were about to turn their lives around and begin taking care of elderly people.

I don’t understand what you’re arguing. That because Germany has 84M people they should just let smugglers, people with open arrest warrants, terrorists, and extremists into the country as they please? Why? That seems crazy to me.

Yeah the only difference is how long it takes to destroy the lock. There are many places where thieves are brazen enough to use angle grinders in broad daylight. In such places owning a nice bike and leaving it outside is stupid. In lower crime, more affluent places though, a good u-lock is probably okay.

Bild reported that over two days, authorities also detained 14 smugglers, carried out 48 open arrest warrants, and apprehended nine individuals under extremism laws targeting hard-left, far-right, and Islamist ideologies, among others.

Holy shit. Two days. Imagine how many more criminals and terrorists they’re going to find if they retain this policy. Previously these people just came and went as they pleased.

Renewables correct prices downward from where a fossil-only system would price electricity …

They would, if they weren’t four times more expensive than nuclear, and 13 times more expensive than gas.

… so that’s the heart of the matter: Russia’s actions increasing the price of fossil fuels.

It’s certainly one of the issues, but not the only issue. The gas price is close to historical averages now, yet UK electricity prices remain very high.

And does that make any sense at all, given Russia’s domination of nuclear supply chains? France’s nuclear program is mortally dependent on Russian cooperation in a lot of ways too.

Russia controls approximately 22% of the world’s uranium conversion capacity and 44% of its enrichment capacity. This is hardly insurmountable. It should spur investment from other nations. China accounts for approximately 70–90% of the global market across all stages of the lithium-ion battery value chain. Does that mean the world should give up on EVs and battery storage? Surely not.

Meanwhile over here in Germany, the designated chancellor and his “Christian Democrat” party quickly stowed away their pre-election rhetoric about building new nuclear plants/reviving existing plants, after an informal paper from their own party made the rounds, outlining that reviving nuclear in Germany would necessitate massive state aid or even having the state itself run the plants.

I don’t know what you mean by “stowed away,” but their policy shows they are still very much open to nuclear energy.

But realistically, I think they’d need 2 or 3 times that, right? Afaik, France is currently building just a single domestic plant and they’re not exactly executing there. Neither are they executing on the Hinkley Point project. And Olkiluoto was a massive shitshow where French taxpayers financed the 3/4 of the costs that constituted the cost overrun. There are basically two countries that still know how to build nuclear reactors, those are Russia and China, everyone else just incurs perverse cost and build-time overruns. And it does make sense: A centralized, dangerous, expensive technology that works best for centralized, authoritarian regimes that can afford to put all their state power behind these projects. (And yet, China is building out solar/wind much more aggressively than nuclear.)

France definitely doesn’t need 2-3 times that based on current implementation of renewables.

You won’t catch me defending the speed of large reactor roll-outs. Despite this, and the high costs, it’s still much cheaper than renewables. SMRs will be much faster to deploy, much more flexible, much cheaper, and require much less planning.

China is also building two “mega” coal lignite power plants per week. I don’t think we should use them as a role model.

New nuclear plants are also completely useless against climate change, given their decade/multi-decade build times, especially compared to renewables where plants can be rolled out in a matter of months. Meanwhile, existing French reactors need to be taken offline in summer because their water consumption is woefully ill-adjusted to climate change and they turn France’s rivers into bouillabaisse.

CO2 production is expected to continue to climb for 50-100 years, and we won’t reach CO2 neutrality for hundreds of years, if ever. A 7-10 year timespan is very little compared to the enormous environmental benefits.

Nuclear capacity has been flatlining (at best) for two decades, while renewables have exploded. Even if you assume just 10% utilization for the renewable plants, yesteryear’s addition of 6GW nuclear capacity pales in comparison to the 600GWp PV/wind capacity.

This is a political decision, not one based in science or finance. Despite renewables being far from ready to replace Germany’s nuclear generation, the public voted to switch to much more environmentally damaging gas generation. That gas was primarily coming from a hostile, authoritarian nation. The public voted to place the economic prosperity of Germany in the hands of Russia. It was one of the most tragic examples of democratic self immolation in all of history.

Even the author of that study admits to (latently pro-fashy shitrag) NZZ that cheaper batteries would solve the issue. Incidentally, what we’ve been seeing over the past decade is steadily decreasing battery prices, as scale goes up and cheaper materials substitute more expensive ones.

And I fully agree with the author. In 30-50 years when battery technology becomes cost effective at grid scale, we’ll be having a very different discussion.

I don’t really want to know what else is wrong with that study of his, given that the largest part of it is concerned with the near-pointless thought experiment of using 100%/95% exclusively solar+batteries. It seems massively more pertinent to worry about the final 10% renewables when the time has come. One major bit that I don’t see reflected in the study is flexibilization of demand e.g., which is a thing already. I recently saw a documentary that e.g. included a cold warehouse that could scale up/down its cooling in response to renewables availability. I visited a company producing electric componentry which is doing its electronic component testing on sunny days where they have a lot of solar. I know similar concepts exist for aluminum smelters.

That’s fair. It expands on the even more flawed LCOE metric which is widely (and incorrectly) used to compare wind/solar with nuclear/gas/coal.

Are there even SMR projects that haven’t been cancelled?

Rolls Royce isn’t due to deliver commercial SMRs until the early 2030s. Until then designs are either bespoke (and expensive, and untested), or using the GE Hitachi BWRX-300, which is also very expensive because it’s only licensed, and built on site to spec. It has many of the same issues as traditional large reactors. GE began licensing that design in 2020, and the most advanced project is I think in Canada, due to be completed in 2028. Once RR figures out their production lines, I think we see huge efficiencies of scale and much easier planning.

I’m much more optimistic about nuclear power in Europe. Given the high pricing volatility induced by renewables and the gas supply shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nine European countries are now intending to build new reactors. Even Denmark is softening its stance on nuclear power, with the entire right wing bloc proposing lifting the ban. France intends to build 14 new reactors by 2050. While conventional reactors are expensive, they’re four times cheaper than solar and wind with all costs imputed. Further, we are about to enter a new age of SMRs, and all preliminary data suggesting a per unit capex cost of almost half, and the ability to extend networks as needed far more flexibly to better align with modern grids comprised of more renewables.

Ironically, I think Fediverse suffers from a high amount of tech expertise and not enough project managers, lol.

I 1,000% agree. FOSS projects are dominated by skilled developers who have to work under the direction of managers in their day jobs and FUCKING HATE IT. They dream about breaking the shackles of idiotic managers who are suppressing their talent and creativity, so they work on FOSS projects. Only to learn that developers without clear direction is like herding angry cats at a Metallica concert. The end result is a patchwork of features each developer would personally like, but normal people hate.

I am probably biased here because I am one of those managers. The reason we don’t work on FOSS projects is because 1) they don’t want us working on them, and 2) we fucking hate our jobs as-is, and don’t want to spend one more minute than necessary herding angry cats.

Well spotted. The difference between the UK and the rest of the EU is that the latter relies more heavily on contracts for difference. Renewable projects and installations negotiate a strike price up front (and often on an ongoing or scheduled basis). If the highest bid price (e.g. gas) exceeds the strike price, the renewable installation repays or foregoes the difference. The UK is very slowly moving in this direction, but has been criticised for its lack of action on older installations (which retain their direct pricing mechanisms), and slow pace of change for newer installations.

This is compounded by the UK’s comparative lack of EU interconnections which help these other countries smooth out volatility. By, for example, relying more on France’s nuclear power generation. This means the UK more frequently sees high clearing prices.

This one is pretty good.

Lots of people have opinions, not many people want to organize their thoughts into, eg. an effective advertising campaign, a github pull request, or basically anything other than meaningless musing.

This is the nature of free work. Any donation of time is sparse and intermittent. People have bills to pay. The best and brightest want to be paid well for their time. This requires a business model of some kind, and monetising that work. This is antithetical to FOSS projects, and is the reason they will almost always be inferior to projects with large budgets with teams of UX designers. /obligatory COME AT ME BRO

While I agree that energy-intensive business should always be pushed onto flexible-pricinv contracts, as a private consumer, uniform pricing is an advantage imo. You don’t need to think about whether running the washing machine will cost you 0.2¤ or 0.6¤ or whether there’s a price surge, and it’s even more expensive.

Fixed pricing happens in Europe too. The retailer prices the volatility into a fixed pricing plan. It still ends up much cheaper than how the UK has structured their grid, which ensures electricity companies are making massive piles of money.

UK’s uniform pricing is intended to ensure renewables are artificially profitable, incentivising more production. In most other countries, suppliers charge competitive rates, and brokers buy on an open market. This allows demand-based generators (like gas) to charge more during high demand periods (when wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining). The flip side of this is that prices crater during high wind and sun periods. This leads to volatility which can be smoothed with futures contracts. The net effect is that renewables become less profitable, but consumers pay a lot less for electricity.

The UK needs to restructure their energy market to better align with the rest of Europe. It would significantly reduce prices for everyone.

That’s coherent. Unfortunately most people who use it today literally mean “someone who disagrees with me.” It really muddies the water because it’s often accompanied by threats of violence. The net effect is raising the temperature in the room on both sides, because it’s effectively dehumanising others who have perfectly valid political disagreements, and calling for their death.

Makes me wonder where all that money is going?

Scroll down to spending categories. Most money is spent on things like social security, medicare, veteran care, unemployment insurance, and health. Defense is 13% (and absolutely needs to be audited ASAP). Interest payments on debt is now 13% and growing fast. This is why it’s important to at least reduce the deficit as fast as possible. Imagine how much good the government could do with another $400B each year without those interest payments. (well, maybe not this government, but the next one).

How quickly we shift from “it’s not happening” to “okay it’s happening, and here’s why it’s a good thing!” It’s fine that you prefer the government to choose which information you’re allowed to view. I don’t. I believe I should be allowed access to all information, and I should be allowed to choose what I want to read. I think banning books and websites and news is wrong.

No I mean actual censorship. For example, RT and Sputnik. They have also banned PressTV and CGTN. They suspended broadcast licenses for EADaily / Eurasia Daily, Fondsk, Lenta, NewsFront, RuBaltic, SouthFront, Strategic Culture Foundation, and Krasnaya Zvezda / Tvzvezda. All of these sites would be explicitly banned from any EU based search engine.

Note that I am not giving American tech companies a free pass here. Google is one of the worst.

Also note that “censorship” doesn’t exclusively refer to government censorship. That is an American-centric perspective using the Constitution as the lens. Censorship is often conducted by individuals and organisations. In this case I am referring to the EU.

The EU has made numerous moves towards restricting free speech and communication over the last decade, especially in the technology space. These include:

1. Digital Services Act (DSA) (2022)

• The DSA imposes strict regulations on large online platforms and search engines (such as Google and Meta).

• Requires platforms to remove “illegal content” quickly, though the definition of illegal content varies by country.

• Mandates content moderation transparency but can pressure platforms to suppress speech preemptively.

• Enables regulators to demand access to platform algorithms and recommend content moderation changes.

• Forces messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal to comply with EU orders, potentially compromising end-to-end encryption.

2. Digital Markets Act (DMA) (2022)

• Primarily aimed at tech monopolies, but also affects search engines and app stores.

• Limits the ability of platforms to rank their own services higher (e.g., Google prioritizing its own results).

• Forces companies like Apple to open up iMessage to other messaging services, potentially impacting security.

3. Terrorist Content Online Regulation (2021)

• Requires platforms to remove flagged terrorist content within one hour or face heavy fines.

• No clear appeals process, raising concerns about automatic censorship by algorithms.

• Governments can demand removals across all EU member states, limiting national sovereignty over content moderation.

4. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2018)

• Although GDPR focuses on privacy, it has been used to delist certain search results (right to be forgotten).

• Some critics argue that GDPR can be weaponized to suppress critical information about public figures.

5. Copyright Directive (2019) – Article 17 (formerly Article 13)

• Requires platforms to filter copyrighted content before it is uploaded.

• Forces platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to proactively block content using automated filters, which often lead to false positives and excessive censorship.

• Criticized for making memes and satire more difficult to share due to automated copyright enforcement.

6. EU Code of Practice on Disinformation (2018, revised 2022)

• Although voluntary at first, compliance with fact-checking and disinformation policies is now mandatory under the DSA.

• Forces social media companies to demonetize or downrank “misinformation,” often without clear definitions.

• Involves close cooperation with government-backed fact-checkers, raising concerns about political bias.

7. Chat Control Legislation (Proposed in 2022)

• Requires messaging platforms (e.g., WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal) to scan private messages for child abuse content.

• Critics argue this destroys end-to-end encryption, making all private communication vulnerable.

• Could lead to mass surveillance under the guise of child protection.

8. Political Ads Transparency Act (2023)

• Requires all online political ads to be labeled and traceable.

• Platforms must track funding sources, but unclear definitions of political content could impact activism and independent journalism.

• Could be used to limit grassroots campaigns that lack formal funding structures.

9. Media Freedom Act (2023)

• Gives the EU more oversight over media ownership and state influence on journalism.

• Some journalists worry it could be used to pressure media outlets to align with EU narratives.

These are just the laws. There have been uncounted statements by EU leaders about greater control over the kind of information they wish to allow transmitted in the EU. All of these Acts are rooted in good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. At minimum, a significant portion of the results in the test list above would be banned under existing legislation.