this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 97 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Why are they so actively just... evil? They could have just left it alone, it was already installed and working, there was no good reason...

Man, I know how we got here, but really, I still don't get it.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 78 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

"The cruelty is the point"

The level of antipathy from even ordinary conservatives towards anything that suggests the 'old ways' like fucking coal aren't the end-all be-all of human existence is... staggering. The 'old ways' are their 'tribe', and they'll fucking die to defend its 'honor'.

t. grew up in a conservative area

[–] awesomesauce309@midwest.social 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s just America and the Industrial Revolution. A new tech emerges, not perfect but good for the times, and then the industry around it has enough profits to delay and deny better future tech from ever taking over. Kodak invented the digital camera then buried it to protect their film selling racket. Oil companies print money to destroy anything they don’t control, but refuse to become energy companies that sell modern renewables instead. If an oil company took their profits from back then and built a solar r&d department we’d have better tech today, and they would profit off it.

They went for the quick buck rather than sustainability and as the oil runs out and they start starving, they still buy politicians instead of investing in future viable tech. Idk if there’s a word for this, I’ve been calling them doorstop industries.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That’s just America and the Industrial Revolution.

It's... really not restricted to that. Not even broadly.

A new tech emerges, not perfect but good for the times, and then the industry around it has enough profits to delay and deny better future tech from ever taking over.

... what do you think the pace of technology progress was like before the industrial revolution?

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We talking antiquity, medieval, age of sail, or early modern? Because all of those have vastly different progress, for example the medieval period saw vast leaps in metallurgy and chemistry while antiquity was had a shit tonne of early mechanical engineering going on.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 1 points 18 hours ago

The point is that all of that pales to the pace of technological progress during and after the industrial revolution, which casts doubts on the uniqueness or efficacy of the narrative of 'industrialists are strangling technological progress'.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Its not right to steal the power from the sun that God has granted us. We have to steal the power from the oil where it is deep underground and God won't notice.

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

That's actually just stealing power from the sun from hundreds of millions of years ago.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It comes from dinosaurs, which god didn’t create. So you’re not stealing from god.

(Yeah I know it’s mostly plants.)

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

You would believe that liberal dinosaur propaganda. I bet you believe their lies that its non renewable as well. Thats what they said about coal and we've still got plenty of coal, the best coal.

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

You can’t just eat raw sun it has to be boiled and mashed into a stew

[–] galoisghost@aussie.zone 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This comment should be the image showing how everything in the US got worse after Reagan was elected.

Which matches the similar UK graphs when Thatcher was elected.

Which also co-incidentally matches the similar Australian graphs when Kohn Howard was elected.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

“Something had to be done because the postwar boom was over and we didn’t have money for all those social programs”

That’s because the tax rates for rich people were dropped, and capital gains taxes dropped, and housing programs were ended.

“Yeah, well, the private sector is way more efficient anyways and we needed to get government out of it”

Sure, adding a layer of profit skimming always makes things cheaper. Are you always this bad at math? Nurse + doctor + bed = hospital cost. Nurse + doctor + profiteering = hospital cost + profiteering

Fucking boomer math.

[–] mycodesucks@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

This is a 2000s argument.

In 2026, you don't need the nurse, doctor, or bed anymore because the profiteering is entirely speculation and stock manipulation, and the selling of a product or service isn't even necessary. In fact, customers are completely irrelevant. That's why prices keep going up - it doesn't matter if you sell anything, as long as you convince investors to keep pumping money in. It's an incestuous oroboros of providing nothing and creating power and money out of thin air.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Don't forget Rupert Murdoch. The modern architects of where we are now.

[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago

We didn't deserve a saint like Jimmy Carter. God we could use him now more than ever

[–] BB84@mander.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

just put the water under the sun? why would anyone use solar panels to heat water. you're losing like 90% the sun's energy in trying to capture it as electricity.

[–] bbboi@feddit.uk 8 points 1 day ago

That's exactly what these solar panels were. They didn't produce electricity at all. They simply used the solar energy to heat liquid being ran through pipes.

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

There are non-photoeoectric solar panels. Solar panels that have the only purpose of heating water are very common. They are basically a long winding black tube with water inside. Big surface area + black = lots of heating.

That being said, I don't know if these are photoelectric or just water heating panels.

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] SpacePanda@mander.xyz 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You have a giant very well insulated water tank for storage. I had this in a home I lived in and it works surprisingly better than you think it would.

That's really cool, actually! Makes sense, I just never heard of it before.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The power of voting.