mistermack

If I was in power, I would give a government subsidy for each unit of reclaimed Lithium, so that it would be worth building up the industry and technology. The industry always follows the money. There's no point in waiting till it actually starts to pay. There might be a hell of a lot of good material gone down the drain by then.

I believe I did support my claim, with references to human evolution. It's a wide field. If you don't think human evolution was of a fiercely territorial nature, then you don't even have the basics and citations would mean nothing to you. However, here are a few : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/004724847690035X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661321001522 https://www.vox.com/2014/4/28/5661186/evolution-war-cause I think you have to be pretty blind NOT to detect any aggressive racist or territorial tendency in human nature, but if you can't work it out for yourself, then the evidence is abundant. Google is great for finding stuff out. I can recommend it.

No, I'm not going to research the bleedin obvious for you. If you disagree that humans have a racist tendency, say why. I've said why I think they do have and where I think it comes from. I've pointed to some racist instances, I could go on all day. If you think it just appears from nowhere, you need to justify that, in the same way that I have. I pointed to our evolutionary history, you've just parroted yourself.

Do you then think that humans have no inherent racist tendency? I'd like to see your citation for that.

Nobody is arguing that. But the OP is expressing amazement that a black person should behave about religion in the same way that racists do about race. That's what I responded to, as I made clear in my post. What complete rot. I'm responding to the fact that racism has been a constant feature of mankind's behaviour, for millenia. Or did I dream that the USA was built up on the backs of black slaves, who could be bought and sold at will? Or that it's less than a lifetime ago that there were seperate entrances for the races in the USA, and seperate drinking fountains? Or that white US cops are still more prone to kill a black than a white? In spite that is, of huge efforts by educationalists and media to preach equality. If there was no preaching of equality and tolerance in schools and the media, I think it's perfectly obvious that racism would be rife. You can't ignore the past. As I said, I believe that we have racist genes, and tolerance genes, and millions of others. The racist ones helped our ancestors survive. They lived in extended family groups who had to be aggressively territorial to survive, just as chimpanzees do today.

In answer to the OP, I don't find it at all surprising. Black people can be racist too. In fact, it's racist to argue that they can't. Everyone of any colour is born with racist tendencies. It takes a lot of indoctrination to get people to abandon it. We have a constant drip drip throughout our lives, of those in charge telling us how bad it is to judge people on superficial differences, like skin colour or sexuality. I personally think that's a good thing to do, not all indoctrination is bad. And I would argue that we should add religion to the long list. It is in a lot of instances. But of course, many religions are hemmed in by their own doctrine. If it was written thousands of years ago that unbelievers will roast in hell, then you are obliged to believe that, because " It's written ". So the OP's friend can pass the buck, and put the blame for his semi racism on the scriptures. Of course, that opens the door for people to find a few words in scriptures to justify killing unbelievers. Genetically, we are programmed to do that, because we evolved from a territorial ape ancestor who fought and killed it's neighbours for millions of years, to survive. Those who didn't have that instinct probably got killed and eaten, so we don't have their genes today.

Wish you were, Mr. Dim.😁

A lot of European countries seem to be considering freezing energy prices below market prices, and to use government money to pay for the difference. The UK has already announced a two year freeze plan. (possibly costing taxpayers £150 billion) I'm not sure it's a good option. I'm not against intervention and support for domestic bill payers, but I have my doubts if this is the best way, or the right scale. The obvious problem with it is the cost, which is absolutely huge. Someone will have to pay it, and that someone is tax payers. No matter how you smoothe it out, the tax payer will pay. If you do nothing, the users pay for what they use. Which is the general rule for most things. If I go for a drink, I pay for it. If I put fuel in my car, I pay for it. In fact, I pay tax on top. So this is the reverse. If I use electricity or gas, instead of me paying the price, the tax payer pays a chunk of it. The main problem with that, is that if you freeze the price, you reduce the incentive to economise. If the price of diesel shot up, I might decide to drive less, and use the bus more. Or use pedal power. The money saved would make economising more attractive and worthwhile. That's how inflation is normally kept in check. If sellers raise prices, buyers look for economies and cheaper alternatives. The balance of supply/demand controls inflation. You are losing that, if you subsidise the price. I would favour direct money grants to bill payers rather than price freezes. That way, there is still a big incentive to use less, and more chance of market prices coming down. Of course, there is a downside to that as well. Some people will just blow the grant money on something else and still find that they can't pay their fuel bills. But there might be ways around that, like a delay in paying the grant, and using it on fuel bills, if people are in arrears. Anyway, I'm not decided myself, I just wondered what others would think.

I've already covered that point. You seem incapable of reading or comprehending, even when it's big, bold and blue. If you read my post above, you would see that the vast majority (68.4%) of ethnic Ukrainians living in Crimea thought that the referendum result reflected the will of the people of Crimea, and only 14.5% thought it didn't. But you, sat on your arse, looking at your screen, think you somehow know better than the ethnic ukrainian people living through it. If anyone needs waking up, it's you.

Don't worry. It's fine when you say it. I said the same and it got moved to trash with a nasty made up title added. It's not what you say, it's who says it on this site.

You can have too much democracy. You could have a public vote to decide every issue. It would be dangerous and poor performing, because the public just haven't got the time, or intelligence, to research and make the wisest decisions. In the UK, we elect members of Parliament. Hopefully, they have a bit more time and intelligence than the average voter, so the final decisions are more considered and wise. And the members of Parliament elect a leader, hopefully someone with a bit more about them than the average MP. And the leader picks a team to govern, hopefully the cream of the crop, and they get huge help from the civil service. All in all, a lot better and safer than full democracy on every issue.

The government didn't fall in this case. The PM resigned, and the party has the right to choose a new leader. The government only falls when it can't govern, that didn't happen here. In other countries, governments are falling all the time, and elections are constantly being held. That's a case of too much democracy, every system is a compromise. In this country, you only vote for your MP, not a government, or PM, although you're free to take that into account. Your MP then does the rest, on your behalf. It works ok, of sorts. It's a fairly stable system.

They did, and it's impressive. But you can do a lot with slave labour in every link of the supply chain. And of course, it's always downhill, no pumping involved as far as I know. There were matching impressive waterworks in the Andes, by the Incas I think (from memory) and of course they had the advantage of melting glaciers at very high altitudes, so they always had a decent fall to work with. On the OP idea, I would think that one of the most suitable spots to do it would be from the upper Mississippi and Missouri to the drier parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. If it's not economic there, then it's probably not economical anywhere else. The land is flat but the gradient is uphill for a long way.

Should've got rid of them years ago. A thousand years ago, a monarchy made sense. But today, it's just ridiculous.

That holds no surprises. It's a speculative hypothesis by a gastro-intestinal surgeon, not an evolutionist. The comment at the bottom, by professor Holloway, physical anthropologist with Columbia University who has specialised in the evolution of brains, puts it in it's rightful place. "To suggest that the brain is constrained by chewing muscles is just rubbish," asserts Ralph Holloway, a physical anthropologist at Columbia University."