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48
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3 mo. ago

  • The same reason that DeBeers doesn't flood the market with diamonds.

    OPEC has always been about manufactured scarcity. It's not a bad scheme, if you have a heavily concentrated, limited resource. The difference, of course, is that oil is actually useful. So might as well pump it while you can, store it where it's easy to get and ration it out.

  • What is more, Saudi Arabia has 68 years of reserves at 2024’s production rate. The world will probably have stopped using hydrocarbons long before those run out. So any crude it does not pump today could be money lost forever.

    1. Holy. FUCKING. SHIT! That is a lot of oil!
    2. But the math doesn't check out. The world uses about 37 billion barrels annually. Saudi Arabia has ~260 billion barrels in reserve. That's more 7 years of global oil reserves. It would cover about 40 years of US oil use. And it would cover the modest Saudi annual useage for over 200 years. So no matter which way you slice it, the math is funky here.
    3. Something else I just discovered. Saudi Arabia does not have the world's largest oil reserves. That honor goes to....drumroll....yep, you guessed it. Venezuela.
  • Evil

    Jump
  • It's funny, I have very successful friends who used to say something similar. As one put it: "If you sell out at 20, you got no heart. If you haven't sold out by 30, you got no head."

    That friend group are a great bunch of guys in their personal lives, family men and good providers, down to the last one. At the same time, they are 100% part of the problem. They are landlords and marketing execs. And every one of them has an exceptionally high EQ. (Except Jake. He's my favorite and he fixes industrial baking equipment. Used to be a bartender. You know the type - staring daggers when you interrupt his conversation with a regular customer. Jake didn't GAF about EQ.)

    Anyway, it's not that they are evil. They are just the "normal" amount of selfish. They have comfortable lives. They read their newsfeeds without ever thinking any deeper. They aren't the Nazis - they are the people who empower Nazis by remaining laser-focused on their job and their family, ignoring politics unless their property tax is at stake.

    I think it's possible to be a good husband and an overall good person, but not a good citizen. Zombies, if you will.

  • Someone did. They missed by inches. I would imagine they beefed up security a bit since then...

    And, in most cases, it's a good thing that our head of state is well-protected. Otherwise, we'd have a new president every week and the executive branch would be a mess...oh....hmmm....

  • No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world

    Why does this sub require a URL?

  • Edit: It's because I chose "Link" as the type of post. If I had chosen "Discussion", a URL wouldn't have been required.

    I always do this - I ask questions first and click around later. JFC, I don't know if I've got ADHD or just come down with a case of boomeritis.


    Thanks for this!

    The field was marked required, with a red asterisk. I tried posting without a URL, and it did not accept the webform. Said I needed to fill in the required field.

    I took a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/gbF3jP3

    (And if Imgur doesn't meet Lemmy standards, I'm happy to use a different service.)

  • No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world

    Does the national Do Not Call Registry actually work? (USA)

  • With respect, it's also about who receives the money.

    RTX makes the Tomahawk.

    In 2016, the stock was at 59. Now it's at almost 200. A return of 338%. That's about the same rate of return as the S&P 500 in the same timeframe. The difference being, the worst performing stocks in the S&P are regularly swapped out.

    So, yeah, these guys are pretty much a sure bet to make money.

  • It's a legitimate CONFUSING anti-abuse tactic.

    How is a normal person, who's never used reddit in the past, supposed to even know how to get karma? Or how the lack of karma is impacting their UX?

    The only way is to game the system, get into a sub that allows shitposts and exists for the sole reason of boosting karma. Which immediately teaches the new person to game the system. Counter-intuitive and counter-productive.

    I think it's definitely an effective way to keep new users from spamming.

    It chases away new users (or, at the very least, keeps them from active participation). Because of this system, a new Reddit user is more likely to be a doom-scroller with zero participation. And that's what Reddit wants. Reddit doesn't need another shitposter. Reddit doesn't lack for quality content, since it aggregates the bulk of its content from other sites via powerusers. So fuck it if new people participate, as long as they see the advertising sponsors, Reddit is happy.

  • And perhaps even show up to the White House after the mission for a photo op and some McDonald's. Thus crushing the dream of being an astronaut for many young persons in the US.

    Child: "Mommy, I want to be an astronaut when I grow up."

    Mom: "Oh, that's wonderful, honey, you'll see the moon and even meet the president!"

    Child:

    <bursts into tears>

    "BUT WHY?!"

  • This is false.

    The Pentagon hosts a Ramadan dinner (at the end of the holiday, to celebrate the conclusion of the fasting ritual).

    The Pentagon has hosted Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremonies. (I'm not sure if they still do.)

    The issue here isn't the sponsoring of a religious activity. The function of the military is to send soldiers to their deaths. Those soldiers who need spiritual support should absolutely have access to it.

    The issue is that the president and the defense secretary have incorporated evangelical Christianity into their cronyism. Religion is being used as a litmus test for loyalty.

    Signed,

    A pragmatic (ex-militant) atheist

  • The Pentagon has invited more than 3,500 employees to attend a Good Friday service at its in-house chapel. Except it’s only for Protestants, not Catholics.

    About 25,000 employees work at the Pentagon on any given day. So, it's pretty obvious that not everyone was invited. The article gives no information on how employees were chosen, which is concerning. It could be officers only?

    “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel,” reads a Friday email sent by Air Force leadership, a copy of which was shared by an employee.

    This states that the service will not include Catholic Mass. This seems pretty standard for a non-denominational observance of Good Friday. (Though, knowing Kegseth, it will probably be an evangelical service.)

    The Pentagon Memorial Chapel is a 24-hour interfaith chapel that employees can use for prayer and reflection, and that is used for religious services.

    The Pentagon Memorial Chapel only seats 80 people. SO WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE OTHER 3,420 PEOPLE GONNA SIT?!

    All in all, some pretty shitty reporting on the part of Huff Post. Lots of unanswered questions here.

  • Your average American is not intelligent enough to decipher the clever wordsmithing of the average journalist.

    In an age where sensationalistic headlines are the norm, an understated headline can seem to lend credibility to the absurd.

    This is not a problem, though. I enjoy eating popcorn and watching the world burn.

  • Unless they are metahuman - probably, yes.

    There are exceptions, like The Punisher, but he's not really a "super" hero (at least, not in any of the media I've consumed, which is admittedly not very much). Heroes like this are great at saving the day, but its just not believable that they can save the world or the galaxy or the universe.

    Iron Man without money is some dude in a garage who spends his lifetime building the arc reactor and the Mark I. By the time he's gathered enough resources to build a Mark II, he's already 60.

  • No.

    "Throwing money" implies that the solution was indeed 75% useless. It's why this expression exists.

    It's like asking "When is failure a success?" It's literally not possible for a failure to be successful, that's why we call it "failure".