Privatizing the US national helium reserve. Gonna laugh when in a few years the government of another nation ends up owning it. Helium is dwindling finite resource that key technological infrastructure relies upon.

    • davel [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Nobody left to neocolonize but ourselves I guess.

      • Tachanka [comrade/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        someone once said that fascism is when the colonial methods of oppression are brought home to the imperial core

        • stigsbandit34z [they/them]
          ·
          10 months ago

          Everything has been commodified and continues to be commodified, but that’s just another reason the world isn’t fair (or so I’ve been told)

        • Notcontenttobequiet [he/him]
          ·
          10 months ago

          I don't know who said it first, but I heard it from a podcast episode with Matt Christman and Sean KB in an episode about fascism

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
          ·
          10 months ago

          You mean Russia has been fascist since Peter the Great till now, with brief interruptions in 1905-1914 and 1991-1993 ?

          • emizeko [they/them]
            ·
            10 months ago

            There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

            —John Rogers

              • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                ·
                10 months ago

                Despotism is not a useful political term at all and feudalism is a very specific form of a much broader economic system that was used in the middle ages. You have nonides what you're talking about.

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  According to my knowledge it is just as useful a term as feudalism, describing a specific system.

                  You have nonides what you’re talking about.

                  Buddy, you are a communist , a flatearther from economics, an etherium proponent from economics, a homeopathic doctor from economics.

                  And what you wrote is illiterate bullshit. Listen for once what people who are not from your sect say on things.

                  • comrade_pibb [comrade/them]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    Buddy, you are a communist , a flatearther from economics, an etherium proponent from economics, a homeopathic doctor from economics.

                    hello it's me a flatearther from economics

                  • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    Despotism refers to a person in power making unilateral decisions, it is no means of describing any system of government.

                    Define communism, I'll let you once again look it up.

                    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
                      ·
                      edit-2
                      10 months ago

                      Despotism refers to a person in power making unilateral decisions,

                      Yeah, that too, so?

                      it is no means of describing any system of government.

                      Why is that?

                      Define communism, I’ll let you once again look it up.

                      Why would I? That wouldn't change that I'm right. You seem to think that I have to prove something or dispute something with you to be right. I don't.

                      Also a hint - anybody can come up with any kind of definition. If I look it up, then what? Somebody you consider authoritative has approved a definition? Well, it's one model you like, I may not, so why would I bother?

                  • grazing7264 [they/them, comrade/them]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    10 months ago

                    All that homeopathy must be why communists have already taken your factories and in exchange you willingly hollowed out your own country

                    mao-clap

                  • Egon
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 months ago

                    deleted by creator

              • Dolores [love/loves]
                ·
                10 months ago

                i'd love to hear your cunning mind explain what despotism and feudalism are, and what the difference is

                • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  10 months ago

                  Despotism is an absolute monarchy where technically there's only one free man, the monarch, and all the subjects, including nobles or whatever, are his property. There's no contracts or something to this. The monarch's power is delegated as they wish to the state apparatus of whatever kind they choose. That'd be Russia since Peter or, say, Safavid Persia, and frankly a few German states in the new age despite sporting feudal symbolic.

                  Feudalism is a system of vassal-suzerain and allied relationships, contractual and not even that centralized, as a feudal entity can even be vassal to multiple other entities (games like CK get this wrong, which makes, say, Denmark there less fun than it was) and have its own various contractual ties. With feudalism every person's status is complex, there are individual privileges and obligations to every entity.

                  Feudalism is much more sophisticated than a despotic monarchy. IMHO it's the main reason Europeans dominate this planet.

                  EDIT: By the way, Decembrists paid a lot of attention to that difference, if we get back to Russian history.

                  • Dolores [love/loves]
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    feudal contracts literally don't exist michael-laugh they're a made up justification of the feudal system that was exposed as false in 1789 when the french peasants found no such things in the manors of their lords

                    IMHO it's the main reason Europeans dominate this planet

                    feudalism is not at all a unique phenomenon to europe. you say you get this from Crusader Kings, babe look at the rest of the crusader kings map. africans and middle eastern people did that too

                      • Dolores [love/loves]
                        ·
                        10 months ago

                        i'm sure it's just a wild coincidence that syrians & latins in the crusades didn't think their forms of government were different, but i realize i'm talking to someone that's not read a single primary source for what they are oh-so-knowledgable about

                      • Dolores [love/loves]
                        ·
                        10 months ago

                        ah yeah its a contractual superior system to "despotism" that's distinct because it has contracts. "who do those contracts apply to?" "less than 1% of the population"

                        and if you're so sure they're this defining characteristic of a whole economic system and epoch, present them to me

          • Raebxeh
            ·
            10 months ago

            Please define “imperial core”

  • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Can't wait for all that finite, medically important helium to be wasted on sellng party balloons.

    Capitalism is so rational

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Gonna laugh when in a few years the government of another nation ends up owning it.

    https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-technology-china-vanadium

    A bunch of scrappy engineers made a next generation battery and sold the technology to the US government

    The government never bothered to manufacture anything. Instead they sold everything to China and now they’re already releasing public versions of the batteries. Now the US doesn’t have any knowledge on the batteries or even the factories to build them

  • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Helium is technically finite, but it's really a byproduct of natural gas extraction. Most natural gas operations don't bother to even harvest the helium.

    • Tunnelvision [they/them]
      cake
      ·
      10 months ago

      That’s crazy to me. It’s obviously useful, how is it not worth it to extract it if it’s already there during the process? That’s like hearing people back in the day burning gasoline since it was a byproduct of extracting crude oil.

  • barrbaric [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Holy shit, why would you do this. Neoliberals are the stupidest people on the planet. "Oh well we have to sell it off because it's not profitable enough!" sure am glad this won't cause the price of helium to surge resulting in a hike in MRI costs.

  • JuryNullification [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Get ready for helium in everything for like three years and then it’s all gone. No more floaty balloons ever again.

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      We can always use hydrogen for the floaty balloons. Double as fireworks!

  • Absolute@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    10 months ago

    This has similar vibes to being an addict and selling your playstation or couch to buy drugs, but at least drugs are fun where is this is just being done to accumulate more capital for a dozen crusty old fucks

  • Hexbear2 [any]
    ·
    10 months ago

    This shit is a crime against the people and in a civilized country, these fuckers would be sent to a gulag for 20 years, then the people would seize the helium back.

    • Egon
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      deleted by creator

      • emizeko [they/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        private property is a very high priority for bourgeois dictatorships

    • blobjim [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      The article says it will probably owned by a German company, Messer Group. Germany and helium... 🤔

      During the Nazi era, the Messer-led company benefited considerably from the regime's arms production, employed forced laborers and was a supplier for the V2 production and the Wehrmacht.[1] In the denazification process, Messer, who had been a member of the since 1933, was classified as a follower in 1948

      oh, right.

      https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Messer

      Also, can't wait for this to make people's medical treatment even more expensive! Exciting times! Thanks Joe Biden!

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Hast du etwas Zeit für mich

        Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich

        Von neunundneunzig Luftballons

        Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont

        Denkst du vielleicht grad an mich

        Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich

        Von neunundneunzig Luftballons

        Und, dass so was von so was kommt

      • Egon
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        deleted by creator

  • gaycomputeruser [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Can't wait to listen to all my analytical chemistry friends complain about how helium is too expensive and how they have to design new procedures.

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      I've helped people make procedures with nitrogen and hydrogen based on studies that use helium because helium is too expensive. Not being able to do an MRI because you need helium is nightmare inducing.

  • motherofmonsters [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    When I looked into this a couple years ago, my understanding was that yes, the supply is finite, but the amount we have in storage is a lot and we slowing mining operations because we have enough on reserve for a while.