It is completely inexcusable that people in STEM fields are so reactionary, considering how capitalism utterly destroys science.

If universities were actually "left wing indoctrination factories" like the right thinks they are, every STEM grad would be taught, for example, what Kropotkin had to say about innovation.

  • kristina [she/her]
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    4 years ago

    you can argue that we could do just fine without them, but you could argue that we could do just fine without medicine, vaccines, advanced agriculture, and so on.

    and no, they are definitely nutjobs. those things will make life better for humans everywhere, unequivocally.

    • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
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      4 years ago

      do fine without medicine or agriculture? lololol okay. but no. no "we," as in a modern society, could not.

      apparently im a nutjob for not wanting to live in another town with nuclear waste seeping into its water table. because it would just be so much better if i did. 🙄

      • kristina [she/her]
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        4 years ago

        :O great argument bro do you have any papers on how widespread this is vs. the disruption of other energy methods.

          • kristina [she/her]
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            4 years ago

            omg i list one failure and apparently that reports a systemic issue with all nuclear plants i am a very smart nutjob that doesnt understand science. christ, this is exactly the issue im talking about. i'm tired of dealing with you people.

            • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
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              4 years ago

              whaa whaa. i dont like that my nuclear do a whoopsie you cant bring that up you nutjob!

              fuck off. did you miss the part where i lived in a town with nuclear waste seeping into the water table you absolute twit?

                • kristina [she/her]
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                  4 years ago

                  people that make that argument also dont realize that we wont be doing that with solar or wind either. so great, we're all in the same boat. i'm just trying to get the nutjobs not to shut down our already low carbon nuclear sites, like they're doing in germany.

              • kristina [she/her]
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                4 years ago

                yeah and people in my family have died mining rare earth materials, what is your fucking point??? energy creation is bound to have death. nuclear minimizes it.

      • unperson [he/him]
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        4 years ago

        You do realise that producing solar panels and wind turbines creates orders of magnitude more toxic waste than a nuclear power plant, right? Before involving any batteries.

        • kristina [she/her]
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          4 years ago

          lets also talk about that the official quote for fukushima is 0 dead and 40-50 injured. good luck getting those stats in lithium and rare earth mining.

            • kristina [she/her]
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              4 years ago

              ok so lets assume the worst, then. the biggest, worst, estimate is 60k deaths from anything related to nuclear, including low level poisoning and stress, which means you lived pretty long but it was cut short by the sickness. we have had nuclear technology for around 80 years. if you include the stats from old-gen nuclear reactors like chernobyl, it is slightly worse than wind, but not as bad as solar. if you consider only the newest gen reactors and technology, it beats out every other energy source. in fact, latest gen nuclear reactors have roughly half the death rate of wind. here's a simple, noncomprehensive diagram from forbes: https://i.imgur.com/4LXeCFD.png.

              of course, you could argue that 'oh, since these are new they havent had a long enough time to fail'. actually, there have been dozens of failures of new gen reactors and there are lots of them. however, we have gotten really smart about how reactors fail and when they do they don't hurt people.

        • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
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          4 years ago

          do go on about how drinking nuclear waste is super great for my health. by comparison or whatever. maybe with batteries even. such a compelling argument.

          im sure those wind turbine blades are just awful. so many tonnes of fiberglass. oh no.

          • unperson [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            Ideed. Five tonnes of fiberglass that contains water-soluble epoxy that cannot be recycled per blade. All to produce 0.3 MW of power and be thrown away after 20 years.

            Compare to a depleted uranium fuel bundle, that weights ~100 tons, produces over 3000 MW of power and lasts around 7 years before it needs to be reprocessed. Because yes, unlike turbine blades, it's recyclable.

            • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
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              4 years ago

              neat. wind turbine blade technology can certainly be improved and made less wasteful. nuclear, baring significant advancements in fusion tech, will always pose a serious danger because its waste products will kill you.

              but no really do go on acting like im unaware, or that i even advocated for wind tech in the first place.

              • unperson [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                or that i even advocated for wind tech in the first place

                I'm sorry? It was you who brought up the wind turbines.

                Your 'technology will fix it' argument is ridiculous, you're pitting toxic plastic recycling technology that doesn't exist against toxic uranium reprocessing technology that has existed for decades (though unprofitable) and needs a scale *500 times smaller..

                • crispyhexagon [none/use name]
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                  4 years ago

                  no. i didnt.

                  You do realise that producing solar panels and wind turbines creates orders of magnitude more toxic waste than a nuclear power plant, right? Before involving any batteries.

                  see that part where you brought it up?

                  also, good second strawman there on me saying anything about recycling plastics. 🙄

                  • unperson [he/him]
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                    4 years ago

                    Oh, okay. What is your preferred alternative to nuclear?

                    Edit: or to non plastic materials for a massive wind turbine, I suppose.