“If we want more growth, we need to allow creative destruction so new companies can deliver the productivity we need.”

Octopus energy ceo greg jackson

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    I really do not like people boasting about how foreign dictatorships are doing everything better while bashing our local democracies.

    I mean, electrification is one area where China is significantly and undoubtedly outdoing every single democracy out there. How democratic China is has no bearing on that fact.

    • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      How democratic China is has no bearing on that fact.

      It does matter because this is totally what chinese state propaganda is broadcasting to the world. The old playbook the soviets have been doing

      • 5318008@lemmy.ml
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        11 hours ago

        If your neighbor is putting up two solar panels, and you’re just putting up one, someone might say that your neighbor is doing more than you to electrify.

        If your response is, “But they’re bragging about it! It’s propaganda! They’re a bad person!” then it kind of sounds like you’re just salty about the electrification thing.

      • Uferstein@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        That might be but then you have Audi with 87% less profit compared to the year before and that’s not Chinese propaganda. He might be wrong about the trucks but he isn’t about electrification.

        • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 hours ago

          They also are using a ton of coal and oil to recharge them.

          They get away with looking better on per capita CO2 production because they have such a huge population, but it’s not all solar panels and rainbows there by any means.

      • sunsoaked_lily@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        ah yes, the old soviet ploy to make the everyone think their society is flourishing by… improving their society. damn sneaky commies

        • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org
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          19 hours ago

          Yeah, improve society by murdering millions of people. And the result was really worth it because Russia or East Germany were really awesome places with a high standard of living in 1989.

          • sunsoaked_lily@lemmy.ml
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            9 hours ago

            electrification and movement from fossil fuels to renewables benefits more than just people in china, climate change is coming for everyone. any country (/especially/ one doing manufacturing for others) that is making strides like this should be learned from.

        • dropdrip@lemmy.ml
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          21 hours ago

          It works every single time. It’s so sad.

          America’s perennial trend of bombing foreign nations is so much better at… creating dead children.

    • filcuk@feddit.uk
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      1 day ago

      I don’t know if I agree. A dictatorship decides to make more batteries and so the industry bends. Land is taken by the state to build mines. Little regard for the people or the environment.
      All of this makes it easier for China to just move to electric, and part of why the EVs they export are so cheap.
      They subsidise by environmental impact and possibly human suffering.

      * Not to mention they own the battery market.

      • Awooooooga@lemmy.world
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        19 minutes ago

        I live in Canada and they’re building an LNG plant in my town. Nobody who lives here wants it but the federal government and province do so we can’t do shit about it lol.

      • Corn@lemmy.ml
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        15 hours ago

        Land is taken by the state to build mines. Little regard for the people or the environment.

        Is Germany a dictatorship?

        spoiler

        The answer is yes, it is a bourgeoisie democracy; a dictatorship of capital.

      • bestagon@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I don’t think there’s a country in the developed world with a government that finds it distasteful to subsidize the consumption of their populace with environmental and human suffering. Moral superiority isn’t the difference being spotlit here. I think China just controls more manufacturing of its own which makes pivoting their society more efficient

        • filcuk@feddit.uk
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          1 day ago

          The question was about politics and economics, not morals.
          I would hope not supporting suffering and destruction doesn’t need to be explicitly stated to be understood.

          • dropdrip@lemmy.ml
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            21 hours ago

            Meanwhile the UK has royalty that live in opulent luxury whilst the working-class dwells in poverty. Their hayday of wildly looting and enslaving foreign nations is over. They have nothing.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        I’m not sure the argument “EVs are bad for the environment actually” works as well as you think it does.

        • filcuk@feddit.uk
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          21 hours ago

          I wasn’t arguing that. The way China mines and processes lithium for battery manufacture, in which they’re the leading exporter by far due to their rich rare earth deposits, is destroying the surrounding areas.

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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            19 hours ago

            That’s fair, but my point is: Is there any way to make lithium ion batteries otherwise? Like is there any evidence that for instance Australian lithium is “greener” so to speak?

            • filcuk@feddit.uk
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              17 hours ago

              I see, yes my understanding is that the process can be a lot cleaner and other countries do it (like the US), China just chooses to take cheap shortcuts to take stranglehold of the market, which they now have.

              • 5318008@lemmy.ml
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                11 hours ago

                Do you have any sources which elaborate on this?

                It at the same time sounds A) possible, and B) like the kind of thing that someone should support with evidence.

                  • 5318008@lemmy.ml
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                    3 hours ago

                    Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that video.

                    … So I guess we don’t really have an answer for why people are saying that Chinese rare earth element mining is more environmentally destructive than everyone else’s rare earth element mining.

                    Well, I mean, I’ve got a guess.

          • dropdrip@lemmy.ml
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            21 hours ago

            LMFAO! Wait until you read about the industrial revolution and the environmental destruction caused by Great Britain. Go suck your king’s cock.

              • dropdrip@lemmy.ml
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                16 hours ago

                Europe’s washed up–capitalist liberal democracies can’t exist without looting. Each nation now wants to pivot towards war to begin the looting process again. Enjoy your austerity budgets. Meanwhile China will keep on winning.

                • boonhet@lemmy.zip
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                  15 hours ago

                  Much of the reason China is winning is that it’s now looting the environment and minorities in its own borders. Europe needs to lower wages across the board and scrap environmental regulations to compete, particularly when it comes to lithium.

                  • Corn@lemmy.ml
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                    14 hours ago

                    it’s now looting the environment

                    It’s much better today than it was even 20 years ago. There is still significant work to be done and remediation of places that have elevated cancer rates due to lack of regulation enforcement will take a lifetime, but you’re talking about the wrong China.

                    minorities in its own borders

                    This is a fabrication. Minorities have special protections and autonomy. It is exploiting its own people though, while there has been significant reductions in extreme poverty, they aren’t doing nearly enough here. [random Chinese people I talk to in China and border countries]