Call me Ishamael #WoT 🇬🇧

@Synergycorpp @XFreeze I believe it's called "the night". Maybe you've heard of it?

@CdeRoiste @XFreeze It gets dark? What category do I even place this in?

The Sun is by far the biggest source of energy in our solar system Even here on Earth, the Sun accounts for roughly 100% of all the energy we use - fossil fuels are just ancient sunlight stored in plants, while wind, hydro, biomass, and solar power are all driven by the Sun right now Beyond Earth, the vast majority of spacecraft, satellites, and future Mars bases run entirely on solar energy The Sun puts out 3.8 × 10²⁶ watts - more energy in a single second than all of humanity has ever used in its entire history And just to put it in perspective: the Sun makes up 99.8% of the total mass of our entire solar system. Jupiter is only 0.1%. Everything else (Earth, Mars, asteroids, etc.) is basically miscellaneous We’re finally learning how to use the only energy source that actually matters ☀️

@sappholives83 @sharrond62 I recall watching a documentary many years ago where someone said she had hope for the world because across all cultures, everyone loved their children the same. I'm always reminded of that when I hear of things like this.

Between January and May 2017, 345 dead infants were found in garbage piles in Pakistan. 99% of them were female. One 4 day old girl had her throat slit before her body was thrown away like trash. This problem has not been addressed. It has not been resolved. And if 345 dead babies - 342 of them girls - were found in five months almost 10 years ago, how many more have been murdered since? This is Islam, ladies and gentlemen. Take a good look. This is what the left is so eager to embrace: hyper-patriarchal, theocratic, misogynistic brutality, masquerading as culture. Maybe it’s time to start asking why.

@Synergycorpp @XFreeze It gets dark, and there are seasons. When we can start building the fledgling beginnings of Dyson Swarm, you'll have a point.

@XFreeze Imagine having the sun and still prioritizing fossil fuels as an energy distributor. Sometimes I just sit back and watch and intentionally hurt my brain when I try to understand why humanity has decided to go down a "we must have a leader" path.

@ret_ward I suppose she could have watched a YouTube video avoiding her personal contribution to carbon emissions. Funny how you abandon these principles of yours as soon as it involves a politician you agree with. 🤔 Call me cynical.

Climate minister goes to see evidence of climate change impacts. Truly shocking. Why can’t she be like the armchair experts who reject the science of climate change?

This is part of the problem for some religious people. They honestly believe the world is a) depraved and b). got it in for them in particular. The truth is the world is far safer and less depraved than it has been throughout most of human history.

@alphafox @blablafishcakes 👍

GenZ thinks that a thumbs up emoji is rude, and would appreciate if you stopped using it:

@i_am_the_weenie 1. In a sport with strict regulations regarding board height and oche length, there seems to me to be a rather obvious height and arm length advantage for men. 2. If that's not the case, have open teams. 3. If you do have women's teams allowing men onto them, deprives other women

I'm sorry, but where is the biological advantage in throwing a dart at a board? Oh yeah, it's not there because, like in sports such as eSports and chess, biological advantage in darts doesn't exist. This is just purely and only the DRA taking advice from people who think they are know it alls on fairness in sports, but instead are know it alls in imported culture wars. #TransWomenAreWomen

@ret_ward @reformparty_uk "This typical of shopping illiteracy. Holding a Tesco Clubcard will not affect Tesco product prices."

This is typical of the energy illiteracy of @reformparty_uk fanatics. North Sea oil production will not affect global oil prices.

@JasonSinclair7 @Ed_Miliband Our energy generation is only as secure as its most reliable source, I.e. gas. Renewables are not cheaper if your Sec of State for energy has negotiated sky-high, index linked 25 year guarantees to the suppliers.

@Ed_Miliband Keep going Ed, those of us that understand what's at stake and realise renewables are cheaper are fully behind you. It's the vocal minority paid by Big Oil that continues to deny the obvious.

The difference clean power makes to our energy security 👇

@Ed_Miliband And yet we manage to maintain the highest industrial energy prices in the world. So, are you actively acting against our country? Isn't that treason?

It really isn't.

@sarahsalviander You could see a way round - that there is a natural scientifically evidenced cause that we just don't yet understand - but instead, you chose to insert a "designer". Now you have to explain the "designer". An entity that is definitionally supernatural. Good luck with that 👍

A common response to the fine-tuning argument is to say that of course the universe is finely tuned, because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to observe it. That's a truism and a tautology, not an explanation. Think of it this way. You're standing before a firing squad of dozens of skilled shooters, all with loaded weapons pointed straight at you, who all fire at you simultaneously. Yet you walk away unscathed. Your response? Well, if I hadn't survived, I wouldn't be here to observe it. Does that explain this extremely improbable outcome? No. It's a statement of the obvious, but you'd be searching for answers. In the same way, the fine-tuning of the universe to allow conscious life cries out for an explanation. The possibilities are that this happened by 1. Chance 2. Necessity 3. Design Option 1 is the firing squad problem. The odds are so overwhelmingly against this "just happening" that proponents have resorted to untestable and bizarre explanations like an infinite multiverse. There is no evidence for Option 2. Nothing in the laws of nature requires the finely-tuned parameters of the universe to be the way they are. Logically, this leaves Option 3 as the most probable explanation. When I was a physics student coming out of my lifelong atheism, I was deeply moved by this argument. It didn't matter what my prejudices were, the logic was so sound that I couldn't see any way around it.

This is, of course, nonsense. Atheists genuinely do know better than Creationists who discount all scientific evidence to the contrary to pretend their god created everything as is. The use terms like irreducible complexity, objective morality, etc, to disguise their ignorance.

@odo_of_bayeux @ClarkeMicah @afneil If this new regime turns out to be just as bad/worse than the old one, Trump is apparently now bolstering it. The insanity of starting foreign conflicts with no plan to end it in your favour - it's become kind of a US trope + dragging us Brits into it whenever they can. 2/2

@odo_of_bayeux @ClarkeMicah @afneil There also seem to be many who are supportive of the regime. It's kind of moot, though. They may now have a worse regime + the US/Israel action has seemingly given Iran a useful income stream - Straits Toll - that it didn't have before + lifting of sanctions. 1/2

Indeed, .@afneil .Reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with tolls in Chinese Yuan, is hardly a victory when it was open and toll-free before Mr Trump’s wild aggression. Those of us who opposed this adventure from the start were right. Note also that initial calls for a rising flopped utterly.

@odo_of_bayeux @ClarkeMicah @afneil "the Iranian people want to be free" So you say. Even if so, that's for them to arrange - they managed it back in 1979. The West has done quite enough damage interfering in foreign conflicts already.

@CdeRoiste @ClarkeMicah @afneil North Korea are not actively funding proxy terrorists groups. Not a very good comparison for many reasons, the Iranian people want to be free of their regime, the North Koreans are so indoctrinated they don't want to be freed. At this time.

We do. As an empathetic evolved species living within a functioning society.

@Bart_E_Newman @afneil What's happening in 40 years that we won't need it anymore? Will we have all died from starvation?

@afneil It's 0.01% of UK farmland, and it can still be used for sheep and will be returned in 40 years. 2% of UK farmland could provide the energy needs for all UK homes, but with wind farms too, we won't need anything like that. There is no food security issue with this.

The nut zealotry of Ed Miliband A new occasional series — No 2 At a time when global supply chains are vulnerable and we should be producing much more of our own food, E Miliband has today approved Springwell Solar Farm. It will cover seven square miles of prime Lincolnshire farmland. And the solar panels are likely to come from China (so much for green manufacturing jobs). Mili-Madness on stilts.

@odo_of_bayeux @ClarkeMicah @afneil They aren't free. Chances are the new regime will be as bad/worse than the last. It's for the Itanians to change their own regime And why Iran? There are plenty of nations in this world under similar oppression - North Korea would have made more sense.

@CdeRoiste @ClarkeMicah @afneil I don't care why he started it if one of the consequences was the freeing of the Iranian people.

@odo_of_bayeux @ClarkeMicah @afneil Yeah, like protecting them was mad Trump's motivation for starting this ridiculous economy-wrecking war.

@ClarkeMicah @afneil Oh how smug you must be that the poor people of Iran will continue to be hung for protesting or being gay. Very poor look from you for this Peter, have some empathy.