It is interesting, but also seems needlessly complex and of limited benefit to anyone not already at the top, and thus prone to cumulative errors and delusion which make the entire system brittle. So as someone not at the top, why should I do anything but oppose these "improvements"? I don't have ambitions of being a billionaire or weilding the power of nations, so how is this not a pure detriment to me?
> needlessly complex and of limited benefit to anyone not already at the top
you have things of value all around you, captured value that you cannot turn into cash because of its poor liquidity and poor institutions for that asset class, you don't need to be at the top. there is a collector of old concert tickets, a collector of your digital footprint, a collector of your furniture, a collector of the junk you've been hoarding. you just can't find those people, get a fair price, avoid getting scammed, or have any remedies if you did get scammed, compared to assets that institutional banks service. And because you can't, the banks can't either and have the same issues, hence why there is no lending market or way to mitigate risk.
I didn't write in this thread to have a contrarian view, it's a system I'm aware of and am impressed by its growth.
I'm not here to sell you on it but like I wrote to the other person, it doesn't make sense for people to just want others to experience more of the pain they experience, the state is not a responsible party to have a piece of everyone's transactions. You should be asking why any of us are experiencing pain instead of ire at those who have an easier way to avoid the pain. Taxation is just one of the state's revenue models, its other methods can grow, additional methods can be employed, its spending can shrink, and right now all of its revenue is just going to pay the interest on debt it already accumulated. With that understanding I can't view proposals based on punitive hate seriously. You're proposing to give a degenerate spender more money, just because you found someone that's not paying the degenerate? And any amount you give the degenerate doesn't even pay down its debt, just the interest? And that just makes it more credit worthy to continue accumulating more debt? Not everyone needs to pay the degenerate, get in a place where you don't either.
Modern taxing authorities aren't even that old. It's hard for me to treat it as time immemorial because its not and you can influence how exposed you are to it.
Wealth is the problem. Wealth buys media, PR, and propaganda. Wealth buys positions of viable candidacy. No body even thinks it is remotely possible for some rando off the street to get elected to a federal office, not because they lack intelligence or policy or anything, entirely because they need massive amounts of wealth to even be seen over the cacophony of others backed by a million+ dollars worth of megaphones. But of course after these powerful and/or wealthy assholes gain position they need to hold it, and since they lack a backbone or coherent policy they just keep passing the buck to everyone else which eventually ends up in the executive's lap.
With congress I feel like they have been capitulating their duties for atleast a few decades now. They don't care at all about their job, they only care about the personal power and wealth and benefits that getting elected provides. In which case it was only a matter of time before someone like Trump comes along. With the only saving grace being that he is an utter moron.
None of that would seem like a problem to me if the costs for going to US colleges and universities weren't so ridiculous and the penalties for student loan debt weren't so one sided.
Meanwhile we vent 95% of extracted helium into the atmosphere as an inconvenient waste gas.
If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium? It is hard for me to see this as a ploy for anything other than raising helium prices for the few companies that do extract helium.
In anything that helium is critical for, the helium cost is inconsequential compared to both the cost of the other equipment that uses it, and the value gained from using that equipment.
> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?
Because until six months ago there was a cheap and convenient supply coming out of Persian Gulf states, and so its importance was not noticed (like so many other items that 'suddenly' became apparent when the supply was suddenly cut off).
> The current helium shortage is the fourth to occur since 2006 and is being caused by shutdowns at several major helium producers. The shortage has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, as Russia is one of the world’s top suppliers of helium.
I have a friend who teaches chemistry at a well known university that can no long run some labs because the equipment to run them needs, you guessed it, helium. This has been a long running problem that the Iran war has exacerbated, but is by no means the cause.
Sufficiently long that in the TV Series “The Big Bang Theory”, one subplot involves the characters buying helium from a black market dealer to perform their experiments
If it was worth (i.e., profitable) the effort to create to new supply wouldn't someone have done it by now? If no one is willing to pay for the effort, why should anyone do it at a loss?
(Isn't this, in theory, what The Market™ is all about? If people really wanted something they'd be willing to pay more for it, and it would be an incentive for more supply.)
Well, if there's a shortage as GP's 2022† article states, and the demand is 'actually' there, wouldn't the proverbial "Econ 101" response be a rise in prices? Has there been such a rise?
† I've seen articles from 2019 discussing the (alleged?) shortage.
I've heard Helium is a limited resource so if we have leaky wells here I think we should be preserving as much of that is possible, it's too bad it takes pressure from an unnecessary conflict to do the right thing here.
I have to ask: why the two accounts/alts with almost identical handles? Even if I suspect you’ll assert there’s no reason for me to assume you’re the same person as the GP.
Right now, even with infinite money, you have no way to extract helium from Jupiter and return it to Earth. (To say nothing of the Sun!)
Maybe with a couple hundred more years of technological development...
Our moon itself is said to have ~1M tons of very valuable Helium-3 in surface deposits, but even that's nigh impossible to harvest commercially right now.
If you ask international relations scholars or people in the state department, they actually support the prevention of nuclear proliferation.
The general population typically are doves because they can't see the consequences 10-50 years out.
My PhD bud, a Bernie supporter, thinks we should have put boots on the ground by now. I generally agree.
I lived through North Korea getting nuclear weapons in my lifetime. Before they were the end of a joke, today we have to care about the opinions of that backwater. (And I read international relations structural realists as much as I drink coffee... The job of the hegemon is to maintain the status quo.)
Iran already wasn't working on nuclear weapons (a confident assessment by our intelligence community across the past 20+ years). The JCPOA then gave us the ability to verify that for ourselves. Then we (metaphorically) blew up that agreement, and (literally) blew up their leader who was firmly opposed to developing nuclear weapons, and the new one doesn't feel the same.
Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons. This stockpile was built under the previous leader, who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them, and yet he knew. who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them and yet he knew.
Iran didn't have nuclear weapons, however for years they were only a few weeks away from having them. They had all the hard parts in place to build one. There's a reason to think they had plenty of experts who could do it. So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader.
The general assessment on Iran has long been that they aim to become a nuclear threshold state (have the ability to make nuclear weapons quickly (~1y timeline or less) should they need to), but not actually acquire nuclear weapons for themselves.
> And even that is something that the west clearly should not allow.
...which is why we (used to) have the JCPOA. Attacking Iran will have no effect if they can mine uranium domestically and build centrifuges themselves.
Iran has domestic uranium deposits. They design and build their own centrifuges, and had thousands of such centrifuges during the JCPOA. It's basically impossible to denuclearize them or prevent them from building a rudimentary reactor or bomb, and it has been that way for at least two decades.
Diplomacy was a proven path to prevent Iran from reaching for nuclear deterrence. The plan worked well for America and Iran, which is probably what motivated Likud to escalate the situation and force them both to pick sides.
Yes, democracy and trade are the proven paths for preventing conflicts. Just ask the Ukrainians how that is going for them, I am sure they are so glad that Germany was buying oil and gas from Russia.
>The controversial gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 (NS2) has become the symbol of Germany’s widely criticised energy and security policy, which sought to build political bridges through trade and at the same time supply companies with cheap fuels. However, it drove the country into a fatal dependence on Russian oil and gas. Years later, government documents from the 2010s and early 2020s reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung showed that former chancellor Angela Merkel sought to portray her government as neutral and lacking competence in regards to the "business project" Nord Stream 2 to the outside world and European partners, while supporting increased gas trade with Russia through several actions.
Conflict was not a preferable alternative for Ukraine, so if you're trying to relate this as a metaphor for America's posture then it's not a great example.
> Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons.
After the JCPOA the stockpile went to zero (esp. >5% enrichment):
They said they weren't working on nukes, and our intelligence community released assessments which agreed.
The level of enrichment they've been doing is higher than they need for power generation but it also isn't nearly enough to make nukes. A more reasonable explanation (given the assessments they aren't working on nukes) is that they were being deliberately provocative.
> So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader
Right, they could, and didn't. Why? It was only 7 years from the discovery of fission to a proof of concept in the form of the trinity test. Either you assume a level of incompetence entirely divorced from Iran's efficacy on the international stage, or you accept they weren't trying.
Enrichment % is very misleading. Natural is about 0.7%. 3.5% is halfway to 90%. The distance from 60% to 90% is tiny.
That's because the distance is calculated using the quantity of raw material that needs to be filtered and not the enrichment percent, the more pure, the less material needed, hence smaller distance to 90%.
>Right, they could, and didn't. Why?
Some people worked hard to ensure the latter would be very inadvisable for Iran. Being so close isn't a stable equilibrium though.
That's a common misconception. You can't make the calculation purely on the mass of raw material needed to get a X kg of Y% material.
Every enrichment process drops in efficiency as the enrichment increases, asymptotically approaching that process's enrichment ceiling.
That's why nobody uses thermal diffusion to enrich uranium: It's by far the easiest method (you can do it with 1800's technology), but the practical maximum enrichment fraction is too low for anything useful (other than providing feedstock to better enrichment processes).
That's also the reason a centrifuge enrichment plant uses warehouses full of cascaded centrifuges: The centripetal force inside the centrifuge is working against a diffusion gradient, so each stage only gives a small percentage decrease of the "derichment" fraction.
Once you pass 50%, you stop looking for U-235 needles in a haystack to keep and start looking for U-238 needles in a haystack to throw away.
I like that he had banned nukes in 2003 but for some reason, Iran covertly construction Fordow starting in 2006. I guess he was just not as Supreme of a leader as he thought he was, somehow all those people just decided to hollow out a mountain and install centrifuges there.
Fatwa was put in place in 2003, Fordow construction was started 2006.
In the words of Obama in 2009: “The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” then US President Barack Obama said in 2009
So who do I believe; a Supreme Leader who says they will not build nuclear weapons or my lying eyes...
Or perhaps you are saying that the Supreme Leader didn't have control over his country and some rebel faction was able to build that with out his knowledge?
Iran didn't ban centrifuges. That's the rebuttal; their original ban on nuclear weapons still holds, and has held for 2 decades. Verbatim, it is still true.
Unless you have irrefutable proof that Iran has built a nuclear weapon, then you're admitting that diplomatic deescalation worked as a nonproliferation strategy.
After the deal was broken by Trump and Biden was trying to restart it....
>2023 : An IAEA report on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant found that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges were configured in a way "substantially different" from what Iran had previously declared. Iran claimed the difference was due to a human error.
>On 4 March(2023), Grossi met with Raisi and other top Iranian officials. Earlier, IAEA had detected uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% at Fordow. In the meantime, Iran gave assurances that it would reinstall monitoring equipment at sensitive locations.
The JCPOA enrichment limits would have started to expire this year, and soon Iran could have completely legally enriched as much as it wanted - while getting hundreds of billions via JCPOA sanctions removal. Given what it took to get Iran to this state under sanctions, it would have been impossible to force it to renew the limits or give up anything on nukes. We'd have ended up with Iranian control of Hormuz at the very least, likely of Gulf as well.
Perhaps that's an acceptable cost of avoiding higher gas prices right now - except Iran would have had the capacity to decide these at will. It's a fair choice, but best to be aware of the consequences.
You don't think Iran would have renegotiated to extend it further? If not, why would they even bother top follow the agreement in the first place? The legality of what they do has never been a consideration, they are a sovereign nation.
>You don't think Iran would have renegotiated to extend it further?
Why would Iran want to do it? Iran could absolutely control Hormuz* and get a nuke at will** under the deal. At that point it can avoid sanctions by threatening the Gulf. Or demand other concessions for allowing the Gulf to operate. That's what it tries to do now, but from a much weaker position compared to the deal timeline.
* Take the real life prewar Iranian missile and drone strength, assume Iran had an extra couple of hundreds of billions to pour into it, no import limits by the UN, a less restive populace, etc.
** Breakout timeline being a week at most at end of expiry timeline. Probably the only way to keep the Gulf independent at that scenario would have been nuclear deterrence.
>If not, why would they even bother to follow the agreement in the first place?
Because Iran wasn't anywhere strong enough at the time to risk a war, but the existence of the agreement and general developments would have predictably changed the power balance in its favor.
>The legality of what they do has never been a consideration
Well, if you decide something is legal, it's much tougher to change one's mind and stop it later.
But they couldn't before the war. The stupid israeli war blocked the strait which was operating fine before the Israeli invasion. So clearly Israeli invasion is to blame for the blockade.
Iran already could. All the pieces were there as well as the plan. It's that US & Israel attacked first. The same would have applied even worse for JCPOA extension scenario. Ultimately, so long as Iran is strong enough and radical enough, it will use its power on the strait next door.
The world would be more safe if Iran had nuclear weapons (less American/Israeli/Saudi interventions in the middle east). They should have smuggled nukes from the collapsed soviet Russia or do whatever was necessary to produce nukes.
Nukes, (or thousands of artillery pointed at densely populated areas allied with a country with nukes) are the surest way maintain sovereignty in the mad world we live in.
The Saudis would then get nukes from Pakistan. The thought of MBS or a Wahhabism fanatic successor getting his hands on nukes is absolutely terrifying, far more than the Iranians or even Kim Jong Un.
I'm not really sold on the idea that nuclear weapons are a salve against conflict. The only real examples are North Korea not getting invaded and maybe tamping down some of the India-Pakistan conflicts (note that India and Pakistan have had armed conflict with each other since both acquired nuclear weapons!). On the contrary, we can see times where nuclear weapons seem to have emboldened leaders--Putin has definitely played the "you can't retaliate against my aggression, I'll nuke you" card, and the Cuban missile crisis had both the American and Soviet militaries stridently arguing for a nuclear first strike because going second would be so calamitous (it was avoided largely because both Kennedy and Khrushchev were reticent to do so).
One of the striking features of the last decade or so of global politics is the willingness of middle powers to arm and fuel regional conflicts, so I think it entirely plausible that a world where middle powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran gain nuclear weapons is one where, say, the Sudanese Civil War involves nukes.
> My PhD bud, a Bernie supporter, thinks we should have put boots on the ground by now. I generally agree.
I suspect that this belief has the same level of thought put into it as the "general populace". The crux of the issue is not Iran's nuclear proliferation, it's the hegemon's unreliability.
The US had the JCPOA, had allies for deterrence, and unilaterally decided to discard them in the name of inflation. One might argue that the electorate has decided that the US should no longer be a hegemon, and yet the administration still impose it's will on others.
There was a time when I believed that Iran was not a rational actor. That is not the case now. I can only hope that there are enough checks and balances to prevent other actors from acting too irrationally.
Most importantly, semiconductor fabs cannot operate without it. I was unaware, but I saw an interesting 60 minutes piece in it the other day.
I hear what you’re saying, but it’s the same reason a lot of natural gas is flared off or vented at oil wells. Helium is less than 1% of the total feed gas coming off a well and it requires specialized equipment to be able to recover it, on top of a way to distribute it. In most cases depending on the mix of gases coming out, it’s simply not economical for the operator.
Even with the supply being under pressure and prices going up from Qatar’s supply being cut off, that still might not be enough for companies to build the infrastructure. It would be a huge gamble. Once traffic in the straight of Hormuz goes back to normal that could be a losing proposition.
The government just needs to set the fines for natural gas flaring to be more than it would cost to capture it. The Pigouvian tax North Dakota set in 2014 just needs to be done for helium.
> If it is so important, why aren't all our gas wells extracting that helium?
Because the free market considers any supplier but the cheapest to be inefficient and drives them out of business. Robustness of the supply chain is always less profitable.
Whether helium or eggs or toilet paper, we keep getting shown the results of this lesson over and over. And people refuse to learn.
At some point we will be able to scrape the moon for helium or be able to manufacturer it with fusion reactors. None of that currently exists or has a path to exist. It would be a mistake for us to not force collection of that helium today. The oil and gas industry is swimming in cash because of iran. They can afford to collect it.
We should have mandatory recycling for all uses. Every use of helium should have to build recollection into their workflows.
Following the Helium Privatization Act of 1996 and the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) completed the final sale of the reserve and its pipeline infrastructure to the industrial gas company Messer for $460 million in December 2024
Decades of work to hand over a critical resource to private hands.
If you think plumbing is anywhere near being automated away you must not know much about plumbing. You will never see a bigger hodpodge of materials and fittings in so many shapes and sizes and states of decay.
Maybe on new builds with fresh material, but that is already the easiest and quickest plumbing task.
An entry level largely untrained junior doing pro level work because their AR headset and earpiece tells them exactly what to do next? That's possible today.
But nobody wants or pays for "pro level" plumbing work. Just like the majority of construction, speed and minimum viability are king, quality is the last consideration. Especially for plumbing where it all gets covered up. If something leaks in 20 years instead of 40, plumbers don't lose anything. But the plumber who put in extra effort and time does.
Many skilled tradesmen have already left the industry because higher skill levels have little value, and their labor value is just barely above grabbing randos off the street. AI at best is saving a minute of evaluation or google search, but 99.5% of the job is physical work and pain still, not high level problem solving.
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