BernardoVerda 🤔
@bernardoverda.bsky.social
2.4K followers 2.8K following 6.4K posts
Retired. Into science, environment, climate, literature, Proportional Representation, Esperanto, science fiction & fantasy... More interested in 'policy' than in 'politics' – but nonetheless prefer 'woke' over 'zombie'. "Live & learn, or die an idiot."
![Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is “Nazi.” Nobody cares about their motives any more.
They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares any more what particular knot they used in the binding?
Andrew R. Moxon (contemp.) American writer, critic [a.k.a. Julius Goat]
Essay (2017-01-16),](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f4jrwxkdtfjp2hqhmwnf3su7/bafkreih7s2ujjgavh3bzabxzbcc24ucthcpkijkrfn5fyj7c43hqeoneam)
![On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced his administration’s latest attempt to prop up the US coal industry during an incoherent press event that randomly oscillated between energy issues and Trump’s fixation with building and renovating monuments in DC. The energy portion of the events was also frequently disconnected from reality.
“Today we’re taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal,” said Trump, apparently unaware that coal is one of the most expensive means of generating electricity in the US.
With wind and solar power getting cheaper, coal has become the second-most expensive way of producing electricity, trailing only the cost of building a new nuclear plant. As a result, no new coal plants have been completed in over a decade, and coal has gone from powering over half the electrical grid to producing only about 15 percent of the nation’s electricity. That’s before the indirect costs of coal use are considered. It produces the most greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy, releases dangerous particulates and chemicals into the atmosphere, and leaves behind ash that has high levels of toxic metals.
That’s reality, but the White House is clearly not inhabiting it. “If you look at some of the real great failures, countries, they’re usually wind,” he proclaimed. “It keeps blowing, blowing, blowing and puts you right out of business. Very expensive. The most expensive energy there is.”
He also suggested that China, which produces roughly half the wind energy in the world, isn’t actually using it: “About the only time they build [wind turbines] is to sell them to stupid people in the United States.”
Despite the economic issues with coal, Trump claimed that his new effort to stall its decline will save $50 billion in electricity costs. The source of that figure wasn’t specified.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f4jrwxkdtfjp2hqhmwnf3su7/bafkreihasjuoom74wr5hxof7y2emaus3ka4hw35n4q77mqtwy53ix6gve4)
![The bar chart showing just how few kids claim that TikTok, SnapChat, and Instagram make them feel worse about themselves is quite telling:
[Image of bar chart]
Just look at those numbers. That tiny green bar? That’s the percentage that says these services make them feel worse about themselves. On TikTok — the platform most frequently cast as an unusually dangerous self-esteem killer for teen girls — 15% of teen users say it makes them feel better about themselves, and just 3% say it makes them feel worse. That’s a 5-to-1 ratio in the wrong direction for the moral panic narrative.
The numbers on the other platforms follow the same script. On Snapchat, 13% say it makes them feel better, just 2% worse. On Instagram — the platform Haidt has singled out for particular damnation, building much of his case on leaked Meta internal research he insists proves it’s poisonous — 10% say it makes them feel better, just 3% say it makes them feel worse.
Three percent. That’s not a signal of a generation-defining mental health catastrophe. That’s barely distinguishable from a rounding error.
And even these small numbers overstate the harm, because the vast majority of kids—around 60% on each platform—say these apps make no difference at all to how they feel about themselves. Add the quarter who report “about equally better and worse,” and you’re left with a tiny minority on either side of the ledger, tilted toward the positive.
Overall experience tracks the same way:
All told, teens tend to have a mostly positive experience on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. About seven-in-ten teens on each platform say this. Very few – just 3% on each – say it’s mostly negative.
Seven-in-ten teens report a mostly positive experience. Three percent report a mostly negative one. These numbers are not ambiguous. If social media was so inherently harmful to kids, the numbers would not — could not — look that way.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f4jrwxkdtfjp2hqhmwnf3su7/bafkreiddqpun6vnlydkra7jw6knzmyynmocuzhos3zfgbepts5tgnprvvm)
