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Write “rejected” on all the mail you don’t want and leave it unopened in your box. Cuts it down nearly to zero after a few months.

March is a spring month at sea level.

Incredible observation. Seasons begin and end on different days depending on sea level. I was under the impression that the first two thirds of March was winter at every elevation in the northern hemisphere. singleshot_ has added much to this conversation. You cannot tell AI slopposters from regular hn users because they all get out of the house the same amount of time.

> Petro is pretty much upstream of everything: plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cooking oils,

Really! What petroleum-based oil do you cook with?


Hexane is directly used as a solvent for edible cooking oil refining.

"Understanding Hexane Extraction of Vegetable Oils":

* https://www.andersonintl.com/understanding-hexane-extraction...

"Towards Substitution of Hexane as Extraction Solvent of Food Products and Ingredients with No Regrets":

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9655691/

> The extraction process is the same for all eight types of oilseeds subject to this rule (soybean, cottonseed, canola, corn germ, sunflower, safflower, peanuts, and flax). In each case, the seeds are crushed and mixed with the solvent. The oil then dissolves in the solvent. Following this step, the solution is separated from the seeds and heated to evaporate the solvent. The evaporated solvents are then condensed and reused in the process. […] This standard restricts plant-wide hexane emissions from each affected facility rather than requiring individual controls at each emission point.

* https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/solvent...


yeah, hexane is the industry standard for extraction... even bio oils are tied to petroleum.

here is comparison on extraction physics vs chemistry for turning it into biodiesel - https://vectree.io/compare/biodiesel-chemical-engineering-vs...


A lot of people use fossil fuels in their cooking.

Just in the form of a gas, not a liquid.


Plant-based ones that were harvested by machines that burn petroleum.

And grown with fertilizer produced using energy provided by burning petroleum.

That’s a pretty amazing definition of upstream. I imagine you probably understand that plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers are made out of petroleum derivatives, right?

Since you seem pretty smart: are there petroleum based cooking oils?


The machinery to make them, the fertilisers to grow them, the plastic to package them, the transport to deliver them. It ain’t just cooking oils that will be massively impacted. The entire food chain in the western world is reliant on petrochemicals. The only question is the lag between now and when those impacts start being felt and this translates into bumped prices and/or shortages.

EDIT: corrected an autocorrection.


Is there anything in that chain that actually requires petroleum and couldn't be replaced with alternative with similar properties and prices?

Yes: the time. It's spring time, when most crops are being sowed, of have been sowed and started growing actively. They won't wait several months until the production of fertilizers switches to electrically produced hydrogen, and tractors are upgraded to run off electric power. As the crops ripen, they won't wait until combine harvesters and trucks are converted to run off electric power. Nobody in the agricultural world has a few billions lying around to build massive solar capacity, battery capacity, and redesign the agricultural machinery, all at impossibly breakneck pace.

Instead I suggest that they will buy the fuel at higher prices, and sell less produce, and also milk and meat which are downstream from feed crops, at higher prices. More than that, in a bout of bitter irony, the West might need to lift sanctions from Russian oil, and maybe ask Russia to drill and sell more.

This, or the US should somehow defeat IRGC and defeat / appease the Iranian Army, and unblock the strait. I wonder if it's going to cost less even along the monetary dimension.


Sanctions against Russian oil might ultimately not matter that much. Ukraine has already demonstrated that it can hit Baltic and Black Sea ports, and Arctic ports might also be within range. That would leave only Pacific ports and Asian pipelines open for exports.

> More than that, in a bout of bitter irony, the West might need to lift sanctions from Russian oil,

The US has already done this!


Sanctioned shadow fleet takners still get arrested. With enough oil shortage, these tankers can be left alone, and the whole activity quietly encouraged.

Truly, Iran turns out to be an invaluable ally to Russia.


Ok so just checking: no cooking oil is made of petroleum then?

To prevent your focus on cooking oil becoming pedantic you might acknowledge at least the veracity of "plastics, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals" being impacted.

You might read the rest of the thread (in particular, my posts above) if you seek these details.

Here's my definition of upstream: If the petroleum stops, the cooking oil stops, even though the cooking oil is 100% plant-based.

Given that what we're talking about is disruptions caused by a shortage of petroleum, is there any other definition of "upstream" that is meaningful for the conversation?


That is the normal definition of upstream. To harvest and transport the olives and olive oil, you need trucks, and often plastic containers and bottles. These farms and distributors will pass on their price of fuel and petroleum materials to the consumer.

Electric range

> Why wound anyone open a bet on "rando's house will be set on fire"? Why would they bet on "yes"?

Bettor is an impoverished arsonist with no morals and confidence in his anonymity.

Better question: why would a person ask a question with such a breathtakingly obvious answer?


So, you are telling me this "impoverished arsonist" opened a bet on "will this rando's house be burned?", wagered on "yes" (with what money?), other people (who?) bet on "no" and no one found it suspicious? I hope you do realize that making it a public bet exposes information, and the very subject of the bet can be used to prove intentions.

Nevermind the fact about what would happen after the crime, should it even happen. It seems this hypothetical arsonist isn't just immoral, but also incredibly stupid (and that also begs more questions, like how do they have access to prediction markets like this).

For something so "breathtakingly obvious", it seems poorly thought through.


Okay, now I understand why you’re asking questions like this.

Sure, but regardless your perception about my motivations, I'm genuinely curious as to what prompted the "breathtakingly obvious" comment, because I'm ain't seeing it. Preferebably in a less snarky fashion, should we proceed with respect to one another.

Gambling -> bad gamblers lose -> bankruptcy -> creditors eat losses

Technically, a lot of gamblers are gambling someone else’s money, they just havens lost enough yet for it to matter.

If you want to bring back debtors prison I guess I’d be fine with legalized gambling. If I’m stuck holding the coupon, I’ll pass.


I feel like we are skipping a lot implicit things that shouldn't be left implicit. How are you paying for the bad gamblers' losses? Are you deliberately lending to gamblers without due check? Probably not, that would be very imprudent.

If you aren't the creditor, then I suggest that you make it explicit how you are losing wealth with this. Good chance the issue might be somewhere along the way.


Maybe he means 70-79 CE

500+ years prior the Greeks and Iranians were going at it for half a century in the Greco-Persian Wars (499 BC - 449 BC).

That's, what, 2,000 years before the settlement of Jamestown by Europeans.


Allegedly*

In the experiment you mention, before they put the frog in the cool water, they removed its brain. Then they boiled the water. The frog did not jump out of the water because it had no brain. The experiment proved the opposite of what you are asserting.

If every wealthy country had a frog to represent their culture of taking care of workers (strong unions, workers rights, vacation days, not having healthcare tied to their employment, maternity and paternity leave, equitable pay etc), there is one particular frog which most would describe as having had its brain removed.

From the wikipedia article linked to just below this reply, it says that the first such experiment is as you described. But then goes on to say:

Other 19th-century experiments were purported to show that frogs did not attempt to escape gradually heated water. An 1872 experiment by Heinzmann was said to show that a normal frog would not attempt to escape if the water was heated slowly enough, which was corroborated in 1875 by German scientist Carl Fratscher.

I don't see the point of the experiment with the brain removed, but given that they did the experiment with intact frogs as well confirms their original hypothesis.

However, later on in the article, it's been disputed in recent years: as the water is heated by about 2 °F (about 1 °C), per minute, the frog becomes increasingly active as it tries to escape, and eventually jumps out if it can. Earlier it also says that frogs put into already water just die (not mentioned, but presumably from shock) and so don't have a chance to start attempting to jump out. I imagine humans dumped into boiling water would have a similar response.


Frog boiling seems like an active research field. I wonder what the social dinners are like at their conferences.

Two trucks

> They’re trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

If this was true, would you have survived?


They should not have guns out at all. Also, expectation on cops are super weirdly low.

Untrained random civilians encountering cops are supposed to have perfect sefl control. Supposedly trained professionals can be irresponsible, escalate for no reasom, risk others and shoot if they merely feel afraid - regardles of actual danger.


As that woman said out loud in the video: "preservation of the pecking order" .

You start asking questions like this and it becomes clear how we voted in the current administration. We spent generations structuring around such buly mentality.


"Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to kill"


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