> The funniest part: Perplexity's Sonar and Sonar Pro got the right answer for completely wrong reasons. They cited EPA studies and argued that walking burns calories which requires food production energy, making walking more polluting than driving 50 meters. Right answer, insane reasoning.
The Yen Carry Trade isn't some big secret... it's caused enough turmoil that it hit the front pages of the WSJ a few times in last few years (Aug 2024 was a big one iirc)
Finance bros will make their way in here soon to give a better peanut gallery, but I think "is there something here" comes down to do you believe the final bit of the articles opening act:
> When correlations between historically uncorrelated assets (e.g. Gold, Bitcoin, Microsoft, and Silver) approach 1.0 during a sell-off, it serves as a distinct indicator that traders are not selling what they want to sell, but rather what they must sell in order to meet margin calls in a funding currency that is rapidly appreciating against their liabilities.
I mean, you don't have zoning in space, but you have things like international agreements to avoid, you know, catastrophic human development situations like kessler syndrome.
All satellites launched into orbit these days are required to have de-orbiting capabilities to "clean up" after EOL.
I dunno, two years ago I would have said municipal zoning probably ain't as hard to ignore as international treaties, but who the hell knows these days.
Read the last line:
[The impact of the Los Angeles Aqueduct Project to the Owens Valley region was immediate and detrimental to future agricultural work of local farmers. In 1923, in an effort to increase the water supply, the city of Los Angeles began purchasing vast parcels of land and commenced the drilling of new wells in the region, significantly lowering the level of groundwater in the Owens Valley, even affecting farmers who “did not sell to the city’s representatives.”[44] By 1970, constant groundwater pumping by the city of Los Angeles had virtually dried up all the major springs in the Owens Valley, impacting the surrounding wetlands, springs, meadows, and marsh habitats.[45] The consequent transfer of water out of the Owens Lake and Mono Lake decimated the natural ecology of the region, transforming what was a “lush terrain into desert.”]
Cadillac Desert is the usual recommendation on how f'd water deals are in the West, the Owens Valley landgrab is merely the opening chapter. No argument there.
It's the urban/rural division subtext of the brown lawns and the economically-infeasible desal techno-saviorism that comes off a bit russian botish.
The big scale in water politics is in the colorado river compact and how water rights are bought up by foreign alfalfa farmers to effectively ship water overseas. Brown lawns is pennies in front of the steamroller. Pennies that are effective at stoking urban/rural divisions, but still pennies in the grand scheme of things.
My country is considered to be among the world's most fertile land as it has world's largest rivers, which spew out fresh alluvial soil (very fertile for agriculture).
But when drought hits any corner of my nation, the rich and poor folks alike take extra efforts to conserve water. It is rare to see excess public wastage of water during drought.
Perhaps it is because some parts of this ancient land is already permanently aridified into desert long ago, and the rains can be erratic even during non-drought years. So people have learnt to respect water to a good extent.
To put it into perspective, the vast Sahara desert was once a lush rainforest. Cutting down the jungle trees and mismanagement of water resources by humans, is what turned into a forbidding barren desert.
So it is certainly shocking to see one of the richest lands in the world (which can certainly throw enough money at almost any civic problem), wasting water, especially during drought. And it is shocking and infuriating to see people with common sense (who are conserving water during drought) being punished by the state for doing so.
> The big scale in water politics is in the colorado river compact and how water rights are bought up by foreign alfalfa farmers to effectively ship water overseas.
Wait, what? California owned water is being shipped overseas?!! Even during drought?
I really don't know how to respond to such madness. All I can say such a crime (although , I have a feeling this is somehow legal) should be considered like a felony at the very least.
I heard California got a good governor. While other states have been de-funding public schools and suspensing school launches for the poor kids, he is ensuring the opposite, so such compassion will help to school and grow the new generations to be better contributors to society and nation. Maybe you Californians ought to do some mass-signatures campaign writing to him and other officials, urging them to reform the unethical historical laws and corrupt policies on water rights.
Huge amount, but maybe not in the way you intended.
Many of California's ecosystems have evolved to expect fires. Humans can't stand fires and aggressively put them out. So fuel that would be regularly burned off in mild wildfires instead builds up into megafires that exceed the limits of what the ecosystem can handle (a lot of California trees are fire-tolerant, but there's a point where the flames get too high and too intense).
So yeah, the human activity that affects these cycles is caused by our cognitive dissonance and fear to phrases like "mild wildfire".
> Its military has force projection to nearly every point on the globe, with hundreds of global military bases
How are the hosts to all those bases going to react when suddenly the guest acts belligerent? When the ally drops down to an occupier, that force projection suddenly starts looking like occupation, which becomes a lot more expensive to maintain.
And the expense has worked until now because everyone else has wanted our currency so what's a bit more currency printing, but when we kick our own global reserve currency status because we fucked all of our allies, well now that "force projections becomes a lot more expensive" actually becomes expensive^squared.
This is absolutely idiotic for anyone who indulges in the privileges of empire.
I mean, Sam Altman was making the same calorie-based arguments this weekend https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/23/openai-altman-defends-ai-res...
I feel like I'm losing grasp of what really is insane anymore.
reply