Whoa boy. I caught Landman for the first time today because my partner was watching it.

Oil, cigarettes and alcohol were all clearly being pushed and promoted. Pretty sure it was episode four where a women rather matter-of-factly stated that one alcoholic beverage when pregnant was perfectly fine - inso much that it was good because it helped her body generate breast milk. Such a weird statement to shoe-horn into this soap opera.

Coupled with BBT chain smoking the coffin nails, the rampant shit-canning of renewables and incessant self promotion of how large and wonderful the fossil fuel industry is the money behind the show was as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Plus the sexual objectification of women in this show is ludicrous.

It's 2026. It seems everything old is new again.

Oh, and the

With China's huge resources both natural and human it's only expected that China will again reclaim its position as the leading country in science, technology, production and generally everything.

If you assume that .5% of population are "einsteins" then China has 7.5m einsteins who are now able to access universities and advance sciences whether it's AI or solar power or self driving cars.

There's no doubt about the fact that the future belongs to China.

There's just no way to deny this. The economical and political power will shift to China.

Landman is fascinating because it goes out of its way to bring up valid claims about renewables or criticisms of oil/gas but then spits an insane amount of propaganda and lies at you in quick succession to falsely "debunk" these criticisms or sweep them under the rug. This is definitely not being done for the character's benefit in the show, so its quite impressive how effectively and frequently its tossed in there.

> I suppose everyone watched too much Landman.

No, too much Fox "News".

I expect China to overbuild and the west to underbuild.

The EU is moving towards 50% sustainable with lots of countries that at 60-75%, while the USA is at 25%.

Europe is also at least a decade ahead.

And since renewable + batteries is now cheaper than nuclear, we should spend our money and time wisely.

America is stuck in its past, specifically the 1950s-1960s.

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Oil and gas have used, between drilling and refining, over 7 million acres of land in just the US. Yes, it provides more electricity, but at the cost of destroying the entire planet's biosphere, global warming, etc.

Current US estimates for solar land usage are 500,000 acres.

The land use arguments are bunk. Anyone who complains is repeating oil and gas propaganda.

> Is "talking points" just a roundabout way to summarily dismiss the opposition's arguments and imply they're dumb/misguided?

It is. I've read dozens of comments like this on HN, and repeatedly see the "it's incredible that...", "talking points"/"propaganda", and "wow look at how much bad stuff there is in this thread"/"I'm so disappointed in HN" memes, and every single time it's because the author is trying to dismiss the opposition's arguments without responding to them individually and actually addressing their points.

This kind of thing clearly fits into the "sneering" category of things that aren't allowed on HN and so is valid for flagging. I do it and I highly encourage anyone else to do it who wants to preserve the culture of HN.

> Is "talking points" just a roundabout way to summarily dismiss the opposition's arguments and imply they're dumb/misguided?

For me, yes it is. It wouldn't if policy discussions were purely technical and well informed. In the arena of public discourse they aren't. The majority of the population (including HN) is tribal, ideologically biased, emotionally driven and badly informed. Public discourse, particularly in America, is contaminated by propaganda of established economic powers (i.e.: Big Oil, Big Pharma, Tech companies). They can easily advance their talking points because they have much more economic resources for propaganda and lobbying.

I agree that, eventually, most people will discover that oil & coal are doomed and destroying the world. Reality has a way to force itself into ideologies.

But that will take a long time. I need truth and certainty now.

Can you point at criticism from the left? I haven’t noticed it.

Your point about developing markets resonates for me in a different area. Instead of layering mobile phones on top of landlines, many developing markets went straight to mobile phones. Another thing to consider is that solar/wind is an incremental expansion of power capacity, versus the "big bang" expansion of nuclear capacity.

To your point about the fossil fuel cliff, I think it was either a Bloomberg or Forbes article that discussed how China's deep involvement in the EV/battery/solar/wind Expansion in dozens of countries around the world gives it a chance to put a serious dent in oil consumption as well as locking American interests out of developing markets.

It's super common, and it's also sneering and extremely anti-intellectual. It's against the HN guidelines (and reasonable discourse) and can and should be flagged and downvoted.

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And a talking point in the other direction is to refer to people as "boomers".

In case you haven't noticed, it's the non-thinkers of all generations who willingly bury their head in the sand.

Most people don't normally think it's the boomers in particular unless their powers of observation are somewhat limited.

Which is understandable, you don't reach maturity overnight.

Edit: not my downvote btw

Do you have ANY datapoints or arguments to underpin that renewables "destroy all wilderness". Or even more that they are worse than fossil fuels? This claim - especially in your harsh tone - could need at least some reason.

> We look back and curse our ancestors for their unbridled use of fossil fuels. Who is to say future generations won't look back and curse us for destroying all wilderness?

I curse my ancestors for destroying all wilderness to get at fossil fuels.

Yes fracking wells are famously harmless to the environment.

Right.

Ok, I'll bite. What if solar panels turn into breeding grounds with perfect environmental temperatures to create viruses that kill us all? Who is to say the sun won't blow up tomorrow? Why not enumerate all the things that might happen to distract? There is a nice quote going around re a weather scientists who gets asked annually what's it going to be like this year? He's tired, and notes "this year, and every year for the rest of your life is going to be the hottest ever." That's in large part to oil, full stop.

The first couple of comments look like they are from China bots here to spread propaganda. They don’t contribute anything of value.