>It is incredible to see just how many big-oil talking points there are in this thread. From renewable energies resource costs, to their land use impact. I didn't realise just how effective their propaganda was in the tech space till reading this thread.

What makes this more valid than something like "it's incredible how many YIMBY talking points there are" in a thread about housing, aside from you agreeing with the YIMBYs? Is "talking points" just a roundabout way to summarily dismiss the opposition's arguments and imply they're dumb/misguided?

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whatisthiseven 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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Workaccount2 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Around me, conservatives started a grassroots "save the whales" campaign to block wind.

Conservatives, protesting on the street to save the whales. Talk about a sight to see.

	▲	triceratops 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I call them True Bird Lovers. You only see them in numbers when windmills come up. They've never seen any pictures of oil-covered birds from the Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon disasters.
	▲	snaking0776 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Faux environmentalism is the new climate denialism. https://www.desmog.com/2025/08/27/ai-slop-websites-are-publi...

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throw10920 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 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.

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diego_moita 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

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balops 4 hours ago | parent [-]

At the moment most who are chasing the green agenda are learning that it’s not reliable. Germany for I instance can’t even figure out where their power comes from and their grid is an absolute mess. They are busy destroying their nuclear power plants and coal plants while prices are skyrocketing and reliability is disappearing and systems are failing. The propaganda of the green is winning at the cost of people’s lives.

	▲	wasabi991011 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Why is that a failure of the green agenda as opposed to a failure of Germany? Edit: I don't have the facts about reliability of green energy (though you didn't provide any evidence against it either), but it's clear the "not knowing where your energy comes from", "having messy grid" and "not investing in nuclear" are unrelated to renewable energy.
	▲	bryanlarsen 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Germany's grid is an absolute mess because their nat gas pipelines have been cut off. Renewables are preventing a worse disaster, saving their limited LNG storage capacity to cover for dankelflautes.