I lost my father to it, we're struggling to get my mom to quit who survived a heart attack some 15 years ago, just had a thyroidectomy, and is recently diagnosed level 2 COPD. I have never smoked in my life, and I hate the thing with a passion. But I also wonder that is it that makes people smoke, especially tobacco products like cigarettes, despite the slew of horrible things it does to your body. To this day I've been asking people this question, and because Turkey is big on smoking, there is no shortage of people to ask, and it's been only once that I got a positive answer regarding the experience: one particular college-goer told me that it was "tasty". Apart from that, from what I've heard to date, I've collected that all that cigarettes do to you is to give you a fix of nicotine, and the rest is practically slow suicide (and homicide if anybody's present about you while you smoke).

So, help me please: tell me why you smoke. This is one of the biggest curiosities of mine to this day.

week three brings a deluge of essays and pieces long enough that i'm going to break this week down by the candidate. news today is sorted by candidate, while opinion will remain unsorted for now since there's not much going on there worth talking about. i've also, for clarity's sake, added a [LONGFORM] note to the longer pieces in this slate for those of you on a time crunch.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread

News

Bernie Sanders

• from the Huffington Post: Bernie Sanders Says Felons Should Be Able To Vote While In Prison. bernie sanders called for the end of felony disenfranchisement over the week, which is a thing that almost all states do currently in some form. iowa in particular has possibly the most severe such law, something that the republican governor kim reynolds has been (unsuccessfully) trying to change, making it a fairly large issue there. this currently is not a litmus test for the Democratic Party, but don't expect it to go away, because the ACLU is pushing for candidates to adopt it as a plank.

• from Jacobin: Votes For All. for a leftist take on the above, Jacobin has you covered. this article mostly focuses on the historical push by socialist and socialist-adjacent movements in america to do away with felony disenfranchisement and achieve universal suffrage, and sanders in that broader context.

• from Slate: The Favorite: Can Bernie Sanders finally start acting like the one thing he’s never been?. slate mostly focuses on sanders's curious status as a genuine goliath in this race here, in contrast to the underdog status which has characterized basically the entirety of his political career previously. in many respects, this is unprecedented territory for sanders, and it is a genuine question whether he'll be able to adapt to that fact (or if he'll need to at all).

• from TIME: Sen. Bernie Sanders Unveils New 'Medicare for All' Plan With Support From Some 2020 Rivals. policy wise, sanders unveiled his idea of what medicare for all looks like. this appears to have the support of gillibrand, warren, booker, and harris, who signed on to it (although they've also signed on to less things like a public option), so at least for now, you could probably say it's the leading healthcare reform option on the table.

Pete Buttigieg

• from CBS News and TIME: Buttigieg challenges Pence on LGBTQ rights: "Your quarrel is with my creator"; Pete Buttigieg Criticizes Vice President Pence in Speech About LGBTQ Rights: 'Your Quarrel, Sir, Is With My Creator'. buttigieg is the first person i'm aware of to take shots at either of trump or pence besides sanders, who has led with it the whole of his campaign so far. it's not surprising that the inflection point here is LGBT rights--buttigieg is gay, obviously--but for a presidential campaign, this is fairly unprecedented.

• from NBC News: Pence: Buttigieg is attacking my faith to stand out in 2020 crowd. pence responded to buttigieg's remarks this morning by the way and basically called it a political ploy. i suspect this is not the last we will hear of this particular issue between the two.

• from Slate: How Astonishing Is Mayor Pete’s Rise?. slate has an article on the meteoric rise of buttigieg--although it does note that it's not all roses for buttigieg, who is still only polling about as well as cory booker and amy klobuchar despite basically becoming a media golden boy in the past few weeks. still, buttigieg is doing an order of magnitude better than you'd expect of someone whose mayorship presided over a city of a little over 100,000 people. (compare this guardian article which i highlighted in the last thread).

• from Buzzfeed News: [LONGFORM] What Happened When Pete Buttigieg Tore Down Houses In Black And Latino South Bend. of course, pete also has skeletons which are bound to come out, and his redevelopment plans in south bend probably count as those. officially they were successful, but some people do (understandably) contend that came at the cost of people and essentially led to gentrification in parts of south bend. whether that's a knock on him or just the cost of doing business as mayor of a rust belt city, i leave to you.

Kamala Harris

• from The Atlantic: [LONGFORM] Kamala Harris Takes Her Shot. this is a pretty comprehensive piece on harris, who made a big splash early but is now mostly trying to tread water without losing further ground to bernie and biden or giving up position to warren, buttigieg, or o'rourke. it's humanizing, but it also covers a lot of the criticisms and contradictions of harris's political history, and some of the nagging questions surrounding her political positions as she bids for the white house. if you're curious about or unfamiliar of what some of those criticisms people often launch at her are, this piece is probably for you.

• from Buzzfeed News: Kamala Harris Wants Her Teacher Pay Raise Proposal To Bring Young Black Americans To The Profession — And To Her Campaign. as far as policy, harris has been staking her wagon to teachers in the form of pay raises. those of you who pay attention to the news might have heard her bring this up previously, as it's been an early feature of her campaign so far. it'll be interesting to see if other people take up the beat if she finds success with this issue--so far nobody really has, explicitly speaking, which might be because it's gotten relatively little attention.

Everybody else

• from TIME: California Rep. Eric Swalwell Announces Candidacy for the 2020 Presidential Race. just in case the race wasn't crowded enough for you, eric swalwell decided to become "significant" candidate number 19 in the clowncar of a race that this is. i have no idea what he's running on or what he's angling himself to be, i'm afraid, but i'm sure CBS has it over at the 2020 contenders page.

• from Dissent Magazine: [LONGFORM] Yang Gang Education: If Andrew Yang’s fans are this excited about UBI, imagine how they’ll feel when they learn what socialism can do for them.. this piece is a fairly straightforward critique from the left of andrew yang's UBI proposal and some of the problems that will likely inhibit it from doing what yang wants it to do; however, it's also a general discussion of yang's supporter base and how their support for him is perhaps indicative of receptiveness to more leftist ideas than just UBI.

• from NBC News: Warren targets big business with $1 trillion 'profits' tax. warren has remained mostly on the policy beat so far in her campaign, and this is just the latest of the big sweeping policies she's seeking to sell to the american public. in case you've missed out on her other big policies, see her WaPo op-ed on her proposed Corporate Executive Accountability Act, and her Medium post on her proposed farming policy.

• from Vox: Kirsten Gillibrand used to have moderate positions on immigration and guns. Voters want to know why she’s changed.. kirsten gillibrand is running a pretty sleepy campaign so far, of which this might be the biggest recent headline. she's repositioned herself a bit in the trump era, and she's currently the senator who votes with him least often according to 538, but previously she's been a more moderate voice in congress. people haven't let that slide, and it does suggest her efforts to sell herself as the "resistance" candidate probably aren't helping her campaign much. maybe things will change, but things aren't looking great for her so far.

• from the Huffington Post: Senator Cory Booker Announces He’ll Offer Bill To Study Potential Reparations. cory booker is pushing the reparations litmus test into some form of actual legislative action, signalling that we're probably going to have that become a wedge issue in this primary on top of some of the other stuff. that'll be a fun conversation.

• from the Huffington Post: Amy Klobuchar Says She’s Raised More Than $5.2 Million For Her Presidential Campaign. amy klobuchar's fundraising numbers are about where booker was, so behind beto, sanders, harris, and buttigieg. given where she's polling, that's probably about what you'd expect. there will definitely no shortage of money in this primary.

• finally, from The Atlantic: Mike Gravel’s Plan to Rock the Democratic Primary. those of you who read the first week of this may remember the Buzzfeed News piece on mike gravel's then newly-launched campaign to make the democratic primary stage. he might not make it, but so far it's not for lack of trying--his campaign has 8,000 donors, and the american left is putting a decent amount of weight behind him so far. i think most of us can at least agree it'd be pretty entertaining to see him on stage, so on some level i do hope he makes it.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from In These Times: The Case for Using Ranked Choice Voting in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primaries. this article makes the case for the primaries using ranked choice voting which, to be honest, would probably really help when there are literally going to be like sixteen people in iowa next year (especially given the fact that the democratic party has a 15% popular vote threshold for attaining any delegates in a state). this will definitely not happen this year, but maybe we'll see movement in the future toward something like RCV being used.

• from The Week: The Democratic Party Is Not Going Nuts. It's Coming to Its Senses.. this piece by The Week puts foward the argument that the lurch to the left by the Democratic Party isn't some sort of weird mirroring of the lurch to the right in the GOP, but rather the Democratic Party realizing that centrism isn't really what people want. whether or not that's an accurate assessment, i'll leave to you.

• finally, from The Guardian: Barack Obama is stuck in the past. He represents the old Democratic party. this piece is by bhaskar sunkara, who you may know as one of the figureheads of Jacobin. his case here is mostly that obama's remarks last week about cautioning the party to not become a circular firing squad are motivated more by his desire to continue to hold power within the party than by genuine desire to see the party succeed. again, whether or not that's an accurate assessment, i'll leave to you.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

edit: some minor grammar stuff

I’m trying to organize a series of statements which reflect the primary pressures pushing civilization towards collapse. Ideally, I could be as concise as possible and provide additional resources for understanding and sources in defense of each. Any feedback would be helpful, as I would like to incorporate them into a general guide for better understanding collapse.

​

We are overwhelmingly dependent on finite resources.

Fossil fuels account for 87% of the world’s total energy consumption. 1 2 3

Economic pressures will manifest well before reserves are actually depleted as more energy is required to extract the same amount of resources over time (or as the steepness of the EROEI cliff intensifies). 1 2

​

We are transitioning to renewables very slowly.

Renewables have had an average growth rate of 5.4% over the past decade. 1 2 3 4

Renewables are not taking off any faster than coal or oil once did and there is no technical or financial reason to believe they will rise any quicker, in part because energy demand is soaring globally, making it hard for natural gas, much less renewables, to just keep up. 1

Total world energy consumption increased 15% from 2009 to 2016. New renewables powered less than 30% of the growth in demand during that period. 1

​

Transitioning to renewables too quickly would disrupt the global economy.

A rush to build an new global infrastructure based on renewables would require an enormous amount resources and produce massive amounts of pollution. 1 2

​

Current renewables are ineffective replacements for fossil fuels.

Energy can only be substituted by other energy. Conventional economic thinking on most depletable resources considers substitution possibilities as essentially infinite. But not all joules perform equally. There is a large difference between potential and kinetic energy. Energy properties such as: intermittence, variability, energy density, power density, spatial distribution, energy return on energy invested, scalability, transportability, etc. make energy substitution a complex prospect. The ability of a technology to provide ‘joules’ is different than its ability to contribute to ‘work’ for society. All joules do not contribute equally to human economies. 1 2 3

​

Best-case energy transition scenarios will still result in severe climate change.

Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require both radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon. 1

The speed and scale of transitions and of technological change required to limit warming to 1.5°C has been observed in the past within specific sectors and technologies {4.2.2.1}. But the geographical and economic scales at which the required rates of change in the energy, land, urban, infrastructure and industrial systems would need to take place, are larger and have no documented historic precedent. 1

​

Global economic growth peaked forty years ago.

Global economic growth peaked forty years ago and is projected to settle at 3.7% in 2018. 1 2 3

The increased price of energy, agricultural stress, energy demand, and declining EROEI suggest the energy-surplus economy already peaked in the early 20th century. 1 2

The size of the global economy is still projected to double within the next 25 years. 1

Our institutions and financial systems are based on expectations of continued GDP growth perpetually into the future. Current OECD (2015) forecasts are for more than a tripling of the physical size of the world economy by 2050. No serious government or institution entity forecasts the end of growth this century (at least not publicly). 1

​

Global energy demand is increasing.

Global energy demand has increased 0.5-2% per year from 2011-2017, despite increases in efficiency. 1 2 3

Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use. 1 2 3 4

​

World population is increasing.

World population is growing at a rate of around 1.09% per year (2018, down from 1.12% in 2017 and 1.14% in 2016. The current average population increase is estimated at 83 million people per year. The annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years. 1 2

​

Our supplies of food and water are diminishing.

Global crop yields are expected to fall by 10% on average over the next 30 years as a result of land degradation and climate change. 1

An estimated 38% of the world’s cropland has been degraded or reduced water and nutrient availability. 1 2

Two-thirds of the world (4.0 billion people) lives under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month per year. 1

​

Climate change is rapidly destabilizing our environment.

An overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree humans are the primary cause of climate change. 1

A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of climate change in each of its four major reports released since 1990. 1

15,000 scientists, the most to ever cosign and formally support a published journal article, recently called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and cautioned that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.” 1

Emissions are still rising globally and far from enabling us to stay under two degrees of global average warming. 1 2

​

Climate feedback loops could exponentially accelerate climate change.

In addition to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, many disrupted systems can trigger various positive or negative feedbacks within the larger system. 1 2 3 4 5

​

Biodiversity is falling rapidly.

The current species extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the natural background rate. 1 2

World wildlife populations have declined by an average 58% in the past four decades. 1

​

The marginal utility of societal complexity is declining.

Civilization solves problems via increased societal complexity (e.g. specialization, political organization, technology, economic relationships). However, each increase in complexity has a declining marginal utility to overall society, until it eventually becomes negative. At such a point, complexity would decrease and a process of collapse or decline would begin, since it becomes more useful to decrease societal complexity than it would be to increase it. 1 2 3

In the past, I used to find something like twelve new bands a month that I loved; then I'd go through bands they'd tour with and pick up a few bands from that, bands that were on whatever compilations they were on (think the old Fat Wreck comps that used to come out a few times a year), and however else.

Nowadays, it's more like twenty-four new bands a year that I find myself enjoying. It's so frustrating, because there's no shortage of new music coming out! I just...can't get myself to like much of it.

Any of you guys experiencing something similar?

An agreement on Friday June 22nd caused oil prices to increase by the largest one-day jump since OPEC agreed to reduce output at the start of 2017. At the beginning of 2017 OPEC and 10 other oil-producing countries agreed to reduce their combined output by 1.8 million barrels a day, roughly 2% of global output. The 2017 deal was a reaction to the massive over-supply that brought prices down significantly since late 2014 when Saudi Arabia led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to allow market prices to dictate their output. While the 2017 deal called for a reduction of only 1.8 million barrels a day, many countries reduced output even further resulting in 150% compliance of the planned quotas, or nearly 3 million fewer barrels of oil a day. Some members of OPEC had faced unexpected production outages whereas others simply chose to withhold their stockpile but the result was the same: oil prices were rising and global stockpiles were being used up to avoid a dangerous price spike.

The new agreement, taking effect in early July, aims to reign in the over-compliance of the 2017 deal and add more barrels of oil to the global market by returning to 100% compliance. To go from 150% compliance to 100% compliance, roughly 1 million barrels a day of crude oil would be added to the global market. However, some producers may be unable to increase their output for various reasons resulting in an expected increase of only 600,000 barrels a day. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak claims the $80 a barrel threshold hit in May of 2018 reflects the global inventory of surplus crude oil being reduced to a point where the oil market can rebalance itself. Saudi Arabia's Oil minister Khalid al-Falih promises his country will increase oil sales gradually starting in July. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh had reservations about any deal because economic sanctions from the US put them in a position whereby the increased output of others may take over Iran’s market share. Oil producing countries have to weigh the risk that big consumers may invest in renewables as well as produce their own oil, when available, if prices rise too quickly.

Leading up to this decision, the price of oil steadily fell from the $80 tipping point in late May with the expectation that OPEC and affiliated oil-producing countries would flood the
market similar to the 2014 decision. While supply will increase due to this new deal it is a far cry from the amount many investors had feared - and consumers had hoped for - therefore the price of crude saw a 3% increase due to the news instead of decreasing further. The month-long anticipation of increased supply lowered the price of crude oil but the end-result of the deal caused a market correction as speculation was replaced by the true figure. While the agreed-upon figure is an additional 1 million barrels a day, the expectation is that only 600,000 barrels will be added a day however some countries wish to produce an even greater amount of oil to take advantage of the high prices while they last. Such an over-correction could still happen in the coming weeks leading to a drop in oil prices but investors believe their fears of another 2014 crash is averted.

Without this boost to supply, OPEC feared prices could spike to surpass $100 a barrel which would drastically reduce global demand and severely cut into the profit of oil-producing
countries who rely on the revenue from companies exporting oil. Many worried the supply increase would cause American oil prices to drop below $30 a barrel again, which caused
massive unemployment in the industry and a huge loss of revenue. From 2014 to 2016, as much as $4 billion in American employee wages was lost in the oil industry.

Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have the ability to produce oil at a far lower opportunity cost than most other countries, giving them a comparative advantage in the global oil
market. During the 2014-2016 period of oil surplus that brought US prices below $30 a barrel, American producers had to develop the technology to continue production despite the nearly 200,000 oil workers who lost their jobs in the shale industry. US producers made good on that pressure and were able to maintain production gains through more efficient extraction and refining methods. The relatively loose regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, provided a much needed advantage to US producers who were able to leverage that technology and avoid Saudi Arabia's attempt in 2014 to shut small firms out of the market.

Avoiding a spike in oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel is beneficial to producers and consumers as demand would quickly plummet despite the short-term gains by companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp as well as countries such as Russia hoping to capitalize on the high prices. Spikes in oil prices turn consumers away from their unhealthy dependence on oil in favor of renewables and alternatives to plastics; invites pressure from big consumers such as the United States who aren’t afraid of imposing reactionary economic sanctions; and benefits countries such as Russia whose major exports are oil. Massive increases in supply have the effect of hurting the governments who rely heavily on high oil prices to make their profit as well as hurting the small oil producers that struggle to produce efficiently when oil prices drop. With oil prices rising by over 40% since early 2017 due to geopolitical risks to supply causing unexpected shortages and the increasing demand matching increased economic growth, the global oil supply needed a moderate boost.

The United States exported a record high of 3 million barrels a day during the week of the Friday June 22nd deal - producing 10.9 million barrels a day. Progressing from exporting no oil to exporting more oil than all but three OPEC countries pump out of the earth is not solely the result of US efficiency - some analysts say a portion of the record-breaking exports was sourced from US stockpiles. Maintaining this level of oil exporting is not only unsustainable, it is hitting US consumers in the wallet at a time where oil prices are on the risk of surging to a new high for 2018 - perhaps even surpassing the triple digits per barrel. This may be viewed as the United States attempting to force smaller members of OPEC and most non-OPEC producers out of the world market for oil as this export record comes at a time when most countries have finally expended the last dregs of their stockpiles. Countries that can afford to increase output considerably include the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia - and the former two appear very eager to commit to flooding the market without a care for the resulting over-corrections of the market which would send the pendulum of oil prices swinging back and forth causing international uncertainty especially for countries heavily dependent on the oil industry.

Sources

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/27/us-oil-exports-boom-to-record-level-surpassing-most-opec-nations.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-meeting-starts-amid-detente-between-saudi-iran-1529661983?mod=hp_lead_pos3

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/12/05/heres-what-oil-did-the-last-timeopec-cut-production/#6007220b38b3

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/worldbusiness/18opec.html

https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/

https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CO1:COM

http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/historical-prices/oilprice/usd/1.1.2013_30.12.2017?type=wti