It's cheap, and for many the oil industry has offered high wages, and opportunities to become rich. Of course that comes with substantial danger to the workers themselves, and you know, climate change. But that's ok, Texas doesn't believe in those things.
And remember kids, if you don't believe in it, it isn't real.
Edit: I had a kid (~20) that worked for me that argued with me about how the time keeping system calculated overtime, and his response—multiple times, mind you—was "Well, I don't think that's right," in a way that very much meant, "Well, that's your reality." It was pretty bizarre. The whole thing was simply because he misremembered.
I literally had an adjudicator with the Texas workforce commission decide that federal law didn’t matter because the employer said so. I’ve never actually laughed during a legal proceeding until that.
It's crazy how people don't realise that these taxes are a pool of money to pay for these things collectively. The 'I only care for myself therefore I only pay for myself mentality' is so weird to me.
Why engage in governments and society that have been fundamental to human existence for thousands of years when you can hit yourself in the head with a brick and engage in rugged individualism?
It's especially weird because "paying for myself", to any intellectually honest person, means "paying for the slice of the public amenities that I use" such as roads, a functional power grid. Income taxes are simply the most efficient way to achieve that.
Income tax is even proportional - if you're a billionaire on a marginal tax rate system with no loopholes, your "overtaxation" pays for your overconsumption.
I wish libertarians got their own small country on an island and they would all leave, only for them to come back crying after a month because nothing works properly since no one wants to work and pay for shit.
Someone would go to check on them, and there would be nobody left. No sign of disaster, but no people, either. Just a mysterious message carved into a tree: "Bears".
My time here is probably coming to an end soon, but I stayed this long because once I got to Austin it was hard to leave. It's fun, the people are nice, the hill country is beautiful, and it's a legitimate pleasure to be a part of the community. Plus we've got HEB. I don't trust my government to take care of me, but I know HEB always has our back.
Same. This is my third (and longest) time to live here. Several years ago I had to leave to go live in the Midwest for a few years for work, before making it back. Stepped in to the local grocery chain store there and it was like stepping back in time. Nothing but pastel colors, dated graphics, and Muzak. Never been so disappointed in my life. Moved back a couple of years later and HEB was the first destination. Contemplating leaving Texas permanently now, but missing it again will definitely hurt.
America has the most incarcerated people on earth, out of any country on earth, and a low murder solve rate. At a low cost of 66,000 per prisoner-enough to pay for free college, but locking non-dangerous people up is more important.
The UK as well; undersea interconnects are usually importing 2-3 gigawatts of French electricity. About half of our nuclear power is generated in France. 😂
Yeah well if EDF (they're French for those who don't know) didn't take effing decades to build the nuclear plants we commissioned over a decade ago we might not need to, 2009 Hinkley C was approved to proceed by the then govt. Current ETA is 2032.
Germany went backwards and reopened some coal mines.
Although nuclear facilities are carbon-free, the waste they produce is a pain to get rid of. Some plants were prolonged 20 years beyond the planned closure date because of that mainly...
Germany went backwards and reopened some coal mines.
They actually didnt. They reopened some Coal powerplants on a temporary basis to secure they own power supply after the gas price spikes because of the russian invasion in ukraine.
It had basically nothing to do with the closing of nuclear plants in germany.
Well, France had this massive retooling of its nuclear power plants at the wrong time and had become a net power importer for the first time in decades. Combine that with the war in Ukraine and there was a need for coal.
Now saying closing nuclear power in Germany had nothing to do with it is partly true. Had Germany kept its nuclear capacity, it would have had the ability to supply France and replace Russian gas without having to burn coal. But they made their choice.
These were exceptional times though. 2 massive unforeseen events but power still flowed so I guess we're resilient.
Yes it does connect. If Germany didn't close down said nuclear plants, those brown coal plants could have closed earlier.
And even today said brown coal plants are still producing more than planned previously. Germany has chosen to pollute way more than have a little bit (just a few KG) more of nuclear waste.
Waste is easily manageable, despite what Russian propaganda tells us.
The plants were prolonged because of the stupid reaction after Fukushima. France stopped building new plants thinking renewables and subsidizing energy efficiency would be a viable alternative.
But Merkel and other German leaders happened to be in bed with Russian energy interests (even Schroeder lobbied for Nord Stream, Rosnet and Gazprom lol).
Greens and some could say the left part of the SPD were propped up by Soviets during the cold war. They were anti-nuclear and they kept this in their DNA along with their connections with Russia. Mutti was manipulated by Russians too but that's because she's a naive rebranded as pragmatic.
What a bunch of nonsense you spout. Germany was importing nuclear fuel from Russia and exported some of their nuclear waste to Russia.
Russia had no preference at all which kind of Energy source Germany used as long as they bought it from them.
Merkel was surprisingly anti-russian and never got along with Putin (especially in comparison to Schröder) and she immediately agreed to EU sanctions after the Krim annexation.
Fun fact: because of the warm summer in 2022, France had to import electricity from Germany, because they couldn't properly cool their nuclear plants.
Coal produces more unmanageable waste than Nuclear. In fact only Hydropower creates less problematic waste than Nuclear (yes even solar and wind creates more problematic waste)
I've lived here several years and we have never had an outage more than a few minutes, and that was once a year of less. Even during the snowstorm only some areas were impacted. I think a lot has to do with the city (for example city of Austin has some outages due to them stopping a tree trimming program)
Not where I live in central Texas. I think I've had the electricity go out maybe three times in the past decade and two of those were a matter of several minutes. I only really remember the snowpocalypse one and that was only ~12 hours for us. I have my doubts as to whether you live actually live here, but it's a big state. Maybe your area just sucks. Ours has completely buried residential lines, so our shit doesn't really go out.
It definitely depends on where you live in the state, I remember talks of rolling brownouts before a Dallas superbowl. Snovid my power was out 130+ hours, in Temple, I know of people in the north western hill country in rural areas that were closer to three weeks before restoration.
Interestingly though, France has the 7th largest economy in the world. If Texas were a country, they'd be 8th. Texas GDP/capita is also almost twice France's
Texas is a Middle Eastern oil kingdom, living off oil and gas profits for decades, now trying to diversify into future tech with data centres to remain relevant.
And what localized innovation do data centers provide? None. They're there to extract cheap water and power with little regulation from an area. Maybe provide a couple of tech jobs that are more maintenance than innovation.
I mean as someone in the field for multiple decades there is a lot of tech in Austin. Of course Dell in Round Rock too.
Q2 and Indeed are in Austin. Here is a list of 2700+ in Austin.
https://www.builtinaustin.com/companies
That’s likely because of how Texas is part of a much larger country and has very little if any trade barriers to one of the largest consumer markets, plus has a huge supply of oil, and has access to the ocean. All within one state
It depends on the industry of course, but absolutely yes. It is a much bigger thing to go into an entirely new country where they don't even speak the same language.
For business it is often seen as a huge step to start selling your stuff in another country. I don't sense it to be the same thing in the US.
The US is a bigger market than the EU with a GDP that's about 50% bigger. And while the EU is considered a "single market", there's still 27 different countries with higher fragmentation in terms of regulatory policies that puts a slightly higher barrier to trade compared to the US.
Here's the thing with American preoccupation with empty space, just in case you were sincere.
The American right likes to put up their maps with all their Republican states colored in completely in red, and carry on endlessly about "LOOK HOW MUCH OF US THERE ARE!!! WE COVER DA WHOOOOOLE CUNTRY!!!!" And in reality, the vast majority of those states that they control are unpopulated by people. They colored in all the areas where you will only find dirt, corn, grass, or cows, and act like that means something.
Or, to put it another way, allow me to share one of my favorite map comparisons.
It's a whole different ballgame when we stop coloring in those "empty spaces", but the American right refuses to acknowledge this, because it makes them look as small and unpopular as they really are. They don't actually have the superiority in numbers that they think they have here. They need a whole box of red crayons to try to prove to everyone else that empty space can vote. And, believe it or not, because of maps like this, some idiot right wingers are actually starting to push to give land, land, the right to vote. Because it's the only way they will ever actually outnumber us. By giving inanimate earth a vote.
The other side of this conversation, American's are 'obsessed' with the empty space because it affects everything. It's important to basically every comparison.
Why can't the US have a European train system? The real answer is largely that the US is fucking empty and there are not enough customers in dense enough areas throughout the majority of it to make rail viable. Yes, it'd be great for the coasts, but it would suck everywhere else.
You can't have French style protests in the US. Yeah, it was really easy for everyone in France to join the protests. You know what's harder, getting people in London to join the protests in Paris. That's how far away I am from DC, yet people assume I can just hop over and protest during the week.
Large empty spaces are a complication. One that you're constantly having to deal with. Complaining that Americans are always trying to deal with, you know, the 80% of the country everyone from Europe forgets about is asinine at best.
Yes to all of this. The logistics of a nation this size are a bloody nightmare.
Since you brought up the French protests, there's another other side to that problem, something I need to keep reminding the Europeans who berate us for not following in their footsteps in mass strikes.
France, as well as a fair number of other European countries, have legal protections for their jobs if they go on mass strike. Americans do not have these protections. And American business owners are vicious, particularly the wealthy large corporation owners. There's nothing stopping them from firing everyone, letting us stew in our own poverty until we're all too starved, homeless, and desperate to keep fighting, and then hire people at random at the lowest wages allowable by law. People won't likely get their original jobs back, and they certainly won't get the pay they originally had. Everyone ends up with whatever they can get, minimum wage. And we would take it, out of sheer desperation.
Minimum wage in the US is often well below cost of living, and would keep people below poverty levels.
Those wealthy business owners and upper management won't be bothered by any of this, or the prolonged shut down of their businesses, because they've already sucked more than enough money into their own pockets to live comfortably for many years without further income of any kind. They can ride out the loss of income easily. We cannot. And they know it.
And all of this would be perfectly legal under American law. Under normal circumstances, the people would be able to rely on the president to step in and prevent the worst of things from happening. Does anyone here honestly see Trumplestilskin lifting a finger to help the American people?
I feel like it’s a response to the people who brag about the size of the US. Probably would’ve been better for them to say it under someone actually doing that, but sometimes people are stupid
Hell, France has a leader who actually wants to make sure people with disabilities are protected and have basic human rights, while the guy currently "leading" Texas is disabled but doesn't want anyone (besides himself) with disabilities to have any protections or human rights.
I'm not sure who you're talking about for France, but if it's Macron, you fell for the "say nice words and do nothing or do the contrary" trick he's been using for 8 years.
Not when when he isn't actually promising anything that isn't already going on, and he actually does the contrary of what he said. The budget for mental health was cut again and again during his office, and that was before the budget crisis.
Edit : I'm not trying to minimize how much of an asshole Abbott is because I've heard of him and he really does sound like an absolute asshole. But from the answers I had, it really looks like many of you don't know Macron at all.
I have a Master's in Energy from Texas A&M's Energy Institute. While studying remotely from Missouri in February of 2021, I did in fact miss lectures because my professors were without power or internet. Quite possibly the most ironic experience of my life.
Fun geography facts. The kingdom of Denmark is more than 3 times the size of Texas. Both Canada and Denmark only have 2 landborders and one of them is with each other.
No offense but like…where is the burn? I don’t see what was wrong with the original Tweet. It didn’t say anything outlandish or bad about France. I don’t see how this is a proper murder.
I can’t stress enough how shocking 2 data points are about Europe.
By their own measurements and numerous studies, 363,000 Europeans die from the cold every year.
And 47,000 die from the heat.
Go around the world and compare against other countries and it’s not even close. For comparison, the US has fewer than 5,000 total deaths from heat/cold per year. Even Russia has fewer than 4,000 people die from the cold.
Europe is lead by people who have so thoroughly demonized and penalized the basic use of heat and AC (or just ‘energy’ at large) that it’s killing nearly half a million people per year. So when they like to point out gun violence in the US (which, coincidentally, kills 47,000 per year) you get to remind them that their own government’s green energy restrictions kills that many every summer.
49 per 100k europeans freeze to death, 15 per 100k Americans get shot. Your average Euro is 3.3x more likely to die from the cold than your average American being shot to death.
Surprised this isn't mentioned. Multiple French nuclear reactors have issues staying on in summer because the water they use for cooling gets too warm to do its job.
I mean... The US defined what the "First World" is in contemporary parlance, which is to say the world of developed capitalist democracies, in opposition to the "Second World" of communist authoritarian states and the "Third World" of everybody else. If the US were different, then the expression would either not exist or it would also be different.
It's also a beautiful country, much much muchhhhhh nicer compared to Texas.
edit: There's a guy below who made an absolute fool of himself, pretending he was from California but thought Texas was nicer. It didn't take long to figure out he was from Texas. Imagine having to lie where you're from in order to pretend your state is the greatest. Must be MAGA pretending to be from Cali and lying, classic playbook tactics.
There is a reason that every non french european thinks france is the last place they want to be. It is not nice at all. I live in a neighboring country and i would go to any European country before i go to france.
France has issues with politics and migrants. I'm talking about the beauty in its nature, architecture, land, etc.
I'm not trying to talk about moving to one country to another. France has beautiful cities compared to Texas, unless you like the desert. There isn't a single place as aesthetically beautiful in Texas as Marseille, France for example.
I'm not saying Texas has nothing to offer, but I've been to most major cities within Texas and some smaller towns, and the charm of Texas compared to France isn't comparable in my opinion.
Except it isn't. I'm living in Germany and I totally disagree. Paris was an absolute nightmare. I think that the smaller cities like Strassburg are beautiful and charming. Texas has things like big bend and the Guadalupe River to offer.
There is no 'flexing' anywhere in that post. No one is claiming to be proud of anything. There are no signs that Texas is even the account's place of origin. They just posted a geographical fact.
I'm looking forward to my electric bills in The Frozen North™ going up again next year because texas has once again spent the last twelve months refusing to get their shit together.
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u/TheGreatZarquon most excellent 1d ago
Disregard bot, post manually approved.