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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 1st, 2023

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  • I don’t think being interested in the (ancestors’) race of a co-worker is necessary racist. I worked with people with all kinds of cultural backgrounds and it might be just an interesting topic to talk about. If someone has family in Iran, Senegal or Indonesia that’s definitely more interesting to me than a conversation about weather or last night’s football game.





  • I think that question is hard to answer as there are very few topics of everyday life that aren’t at least remotely political.

    Big cars, weapons, traditional family models (e.g. stay at home moms), focussing on traditional industries such as petrol than new technology such as solar etc. are all typical conservative topics. I mean conservative already implies with its name that you want to conserve the ‘as is’.

    Contrarily, progressive and liberal people will be more open to changes and trying new things: food, new ways of transportation, new business models, other family concepts.







  • I quickly googled some numbers, so no guarantee for 100% correctness.

    Desalination uses about 3.6kWh/m3 of water. A generator can produce around 1.5kWh/litre of fuel. 500,000 litres of fuel would result in 750,000 kWh. 750,000 kWh would result in 208,333 m3 or 208,333,000 litres of water. That theoretically would allow you to create around 200 litres per person if you use the entire amount of fuel on water desalination.

    But this calculation only works in a hypothetical scenario and not in a real life scenario. Distribution of the water to all the people will require a lot of energy as well, e.g. for tank trucks. And I think in an active war zone you probably won’t find world class logistics.

    Furthermore, you also need fuel and electricity for other critical infrastructure: firetrucks, hospitals, phones, cooking, …




  • I think it’s always about absolutes in the end. If a vegan drives by car 100000 miles and takes several flights a year that’s definitely worse than an omnivore staying at home all day. Ideally, you stay at or around home AND be a vegan AND only buy second hand AND avoid electronics etc.

    If you are interested in how your personal lifestyle ranks against the average, just google for CO2 footprint calculator. If you want to do a good one, it will take at least 30 minutes as you have to answer quite some questions. This will give you not only an indication of where you are right now but also in which areas you have most room for improvement.

    I think if everyone seriously tries their best and actually tried to improve their lifestyle it would have an immense impact. Unfortunately, most people seem to just blame “the industry” or “the politicians”. Of couse, they also play a role but we’ll never get a better world overall, if people aren’t willing to cut back on their lifestyle. And cutting back involves many many aspects. Veganism ist just one of them.


  • I also don’t understand the comparison to piracy but I think being a vegetarian is definitely more ethical than being an omnivore as long as you don’t overcompensate meat with other animal products. If you stop eating chicken and in exchange start to eat an additional 3 eggs a day, that’s probably worse for animals and nature.

    If you just cut back on meat and replace it with vegan alternatives while eating the same amount of cheese, eggs etc. as before it DOES have a positive impact and we should appeciate one’s efforts.

    Hell, even flexitarians have a positive impact. Right now, there’s around 90% omnivores worldwide. If all these omnivores reduced their consumption of animal products by let’s say 20%, it would have a far bigger impact than another 2% going full blown vegan.

    Furthermore, it can be tough to go vegan all of a sudden. It takes time to change your diet, learn about healthy protein sources, essential nutrients and stuff. Going flexitarian first, then vegetarian and potentially vegan allows you to take one step at a time.

    Also being vegan is not where it ends in terms of caring for the environment. You can keep reducing your personal footprint indefinitely. No more flights, no car, less electricity, less shopping. Everything helps. And everyone should try to contribute in the way that feels the most manageable for your personal circumstances.