I agree, the axiom of choice disincentives us from striving for more elegant solutions.
That said, the axiom of choice is always available in Gödel's sandbox of "constructible sets", and by "Shoenfield absoluteness", some results can escape the sandbox.
For instance, the result that every vector space has a basis is equivalent to the axiom of choice. We have it in Gödel's sandbox and we don't have it outside, if we prefer to not use the axiom of choice in our meta theory. But every purely number-theoretic consequence of that result flows from the sandbox to the ambient universe.
In this sense, the axiom of choice can be regarded as a useful fiction. Not necessarily true in a literal sense, but true enough for many purposes.
> Amusingly just an hour ago I did a variation of 'pasta with sauce' what would be heart-attack inducing to anyone snobby enough about Italian cuisine: two big onions, chopped, steamed, fried, a bit of soy sauce, leftovers from a veg salad, harissa, tomato paste.
Just declare it as "Indian", "Phillipino" or something other south-Asian and it will be fine. There is a huge variety of cuisines there and there are less self-proclaimed experts on them in the western world.
Some parts of the market need to be killed, and quickly. Wasteful economy is killing the planet, and we need to dial down the produce-buy-throwaway-buy cycle.
There are standards for sizes of screws, washers, motors, cables, plugs, sockets, ...
Just create a bunch more of those standards, e.g. for batteries, legislate their use, done. As a side effect, products become cheaper because parts will then be available off-the-shelf at economy-of-scale prices, and supply problems also become less likely because there will be numerous vendors for each part.
However, there will be two problems: some things, like cases and special moldings are hard to standardize. So I would suggest legislating that 3D-printing instructions (STL, material, finishing steps) be made available as soon as the part itself is unavailable or too expensive. And very innovative parts should be exempt for the first few years, provided they are measurably and provably better than the standardized equivalents and that a new standard is being created from them.
> There are standards for sizes of screws, washers, motors, cables, plugs, sockets, ...
Looking at my iFixit screwdriver bit set for electronics, which sports some 60+ bits and still doesn't cover everything I happen upon, I'm thinking the standards are being less than helpful here. I mean, it's good to have them, but it would be better to have way fewer equivalent options.
Social interaction is not synonymous with the office. Adults can choose to socially interact with any group (family, friends, shared interests) that they want to.
In theory kids can do the same too, but in practice, you'd need some set of adults to get all those kids into the same place somehow, another set of adults to supervise them so they are safe etc... at which point it becomes more efficient to combine this with schooling.
Also with working adults, there is an explicit expectation of delivery. Both the employer and the employee knows of the consequences for performance or non-performance, and part of being an adult is that you are aware of those consequences and choose to behave accordingly. With kids, such expectations aren't realistic.
> > The worst part is nobody in charge really cares.
> _Much_ of government spending I've seen in recent years has been towards climate.
Much of the spending of a few western governments.
The majority of the world's governments do nothing except maybe wait for their "climate justice" handouts. And of course, as soon as the first-world nations have ended their dependence on oil and gas, both will get cheaper. So the rest of the world will "pick up the slack" and consume all the rest of the available fossil fuels, because they are getting real cheap now. Far cheaper than any renewable energy sources can ever hope to be since oil/gas-producing nations have to keep the good times (and the buck) rolling, in their own interest (or at least the interest of their ruling class).
What we do need is rather a closure of the world's oil/gas fields and coal mines, in the rather short term, by agreement of the respective governments or by changing those governments until they agree. Yes, this will be ugly.
But anything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
That's certainly a hypothesis. Definitely not guaranteed. The counterargument would likely be that renewables will be cheaper as a result of technological advancements, so other countries _will_ prefer them.
Also, your hypothesis largely hangs on the fact that oil will become cheaper. But: oil becoming cheaper means _it's making less money_. So oil producing countries would start to lose interest in it. Unless they make countries dependent on it, and then they can start increasing prices/profit! But: then the other countries will start looking for other sources, like renewables.
Furthermore: although the act of oil production itself _does_ cause co2 emissions, the resulting oil isn't all converted to co2. Some go to producing materials like plastics. Vs like fuel in a plane, which will get "directly" converted to co 2. So even if countries reduce their dependence on oil for fuel, there is still a potential market in things like plastics.
In short: the problem is complicated and murky. I am very much not an expert, but there are a ton of variables at play. It's easy to say "everyone sucks no one is doing anything" or "it's hopeless the only way forward is to take immediate drastic action to optimise for one isolated variable ignoring all the others". But I just don't think that's the reality or the best approach. But again: I am not an expert!
There are flat-ish contact surfaces on the bottom of the module that are compressed by a bracket onto the corresponding contact surfaces of the motherboard.
The EU isn't democratic in that basically every official function is only through multiple indirections dependent on the voters. So the will of the people and the sovereignty of the voters is diluted through a multitude of political backroom deals that are anything but democratic. Just look at how von der Leyen came to her job.
Back in the day, when there was still a communist bloc, this kind of system, a "soviet republic" consisting of a hierarchy of workers councils was the usual example for how you can have elections but not have democracy. Because the hierarchy of councils will dilute any kind of will and sovereignty of the people into the will of the political upper class.
"metal" is too unspecific. You usually want stainless steel, preferrably CrNiMo steel (V4A, 1.4401 or similar).
Aluminium bottles are always coated with plastic in the factory, which flakes off and usually isn't really better than plastic-bottle-plastic, sometimes even worse (containing PTFE, BPA, ...). As soon as the coating is gone, aluminium will dissolve in the water, and aluminium salts are known to be "not good", in addition to the influence on taste. Same for copper, in addition to the hassle to keep copper clean. Steel bottles are better because proper kitchen-quality stainless steel (the one with Molybdenum in it, in addition to Chromium and Nickel) doesn't leech out into common drinks (including salty hot broth, which would stain CrNi steel) and doesn't need inner coating.
I'd be stronger than that. The soft plastic inside an Aluminum bottle is always worse than a plastic bottle. Even if it's not PTFE or BPA, it's less durable than the hard plastic bottles. And the neurological effects of aluminum are well known.
Given that almost all metal bottles are coated aluminum, the vast majority of "metal water bottle only" parents are doing more harm than good IMO.
Is there anything against glass containers? I'm debating what to use for medium/long term storage (replacing the contents) and indeed I'm wary of metal coatings.
Glass is usually harmless, if you don't use lead or uranium glass. But breakage will lead to harmful shards, which is why many locations such as some schools or party places ban glass bottles.
For storage, use glass bottles. The material of the seal is usually not a problem if there is no contact to the liquid and the seal doesn't crumble. When reusing bottles, make sure to only use fresh or at least good-looking caps. And sterilize things properly (taking into account what the seal is suitable for), because mold and bacteria are far more harmful than common metal or plastic contamination.
Cork is oak, which is carcinogenic (in different amounts in different parts of the plant). Of course for some things one doesn't usually care about that because drinks such as wine are also stored in carcinogenic oak barrels and contain carcinogenic ethanol among other harmful things, so it doesn't really matter.
Also, corks promote microbiological contamination of various kinds, leading to e.g. the common failings in wine (there is actually a multitude of "cork" faults, not just one): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fault
I'd prefer any metal or plastic to cork actually. Just because it is "natural" or "traditional" doesn't make it any good.
Also, politicians can get more and more creative at excessive spending, at some point even outspending any kind of economic growth. And even if they don't outspend, at some point inflation comes along and kicks things over the edge.
