I personally love to talk about politics and the like passionately and without grudges, certainly no apology needed for me.
I considered myself a liberal throughout my youth but the seeming shift to the far left to the point of embracing socialist and communist ideals has been a turn off. It's not like the Democrats are even making progress on any of the things I expect would fall in their wheelhouse so to speak. In particular they've failed to address police qualified immunity or civil asset forfeiture and won't seriously discuss meaningful drug law reform. Republicans seem to be a bullwark for free speech and gun rights, two issues I feel are of life and death importance, that's not enough for them to get my vote over a third party most of the time but it's enough for me to consider their candidate. I'm mostly just scared of the one-sided establishment media in favor of the Dems and the social media censorship clearly targeted much more heavily at Repubs, it's a recipe for societal disaster.
The covid virus leaking from a lab in Wuhan seems to be incredibly likely at this point. That lab was doing research on bat coronavirus' that was intentionally making them more contagious to humans, some of that research was even being funded by the US. China has done everything in its power to stop an investigation and any opportunity to prove the origin beyond a reasonable doubt has probably passed. IMO common sense strongly suggests that the most likely origin is the Wuhan Lab, what are the odds that a rather abnormal coronavirus just pops up in the city that was doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?
China doesn't think a war with the US will impoverish their country, they believe it will propel them to the top of the global power structure, and if they win they would be likely be correct in that assumption. I think the only hope to avoid war is to pound our chest, stand our ground and show that belligerence towards us or our allies will not be tolerated. I simply can't understate this, for the first time in decades we have a peer state competitor and they've already been fighting a soft was against us for decades, they and nations aligned with them all have their own regional goals that they could accomplish with the use of force and the only way they can use force without being destroyed is by working together to stretch their enemies (us and our allies) resources thin. You'd think the fact that they're committing genocide and using mass forced labor would be enough to warrant a little more seriousness, maybe work more quickly towards economic disengagement.
I believe China does have a five thousand years of history for much of which they were the largest and most powerful country in the world, and they look at the last 200 years as a brief moment of turmoil in a long history of also believing in their leaders, most times without choice of course. The leaders really think the current "Chinese Way" is for the best. I do not understand their brutal racist policies and they should have to answer for their atrocities. I think their relentless capitalism will curb their longing for world domination. I kind of think in certain ways they already do!
I believe the virus popped up in a city market that sold wild animal meat, this is a region where folks eat bat meat, which means they must go out a capture the bats, the bats carry many unique viruses, they bite when captured, the bat harvester takes his bat meat to the city wild animal meat market along with the virus.
Eating the meat or being exposed to blood & fluids would have nothing to do with the transmission of the a respiratory virus, living breathing things being in confined spaces is the risk for this type of virus. More often than not when a zoonotic virus jumps to humans it can only infect the person it initially jumped to and stops there, when it is able to jump human to human it typically does so inefficiently and so dies out before doing much harm. I've heard experts argue that it is unlikely that a zoonotic virus jumped to humans in such a form that it would be so contagious between humans, they argue a virus typically wouldn't become that infectious until it floats around in the human population awhile at which point it's likely to have also become more benign. I'm no expert in any of these fields but I'm well read in general and after listening to/reading different points of view it seems very likely it was an artificially evolved virus leaked from that lab. But of course, any concrete proof at this point is extremely unlikely and anyone who worked at that lab and had knowledge of what happened has been brought in close with the power at be or has been disposed of.
The current Chinese government has never been capitalist or anything very close to it, certainly not displaying "relentless capitalism". They began to adopt some free market principals for awhile and the result was an explosion in wealth and prosperity and a dramatic decline in poverty, if they had stayed on that path they would have already surpassed the US in many ways. China is still very much communist, there's no private property and the state ultimately controls all business and industry, much of it is controlled directly by the party. They've been moving more and more back towards more pure communist principals since Xi took power. Capitalism is simply economic freedom, it's what has virtually wiped out extreme poverty and starvation while making the snowballing technological advancement of the past couple centuries possible. Look at the global per capita wealth chart, it was stagnant for millennia then exploded, and that's despite fixed land & resources and an exponentially growing population. That being said capitalism, much like democracy, is only as good as the people partaking in it.
Of course I understand China is "communist" in that this is what they call their governing body, what they actually have is not communism, today it is a autocratic dictatorship and one ruling party with an centralized economy controlled by that dictatorship/party, controlling the economy and and nearly every other aspect of society which has lifted millions out of poverty but there are still millions of very poor there.. I meant that China has had that type of system [whether it was an Emperor or Mao]of governing for most of their history, they have never really had a free society for very long period of time, and the ruling class believes this is the best way to run a society. I was also trying to say China participates in the capitalist world economy, and are very aggressive about it, not that China is capitalist they are not even communist. I know they are not the good guys, and I think if they trusted their people it could be a much better place.
I'll concede that the world economy can be described as capitalist and that China has never had a very free society, certainly not in recent history. They have learned how to prey on that world economy and exploit it to their benefit, by all means bravo to them and shame on us. For capitalism to function well it requires genuine competition, a massive controlled economy with state-owned enterprises having low or no barrier trade with the market economies throws a wrench into the whole system.
I'd also agree that if China was to continue to move in the direction of more freedom for its people it'd be good for the world, unfortunately things are heading in the opposite direction at an increasing pace. I just hope no more free democratic societies are destroyed and/or absorbed by them.
I watched an interesting report on the YouTube channel "The B1-M" about the renovation of the Battersea Power Station in London. [The one on the cover of the Pink Floyd Album]. It made think of our Ekert Station and the possibilities for a smaller scale version of London's project. The smokestacks are iconic for London as ours's for Lansing, let's do something great on the banks of the Grand, as they did on the banks of the Thames!
I'd love to see something done that maintains the smoke stacks and repurposes that building, but I sadly don't think any developer would be interested. Architecturally, the only interesting part is the original plant that has been built over throughout the years and didnt include those 1980s smoke stacks. The cost of maintaining something like that would be costly. It's a whole lot of space that would be hard to fill and have little demand in a weird location.
Like I said, I'd love to see something done with it when it goes off line, but I just think it would be a long shot.
That's a truly impressive project, I remember hearing about some years ago and it's nice to see it come to fruition. That being said I don't think the Eckert plant makes a good site for residential or even office space. Due to the isolated site I think it makes more sense as a destination type project, the city has talked about an entertainment complex in vague terms.
I continue to be a fan of converting it into a resort style indoor waterpark, with other entertainment options of course. I've had this SketchUp model on my computer for years without ever making much progress on it, still it shows the (very) general idea: The older short section nearer the river preserved and restored with the taller portion of the plant carved into hotel space on the upper floors with a winter garden-like glassed in indoor waterpark wrapping around the smokestacks:
I could see a recreation facility, how about a glass elevator to the top of the stacks, maybe some sort of restaurant and observation deck in the sky up there! The site is not that isolated, there is a two-lane bridge, and I could see GM perhaps allowing public traffic on the street that leads around to the west side of the plant if there were to be housing, or offices there. One thing I would not like to see is the whole building stand there vacant with all the electric rigging and water-cooling and stack collection towers left to fall apart.
My discussions with an Electrical Engineer in power distribution ensured that it will be razed if it's not reused in some fashion. Guessing it's too much of a liability to let something like that sit vacant.
When it's decommissioned, something will definitely happen with it...one direction or another.
Comments
I considered myself a liberal throughout my youth but the seeming shift to the far left to the point of embracing socialist and communist ideals has been a turn off. It's not like the Democrats are even making progress on any of the things I expect would fall in their wheelhouse so to speak. In particular they've failed to address police qualified immunity or civil asset forfeiture and won't seriously discuss meaningful drug law reform. Republicans seem to be a bullwark for free speech and gun rights, two issues I feel are of life and death importance, that's not enough for them to get my vote over a third party most of the time but it's enough for me to consider their candidate. I'm mostly just scared of the one-sided establishment media in favor of the Dems and the social media censorship clearly targeted much more heavily at Repubs, it's a recipe for societal disaster.
The covid virus leaking from a lab in Wuhan seems to be incredibly likely at this point. That lab was doing research on bat coronavirus' that was intentionally making them more contagious to humans, some of that research was even being funded by the US. China has done everything in its power to stop an investigation and any opportunity to prove the origin beyond a reasonable doubt has probably passed. IMO common sense strongly suggests that the most likely origin is the Wuhan Lab, what are the odds that a rather abnormal coronavirus just pops up in the city that was doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?
China doesn't think a war with the US will impoverish their country, they believe it will propel them to the top of the global power structure, and if they win they would be likely be correct in that assumption. I think the only hope to avoid war is to pound our chest, stand our ground and show that belligerence towards us or our allies will not be tolerated. I simply can't understate this, for the first time in decades we have a peer state competitor and they've already been fighting a soft was against us for decades, they and nations aligned with them all have their own regional goals that they could accomplish with the use of force and the only way they can use force without being destroyed is by working together to stretch their enemies (us and our allies) resources thin. You'd think the fact that they're committing genocide and using mass forced labor would be enough to warrant a little more seriousness, maybe work more quickly towards economic disengagement.
I believe the virus popped up in a city market that sold wild animal meat, this is a region where folks eat bat meat, which means they must go out a capture the bats, the bats carry many unique viruses, they bite when captured, the bat harvester takes his bat meat to the city wild animal meat market along with the virus.
The current Chinese government has never been capitalist or anything very close to it, certainly not displaying "relentless capitalism". They began to adopt some free market principals for awhile and the result was an explosion in wealth and prosperity and a dramatic decline in poverty, if they had stayed on that path they would have already surpassed the US in many ways. China is still very much communist, there's no private property and the state ultimately controls all business and industry, much of it is controlled directly by the party. They've been moving more and more back towards more pure communist principals since Xi took power. Capitalism is simply economic freedom, it's what has virtually wiped out extreme poverty and starvation while making the snowballing technological advancement of the past couple centuries possible. Look at the global per capita wealth chart, it was stagnant for millennia then exploded, and that's despite fixed land & resources and an exponentially growing population. That being said capitalism, much like democracy, is only as good as the people partaking in it.
I'd also agree that if China was to continue to move in the direction of more freedom for its people it'd be good for the world, unfortunately things are heading in the opposite direction at an increasing pace. I just hope no more free democratic societies are destroyed and/or absorbed by them.
Like I said, I'd love to see something done with it when it goes off line, but I just think it would be a long shot.
I continue to be a fan of converting it into a resort style indoor waterpark, with other entertainment options of course. I've had this SketchUp model on my computer for years without ever making much progress on it, still it shows the (very) general idea: The older short section nearer the river preserved and restored with the taller portion of the plant carved into hotel space on the upper floors with a winter garden-like glassed in indoor waterpark wrapping around the smokestacks:
When it's decommissioned, something will definitely happen with it...one direction or another.