Example: where wet bulb temperatures are the new normal, air conditioning is as vital as air and water because you will literally die without cooling. “You can buy all the electricity you can afford” is not good enough.
People have survived “deadly” wet bulb temperatures long before electric refrigeration. Air conditioning is a patch for colonial societies and those that emulate them that have stupidly built western European style (Cfb climate optimized) housing in tropical climates.
Universal solidarity doesn’t just mean solidarity with the poorest US citizens, it means solidarity with the billions of people who don’t have AC or a car. Giving US citizens who already have AC and a car free electricity will probably be less effective and less equitable than a more egalitarian degrowth-based distribution of resources.The OOP mentions electric cars, which are simply a luxury when public transit and utility vehicles (kei trucks, vans) exist. Air conditioning likewise can be a luxury when passive design exists. Cisterns, shade, plant respiration, air flow management, high roofs, large communal spaces that reduce outer surface area, etc.
People have a right to live a cool and comfortable life, but that does not mean the right to live in a nuclear family suburban home with paper-thin walls and not a tree in sight, basking in full sunlight, with AC on full blast, using your electric SUV to drive half an hour to the grocery store or school. A tropical longhouse shared with your community, a natural or artificial cave system, or living somewhere that isn’t trying to kill you (as badly) can serve that purpose just as well.
So instead of pushing for free electricity for American citizens, I would much rather push for degrowth of the American economy, with smarter designs that simply need less electricity.
Is it hard to solve?
“There is a public electricity provider that will refuse to disconnect a house who can’t pay”
o/ from France.
USians
Wut?
I think they just use USian instead of American because of character limits in tweets and such. I’ve seen a lot of people on Twitter, and later Twitter refugees, who do that even when character limits isn’t a concern, because they’ve become so accustomed to it
To distinguish US Americans from other North, Central, or South Americans.
Not common but I hope it will become.
“Americans” can mean Canadians, Mexicans, Peruvians, etc. “USian” means citizen of the US.
Not one single person from Canada, Mexico, or Peru would refer to themselves or their countrymen as American. If you asked them if they were an American you’d get reaction ranging from laughter to insulted anger.
Everyone on both continents with America in their name universally recognize the term American to refer to people from the US, and none of them have any desire to be changed the meaning to include themselves.
Labels of this type don’tfenerally get used based on continent. Otherwise you’d refer to people from most of Russia as Asian instead of Russian.
It was a Mexican who taught me to be careful with the word “American”
Most Europeans will accept that label, most Asians too. Countries like Russia or Turkey who are in-between are exceptions.
I’ve heard (though I can’t say authoritatively), that while “american” is obviously used for people from the USA, “americano” applies to all residents of the New World in Spanish in most countries that speak it. Wikipedia seems to agree:
In Spanish, americano denotes geographic and cultural origin in the New World, as well as (infrequently) a U.S. citizen;[13][14][c] the more common term is estadounidense (“United States person”), which derives from Estados Unidos de América
I took it as shortened version of Asian Americans. Is that not right?
Ok, I looked it up and it does seem to relate to people in the USA. Makes no sense. US Americans. Where does the “ian” come from? Americans seems logical without confusion. Canada is on the same continent and are called Canadians, Mexico, Mexican.
When you think about it, it’s kind of offensive to call ourselves (US residents) “Americans” as if in all of North and South America we’re the only country that matters.
But “Americans” doesn’t refer to the continent, it refers to the name of the country. It’s really just shortened from “United States of Americans”.
That’s a very United States centric outlook. Most other Americans on the continent (north and south) also consider themselves Americans. Here in Colombia they call those of us from the US “estadounidenses” which basically translate as unitedstates-ian.
Just FYI I’m not American, I’m Canadian.
I would never consider myself to be American, because I don’t really view the americas as one large social group.
North America and South America don’t speak the same primary language, use similar currencies, or have similar cultural values. However most South American countries are similar, just like North Americans are to each other.
If I listed in increasing size the areas i inhabit, it would be Canada, North America, Earth.
It’s like how we generally refer to Europe and Asia separately, not typically Eurasia.
Really?
How many countries have “of America” in their names?
When you actually think about it, it isn’t offensive. Matter of fact, if you’ve been around the internet long enough, you could remember when it first started, and it wasn’t people in the Americas doing the complaining.
Are Mexicans being offended when we get called the US? It’s in the same place in the name for their country, the United States of Mexico. Or would they prefer being called the EU? Oh, that’s right, if they use the words in Spanish, they’re screwed because europe got there first.
Come the think of it, what do Mexicans call the US? The ones I know call it “el Norte”, which is offensive to Canadians by the same way of thinking, since the USA isn’t the only country in the north of north america.
The whole thing is stupid. The only time being “american” and not talking about the US matters is if you’re referring to everyone in South and/or Central America as a group. Which isn’t exactly a common thing. And, guess what, you’d still have to apply the term North Americans to people from the USA if you wanted to lump them in with Canada and Mexico.
Brazilians aren’t called Americans because their country is Brazil, and that’s a much bigger component of their national “vibe” than being south American. Hell, you talk to some Brazilians, and they’ll argue that their entire culture is separate from the rest of South America. And, btw, they’re called Brazilians, not FRians, despite being the federative republic of Brazil in English, (which is republica federativa in Portuguese, which is missing some accent marks, but there’s a limit to typing on screen and hunting down the right ones when you’re dyslexic).
People from the US have been called Americans by other people in the Americas way longer than this whiny trend has existed. Mind you, us citizens aren’t always called Americans, there’s other terms used here and there in both Spanish and Portuguese speakers for sure, and likely in indigenous languages. So, calling us citizens “Americans” is really only an English thing, there’s variants in other languages that are the dominant term in that languages, even compared to other terms.
Hell, there’s even an argument to be made that the U.S. got the name first, so anyone else can bugger off, but I’ve always found that argument both specious and rude.
Besides, let’s be real here, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter. You might get some people to switch over, but when every news source in the world has to get on board, and every person around the world is expected to care, it isn’t going to change, even in English.
The whole argument is a nothing burger anyway. It’s dumb. And there’s a thousand things ahead of it on the list of things to change.
You spent a lot of paragraphs on a “dumb” argument. Sounds like, despite your insistence it doesn’t matter, it really does matter to you.
USians gonna US, I guess.
I think there’s a translation barrier, maybe.
When I said “it doesn’t matter”, I meant that none of the arguments about it matter in a real way. I then explained why I don’t think it matters.
English is a pain in the ass language sometimes.
In this instance, I think perhaps “the subject is moot”, or “the debate is without relevance beyond conversation for the sake of conversation.” would have been better.
For most Americans, you’ll find that “it doesn’t matter” isn’t the same as “I don’t care”, unless they say “it doesn’t matter to me”. Depends on where they grew up, or where they’ve lived long enough to change their use of casual english, though.
Secondary to that, what I wrote was a fairly small bit. Less than most op-ed pieces in newspapers, less than most other articles too. I get that the internet, and texting, have driven down our collective patience with longer writing, but still. If it can fit on the screen of a tablet, with the paragraph breaks included, it really isn’t that long.
I prefer “Yankees”.
thats what nikola tesla was trying to provide and westinghouse crushed.
Wtf am I reading? Climate change is a problem so we’re gonna accelerate that problem with free energy for the most privileged and wasteful society on earth.
“Poor Americans don’t deserve electricity because rich Americans are privileged and wasteful” is certainly one of the takes of all time.
