There’s plenty of variety within that term. Also, recycling some of them requires very precise conditions.

In the beginning, things would suck, because low prices come from economies of scale, and the petrochemical industry certainly has scale. Once you’ve ramped up glass, paper and metal packaging factories, it should be tolerable.

There are also new materials such as biodegradable plastic and even mycelia. That would be useful.

If we also ramp up various carbon capture technologies, you could technically turn that carbon into plastics, so you won’t need any more oil. Obviously, that wouldn’t solve the climate crisis. You need CCS for that. Probably not going to happen within the next century, but it’s technically possible.

I’m going to ignore clinical depression for now, and focus more on milder symptoms like doomscrolling induced sadness, hopelessness and mild anxiety. Some people are resistant to these effects because they practice some form of optimism or stoicism. Other people just close their eyes and ignore the horrors around them. Either way, neither of these approaches tells you anything about intelligence.

I’ve thought about the way an excavator moves huge rocks and ant hills like they’re nothing. The driver doesn’t care about the ants, because he is focused on the construction site and staying on schedule. Maybe humans on Earth will one day be nothing more than an ant hill in the bucket of an excavator.

If super advanced aliens can carry out galaxy wide construction projects, one planet won’t matter at all.

To which the answer is: “As high as a kite… No, wait. Higher. A GPS satellite? No. Even higher. Voyager 1 should be about right.”

So, is this the right one? At least the colors match, but it doesn’t have any stripes.

Those orange and brown stripes remind me this Minecraft cat. Such a beautiful color.

Other people have already given the right answer, so I’ll give the wrong answer.

Kelvin Farad, a unit for measuring something exotic related to capacitance and absolute temperature…. Sounds like something you could use to measure the performance of a hyper-space jump gate in a sci-fi story.

Either that, or simply potassium fluoride. Seriously toxic stuff BTW.

See what’s going on in European countries that haven’t used significant numbers of African slaves. You know, it’s possible to enslave your own population too. Anyway, there’s definitely racism in Europe, even though the history with regard to using African slaves is completely different. Nowadays, racists hate all foreigners regardless of skin color.

Actually, people seem to gravitate towards this weird sort of tribalism when the in-group and out-group are pretty arbitrary concepts. It doesn’t even have to be based on skin color, language or religion. People just hate other people because they were born in the wrong town.

If America never used any African slaves at all, normal human tribalism would still be there to mess things up. There would be groups based on arbitrary things that slang, facial features, dietary preferences, fashion choices etc. Racism wouldn’t disappear. It would just be aimed at some other group.

The cost of the raw material is low enough to make it a viable option for the time being. There are also costs associated with switching to renewable options, which makes the transition slower.

Think of it from the perspective of a coal plant owner. You’ve already spent millions into construction and maintenance, so you really want some return on that investment.

When the plant reaches its end of life, that’s usually the best time to start considering other options. If the running costs rise dramatically or you are required to modernize the plant, that could be another time to take a look at other options.

BTW this is the reason why environmental legislation is so important. Companies listen to money, and governments decide what makes economic sense and what doesn’t.