RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@ravenonthill @cstross Any time we want to start factories with good union jobs making solar panels, it's not any more difficult than finding the money.
(And there's a shortage of productive investment opportunities.)
Solar PV as a technology is not defined by Chinese Communist Party policy.
@graydon @cstross Biden was working in that direction. Many of his economic programs were very good. He got no credit for them and the public complained that his good economy was bad.
Meantime, I intend to keep nagging people about slavery in China because it looks very much like we are heading for a global renewables market with slavery at its base. I regret to say that slavery seems to be making a comeback in many forms and many places.
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/01/xinjiang-slavery-and-solar-panels.html
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/02/slavery-and-solar-panels-bibliography.html
@ravenonthill @cstross At the Main Street level, and below, it was a bad economy. (Elite consensus to refuse to pay for labour is a real thing, and probably not fixable short of running the guillotines round the clock for a year.)
Saying "Argh, slave labour! unclean!" is correct, but wildly unhelpful. (Narrative of helplessness, supports fossil carbon "solar bad, actually" narratives, etc.)
"We should make these ourselves in ethical ways", perhaps helpful.
@graydon @cstross I think we need to keep talking about slave labor. And, yes, we should absolutely propose alternatives but we need to keep talking about it. The slave system in the United States was not abolished because of economic inefficiency; it was abolished because the slave holders were trying to spread it and because northerners were horrified by the reality of slavery.
(Added: miserliness promotes slavery, which is part of why I am critical of it.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1fp8m9r/comment/lovmkjc/
@ravenonthill @cstross The US attempt to abolish the slave system did not work (it failed, completely) in the case of the US Civil War, which is why the US slave system is run by government entities in forced labour institutions called prisons. Such attempts generally can't work because we live in a system under selection, not a moral universe.
Effective opposition to slavery has to combine greater distribution of agency and greater power (including economic). Otherwise is gets crushed.
@graydon @cstross that is also one of the arguments China uses to excuse their expanding slave system. And it is expanding. They've gone from polysilicon and plant fibers (yes, cotton) to all kinds of car parts and especially parts for those electric cars that are doing so well in international markets.
The US founders thought that slavery was going to wither on the vine, then the cotton gin was invented. I fear the sudden global push for renewables may work similarly in China.
Charlie Stross
Raven Onthill
Graydon