People write without any profit motive today. It's weird of the OP to think of writing in such a narrow space as commercialization.

I think a lot of folks are stuck on the idea that it's been a singular bad actor -- a Trump, or a McConnell or something. This "Great Man Theory" is almost certainly a very naive read of the systems that are leading to this moment.

Does that require changing some other things? Absolutely. Would it be hard to convince people to try? Probably (I'm guessing HN crowd won't like this comment, considering it unreasonable.) Has it been a suggested way to organize society for almost 200 years with a long and well argued set of principles behind it? Sure enough!

The US alone has ~1 billion acres of forest land and could produce a lot more if needed. Over 35 years, we could remove 50 billion tons * 25-40%. Basically enough to offset a years worth of emissions during those years.

It's not enough, but it would be a significant amount of carbon removed. Combined with other efforts, we could put a lot of carbon back in the soil.

This is going to be a real problem when states start nuking whole parts of the internet from orbit. A state has a law against conversion therapy and starts to remove sites with that? A state has a law against trans people? Or abortion? Or medical misinformation? Suddenly we just start purging sites back and forth?

Battlegrounds end up as torn up, muddy, desolate places. Turning the domain registry into a battleground is a bad idea. Over the long term, no one wins if we choose to fight there.

We have wide belts of forests in the north that are warming and are potentially at risk for massive fires, which would make the problem significantly worse. So, before the taiga burns.

Or, before species reduction causes ecosystems to collapse, reducing biodiversity and ability to support humans.

Or before temperatures rise high enough that wet bulb temperatures in the summer are fatal to humans, causing parts of the globe to become inhabitable, creating refugee crises and conflict (and presumably mass starvation and death.)

Or before permafrost gets warm enough to start emitting methane, pushing our atmosphere past the point of it's ability to maintain homeostasis, putting us on a path to a Venusian atmosphere.

Or before we lose the beautiful parts of the world to decay due to increased pest pressure, decreased ability for plants and animals to survive, and general reduction in system health.

Or before we lose our ability to have wonderful winter sports in the parts of the world where skiing and snowboarding are popular.

Or before we damage the oceanic currents enough to fundamentally destroy the climate in regions like Europe and England.

Or before raising temperatures cause seafood stocks to plummet, reducing the amount of food we can harvest from the oceans (or leading us to depleting critical stocks entirely), reducing our capacity to feed ourselves as a species.

Or before fresh water becomes scarce enough that wars are fought over it, and people die unnecessarily.

I dunno. Before one of those. Or any of the other easily predictable, innumerable steps along the way to those.

Ok, but the lack of a unit on vinyl makes it very hard to have an apples to apples comparison here. If cds are selling 1000 units and vinyl is selling 1,000,000 units, those 16% and 2.4% numbers are pretty wildly different things.

Also, the huge increase is primarily driven by KPOP (in particular, BTS). CD sales growth was like 6% without them.

I don't know that we can draw a conclusion from that 16% except BTS can move physical media.

In any case, why would you melt and drain it? That makes zero sense. You don't have friends who would take it? Or a food bank? Or a local Food Not Bombs?

It's totally fine to not like a brand, zero objections there, but like, why waste it?

The more recent WHO's Global report on health equity suggests 16%, as populations age: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240063600

The CDC considers this closer to 30%: https://www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents...

This number is generally considered to be rising for a few reasons. Aging population, wars resulting in higher injuries but fewer deaths, the number of people who are able to survive disease (rather than historically just dying.

You might find the Washington Group's definition, which applies a spectrum, and estimates an approximately 6-12% rate of disability. https://www.washingtongroup-disability.com/wg-blog/post/diff...

> I doubt the number would get anywhere close to 15% if the definition only included the kinds of disabilities that are immediately obvious to anyone looking.

Thank god that's not the definition. Deafness/significant hearing impairment isn't immediately visible, and that's estimated at ~5%. Plenty of folks are low vision enough to need assistive technology (like a screenreader) even if they don't have a cane and may be able to navigate. Plenty of people with MS have great days where they can walk, and days where they cannot. There are people who lack the strength in their hands to dress themselves, yet they can go out and about just fine.

Your definition is too narrow. Plenty of people experience impassible barriers that are not visible. Happy to provide some additional educational resources for you if they would be helpful.

> Certainly it's not true that 15% of the people I see are in a wheelchair, on crutches, missing a limb, obviously blind (e.g. walking with a cane), and so on.

Are you in a wealthy area? Think globally, do you think your town has better or worse support than other parts of the world for people with disabilities? Do you think your region has better or worse regional conflicts or disease? Think globally.

That seems needlessly cruel to do to people.

I volunteer to give blood. No one is paying me, and yet, someone's life is saved by that.

Some folks believe (in fact, this is the thesis statement of much of anarchist theory) that people would largely volunteer to care for one another if their basic needs were met.

Not everything has to be transactional, you can have a government setting up a scaffold that supports and encourages and organizes volunteers and run an effective service.