This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Does anyone here have experience with heat pumps? I'm on oil heat and needless to say, shit's gotten ridiculously pricy lately. I feel like I should be able to switch over to something cheaper and break even within like a year or less, because of how much I expect to spend on oil this winter.
Most local people in my very progressive corner of the world keep talking up heat pumps like they're the best thing since the invention of the chimney. I find this suspect myself. I've never heard of this technology before really recently, and I'm only hearing about it from people who are really into green energy. And it sounds too good to be true. It heats and cools for less money than any alternatives, supposedly. But I really know close to nothing about them.
My culture war shenanigans sense is tingling, so I wanted to find out if anyone here, a place I trust has not drank the green progressive Kool aid, has experiences with or knowledge about heat pumps. I guess I just don't trust the people I'm hearing from, I think they're willing to stretch the truth for what they think is the greater good. Are they worth it financially? Do they work well without tons of annoying maintenance? What about if your state offers financial incentives for moving to heat pumps, are they worth it then?
A heat pump is basically an air conditioner unit that you can switch from circulating cold air and discharging hot air to circulating hot air and discharging cold air.
Heat pumps can have in theory +200% efficiency. This means for every unit of energy it moves two. So for heating, it takes one unit of energy to move two units of energy from your cold end to your hot end.
This number is only really impressive when you’re comparing to electric heat. Where 1 unit of energy going into your baseboard heater provides something like 1 unit of heat in your house.
If your burning #2 fuel oil (or any other fossil fuel really), it may not be cheaper without pairing it with a geothermal cell. There’s a few kinds of geothermal cells, but they’re basically wells or loops of pipe buried in the ground. Since the ground temperature is something like 55 degrees and water has a very high specific heat, it is easier for the heat pump (air conditioner) to pull heat from that water then from the probably much colder air (while heating). It’s also easier to discharge that heat when you’re cooling so it’s a savings on air conditioning too. Even at the same temperature, the water can transfer much more heat.
TLDR
Heat pumps are better than baseboard heat, but may not be more cost effective than fossil fuels unless paired with geothermal.
I’m not an HVAC guy, so anyone that is please correct any misunderstandings I have.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link