OPINION

Devilish deals

Re: "Bitcoin miners eye nuclear power as environmental criticism mounts", (Business, Oct 3).

As if the world didn't have enough reasons to reject the silliness of cryptocurrency, we can now add the risk of radiation leaks from struggling nuclear power plants that otherwise might thankfully be shut down due to lack of demand for the power produced. This seems to be an example of one dubious industry climbing into bed with another.

The processing of cryptocurrency transactions requires voracious amounts of electricity at a time when the world should be aggressively trimming the unnecessary use of power. Among the main attractions of cryptocurrency is the facilitation of dodgy transactions and the avoidance of taxes. Rather than trying to extend the life of unneeded nuclear power plants and nurturing the sketchy cryptocurrency sector, the world would be far better off letting both succumb.

Re: "Kids face random testing for on-site classes in new term", (BP, Oct 10), and "Govt slams 'Pfizer jab is a killer' claim", (BP, Oct 9).

As I read about the Pfizer claim which many of our youth circulated on the Line app, while I do agree with the Prayut administration that there is little evidence to verify that allegation against the Pfizer vaccine, I could not help but observe that this pushback from Thai youth is really the cost of alienation felt by the young generation.

Because they do not feel that recent Thai governments have listened to them, and because lateral political questions are oppressed with draconian means, the youth do not trust Thailand's leaders.

This is the current state of affairs at a critical time, and now we are beginning to see the heavy social costs which this kind of crisis of confidence carries.

Also, looking to all of the joys of childhood which our young people will have taken away from them -- no sports games, no large groups, invasive random tests (often against their will), penalties for failing to obey Covid restrictions -- it becomes clear that the pushback from Thai students which we saw this past week is probably a glimpse of Thailand's future 10 years from now.

Today, the kids are not in charge of their destiny. Years from now they will be.

And when they are, I believe the social changes may be utterly profound.

Re: "The high cost of fashion", (Life, Oct 11).

Talk about throwing away our underwear. Only once in a while do we dispose of our underwear. We don't give it to our people like old clothing.

So where do we dispose of maybe only two pieces of it? We just wrap them up and dump them into the garbage because there are no special bins.

It is going to take a long long time before we see any action taken by state agencies or housing estate management to provide different coloured bins and teach people how and where to drop different types of waste material.

At home, we separate our waste but in the end, when the garbage truck comes along, it goes into one big bin.