Global sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles rose by a yearly 20% in August, driven by record high sales in China…Increased subsidies in China for drivers trading in more polluting vehicles helped drive the EV sales jump in August

RIP Lt. Zogg

Not to be hyperbolic, but this reminds me of when cult members describe the process of them becoming disillusioned with the leader until they finally decide to leave. I’m serious when I say that modern corporations, especially in tech, can often be quite cult like. There is often some charismatic, visionary, larger-than-life personality at the center. Many of the people who work at these companies aren’t so much employees as they are disciples. They are members of the leader’s cult of personality. Many investors, too. They have fully bought in to the leader’s vision, and some will follow their leader seemingly no matter what.

This person even has that kind of wistful tone of a cult member who had to leave the cult because they couldn’t ignore the leader’s increasingly problematic behavior anymore, but still believes in their vision and wishes things could have turned out differently.

There’s nothing wrong with having a vision or wanting to build a better future, but be very, very cautious about any movement centered around a single personality. In the case of Musk, the warning signs have been there for a while. I think the best representation of this was when Musk guest starred on the Simpsons almost ten years ago, and was introduced as “possibly the greatest living inventor!” It was the height of Musk propaganda.

I will never buy a Tesla, so long as the Musk cult exists. I’m sure Teslas are good cars, but I will not support the cult of Elon Musk. He is too dangerous.

Sorry, you’re all getting techno-feudalism.

I know a Gen Zer who’s hoping her Gen X parents will leave her their house and their 20+ acres of land, but it ain’t gonna happen. When they reach retirement age they’re going to sell it all and that’s going to be their retirement. Retirement is expensive, and the longer you live the more expensive it is, especially if you get sick, and you will get sick, eventually.

I’m ok with a decent amount of tech in a car. Like I’m fine being able to connect my phone to the car and have android auto take over the infotainment system.

This reminds me of my 2016 Honda Civic. It had just the right amount of tech.

I don’t think the housing crisis is being caused by people who live in rural areas and don’t want there to be endless urban and suburban sprawl. Most people want to live in urban areas, because those areas are where the jobs, shops, and infrastructure are. Sprawl is expensive, inefficient, and bad for the environment. It should be prevented as much as possible. But, the only way to prevent it is to make housing in urban areas, the area where people want to live because it’s where everything is, more affordable, and that means building more, dense housing in those areas. The real NIMBYs are people who own low density, single family homes in urban areas and don’t want higher density housing to be built in that area because it would bring down their property values.

Nevertheless, a nationwide housing drive risks stoking homeowners’ ire in a country where the middle class derives most of its wealth from real estate and two-thirds of dwellings are occupied by their owners.

That’s the thing that nobody wants to talk about. I’m constantly hearing people saying that “NIMBYs” are the cause of the housing crisis, which isn’t untrue, but it doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. Why do NIMBYs exist? I think the prevailing assumption is that they’re just greedy, miserly boomers who love money and hate young people, but I think the problem is systemic, not simply caused by some individuals who happen to have character flaws.

It’s easy to call these property owners greedy, because it’s not your wealth. If it were your wealth, I bet many of you would be NIMBYs too. Because, again, it’s not just a matter of you having better moral character than them, it’s about the incentives, and how people with opposing financial interests have different incentives. People with wealth have an incentive to protect their wealth, and people without wealth have an incentive to try and acquire wealth.

This is why I’m a critic of capitalism, and why I want to move toward something that could be called socialism (although, not necessarily a Marxist or Marxist-Leninist conception of socialism). I think capitalism creates too many oppositional relationships. It causes people to have opposing interests. Owners and workers, companies and consumers, home buyers and home owners. I think it would be better to try and build a system around our shared interests, around the things we have in common, as opposed to one where we are constantly in opposition to one another.

We all need housing. It is a universal human need. So why have a system that incentivizes some to restrict other’s access to it? Why have a system that creates an adversarial relationship between those who have a home (and the wealth associated with it) and those who don’t?

All of these oppositional, adversarial relationships cause conflict and division.

It feels like there’s still some, mostly unspoken animosity between liberals and demsocs like AOC. I think the Democrats would like people to believe that liberals and demsocs have reached a consensus, and that moderates and progressives are unified, but I think there are still philosophical and ideological differences between them, maybe even some that are irreconcilable. The liberals have definitely made a lot of concessions to the demsocs, but I think they have also tried to make it abundantly clear that the Democratic party is still a liberal party. And that’s understandable, liberalism is the predominant ideology in America. Sure, there are a lot more demsocs today than twenty years ago, but we are still heavily outnumbered.

The true measure of success is the percentage of our total energy consumption that comes from renewables/fossil fuels.

In 2013, renewables accounted for 5.8% of total energy consumption, fossil fuels accounted for 84.4% of total energy consumption.

In 2023, renewables accounted for 9.8% of total energy consumption, fossil fuels accounted for 80.6% of total energy consumption.

Source

It’s certainly moving in the right direction, but much more needs to be done.

Is mpox going to trigger another pandemic?.. That seems highly unlikely.

Well, I guess that answers that question.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate has no asset ownership, bolstering his regular-guy image. But is this what America wants from its leaders?

It’s what this American wants from his leaders, yes.

If the world was warming even faster than scientists thought it would, seemingly jumping years ahead of predictions, would that mean even more crucial decades of action had been lost?

Yes. Yes it would.

The state should be [held responsible] if they’re enacting rules that criminalize health care

They should. They should sue the state, but, like you said, it wouldn’t accomplish anything so long as this SCOTUS remains as it currently is.

The Biden administration says hospitals must offer abortions when needed to save a woman’s life, despite state bans enacted after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion more than two years ago. Texas is challenging that guidance and, earlier this summer, the Supreme Court declined to resolve the issue.

This is why I don’t think the hospital is really to blame. They’re stuck in this legal limbo wherein one action might violate Texas state law, and another might violate a Federal law.

We moved much of our production to other countries, especially China. It’s going to take time to bring it back. It’s going to be difficult, too. Companies have gotten used to higher profits, due to the dramatically lower labor costs in other countries. Those companies aren’t going to be happy about coming back to the US where they’ll have to pay workers more, especially now that there’s a push to bring unions back.

My wife is going to vote for Harris/Walz. She’s told me several times. I think I’m gonna vote for them too.

Why the fuck are my tax dollars being used to help Israel murder babies?

I’m ashamed of and disgusted with my country.

According to the training, they’ll also stop doing business with you, so maybe it’s a bit out of date.

It is baffling. I, for one, would never buy any product or service from a company associated with Musk, but many other people are not so discerning.