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https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/so...e-shootings-new-mexico-elected-officials/#app

Solomon Pena, a ex-GOP house candidate & MAGA was arrested for being the mastermind behind the shooting of 4 democratic lawmakers in New Mexico, which involved 4 other people in the conspiracy. How much more evidence do we need before at least the MAGA front of the Republican Party are undisputedly seen as what they are: Literal Fascists.

Thankfully no one was hit in any of the shootings and these fanatic losers didn't achieve what they wanted. Every big L for them is a good day for USA.
 
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On paper electric cars are cool and a great replacement, but the issue here is why they're being pitched and the order these things are being prioritized. Elon has been crazy about electric cars because it's been a way to impede construction of better public transportation, not because of any interest in clean energy. His cars are also known to be poorly made and the manufacture process isn't even that clean as a result.

The reason why we should focus on public transport and country-wide train lines in any country is that those are much more efficient and safe in combating the car centric societies we live in. Yknow how when you learn something, the first 80% are much easier to learn than the rest of the 20%, which require more specific studying? Trains are there to resolve the 80%, and after we got that sorted we can focus on more specific solutions like electric cars to resolve the 20% left
In a perfect world, one which we should fight for, the US will have a functional national public train / bus network. There's no downside here, even publicly funded everyone outside the 0.001% wins.

In the real world, by the time you convince the US public to hand over control of the private rail network to the government the planet will turn into a flaming baked potato due to climate change. Even if we take the Kurzgesagt view that human extinction has already been avoided I would like to avoid 1/3rd of the planet becoming unlivable because the left thinks musk bad = electric cars bad. Sorry to say but you aren't going to dismantle and rebuild 95% of the cities in the US to be public transportation friendly regardless of how nice our posts are on a Pokémon forum, at least not before climate issues become catastrophic. Public transportation is certainly part of the answer but since the EU / China has embraced it yet still had ludicrous emissions I don't think it's the only answer.

Electric car tech is here right now and the battery technology it brings not only gets fuel trucks off the road and removes ICE vehicles, it also helps increase the viability of renewable energy via advancements in battery storage. In the long term lithium can be replaced by sodium and Boomers crying about 400 miles range on their F350 will die out with their complaints unanswered. Opinions on specific billionaires shouldn't distract you from the fact that humanity is sterilizing the planet and needs to take steps one way or another to cancel the apocalypse.
 
I would like to avoid 1/3rd of the planet becoming unlivable because the left thinks musk bad = electric cars bad.
Yeah, literally nobody is saying this. People are saying there are better alternatives (which is true), people are saying Musk is a shit person who shouldn't be supported on moral grounds and is a terrible representative for electric car tech (which is true, and not the same thing as saying electric cars bad), and people are saying that simply switching to electric cars may not be enough to divert catastrophic climate collapse alone (which is true). Boiling all this discourse down to "leftists think electric cars are bad" is either incredibly ignorant or intentionally dishonest. Which is it?
 
Yeah, literally nobody is saying this. People are saying there are better alternatives (which is true)
No, there are literally zero alternatives to the internal combustion engine besides electric cars. Nothing else will reasonably cut emissions in the time frame we need.

Increasing investments into public transportation will LOWER the number of cars on the road but even as we see with Europe / Asia we're going to have cars one way or another and as long as we have them we're going to need to find a renewable way to replace all of them, not just some. The US also has extremely low population density, so even with a drastic overhaul of the public transportation system you're going to have tens of millions of cars and trucks on the road because no one is going to send a train to (places where Republicans live) where roads aren't even paved.

Even if public transportation did replace 100% of cars there would still be the battery application in solar / wind power storage, tractor trailers, busses etc. that is a complete win.

We should invest in public transportation but we also have electric technology which will have results now. This technology should be embraced because co2 emissions are, by most estimates, causing the biggest mass extinction this planet has ever seen.

Boiling all this discourse down to "leftists think electric cars are bad"
The guy I replied to suggested focusing on public transportation before electric cars. Public transportation is great but unfeasible in the short term given the legislation, public opinion changes, and literal decades of construction required to make significant changes mean it isn't a short term viable solution to co2 emissions. Public transportation is great and we SHOULD focus on improving it. However this entire thread has basically been:

"Electric cars? Have you consider taking the bus instead??"

The real answer is to embrace electric technologies that drastically cut emissions and support local legislation that improves public transport. IIRC Biden just dumped a bunch of money into public transport as part of the infrastructure bill, so that's good. But if we want to make a real effect on the climate crisis we need to hit if with everything we've got, both electric and public transportation.
 
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Even if we take the Kurzgesagt view that human extinction has already been avoided I would like to avoid 1/3rd of the planet becoming unlivable because the left thinks musk bad = electric cars bad. Sorry to say but you aren't going to dismantle and rebuild 95% of the cities in the US to be public transportation friendly regardless of how nice our posts are on a Pokémon forum, at least not before climate issues become catastrophic. Public transportation is certainly part of the answer but since the EU / China has embraced it yet still had ludicrous emissions I don't think it's the only answer.
This is true. Ever since the crypto-shilling apartheid emerald mining heir turned out to be a racist, I have switched from walking everywhere to taking on substantial debt for the sake of running a F450 truck exclusively on leaded gasoline.

The EU and China have substantial emissions still because their transportation systems aren't meant to replace existing infrastructure or cars. Electric cars make for poor solutions because they aren't adopted in any widespread fashion and lack appropriate infrastructure to support widespread use. The solution lies entirely in a total transformation of consumption habits and energy infrastructure, not just simply building a couple railways like the EU and PRC have done.
 
For those who have a car or consistent 24/7 access to a car, there's almost no point in using public transportation in the US besides the environmental aspects of it (if you're in a city where public transport uses healthier alternatives) and saving car insurance or gas money with how high gas prices currently are. I'm on the spectrum, so I have a hard time being around people as is, and would always blast music on my car drives to calm myself before a work shift. I can't do that with headphones without being rude to people next to me on public transit, and I had a bad bike accident that left me with permanent brain damage, so I understandably wouldn't want to bike daily to work (not to mention I don't like being outside, to begin with, due to sensory overstimulation). In all honesty, the clamoring for mass migration to public transport feels a little ableist in some cases.

I work from home currently, so I don't drive anywhere near as much as I used to - but I used to do multiple multi-state drives/cross-country drives and also had massive commutes to work (anywhere from shorter highway commutes around 30 mins to mountain commutes around two+ hours). I'd also like to bring up that the pandemic has essentially made people very uncomfortable with close, personal contact with strangers (way more than before). The American public is even less likely now to want to support public transit post-COVID because of the health risks involved with close proximity contact (especially without masks). Regarding my own personal experiences - public transport in Colorado is pretty alright (at least in the Denver area), but public transit in California is terrible (especially in Southern California). I'm lucky enough to have my own car now, and let me tell you that if I was given a choice, I'd never use public transit in the US again.

The general point is - US citizens won't budge on public transport unless some incentives they can personally benefit from are introduced. I think that there are other possible options that could be worked on along with electric cars for a more sustainable alternative, but as multiple people in this thread said, with how cities are laid out in the US, people aren't going to be making the switch en-masse any time soon.
 
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Electric cars make for poor solutions because they aren't adopted in any widespread fashion and lack appropriate infrastructure to support widespread use.
You can plug an electric car into an outlet in your house and it will be fully charged overnight, what are you talking about lmao. Do you need to drive 300+ miles per day? Buy a gas car boomer and whine about fuel prices on Facebook if that's the case. If not just don't forget to plug your E-car in and you'll be fine. You can also Google fast charger locations if you're that desperate to take your E-car on a trip. There's one at my Walmart, there's a few on the highway. There's more than you seem to think. In fact I think you're badly misinformed about EV adoption rates, I suggest you look up some charts about the recent EV boom. As long as they can be economical, they will gradually replace ICE vehicles. EVs get on average 50 miles per dollar or roughly 150 MPG. I don't care what the Republicans say, that's a tempting offer once the price drops (due to sodium batteries, used markets being flooded, or competition).

Probably the biggest issue with electric cars is cost and initial emissions from mining lithium (both cost and co2 emissions are much less over an EV's lifetime than ICE cars) but sodium batteries appear to be ready to fix both those problems. It doesn't matter what Tesla does, they showed electric cars to be viable and that there is a market for them. Thanks Musk, now that the genie is out of the bottle we have dozens of companies globally competing for a share of the market and if someone can find a way to make the cars cheaper, longer ranged, or more green they will do it for our sweet sweet dollars.

The solution lies entirely in a total transformation of consumption habits and energy infrastructure, not just simply building a couple railways like the EU and PRC have done.
When you convince several billion people globally to reduce consumption and quality of life by a substantial amount I'll be here to admit I was wrong, but until then I'm going with the technology that works right now, is economically reasonable, and that can feasibly increase the viability of renewable energy in the near future (such as battery storage technology). You're focusing on solutions that won't work and even if you convinced everyone to literally rip up their cities, factories, and way of life, you aren't going to change things fast enough.

I'm just going to say it, what you just proposed isn't going to happen. Solutions need to be viable, not miracle visions that violate human nature. The Earth receives 10,000x the energy we use in JUST sunlight, and that ignores wind, water, geothermal, nuclear etc. You aren't going to convince human civilization to undo the industrial revolution but you can focus on green technologies that allow the planet to survive in a way that doesn't require alien space bats to descend from the skies, because what you're asking is somehow even less realistic than that.
 
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earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
If this conversation is gonna veer to "is X ableist" this is gonna get real pointless real quick. zero sum game, something is always gonna clash with any given person's specific circumstances. its not ableist to say "hey i think most people should use public transit over cars"
 
You can plug an electric car into an outlet in your house and it will be fully charged overnight, what are you talking about lmao. Do you need to drive 300+ miles per day? Buy a gas car boomer and whine about fuel prices on Facebook if that's the case. If not just don't forget to plug your E-car in and you'll be fine. You can also Google fast charger locations if you're that desperate to take your E-car on a trip. There's one at my Walmart, there's a few on the highway. There's more than you seem to think. In fact I think you're badly misinformed about EV adoption rates, I suggest you look up some charts about the recent EV boom. As long as they can be economical, they will gradually replace ICE vehicles. EVs get on average 50 miles per dollar or roughly 150 MPG. I don't care what the Republicans say, that's a tempting offer once the price drops (due to sodium batteries, used markets being flooded, or competition).

Probably the biggest issue with electric cars is cost and initial emissions from mining lithium (both cost and co2 emissions are much less over an EV's lifetime than ICE cars) but sodium batteries appear to be ready to fix both those problems. It doesn't matter what Tesla does, they showed electric cars to be viable and that there is a market for them. Thanks Musk, now that the genie is out of the bottle we have dozens of companies globally competing for a share of the market and if someone can find a way to make the cars cheaper, longer ranged, or more green they will do it for our sweet sweet dollars.

When you convince several billion people globally to reduce consumption and quality of life by a substantial amount I'll be here to admit I was wrong, but until then I'm going with the technology that works right now, is economically reasonable, and that can feasibly increase the viability of renewable energy in the near future (such as battery storage technology). You're focusing on solutions that won't work and even if you convinced everyone to literally rip up their cities, factories, and way of life, you aren't going to change things fast enough.

I'm just going to say it, what you just proposed isn't going to happen. Solutions need to be viable, not miracle visions that violate human nature. The Earth receives 10,000x the energy we use in JUST sunlight, and that ignores wind, water, geothermal, nuclear etc. You aren't going to convince human civilization to undo the industrial revolution but you can focus on green technologies that allow the planet to survive in a way that doesn't require alien space bats to descend from the skies, because what you're asking is somehow even less realistic than that.

I live in Canada lol, 300 miles isn't a whole lot and you're highballing ranges based on luxury cars, the Bolt gets maybe 230 miles out of a full charge. That's not even enough to navigate half the SLL. You're arguing with someone whose family works in automotive lol. The pollution from EVs also goes beyond mining and includes manufacturing and upkeep, as well as the particulate from tires and the environmental impact of roads. Literally anyone who follows the environmental science knows that electric cars are a bandaid solution to climate change. You'll be hard-pressed to find any scientist in relevant fields that would sign off on what you're saying.

Also lol @ bringing up Musk as if he's responsible for EV markets, when in reality all he does is produce luxury crematoriums off of incredible subsidies. You should be thanking Obama, Ford, and GM. Also love the smug comments about not being able to convince people to change consumption habits while arguing Elon singlehandedly motivated market actors to move into EVs. Pick a position lmao

You do not know what you are talking about, and it's especially obvious when you keep calling advocates for public transportation "boomers with gas cars." I don't drive, I am fortunate to live in a part of Canada with extensive transportation infrastructure and carpool in rural areas.
 
I apologize for the delayed response, busy week and "take liberals seriously" is a hard thing to fit into my schedule sometimes. :woop:
No, there are literally zero alternatives to the internal combustion engine besides electric cars. Nothing else will reasonably cut emissions in the time frame we need.
You've been skirting around this point but public transportation is cheaper and dollar for dollar reduces more emissions than EVs do. Sure, improvements in energy storage could probably help this, but you're optimistic on the time frame in which we can both develop them and make them affordable, and sure supporting rural areas with public transit might be expensive, but so would installing the necessary infrastructure to support EVs in those areas as well, as I notice you... didn't mention at all.

That being said most public transit proposals are ultimately short term solutions to curb emissions, and switching as many vehicles over to electric as possible should definitely be a priority. Not sure if you thought I disagreed there or something, you seem to have this persistent habit of having no clue what the people you're disagreeing with actually want. And again, not the same thing as "electric cars bad". Liberals and honesty, name a less iconic duo. I won't wait.

And of course the single biggest piece to this puzzle is a cleaner energy source. What good are electric cars if we're still burning fossil fuels to power them? Wind and solar are great and should be invested in wherever viable, but the most cost-effective option with the least caveats is nuclear. Judging by how often you bring them up, you're one of those greencap Kurzgesagt viewers so you should be on board with investments in nuclear energy, yes?

The guy I replied to suggested focusing on public transportation before electric cars. Public transportation is great but unfeasible in the short term given the legislation, public opinion changes, and literal decades of construction required to make significant changes mean it isn't a short term viable solution to co2 emissions. Public transportation is great and we SHOULD focus on improving it. However this entire thread has basically been:

"Electric cars? Have you consider taking the bus instead??"

The real answer is to embrace electric technologies that drastically cut emissions and support local legislation that improves public transport. IIRC Biden just dumped a bunch of money into public transport as part of the infrastructure bill, so that's good. But if we want to make a real effect on the climate crisis we need to hit if with everything we've got, both electric and public transportation.

And in some contexts in the short term they're right. Improving public transportation in urban areas combined with other policies such as reduced parking does cut emissions. Will this work everywhere? No. Is it a sufficient solution by itself? No. But in some contexts, it does make sense to focus on public transportation over... um, what is your proposal exactly? Subsidized EVs? Public funding to expand EV infrastructure? Some lunatic Ayn Randian plot that involves giving Elon Musk lots of money and hoping he sciences away the problem? Serious question, please do enlighten. Not to mention, these two proposals (as you seem to acknowledge, despite it undermining your entire point here) don't contradict each other; we can do both. Fuck it, bring on the electric public transport vehicles.

Maybe I didn't make this clear enough; electric cars are good. We should develop them. Elon Musk can be accredited for quite literally nothing on this topic; paying people far smarter than he is to make cool shit and then trying to market it with all the charisma of nails scraping on a chalkboard doesn't suddenly make him a hero of leftism, and certainly doesn't mean we just ignore the union busting or being the benefactor of apartheid emerald mines. The entire framing of this discussion was 100% bait and you know it.

Oh and we should probably take a look at the economic system that's responsible for the climate crisis to begin with. You know, plug the holes up before you bail the boat out and all. Maybe we can come up with something where profit isn't the motivating factor for every policy decision, who knows.
 
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Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
if one rly cares about electric vehicles or the environment or w.e wouldn't they be more skeptical of Musk because he doesn't seem to care about any of that stuff he just seems to be concerned with getting more dollars?

He has made it pretty clear he wants to use all his untaxed (due to the trickling down of 'overly-online political discourse' perhaps?) wealth to finance his departure from a ruined planet.

His outsized wealth was acquired by repurposing his colonialism emerald mine dollars to hijack government and acquire lucrative contracts for things the government used to provide 'for free' (i.e expeditions to space, defense software, and now 'public' transportation i hear) to taxpayers.

If one pays close attention to Musk they can see he is all about defending the interests of and the power of the extremely wealthy. He frequently highlights fringe far-right conspiracies on twitter for example, where he also interacts w homophobes racists and misogynists routinely, helping to spread these worldviews.

I reckon it's not a good thing for electric cars or the metro or the environment or w.e you want that Musk is leading or has power in the financing of these things, I think he will look out for #1 and he most likely believes that this means screwing the masses ('the masses '<-that means YOU btw).

But yeah I'm sure he is like a saint as most billionaires tend to be.
 
I apologize for the delayed response, busy week and "take liberals seriously" is a hard thing to fit into my schedule sometimes. :woop:
Woah buddy, BIG feelings!

I live in Canada lol, 300 miles isn't a whole lot and you're highballing ranges based on luxury cars, the Bolt gets maybe 230 miles out of a full charge. That's not even enough to navigate half the SLL. You're arguing with someone whose family works in automotive lol.
I live in Maine lol, this is Canada but instead of hockey we just don't have healthcare. We have moose, snow, maple syrup etc. For a daily driver 230 is more than enough, even in the snowy wilderness. How far are you driving to work every day? You realize you get 230 EACH DAY right? Even just plugging it in at home it charges in 10 hours and that's from 1%-100.

The pollution from EVs also goes beyond mining and includes manufacturing and upkeep, as well as the particulate from tires and the environmental impact of roads. Literally anyone who follows the environmental science knows that electric cars are a bandaid solution to climate change. You'll be hard-pressed to find any scientist in relevant fields that would sign off on what you're saying.
Yes, lithium mining is bad. But even counting this the emissions of an EV are a fraction of an ICE vehicle considering total lifetime. Or just totaling a few years, ICE vehicles are terrible pretty much from the get-go. Also yes, ICE vehicles impact the roads and have tires. Having tires isn't unique to EVs.

In the short term Lithium isn't the perfect solution but in the long term we have solid state, sodium, nickel, and tons of other options. If it was JUST Lithium well, the tech would be dead in 50 years.

Also lol @ bringing up Musk as if he's responsible for EV markets, when in reality all he does is produce luxury crematoriums off of incredible subsidies. You should be thanking Obama, Ford, and GM.
Elon's investments into Tesla helped convince the market that EVs are viable. That would have happened eventually one way or another, but Musk's money is the reason my next car can be an EV (from ANY auto manufacturer, not just tesla) instead of me needing to wait ten more years. Musk is a garbage person but I'm not going to warp history and pretend otherwise, it has more or less been Tesla that paved the way for EVs and convinced other car companies to invest billions into producing their own.

Also love the smug comments about not being able to convince people to change consumption habits while arguing Elon singlehandedly motivated market actors to move into EVs. Pick a position lmao
You can convince people to change their lives if you offer a way to make it easier. Electric cars are affordable and get what, 150+ mpg (in $$$ amounts). Give it a few more years and even the boomers will jump all over that. On the other hand you can't convince someone to dismantle the industrial revolution and live in a wood cabin to reduce co2 emissions. That's unreasonable even for climate activists.

You do not know what you are talking about, and it's especially obvious when you keep calling advocates for public transportation "boomers with gas cars." I don't drive, I am fortunate to live in a part of Canada with extensive transportation infrastructure and carpool in rural areas.
I never called advocates of public transportation "boomers with gas cars." lol, it's the boomers who are having existential diarrhea all over the idea that their Ford F150 might not be the best option anymore. Public transportation is 100% good and everyone benefits from it. However getting a NATIONWIDE public transport service in the US will take decades and even so it will not remove all ICE vehicles from the road. You mention Canada but did you know Canada is #8 (just behind the US at #6) in vehicles per capita? Sounds like regardless of public transportation people still end up using cars and if a person NEEDS to use a car (or a bus, commercial vehicle, etc) it's better to be electric and cut back on emissions entirely.

Co2 emissions are a big deal and there is no real "good" solution. The best we can do is embrace what technologies we do have. At the moment the best option is a large focus on public transport with support for EV and green technology.

if one rly cares about electric vehicles or the environment or w.e wouldn't they be more skeptical of Musk because he doesn't seem to care about any of that stuff he just seems to be concerned with getting more dollars?
Musk wants to make money. He made money. Regardless of his feelings beyond that the result was proof that EVs are economical and that there is public demand for them. Now every auto manufacturer is producing them and all of them are investing research into non-lithium options (such as sodium etc).

He could be Hitler reincarnated in a shark's body for all I care, his actions have convinced the public that there are options beyond ICE vehicles.

I reckon it's not a good thing for electric cars or the metro or the environment or w.e you want that Musk is leading or has power in the financing of these things
Lucky for you the wonders of evil capitalism actually give you multiple options. You can pick from Musk or many of the other auto manufacturers worldwide if you want an electric car (or scooter). Musk did his thing and now he could die for all I care, the EV revolution is here and it's finally giving people a way to reduce Co2 emissions in a way that doesn't require them to live in a log cabin.

I'm just quoting here because this post is excellent. But in addition keep in mind EVs aren't a static technology. Cheaper, more efficient batteries are an ongoing thing. In 5 years a new EV might be a 20k sodium EV that gets you 200 miles on $5 of electricity. That's ridiculous and makes Co2 emitting ICE vehicles look like trash even if you don't give a fuck about climate change. That's kind of my point though. You can't scare people into changing their life style. You have to offer viable alternatives.
 
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If Musk is such a garbage human being who can die now that he's played his part or something, it's a bit strange that you would frame him as a friend to leftism and not simply coincidentally useful on this one issue. The way you framed it definitely comes across as an attempt to whitewash all the other reasons why Musk definitely isn't a friend to leftism, or anyone who cares about the environment, the working class, or human decency.

It's almost like this entire conversation was started as bait or something.

Lucky for you the wonders of evil capitalism actually give you multiple options.
Only after suppressing electric car tech for a few decades based solely on a profit motive. A bit like how oil companies have known about the coming climate crisis since the 60s and actively suppressed information about it so they can keep turning profits. But yeah I love it when companies compete to put out better and cheaper products, good thing they haven't figured out they can just form cartels and work together to fix prices and product quality at a certain standard to turn higher profits while not actually providing better products because anti-trust laws are literally never enforced- oh wait...

Hey, slightly off-topic, right, but what are your thoughts on planned obsolescence?
 
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If Musk is such a garbage human being who can die now that he's played his part or something, it's a bit strange that you would frame him as a friend to leftism and not simply coincidentally useful on this one issue.
My original post is about the weirdness where out of all the billionaires who invest in the military industrial complex, oil, coal, etc we have a handful such as Musk who instead invest in things like renewable energy, space travel, and so on that are incredibly useful to humanity as a whole. Like it or not Musk's money going into Tesla is a huge part of the reason why every auto manufacturer is producing their own EVs right now. Musk is not a great guy, though he's not exactly a Disney supervillain either. He's a billionaire who happens to invest in useful technologies. He's a total douchebag, but why he is so uniquely hated by the left and obsessed over by the media is bizarre. He's useful. Why isn't the left outraged over Bernard Arnault, Larry Page, Steve Ballmer, the Waltons, the Mars, Low Tuck Kwong or Carlos Slim? Even Mark Zuckerberg seems to attract less hate, and he hasn't done much besides sell your data and make Tom lonely.

Musk is a douchebag (as I've said many, many times but you seem happy to ignore) but he is very useful compared to most other billionaires. He might not be a hero to the people, but the obscene hate directed at him seems more a product of social media. He's a celebrity. If he'd just shut the fuck up he'd probably be seen in a similar way to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

Hey, slightly off-topic, right, but what are your thoughts on planned obsolescence?
The solution to almost every bad part of capitalism is heavy government intervention in the same way as we've found to work in Europe. Higher taxes with a strong social safety net and a powerful government willing to step in when corporations practice anti consumerism by doing things such as supporting unions, breaking up monopolies, making fucking Apple use a regular phone charger etc. In addition certain services such as healthcare, roads, fire dept etc that are not beneficial to consumers as a for profit service should be nationalized (if private competition should be allowed is debatable).
 
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I can appreciate that Musk's investments have been useful, even if he is a dick as a person. While he's not exactly funny, I would lean towards "meh" if it weren't for Twitter-dot-com being dumb all over outside of possibly commissioning artists. Renewable energy and space travel have a lot of potential to do great things, especially the former.
 
Thoughts on the Pfizer tapes?


Extremely interesting and concering stuff so far. I think it's easy to question if that dude actually works at Pfizer and if he is a director but that's hard to argue when:
Good question. Who should I trust less, big pharma or anti-vaxxers on Twitter?
 
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My original post is about the weirdness where out of all the billionaires who invest in the military industrial complex, oil, coal, etc we have a handful such as Musk who instead invest in things like renewable energy, space travel, and so on that are incredibly useful to humanity as a whole. Like it or not Musk's money going into Tesla is a huge part of the reason why every auto manufacturer is producing their own EVs right now. Musk is not a great guy, though he's not exactly a Disney supervillain either. He's a billionaire who happens to invest in useful technologies. He's a total douchebag, but why he is so uniquely hated by the left and obsessed over by the media is bizarre. He's useful. Why isn't the left outraged over Bernard Arnault, Larry Page, Steve Ballmer, the Waltons, the Mars, Low Tuck Kwong or Carlos Slim? Even Mark Zuckerberg seems to attract less hate, and he hasn't done much besides sell your data and make Tom lonely.

Musk is a douchebag (as I've said many, many times but you seem happy to ignore) but he is very useful compared to most other billionaires. He might not be a hero to the people, but the obscene hate directed at him seems more a product of social media. He's a celebrity. If he'd just shut the fuck up he'd probably be seen in a similar way to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

I mean, you're not entirely wrong that the more the guy talks the more leftists are reminded of what a ghoul he is and he'd probably fare better if he shut his fucking mouth, but you keep calling him a douchebag and, evidently, thinking that you're making reasonable criticisms of him in the eyes of the left. Well, uh, you aren't. I don't speak for the entirety of the left but I don't know a single person who hates Musk because he's just a rude person or whatever. Mostly they hate him because, as I've said a few times now already, he's an openly conservative crypto-pushing tech bro billionaire who busts unions, treats his workers like garbage, and built his "success" on daddy's apartheid emerald mine money.

If you want to reduce all that to "he's a douchebag", that's 100% an attempt to whitewash him, and a particularly weaselly one that would theoretically give you the cover you need to say "well I don't support him, I think he's a douchebag lol", at least if it wasn't so obvious what you're doing that you could tell from space. Centrists do this shit all the time when they talk about someone they know they can't come out and openly support but they want to try and rehabilitate the image of. I've heard them make similar arguments about actual Nazis like Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. If instead of "they're open neo-Nazis" or "he's a billionaire neo-con scammer who hates worker's rights and benefits from apartheid" you say "they're douchebags" or whatever, it makes them a lot more palatable to the average person. After all I'm a douchebag. Why should it bother me if they are too? Well, it turns out the criticisms of them go a bit deeper than "they're meanie poo-poo-heads" and to try and gloss over those more pointed criticisms with a completely meaningless one is, by definition, whitewashing. It's just a form of whitewashing that has a little bit of plausible deniability.

I don't really know if you're doing this intentionally or not but given pretty much everything else you've posted it would hardly be a stretch.

The solution to almost every bad part of capitalism is heavy government intervention in the same way as we've found to work in Europe. Higher taxes with a strong social safety net and a powerful government willing to step in when corporations practice anti consumerism by doing things such as supporting unions, breaking up monopolies, making fucking Apple use a regular phone charger etc. In addition certain services such as healthcare, roads, fire dept etc that are not beneficial to consumers as a for profit service should be nationalized (if private competition should be allowed is debatable).
You seem to bounce between a, like, borderline Objectivist AnCap and a lukewarm SocDem depending on what's convenient to you. To be fair this describes most liberals, I just find it funny. Just to be clear, when you say...

found to work in Europe.
... well, Europe is a big place with heavily varying degrees of government intervention. Are we talking about the Nordic model implemented in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.? Or some more generalized overview of the EU or something?

At the end of the day, capitalism is profit-driven, even under a social democracy. If profit can't be extracted at home, it will be extracted abroad; we see this in the Nordic countries and how many of their companies force workers abroad in poorer, third-world countries to work under ruthless, inhumane conditions to make sure the line keeps going up back home despite the higher taxes. That's not even considering the fact that the bourgeoisie (substitute rich CEOs and business owners if you don't like that word) will resist any attempt to reform the American economic system into a more socially democratic one.

To be fair, that's an argument against me and other socialists as well, but SocDems seek to work within the current system rather than remove it and build a more equitable one, which means you're playing by their rules right from the start. How do you expect to implement European-style social reforms when the U.S. can't form a cohesive response to climate change, or agree on a living minimum wage?

This is where I believe the bourgeoisie have already shown their belly by cracking down so hard on unions over the past 150 years and why I believe revolutionary unionism is the only non-violent path to social reform available to citizens of the U.S. Any kind of social reform, whether we end up in a glorious anarcho-syndicalist utopia or some kind of soft capitalist SocDem state. After all, why are they content with electoralism but terrified of direct action? You mentioned strong unions so maybe you're on board at least to this point?
 
"he's a douchebag"
Musk is a big douche but the things he invests in are objectively very useful. Unlike most of the other 3,000+ billionaires who have no issues investing in coal / oil / gas, tobacco, real estate, military industry, casinos, candy, commerce, hedge funds, fashion, telecom, or even literally buying out the media we have Musk who has put his money into things like EVs, space flight, global internet, etc. Is Musk a good guy? Certainly no but he's far from the Captain Planet supervillain the left and media claim him to be. He's useful. The left's obsession over him in particular is bizarre to me because unlike the majority of billionaires his investments are typically good for the world as a whole. Why aren't you mad about billionaires who do objectively worse things?

Miriam Adelson has made tens of billions off casinos and is a big donor to Donald Trump's campaign. Before reading this have you ever heard her name? The EV / space flight billionaire makes the news but the casino Trumper gets a free pass?

The (Walmart) Waltons. A bunch of guys who made billions by exploiting low wage workers and by stamping out small businesses.

What about Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian coal baron who owns several superyachts (currently zero, they were captured after the Ukraine invasion. Get fucked lmao).

Harold Hamm, chairman of Continental Resources an oil + gas exploration / production company. Why aren't people outraged by him. Why isn't he the one on the front page of Reddit.

Low Tuck Kwong. Literally nicknamed "the coal king". What else can I say.

Mark Zuckerberg. 2/3rds of the dumb shit your racist uncle believes came from something he read on Facebook.

I could list literally thousands more of these assholes who contribute nothing. So why is it Musk who always makes the news, and gets the endless liberal rants against a guy who actively is pumping billions into clean transportation, space flight, global internet access etc? It isn't that Musk is a good guy (he isn't) but he invests in useful things and the obsession the media has for him is misplaced when the literal coal kings get off practically without any criticism at all.

Musk is a useful douche. But there are a lot of far worse people. Stop reading new articles about Musk and move on with your life. The amount of space Elon Musk occupies in the average American's head is ridiculous.

bourgeoisie and other fun words
Realistically if you want change in the US, you go step by step at a local level. You aren't going to see big revolutions any time soon and if you're going to advocate for mass socialist uprisings, well you're going to lose very badly because the number of people willing to take part are in the extreme minority. In the long term the Republican future looks bad. The majority of gen Z vote left-ish and as the boomers die this split will become so big that even the GOP will have to make some changes if it wants to win an election ever again. In the absolute real world almost nothing in your paragraph is every going to happen.

Almost anything else you propose, no matter how many times you use the word "bourgeoisie" on a Pokémon forum it doesn't matter. You aren't going to convince the American people to have a major socialist revolution lol. Get real. US opinion of "socialism" is at 36% and falling every year, with 57% of the country holding positive views of capitalism. In addition that 36%'s views of socialism range from welfare, to Communism, but most of the pro-socialism people just like Bernie Sanders. If you want change that benefits the people and can actually reasonably happen within the US in your lifetime in a way that doesn't require communist alien space bats, you're going to have to hope the demographic shift continues and in a few years Democrats take a lead threatening enough that the Republicans can't just filibuster everything.

To clarify, I'm not saying that your ideas would or not work. Just that it isn't going to happen in the US any time soon. If you want to make real, genuine changes focus on the parties and concepts that can actually win. We have some good examples of various policies in Europe working, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to try some basics like a higher minimum wage, government that fights monopolies, basic healthcare rights and so on. Also you know, if you get sick of waiting for the Federal government to do these things there's really nothing stopping California from having its own 15 dollars an hour minimum wage or Mass from starting their own taxpayer funded healthcare system. Not everything has to be done at the Federal level.

Edit: Oh, California's minimum wage is 15 dollars an hour as of last month. Hooray!
 
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-List of evil corporate vultures-
Yeah, you're 100% right, and if you tried to say any of these ghouls are friends to leftists it would be just as ridiculous as saying Musk is. But you didn't, so bringing them up is a bit of a non-sequitur, isn't it? Nobody said Elon Musk was singlely and uniquely the most evil human being on earth, only that he wasn't a friend to leftism and an attempt to portray him as such is a pretty transparent attempt to rehabilitate his image that doesn't actually benefit the left in anyway. Any benefit that comes from Musk investing in electric cars doesn't hinge on leftists considering him a good person or an ally or whatever.

Realistically if you want change in the US, you go step by step at a local level. You aren't going to see big revolutions any time soon and if you're going to advocate for mass socialist uprisings, well you're going to lose very badly because the number of people willing to take part are in the extreme minority. In the long term the Republican future looks bad. The majority of gen Z vote left-ish and as the boomers die this split will become so big that even the GOP will have to make some changes if it wants to win an election ever again. In the absolute real world almost nothing in your paragraph is every going to happen.
Ah yes, electoralism. It's just like praying; it works, except when it doesn't, and if it doesn't work it's because you didn't vote hard enough. Oh and you're also trusting some kind of supreme power to interpret and act upon your wishes.

To highlight a single example among many, more than two-thirds of the U.S. population believes that climate change is a serious problem and the government isn't doing enough about it. Ignoring how that means an entire third of the population is politically and scientifically illiterate, does that not highlight a clear failure in the electoral system? Is the point of a representative democracy not to represent the will of the people? I'd genuinely be curious to hear how you reconcile this.

Once you do, maybe we can move on to the billions of dollars spent on propaganda and misinformation campaigns, or gerrymandering, or the electoral college, or all the other systems put in place to subvert democracy in this country and ensure that policy represents the will of the bourg- uh, rich people, not the will of the general population.

Almost anything else you propose, no matter how many times you use the word "bourgeoisie" on a Pokémon forum it doesn't matter. You aren't going to convince the American people to have a major socialist revolution lol. Get real. US opinion of "socialism" is at 36% and falling every year, with 57% of the country holding positive views of capitalism. In addition that 36%'s views of socialism range from welfare, to Communism, but most of the pro-socialism people just like Bernie Sanders. If you want change that benefits the people and can actually reasonably happen within the US in your lifetime in a way that doesn't require communist alien space bats, you're going to have to hope the demographic shift continues and in a few years Democrats take a lead threatening enough that the Republicans can't just filibuster everything.
Yeah, I guess you missed the part where I said "revolutionary unionism". Popular support for unions hasn't been stronger in the US since the turn of the century, and that's despite decades of anti-union propaganda and legislation and neoliberal indoctrination. Also it really doesn't bother me what percentage of people have a favorable view of socialism; I can promise you that neither 57% nor even 36% of Americans can even accurately define socialism. Come to think of it, I'm still not convinced you can accurately define socialism.

It turns out if you explain socialist (and even communist, Marxist, and anarchist) principles in terms that avoid using explicitly ideological language (like the b-word lol), most people tend to agree with it. I'm not above ditching the trappings of leftist language if it means getting leftist policy enacted and when I'm talking with random people in my day-to-day life I make an effort to avoid using said language. I have no such concerns here; this is an expressly political thread after all.

Oh and if you really don't like the term bourgeoisie you can just substitute it for like... "capital interests" or "CEOs and business owners" or... "rich people". Close enough that it still gets the point across even if you're the kind of flat-Earth tier evidence denier who doesn't believe in class struggle.

But yay for California. It would be nice if you could afford rent anywhere in the state working a full-time job at $15/hr, but steps in the right direction are nice, small as they may be.
 

Myzozoa

to find better ways to say what nobody says
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
yeah damn those leftists, so obsessed w elon, i see them all the time on reddit (this is where leftists go to have profound discussions where they reveal their innermost thoughts to me) talking about musk. why aren't they talking about climate change or tobacco or taxing the rich if they claim to care about these things so much??? don't the leftist knows algorhythms will keep promoting musk content because of how much they are obsessed?? lol they are so dumb haha. very curious how they claim to hate tech yet spend all day on reddit.com i am extremely smart and ppl dont get dumber reading and engaging w my posts.

ill be back soon to compete in the Actually Having Had a Conversation with a Leftist at Least Once in My Life Competition: Impossible Mode
 
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