5 ms·

Personally, I'm okay with this in the short term. Electric vehicles are still at a fairly press-sensitive stage of development. And there's definitely skulldogg

by ethbro 10y ago

Personally, I'm okay with this in the short term. Electric vehicles are still at a fairly press-sensitive stage of development. And there's definitely skulldoggery that ICE competitors could manufacture if they wanted to. Or even crazy customers. See: https://www.tesla.com/blog/when-life-gives-you-lemons https://www.tesla.com/blog/when-life-gives-you-lemons After they're accepted and the new normal? Absolutely agreed that the balance should be shifted toward the customer.

ksk 10y ago
I don't think electric car makers should be coddled like this. What exactly is your worry with negative press?
- ethbro 10y ago
  That an incumbent with substantial influence uses their position to suppress a disruptive technology that's an emerging danger of erroding their business model? When an infant alternative is competing against a fully-developed and monetized legacy product, I'm okay with some coddling (e.g. the EV subsidies). You have to get to the point of "Is it likely this new thing will be more beneficial to society when equivalently developed?" Otherwise we get stuck optimizing a local maxima.
  - ksk 10y ago
    >That an incumbent with substantial influence uses their position to suppress a disruptive technology that's an emerging danger of erroding their business model? That's already been happening since the industrial age, and since we haven't plateaued, your fear of a local maxima doesn't look convincing. Would you agree that it is only fair that the onus is on you to explain what is different about this scenario? I see it as a good thing because by the time the disruptive tech does take over, the new tech has undergone a cycle of refinement to the point where it goes from being "great", "oh this is nice" to being simply unavoidable. Also, why is the incumbent suppressing a disruptive tech necessarily a bad thing? Since they're an incumbent they could also be in a position to evaluate the tech and know that there are certain downfalls to that approach. I'm fairly certain that as a reasonable person, you would agree that most disruptive tech never pans out and the companies die out. > You have to get to the point of "Is it likely this new thing will be more beneficial to society when equivalently developed?" Well but the the government picks winners and losers and uses tax payer money for that. What if there is this other great tech that even better and it gains some prominence 4 years after the government decided to subsidize EV? Do we now abandon all EV subsidies? Subsidize both?
    - ethbro 10y ago
      > since we haven't plateaued I'd argue ICE is the ultimate example of that. I'll toss in monoculture, fertilizer/herbacide-powered farming; centralized banking (in the sense of Chase, not the Fed); commute-mandating urban planning; hydrocarbon-powered grid energy production; von Neumann architecture; electrical computing; and nuclear reactor designs to the list. My argument is not that these things aren't efficient. Indeed, I'm saying they're so hyper-optimized that they're nigh impossible to unseat. Maybe fusion power production is feasible, maybe it isn't. But where is the very substantial investment to see going to come from if it can't immediately compete against existing solutions? And barring that investment appearing, we (as a planet) end up stuck on a technology that's globally suboptimal and impossible to improve further. > Also, why is the incumbent suppressing a disruptive tech necessarily a bad thing? Since they're an incumbent they could also be in a position to evaluate the tech and know that there are certain downfalls to that approach. I feel history is definitely on my side that large companies with a focused product are more likely to attempt to torpedo viable alternatives than incubate and help them. (E.g. MS/Lotus, MS/Netscape, MS/OSS, GM/Streetcars, GM/EV1)
DannyBee 10y ago
Wow. A friend of mine in china told me "What do we need civil rights for right now. It's more important that we become a world leader. We can always get our rights back later" Once you set a new normal, it's the new normal, and people get used to it. Remember that time we went back to a strong 4th amendment? Or less surveillance? or ... If electric cars can't survive with negative press, they shouldn't survive. Ends don't justify means.
- fixermark 10y ago
  Remember the time the United States was doing terrible damage to the environment (noon in Pittsburgh, strip mining, coal ash in the rivers), then we became a world superpower, then the EPA was given teeth to clean up the environment? History suggests your friend might have a point. Might. There are likely good counter-examples to consider.
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, especially when we're talking about an oppressive autocracy that has huge incentives to keep civil rights down. Worse, the EPA exists because of grassroots democratic action. What grassroots right do these Chinese people have? Much, much less than Americans in the 60s.
    - fixermark 10y ago
      While I agree civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, civil rights and consumer rights are also pretty unrelated. The larger umbrella category encompassing them is "Pro-individual vs. pro-collective policy," which I assumed we were discoursing under because you brought up civil rights in the context of consumer rights. Under that umbrella, one can certainly discuss tradeoffs a society makes between "Better for the individual" vs. "better for the collective" to move to somewhere the society wants to be economically. Where did "civil rights" stand when the US was employing children to operate textile machines or had no 40-hour work-week protections?
  - 10y ago

by ethbro 10y ago

ksk 10y ago

I don't think electric car makers should be coddled like this. What exactly is your worry with negative press?

ethbro 10y ago
That an incumbent with substantial influence uses their position to suppress a disruptive technology that's an emerging danger of erroding their business model? When an infant alternative is competing against a fully-developed and monetized legacy product, I'm okay with some coddling (e.g. the EV subsidies). You have to get to the point of "Is it likely this new thing will be more beneficial to society when equivalently developed?" Otherwise we get stuck optimizing a local maxima.
- ksk 10y ago
  >That an incumbent with substantial influence uses their position to suppress a disruptive technology that's an emerging danger of erroding their business model? That's already been happening since the industrial age, and since we haven't plateaued, your fear of a local maxima doesn't look convincing. Would you agree that it is only fair that the onus is on you to explain what is different about this scenario? I see it as a good thing because by the time the disruptive tech does take over, the new tech has undergone a cycle of refinement to the point where it goes from being "great", "oh this is nice" to being simply unavoidable. Also, why is the incumbent suppressing a disruptive tech necessarily a bad thing? Since they're an incumbent they could also be in a position to evaluate the tech and know that there are certain downfalls to that approach. I'm fairly certain that as a reasonable person, you would agree that most disruptive tech never pans out and the companies die out. > You have to get to the point of "Is it likely this new thing will be more beneficial to society when equivalently developed?" Well but the the government picks winners and losers and uses tax payer money for that. What if there is this other great tech that even better and it gains some prominence 4 years after the government decided to subsidize EV? Do we now abandon all EV subsidies? Subsidize both?
  - ethbro 10y ago
    > since we haven't plateaued I'd argue ICE is the ultimate example of that. I'll toss in monoculture, fertilizer/herbacide-powered farming; centralized banking (in the sense of Chase, not the Fed); commute-mandating urban planning; hydrocarbon-powered grid energy production; von Neumann architecture; electrical computing; and nuclear reactor designs to the list. My argument is not that these things aren't efficient. Indeed, I'm saying they're so hyper-optimized that they're nigh impossible to unseat. Maybe fusion power production is feasible, maybe it isn't. But where is the very substantial investment to see going to come from if it can't immediately compete against existing solutions? And barring that investment appearing, we (as a planet) end up stuck on a technology that's globally suboptimal and impossible to improve further. > Also, why is the incumbent suppressing a disruptive tech necessarily a bad thing? Since they're an incumbent they could also be in a position to evaluate the tech and know that there are certain downfalls to that approach. I feel history is definitely on my side that large companies with a focused product are more likely to attempt to torpedo viable alternatives than incubate and help them. (E.g. MS/Lotus, MS/Netscape, MS/OSS, GM/Streetcars, GM/EV1)

DannyBee 10y ago

Wow. A friend of mine in china told me "What do we need civil rights for right now. It's more important that we become a world leader. We can always get our rights back later" Once you set a new normal, it's the new normal, and people get used to it. Remember that time we went back to a strong 4th amendment? Or less surveillance? or ... If electric cars can't survive with negative press, they shouldn't survive. Ends don't justify means.

fixermark 10y ago
Remember the time the United States was doing terrible damage to the environment (noon in Pittsburgh, strip mining, coal ash in the rivers), then we became a world superpower, then the EPA was given teeth to clean up the environment? History suggests your friend might have a point. Might. There are likely good counter-examples to consider.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, especially when we're talking about an oppressive autocracy that has huge incentives to keep civil rights down. Worse, the EPA exists because of grassroots democratic action. What grassroots right do these Chinese people have? Much, much less than Americans in the 60s.
  - fixermark 10y ago
    While I agree civil rights and pollution have almost nothing in common, civil rights and consumer rights are also pretty unrelated. The larger umbrella category encompassing them is "Pro-individual vs. pro-collective policy," which I assumed we were discoursing under because you brought up civil rights in the context of consumer rights. Under that umbrella, one can certainly discuss tradeoffs a society makes between "Better for the individual" vs. "better for the collective" to move to somewhere the society wants to be economically. Where did "civil rights" stand when the US was employing children to operate textile machines or had no 40-hour work-week protections?
- 10y ago