4 ms·

Until HN can have an honest discussion on how far behind West is in so many aspects - without blaming Trump for it glibly - each day that passes is a day it fal

by bataowt 9mo ago

Until HN can have an honest discussion on how far behind West is in so many aspects - without blaming Trump for it glibly - each day that passes is a day it falls further behind. The moment you face the truth is the moment you can start doing something about it.

epistasis 9mo ago
Facing the truth also requires acknowledging the roadblocks. Largely due to Trump but Al Republican and conservative culture, and structural, and some permitting etc. Saying that Trump is not allowed to be blamed is symptomatic of just how damaged the public discourse is. Too many snowflakes who are terrified of facing basic accountability for the consequences of their beliefs and actions.
- RickJWagner 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - array_key_first 9mo ago
    Right, and materially - what do you think damages EVs more? A few fires, or structural policy choice deliberately intended to destroy the industry? Yes, we can truly both sides everything. But we can't just claim things are the same when they're obviously not. It's clear, and indisputable, that most EV adoption is coming from green policy, particularly around the economy. And who is most responsible for that? The explicitly pro-oil republicans, or not-them?
    - wakawaka28 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - array_key_first 9mo ago
        The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. We know this because the people doing it are explicitly pro oil. Trump has gone on a few times now about how much he loves oil. And, to be clear, the subsidies didn't go away, they moved. If we want to talk subsidies, oil is at the tippy top of that list. It's disingenuous to just ignore it. I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. > If we leave the market alone, people will allocate resources where they are actually needed the most If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. They're one of the most, if not the most, blessed products by our government. They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone.
        wakawaka28 9mo ago
        >The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse. Even if they weren't, we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. >I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. I know that. Ethanol somehow reduces certain kinds of supposedly harmful emissions, and it gives farmers someone to sell their corn to. We need to support farmers because a market spread too thin on farming means people would starve. If we had crop issues, rest assured that they would probably stop using ethanol until things got back to normal. >If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. We had EV cars a hundred years ago and abandoned them. Petrol works better. People could be encouraged to use electric trains or something but it turns out that city life is not practical or desirable for everyone. >They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone. Every country prizes its auto industry (if it has one) because it is related to nearly every other production capability. Building all the shit the military needs from scratch down to the raw material supply chain is not something that can be done in a hurry. Also, I don't know if you knew, but the interstates are used for rapid shipping and military movement. Trains still exist but they can't compete with trucks on highways for most things.
    - RickJWagner 9mo ago
      I’d love to have a nice EV, but for me they don’t make economic sense. I think that’d true for many. Subsidies don’t seem to have permanently changed that. We’ll also soon see how efficiently fully run down electric cars are to deal with at scale. They could be more harmful than we know.
  - jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
    The perps were patriots, resisting a murdering (among others, destroying USAID) sociopath committing mass treason against the government. There were also like maybe a dozen actually destructive cases. No one got hurt. Total property damage was maybe a half million dollars? We're arguing over the dumbest pittances of nothing, even if we add an order of magnitude here. This is ridiculous. Personally, your post seems to be strongly condemning, as if this was some absurd nightmare situation. I find it just ridiculous cowardice to pretend like this was an actual scary and bad problem. I'm not sure how many 9's of non violent peaceful protest it was, but it was a lot of 9's, and very little actual harm. Yes, a brand had it's image destroyed. It did it itself. Telsa's leader set it's brand's name on fire. Molotov'ed itself into kingdom come. From which it seems impossible to recover. A brand that was early in on EV's. But it seems facetious and ridiculous blame this political suicide in public, with nazi salutes and chainsaws, on the left. Get real man; you have to be joking. The left didn't slow this down; what kind of a fool do you take us for?
    - RickJWagner 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
        Yeah, indeed, glad you came around; how did this poor nation vote for this crazy crazy crazy shit?
        RickJWagner 9mo ago
        Legally, that’s how. The pendulum goes back and forth. The right is in power now, so the left will point out deficiencies and promise improvements. If enough people believe things could be better, than the left will win power in the next election. Then the cycle starts over again. It works wonderfully, and the USA has prospered because of it. Sometimes immature people do crazy things because they’re narcissistic and want to try to circumvent the rules. They could do the right thing and try to bring change legally, but through either stupidity or lack of morals they instead go outside the law. People all across the political spectrum should view such people as a liability to us all.
  - epistasis 9mo ago
    The vandalism was not anti-EV, was performed by a tiny number of extremists outside of any sort of Democrwric politics, so attributing it to both sides" doesn't make a lick of sense. It's not like elected Democratic officials were saying "we hate EVs, everybody go out and vandalize Musk's businesses." There is no political movement among democrats to avoid the technological transition that the rest of the world is enthusiastically taking. There is no comparison, the idea is absolutely ludicrous.
    - RickJWagner 9mo ago
      I would’ve respected the Democratic politicians more had they spoken out. I think Fetterman did, to his credit. I don’t remember any others.
      - epistasis 9mo ago
        Ok so now we are asking people uninvolved to a tiny number of incidents to jump (how high?) on things they have no control over. Instead of focusing on the politics that is actually their domain: the unconstitutional destruction of institutions mandated by Congress by an out-of-control executive branch that is breaking the law. Let the FBI and police deal with local property crimes. And even if more Democratic politicians condemned it, how would you hear about it? What media do you consume that would let you hear that voice? And what does your respect translate into? Even asking Democratic politicians to condemn the violence shows that you are placing the onus on Democrats for something that they did not do. It's very strange behavior.
        RickJWagner 9mo ago
        I’m thinking the Republicans were affecting EVs through legal means, while the firebombing anti-Musk vandals were acting like anarchists. Any worthwhile politician should find it easy to pick a side on that one.
- wakawaka28 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - bataowt 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jemmyw 9mo ago
      The global population is not dwindling yet. At the current derivative of birth rate it'll keep keep growing for 50 years. Of course many places will experience a demographic crisis well before the global population falls.
      - wakawaka28 9mo ago
        Many places already are in demographic crisis. "Not dwindling yet" but the fix is in. It will dwindle as soon as old people start dying.
  - tomhow 9mo ago
    > No doubt this will get several downvotes because HN is in fact overwhelmingly populated by liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Please don't comment like this on HN. This is a place for curious conversation not fulmination and ideological battle.
    - wakawaka28 9mo ago
      Please don't lecture me on HN ethos and fulmination when libs do it hundreds of times every day here and their bullshit generally goes unanswered. I have in fact been downvoted many times and even after 2 years of using the site daily I can't downvote anyone myself.
      - tomhow 9mo ago
        You've entered a community that has clear guidelines and a clearly stated purpose and you've brought an ideologically combative energy, in clear breach of the site’s guidelines and intended use. This is only a place where people want to participate because others make the effort to contribute positively and raise the standards up rather than dragging them down. People have no trouble getting to the 500-point threshold to enable downvoting when they contribute positively to the site for a few months, with interesting submissions and thoughtful comments. We have tools anyone can use to report breaches if they want to earnestly show they intend to use the site as intended – flagging and emailing us (hn@ycombinator.com). We push back on anyone we see breaking the guidelines, regardless of “side” (we don't care about the side and often don't even know), and we're routinely accused of favoring the other side by people who refuse to take responsibility for their own conduct.
tim-tday 9mo ago
It’s not solely Trumps fault we fell behind. (And let’s be clear, we fell behind China. The rise of Korea and Vietnam are simply insignificant in comparison.) In fact he tried to fix our pending loss to China in his first presidency with his first efforts towards a trade war. The trade war alarmed China who began a program to internalize supply chains. and when Biden doubled down, China accelerated their supply chain independence at the cost of a residential construction crash and massive financial pain for normal Chinese people. And now in the second trump presidency we see that chinas efforts worked. They succeeded in internalizing their supply chains so they can continue to produce and export even as supply inputs are disrupted. Which is why we’re seeing that the current trade war isn’t working. China has been able to increase their international exports to the rest often world. When trump slapped our closest trading partners he helped China because he sent our closest trading partners right into the arms of China who have increased their global trade even as the trade war with the us continues. But that’s not what the article is about. It’s about the about-face from electric vehicles and that is 100% definitively Trump’s doing. So yes let’s face the truth on those two issues. 1) the US fell behind China and the trade war isn’t working. No it’s not all trump’s fault. But he’s the president and it happened on his watch despite his efforts. 2) an about face on electric vehicles will harm us in the long term (costing us much more later than it saves by redoubling investment in old tech)

by bataowt 9mo ago

epistasis 9mo ago

Facing the truth also requires acknowledging the roadblocks. Largely due to Trump but Al Republican and conservative culture, and structural, and some permitting etc. Saying that Trump is not allowed to be blamed is symptomatic of just how damaged the public discourse is. Too many snowflakes who are terrified of facing basic accountability for the consequences of their beliefs and actions.

RickJWagner 9mo ago
[flagged]
- array_key_first 9mo ago
  Right, and materially - what do you think damages EVs more? A few fires, or structural policy choice deliberately intended to destroy the industry? Yes, we can truly both sides everything. But we can't just claim things are the same when they're obviously not. It's clear, and indisputable, that most EV adoption is coming from green policy, particularly around the economy. And who is most responsible for that? The explicitly pro-oil republicans, or not-them?
  - wakawaka28 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - array_key_first 9mo ago
      The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. We know this because the people doing it are explicitly pro oil. Trump has gone on a few times now about how much he loves oil. And, to be clear, the subsidies didn't go away, they moved. If we want to talk subsidies, oil is at the tippy top of that list. It's disingenuous to just ignore it. I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. > If we leave the market alone, people will allocate resources where they are actually needed the most If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. They're one of the most, if not the most, blessed products by our government. They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone.
      - wakawaka28 9mo ago
        >The policy choice to stop subsidizing EVs while, simultaneously halting their adoption from overseas, was intended to deliberately hurt the industry as a whole. Chinese EVs are a Trojan horse. Even if they weren't, we cannot compete with the Chinese on cost and probably can't trust their quality standards. >I mean, for fucks sake, MOST of the corn grown in this country is just so we can turn it into gas. Do a deep dive on that. I know that. Ethanol somehow reduces certain kinds of supposedly harmful emissions, and it gives farmers someone to sell their corn to. We need to support farmers because a market spread too thin on farming means people would starve. If we had crop issues, rest assured that they would probably stop using ethanol until things got back to normal. >If we left the market alone, we would've abandoned gasoline cars a long time ago. We had EV cars a hundred years ago and abandoned them. Petrol works better. People could be encouraged to use electric trains or something but it turns out that city life is not practical or desirable for everyone. >They get every special treatment, bailout, and subsidy in the book. Down to even the streets. 25 trillion on interstates alone. Every country prizes its auto industry (if it has one) because it is related to nearly every other production capability. Building all the shit the military needs from scratch down to the raw material supply chain is not something that can be done in a hurry. Also, I don't know if you knew, but the interstates are used for rapid shipping and military movement. Trains still exist but they can't compete with trucks on highways for most things.
  - RickJWagner 9mo ago
    I’d love to have a nice EV, but for me they don’t make economic sense. I think that’d true for many. Subsidies don’t seem to have permanently changed that. We’ll also soon see how efficiently fully run down electric cars are to deal with at scale. They could be more harmful than we know.
- jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
  The perps were patriots, resisting a murdering (among others, destroying USAID) sociopath committing mass treason against the government. There were also like maybe a dozen actually destructive cases. No one got hurt. Total property damage was maybe a half million dollars? We're arguing over the dumbest pittances of nothing, even if we add an order of magnitude here. This is ridiculous. Personally, your post seems to be strongly condemning, as if this was some absurd nightmare situation. I find it just ridiculous cowardice to pretend like this was an actual scary and bad problem. I'm not sure how many 9's of non violent peaceful protest it was, but it was a lot of 9's, and very little actual harm. Yes, a brand had it's image destroyed. It did it itself. Telsa's leader set it's brand's name on fire. Molotov'ed itself into kingdom come. From which it seems impossible to recover. A brand that was early in on EV's. But it seems facetious and ridiculous blame this political suicide in public, with nazi salutes and chainsaws, on the left. Get real man; you have to be joking. The left didn't slow this down; what kind of a fool do you take us for?
  - RickJWagner 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
      Yeah, indeed, glad you came around; how did this poor nation vote for this crazy crazy crazy shit?
      - RickJWagner 9mo ago
        Legally, that’s how. The pendulum goes back and forth. The right is in power now, so the left will point out deficiencies and promise improvements. If enough people believe things could be better, than the left will win power in the next election. Then the cycle starts over again. It works wonderfully, and the USA has prospered because of it. Sometimes immature people do crazy things because they’re narcissistic and want to try to circumvent the rules. They could do the right thing and try to bring change legally, but through either stupidity or lack of morals they instead go outside the law. People all across the political spectrum should view such people as a liability to us all.
- epistasis 9mo ago
  The vandalism was not anti-EV, was performed by a tiny number of extremists outside of any sort of Democrwric politics, so attributing it to both sides" doesn't make a lick of sense. It's not like elected Democratic officials were saying "we hate EVs, everybody go out and vandalize Musk's businesses." There is no political movement among democrats to avoid the technological transition that the rest of the world is enthusiastically taking. There is no comparison, the idea is absolutely ludicrous.
  - RickJWagner 9mo ago
    I would’ve respected the Democratic politicians more had they spoken out. I think Fetterman did, to his credit. I don’t remember any others.
    - epistasis 9mo ago
      Ok so now we are asking people uninvolved to a tiny number of incidents to jump (how high?) on things they have no control over. Instead of focusing on the politics that is actually their domain: the unconstitutional destruction of institutions mandated by Congress by an out-of-control executive branch that is breaking the law. Let the FBI and police deal with local property crimes. And even if more Democratic politicians condemned it, how would you hear about it? What media do you consume that would let you hear that voice? And what does your respect translate into? Even asking Democratic politicians to condemn the violence shows that you are placing the onus on Democrats for something that they did not do. It's very strange behavior.
      - RickJWagner 9mo ago
        I’m thinking the Republicans were affecting EVs through legal means, while the firebombing anti-Musk vandals were acting like anarchists. Any worthwhile politician should find it easy to pick a side on that one.
wakawaka28 9mo ago
[flagged]
- bataowt 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jemmyw 9mo ago
    The global population is not dwindling yet. At the current derivative of birth rate it'll keep keep growing for 50 years. Of course many places will experience a demographic crisis well before the global population falls.
    - wakawaka28 9mo ago
      Many places already are in demographic crisis. "Not dwindling yet" but the fix is in. It will dwindle as soon as old people start dying.
- tomhow 9mo ago
  > No doubt this will get several downvotes because HN is in fact overwhelmingly populated by liberals with Trump Derangement Syndrome. Please don't comment like this on HN. This is a place for curious conversation not fulmination and ideological battle.
  - wakawaka28 9mo ago
    Please don't lecture me on HN ethos and fulmination when libs do it hundreds of times every day here and their bullshit generally goes unanswered. I have in fact been downvoted many times and even after 2 years of using the site daily I can't downvote anyone myself.
    - tomhow 9mo ago
      You've entered a community that has clear guidelines and a clearly stated purpose and you've brought an ideologically combative energy, in clear breach of the site’s guidelines and intended use. This is only a place where people want to participate because others make the effort to contribute positively and raise the standards up rather than dragging them down. People have no trouble getting to the 500-point threshold to enable downvoting when they contribute positively to the site for a few months, with interesting submissions and thoughtful comments. We have tools anyone can use to report breaches if they want to earnestly show they intend to use the site as intended – flagging and emailing us (hn@ycombinator.com). We push back on anyone we see breaking the guidelines, regardless of “side” (we don't care about the side and often don't even know), and we're routinely accused of favoring the other side by people who refuse to take responsibility for their own conduct.

tim-tday 9mo ago

It’s not solely Trumps fault we fell behind. (And let’s be clear, we fell behind China. The rise of Korea and Vietnam are simply insignificant in comparison.) In fact he tried to fix our pending loss to China in his first presidency with his first efforts towards a trade war. The trade war alarmed China who began a program to internalize supply chains. and when Biden doubled down, China accelerated their supply chain independence at the cost of a residential construction crash and massive financial pain for normal Chinese people. And now in the second trump presidency we see that chinas efforts worked. They succeeded in internalizing their supply chains so they can continue to produce and export even as supply inputs are disrupted. Which is why we’re seeing that the current trade war isn’t working. China has been able to increase their international exports to the rest often world. When trump slapped our closest trading partners he helped China because he sent our closest trading partners right into the arms of China who have increased their global trade even as the trade war with the us continues. But that’s not what the article is about. It’s about the about-face from electric vehicles and that is 100% definitively Trump’s doing. So yes let’s face the truth on those two issues. 1) the US fell behind China and the trade war isn’t working. No it’s not all trump’s fault. But he’s the president and it happened on his watch despite his efforts. 2) an about face on electric vehicles will harm us in the long term (costing us much more later than it saves by redoubling investment in old tech)