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"I really don't understand the whole cars are in league with big oil." Yeah, nobody would ever "conspire" when trillions upon trillions of dollars in economic

by api 12y ago

"I really don't understand the whole cars are in league with big oil." Yeah, nobody would ever "conspire" when trillions upon trillions of dollars in economic activity, millions of entrenched (and often unionized) jobs, hundreds of billions of dollars of sunk cost in infrastructure, the economies of entire nations and regions of nations, and generations of established thinking are at stake. That never happens. The parent poster is just one of those conspiracy nuts. Sorry for the combative tone, but I'm a bit tired of seeing this kind of naivete. Of course people will conspire and engage in stalling and other underhanded political tactics to stop things that are a threat to huge industries and entrenched ways of doing things. They'll do that and more. They will lie, cheat, kill, undermine democracy and foster political corruption, start wars, you name it. A lawyer friend of mine explained it to me this way (we were discussing shady behavior in the startup world): "There are people who will beat you up or kill you for a smart phone or the contents of your wallet. What will people do for a million bucks?" I sort of got it. Answer is that people will do everything they'll do for your cell phone or wallet and then some, but they'll do it with far more sophistication and cunning. The higher the stakes the more cunning and otherwise sophisticated the crimes. BTW, the mention of unionized jobs above highlights that it's not just oil companies and car companies we're talking about here. We are also talking about a massive infrastructure for making, selling, and servicing oil-burner cars that employs minimally tens of millions of people in the US alone. All of that is threatened by simpler, more reliable, grid-connected battery EVs. EVs are downright apocalyptic for entire sectors of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of businesses will die, and millions will find their entire skill sets completely obsolete. It'd be like if suddenly there were computers faster and cheaper in every way than silicon-based ones but that are programmable through some utterly alien abstraction that has almost nothing in common with present-day programming languages. All your skills are now obsolete. Google is done. Microsoft is done. Etc...

SilasX 12y ago
IIUIC, the GP was objecting that car companies have conflicting interests with oil companies on this matter, not that such large conspiracies can't happen given the stakes. That is, car companies would love to be able to sell cars that don't need oil, and so would not (by themselves) hinder such technologies.
- api 12y ago
  I Still disagree. Theoretically you should be right, but try telling a huge bureaucracy they need to lay off half their employees, managers, account execs, etc. because the whole supply chain is shifting. Things are not as rational as many think. Huge bureaucracies fight for stasis, as if governed by inertia. It's true even if they are dying. Look at Kodak, Commodore Computer, Radio Shack, etc.
ctdonath 12y ago
Yeah, nobody would ever "conspire" when trillions upon trillions of dollars in economic activity, millions of entrenched (and often unionized) jobs, hundreds of billions of dollars of sunk cost in infrastructure, the economies of entire nations and regions of nations, and generations of established thinking are at stake. That never happens. The parent poster is just one of those conspiracy nuts. While perhaps not quite at the same scale as gas-powered cars, I've been up close & personal with two very large industries going from world-dominating to patent-fire-sale in a very short time. Smith Corona used to be the most recognized brand on the planet, dominating the typewriter market alongside IBM; then the PC showed up, "word processing" became a thing, and after a brief attempt to compete by putting databases/spreadsheets/games on typewriters, that industry evaporated fast. Kodak was, subsequently, probably the most recognized brand, dominating photography & imaging; then the digital camera showed up, resellers (using the film/processing/prints model for foot traffic) were confused with customers (actual final buyers), a half-baked attempt at supporting digital was made, and ultimately the photosensitive chemical consumables market evaporated in favor of digital imaging capital equipment. Core infrastructure industries can, do, have, and will disappear almost overnight. Interesting history.

by api 12y ago

SilasX 12y ago

IIUIC, the GP was objecting that car companies have conflicting interests with oil companies on this matter, not that such large conspiracies can't happen given the stakes. That is, car companies would love to be able to sell cars that don't need oil, and so would not (by themselves) hinder such technologies.

api 12y ago
I Still disagree. Theoretically you should be right, but try telling a huge bureaucracy they need to lay off half their employees, managers, account execs, etc. because the whole supply chain is shifting. Things are not as rational as many think. Huge bureaucracies fight for stasis, as if governed by inertia. It's true even if they are dying. Look at Kodak, Commodore Computer, Radio Shack, etc.

ctdonath 12y ago

Yeah, nobody would ever "conspire" when trillions upon trillions of dollars in economic activity, millions of entrenched (and often unionized) jobs, hundreds of billions of dollars of sunk cost in infrastructure, the economies of entire nations and regions of nations, and generations of established thinking are at stake. That never happens. The parent poster is just one of those conspiracy nuts. While perhaps not quite at the same scale as gas-powered cars, I've been up close & personal with two very large industries going from world-dominating to patent-fire-sale in a very short time. Smith Corona used to be the most recognized brand on the planet, dominating the typewriter market alongside IBM; then the PC showed up, "word processing" became a thing, and after a brief attempt to compete by putting databases/spreadsheets/games on typewriters, that industry evaporated fast. Kodak was, subsequently, probably the most recognized brand, dominating photography & imaging; then the digital camera showed up, resellers (using the film/processing/prints model for foot traffic) were confused with customers (actual final buyers), a half-baked attempt at supporting digital was made, and ultimately the photosensitive chemical consumables market evaporated in favor of digital imaging capital equipment. Core infrastructure industries can, do, have, and will disappear almost overnight. Interesting history.