Anti-EV idiocy

[SwampNut]

"Nobody is really buying this product any more, you should be happy you have any job at all. Now get your shovel and stop whining!"

 

[Crissa]

Building upon your metaphor…

In order to have leverage the laborers need a fulcrum in the form of alternative employment. Otherwise you are just moving them from abused and hungry to unemployed and starving.

No.

If it was just 'employment' then it wouldn't be abusive. The abuser is gaining power from that exploitation.

Laborers have more than one tool or lever - they can withhold their labor, for which they might starve, sure; but they can also speak out or fight back.

And without the ill-gained profit, abusers have less ability to suppress fighting back or speaking out.

-Crissa

 

[charliemagpie]

People, do yourselves a favor.

Please go and read Plato's The Republic.

Read it slowly and immerse yourselves in the conversation. You may have to re-read sections.

Absorb it.

I don't trust anyone or longevity of any human system. We have discussed it for 2500 years.

Over time, I have concluded an AI benevolent dictator is best for everyone.

 

[firsttruck]

.....
I have concluded an AI benevolent dictator is best for everyone.

That could only be true if I was the one that programmed the AI

 

[JBee]

We live in a world run by dead peoples ideas.

I'd like to see how we can program AI how not to do so, without our "programing" biasing the AI.

Following the principles of sustainability, it would be much safer to decentralize, distribute and diversify the structures of power and control, so that it can't be accumulated to enforce a monopoly of them. The seriousness and significance of resulting failures would be much reduced, resulting in better capacity to reiterate the system and adapt the control for better performance.

Change is good, learning by failing is good, do it often to improve faster.

 

[firsttruck]

We live in a world run by dead peoples ideas.

......
Following the principles of sustainability, it would be much safer to decentralize, distribute and diversify the structures of power and control, so that it can't be accumulated to enforce a monopoly of them. The seriousness and significance of resulting failures would be much reduced, resulting in better capacity to reiterate the system and adapt the control for better performance.
....

We live in world run by live people with a tiny minority that have power & control

Two problems

1. Centralized systems are easily able to transfer unfair share of power, control, profits to the few people at the top. Decentralized/distributed systems make it difficult to transfer unfair share of power, control, profits to the few people at the top.

2. Those in power and control are at top of today's centralized system will do every thing they can to stop decentralization & implementation of distributed systems because of #1.

 

[JBee]

Agreed.
That is why scale is so important in reaching sustainability. But we also need a stage from which to transform from. For example: now knowing the limits of the benefits of centralization, we can then start to design systems with the benefits but less of the disadvantages. Fossils enabled the "power up" of technology in the last century, Internet information, microcontrollers automation, etc.

The change can, and should in my opinion, start from the consumer of goods and services up. Less currency use = less power funneling to enable the top. Local productivity with local control and distribution of resources. Community and productivity "by design", not a random accumulation of fluctuating financial opportunities that makes or breaks a town or city.

 

[Crissa]

Decentralized systems are harder to make fair or transfer from those with surplus to those with need, even if they want to. Decentralized systems are also more difficult to authenticate or manage standards in, as well.

Everything has its plusses and negatives.

-Crissa

 

[JBee]

Decentralized systems are harder to make fair or transfer from those with surplus to those with need, even if they want to. Decentralized systems are also more difficult to authenticate or manage standards in, as well.

Everything has its plusses and negatives.

-Crissa

Agreed. But..

I imagine a place where the more capability you have in a community to adapt the environment to your needs, the less control is needed.

Hypothetically, imagine the distributed manufacturing nature, if every suburb had their own Start Trek "replicator", where it could convert locally available resources and trace elements to a whole product range. Technically, this is what they would need on Mars to make it self sustaining too.

This might sound silly at first, but nature already shows us how. For example trees and plants, take carbon and water from the atmosphere, and trace elements from the ground to grow. Now in resource volumes most of the mass of a tree comes from the air, not from the ground. You can see this happening in a pot plant, where you place seed into a level of plant mix soil, then seed and water. Whilst growing the roots expand the soil to the degree that the pot overflows, and the plant above the soil is bigger than that again. That mass is mostly from the air and water that it has harvested, the soil level has barely reduced.

A similar process can be adopted for local production, where base materials like carbon, water (H2), Nitrogen is harvested from the air and then composited using trace elements from the ground, or imported, to construct the products required. The availability of carbon allows for a huge range of products in itself, from activated charcoal to carbon nanotubes, which depending on how they a doped and formed, can be used as semiconductors, solar panels, battery/capacitors, hydrogen storage, structural components etc. You can do the same for each base constitute and then layer composites of materials for the desired effect. At some point this construction system becomes like lego, where you can then even create micromachines for whatever purpose to produce what you need. You can even integrate trees into the carbon harvesting process so that timber supplies the carbon for use in the "replicator" machine.

Obviously, having a direct matter replicator (aka reorganizer) would be even better, but either way it would fundamentally change the requirements of any systems of control, demand and availability to the point that excess would simply trump control of supply, because it was no longer necessary.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah.

It's also important to remember 'more difficult' doesn't mean impossible, and sometimes you need both systems to check each other.

Decentralized means localities are more resilient... but there's a limit to the ability of any community to adapt, and that's when they need outside help or tools that aren't available locally.

-Crissa

 

[SwampNut]

Decentralized systems are harder to make fair or transfer from those with surplus to those with need, even if they want to. Decentralized systems are also more difficult to authenticate or manage standards in, as well.

And those things could be considered positives as well.

 

[Crissa]

And those things could be considered positives as well.

...If you want to encourage disparity and abandon communities. Sure.

-Crissa

 

[SwampNut]

Not necessarily bad things, depending on who gets to define it.

 

[ricinro]

A neighbor was angry at me when I told her that EVs will largely replace ICE vehicles.
She then went on an emotional rant about the government forcing her to drive an EV.

While it could be argued that the govt forced us to land folks on the moon I don't recall the American gulags containing engineers and technicians to pull this off and we the people did not specifically vote to land people on the moon.

Then how did it happen? Simple political leadership? Aspirational feel good goal? Lucrative side hustle for the military industrial complex with plenty of pork for each state? exploration? It was likely all of the above and more.

So while some in gov't may aspire to usher in change it always was going to be a market based transition and you can choose what is offered.

 

[SwampNut]

I don't understand the comparison. The US government has said that they will force everyone to drive an EV. They have not yet said they will force everyone to go to the moon. We had EVs since the early 1900s and a few people went to the moon in the 60s (if you believe they actually did).

Speaking of moon, these moonbats were the same ones complaining about seat belts and ABS. If our government didn't have a long track record of over-reach and stupid or illegal rules, they might be less crazy about it. Might be.