mekkaokereke

mekkaokereke, 9 days ago

If a man asks a woman out, saying that he's "a nice guy," the woman might still politely decline. She might start to explain why she's not comfortable giving her phone number to men on the street. If the "nice guy," suddenly calls the woman a stupid ****, and tells her "Chad is worse!" and "Have fun getting hit! You deserve what happens to you!" we see that he was never a nice guy.

Pretend that you do understand this, but that you don't understand why "Trump is worse!" is so ineffective.🤡

2/N

mekkaokereke, 9 days ago

I don't care if Black men vote 100% for Biden.

Or 90% for Biden.

Or 80% for Biden.

Or 70% for Biden.

Or 60% for Biden.

If Biden doesn't win, it will be the fault of people who vote more than 50% for Trump. Stop expecting Black people to save you. That's not what we're here for. We exist outside of the world of being a voting block every 4 years.

Your "democracy" only works if Black people vote 90% plus for a candidate whose policies exposed them to genocide levels of harm. That's garbage.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago (edited 12 days ago)

The US hasn't even tried to make an ultra affordable EV. Not even an attempt!

Instead, we make Cybertrucks that no one wants, and then work the refs to kneecap better, smarter companies, to try and prevent anyone else from being successful at doing it.

Every day, I hear people prattle on about how the US Venture Capital industry is so innovative and forward-looking. Yet of all the billions spent (wasted), none of them were smart enough to fund a company making ultra low cost EVs.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

Ultra low cost EVs will be the vast majority of all cars sold in the world by 2060. Look at how big the global auto industry is! That's a huge opportunity! And almost every US VC passed on it! 🤡

Warren Buffett was smart enough to see where this was all headed, and invested heavily in BYD back in the day. But Berkshire Hathaway is more of a private equity / diversified holding company, than a VC.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@icastico

Yup. 🤷🏿‍♂️

I guarantee you that at least one person will respond to this thread with a "Trump is worse!" That person will probably be white, with low / zero Black people in their followers or following.

There's a small chance that the person will respond with anger: they might also swear at me / insult me, and include palpable glee at some implied physical violence to my person if Trump wins. Eg, "Have fun returning to slavery under Trump!"

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@Lyle

Safe vehicle?! That you can afford?! That doesn't destroy the environment?!?!

"Are you now, or have you ever been a member of, the communist party?"

I'd ask, but I think I already know the answer here Lyle. Or should I say, Lenin!

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@pablor

We could also provide a battery recycling rebate, and alleviate much of the consumer concern of buying a used EV.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@cshlan

This is part of what those "pinko commie socialists" like AOC were asking for in the Green New Deal. Specifically:

"including through investment in – (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing;"

That's how China did it. They gave car manufacturers incentives to create super cheap EVs.

AOC said "Hey US auto industry, let me give you billionaires even more money please? To develop the cars the world needs?" And they said, "No deal! Gas trucks forever! Get stuffed!"🤷🏿‍♂️

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@NohatCoder

Fair! I was being conservative.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@miki

Mostly because China knows how to make them cheap, because the government subsidized their companies in developing this skill, and then mandated it.

The Chinese government basically said, "No new internal combustion engine cars will be sold anywhere in China after 2030. Deal with it."

And they provided incentives to make that happen.

mekkaokereke, 12 days ago

@ncoca

People always trot out these same excuses for why the US is getting whipped.

1. Tesla's biggest factory is in China. They use the same non-union workforce, and source many of the same materials

2. BYD in the US is a union shop, in California. Tesla is still not union

3. The US prison slave labor industry is larger than China's

4. The life expectancy for a Black person in the US is lower than the life expectancy of Uighurs

5. US workers have to worry about medical bankruptcy

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@WeeDramAtic @CelloMomOnCars

🤦🏿‍♂️Attribution bias.

Most Americans aren't rich. Most Americans could not afford a Cybertruck or Model S, even if they wanted one.

Consider a 22 year old woman that needs to buy a car to work. She only has a budget of $15K to buy a car. She's scared of used cars, because she's lost a job before when her car needed expensive repairs that she couldn't afford. Which car should she buy?

In Australia or Brazil, she could buy a new EV. In the US, she can't.

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@PJ_Evans @smach @hittitezombie @cshlan

True!

But in that regard, the US is much more like China than the EU.

• We both have one central government and economy (supposedly!)
• We both have one national language.
• Similar area (9.4MM km² vs 9.6MM km²)

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@NanoBookReview

If what you said were true, then they wouldn't be so afraid of letting those cars into the market. Because people would just choose the Western cars. Free market and all that.

But what you said is not true.

And we know that, because we see what happens in markets where both Chinese and Western EVs are available for sale. People at the entry level choose the Chinese cars.

And the BYD Dolphin has a higher EU safety rating than the BMW 5 series.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112428503861892994

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@NanoBookReview

And Teslas are subsidized too, just not as much as the Chinese EVs. And no one's EV industry is subsidized as much as the US auto+fossil fuel industry. No one's. And it's not particularly close.

Hey, their government is making better, more future proof, more climate friendly decisions than ours. How is that their fault? No one is stopping us from also subsidizing EV manufacturers and car buyers. That's on us.

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver

🤔

1. The US has ridiculous things like "medical bankruptcy," "working homeless," and "school lunch debt." If you lined up all of the world's people by net worth, with Elon and Bezos at the front of the line, and the least wealthy people at the back of the line, the only country with more people at the tail of the line than the US, would be India (farmer's debt).

Most Chinese workers couldn't understand how you could be $300K in debt without a gambling problem.

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver

2. The US subsidizes our car industry more than anyone else by far. We just choose to subsidize fossil fuels, big trucks, and car culture. We can't get mad at China for being smarter about what they choose to subsidize (EVs and public transportation). We could do this too! AOC tried to get us to do it as part of the Green New Deal. We compromised, and got a weak half effort as part of Biden's infrastructure bill. It's not enough for us to compete.

mekkaokereke, 11 days ago

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver

3. On tariffs, we need to decide what's really important:

a) Getting off of fossil fuels

Or

b) Getting off of fossil fuels, but only if US billionaires win! 🤑

Choosing "B" means delaying getting off of fossil fuels. Rather than tariffs, we should be doubling down on our post carbon transportation investments and incentives.

But we won't do that.🤷🏿‍♂️

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago

@dan613

Nope!

Rivian has no union jobs.

Tesla has no union jobs.

Lucid has no union jobs.

The only pure EV manufacturer in the USA that is a union employer... is BYD. 🙂🙃

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=piNW_9fClhI

We were perfectly fine to replace union Internal Combustion Engine jobs with non-union EV jobs when the EV company was owned by Elon. We were content to let dealerships go bankrupt as we move to a "direct to consumer" EV sales model, and to move union Detroit jobs to non-union South Carolina jobs.

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago

@dan613

But again, we need to decide once and for all if we care more about the economy or the environment.

Because the decisions we're making sound exactly like the decisions that we used to get mad at Exxon, and Mancin for. 🤷🏿‍♂️

And doubly ironic, the "must save the economy!" pro-gas decisions don't even save the economy, as we're seeing from how afraid everyone is of the BYD Dolphin. And every time there's a big weather event, don't we say "We can't afford not to fight climate change?"

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver

I was almost going to disagree with you, but your last paragraph includes the part that I agree with! 🙂

With developing public transportation, legacy infra has nothing to do with the difference between China and the US. Most of China's rail infra was built in the past 20 years. They've added more miles of commuter rail, than the US has total.

In terms of underutilization, one way to look at that, is that they've invested in the infra, and hope to grow into their shoes.

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver

I wish that California had a completed rail system between San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Las Vegas*, that was clean, safe, and fast, but was "suffering" from low ridership. I wish that each city also had a London underground or Tokyo subway quality subway system, that had the same problems.

(* Yes I listed Las Vegas as California. Don't ask me to explain! 🙂 No, I didn't "forget" Fresno or Barstow! Build a tunnel and let us zoom past and skip them entirely.)

mekkaokereke, 10 days ago

@NanoBookReview

Great point.

I agree on the "more bikes and trains, fewer cars, safer, more walkable cities, shorter commutes," point. The only question is how to get there. I don't think tariffs on cheaper EVs is part of the solution.