Billionaires become billionaires because they want all of the power and privileges that come along with it. If having the total freedom and liberty to do whatever you want is your goal, there doesn’t seem to be any better way to accomplish that than to become obscenely rich. And I think that’s why so many people tolerate this cultural, social arrangement: because their goals are aligned with the super wealthy. The difference between the rich and the poor isn’t their values, it’s their net worth. That’s why everyone is hustling so hard every day to try and get as rich as possible, so that one day, maybe, they might be the one laying out on the deck of a yacht, drinking expensive champagne, snorting coke and getting a hand job from a beautiful, young girl.

The plug they came up with, that eventually became the NAC standard. Technology Connections did a video about it, and he is no Tesla fan, I assure you of that.

This is why Tesla has been a mixed bag. They have made some smart choices and they have made some not so smart choices. Unfortunately, because they essentially are the EV market in America, all other companies looking to bring EVs to the market have copied Tesla in many ways, both the good and the bad. I think that’s at least part of the reason why the EV market is suffering right now.

I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. Your opinion of me means absolutely nothing to me. Think whatever the hell you want about me, I don’t care.

It’s almost like capitalism is failing.

Yeah, and it’s taking forever. It’s like watching an ultra show motion train wreck. It’s maddening.

Then if the US is serious about preventing the supposedly “artificially cheap” Chinese imports from coming in they need to crack down on those importers circumventing the tariffs. If we can’t or won’t, I don’t see another option other than to just accept cheap Chinese imports. And that goes for any economy angry about China’s supposed unwillingness to “play fair.”

I assume that what articles like these are advocating for is that importing countries come together and somehow bully China into raising their prices. But whether it’s that or tariffs with better enforcement, the result is the same: no more cheap Chinese goods, meaning higher prices for customers who have gotten used to the lower priced imports from China.

Ok, well, if tariffs on Chinese imports won’t work because China will just find ways to circumvent them, then you just have to accept “artificially” cheap Chinese goods being imported into your country, unless you can convince consumers to stop buying them. That likely won’t work either, but I don’t see any other option. You can ask China to raise their prices but I imagine that’s already been tried and likely also failed.

China’s overbearing exports are changing minds about the benefits of open trade well beyond the United States.

If China is so “overbearing,” don’t trade with them. Don’t buy their products. Follow the US’s lead and tariff the hell out of Chinese imports. You don’t have to import Chinese products. You can choose to not buy Chinese stuff. No one is forcing you to buy Chinese products.

Society suffers because some South African rich kid can’t handle the fact that he’s a humongous dork. It’s absolutely wild.

You don’t know a god damn thing about me or what I’m willing to do to defy what I consider to be immoral and unjust actions by my government. And if you think you can determine by the “tone” of a few of my sentences, ANY fucking thing about who I am, my strength or constitution as a person, then you’re an impudent, presumptuous little prick.

In most cases, that’s a necessary but not sufficient condition to legally shoot someone.

If ICE is breaking down my door, the legality of using lethal force against them is irrelevant. They don’t concern themselves with the law or constitutional protections, so there’s no reason for me to. It’s not like I can expect access to legal counsel or judicial process if I’m arrested by them. So if it comes to a direct confrontation with ICE, my life and liberty are essentially null and void anyway, and I will therefore respond accordingly. Better to die in a shootout with them than get taken to some black site, outside of any legal jurisdiction, to endure god knows what.

Yeah, fuck that. Some fucking gestapo pig tries to arrest me without a warrant, there’s gonna a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any delusions. If there’s a fight, I’m gonna lose. I know that. But I’m going to use every last breath in my body to make them regret it as much as possible. I’ll fuck up an eye, puncture a testicle, whatever I can to make sure the rest of their lives will be at least a little shittier as a result of our encounter.

In several interviews last week, Mayes said she was concerned an Arizonan could open fire on federal immigration agents if they forcibly enter a home without a judge-signed warrant.

Has this country gone completely insane? If anyone, law enforcement or otherwise, illegally, forcibly enters your home, that person should expect that they may be shot. There’s nothing controversial about that. That is the reality of the situation. Anyone telling Mayes to resign needs to call me personally so I can tell them, in no uncertain terms, to kiss my whole ass.

One day we’re going to look back as a country and wonder how the hell we allowed this dingus to run roughshod over our entire society for the better part of two decades. At least I hope.

Any environmental benefits of robot taxis would pale in comparison to reducing car rides significantly, or eliminating them entirely, in favor of walking, biking, or taking public transportation.

If we were a wise society, we wouldn’t be investing all this money in nonsense like AI, robot taxis or rockets to Mars, we would be investing every dollar possible into making our electric grid as efficient and resilient as possible, building out solar and wind with battery storage as much as possible, and building strategically positioned nuclear power plants across the country for grid stability. But, we are not wise, so here we are.

We need to replace Trump with a rational human being who recognizes the value in the US being a part of a democratic, rules based global order, and so will rejoin important internal organizations. But we also need to reform our government so that a presidential administration can’t unilaterally withdraw us from international organizations that we have committed to. Having big pendulum swings, whether in international or domestic policy, is destabilizing and inefficient, and it makes the US an unreliable global citizen. That is unacceptable. We have to do something about that. Yes, it will be politically difficult. We have to do it anyway. Let’s grow a pair and get done what needs to get done. No more complaining, no more defeatism, no more declaring failure before we’ve even started, let’s just roll up our sleeves and get it done.

Edit: there is another necessary change that we need to make, we need to eliminate American supremacism from our culture.

The concept of “American exceptionalism,” which has been embraced by both parties for essentially my entire life, is really just a euphemism for American supremacy. And that’s what MAGA is, a supremacist movement. The solution is humility, to recognize that we are not somehow innately superior to all other groups of people. That doesn’t mean we can’t be a great country, it just means we need to keep things in perspective. There are great things that we can teach the world but there are also great things that the rest of the world can teach us.

Transitioning to green energy sources is a delicate balance, and if you shut down the use of traditional fossil fuels without a plan to replace them, then shortages become unavoidable.

Planning is for Communists. We must put our faith in the invisible hand of the free market. The hand knows all. Trust in the hand. Amen.

I’m thinking it’s more about how much of the abuse you can tolerate. It’s not like the US has been all that hesitant to abuse our allies in the past. It’s more like our allies have previously been able to convince themselves that the benefits outweighed the costs.

I think you’re right. The world has accepted, or at least tolerated US hegemonic dominance because it worked well enough, but that doesn’t mean it was ideal. Far from it, for many countries. It’s not like the world was given a choice, really. Or, more accurately, the world’s choices were severely limited. Perhaps a majority of the world’s countries just saw US hegemony as the least bad option. But even those countries that didn’t agree that it was the least bad option, what were they supposed to do about it?

“You cannot put the genie back into the bottle,” Schelde said. “Things might get better and more calm a few months down the road, and Trump, he can’t be reelected, and the next president might be somewhat different,” Schelde said. “But what comes then in five, six, 10 years? I think there’s a strong realization across Europe that we need to be able to stand on our own feet.”

This is truly the silver lining in all of this. The world, especially Europe, has been far too complacent about continued US hegemonic dominance. They figured that the world was fine under US control, because US leadership was generally capable and trustworthy enough. But the thing about that kind of concentration of power is it’s not a matter of if that power will be abused, it’s only a matter of when.

The US has proven that we can no longer be counted on to rule competently and ethically enough. That doesn’t mean it’s time to replace US hegemony with another hegemonic order, it’s time for true, international democracy. It’s time for a democratic, rules based order.