Those whiny, sniveling, lazy, commie, socialist LIBERALS!!!!

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by Patricio Da Silva, Dec 26, 2024.

  1. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Passionately! Did my Elementary School and Junior High in Ann Arbor.
     
  2. Pieces of Malarkey

    Pieces of Malarkey Well-Known Member

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    Outstanding! Love Ann Arbor. Got married there and my first born (a 28 week preemie) was born at the U of M ICU.
     
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  3. JonK22

    JonK22 Well-Known Member

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    Who is doing that? Hint single payer is simply taking the 1.4 million HEALTH INSURANCE employees out of the way of the 1 million doctors so your doctor can treat you without H/I denying it!

    Mark Cuban Says 'This Is Single-Payer': How His Healthcare Model Could Transform The U.S. Healthcare System
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-cuban-says-single-payer-153015416.html
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2024
  4. Golem

    Golem Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I lost my appendix at U of M ICU when I was 10
     
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  5. Pieces of Malarkey

    Pieces of Malarkey Well-Known Member

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    OK, I've pondered this fairly extensively for a bit and tried to decide what's the best way to approach the question. I decided to avoid the blizzard of technical detail and simply tell you my story.

    In 2007 I was working in DC as Director of Government Relations focused on Federal and State Environmental Affairs for a major global vehicle manufacturer. That summer the Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA dropped. It was quite the stunner, deciding that, despite EPA arguing that they didn't have Congressional authority in the Clean Air Act to do so, EPA had to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.

    Fast forward to last May when Joe Biden's EPA released new CO2 regulations for model years 2027 through 2032 which culminates in a mandate for manufacturers to produce about 60% of their vehicles as EVs in 2032 whether anyone actually wants to buy them or not (incidentally, it's on the path to require 100% EVs by 2035, a goal originally articulated by the Obama administration).

    Which brings me to the crucial question- if EVs are so good, why can't anyone sell them without unconstitutional and totalitarian force? If they were actually that good, they'd sell themselves. And if CO2 was really a threat, Congress could amend the CAA to include CO2 to properly authorize (60 Senate votes and all) EPA's authority to regulate it.

    And now that Trump's been reelected and Chevron v. NRDC has been overturned, it's only a matter of time before the EPA CO2 regulation disappears taking EV mandates with it.

    And that's Game, Set, and Match for EVs.

    And as for Water cars, we already have known how to do that for quite a long time. The fact that they suck even worse than EVs is why we don't do them.
     
  6. Cybred

    Cybred Well-Known Member

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    Yep, we look at other countries and do what they do.
     
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  7. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think you’re touching on a deeper debate here about markets, innovation, and consumer behavior, and it’s a good one to have. I appreciate you sharing your perspective and experience -- it’s not every day you get to debate with someone who's been that deep in the trenches on these issues.

    But, I think we're veering off track a bit. You’ve shifted the discussion from whether EVs are better for the environment than ICEs to the legal and political/market driven framework surrounding EVs versus mandates. Now, I think mandates will have to face market reality where it's the Gov's (and the industry's) job to sell them, not force people to buy them, I'm with you on that point. Thing is, those are two related but distinctly different conversations, and the Supreme Court's rulings, or any EPA regulations, don’t actually change the environmental science or technical advantages/disadvantages of EVs versus ICEs.

    I’ve often thought that the idea that ‘the market knows what’s best’ is a bit oversimplified. Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent comes to mind -- it makes a compelling case for how large corporations, often controlling the media, can shape public opinion and skew market outcomes. When you think about it, EVs might be a prime example of this dynamic. For decades, the romanticized image of the gas-powered car has been deeply ingrained in American culture -- muscle cars, the roar of a V12 Ferrari, and even Harley Davidsons with their signature rumble. That’s powerful branding, and it’s not surprising that EVs, which lack that visceral appeal, face an uphill battle in public perception.

    And let’s be honest: an electric motor doesn’t give you the same emotional thrill as hearing a perfectly tuned ICE engine scream down the track. A Harley with an e-motor? It’s hard to imagine that catching on -- it’s a different vibe entirely. Some of these things, like the cultural love affair with ICE vehicles, will likely stick around. The market might never fully replace certain niches, and that’s okay.

    But we can’t ignore that EVs have gotten a lot of bad press, too, much of it driven by industries with a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. That kind of hit job -- subtle or overt -- can shape consumer attitudes long before the technology has a chance to prove itself. Innovation often faces skepticism at first, and markets don’t always adopt what’s ‘best’ right away, especially when entrenched interests resist change.

    So yeah, EVs might not be replacing Harleys or Ferraris any time soon. But for the average commuter, they’re already proving to be a cleaner, quieter, and increasingly cost-effective option. And as the grid gets greener and battery tech improves, their case only gets stronger.

    I think the bigger picture here is about carving out the right roles for each technology. ICE vehicles might always have a place, but EVs are showing they can redefine what’s possible in personal transportation -- and that’s worth leaning into, even if the market takes a little encouragement to get there.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2025
  8. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    You’re throwing out some big points here -- scarcity of lithium, rare earths, copper, and a price curve that’ll supposedly doom EVs. But let’s slow it down, look at the facts, and see if this argument really holds water.

    First up, lithium. Are supplies finite? Sure. But guess what? We’ve got decades of economically viable lithium reserves, and the tech is moving faster than a D.C. scandal. Solid-state batteries are on the horizon, lithium-iron-phosphate batteries are already here, and they don’t even need nickel or cobalt. Plus, sodium-ion batteries are coming in hot. So, no, we’re not hitting a lithium wall anytime soon.

    Now, rare earths. It’s a misnomer -- they’re not all that rare, and EV manufacturers like Tesla are actively cutting down their use or eliminating them altogether. On top of that, recycling tech is ramping up, so we’re squeezing more out of what we’ve already got.

    And copper? It’s true -- EVs need more of it, but global supplies can handle the demand. Mining is improving, alternatives like aluminum are in the mix, and frankly, the idea that copper scarcity will derail EVs is a stretch.

    As for this looming price curve, let’s be real. Markets adapt. Prices might go up in the short term, but recycling programs and new technologies are already bringing costs down. Did you know over 95% of the lithium in a battery can be recycled? That’s a game-changer.

    And no one’s saying EVs will replace every gas car tomorrow. This is a transition, not a magic wand. Just like it took decades for cars to replace horse-drawn buggies, EVs are climbing the ladder step by step. They’re already winning in key areas: lower emissions, lower maintenance, and lower lifetime costs for most drivers.

    So, what’s the holdup? Sure, there are challenges, but they’re solvable. Innovation is outpacing skepticism, and the market’s evolving. If you’ve got hard data that flips the script, bring it -- I’m all ears.
     
  9. CornPop

    CornPop Well-Known Member

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    This response to @garyd has a 100% probably of being written entirely by a chat bot.
    1000018648.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2025
  10. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    Yes we do and the only way to get them is strip mining which under current US law, is, in essence illegal.
     
  11. Pieces of Malarkey

    Pieces of Malarkey Well-Known Member

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    No, this is about real mandates. The market for vehicles going to 2035 when new ICE vehicles are to be banned when EPA's allowable CO2 emissions go to zero. That's only 10 years from now.

    As I've explained numerous times in other parts of the forum, combustion happens when Hydrocarbons combine with Oxygen and go to CO2 and H20 in an exothermic reaction. Other than trace amounts of real pollutants that result from the rapidly changing pressures and temperatures in the combustion chamber (which are very well controlled in modern engines with aftertreatment technologies like catalysts, particulate filters, and Selective Catalytic Reduction), automotive exhaust is about 30% CO2, 30% H20, and 40% Nitrogen (which is also about 78% of the planet's atmosphere). Incidentally, the percentage of the atmosphere that's CO2 is roughly 0.04%.

    That's it. Simply, if you want to ban CO2, you'll also have to ban fire. And breathing.

    The idea that CO2 is a "pollutant" is laughable.

    In addition, electricity is largely also generated by combustion. The power for an EV is just combusted remotely to the vehicle instead of onboard the vehicle. And getting it in and out of the battery is lossy, meaning that the famous 30-40% thermal efficiency of ICE drops to about 10% efficiency or less for EVs.

    In addition, the energy density of all stable and practical battery formulations along with every known alternative fuel is vastly less than fossil fuels. That translates to heavy EVs with an entire chassis of battery having much less range than any comparable ICE. For instance, the Ford Lightning has about half the range unloaded as my infinitely more useful F150 with a 5.0L with a 36 gallon tank. And an EVs power consumption increases linearly as load goes up (that's the famous acceleration that everyone loves) sucking the battery dry in no time if you do anything dumb like towing. Again, under full load my truck's range will go from 700 miles to 500 miles at full GVWR/GCWR. That's from my home in Virginia to my mother's in Michigan. A Lightning under the same load will go from 300 miles to roughly 80. That wouldn't get me to DC.

    No, this isn't about being a Redneck fanboy. It's about EVs inherently sucking.

    And yet our government has been manipulated undemocratically and unconstitutionally to mandate the demise of ICE instead of allowing the free market to decide.

    That's what tyrants do. Start with little lies and then manipulate them to bigger lies until freedom disappears.

    No, I'm not off track. You are.
     
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  12. Bullseye

    Bullseye Well-Known Member

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    . Good info -thanks.
     
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  13. CornPop

    CornPop Well-Known Member

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    Great response. Just something to keep in mind before consuming the time to write these follow-ups, he is just writing an opening line thanking you for responding, and then pasting in a response from an AI chat bot with his queues for the perception he wants it to make. You can cut out the middle man and just debate with a chat bot directly.
     
  14. Pieces of Malarkey

    Pieces of Malarkey Well-Known Member

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    Thanks. I'm kind of experimenting in AI here, testing the waters so to speak, to see if AI is all that much better than normal human intellect (real AI- Actual Intelligence if you will). This kind of discussion started between some friends of mine back when self-driving cars were supposed to be the next big thing. My time working for NHTSA clued me in to actual data about traffic fatalities. The stats are something like 1.5 fatalities per 100 million miles travelled. Or in other words, about 1 fatality in 200 lifetimes of driving.

    Realizing that I decided that self-driving cars would never compete with actual human beings driving. Not enough computing power in the world to make up for human intelligence and natural herd cooperation. It's almost telepathic.

    So now I'm seeing what happens if AI addresses questions that are more complex without a backlog of pre-canned responses from the vastness of the internet and social media. So, I originally wrote a simple reply with implied virtually infinite complexity to arrive at an answer. It was a simple response, but it demanded tracking down references that are laid out to be easy to find but tough to understand.

    And the answer I got proved to me again that human intelligence far outpaces AI.

    Now here's something interesting coming out of recent research that really drives home that there's so far nothing to fear from AI because it can't compete with real Actual Intelligence.

    https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/...ntified the,faster than our thought processes

    Think about that for a moment. A processing speed of 10 bps. And yet your brain can see a pair of cat ears behind a car and know it's not a bear. Or a camel. And you'll instantly know which direction it's going and how fast. And whether you need to swerve your car so you don't hit it.

    All with a processor speed less than any computer made in the last 50 or 60 years.

    And all you need is a bagel and a banana for breakfast and maybe a cheeseburger for dinner to power real intelligence instead of massive power sucking server farms that need more power plants to keep them running.

    And I won't even go into the God implications of that kind of, I guess "algorithms" for lack of a better term, that can keep that moving.

    Hmmmm.......
     
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  15. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    WTF do you know? Really? You make all sorts of assumptions,

    I write all my responses in toto. If I use Ai, it's just to reorganize it, improve grammar, cohesiveness and clarity, and I really resent your accusation.

    I don't really need a chat bot to do my writing for me, but, as a writer myself, I have editors, but they are for pro work, for debate forums the AI makes a nice editor on the cheap. Apparently you are unable to make that distinction.

    Anyway, all that really matters is the argument. Either you an rebut it, or you can't. I noticed that most of the time you can't.

    And no, PoM could talk directly to Chat, but with Chat, it's garbage in and garbage out, just like it is with any computer. You do have to know what you are doing in the first place, to get anything good out of it.
     
  16. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    People feel threatened by AI, there's quite a bit of hysterics on parade, apparently, about it. I think everyone should step back and not look upon it as something that is going to replace humanity, but as a tool. As a tool, it is useful.

    Self Driving cars are pretty tough, owing to the analog nature of terrain, traffic, human chaos, etc., for 'AI' to deal with.

    But, of course, AIs are flying Boeing jets, aren't they? AI passed the Bar Exam, passed the medical Exam, beat the grand master of chess, etc. I wouldn't be going around poo pooing AI, and it's improving exponentially, is it not?

    This is an AI rewrite of the above:

    So, if I wrote it that way, I'd be accused of using AI, but the fact is, all AI did was act as an artificial editor, I was the writer of the thing. My real life human editor makes similar suggestions to improve anything I write, for coherence, clarity, grammar, on my writing projects for publishing. Some folks on this forum, apparently, are incapable of such a distinction.

    Below is an AI critique of your comment. What do you think?

    See, one can use AI like an editor, and improve one's argument. I find it odd that many on this forum kneekjerk in their rejection of it's usefulness.

    In my view, the argument is everything. I am hear to find the best argument, and I really don't care how I get there, as long as I get there.

    If we are talking about art, I'm against AI as 'art'. Art should be the output of humanity, the expression of the soul, and no machine has a soul. But, just as a tool doesn't have a soul, it is useful for souls.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2025
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  17. garyd

    garyd Well-Known Member

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    You say that like passing the bar exam when you have every legal decision ever made at your finger tips in milliseconds is a major accomplishment.
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2025
  18. Space_Time

    Space_Time Well-Known Member

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    I found myself unable to completely dismiss the concerns expressed in this piece:
     
  19. JCS

    JCS Well-Known Member Donor

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    It has occurred to me that Conservatives are very fortunate that their primary opponent are Democrats. If it were anyone else - eg, true thinking & wise progressives - they'd have no argument to stand on.

    Hence, we have been given the two-party system where one (the Conservatives) is terrible and the other (the Democrats) is somewhat terrible - where the terrible party is saturated with dirt, while the somewhat terrible part has enough dirt on them for the terrible party to exploit on its behalf.

    So in each election cycle the non-elected power brokers can be certain that citizens will not venture beyond this two-party system. When the citizens get so frustrated at the somewhat terrible party for not living up to its expectations, they will react by choosing the terrible party. And when the terrible party makes things worse, they will react by choosing again the somewhat terrible party (if voter suppression allows it).

    It's like Dumb and Dumber. Which one will you choose?
     
  20. philosophical

    philosophical Well-Known Member

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    Why?
    Unions are there to protect and develop the interests of their members, otherwise those members could be divided and exploited.
    An organised workforce is a very progressive feature of society.
    Unless the workforce are slaves.
     
  21. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Like the truth about Russiagate?
    Like the truth about Biden being an incompetent President?
    Like the truth Hunter;s laptop was all Russian misinformation?
    Like The Big Guy knew nothing about the family influence peddling crimes?
    Like Biden's hands were tied in Afghanistan?
    Like the rich don't pay their "fair share"

    Seems you support lots of demagoguery and tyrannical behavior by you choice in political leaders if not more so.
     
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  22. JonK22

    JonK22 Well-Known Member

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    Senate panel finds Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election

    The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.


    The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election

    WHO SAID ALL?



    Former U.S. spies warned in 2020 that the Hunter Biden scandal had Russian fingerprints. They feel vindicated now.
    The Justice Department said this week that informant Alexander Smirnov invented a story about $5 million bribes paid to Joe and Hunter Biden and is also "peddling new lies."

    ...Derogatory information, purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop, had surfaced in a New York Post article. Soon afterward, 51 former intelligence officials signed and blasted to the media a letter warning that the laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

    The letter continued: “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails … are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...biden-scandal-russian-fingerprints-rcna140240
     
  23. JonK22

    JonK22 Well-Known Member

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    Well they (top 1%) pay about half the effective rate they paid 1945-1980, on 200%-300% more of the pie


    The richest even less

    [​IMG]
     
  24. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh yes let's START at the height of WORLD WAR 2 and go from there..................................spare me.

    They pay 40% of income tax revenues how much more before they hit their fair share?
     
  25. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    WASHINGTON — The House Intelligence Committee on Friday released the final full report on its controversial investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, detailing work that led Republicans to conclude there was no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign.




    And the laptop proved otherwise as did the testimony of the business associates and as the bank records showed. Read my sig. Why did his entire family need pardons?
     

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