Hitler had over 20 assassination attempts. Real ones. Compared to Trump, Hitler was on the battlefield in a WW and not a draft dodger. Hitler didn’t just built a cult, he built the entire ideology on actual values and not gaslighting everything and everyone. While on the surface all of this is comparable to the Nazis, MAGA is so gullible, a squirrel could do what Trump does.

So yeah - Vance will probably do exactly that. And it may actually work

Get a Mazda, they arent perfect (they dmca’d the Homeassistant integration), but at least they have immediately started to help Californias and as far as I was able to find out, they didn’t crawl in to Trump’s pocket…at least, until now… Only downside is, the CX-50 is made in the same plant as the Toyota Corolla Cross.

JD Vance enacting Article 2, Section 4…

Yeah, that’s like saying “This man killed that man”, “Water is wet” or “The sky is blue”. A single fact isn’t worth a damn without context.

Hence Synthetic Fuels made from renewable energy and “steering” the market. Making old cars still able to run, but just changing the fuel and making them at least carbon neutral and maybe even net negative in the long run? There is nothing better for the environment - heck, with all the pollution Lithium production does, one could argue we’re changing one evil for another evil, just on a different scale. It’s like switching the old NiMH battery for a LiFePo. (The scaling doesn’t work that well for the energy densities needed in bigger applications though…)

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t’s that this or that solution is a corporate trap or a fake solution or whatever else.

Or on the other hand “the ultimate solution to all problems”. There are a number of solutions to cut emissions, giving people options is what makes the difference. Also, simply cutting emissions isn’t enough in many cases but get’s painted as “the solution”.

Not sure if that’s true though

It’s an aspect, but not the whole Picture. Germans are relatively tech savvy on the one hand, but on the other hand, we also don’t like change. A consequence of combining both things is that we calculate risk different. With all the issues surrounding Nuclear Fission and how much safeguarding a potential “BDBE” (Super-GAU in German or Beyond-design-basis events, like Fukushima and Chornobyl) needs, they also became pretty damn expensive to run. The fact of the matter is, German Power Companies never made money with Nuclear Fission, most of them broke even and covered the running costs, but actual profits weren’t that great. Russia - with help of the SPD - made Gas so cheap, it simply made no sense to invest in Nuclear Fission reactors…even with high subsidies. With most of them being over 25-30 years old and most of them needing general overhauls due to new safety regulations and general technology improvements, the Power Companies also pushed the Lobby behind the scenes to either change regulation or phase out Nuclear Fission. The Krümmel NPP also had a serious incident in 2009 that confirmed suspicions of many Germans, that the Power Companies cut corners to make profits. It resulted in a partial meltdown, after a very serious Fire in 2007. Also, Geesthacht - the community where the NPP was located - has had a significantly higher rate of leukaemia and chromosome defects. Then came Fukushima and that was the final nail in the coffin, as popular opinion shifted. Even before actually deciding on the phase out of NPP, Krümmel was shut down in 2011 for good.

Krümmel wasn’t the only reactor that has had issues. Then there’s been issues with finding a suitable waste repository - turns out, encasing nuclear waste in concrete in old mine shafts is a very bad idea in most of Germany, as deep groundwater seeps in through the layers and wreaks havoc with a supposed “final and safe” resting place. And as i mentioned, most of Germans were (it has changed a bit in the last 10-25 years, sadly) relatively tech savvy and most, if not all Germans understood the basic principles of nuclear fission, as well as the dangers (some maybe blown out of proportion), because they were taught in even “Hauptschule” (Lower Secondary Education) Physics, Chemical and Biology. Considering Germany is relatively densely populated, many, many people would have been directly affected by a BDBE/Super-GAU. Either through non usable ground water, loosing their livelihood, jobs or actually losing their lives gradually. (Nodding back at not liking change…)

Granted, the way the phase out was done has been a total disaster or utter shitshow and in my personal opinion, it should have been done gradually, because a few NPPs still had runtimes for over 15 years. But yeah - general anti-fission stance, cheap Gas from Russia with the help/enablement of the SPD, negligence from the operators/loosing confidence in the operators to actually run the plants safely and different risk evaluation in the German populace all played their part. Maybe also a bit of irrational fear as well, due to the history and being right in the middle of two seemingly mad Nuclear Powers.

In any case, it isn’t as cut and dry as some people think it is - IMHO. But despite what i said about letting the runtime on the plants run it’s course, I’m against Nuclear Fission (or rather Boiling Water / Pressure Water Reactors) as well. Now if we get Molten Salt Reactors working properly and maybe Transmutation as well, things would be different because the equation changed…

He’s not anti-ev, he’s anti-Li-Io-Battery and I fully agree. China is also only transitioning fine because they have incredibly huge incentives - but they still have a huge amount of ICE Cars being sold, developed and used and they will continue, because Battery EVs are not the “one fits all” solution. Norway has nearly 90% EV sales only. Still doesn’t matter as this does not work for everyone and everyplace.

FWIW, I still think we have to transition away from fossile fuels as soon as possible and Europe will do so, because due to CO2 Certificates and taxes, fossile fuels will be more expensive than synthetic, carbon neutral fuels that have been made with renewable energy from those places on earth, that have ridiculous abundance of those. Like Chile, Iceland (Geothermal), Ireland and others. We in Europe need the renewable energy for industry and home use, not to drive around with.

What i don’t get in all of this: There are already companies that did go out of business because too many people just left, due to them not being able to do WFH. Personally, I do like going to the office 1-2 times a week, but even I would leave the company if the got rid of WFH completely. There’s near full employment everywhere, especially tech companies already have to go the extra mile to get people to work for them. Why would anyone stay at a company that does not do WFH, if that’s one thing they got to enjoy?

Pandoras box is ripped to shreds…

Yeah, I have to vehemently disagree with that one. Rick is anything but a fascist and very different to Elon…

They can just shift countries. 32% of Bluesky users are from Brazil, ~ 7% from Japan, ~ 4% from the UK and 2% from Germany.

You should loose the comma, then i agree with you. An authoritarian controlled economy will fail. A controlled economy is an absolut must.Without rules, that’s anarchism. That will fail either. Case in point: The USA. None of the rules are enforced and capitalism gone wild just bought the government outright.

Name one. Price hikes are not illegal in any country in Europe. Changing prices after selling and other shady stuff is illegal in most European countries on the other hand, but this is not it. If the 55 were on sale before, a “sale” price can be axed as most see fit. This screams coincidence and bad luck to me.

To get ultra wealthy, you have to go over corpses and be radical and very detached from reality AND your own humanity and humility. Because if you’re not, you’ll stop yourself and give back eventually.

It’s not only a political struggle. Working conditions are tremendously better in Europe, Environmental Protection as well. Manufacturing photovoltaics takes a huge pile of chemicals that need to be handled properly to not cause any harm to the environment - China neither cares nor has any other incentives to actually do this properly, which is exactly why they are so cheap. Theres also the issue of poor quality, that if you’re manufacturing something that can have a significant impact on the environment, it should “count” and not be waste 10 years later.

Not only that, China’s subsidies are utterly unfair.

Destroying the environment in one part of the world to “save” a different one due to climate change is just ridiculously stupid and simple minded.

That’s a valid point, but i think it’s mute. There are pretty much two options, soviet, planned economic style or further open capitalism. The U.S. doesn’t have all resources and the world moves on without the U.S. if it has to. Not only that: Most of the innovation comes from progressive states. If those people just pack up and go somewhere else, things are looking rather bleak for increasing trade. So if there’s nobody to be able to pay for it and nobody to design it…things aren’t going to increase anything, they are going to decrease “all around”.

I mean, “change” per se isn’t necessarily something bad. Meaning, stuff needs to last longer (again) in those cases. Planned Obsolescence is a real thing, that’s however only economical as long as raw materials are relatively cheap. But it would be nice if companies just did that change, instead of being forced in to it…

Short term, though, would be similar to a collapse of civilization.

Would it? Civilization doesn’t depend on bleeding edge high tech. Sure, it depends on tech, but look around who’s making ICs or basic processors that are in machine control panels and all the millions of appliances. AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom do the “heavy lifting” in terms of monetary value, but in overall quantity? Samsung, SK Hynix, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, Sony, Renesas and NXP are the ones that make the world go round. Infineon is German, NXP is Dutch, Renesas is Japanese, STMicroelectronics is Swiss. The thing that’s really going to hurt is Foxconn, but they are probably global enough to withstand that. There’s also many, many more local players. BOSCH for example has very high capacities for everything up to 80 Nanometers (Pentium 3/4, Athlon 64…)

Civilization would crack, sure - but i don’t think it would collapse. Society on the other hand…that’s a different paper.