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On December 13 2025 14:22 decafchicken wrote:
The weird thing is other forms of transportation that have infinitely better safety and outcomes defer to the smaller, more vulnerable vehicle (air, sea). In America it's basically legal to kill a pedestrian/cyclist in a vehicle and everyones mindset is to just get the bigger vehicle that will win in a collision rather than avoiding the collision.
What a delightfully perfect encapsulation of a truly American mindset.
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I'm a pretty big fan of gasoline tax over the rules as a way to impact change. Part of the reason (I'd say large part) that Europeans care so much about fuel economy over power is that gas is way more money (another is city design, but some of that is chicken and egg).
With a gas tax you can accomplish a lot of what you are after while taxing the wealthier people for the most part. The US is in desperate need of tax dollars given their government spending, which has ramped up significantly with Trump. Higher gas prices encourage fuel efficiency, but also mass transit and cycling.
You would need some sort of break for rural people as they do not have the same options but that is fairly easy to work out. Eventually you will need a tax on the electric vehicles as they do damage to roads, usually more than gas due to their weight. And gas taxes do not impact them. But for now you could just cancel the incentives as avoiding the expensive gas would likely be incentive enough.
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You're very correct but we already have a gas tax and proposing any sort of significant increase to that would be WILDLY unpopular. The federal gas tax to fund the highways has not risen since 1993 lol. In Illinois, our gas tax is tied to inflation so it automatically went up by 1.3 cents in July and every non-urban non-democrat yells from the roof about how the democratic governor is trying to tax them to death even though it was literally a penny and it's driven by inflation.
Also given car culture and oil lobbying, our country is so much more dependent on cheap gas for everything. Even in Chicago, probably the 2nd most transit/walk/bike friendly city in the country, 50% of people still drive to work every day. And then anywhere outside the city limits it's probably 80-90% (I used to drive about 80 miles a day commuting when I first moved here).
Electric vehicles already have some sort of fee/tax at the state level to account for the fact they don't pay gas tax to fund road upkeep.
A gas tax would be regressive in the sense it will impact everyday americans the hardest - the better approach would be to get rid of Oil &Gas subsidies which range from $10-50B in direct amounts and up to $750B if you account for the the indirect support (passing on cost of environmental damage, favorable use of federal land, military protection of oil & gas supply, etc.) per the IMF.
The american transportation industry is so heavily individualistic (designed that way by the auto industry and politicians) that proposing investments in public transit, walkable cities, etc. invokes a violent response from over half the country including republicans and democrats, although definitely skewed red. Everytime we put in a new bike lane in chicago the local community facebook pages turn into a war zone. People can literally not fathom how putting in safe bike passage for thousands of commuters and patrons on bikes is worth taking away a handful of street parking spots.
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I live to see the day when someone proposes a new way of taxation, in any way, shape or form which will not be met with people explaining why it's impossible or how it would never work.
It reminds me of other times when someone would propose anything to fix the guns issue in the USA and be met with a very similar response.
Or, you know, any time that anyone would suggest any way to fix the US healthcare system.
In other news, I sure hope that "how do we fix the US fascism problem" doesn't become the new one of those, especially when it's giving us all such great obituaries for beloved artists like this one:
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United States44355 Posts
There is no level beyond which he can’t sink. But this was known to the voting public when they made their choice. This is literally presidential behaviour.
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On December 16 2025 03:09 Jankisa wrote:I live to see the day when someone proposes a new way of taxation, in any way, shape or form which will not be met with people explaining why it's impossible or how it would never work. It reminds me of other times when someone would propose anything to fix the guns issue in the USA and be met with a very similar response. Or, you know, any time that anyone would suggest any way to fix the US healthcare system. In other news, I sure hope that "how do we fix the US fascism problem" doesn't become the new one of those, especially when it's giving us all such great obituaries for beloved artists like this one:
One of Rob Reiner's kids was arrested as a suspect. Doesn't seem to be related to Trump at all.
"Police have arrested Nick Reiner, the son of Rob Reiner, on a charge of murder following the death of the acclaimed Hollywood director and his wife, Michele Singer.
Nick Reiner, a 32-year-old screenwriter and the middle child of Rob Reiner and Singer, was taken into custody on Sunday, Dec. 14, and booked on Monday, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department records reviewed by USA TODAY. He is being held on $4 million bail.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell revealed Reiner had been charged with murder during a press conference on Monday. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the Reiners, a tragic incident," McDonnell said." https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2025/12/15/rob-reiner-son-nick-reiner-arrested-death-michele-singer/87775318007/
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100% his behavior would get him fired from just about any other job in the US. Can you imagine having a coworker or a boss like this? Nothing would get done because of pettiness and playing the victim. Its unbelievable.
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All the people who lost their jobs for saying "killing people is wrong but that doesn't mean Charlie Kirk's beliefs were right" should get them back with full backpay, since Trump has completely normalized saying utterly worse things about murdered people.
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On December 16 2025 03:28 LightSpectra wrote:
All the people who lost their jobs for saying "killing people is wrong but that doesn't mean Charlie Kirk's beliefs were right" should get them back with full backpay, since Trump has completely normalized saying utterly worse things about murdered people.
Its crazy. Theres no discussing anything with this admin. All they do is speak in conjecture, 0 details. Then if any reporter asks them about anything or challenges them they dont have a discussion or debate, they just slough it off or attack the reporter or another persons character. No business could operate this way.
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Northern Ireland27461 Posts
Fucking unbelievable. I mean, hardly surprising but truly a preposterous, preposterous timeline
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I can't wait for our usual suspects to come over to explain how left's lack of decorum and "celebrating" CK's death made them turn harder to the right.
When they go low, our guy digs a whole previously unimaginable and we jump behind him and pretend like this is normal.
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The irony of that whole situation was that his own funeral was more offensive than anything anyone had said. Everyone involved in the funeral chose not to remember the person but chose to use the funeral to push their personal hustle, to the point people and organisers were openly grifting and doing performative theatrics within the actual event.
It made it easy to argue that no one really cared about Charlie Kirk as a person, only just what he represented to a political movement.
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On December 13 2025 02:39 KwarK wrote:https://youtube.com/shorts/u5C2TwHKouQ?si=GP3w7ZkcLSYfnEunSome weird stuff in this latest Trump speech where he finally addresses that many Americans are having trouble making ends meet. He has some suggestions about how Americans can get the economy back on track. First we should look at our household pencil budgets. If we're buying 37 pencils then that's probably an area where we can make cutbacks and buy steel instead. Also dolls. 37 dolls per child is just too many and Americans need to stop after one or two. All of the Biden dementia arguments were so very obviously made in bad faith in the face of whatever the fuck this is.
Your youtube short gets it wrong from the very beginning by framing Trump as being "off-topic" in a 90 minute speech where he, the most powerful person in the world, is the main attraction and can talk about whatever topic he wants. The point about steel is not that America families should buy steel instead of dolls. It's that his policies broadly have helped US steel through the tariffs against China and Chinese steel - whether true or important or not, it's not a hard point to understand what his goal is after he has railed against Chinese steel for decades. The real strength of the economy is more likely to be tied to core industry.
Like who can't admit there is a problem with unrestrained consumerism - there are definitely things that it's more important to be able to afford than Chinesium toys. For example the price of homes is down year over year, and new homes are cheaper than resale homes for the first time in a long time. Another of his common points, which was in this speech, too - the actual speech not just the popcorn 20 seconds of it - is cheaper oil/gas means cheaper energy, which is the root of everything's affordability.
On December 12 2025 23:09 Sermokala wrote:
A lot of the issue with modern us car design is the car companies' self-sabotaging their future to get around laws and satisfy short term shareholder value.
By demanding higher emission standards you're doing a good thing. I'm not going to hear that its bad. But the car companies saw that the much easier and profitable thing to do is to make more expensive vehicles that are larger to get around having to do any design work to make their cars better. This degraded the cars value in any country that has reasonable infastructure and doesn't tolerate supermassive cars that are designed to kill kids. Having grills that are higher than the average human being is insane and shouldn't have ever been tolerated.
There is nothing wrong with the idea of raising emissions standards. Obviously you need to take a second look at the method if the result is the opposite of intended.
Why would companies benefit from making cars that you say are more expensive, reducing demand for their own products and allowing someone to undercut them with a cheaper and better car?
Miles per gallon have improved, and CO2 per mile have improved. According to regulatory standards of the last decade. This didn't happen from car companies not doing any design work.
The reason the trucks have gotten bigger is how the standards are regulated. They are not regulated by engine displacement (CCs), cylinders, or horsepower. (There are separate standards based on fuel like diesel vs. gas but that's it.) They are regulated by the 2D size of the car. The footprint of the car. The problem with this genius framework is any engine can be in any sized car.
Why is this less than ideal? Imagine you want to reduce the amount of cholesterol in pizzas, so you set standards for how much cholesterol can be in each size pizza (M, L, XL, etc.). This indirectly constrains the maximum amount of cheese you can put on each pizza.
Counterpoint: There are customers who like extra cheese.
Because of your cholesterol standards, the pizza shop must either reduce the cholesterol in cheese (intractable after a certain point) in order to add more cheese, or they can just sell bigger pizzas which are allowed to have more cholesterol.
This is not the company's fault. It's the fault of the people who passed standards without thinking through higher-order consequences. People would buy medium extra-extra-cheese pizzas if they weren't illegal, but instead they buy XL regular cheese pizzas because that's the only way to get that amount of cheese, which they want.
In trucks, they want the capability, the horsepower, the torque, the towing, etc., of the extra cheese. They don't particularly care how big the pie is. They would just as soon buy a less mega-sized truck, like they did 20-30 years ago, with the same engine, which is cheaper for everyone because it's smaller and therefore uses less raw materials in the body (The trucks you derided companies for lazily designing to be more expensive are more expensive because they're bigger, and bigger vehicles use more metal). But government problem-solving has brought us here. So you end up with Canyoneros that are like 20% bed.
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United States44355 Posts
No. The 37 pencils speech was not about the excesses of consumerism.
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On December 16 2025 16:14 KwarK wrote:
No. The 37 pencils speech was not about the excesses of consumerism.
A speech about the excesses of consumerism by Mr. Golden Toilet and Private Jet (gifted as a bribe) would be incredibly funny, though.
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On December 16 2025 03:15 KwarK wrote:
There is no level beyond which he can’t sink. But this was known to the voting public when they made their choice. This is literally presidential behaviour.
It‘s bad all things considered, but it could be worse.
Maybe keeping his rage meter down during the festivities will improve the foreign policy.
I‘m just surprised that the imperator doesn‘t travel on a chariot pulled by Venezuelans at this point.
Haven‘t really got a clue about how Venezuela reacts to having tiny boats casually bombarded by warships and the oil tanker stuff.
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On December 16 2025 03:18 Sadist wrote:
100% his behavior would get him fired from just about any other job in the US. Can you imagine having a coworker or a boss like this? Nothing would get done because of pettiness and playing the victim. Its unbelievable.
Well, until a few years ago I would have tought the same about blatantly obviou corrupt criminal scam artists.
But a large amount of people in the US seem to think that whatever you do or say is okay, as long as you get away with it. They even celebrate people for it.
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On December 16 2025 20:07 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2025 03:15 KwarK wrote:
There is no level beyond which he can’t sink. But this was known to the voting public when they made their choice. This is literally presidential behaviour. It‘s bad all things considered, but it could be worse.
There is basically no realistic situation where you couldn't say that. "Yeah, demons emerging from hell and devouring all of the children on earth is bad. But it could be worse, they could also eat the adults!"
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On December 16 2025 21:19 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2025 20:07 Vivax wrote:On December 16 2025 03:15 KwarK wrote:
There is no level beyond which he can’t sink. But this was known to the voting public when they made their choice. This is literally presidential behaviour. It‘s bad all things considered, but it could be worse. There is basically no realistic situation where you couldn't say that. " Yeah, demons emerging from hell and devouring all of the children on earth is bad. But it could be worse, they could also eat the adults!"
That was pretty much Trump's 2024 slogan, if you replace "demons" with "illegals" and "children" with "dogs".
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On December 16 2025 21:19 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2025 20:07 Vivax wrote:On December 16 2025 03:15 KwarK wrote:
There is no level beyond which he can’t sink. But this was known to the voting public when they made their choice. This is literally presidential behaviour. It‘s bad all things considered, but it could be worse. There is basically no realistic situation where you couldn't say that. "Yeah, demons emerging from hell and devouring all of the children on earth is bad. But it could be worse, they could also eat the adults!"
And lesser evilism would have people voting for the child eating demons (irrespective of which party is which), based on this "it could be worse" observation.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/GrQeO2OHGiE0YtLMUFPqsA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY4MztjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the_huffington_post_584/0f055d648c719882097ad44b015bf2b0)
