Twitter and The Musk & Facebook and The Zuck

[CrimsonFox]

Sounds like a 60s band

But lotsa layers and layoffs then stampede out the door then more firings

And now this just kills me.

Great Wall of porn obscures China protest news on Twitter • TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/28/great-wall-of-porn-obscures-china-protest-news-on-twitter/)

"Great Wall of Porn" has a nice ring to it.

[CrimsonFox]

trying to find a number of just how many employees are left lol

Really it's to the point I think this was the goal all along just to shutdown twitter comppletely

[sterlingice]

Goodness gracious, great walls of porn!

SI

[CrimsonFox]

https://i.redd.it/l27nuhaqxc6a1.jpg

FUN!!!

[Ksyrup]

Even the simplest things make me wonder. I just got a notification while on Twitter asking me to verify my email address, and I'm like... why? What are you planning, Elon?

[PilotMan]

trying to find a number of just how many employees are left lol

Really it's to the point I think this was the goal all along just to shutdown twitter comppletely

It really does feel like it's just a plaything to feed his ego and self importance.

[Flasch186]

Well you can’t go by any of his past actions or statements or even their intentions, you can only go by their bylaws and corporate statements… you know.


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[albionmoonlight]

Whatever comes of it, I thought it was quite telling that he suspended a bunch of journalists on a whim. And then unsuspended them. And their reaction was to start licking his boots harder.

Much like with Trump, I think that Musk is too stupid/impulsive/narcissistic to actually become a successful America autocrat.

But the people who do have the intelligence and temperament to be a danger are watching how easily the "Democracy Dies in Darkness" crowd actually succumbs to the darkness as long as they get clicks for it.

[Radii]

Much like with Trump, I think that Musk is too stupid/impulsive/narcissistic to actually become a successful America autocrat.

I am wondering if there is a drastic intentional move towards the alt right happening with Elon or that his whims and desires for attention (and not giving a shit about the law) just happen to currently look Trumpian. Like with Trump, I think the man is far too insane to ever actually answer that question, so I just mutter "Eat The Rich" and go about my day, sans twitter.

[Flasch186]

Looks like he’s trying to raise funds by selling shares at $~52

What a wreck


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[GrantDawg]

Looks like he’s trying to raise funds by selling shares at $~52

What a wreck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
And why would anybody buy it at that? No way is that an investment decision, because the company is worth a fraction of that right now. It is probably not even worth half of what he originally bought it at. So, just a donation to the cause?

[Radii]

And why would anybody buy it at that? No way is that an investment decision, because the company is worth a fraction of that right now. It is probably not even worth half of what he originally bought it at. So, just a donation to the cause?

Or a grift seeing what Trump can get his cult to pay for and trying for the same.

[Ksyrup]

What a load of shit.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Specifically, we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post.</p>&mdash; Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1604531265419591681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[GrantDawg]

I wondered when he would do that. I knew it was coming.

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[PilotMan]

So that will kill the uber popular Parler Takes and more.

[Ksyrup]

Well, if sports/entertainment twitter ends up at Post, it will be a solid replacement eventually. That's where I'll be.

[Ksyrup]

So that will kill the uber popular Parler Takes and more.

No, Parler isn't named. Either is Tiktok.

[Ksyrup]

They followed up with: "Posting links or usernames to social media platforms not listed above are also not in violation of this policy"

[PilotMan]

I mean, that sounds like extreme free speech to me? Doesn't it to you?

Least shocking thing was just how short that concept lasted.

[GrantDawg]

No, Parler isn't named. Either is Tiktok.
I wonder why not Tik Tok? Is he getting Chinese money?

[GrantDawg]

Well, if sports/entertainment twitter ends up at Post, it will be a solid replacement eventually. That's where I'll be.
It does look decent. I would bet that will be the main replacement, as Mastodon and Hive definitely does look like they are ready.

Notice along with TikTok, Youtube and Twitch isn't listed as well. Nor is Onlyfriends. The easy work around is going to be place link tree's in those platforms and guide people there.

[GrantDawg]

The other weird thing about this policy is you can still cross-post from those sites. So you can't put "follow me at", but you can link a post from your Instagram.

[Ksyrup]

My, how true a statement this is!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The acid test for any two competing socioeconomic systems is which side needs to build a wall to keep people from escaping? That’s the bad one!</p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1533616384747442176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[whomario]

Either is Tiktok.

I mean, his Chief of Transphobia and Twitter Files Star has it right in her handle, so that'd be awkward.
Truth Social 100% wouldn't be there if Trump had returned and embraced playing off of Musk/Twitter with cross promotion.

As for other inclusions/exclusions, there's probably even odds of some agreeing to pay him/ramp up advertising or the remaining team simply not yet being able to handle all of them (outside chance if being afraid of retaliation from the bigger fish about).

[albionmoonlight]

Trump having the instinct to stay off shows just how good Trump's instincts are about this stuff

[MIJB#19]

Does this mean Twitter will be consistent and also disallow people to copy paste tweets with usernames to other media?

[Ksyrup]

So what's Musk setting up with this "should I step down" poll? Is this another of his "pwn the libs" things where he'll put some right-wing lunatic in charge?

[GrantDawg]

Elon has put up a pole asking if he should step down as head of Twitter. He claims he will abide by it. Yes is winning.
Dang it, Ksyrup.

[Ksyrup]

I saw the name floated and recall that this name was floated back before the purchase - Blake Masters. I bet it happens. Just so Elon and his right-wing fanboys.

[Ksyrup]

So this is an interesting story going around that appears to tie into the poll tonight. Elon, knowing that the poll will be more Yes than No, put up the poll as a cover because of the below. He and Jared were at the WC final today...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just overheard Elon Musk discussing investment opportunities from the Amir of Qatar <a href="https://twitter.com/TamimBinHamad?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TamimBinHamad</a> &amp; other Saudi Royals for his businesses, specifically Twitter,but from their body language &amp; diplomatic response, it didn’t seem very positive. They asked him to find a suitable CEO</p>&mdash; RΛISINI ライシニ (@iamraisini) <a href="https://twitter.com/iamraisini/status/1604619857257025537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Ksyrup]

Now they've deleted the posts about banning tweets that link to other social networks.

What a shitshow.

[Edward64]

So what's Musk setting up with this "should I step down" poll? Is this another of his "pwn the libs" things where he'll put some right-wing lunatic in charge?

I can see him doing that. But I voted anyway

[JPhillips]

Now they've deleted the posts about banning tweets that link to other social networks.

What a shitshow.

I guess someone told him that was illegal in the EU.

[CrimsonFox]

lolol so he made a twitter poll asking if he should step down from twittetr and it was an overwhelming Yes (with trout a close second)
so then i am not sure if this is for real but i saw something that he said "too many opinions" and said there would be a new poll. I'm not for certain if that wasn't a shopped joke.

But here is an actual poll
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097

[CrimsonFox]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.</p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[CrimsonFox]

Twitter bans posting of handles and links to Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and more (Updated) &bull; TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/18/twitter-wont-let-you-post-your-facebook-instagram-and-mastodon-handles/?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABLKmcILbL_oAr-9mFLgo0a3ssCCFlqRuXOfYkWvnRpsSxixaOrTotYe8IUvx_wSdt4rd73M8rjAgtyoxfUaE_0Mj2wYzR-qBDcjmW_DJSMRbIo4EmvkasSlwiXlKZ1YCh2Vl9AlifL8v3X2SkMno9zUCvyQ8910oq9tfxL0WuF3)

[RainMaker]

So this is an interesting story going around that appears to tie into the poll tonight. Elon, knowing that the poll will be more Yes than No, put up the poll as a cover because of the below. He and Jared were at the WC final today...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just overheard Elon Musk discussing investment opportunities from the Amir of Qatar <a href="https://twitter.com/TamimBinHamad?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TamimBinHamad</a> &amp; other Saudi Royals for his businesses, specifically Twitter,but from their body language &amp; diplomatic response, it didn’t seem very positive. They asked him to find a suitable CEO</p>&mdash; RΛISINI ライシニ (@iamraisini) <a href="https://twitter.com/iamraisini/status/1604619857257025537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I don't think the Saudis care about the money. They invested for access to private data. Remember they had been hacking and spying on Twitter for years getting information on dissidents.

Saudi infiltration of Twitter - Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter)

[whomario]

lolol so he made a twitter poll asking if he should step down from twittetr and it was an overwhelming Yes (with trout a close second)
so then i am not sure if this is for real but i saw something that he said "too many opinions" and said there would be a new poll. I'm not for certain if that wasn't a shopped joke.

But here is an actual poll
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1604617643973124097

The "too many options" thing was when he made a poll about reinstating Journalists.

He's just an insecure teenager acting out in a passive aggressive manner anytime somone points out a mistake. Presumably why no one does in his circle/companies.

But also, there's this, posted on a much less frequented account that also shouldnt have anything to do about the policy. Then again, Mastodon links were classed as malware by the fuckers, so there's that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Should we have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms?</p>&mdash; Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) <a href="https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1604657989977260033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[whomario]

Now they've deleted the posts about banning tweets that link to other social networks.

What a shitshow.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Check out this genius who needs the simplest of concepts explained to him by a guy who has literally dozens of videos devoted to complaining about Brie Larson. <a href="https://t.co/rsM2U92ff0">pic.twitter.com/rsM2U92ff0</a></p>&mdash; Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) <a href="https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1604617776307400704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 18, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

[Ksyrup]

I don't think the Saudis care about the money. They invested for access to private data. Remember they had been hacking and spying on Twitter for years getting information on dissidents.

Saudi infiltration of Twitter - Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter)

OK, and when you lose people who stop using Twitter, you lose access to information.

[dubb93]

Hard to believe a few years ago everyone thought this man was a genius.

[CrimsonFox]

https://i.redd.it/iypvthabau6a1.jpg

[Bobble]

Dang. The correct answer to that poll is "No, please continue to throw gas (and your billions) on the Twitter tire fire."

[NobodyHere]

I don't think the Saudis care about the money. They invested for access to private data. Remember they had been hacking and spying on Twitter for years getting information on dissidents.

Saudi infiltration of Twitter - Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_infiltration_of_Twitter)

You'd think there would be a cheaper way to get Twitter info rather than buy the company. For example just paying someone who works there to be an informant or buy the "Firehose" API and get all the tweets anyways.

[Atocep]

And now only those with twitter premium will be able to vote on his polls.

[Mota]

And now only those with twitter premium will be able to vote on his polls.

We'll he's stepping down because of the poll, right?

[Lathum]

Pretty amazing how he has gotten to Trump like levels of annoyance in record speed

[albionmoonlight]

Someone noted how the richest man in the world is so insecure that he posted an international "Do You Like Me? Circle Yes or No" poll. Lost it. And is going to do a re-vote where only his friends get to vote.

[flere-imsaho]

Pretty amazing how he has gotten to Trump like levels of annoyance in record speed

I think we've found his real "genius".

[whomario]

Someone noted how the richest man in the world is so insecure that he posted an international "Do You Like Me? Circle Yes or No" poll. Lost it. And is going to do a re-vote where only his friends get to vote.

As i am sure you too had middle aged 'centrists' explain to you already, that is afterall just like the founding fathers would have wanted it. Democracy can't be mob rule, you see? (And no, i am not saying Twitter is democracy or even has to be democratic, especially not the perversion that Musk thinks it is. )

[whomario]

We'll he's stepping down because of the poll, right?

Well, no. You see, this was faked by the Bots* that he declared dead a week earlier. Zombie-Bots, better watch out for those.

*That Megaupload criminal and Nazi cosplayer said so, in case you had any doubts.

[Solecismic]

He's a genius, right? He didn't become stupid overnight. There must be some 3D chess going on here. It's as if he's trying to create a distraction from something.

If only there were something else regarding Twitter going on right now that we could point to as a reason. Yet he invited it in the first place and had to know what they'd find. Beyond me.

It just looks like someone buying a $10 billion company for $44 billion, only to destroy it. Tax writeoff? Blackmail from one of his many, many co-parents? I don't think even Penn and Teller could spot what's really going on with all this hand-waving. Maybe we should start a poll.

[Ksyrup]

Maybe we should start a poll.

When in doubt...!

But only those who purchased the original FOF can vote.

[NobodyHere]

https://i.redd.it/iypvthabau6a1.jpg

This was obviously a ruse to round up all the liberal bots that plague twitter.

[sterlingice]

He's a genius, right? He didn't become stupid overnight. There must be some 3D chess going on here. It's as if he's trying to create a distraction from something.

If only there were something else regarding Twitter going on right now that we could point to as a reason. Yet he invited it in the first place and had to know what they'd find. Beyond me.

It just looks like someone buying a $10 billion company for $44 billion, only to destroy it. Tax writeoff? Blackmail from one of his many, many co-parents? I don't think even Penn and Teller could spot what's really going on with all this hand-waving. Maybe we should start a poll.

I mean, there's been a decent number of realistic scenarios floated like the above about a tax writeoff for his other businesses to him just making a valuation mistake to some quid pro quo about rare earth metals and some shady financing deals to maybe he's just never been a genius in the first place and there's no 3D chess and he's just a useful idiot to people more rich and powerful than he is.

SI

[Solecismic]

This was obviously a ruse to round up all the liberal bots that plague twitter.

That screen shot sums up Twitter perfectly. More than 200,000 people have commented.

I don't know about anyone else, and new speed-reading techniques, but even at only 280 characters per message, no human being could even begin to parse a 200,000-response discussion over the course of one day.

People participate in social media to talk, not to listen. That's the drug.

[GrantDawg]

That and boobs.

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[Brian Swartz]

Hard to believe a few years ago everyone thought this man was a genius.

I'd suggest it actually isn't that hard to believe, and is actually pretty common. High achievers in one area (whether you want to use the 'genius' or not is up to you) can be impressively bad in others and it's also easy for them to be blind to these weaknesses because of the traits that lead them to be high achievers in the first place.

Or as has been said, a good act doesn't wash out a bad one, or a bad the good. Most people are nuanced and complicated, and genius can be closely tied to madness in a number of cases.

[RainMaker]

He was never a genius. Just some guy who bought some companies with his daddy's money. This whole thing has been the best advertisement for an estate tax you could ask for.

[cuervo72]

People need to stop equating wealth with genius. Also thinking that genius in one thing translates to anything else.



(Would anyone call Dan Snyder a "genius"?)

[PilotMan]

Musk is clearly an out of the box and big thinker when it comes to some of the innovation that he's done. However, this effort, smacks of someone with an ever growing "look at me" narcissism and ego. There's an addiction to that sort of attention, and I think he really admired just how trump was able to use that, and is applying that in his own way, to his situation. Hence, twitter feeling like the sandbox he keeps shitting in.

[Brian Swartz]

Just some guy who bought some companies with his daddy's money.

This is simply false. He founded Zip2 with his brother and most of the money for it coming from investors. It was sold for $307 million four years later. Leaving aside his complicated involvement with X.com and PayPal, which it's debatable how much credit he should get for, he founded SpaceX which is worth well north of $100 billion. Others share credit for what has happened at Tesla, but they've unquestionably had a significant impact in a product that's vital to the future of society and one that it is a major player in it's industry. Very little of what he's done is due to 'his daddy's money'.

I don't think genius or not-genius is worth debating, but the odds that there is a single member of this forum who would have been able to do with Musk has done, given the exact same starting resources/conditions, is remote in the extreme.

[Kodos]

I don't think genius or not-genius is worth debating, but the odds that there is a single member of this forum who would have been able to do with Musk has done, given the exact same starting resources/conditions, is remote in the extreme.

I think you are forgetting one thing: jbmagic.

[cuervo72]

The "remote" part is the point though. The chance that Musk would have done it is also remote in the extreme. (I saw something the other day that mentioned Musk having applied to Netscape for a job but being turned down. He gets the job? Probably doesn't become today's Elon Musk.)

[cuervo72]

I mean, it's like the lottery. Someone is going to win it. The chances that any particular person does? Remote in the extreme.

The only real difference here is that some people get to buy a lot more tickets.

[Brian Swartz]

If you have a major role in making one company successful and never do it again, sure. Musk has done this multiple times. That indicates that at some level he has an impressive level of ability in doing it. Most people don't even have a willingness to try, which might make them better human beings (or worse) in a variety of ways, but the idea that Musk has just gotten lucky and that's the sum total of his life story is totally laughable on it's face. It's like how you have to be lucky to become an astronaut in NASA - but you also have to be really good at some really important things also or it doesn't matter how lucky you are, it isn't happening.

[Brian Swartz]

A lot of this always smacks to me of 'we don't like this person for Reason X', usually because they identify to some degree with a some group we oppose, so let's discredit their accomplishments. It's like the whole Tom Cruise and Scientology thing, or the recent passing of Kirstie Alley. You can detest Cruise's personal life and still enjoy his movies. You can hate Alley's political stances and still like Cheers. Or Sean Connery and some of the statements he made over the years, or whoever in whatever field (business, politics, sports, you-name-it). People don't fit in these cookie-cutter boxes of approval/demonization. Recognizing them in one area doesn't preclude criticizing them harshly in another.

[Lathum]

Most people don't even have a willingness to try,

Most people also don't have daddys money to fall back on if they try and fail

[Solecismic]

A lot of this always smacks to me of 'we don't like this person for Reason X', usually because they identify to some degree with a some group we oppose, so let's discredit their accomplishments. It's like the whole Tom Cruise and Scientology thing, or the recent passing of Kirstie Alley. You can detest Cruise's personal life and still enjoy his movies. You can hate Alley's political stances and still like Cheers. Or Sean Connery and some of the statements he made over the years, or whoever in whatever field (business, politics, sports, you-name-it). People don't fit in these cookie-cutter boxes of approval/demonization. Recognizing them in one area doesn't preclude criticizing them harshly in another.

I agree. I know what went into breaking away from what people did because they were supposed to do it and take a salary for it and build something, even something as insignificant as a series of games. All the decisions that go into it, the risks, the endless hours with no one to bill for them.

To dismiss that as being able to fall back on money... money is important, but it's only one piece of that picture. Whether you have to worry about your next meal is important, but there are so many other things you give up when you decide you're no longer going to rely on someone else for a job or fit a corporate mold for a career.

I don't know what Musk is doing with Twitter. It seems like insanity to me. But it doesn't invalidate the rest of it. Behind every corporation out there is someone, maybe long in the past, who gave up a lot to build it.

Being born in the 20th Century in the most advanced country in the world with all the modern advances - there wasn't even electricity in the 1800s - we all started out life far past third base.

[thesloppy]

In Musk's case we're not talking about being good at one thing and being bad at another, we're talking about a very public display of how objectively bad he is at the thing he is supposed to be good at.

[cuervo72]

I mean, Musk has some talent in identifying companies to target (and I guess for hooking them up with government money). Until now he seemed to have a pretty good idea of how to improve company visibility, but not so sure on that one anymore. (And with Tesla, it would appear to me that he has been great at selling the company to Wall Street. Making profits off of CARS, I think the jury is still out.)

I'd say this about execs too though. Some "genius" execs just happened to catch lightning in a bottle. Take Meg Whitman. eBay? GENIUS! HP and, uh, Quibi? Not so much.

(Not that there aren't execs who can replicate success. Dave Thomas did so with KFC and then Wendy's. Lee Iacocca with Ford and then Chrysler. Of course, both replicated success in the same industries they had before.)

[thesloppy]

It also seems worth pointing out that Musk's behavior is not disconnected from what he was doing previously. He was using memes & slang to seemingly drive crucial decisions at Tesla that he made public for no reason, smoking weed on Joe Rogan purely for popularity points, regularly confronting/insulting his own labor & crushing multiple city's infrastructure projects with promises that inevitably failed. His behavior/performance at Twitter only seems like some kind of mystery/disconnect if you're invested in thinking of him as a genius, or weren't paying attention to his earlier behavior, otherwise it all actually fits pretty neatly in the same box.

[Edward64]

Don't consider Musk a genius but he is smart, he's a visionary, he's certainly gotten lucky, he's certainly an asshole, he's a great salesperson & BS'er (almost always a common denominator in a successful businessman) etc.

However, he has done things that the royal "we" at FOFC would not be able to do (even with whatever advantages you believe he had and let's not forget his disadvantages like Asperger's). Sometimes a person needs to accept his limitations.

He certainly has the financial resources to right the ship. He may well fail spectacularly but it is his $44B to waste. But I will concede being a big mouth and "trapped" (?) into buying a company he was trolling is pretty stupid.

And his Twitter acquisition is <2 months old. Way too early to judge how this will play out but not a good start.

[Lathum]

As the parent of a child on the spectrum, Aspergers isn't a thing anymore, I take umbrage at you claiming it’s a disadvantage. I would argue it’s a large reason he’s gotten to where he is.

[Edward64]

As the parent of a child on the spectrum, Aspergers isn't a thing anymore, I take umbrage at you claiming it’s a disadvantage. I would argue it’s a large reason he’s gotten to where he is.

Fair enough. It's described as a developmental disorder.

https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/conditions/aspergers-syndrome#:~:text=Asperger's%20Syndrome%2C%20a%20form%20of,can%20be%20rigid%20and%20repetitive
Asperger's Syndrome, a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, is a developmental disorder. Young people with Asperger's Syndrome have a difficult time relating to others socially and their behavior and thinking patterns can be rigid and repetitive.

FWIW, I have a friend that has 2 boys that has Asperger's. He describes it as a disadvantage and worries about when they become adults. But they may be on a different spectrum than yours.

[Solecismic]

The psychology world seems quick to attach labels. And since they're masters of mind tricks, they're often quite easily digested and appropriated in various ways.

It's when these labels get in the hands of the press or the Twittersphere, they acquire a life of their own, and it's usually a disparaging one.

ASD is quite wide-ranging, and most of that range is very much functioning just fine. I hate the disparaging part, too, because it's used to dismiss people. I am not on the ASD scale myself, but since I can do some serious math tricks and spacial relations tricks and I am extremely noise sensitive and other annoying things like shaky-cam makes me sick very quickly, people diagnose me all the time - and it's not meant well at all.

The brain is immeasurably complex, and most of it is essentially maintaining a state machine. You could probably identify a billion "disorders" and most of them would likely just be trading one disadvantage for one advantage in society.

[GrantDawg]

If you have a major role in making one company successful and never do it again, sure. Musk has done this multiple times. That indicates that at some level he has an impressive level of ability in doing it. Most people don't even have a willingness to try, which might make them better human beings (or worse) in a variety of ways, but the idea that Musk has just gotten lucky and that's the sum total of his life story is totally laughable on it's face. It's like how you have to be lucky to become an astronaut in NASA - but you also have to be really good at some really important things also or it doesn't matter how lucky you are, it isn't happening.
There are many people I have known that would be considered "successful", and some are not very smart, some are quite evil, some are severe narcissist, and some are good people. There is something in them that drove them to be able to succeed, and it is not necessarily the same in each. Sometimes it is as simple as what they just had a great gift in that area. Some times it is an innovated mine that hit the right thing at the right time. Sometimes it is just a really disciplined business mind.

Elon reminds me of the people I know that just have this ability to convince people that whatever their idea is it is the best idea ever. He has that confidence that knows no fear. The problem is sometimes that goes hand in hand in being unable to recognize or admit mistakes. It is much like Trump. It is a narcissism that drive you to be real successful, but also make you dangerous in certain situations.

[GrantDawg]

Fair enough. It's described as a developmental disorder.

https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/conditions/aspergers-syndrome#:~:text=Asperger's%20Syndrome%2C%20a%20form%20of,can%20be%20rigid%20and%20repetitive


FWIW, I have a friend that has 2 boys that has Asperger's. He describes it as a disadvantage and worries about when they become adults. But they may be on a different spectrum than yours.
Part of what Lathum is saying is that it is not a term used in official diagonstic's any longer. It is just the "Autism spectrum."

[RainMaker]

This is simply false. He founded Zip2 with his brother and most of the money for it coming from investors. It was sold for $307 million four years later. Leaving aside his complicated involvement with X.com and PayPal, which it's debatable how much credit he should get for, he founded SpaceX which is worth well north of $100 billion. Others share credit for what has happened at Tesla, but they've unquestionably had a significant impact in a product that's vital to the future of society and one that it is a major player in it's industry. Very little of what he's done is due to 'his daddy's money'.

I don't think genius or not-genius is worth debating, but the odds that there is a single member of this forum who would have been able to do with Musk has done, given the exact same starting resources/conditions, is remote in the extreme.

Yeah, that investor in Zip2 was his Daddy and his Daddy's friend. And he didn't cash out all that much from that deal because other firms had to step in along the way and fix their business.

His big payday was Paypal, which he should get credit for getting involved in. If you read the history of the company, you know he was mostly the money man and they had to push him out when they realized he was going to bankrupt them pretty quickly.

SpaceX and Tesla existed before he got there. Both companies rely on handouts from the government to make money and stay in business. They could not survive in a true free market.

I'll give him credit that he's a good marketer. He built a persona up that he's some Tony Stark guy (media helped him with that) and not just a trust fund baby who made some good investments and gamed the system. There is also a skill in getting billions in handouts from taxpayers. He's a modern day Trump in that regard where his name trades well and the success of the businesses don't really matter.

[Lathum]

Part of what Lathum is saying is that it is not a term used in official diagonstic's any longer. It is just the "Autism spectrum."

That is exactly what I am saying. People still use the term to describe someone who is very lightly on the spectrum, like my son, but it is technically no longer used as an official diagnosis. Everything just falls under the spectrum now.

My son is incredibly smart and driven, gets hyper focused on one thing. Currently it is marvel movies. He also can't grasp social cues when someone isn't interested in discussing his fixation of the week. I suspect Musk is similar. Intelligent and focused, but doesn't really grasp why the way he acts rubs people the wrong way some times.

[RainMaker]

Most people don't even have a willingness to try,

Most of our parents didn't own a lucrative emerald mine.

Regardless, he's now in charge of a company that does not rely on taxpayer money. We'll see pretty quick the kind of businessman he is competing in the free market.

[Kodos]

Most of our parents didn't own a lucrative emerald mine.

Speak for yourself!

[Edward64]

See below snopes article and their conclusion.

What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor | Snopes.com (https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/)
Since at least 2018, a rumor has been shared online about Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk in regard to his father's purported past ownership of an "apartheid emerald mine" or "slave emerald mine." The gist of the claim was that Elon's father, Errol Musk, who reports say has been estranged from his son for some time, owned an emerald mine during apartheid in South Africa, and that it was seed money from his father's wealth from the mine that made it possible for him to become the American billionaire he is today.
And their conclusion below. The article has extensive sources, pretty interesting read.

Here's a summary of our findings: We located reporting from as far back as 2009 and 2014 that said when Elon Musk ("Elon" herefafter) was a child in South Africa in the 1980s, his father ("Errol" hereafter) at some point owned "a stake in an emerald mine" near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, not South Africa. Beyond that, we were unable to find any evidence that showed money generated from his father's involvement in the mine helped Elon build his wealth in North America.

[sterlingice]

Most of our parents didn't own a lucrative emerald mine.

Regardless, he's now in charge of a company that does not rely on taxpayer money. We'll see pretty quick the kind of businessman he is competing in the free market.

However, the number of people on this board or at our workplaces or just walking around on the street with "merely" one million in seed cash is pretty low and that head start affords one opportunities where you're competing with far less than 1% of people. The vast majority of people don't even have that opportunity. Never mind if you have millions. I think there are many who feel that the much larger part of the equation is starting resources and opportunity than desire, skills, etc.

Yes, there are a lot of people who start off with money who burn through it and turn their something into nothing. But that's dwarfed by the number of people who never had a chance at those millions. It's along the lines of the "hey, this person worked hard to get what they have" - lots of people work hard to get what they have. But person working a hard double at Mickey D's versus guy working hard on Wall Street could be as simple as the latter had Mom and Dad's savings to fall back on and could take an unpaid internship on Wall Street versus the other needed to work at age 16 to help the family.

SI

[Brian Swartz]

SpaceX and Tesla existed before he got there. Both companies rely on handouts from the government to make money and stay in business. They could not survive in a true free market.

Tesla did. SpaceX did not. Regardless, I really don't get the point you are making here. Unless you think every single piece of equipment the government uses they should build themselves - every pencil, every eraser, every building, every computer, phone line, every everything, then at some level you need private businesses working on government contracts. Why is it bad to have that kind of company but good to have one that conducts it's business with non-government entities?

I don't think we're worse off having capabilities like the Falcon Heavy, Starlink, and the Tesla 3, the highest-selling EV ever. Maybe you do. It's possible SpaceX will get to Mars before NASA does - it's also possible it will end up being a complete failure. But I think we're all better off for the attempt being made.

Most of our parents didn't own a lucrative emerald mine.

It's more an issue of willingness, as I stated. It's like the meme that goes around about how we need a reality show where billionaires have to live on the salary of one of their lowest-paid employees for a month. My response is yes, let's absolutely do that. At the same time, let's pick a group of those employees at random and give them the billionaire's lifestyle - and everything that comes with it. Meaning not just the income to live on, but also the responsibilities. Most would run away screaming, because they don't want to have to deal with all of that for any amount of money. And most people shouldn't, and it's entirely healthy and appropriate that they don't. It is also beneficial to society that some do, because that's where innovation comes from.

I'm with you on the idea that we shouldn't put Musk on a pedestal as a role model or hide the failures past and present. At the same time this objection to anything/anybody rich or corporate regardless of justification for it makes me want to puke.

there are a lot of people who start off with money who burn through it and turn their something into nothing. But that's dwarfed by the number of people who never had a chance at those millions. It's along the lines of the "hey, this person worked hard to get what they have" - lots of people work hard to get what they have. But person working a hard double at Mickey D's versus guy working hard on Wall Street could be as simple as the latter had Mom and Dad's savings to fall back on and could take an unpaid internship on Wall Street versus the other needed to work at age 16 to help the family.

Well over two-thirds of millionaires inherited nothing. Opportunity is certainly a huge factor, but most people can become a millionaire in their lifetime in America if they live frugally and invest intelligently. Not expertly, just intelligently - a modest amount consistently over decades, diversified without everything high-risk, etc. The reason one person is on Wall Street and another is at Mickey Ds also very often has a lot to do with the fact that the one at Mickey Ds didn't want to sacrifice as much early in life to further their education and have a better life in the future. Sometimes it is just about their level of opportunity, but far more often it's about their own choices.

[sterlingice]

Well over two-thirds of millionaires inherited nothing. Opportunity is certainly a huge factor, but most people can become a millionaire in their lifetime in America if they live frugally and invest intelligently. Not expertly, just intelligently - a modest amount consistently over decades, diversified without everything high-risk, etc. The reason one person is on Wall Street and another is at Mickey Ds also very often has a lot to do with the fact that the one at Mickey Ds didn't want to sacrifice as much during to further their education and have a better life in the future. Sometimes it is just about their level of opportunity, but far more often it's about their own choices.

Would it be safe to say we both agree that it has to do with where the dimensions of hard work and talent meet opportunity and luck. I think we differ strongly on where that line meets?

SI

[Atocep]

It's more an issue of willingness, as I stated. It's like the meme that goes around about how we need a reality show where billionaires have to live on the salary of one of their lowest-paid employees for a month. My response is yes, let's absolutely do that. At the same time, let's pick a group of those employees at random and give them the billionaire's lifestyle - and everything that comes with it. Meaning not just the income to live on, but also the responsibilities. Most would run away screaming, because they don't want to have to deal with all of that for any amount of money. And most people shouldn't, and it's entirely healthy and appropriate that they don't. It is also beneficial to society that some do, because that's where innovation comes from.


And you miss the entire point of the meme.

If I'm a billionaire and choose to not participate in the responsibilities that come with my billionaire lifestyle I can still live comfortably for the rest of my life, my kids can do the same, their kids can do the same, and so on.

Other people are trying to survive.

[Brian Swartz]

But most often the rich are rich because they chose that level of responsibility regularly for decades. I don't think I'm missing the point, I think the point is myopic. It assumes the person at entry level is always there through no fault of their own and that nothing better was ever available to them, and that the billionaire did nothing to earn and/or maintain their position. That's true in rare occasions, and far more often is not. A fun thought exercise is to take the entirety of a CEO's salary and divide it among the employees, or some similar endeavor. How much could they lower prices/increase wages? There are exceptions but the usual answer is 'not much at all'. For example, take total compensation from McDonalds CEO Kempczinski of a little under 11 million (as of 2020) and divide it among the employees and you get a dollar per person per week. If I offered you a raise of a dollar a week, exactly how loudly would you laugh at me?

I think we differ strongly on where that line meets?

I think we do as well.

[Atocep]

But most often the rich are rich because they chose that level of responsibility regularly for decades. I don't think I'm missing the point, I think the point is myopic. It assumes the person at entry level is always there through no fault of their own and that nothing better was ever available to them, and that the billionaire did nothing to earn and/or maintain their position. That's true in rare occasions, and far more often is not. A fun thought exercise is to take the entirety of a CEO's salary and divide it among the employees, or some similar endeavor. How much could they lower prices/increase wages? There are exceptions but the usual answer is 'not much at all'. For example, take total compensation from McDonalds CEO Kempczinski of a little under 11 million (as of 2020) and divide it among the employees and you get a dollar per person per week. If I offered you a raise of a dollar a week, exactly how loudly would you laugh at me?



I assure you that you miss the point of the whole billionaire living on a regular person's wages idea if your first thought is about dealing with the pressures that come with being a billionaire.

[Atocep]

And while most of today's billionaires are largely self made, although it's difficult to draw that line because most of these polls that I've seen identify self made as starting their own business rather than inheriting one, right now that's mostly because of the tech boom of the 90s and early 2000s. If you expand beyond billionaire' and look at people with a net worth of more than $3 million about half inherited a significant portion of that wealth.

Billionaire status is largely luck driven. Right place, right time, ect. Multiple studies back this. Most or all might have incredible work ethics, but that's not a separating factor when there are plenty of people in society with absolutely insane work ethics.

[Brian Swartz]

I assure you that you miss the point of the whole billionaire living on a regular person's wages idea if your first thought is about dealing with the pressures that come with being a billionaire.

I assure you that you are assuming the unknowable based on this statement. It's possible to understand a thing, and still disagree with it.

If you expand beyond billionaire' and look at people with a net worth of more than $3 million about half inherited a significant portion of that wealth.

The largest study on this topic I am aware of is by Ramsey Solutions, with the result that almost 80% of millionaires inherited nothing. I agree with you on the luck bit, but again it's not just luck or skill/ability. You need both. It's important to avoid the single-cause fallacy here IMO. You often have to be lucky, but you also very much have to be other things also.

[RainMaker]

But most often the rich are rich because they chose that level of responsibility regularly for decades. I don't think I'm missing the point, I think the point is myopic. It assumes the person at entry level is always there through no fault of their own and that nothing better was ever available to them, and that the billionaire did nothing to earn and/or maintain their position. That's true in rare occasions, and far more often is not. A fun thought exercise is to take the entirety of a CEO's salary and divide it among the employees, or some similar endeavor. How much could they lower prices/increase wages? There are exceptions but the usual answer is 'not much at all'. For example, take total compensation from McDonalds CEO Kempczinski of a little under 11 million (as of 2020) and divide it among the employees and you get a dollar per person per week. If I offered you a raise of a dollar a week, exactly how loudly would you laugh at me?


Now do it with dividends.

[RainMaker]

Well over two-thirds of millionaires inherited nothing. Opportunity is certainly a huge factor, but most people can become a millionaire in their lifetime in America if they live frugally and invest intelligently. Not expertly, just intelligently - a modest amount consistently over decades, diversified without everything high-risk, etc. The reason one person is on Wall Street and another is at Mickey Ds also very often has a lot to do with the fact that the one at Mickey Ds didn't want to sacrifice as much early in life to further their education and have a better life in the future. Sometimes it is just about their level of opportunity, but far more often it's about their own choices.

Opportunity is one of the most important factors. And it goes beyond just inheriting money. Having wealthy people in your life who can give you a head start or just be a security blanket for you is vital to the success of many.

Jeff Bezos is a great example. He did incredible things with Amazon. He also got the equivalent of $500k in today's money to start Amazon from his parents. Turning that into a trillion dollars is remarkable. But does he do that if his parents are not wealthy and he has $100k in outstanding student loans? Of course not.

[RainMaker]

See below snopes article and their conclusion.

What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor | Snopes.com (https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-mine/)

And their conclusion below. The article has extensive sources, pretty interesting read.

Are you trying to argue he wasn't rich or didn't own an emerald mine? Errol has spoken about it extenively.

Who Is Elon Musk's Estranged Father? All About Errol Musk (https://people.com/human-interest/who-is-errol-musk-elon-musk-father/)


In an interview with Business Insider South Africa (https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2), Errol admitted that, at one point, he literally made more money than he could physically handle.

"We were very wealthy. We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe," Errol said, explaining that one person would hold the money down while a second would slam the safe door shut. "And then there'd still be all these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets."

Errol also shared how his sons got involved in the family business and recalled a time when Elon and his brother Kimbal sold a few of the emeralds from his mine to Tiffany & Co. in New York City.

"They just walked into Tiffany's and said, 'Do you want to buy some emeralds?' " he told the outlet.

[Radii]

Jeff Bezos is a great example. He did incredible things with Amazon. He also got the equivalent of $500k in today's money to start Amazon from his parents. Turning that into a trillion dollars is remarkable. But does he do that if his parents are not wealthy and he has $100k in outstanding student loans? Of course not.


Also exploiting the absolute shit out of his employees at an extreme level.

[RainMaker]

I don't think we're worse off having capabilities like the Falcon Heavy, Starlink, and the Tesla 3, the highest-selling EV ever. Maybe you do. It's possible SpaceX will get to Mars before NASA does - it's also possible it will end up being a complete failure. But I think we're all better off for the attempt being made.

Those things are good. I just don't know why our tax dollars have to pay the business expenses for a billionaire.

Point was that Tesla would not be a successful company without taxpayers covering a considerable cost of their product as well as their infrastructure. Most businesses don't have that luxury, especially small businesses.

[RainMaker]

Also exploiting the absolute shit out of his employees at an extreme level.

$5 billion in tax subsidies over the past decade helps too. Something your local independent bookstore doesn't have access to.

[Edward64]

Are you trying to argue he wasn't rich or didn't own an emerald mine? Errol has spoken about it extenively.

Who Is Elon Musk's Estranged Father? All About Errol Musk (https://people.com/human-interest/who-is-errol-musk-elon-musk-father/)

The implication is that Musk had significant backing from his parents for his ventures. See quotes below.

Just some guy who bought some companies with his daddy's money.
Most people also don't have daddys money to fall back on if they try and fail
Most of our parents didn't own a lucrative emerald mine.

His father owned or had shares in an Emerald mine. But that was over by the 1980s. The Snopes article documented quite a bit of news articles, statements, interviews etc. and ultimately concluded

We located reporting from as far back as 2009 and 2014 that said when Elon Musk ("Elon" herefafter) was a child in South Africa in the 1980s, his father ("Errol" hereafter) at some point owned "a stake in an emerald mine" near Lake Tanganyika in Zambia, not South Africa. Beyond that, we were unable to find any evidence that showed money generated from his father's involvement in the mine helped Elon build his wealth in North America.


Interestingly, Snopes documented Robert Reich's quote.

Later, on Sept. 20, 2022, he called Robert Reich "an idiot and a liar" for tweeting a video that pushed the emerald mine wealth rumor as fact. Reich, the former secretary of labor under U.S. President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, had tweeted, "Elon Musk came from a family that owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa." He also added, "'Self-made billionaires' are a myth."
It would be great if Reich can backup his assertions but apparently not.

We reached out to Reich to ask if he could provide evidence of his assertion, but did not receive a response before this story was published.

What are your sources that his parents helped fund his ventures?

[Brian Swartz]

Those things are good. I just don't know why our tax dollars have to pay the business expenses for a billionaire.

Point was that Tesla would not be a successful company without taxpayers covering a considerable cost of their product as well as their infrastructure. Most businesses don't have that luxury, especially small businesses.

Some of this was already addressed, but most businesses are also not producing cutting-edge products in a business that has been deemed important to national goals or in the case of Tesla, even national security/future of the species on Earth.

To be sure, there are other ways to handle this. We could take an approach such as just saying we don't care if we develop alternative, more climate-friendly forms of transportation and just let the private sector do it whenever it feels like it. We could also take a more heavy-handed approach and just demand increased emission standards and the like regardless of whether there is a viable product at a price consumers can afford, and watch the carnage that would unfold in the economy. We've decided carrot is a better approach than stick, and that there are some areas in which just letting events unfold as they will is harmful - or in the case of climate change, catastrophic. What we are doing in terms of developing EVs is entirely inadequate, but it is something.

One can advocate for other alternatives, but in the broad strokes I don't think those other ways are better. I also don't think it makes sense to lump companies that are operating in these critical areas in the same basket with others that are just making common-use widgets or services of whatever type. That's not to say those products don't matter, they absolutely do, but they are far more replaceable and not nearly as vital to the growth of essential technologies.

[Solecismic]

The question is whether to ban personal transportation, if people are genuine about emissions. Electric cars are just virtue signalling, and in a very bad way.

They cost more emissions in the long run when you consider battery production, weight, shortened life, difficulty to maintain in colder weather. Already, people around the world are being told if they have them they can't charge them at peak times.

Right now, they have extremely limited value in specific settings. That may change, but if you limit the equation to puff of emission behind the car = bad, none = good, you're missing most of what's going on.

So these public subsidies... not only does it cost the taxpayers billions to make Musk the richest man in the world, but they've done enormous harm to the cause, if you think carbon-based fuels are significantly hurting the earth (which is another argument I know better than to have here).

I said Musk was a genius. It has been mentioned above that genius comes in many forms. His is the ability to fleece the government to enrich himself. Not the first and certainly not the last.

[Brian Swartz]

They cost more emissions in the long run when you consider battery production, weight, shortened life, difficulty to maintain in colder weather.

No, they actually don't. The emissions caused by production are definitely an issue, but even without further improvements on that front - there are some promising technologies that appear to be coming soon - they are still a better option than standard internal-combustion vehicles. The charging issue of course depends greatly on what we do with the overall power-generation infrastructure.

The other point of course is that we just have to get off of using oil for as many products as possible as soon as possible as the world supply continues to head in the wrong direction.

[Solecismic]

No, they actually don't. The emissions caused by production are definitely an issue, but even without further improvements on that front - there are some promising technologies that appear to be coming soon - they are still a better option than standard internal-combustion vehicles. The charging issue of course depends greatly on what we do with the overall power-generation infrastructure.

The other point of course is that we just have to get off of using oil for as many products as possible as soon as possible as the world supply continues to head in the wrong direction.

We've been hearing about promising technologies for decades. Electric grids will fail if they don't emerge soon. England is already headed back to coal to keep the lights on. Germany's in worse shape because predicting a warmer-than-average winter to make the numbers work and getting a colder-than-average start means serious trouble on the horizon. They are spending a fortune keeping the lights on, and that means poorer countries are having difficulty getting fuel and those blackouts are already starting. Our only hope - that we learn from the lessons Germany and other countries are going to experience the next few years.

You have factor in so much when you replace the gasoline method with electric. Mining, the availability and transport of (enormous amounts of) copper and rare-earth metals, construction of the batteries, the shorter lifespan, the increasing inefficiency of charging as the batteries slowly die, the increased need for charging capacity (already a huge issue - people in Finland were just told they shouldn't use the heaters in their electric cars as they go through a long sub-freezing period), the cost of replacing a useless battery and all the materials that went into its production, the cost of recycling and the damage that does to the environment. When you add it all up, especially combined with the increasing cost of electricity, the additional weight you have to transport, and the eventual end (surely it musk end) of the subsidies... it's very bad for the environment and even worse for the financial health of those who invest in the technology. I wouldn't get a Tesla even if the government subsidies dropped the MSRP in half.

The only answer with today's technologies (it was going to be hydrogen just around the corner 20 years ago, and hydrogen is making a comeback in today's speculation) is to ban personal transportation. But that's not realistic for those of us who live outside of major city centers. So, herd us together in mega-cities like London or Beijing? I hope it doesn't come to that.

[Bobble]

and the eventual end (surely it musk end) of the subsidies...

I see what you did there. :devil:

I'd love to get away from fossil fuels for the pollution and dependency on foreign powers but you want be sure that it all really is better for the environment to go electric.

[RainMaker]

Some of this was already addressed, but most businesses are also not producing cutting-edge products in a business that has been deemed important to national goals or in the case of Tesla, even national security/future of the species on Earth.

To be sure, there are other ways to handle this. We could take an approach such as just saying we don't care if we develop alternative, more climate-friendly forms of transportation and just let the private sector do it whenever it feels like it. We could also take a more heavy-handed approach and just demand increased emission standards and the like regardless of whether there is a viable product at a price consumers can afford, and watch the carnage that would unfold in the economy. We've decided carrot is a better approach than stick, and that there are some areas in which just letting events unfold as they will is harmful - or in the case of climate change, catastrophic. What we are doing in terms of developing EVs is entirely inadequate, but it is something.

One can advocate for other alternatives, but in the broad strokes I don't think those other ways are better. I also don't think it makes sense to lump companies that are operating in these critical areas in the same basket with others that are just making common-use widgets or services of whatever type. That's not to say those products don't matter, they absolutely do, but they are far more replaceable and not nearly as vital to the growth of essential technologies.

Tesla was worth over a trillion dollars just over a year ago. A TRILLION DOLLARS. I just don't understand why we have to pay for charging stations and thousands in rebates for a company that is well-capitalized.

[Edward64]

They cost more emissions in the long run when you consider battery production, weight, shortened life, difficulty to maintain in colder weather. Already, people around the world are being told if they have them they can't charge them at peak times.


This is an interesting topic re: are EV's significantly better than gas, internal combustion engines when factoring everything such as extraction of minerals, production etc.

From what I've been reading on current articles, it does seem overall EV's will be better for the environment as a whole when factoring in "duration, life of vehicles". But there are other articles that say to the contrary and it's not clear to me if there are bias involved (on either side).

I figure MIT is pretty reputable.

Are electric vehicles definitely better for the climate than gas-powered cars? | MIT Climate Portal (https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars)
Are electric vehicles definitely better for the climate than gas-powered cars?

Although many fully electric vehicles (EVs) carry “zero emissions” badges, this claim is not quite true. Battery-electric cars may not emit greenhouse gases from their tailpipes, but some emissions are created in the process of building and charging the vehicles.

Nevertheless, says Sergey Paltsev, Deputy Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, electric vehicles are clearly a lower-emissions option than cars with internal combustion engines. Over the course of their driving lifetimes, EVs will create fewer carbon emissions than gasoline-burning cars under nearly any conditions.
They also talked about the batteries.

One source of EV emissions is the creation of their large lithium-ion batteries. The use of minerals including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, which are crucial for modern EV batteries, requires using fossil fuels to mine those materials and heat them to high temperatures. As a result, building the 80 kWh lithium-ion battery found in a Tesla Model 3 creates between 2.5 and 16 metric tons of CO2 (exactly how much depends greatly on what energy source is used to do the heating).1 This intensive battery manufacturing means that building a new EV can produce around 80% more emissions than building a comparable gas-powered car.2
:
In countries that get most of their energy from burning dirty coal, the emissions numbers for EVs don’t look nearly as good—but they’re still on par with or better than burning gasoline.
I think below is where I land. Basically, we're pretty mature with carbon based vehicles and just beginning with EVs. There is much greater efficiency gains to be had with use of EVs.

And while internal combustion engines are getting more efficient, EVs are poised to become greener by leaps and bounds as more countries add more clean energy to their mix.
:
“Once we decarbonize the electric grid—once we get more and more clean sources to the grid—the comparison is getting better and better,” Paltsev says.

[Ksyrup]

I'm definitely going to strongly consider a hybrid or EV for my next car in a couple of years. My wife has an SUV and will be the vehicle we take on long trips. I use my car mostly for around town and commuting an hour to work and back. For 95% of my driving, I can simply plug in at home.

[Edward64]

Tesla was worth over a trillion dollars just over a year ago. A TRILLION DOLLARS. I just don't understand why we have to pay for charging stations and thousands in rebates for a company that is well-capitalized.

I support it and my rationale is we are trying to accelerate consumer adoption of EVs and not make Tesla richer.

Tesla will likely get richer as a byproduct and so will other auto makers that succeed in their EV strategy. But that's the price to pay to get more & quicker adoption.

The budgeted cost is $7.5B for the charging stations. It ties with one other as the least cost in the bill. If it spurs adoption, its a pretty good investment and also in our strategic interest (e.g. less reliance on our frenemies).

Understanding the Recent Infrastructure Legislation (https://www.investopedia.com/here-s-what-s-in-the-usd1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-passed-by-the-senate-5196817)
$7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations. The Biden Administration asked for this funding to build significantly more charging stations for electric vehicles across the nation.

[Edward64]

I'm definitely going to strongly consider a hybrid or EV for my next car in a couple of years. My wife has an SUV and will be the vehicle we take on long trips. I use my car mostly for around town and commuting an hour to work and back. For 95% of my driving, I can simply plug in at home.

Cost is the main consideration. But range anxiety is #2 for me.

Per my prior post on wanting more charging stations nationwide to accelerate consumer adoption ... would your wife be more willing to consider an EV if she knows she can get charged up approx 80% in 20-30 min while taking her trip?

[Ksyrup]

Probably. We haven't really talked about it for her. Mine makes sense since work is an hour away and we don't take long trips in my car.

I saw this report about convenience of chargers and there's a long way to go until I would feel comfortable taking a long trip - both because of anxiety, but also because I don't want to spend an hour or more waiting around to charge, even if I find one along the way.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/how-convenient-are-electric-vehicle-chargers-we-set-out-on-a-road-trip-to-find-out-158187589983

[Edward64]

I have read chargers are like 80% in 20-30 min (unless its like the old home plug in). If the infrastructure bill puts in chargers like in your video, yeah it'll be a catastrophic failure for sure.

500,000 charging stations for $7.5B. That's about $15K per charger.

My SIL got a Tesla but her condo unit did not have any chargers. She could use the regular outlet which is very slow or buy her own charger. She chipped in with some other owners and shares one now.

[Edward64]

Great, it will be 4-packs of fast chargers.

Four fast chargers every 50 miles—US unveils EV infrastructure plan | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/four-fast-chargers-every-50-miles-us-unveils-ev-infrastructure-plan/)
About five years from now, a common complaint about electric vehicles—range anxiety—will be a thing of the past across much of the US.

Starting this year, the federal government will begin doling out $5 billion to states over five years to build a nationwide network of fast chargers. The plan initially focuses on the Interstate Highway System, directing states to build one charging station every 50 miles. Those stations must be capable of charging at least four EVs simultaneously at 150 kW.
:
Once states have completed the Interstate charging network, they’ll be able to apply for grants to fill in gaps elsewhere. The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, a new agency formed to help the Transportation and Energy Departments administer the program, will allow case-by-case exceptions to the 50-mile requirement if, for example, no grid connection is available nearby.

[Bobble]

Great, it will be 4-packs of fast chargers.

Four fast chargers every 50 miles—US unveils EV infrastructure plan | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/02/four-fast-chargers-every-50-miles-us-unveils-ev-infrastructure-plan/)

How fast is a "fast charger"? Is it comparable to the ~2 minutes it takes me to fill a gas tank?

[Edward64]

How fast is a "fast charger"? Is it comparable to the ~2 minutes it takes me to fill a gas tank?

Won't be that quick (and from personal experience, it'll probably take reg fill-up about 10 min with CC stuff and a cranky hose). C&D link below has more info.

There are 3 levels.

https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-advice/a32600212/ev-charging-time/
Recharging an EV battery with a 120-volt source—these are categorized as Level 1 according to SAE J1772, a standard that engineers use to design EVs—is measured in days, not hours
If you own or plan to own an EV you'll be wise to consider having a 240-volt Level 2 charging solution installed in your home. A typical Level 2 connection is 240 volts and 40 to 50 amps.
For the absolute fastest charging possible, you'll want to plug into a Level 3 connection, colloquially known as a DC fast charger. These are the EV equivalent of filling that barrel with a fire hose.
So, the guestimate is ...

manufacturers often claim that fast-charging will get your EV's battery to "80 percent charge in 30 minutes."

[Brian Swartz]

Tesla was worth over a trillion dollars just over a year ago. A TRILLION DOLLARS. I just don't understand why we have to pay for charging stations and thousands in rebates for a company that is well-capitalized.

I don't care if it was a trillion trillion dollars, it's not just about Tesla. If you have a better solution for speeding up EV adoption by the public, including the necessary infrastructure to make it viable and not just the cars themselves, that doesn't involve subsidizing the companies who make the vehicles, let's hear it.

I'm not being sarcastic. There might be one. But absent such a solution, my biggest problem with it is that we aren't spending nearly enough on this kind of thing and should be doing a lot more - here, on nuclear power, on development of alternative fuels and products for replacing oil in other sectors. Not just EVs, but that's an important element.

[Brian Swartz]

We've been hearing about promising technologies for decades. Electric grids will fail if they don't emerge soon.

To clarify, was referring in terms of technologies to improvements in battery technology.

the cost of replacing a useless battery and all the materials that went into its production, the cost of recycling and the damage that does to the environment. When you add it all up, especially combined with the increasing cost of electricity, the additional weight you have to transport, and the eventual end (surely it musk end) of the subsidies... it's very bad for the environment and even worse for the financial health of those who invest in the technology.

You keep saying this, and I maintain it just isn't true. The profile of the electricity grid is an important factor, and it depends on what assumptions you make there. Having said that, I'll cite a few data points:

- Argonne National Laboratory, developer of the Greet model for evaluating emissions for both EV and gas-powered vehicles over their lifetimes, has estimated that on average the emissions for gas-powered vehicles will be much higher.

- A Reuters analysis of different scenarios found that even in the worst-case scenario of charging entirely from a coal-powered grid, EV emissions are still better, though not by a particularly large margin. This is because the initial cost of production is off-set by the fact that engines in EVs are about 95% energy efficient, while internal combustion engines are only about 20%. There is simply a huge gain in how well they use the energy.

Here's an article about another, older study: Even electric cars powered by the dirtiest electricity emit fewer emissions than diesel cars, says new study | Electrek (https://electrek.co/2017/11/01/electric-cars-dirty-electricicty-coal-emission-cleaner-study/)

- Damien Ernst, who claimed just a few years ago that to break even with a gas-powered vehicle in terms of emissions, an EV would need to be operational for 700,000 km, has revised that estimate greatly downward to 150,000 at most and sometimes half that amount, which is well less than the expected lifecycle of vehicles. This is just one illustration of what has generally happened when people take a serious look at the increasing amount of data available

- The estimated life of batteries is about 20 years. In other words, way longer than most people are going to be driving the car anyway. It's not like they are going to have to be constantly replaced.

I'm not aware of significant recent studies funded by independent parties - i.e. not the oil industry for example - that contradict these. Do you have contrary ones to cite?

[Radii]

I don't care if it was a trillion trillion dollars, it's not just about Tesla. If you have a better solution for speeding up EV adoption by the public, including the necessary infrastructure to make it viable and not just the cars themselves, that doesn't involve subsidizing the companies who make the vehicles, let's hear it.

I'm not being sarcastic. There might be one. But absent such a solution, my biggest problem with it is that we aren't spending nearly enough on this kind of thing and should be doing a lot more - here, on nuclear power, on development of alternative fuels and products for replacing oil in other sectors. Not just EVs, but that's an important element.

100%. Any efforts to regulate private industry into creating this infrastructure will fail. Tesla or any other company will find every loophole, do the bare minimum, and fuck us all for a little more profit. This has to be done by the government. The fact that will likely make a smug fuck like Elon Musk a little more wealth is an unfortunate side effect, but one that has to happen if we believe this is required as part of a climate change solution.

[GrantDawg]

It is far just about Tesla. Tesla is not going to be the main creator of electric cars in the next few years. Every major automaker is offering more in more EV's ievery year. Just in Georgia, Hyundai and Kia have plants being built to produce EV's, as well as the Rivian plant that is being built. Ford, GM, Honda, Nissan....Tesla's market-share is declining and going to continue to decline deeply. Musk acting like an asshat on Twitter pissing the people who were buying Tesla's, isn't going to help slow that decline.

[Solecismic]

To clarify, was referring in terms of technologies to improvements in battery technology.



You keep saying this, and I maintain it just isn't true. The profile of the electricity grid is an important factor, and it depends on what assumptions you make there. Having said that, I'll cite a few data points:

- Argonne National Laboratory, developer of the Greet model for evaluating emissions for both EV and gas-powered vehicles over their lifetimes, has estimated that on average the emissions for gas-powered vehicles will be much higher.

- A Reuters analysis of different scenarios found that even in the worst-case scenario of charging entirely from a coal-powered grid, EV emissions are still better, though not by a particularly large margin. This is because the initial cost of production is off-set by the fact that engines in EVs are about 95% energy efficient, while internal combustion engines are only about 20%. There is simply a huge gain in how well they use the energy.

Here's an article about another, older study: Even electric cars powered by the dirtiest electricity emit fewer emissions than diesel cars, says new study | Electrek (https://electrek.co/2017/11/01/electric-cars-dirty-electricicty-coal-emission-cleaner-study/)

- Damien Ernst, who claimed just a few years ago that to break even with a gas-powered vehicle in terms of emissions, an EV would need to be operational for 700,000 km, has revised that estimate greatly downward to 150,000 at most and sometimes half that amount, which is well less than the expected lifecycle of vehicles. This is just one illustration of what has generally happened when people take a serious look at the increasing amount of data available

- The estimated life of batteries is about 20 years. In other words, way longer than most people are going to be driving the car anyway. It's not like they are going to have to be constantly replaced.

I'm not aware of significant recent studies funded by independent parties - i.e. not the oil industry for example - that contradict these. Do you have contrary ones to cite?

What's interesting is that you cite a study from a group that exists to lobby governments to get to net zero. I doubt their biases are any different from any other group that exists to lobby for any other cause.

This is one baseline study - Just a moment... (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x) - it doesn't get into some of the more hard-to-figure costs, like where are you getting the materials and is slavery involved in extracting them. What do you do if EV sales become significant (right now, what, 2% of the cars on the road are EV?) and you need more materials than you could possibly extract? China is clearly trying to control world supplies of some of these materials, what's the price then? But look at the world supply of these rare-earth metals and mining today and extrapolate. At copper as well.

If you can get 20 years out of a battery, great. But keep in mind that real life doesn't have perfect weather, charges only between the ideal ranges, keeps everything in perfect condition. There are no 20-year-old Tesla batteries to check and the warranties supplied with the cars do not stand behind these claims - they know it's only theory. So if you're sitting at 100,000 miles and you're still getting over 90% of range, great, it worked. Congrats.

What did you win, then. If you can afford the entry cost, the taxpayers pay for the rest of your Tesla. They pay for your charging stations and you pay a nominal cost to "fill up". And what do you save on emissions themselves? Maybe something, maybe not (anything that shows maybe not is clearly written by the oil industry, I guess, and anything that shows it is - definitely not by lobbyists connected to the green industries). All the EV market is right now is wealthy people (almost 80% of EV owners have household incomes >$100k) feeling good about themselves while taking money from the government.

Let's assume EVs become a large share of the marketplace. How do they get charged? This $7.5 billion handout will put some charging stations out there. How long does it take to fast-charge a Tesla? 20 minutes? The handout gives you four of these at reasonable spots on the interstates. That should cover demand today - when I go past a single charging station these days, more often than not, it's empty. But if more people get them, that's a lot of waiting.

Still not an insurmountable problem. Right now, highway rest stops have 10-12 bays, let's say five minutes for a tank. So you could conceive of EV coverage with about 30-35 bays. Only eight times as much as what they're going to build in the next few years.

Where does the electricity come from for this? That is quite a drain. And as renewables come on line, so do relative dead periods. Already, at 2%, we're starting to see restrictions on home charging. And the Finland example I just gave you. You might spend (or the government might spend) a lot of money to install a charging station at your home (if your insurance company doesn't drop you), and then you can't use it a lot of the time. Once EV use becomes more common, this will only get worse. A lot worse.

We don't know where this is going. We have increased the cost of energy. We have reduced energy security (in the US, power outages have doubled in the last ten years alone). We have regions of the US and Canada (Michigan and the plains, California, Ontario) that are projected to produce less energy than they need in the very near future. The one technology we have that seems to help reach every goal the most - nuclear plants - for some reason are hated by the greens more than the dirtiest coal mines. And then we add this EV thing on top of it at enormous cost. And the wealthy people who feel good about their new EVs don't think for a minute how the increasing costs of keeping the lights on and the furnaces running affect the billions of people around the world who live on a few dollars a day.

[Honolulu_Blue]

A friend of mine recently drove from Maryland to the west coast of Michigan (for a board game weekend) and drove his Tesla. He said it was an absolute nightmare in terms of finding charging stations and then having to wait for his car to totally re-charge. It added hours to his trip and he said he'd never do it again.

The infrastructure isn't close to being there and the problems will be worse on big travel weekends - like Memorial Day - when, all of a sudden, you have a lot more folks on the road.

I don't think it's a question of "if" EVs become a major share of vehicles on the road, but when. It's happening. I work for a major OEM and we are switching to EVs and plan to be full electric by 2035, which isn't that far off. Most OEMs are doing the same. The rules being made in Europe and California (primarily) are really driving the industry in that direction.

I don't know if the infrastructure will be there or not, I am guess not. So, it's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out and if OEMs reverse or slow down some of these decisions.

With respect to Tesla, I love seeing them go down. I've hated Musk long before it was cool. This whole Twitter debacle and his personal tweets are really hurting Tesla. Not to mention Tesla, like so many other OEMs, are really struggling in terms of supply issues. Tesla is at critical juncture business-wise and Musk being distracted with Twitter isn't helping. In addition, as has been stated before, Tesla is seeing and going to see an unprecedented level of competition in the EV space in the US, Europe and China. That's going to hurt them.

Finally, one big reason Tesla has been profitable is through the sale GHG (greenhouse gas) credits. Because Tesla's fleet is entirely EV, they don't need any of the GHG credits they generate. As a result, they can sell their entire inventory to other OEMs that need these credits to offset the emissions their ICE vehicles create. This has been a massive windfall and source of revenue for Tesla. Once other OEMs begin to have more and more EVs in their fleets, the market for these GHG credits dries up so will a major source of revenue for Tesla.

[RainMaker]

I don't care if it was a trillion trillion dollars, it's not just about Tesla. If you have a better solution for speeding up EV adoption by the public, including the necessary infrastructure to make it viable and not just the cars themselves, that doesn't involve subsidizing the companies who make the vehicles, let's hear it.

I'm not being sarcastic. There might be one. But absent such a solution, my biggest problem with it is that we aren't spending nearly enough on this kind of thing and should be doing a lot more - here, on nuclear power, on development of alternative fuels and products for replacing oil in other sectors. Not just EVs, but that's an important element.

Make more stringent emissions standards that force automakers into converting to EV. Or simply ban combustion engines by a certain date.

If you can't do any of that, offer low-interest loans to the companies if you feel it necessary. Or the government gets a stake in the company for providing them with the handouts. Or just make the cars ourselves if it's that vital to national security.

The current setup is just welfare for billionaires and propping up unprofitable industries.

[Flasch186]

Capitalism


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mota]

I know someone who is a multi millionaire. His kid was bad at hockey, yet somehow he kept on making the rep team year after year, because the dad would host some pretty cool parties, and hired a few of the other dads on the team.

One thing we overheard during one of the tryouts is the dad telling his son "you better skate hard or else you won't make the team", and then both of them started laughing. He made the team. (he was the lowest scoring forward on the team the previous year, and also did not play defensively at all). He also made the private school hockey team which is elite, because their family paid for the naming rights for the arena. I mean, the team could've cut him, but they probably wouldn't have received that juicy donation.

The kid also goes to a private school, so he is surrounded on a daily basis by other rich kids. Guess what, when there are opportunities, they are most likely going to be available to the kid with all the rich contacts, vs. the public school kid whose parents are struggling to make ends meet, as well as the other friends in their class.

So yes, maybe the kid was not given millions of dollars, but he had opportunities well beyond what a normal person would get. I'm sure that it was similar with Musk. It's easy to work on startups if you're not worried about paying rent, or buying food.

[Solecismic]

No, it's not easy to start a business.

It may even be harder for the hockey kid, since he has learned that hard work is something only other people do to build something.

Society seems obsessed with what other people have. This goes far deeper than money. The whole Puritan world view was all about worrying that people were having fun in ways you weren't having fun.

This is no different.

Parents want their kids to have better lives. We can argue that the hockey kid might have a better life because he'll have a lot of money regardless of whether he works. But he might not. Parenting is tough. Money is one important piece, but there are many others that kid might be behind on, because his parents might have their own weaknesses.

At least there are only so many hockey arenas that need names.

So, one example. I found that I'm a pretty decent math/science teacher when I only have one pupil and he happens to be my son. So I taught him a lot. Maybe a bad idea because he complained throughout school that he didn't learn anything in those classes. If my son goes on and has success in the world of technology, did he earn that? Was it wrong of me to try and pass along my expertise?

What about, on a different scale, a parent in a poorer area that knows a lot about nutrition and tries to provide good meals, never gets fast food? Is that an unfair advantage, given that many parents don't know a lot about nutrition. Their kids go to school, maybe don't learn as well because of a lack of balanced meals.

[Brian Swartz]

Or just make the cars ourselves if it's that vital to national security.

This is the agree-to-disagree point for me. I mentioned some of the issues with the 'stick' approach earlier in the thread, but this proposed solution is something that I am as confident as I can be in anything that it would be an unmitigated disaster. We also clearly have irreconcilable disagreements on what terms like 'welfare for billionaires' mean.

Thanks for the discussion.

[Brian Swartz]

What's interesting is that you cite a study from a group that exists to lobby governments to get to net zero.

Our discussion is about emissions, is it not? When it comes to that, a group that thinks lowering emissions is a good idea would seem to be appropriate. It's totally different than one which favors a particular industry. Citing one from the traditional auto or oil or EV side for example is a bias that's on one side of the discussion. The only net-zero bias is 'this is a discussion worth having'.

On the study you cited, a couple of points. One is that it's not recent, it was published a decade ago. We know a lot more than we did then. Secondly, despite that fact it agrees with what I said on almost every point regardless. Even using a very conservative figure for vehicle operational life, it still concluded that EVs come out ahead on total emissions in every scenario except for the worst-case scenario of relying totally on coal. Including scenarios that don't require any 'greening' of the power grid. And more recent studies show that even in a coal-based power grid still favors EVs.

What do you do if EV sales become significant (right now, what, 2% of the cars on the road are EV?) and you need more materials than you could possibly extract? China is clearly trying to control world supplies of some of these materials, what's the price then? But look at the world supply of these rare-earth metals and mining today and extrapolate. At copper as well.

That's true of basically everything though. I know people on this board don't like my proposed solutions, but countries that aren't friendly to 'us' ... whoever us is defined to be ... are going to try to monopolize resources. As we are on the other side. We aren't saying 'let's stop using oil because it's easy for OPEC to manipulate the price'. If we want to avoid a situation in which any other country can cause problems by controlling resources we need, then we have to backwards at least a literal century in the technology we use, and possibly further than that.

All the EV market is right now is wealthy people (almost 80% of EV owners have household incomes >$100k) feeling good about themselves while taking money from the government.

Early adopters always skew that way though. Only wealthy people can afford to buy new cars, period.

Where does the electricity come from for this? That is quite a drain. And as renewables come on line, so do relative dead periods. Already, at 2%, we're starting to see restrictions on home charging. And the Finland example I just gave you. You might spend (or the government might spend) a lot of money to install a charging station at your home (if your insurance company doesn't drop you), and then you can't use it a lot of the time. Once EV use becomes more common, this will only get worse. A lot worse.

MIT has estimated that the US power grid is capable of supporting 150 million EVs. That's over half the current operational vehicles. We'd need to upgrade some to go all the way, for certain. But a lot of that is infrastructure changes that need to happen anyway. I don't get the point of using examples like Finland. Is Finland having issues because there's no possible way for them to make more electricity? Of course not. It's largely because of how reliant they are on imports. This is a problem, but it is not one without solutions. Certainly EVs need to be accounted for in the electrical grid, but that's no different than needing to account for oil supply for gas-powered vehicles.

That sort of feeds into the points about convenience, getting enough charging stations and other infrastructure, and so on. All of those do need to happen, but similar issues need to be accounted for under *any* forseeable circumstance, including continuing to rely on oil which is not going to be viable indefinitely no matter how much we might like it to be. EVs aren't a perfect solution by any means, but they are best one we currently know of. Hydrogen is far further behind from an infrastructure point of view and is not as efficient, has similar transportation/storage issues to what gasoline has, is expensive to produce from an energy standpoint, and so on. It's better than continuing to rely on oil/gas, but I've yet to see a good reason to favor it over EVs.

[Edward64]

Re: rare earth metals, there is hope!


Aiming to reduce its reliance on China for rare earth metals, Japan will begin in 2024 to extract the essential materials for electric vehicles and hybrids from the mud on the deep sea bottom in an area off Minami-Torishima Island, a coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean about 1,900 kilometers southeast of Tokyo.

Tokyo plans to begin work to develop extraction technologies starting next year.

Mud rich in rare earth metals has been found on the seafloor at a depth of 6,000 meters in the target area. To get at it, Japan first needs to develop technologies to extract the resources from depths of 5,000-6,000 meters.
Rare earth is a blanket term referring to 17 rare metals. Japan currently relies on imports for nearly all its rare metal needs, including 60% from China.

On what is under the sea ...

[url="https://www.science.org/content/article/global-trove-rare-earth-metals-found-japans-deep-sea-mud"]Global trove of rare earth metals found in Japan's deep-sea mud | Science | AAAS (https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Commodities/Japan-to-begin-extracting-rare-earth-metals-from-seabed-in-2024)
A "semi-infinite" supply of rare earth metals used in batteries, electric vehicles, and other green energy technologies has been found in deep-sea mud about 1850 kilometers southeast of Tokyo, The Wall Street Journal reports. Japanese researchers estimate the roughly 2499-square-kilometer region of seabed holds more than 16 million tons of rare earth oxides, including 780 years' worth of the global supply of yttrium, 620 years' worth of europium, 420 years' worth of terbium, and 730 years' worth of dysprosium, they write this week in Scientific Reports. The find could challenge China's dominance on the rare earths' world market, but extracting such metals from seabed sludge is expensive and difficult; scientists say it could take up to 5 years to figure out the best method.

Misc notes


It's pretty far away from Japan so wondering does this place really belong to Japan or will it turn out to be a free for all. Apparently Japan does own this atoll
If there are rare earth metals that exist and can be extracted from the oceans, have to assume they exist in other places under the ocean and there'll be investments made to find them

[Edward64]

PSA. I borked the thread with the link above. Took me a while to find the thread that fixed that problem.

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Help Mods ... "I screwed up a Thread" (https://forums.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=3242031&postcount=45)

[Edward64]

MIT has estimated that the US power grid is capable of supporting 150 million EVs. That's over half the current operational vehicles. We'd need to upgrade some to go all the way, for certain. But a lot of that is infrastructure changes that need to happen anyway.

I have read (even before this discussion) that US electric grid cannot (or not ready to) support projected EV growth. I googled on "us electric grid and EV" and have found yes/no. Some are not "mainstream" sites and partisan (e.g. oilprice.com says "no"), but we do have WaPo and Reuters articles saying "no".

A 2019 .gov analysis says

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/12/f69/GITT%20ISATT%20EVs%20at%20Scale%20Grid%20Summary%20Report%20FINAL%20Nov2019.pdf
The overall conclusion the analysis in this paper demonstrates is that, based on historical growth rates, sufficient energy generation and generation capacity is expected to be available to support a growing EV fleet as it evolves over time, even with high EV market growth. The analysis also points out that growth in incremental energy generation associated with the future EV market scenarios considered here may reverse the trend over the last 10 years of near-zero growth

There is a section also on challenges

... it acknowledges several potential challenges at the distribution level

[Brian Swartz]

I think there's a big difference between 'can't' and 'not ready to'. I would also take MIT as a source over WaPo or Reuters. Certainly we'll need to upgrade the grid over time - to me the biggest point is that we'll need to do that to a lesser degree anyway, so the question isn't if, it's a matter of scale. And it's also not something unique to EVs as mentioned - any other energy source also requires it, just in different ways/sectors.

[Solecismic]

My concern with the MIT source is that it's a group dedicated to net zero. Just because there's a prestigious university behind an analysis piece doesn't make it unbiased. In fact, the university climate these days... no one who isn't dedicated to the cause would be allowed to enter the field. Only existing tenured faculty may not agree, and they are under a lot of pressure.

The 250 million... never heard even close to that elsewhere. The goal, I thought, was 20 million by 2030. But that would require an investment of about $5,000 per EV in new technology just to upgrade the grid. Who pays? The taxpayers - again to support the wealthy.

However, plans to upgrade the grid often add instability. The grid needs to work even on its worst day. As this takes place, the number of power outages increases and the cost of electricity skyrockets.

I'll also note that the MIT plan, and others that get to 20 million (all I've found is from groups that in their mission statement indicate that bias - I'm not OK with that - they're the ones demanding this expensive transformation) talk about ideal charging situations. You will not be able to charge whenever you need a charge.

In addition, many of these plans refer to off-loading, when your EV battery is essentially added to the grid when that power is needed elsewhere. Again, you will not be able to use your EV whenever you want. And if it's being off-loaded, that can decrease the life of the battery considerably. People will not want to do that, and they may not have a choice.

Ultimately, this is going to be very expensive - personal transportation may no longer be an option for poor people - which might make upward mobility very difficult in many areas. And it's going to involve a lot more government control over our daily lives. Most of all, it's going to put billions of people into energy poverty, when reliable energy is what has fueled the incredible increase in our quality of life over the last 100 years.

Ask yourself if it's worth it.

[PilotMan]

I'd say that's a chain of events that is far from inevitable, and in fact, only follows a linear line of thinking where there is no change in behavior in spite of what seem to be, a multitude of awful occurrences in a row.

A large chunk of people today don't seem to care about the poor not being mobile now. Not sure this is going to change that suddenly, or make them care any more.

[RainMaker]

This is the agree-to-disagree point for me. I mentioned some of the issues with the 'stick' approach earlier in the thread, but this proposed solution is something that I am as confident as I can be in anything that it would be an unmitigated disaster. We also clearly have irreconcilable disagreements on what terms like 'welfare for billionaires' mean.

Thanks for the discussion.

Decades of propaganda have convinced people like you that $200 for a poor person to buy groceries is welfare but covering billions in business expenses for a well-connected person is just how things need to be done.

[RainMaker]

Society seems obsessed with what other people have.

Well what they have is our tax dollars. Seems something we should care about.

[Brian Swartz]

The 250 million... never heard even close to that elsewhere. The goal, I thought, was 20 million by 2030. But that would require an investment of about $5,000 per EV in new technology just to upgrade the grid. Who pays? The taxpayers - again to support the wealthy.


Some points are being conflated here. Unless I miss what you are referring to, the point I referenced is the grid being capable of supporting 150 million vehicles. Not having that by any set date.

all I've found is from groups that in their mission statement indicate that bias - I'm not OK with that - they're the ones demanding this expensive transformation

This is one of the key points. You can't just assess the transformation cost in isolation. It's incredibly cheap compared to the alternative. Our current reliance on oil is not sustainable, full stop. That's even if we don't care about the environmental damage. The choice isn't 'EV or status quo'. Status quo isn't an option. Hydrogen at present is a worse alternative. What other serious candidates do we have?

On the bias ... I would say it's like having a bias in favor of gravity. Should we be taking studies from flat earther's seriously? There's a point at which there's an entry-level requirement - particularly when this discussion begin as a comparison of emissions, which is an assumption that it actually matters what emissions are higher and what are lower - of accepting certain scientific realities. If someone thinks we have practically infinite oil on the planet or that it doesn't matter how much we pollute, no they aren't ever going to be convinced. But I would also say those are scientifically unserious positions.

Ultimately, this is going to be very expensive - personal transportation may no longer be an option for poor people - which might make upward mobility very difficult in many areas. And it's going to involve a lot more government control over our daily lives. Most of all, it's going to put billions of people into energy poverty, when reliable energy is what has fueled the incredible increase in our quality of life over the last 100 years.

This is a lot of presumption to be frank. More government control is not inevitable. The power grid could be changed in ways that do that and which are unstable. It could also be changed in ways that are not, which is one of many reasons why I agree with you on nuclear power. If it's done badly, sure that's a problem. But the answer to that is 'don't screw it up', not 'don't even try to do it well'. There simply is no good reason why it has to put people into energy poverty.

If I was trying to come up with a good way to do that, I would keep us as reliant on oil as possible. If you want a worldwide economic disaster, that's the best and most reliable way to make that happen. It feels to me like the big objection here centers around 'why can't we just keep things the way they are'. Answer; again leaving aside the environment, that is just not sustainable. We are going to run out of oil at the prices and volume it is available now, we are already seeing the beginnings of that, it is going to get much worse before we are ready for it at our current pace of transition away from it, and barring a magical invention of some kind it is an inevitable crunch. We have a very long track record now of decades now not having a single year finding as much oil as we are using, and we see all the time whenever there is a moderate spike in oil prices how vulnerable we are to not running out, but relatively minor fluctuations in supply.

The expensive option is not transforming, by multiple orders of magnitude. We'd all like a better option than EVs I presume, but it's the best choice we have by far and we are decades behind where we need to be as it is. There isn't time to wait for something better.

[Solecismic]

The "full stop" is where I stop taking this seriously, honestly. So, we do away with plastics, asphalt, fertilizers, the millions of products and inventions that depend on fossil fuels? Our standard of living drops considerably, and our planet cannot possibly support anywhere near the billions already here.

All this "full stop" stuff, plugging your ears, covering your eyes, refusing to discuss anything... it's a religion, not science. It's sad, because this is what's going to lead to enormous suffering, the "let's sacrifice everything, let China produce everything, pretend all this is having even the tiniest impact on the climate, but above all, do not question me" approach.

[Edward64]

The "full stop" is where I stop taking this seriously, honestly. So, we do away with plastics, asphalt, fertilizers, the millions of products and inventions that depend on fossil fuels? Our standard of living drops considerably, and our planet cannot possibly support anywhere near the billions already here.

TBF I did not read the full-stop ("Our current reliance on oil is not sustainable, full stop") to imply do way with all the other oil dependent products. I read it as do not continue or increase this pace, but reduce.

[Solecismic]

The question doesn't seem to be about urgency. The free market has always solved these problems in time.

This is simply a refusal to even entertain the thought that maybe those holding "the end is near" signs are wrong. They always have been.

[Brian Swartz]

Edward64 is correct on how I meant it. Thanks for putting it so well.

full stop" stuff, plugging your ears, covering your eyes, refusing to discuss anything... it's a religion, not science. It's sad, because this is what's going to lead to enormous suffering, the "let's sacrifice everything, let China produce everything, pretend all this is having even the tiniest impact on the climate, but above all, do not question me" approach

On the contrary, I'm arguing for opening our eyes to the reality in front of us. I'm on the opposite side of refusing to discuss, but that discussion has to be based on the facts as we know them, not on wishful thinking.

The free market has absolutely not always solved these problems in time. That's just plain not true, and 'in time' has already passed. I'm open to being rebutted with facts. So far in this thread, one outdated study that mostly agreed with position I articulated had been cited. Feel free to tell me where I'm wrong on oil, on the basic facts of the situation. A few guiding questions:

- How is the fact that China is trying to monopolize rare earths different than them trying to monopolize aluminum (which we already need), OPEC (who controls 80% of the world's oil reserves) /others trying to control the supply of crude, or any other key resource? If you think it's a viable course of action to be resource-independent in the modern world, explain why & how as it relates to these resources.

- Global consumption of crude oil is over 35 billion barrels per year (as of 2016, it's higher now), and rising. The last time we discovered that much was roughly 1980. 2015 was the best recent year, at just over 20 bn. And it's actually worse than that sounds, because most of what is being discovered is expensive to extract. What logical reason do we have to say this is sustainable?

- Most estimates say we have 45-50 years of oil left. Of course we don't have anywhere near that long before economic disaster; that happens when we can't produce the amount we need at an affordable price. Estimates on when that point arrives vary, but the pessimistic end is less than a decade, the optimistic end 15-20 years from now barring another shale-oil level breakthrough; that would buy us another 5-10 years, but given the number of products we depend on affordable oil for my argument is simple; we need to be phasing absolutely as many of them as we can out now and replacing them with alternatives. That both buys more time and makes the eventual shortfall that much easier to absorb. Anything that 'might be possible a decade from now' is simply too late to matter. My question here is what basis do we have to say this isn't a crisis, that we have any responsible path other than transitioning as much as possible as soon as possible off of oil dependency? What basis do we have to say we have plenty of time to wait for inventions to show up and time to refine them, implement them, and so on before the crunch hits?

I will say I do find the 'free market will solve it' argument tempting. I'd like to believe that. I think a fairly cursory view of human history belies that though. We have had a brief period of about 150 years, depending on how you measure it, of cheap and widely available energy based on consuming resources which are not renewable. This is something that just from a logical point of view has never been sustainable. I don't want to bury my head in the sand and say 'let the millennials figure it out'. IMO the facts as I understand them admit only one conclusion; the time for correcting course isn't just here, it's long past. Mitigating the damage, or not, are the only remaining possibilities.

[RainMaker]

The 250 million... never heard even close to that elsewhere. The goal, I thought, was 20 million by 2030. But that would require an investment of about $5,000 per EV in new technology just to upgrade the grid. Who pays? The taxpayers - again to support the wealthy.


Taxpayers are currently paying for our access to cheap oil. Except instead of some wealthy Americans reaping the benefits, it's some Arab princes. Instead of it creating jobs for Americans, it's slave labor in the Middle East.

This country has spent TRILLIONS in taxpayer money to fight wars and provide defense in the Middle East over the past few decades for greater access to oil. Not to mention the massive loss of life of military personnel and civilians (including those on American soil through blowback).

We've spent billions trying to destabilize parts of Central and South America so we could obtain cheap oil leading to an influx of poor immigrants from those countries (which also costs taxpayers money). We spend billions in foreign aid to countries so companies can import their oil.

Then you have your oil and gas subsidies which top $16 billion a year. That doesn't include the access to federal lands and infrastructure to obtain and transport that oil. Or the environmental and financial impact when one of these companies blasts a bunch of crude into the Gulf and shrugs their shoulders.

You're pretending there is a free market for oil in this country when there is not. It's hard to imagine a scenario where the cost to subsidize renewable energy is anywhere in the same realm as the cost we currently pay for access to cheap oil.

[Solecismic]

We don't have infinite time, but if we continue to restrict exploration, ban new leases, ban fracking, then we run out sooner. I don't think anyone knows how much is left, just what is essentially proven.

If we spend that time forcing a solution that isn't viable, then if we do run out in 50 years or 100 years, we're screwed. But the bigger problem is that we are trying to commit to goals less than ten years from now that will render us helpless.

Remember that in the '70s, the same argument was made, consumption has increased dramatically, and yet we have more in proven untapped oil remaining than we had then. That doesn't mean we should relax and assume that's forever.

For me, and I am not an oil industry executive nor do I have a doctorate in physics, I do not understand why we're not planning and building nuclear plants as fast as humanly possible. They are far safer today than they were in decades past. The used fuel rods are easily buried in concrete or steel drums. But they take a long time to build and regulations don't always make sense. They aren't zero-carbon, but they're a lot closer than anything else. And they provide consistent power, so you don't need to invent giant batteries and "redeploy" millions of acres of farmland and forest. That will buy us time to figure out how to keep the world's economy going while our brightest and best work on new solutions.

In the meantime, energy reliability and independence is vital. Cooperation doesn't mean anything to China or Russia. They will leverage what they have to get what they want, which is a world governed in the manner they want to govern it. No more individual human rights. No more individual freedom. There is a price to be paid for energy dependence. There is a price to be paid for congratulating ourselves for reducing emissions in the US by outsourcing all our manufacturing to Asia. And even if you're in the "end is near" crowd, surely you understand that global emissions are still increasing and Asian countries are not going to stop. They'll send us all the solar panels and batteries they can make, they'll even pretend they rely on them themselves, but they are building new power plants as fast as they can - coal, whatever. It won't be enough, though.

When we look at what's happening in Europe, most notably Germany and the UK, with energy prices. It's easy to blame Russia's attack on Ukraine, but this was a long time in the making, and there's no end in sight. This winter has already been tough. Next winter will be worse. People should not have to choose between keeping warm and eating healthy meals. Many people are already faced with this, and the UK and Germany are trying - adding endlessly to their debt right now - but they're not solving the underlying problem.

[RainMaker]

We don't have infinite time, but if we continue to restrict exploration, ban new leases, ban fracking, then we run out sooner.


None of that is happening.

[Brian Swartz]

Remember that in the '70s, the same argument was made, consumption has increased dramatically, and yet we have more in proven untapped oil remaining than we had then.

The set of facts then was completely different. We were discovering more oil than we were consuming. That hasn't happened for more than forty years.

That will buy us time to figure out how to keep the world's economy going while our brightest and best work on new solutions.

In the meantime, energy reliability and independence is vital.

Such independence is impossible as long as we rely on oil.

My biggest frustration with this discussion is the dismissal of what we have actual evidence for, combined with assertions of future happenings for which don't have evidence. There is no coherent standard of evidence/factual basis that I can discern. Whatever else that means, I think it means there's little more I can usefully say if we aren't going to head-on address ideas such as how the goal of energy independence is completely in conflict with continued reliance on oil, and similar.

[Solecismic]

Every time I look at something you quote, it's from a group that's dedicated to this goal of zero carbon that simply isn't feasible with today's technology. Of course they say it is.

But their approach is already multiplying energy costs and reducing reliability. That much we see - no study is necessary. Read the NERC site if you don't believe the reliability part.

And adding millions of EVs - it just doesn't make sense - both from a manufacturing perspective and a where will the electricity come from perspective, since current policy changes are already causing instability without a large number of EVs. And the more unreliable pieces you put into the grid, the more backup you need.

Anything I quote will somehow connect to something you won't like, I'm certain. Your source said the Heritage Foundation was simply a front for oil companies. I doubt it is, but there's no sense in playing this game because you're only going to repeat what they repeat, no matter who I quote. I hadn't planned on quoting the Heritage Foundation, but they have written about this issue.

And I'm not going to take seriously studies done by groups created to lobby for these green billions our government throws out there like candy these days.

So, we might as well not argue. I think your side is a religion, and I'm an agnostic on the issue. You have to convince me that it's worth spending trillions to convert something that was already working just fine. I don't have to convince you of anything - you're the one who is adamant that it has to be done this minute at any cost, no matter how many people are hurt.

The US has been close to energy independence in recent years, but the current administration has gutted investment and development and because of that, I worry that our economy will be in full depression within a few years. Mostly because of energy costs and unreliability and China putting the squeeze on when it's time.

[Galaril]

I guess we can just keep driving over the cliff then. SMH.

[Brian Swartz]

Anything I quote will somehow connect to something you won't like, I'm certain.

I will say one bit more about the idea of facts and data. This right here is just a complete and total lie. There's still been one source total cited on your side. Did I say anything about who it was connected to? No. I talked about the fact that it A) backed up what I said in almost every particular, and B) was based on bad data - a decade-old understanding of EV technology and a very low estimate of vehicle lifecycle. I assessed the quality of what it said and found that to be quite lacking.

If someone - you or anyone else - brings up contrary data to what i've said about how much oil we have, how much is being discovered or consumed, what emissions actually are - all that is open to discussion. There is no monolithic 'net zero groups think X' bit going on here. There are quite different proposals even within those groups. But it's impossible to get to a point of reasonable assessment when we can't even get to a point on engaging on what the facts are. Instead it's just presumption and generalities with almost no concrete information to either verify or refute. Remember, I used to be on your side of these issues 20 years ago. I just couldn't stay there in light of the increasing amount of evidence demonstrating where the reality actually is.

[NobodyHere]

I guess we can just keep driving over the cliff then. SMH.

At least the gas will be affordable.

[Solecismic]

I will say one bit more about the idea of facts and data. This right here is just a complete and total lie. There's still been one source total cited on your side. Did I say anything about who it was connected to? No. I talked about the fact that it A) backed up what I said in almost every particular, and B) was based on bad data - a decade-old understanding of EV technology and a very low estimate of vehicle lifecycle. I assessed the quality of what it said and found that to be quite lacking.

If someone - you or anyone else - brings up contrary data to what i've said about how much oil we have, how much is being discovered or consumed, what emissions actually are - all that is open to discussion. There is no monolithic 'net zero groups think X' bit going on here. There are quite different proposals even within those groups. But it's impossible to get to a point of reasonable assessment when we can't even get to a point on engaging on what the facts are. Instead it's just presumption and generalities with almost no concrete information to either verify or refute. Remember, I used to be on your side of these issues 20 years ago. I just couldn't stay there in light of the increasing amount of evidence demonstrating where the reality actually is.

Let me try and summarize.

We can agree that there are at least 50 years of oil remaining based on current knowledge and storage. I don't know if we can agree on the chances that more will be discovered.

In the '70s, when we last went through this argument, production increased and known reserves are still, today, higher than known reserves then. But we went through a round of massive changes based on that worry, which triggered inflation and the worst somewhat long-term economic period in my lifetime.

We can agree that mankind cannot rely on oil reserves forever. We disagree on whether the timeline suggests that we immediately, "full-stop" (you can tell this is what frustrates me) dismantle what is working for us today and switch to unreliable, expensive alternatives.

So the path of divergence there is, I think, you - this starts now, and me - we don't have a good solution now, let's spend just a fraction of the money we're spending on unreliable energy sources and double-down on new research.

I have referenced the NERC site (link - https://www.nerc.com/Pages/default.aspx), which tracks outages and is responsible for assessments on what we need for a stable, reliable energy grid. Major outages are increasing in frequency. Several areas of the US and Canada are projected to be producing less energy than peak demand in the very near future.

I would argue that mankind's standard of living depends on reliable energy and many of the products (like plastics and fertilizers) that we create from fossil fuels.

Life expectancy:

File:Life expectancy by world region, from 1770 to 2018.svg - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Life_expectancy_by_world_region,_from_1770_to_2018.svg)

Eliminating fossil fuel use is more than just changing cars or how electricity is produced. If we stop making fertilizer, people will starve in many places around the world. With the increase in life expectancy has come a dramatic increase in world population. They need to eat.

This dramatic transition comes at an enormous cost. If you look at subsidies to the people just to keep the furnace on and the lights on, Germany (which is several years ahead of us in this transition) has already approved 10% of its GDP (it is spending 7% now) just paying people's energy bills. That's a world-high, but others are catching up (the UK just approved 5% of GDP). Right there, that alone is a recession. And it doesn't even begin to cover the cost of the transition itself.

So the "full-stop" has a monumental cost. And yes, I understand that means begin the transition, not complete it today. We are full-stopping, beginning the transition. And it is already causing enormous harm in Europe, which is years ahead of us.

This is not to say that we shouldn't try technologies like EVs. That might mean research money to companies like Tesla - a lot of research money. Where we might disagree is whether the products themselves should be subsidized to wealthy middle-class Americans at taxpayer expense.

I don't know if you're right and the studies showing EV use saves on emissions are valid. Or the opposite is true. I read this summary a while back, and that one came under a lot of attack, but they stand by the analysis.

IFO INSTITUTE STUDY CASTS DOUBT ON CLIMATE-SAVING CREDENTIALS OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES - Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine (https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/ifo-institute-study-casts-doubt-on-climate-saving-credentials-of)

But even if it does save emissions, the more important piece today is whether the electric grid can handle the increased demand of charging. You dismissed, out of hand, the experiences in European countries as irrelevant. I don't agree, since if we have more EVs, it makes sense that we push limits as Europe already does.

Many long-term plans include restrictions on EV charging, even a requirement that EVs be used as batteries and feed into the system when demand is otherwise high. This would lower battery life. We disagree on whether the 20 years theorized by Tesla can be used as a benchmark for EV analysis or cost. No Tesla battery is 20 years old. Their warranty doesn't guarantee you 20 years. That's because they know it's just theory and your mileage may vary. The estimate doesn't include use in colder weather or non-ideal charging based on need and certainly not on this plan for feeding power back into the grid. I'd have to check, but it may also be specific to one type of charging. Does the super-fast charging create more wear?

I just don't think the EV transition should start now. Cost, convenience, need... it only makes sense if full-stop is a requirement. The technology simply isn't economical yet. That combined with the artificial strains we're already placing on the grid, sacrificing reliability, sacrificing security, spending hundreds of billions on subsidies... it seems insane to me.

We have plenty of time. It took about 150 years to more than double human life expectancy. Fossil fuels are a huge part of this. Understanding that we are burning billions of years of the "bodies" of plants and animals long past, it will, of course, run out at some point. At some point we will need full-stop.

It is not today. However, we've already started. If we continue that transition today, resources that we desperately need to find something viable for the future will be spent simply trying to keep people alive today. When you're spending up to 10% of GDP, as Germany plans, just to pay the electric bills... that's a sign that you're causing a lot of harm with your policies.

You would call these "generalities." I don't. I'm only trying to show that starting this transition early has an enormous cost.

[albionmoonlight]

$TSLA down another 9% today.

Pretty soon it’ll be cheaper to buy the entire company than it will to buy one of their cars.

[RainMaker]

IFO INSTITUTE STUDY CASTS DOUBT ON CLIMATE-SAVING CREDENTIALS OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES - Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine (https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/ifo-institute-study-casts-doubt-on-climate-saving-credentials-of)


This is quite the site you're citing. Seems like a big fan of Mike Lindell and company. Very sane, rational people.

[albionmoonlight]

Rod Hilton: "He talked about electric cars. I don't know anyth…" - Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@rodhilton/109572674700288958)

[cuervo72]

Oh, this is what I read a bit ago, gets to the luck idea.

httpx://brianklaas.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-secret-genius

"(This data correspond pretty well with what my late grandfather’s advice was on how to be successful in life: “avoid catastrophe.”)"

[albionmoonlight]

Oh, this is what I read a bit ago, gets to the luck idea.

httpx://brianklaas.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-secret-genius

"(This data correspond pretty well with what my late grandfather’s advice was on how to be successful in life: “avoid catastrophe.”)"

The first problem is that many still falsely believe we live in a meritocratic society, in which riches are purely a marker of talent rather than of luck or generational wealth.

So accurate.

[Brian Swartz]

Let me try and summarize.

This was your best post of the discussion as it relates to facts, by far. Credit where credit is due. I won't belabor it by trying to respond to everything, but a few key points:

- The NERC link doesn't work.
- The IFO study is better than the previous one you linked. It has some of the same problems, and I'll not bother getting into the weeds other than to say I think their assessment of the battery side of things is quite significantly off, and I think that because of the larger body of scientific work that is available on the subject.
- I'm in agreement with you on two points; using EV batteries as part of the grid is a bad idea and shortens lifespan, and the nuclear power that's been mentioned.

I would argue that mankind's standard of living depends on reliable energy and many of the products (like plastics and fertilizers) that we create from fossil fuels.

Life expectancy:

File:Life expectancy by world region, from 1770 to 2018.svg - Wikipedia

Eliminating fossil fuel use is more than just changing cars or how electricity is produced. If we stop making fertilizer, people will starve in many places around the world. With the increase in life expectancy has come a dramatic increase in world population. They need to eat.

This is where it starts to really go off the rails IMO. Nobody in this discussion is remotely close to saying 'eliminate fossil fuels'. It's not 'fossil fuels are evil and no matter what they must stop'. Even the net-zero approach isn't that, it is way more moderate; by definition, all it means is still using one whale of a lot of fossil fuels, just limiting them to the point where we're not adding to the catastrophic climate damage we've already caused (goes without saying they'll last a lot longer in that eventuality as well). Not undoing any of the damage. Just not doing more and stopping the continual acceleration of excessive fossil fuel use, because without doing that we're horribly damaging the future of the increased population, the land many of them live on, their chances of being able to eat - you know, all those benefits that your rightly cite that we've gained.

When you're spending up to 10% of GDP, as Germany plans, just to pay the electric bills... that's a sign that you're causing a lot of harm with your policies.

You would call these "generalities." I don't. I'm only trying to show that starting this transition early has an enormous cost.

I wouldn't call this a generality per se; I would call it very bad analysis, and that's the nicest way I can put it. A few reasons why (and we could say similar things about the claim that we have plenty of time and so on but I think perhaps it's best to focus on this issue as an example):

- Part of the logic here is like paying for something with your debit card instead of cash, and then thinking you're poorer by doing so because your bank account balance dropped. Using EVs means a larger percentage of the energy is coming from electricity. Of course the electric bill goes up ... but the fuel bill also goes down. The whole picture needs to be taken into account.

- The main problem that Europe has in terms of price increases is of course an over-reliance on energy imports. I agree that this is a policy failure, but as mentioned it's one that applies even more so to our reliance on oil. We can't say on the one side that 'we need fossil fuels, including those we can't produce enough of domestically' and then also say 'boy is Europe dumb for relying on fossil fuel imports'. Europe would be having power problems even if they didn't have a single EV.

- There are better ways; a larger buffer is needed to account for such possible disruptions for example, but until we are in a position where we can't be crippled by OPEC waking up on the wrong side of the bed, we have no room to talk - and nothing you've proposed gets us there. The main difference between us and Europe is that we're more fortunate at the moment. That's it, and that's all.

[flere-imsaho]

The largest study on this topic I am aware of is by Ramsey Solutions, with the result that almost 80% of millionaires inherited nothing. I agree with you on the luck bit, but again it's not just luck or skill/ability. You need both. It's important to avoid the single-cause fallacy here IMO. You often have to be lucky, but you also very much have to be other things also.

Ramsey Solutions is a company selling self-help guides on how people can make themselves rich. The study should, perhaps, be taken with a grain of salt.

Here's a different study: http://files.faireconomy.org/sites/default/files/BornOnThirdBase_2012.pdf

[Edward64]

Ramsey Solutions is a company selling self-help guides on how people can make themselves rich. The study should, perhaps, be taken with a grain of salt.

Here's a different study: http://files.faireconomy.org/sites/default/files/BornOnThirdBase_2012.pdf

Your link is just the Forbes 400 vs Brian's point of millionaires as a whole? It also states 35% started off from "lower or middle-class background" which is pretty darn good success rate for self-made billionaires.

I have also read other studies (Fidelity, Stanley's Millionaire Next Door etc.) that do purport majority of millionaires (not billionaires) are self made. But I would agree majority of them came from stable households that had other inherent advantages/opportunities that many lower income families do not (besides pure money)

[Solecismic]

This was your best post of the discussion as it relates to facts, by far. Credit where credit is due. I won't belabor it by trying to respond to everything, but a few key points:

Yet still off the rails and terrible and such. Condescension is an interesting approach. I feel we waste more time deciding whether discussion is possible than actually discussing anything.

I would urge you to search for the NERC and learn about its mission and how that was recently changed to avoid too much recrimination when the US grid becomes more strained.

I don't know of any remedy for this. Ultimately, there's a lot of "IMO" in these, and it comes from, when we search for answers, accepting those that confirm the identities we've chosen in the first place.

I try to avoid it myself, but I know I can't as well as I'd like. I hope others can admit the same. I'm encouraged by others (I keep mentioning Bari Weiss, though I know people who enjoy the NYT have a particularly personal dislike for her given her exit) who want to upend the mainstream media/television entertainment paradigm (and of course that includes Fox and their friends) and delve deeply into issues.

As for the economics, I don't disagree with the concept of a debit card, but when the same set of products costs ten times more in their new form... it's not just about subsidized EVs. It's about replacing something that has demonstrably increased quality of life around the world in an unprecedented manner with something far more expensive, far less reliable and far less available to those in poverty.

This is why I point out that Germany has approved up to 10% of its GDP in subsidies just so individuals and businesses don't go bankrupt just keeping the lights and furnaces on. And why I quote the person at Deutsche Bank most responsible for their expectations about the future of energy.

[Brian Swartz]

Yet still off the rails and terrible and such. Condescension is an interesting approach. I feel we waste more time deciding whether discussion is possible than actually discussing anything.

I don't think it was condescending. I gave you credit for the points you made that I think are valid, and explained why they don't change the broader picture. For it to be a reasonable discussion, is it your contention that I should describe claims as reasonable when I don't think they actually are? When someone makes a statement talking about things like 'eliminating fossil fuels', my reaction to that is it's a self-evident, blatant strawman. So if I'm going to be involved in an honest discussion, I can't just say 'well that's one way of looking at things' because that's just burying the issue - at some point the fact that this isn't remotely the case has to be dealt with.

I would urge you to search for the NERC and learn about its mission and how that was recently changed to avoid too much recrimination when the US grid becomes more strained.

I don't see the relevance of this. The entire US grid could be a complete basketcase and it wouldn't be relevant. We don't have enough EVs on the road to make a significant difference and we need a stable energy supply long-term whether we have EVs or not, and we have enough resources to make that happen in a wide variety of ways if we choose to do so. They are two separate issues that should be solved in tandem, but our energy grid being unstable now isn't an argument against EVs.

when the same set of products costs ten times more in their new form...

That's the thing though; they don't cost ten times more.

It's about replacing something that has demonstrably increased quality of life around the world in an unprecedented manner with something far more expensive, far less reliable and far less available to those in poverty.

That's factually not what is happening.

[Brian Swartz]

Ramsey Solutions is a company selling self-help guides on how people can make themselves rich. The study should, perhaps, be taken with a grain of salt.

I think any individual study should be taken with a grain of salt, but in terms of the scope of the study it is far different than the one you're talking about. I don't think there's any question the 'most rich' are more likely to have inherited; the point I was getting at is the rich as a whole largely have not.

[flere-imsaho]

Study to back up Edward's point that most rich have some sort of familial advantage unavailable to the poor: The Effects of Head Starts and College on Family Wealth | St. Louis Fed (https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/april/born-third-base-effect-head-starts-college-family-wealth)

The contention that these are all "self-made men" is the problem with which I am taking exception. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Holmes, etc.... They all had access to advantages available only to the significantly privileged (from a US standpoint) or astronomically privileged (from a global standpoint).

We continue to lionize these people, when the recipe for their success is actually very simple:

1. Have money.*

2. Be a jerk.

3. Get lucky.

4. Be hailed as a genius.

We tend to forget about 1, forgive 2, and misunderstand how much being in the right place at the right time matters to 3.

In addition, the wild monetary success I think overweights our thinking on the effort involved. IMO, plenty of people in professions that lack the possibility of wild financial success work harder and arguably accomplish more, in terms of changing the lives of others. Teachers, doctors, scientists, etc.... By wildly overpraising Musk & Co we diminish those who actually keep society working.

*Or easy access to other people's money on very favorable terms.**

**Likely because you were privileged to begin with.

[Edward64]

It comes down to your & Brian's definition of what "self-made" means.

I believe in the studies of millionaires, "self made" means they did not inherit their money, not that they didn't have some advantages that many others did not have.


Side note on luck (and not on the broader discussion).

I'm of the belief its not all/mostly random chance, you can influence how "lucky" you are. See below study & article on another study.

As Luck Would Have It - Scientific American (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-luck-would-have-it/)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2021/12/08/luck-good-bad-real-change/

[Solecismic]

For it to be a reasonable discussion, is it your contention that I should describe claims as reasonable when I don't think they actually are? When someone makes a statement talking about things like 'eliminating fossil fuels', my reaction to that is it's a self-evident, blatant strawman.

But that is what many people want, and your "full stop" implies that you're going in that direction. Fine, we seem to agree on nuclear and we seem to disagree on the unreliables like wind and solar.

Italy, for one, is waking up. Like Germany, they were even backing away from nuclear. They recently changed their minds. The UK and Germany are so far down this rabbit hole that it will take an extensive reliability crisis to wake them up.


That's factually not what is happening.

It is. Not that I expect that statement to change anyone's mind or yours to change mine.

But I'd be interested in why you think fossil fuels aren't a big part of the reason life expectancy around the world has more than doubled in the last 150 years, as well as dramatic increases in our ability to feed the population boom.

I will renew one of my resolutions this year. I resolve to keep learning, even when it's uncomfortable. So I hope I'm wrong in this case, and suddenly the costs aren't so bad and we aren't headed into a period of energy instability.

[Edward64]

I will renew one of my resolutions this year. I resolve to keep learning, even when it's uncomfortable.

Hah. Don't forget, there are things that seems to happen faster than light aka Entanglements

[Solecismic]

Hah. Don't forget, there are things that seems to happen faster than light aka Entanglements

I read a sci-fi book last week that screwed around with that. More multiverses and contradictory timelines and resolutions that imply that some sort of god is running it anyway. Entertaining, but you can't take it seriously.

At any rate, let me know if anything larger than sub-atomic particles does something that we think can't be done. I think that's what I hate the most about the unreliables - they're not working for us, and the world is spending trillions it could be spending looking for something that could work.

[Edward64]

At any rate, let me know if anything larger than sub-atomic particles does something that we think can't be done.

Have to start somewhere. Building blocks ...

Now that we have (supposedly) confirmed it's happening, we now need to figure out how. And once that happens, think of the possibilities ...

... imply that some sort of god is running it anyway

I read somewhere that we'll know for sure if we are in a simulation when/if we see a message like "Error 404" popping up in darkness of space

[Solecismic]

The simulation theory seems more and more egotistical every time I think about it. Pretty much identical to a child who wonders if he lives within a solipsism, only with a smidgen of self-deprecating humor. Because there's nothing less funny than a solipsistic six-year-old.

[Brian Swartz]

that is what many people want, and your "full stop" implies that you're going in that direction.

None of these 'many people' have been cited in this thread, and what I said actually doesn't imply that at all, in any way. I don't disagree with you that humanity has used fossil fuels in ways that have greatly improved society and have made no point that is contrary to that reality, along with already explicitly agreeing with it in a previous post. I am so confused at the reading comprehension here. It's as if my posts don't even exist and you're conversing with someone else who has made claims I haven't gone near.

Here's what I actually said:

You can't just assess the transformation cost in isolation. It's incredibly cheap compared to the alternative. Our current reliance on oil is not sustainable, full stop. That's even if we don't care about the environmental damage. The choice isn't 'EV or status quo'. Status quo isn't an option. Hydrogen at present is a worse alternative. What other serious candidates do we have?

- I said nothing here about fossil fuels on the whole, though that is an important issue vis-a-vis climate change; as I've pointed out, even net-zero advocates accept burning considerable amounts of fossil fuels, that's literally involved in the phrase 'net-zero'.

- The full stop relates to the phrase that literally precedes it; our current reliance on oil is unsustainable. IMO this is simply a 100% demonstrable fact. Regardless of how beneficial oil is, and even leaving aside your own stated principles of energy independence which would mandate not relying on it either, we are going to be forced off of it one way or the other. We can do so on our own terms to a degree, or we can wait until it becomes a crisis and then accept the consequences of that, but oil as something that drives our economy to the degree is currently does is going away no matter what we choose.

- This is so far away from anything even vaguely resembling 'eliminating fossil fuels' that I don't know what to say. It's as if somebody said 'Good morning!' and the reply was 'How dare you threaten me like that!'.

[Brian Swartz]

At any rate, let me know if anything larger than sub-atomic particles does something that we think can't be done.

Small molecules even have been observed to follow the laws of quantum mechanics, which include 'communication' across time in the delayed choice quantum eraser experiments. I view simulation theory as a legitimate option not because I want to (I don't) or for some egotistical reason, but because the evidence of how quantum mechanics and relativity each fit the observed behavior of the universe and conflict with each other and the fact that several decades of study by the top physicists in the world have been unable to resolve this. It one of those 'here are the facts as best as we can determine them. I can ignore these facts, or I can try to find the explanation which best fits them' moments.

Also very OT for this thread, but since when have we cared about that :D

[Solecismic]

I am so confused at the reading comprehension here...

We agree on that part. Plus, you have so many rules for discussion, and you tend to ignore them yourself when convenient (that's "factually not what's happening", "IMO", etc). Rules for me, but not for thee.

So, eventually fossil fuels run out. But when? In the 1970s, people had the same concerns, and panic ensued and the economy tanked and poor people paid the biggest price, we had high inflation and a recession and Jimmy Carter revived the Republican party from the ashes of Nixon's duplicity (Trump may be worse than Nixon in many ways, so that particular history may take longer to repeat).

Known reserves are actually larger now than they were then. So what's the emergency? We know we have to keep looking for new technologies, yet instead, we're using today's failed technologies to replace fossil fuels and the same thing is happening to the economy.

Net zero is a weird theory and requires invention of technologies that don't exist today at scale (just like the battery farms needed to power the grid when the wind isn't blowing).

Maybe we run out in 2070, but maybe we've found enough to get to 2120 by then. Shouldn't bet on it, but there's no current emergency that warrants destroying energy security today.

So I point out a government group that's tasked with measuring and hopefully encouraging grid reliability, and you just ignore the evidence.

You mention climate, but, if you really believe CO2 emissions affect the climate much, then you likely understand that what the western world doesn't burn, the rest of the world will happily burn as they steadily replace any manufacturing we once did. All this does is give Russia and China more power.

I point out that Germany and the UK are in particular trouble, and are amassing debt simply to avoid having people unable to heat their homes and you talk about debit cards of all things. No, that's not how they work - unless they can be used to devalue currency and pay for things far beyond what's in our bank accounts. If EVs become a serious option beyond the commuter toys for the upper middle-class, adding that burden to the electrical grid isn't feasible, and they all know it.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but everyone actually involved in planning knows the only way we can keep the lights on with this plan and the only way we can phase out fossil fuels today is through massive changes in our standard of living.

[Brian Swartz]

you have so many rules for discussion, and you tend to ignore them yourself when convenient (that's "factually not what's happening", "IMO", etc). Rules for me, but not for thee.


Huh? I have bent over backwards to be overly fair in this discussion. I don't know what you're talking about here. The 'factually not what's happening' a few posts up was just shorthand for not repeating yet again what I've already said in longer form, and I've been consistently backing up what I've said with facts.

Known reserves are actually larger now than they were then. So what's the emergency?

A simplistic and misleading comparison. Known reserves available at a cheap price are not larger, we have more expensive ways of acquiring oil now which has increased the reserves number. One could go into more detail here on the different types and sources but that's a longer conversation and we haven't been able to make progress on more straightforward ones. Suffice to say, as I did earlier in the thread, that the factual situation is not at all the one that existed in the 70s, and we are not in remotely as good a position. At that time we were still discovering more oil than we were consuming. It is still the case that this hasn't happened in 40 years. You can't have that and an actual increase in supply; what's powered the reserves number growing (at a slower rate than consumption btw) is reclassification of previously known deposits.

I point out a government group that's tasked with measuring and hopefully encouraging grid reliability, and you just ignore the evidence.

Again this is just a lie. I haven't ignored it, I've pointed out how it isn't relevant, because there are many ways to have grid reliability which are completely independent of whether we use EVs or not.

I point out that Germany and the UK are in particular trouble, and are amassing debt simply to avoid having people unable to heat their homes

Like most of the other stuff you've pointed out, I addressed that head-on as well. You ignored the main point of my explanation vis a vis reliance on imports. You keep talking about 'running out' of oil, even though I specifically addressed the fact that we'll have a big problem long before we actually run out. I mean this whole post really just keeps saying 'what about this' relating to issues that I've addressed specifically and what I said has been ignored so that the same talking points can be repeated.

[flere-imsaho]

This conversation is giving me deja vu. (https://forums.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=69042&page=443)

[Solecismic]

Yep, simplistic, misleading, lies, etc. What we're really doing is talking past each other. I think you genuinely believe you've bent over backwards to be overly fair. You haven't come close. And I'm getting tired of your constant whining about it.

Methods of extraction have improved and they are more expensive. And now, in many areas around the world, any methods are forbidden. Games are played with leases, oil companies pass along those coasts, focus on different markets. The end result is that we pay a lot more for oil and then we pay incredible amounts for failing technologies like wind and solar.

For those of us in wealthy America, the impact is beginning. I'm sure you've noticed your utility rates rising far beyond inflation. You probably haven't noticed the increase in power outages. Our grid became remarkably reliable after it became a mission stemming from the major incidents in 1965 and 1977.

In Europe, multiply the impact many times - to the point where the government simply pays for much of it (so the energy sector is partially being nationalized - if that were production of any kind, we could look at the transformation of Venezuela from the most modern South American economy to hell as an example of why socialism is a bad idea).

If you think the mission of the NERC is irrelevant and their warnings a lie, not sure what to say there. It's kind of the crux of this argument - price and unreliability = if there is a crisis coming down the road, we're greatly hurting our ability to meet it.

If there's some magic in globalization, tell me how this all doesn't end up with China's dictator using the White House as his summer cottage in a few decades. They don't play by our rules. They have something we want and are willing to produce it (with slave labor). What do we have that they want?

[flere-imsaho]

The end result is that we pay a lot more for oil and then we pay incredible amounts for failing technologies like wind and solar.

<iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy" loading="lazy" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>

[Brian Swartz]

. I think you genuinely believe you've bent over backwards to be overly fair. You haven't come close. And I'm getting tired of your constant whining about it.

When you claim I've said something I demonstrably haven't, I have to point that out or we aren't having a discussion, I'm just being a doormat. From my perspective, from early on in the conversation you tilted the 'rules of engagement' so far in your favor that the thing literally fell over, and I let most of that be. I don't call that whining. I have no idea how to even respond productively.

You've asked a couple of times in recent posts about China. I don't want to just pretend that hasn't been said or isn't worth considering, but I can't respond to that other than by repeating things I've already said multiple times, and which comments you didn't consider worthy of responding to. I see no use in that.

Here's a practical example from your most-recent post of what I mean:

Methods of extraction have improved and they are more expensive. And now, in many areas around the world, any methods are forbidden. Games are played with leases, oil companies pass along those coasts, focus on different markets. The end result is that we pay a lot more for oil and then we pay incredible amounts for failing technologies like wind and solar.

I think some of this is arguable and much of it is flat-out not true. Leaving aside the graphic flere-imsaho posted, I seriously have no idea how to productively respond to the rest of it. Options as I see them:

- Agree with it 100%. That would be a lie and there's no point in having a discussion if I'm going to be a doormat.

- Just say I don't agree. We're into Big Lebowski territory there, aka 'that's just like your opinion, man'. We can go around the merry-go-round of 'you're wrong' 'no you are' as many times as we wish, but we will get nowhere but tracing the same circle.

- There's almost nothing here that's specific enough to be refuted, or confirmed, supported or knocked down. What games are being played, by whom, to what degree, with what affects? Same for almost every phrase in this paragraph, with the exception of part of the last sentence. If I provide contrary examples, you can just say you were talking about something else.

- I can ignore it, which can be seen as disrespectful although you can't reply to everything in a conversation like this. And I've even been accused here of ignoring things I did not, in fact, ignore so ...

- The great majority of scientific inquiry is placed outside what you will consider, by your own statements.

I'm not asking you to argue against your own statement, I'm just saying 'what is a reasonable way of disputing this kind of statement'. What types of things could I even say that would in your opinion be productive to the conversation, short of being in agreement with everything stated? If it's a fault of mine as a poster so be it, but I don't see any way to do that. It's what I refer to as the Circle of Insulation, and it's something that seems to be particularly prevalent on this board, not specific to you by any means. When all reasonable potential paths of criticism are cut off as being invalid, there's no way in.

[albionmoonlight]

Elon Musk has destroyed more than half of Twitter’s value in a little over 2 months, investor filing suggests (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-destroyed-more-half-210124302.html)

Maybe putting stupid people in charge of important things is a bad idea.

[Solecismic]

I'm not asking you to argue against your own statement, I'm just saying 'what is a reasonable way of disputing this kind of statement'. What types of things could I even say that would in your opinion be productive to the conversation, short of being in agreement with everything stated? If it's a fault of mine as a poster so be it, but I don't see any way to do that. It's what I refer to as the Circle of Insulation, and it's something that seems to be particularly prevalent on this board, not specific to you by any means. When all reasonable potential paths of criticism are cut off as being invalid, there's no way in.

I can certainly empathize with this statement. When two people fundamentally disagree on a topic, even after extensive side-reading, even when trying to respectfully present arguments, it often isn't productive.

I say this as well knowing that of the people who talk about non-sports topics here on a regular basis, my old-school liberal self with a strong dash of fiscal conservatism is simply an anachronism.

I'm going to present three web sites here.

One is definitely zero-carbon leaning - it editorializes in every section. But I think it tries to present an honest picture of world energy production and consumption, not only big-picture but with considerable detail.

Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org)

In particular, I find this section illuminating.

Energy mix - Our World in Data (https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix)

And one of the things I get from this is that we're close to 3% of world energy produced by solar/wind/battery power.

Another is that while this is obviously increasing, the amount of energy production related to fossil fuels is also increasing. Much of that coming from China - and it's likely because they are happy to produce for us what we will no longer produce for ourselves.

You can explore the site to see, in particular, coal use in China - let's get those factories going.

The second web site is one that many here will discount because its mission is more in line with a political approach I'd endorse. I am sure someone could look at its funding and find a source or a connection to someone or some thought worthy of cancellation. I'm not a big fan of the cancel culture, but that's how things work these days. Don't argue the ideas, argue the culture. And I try to ignore that, but it's everywhere these days.

Free-Market Think Tank in NYC | Public Policy, Economics, Education (https://www.manhattan-institute.org/)

In particular here, a piece that argues against our massive funding of SWB.

The “Energy Transition� Delusion | Manhattan Institute (https://www.manhattan-institute.org/the-energy-transition-delusion)

You can see where it's going by the loaded headline. I'd urge you to read it anyway.

One thing that stood out, and it's partially sourced by a piece on Bloomberg that counted global SWB subsidies at $750 billion or so in 2021, is that to get to 3%, governments have spent about $5 trillion subsidizing the SWB marketplace over the last 20 years.

So, if you try and connect the cost of electricity alone, about 10 cents per kilowatt hour in the U.S. right now - with the subsidies, and consider that if you look at the first site, you can count essentially how much SWB has produced over the years, you could come up with about 55 cents per kilowatt hour, world-side in subsidies alone.

And this doesn't even begin to address energy stability or reliability.

So, the third site you say doesn't work. I'll try a direct link to the report:

https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/ra/Reliability%20Assessments%20DL/NERC_LTRA_2022.pdf

This addresses short and long-term reliability isssues with the electric grid in the U.S. and Canada. The NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) was designated the official source within the U.S. for assessing government reliability standards about 20 years ago. So that's under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

All taken together, I think it paints a picture of serious trouble ahead if we do not move away from SWB and toward other sources (Nuclear definitely a key moving forward).

[Ksyrup]

Michael Flynn's account reinstated on J6. Both sides!

[Kodos]

Michael Flynn's account reinstated on J6. Both sides!

Hey! No Twitter content allowed in this thread!

[Ksyrup]

Also a prominent Pizzagate conspiracy theorist is back after 4 years. It was a banner day for assholes on Twitter!

[Brian Swartz]

I can certainly empathize with this statement. When two people fundamentally disagree on a topic, even after extensive side-reading, even when trying to respectfully present arguments, it often isn't productive.


I appreciate the charity of this statement, but I also need to note that you didn't actually answer the question. It's not just a case of fundamental disagreement; I've had highly productive discussions with people I disagree with, and others that aren't so much.

one of the things I get from this is that we're close to 3% of world energy produced by solar/wind/battery power.

One thing that stood out, and it's partially sourced by a piece on Bloomberg that counted global SWB subsidies at $750 billion or so in 2021, is that to get to 3%, governments have spent about $5 trillion subsidizing the SWB marketplace over the last 20 years.

These are a couple of the most important statements here, for a couple of reasons.

- You refer to this level of investment as massive. I would call it transparently not even really trying, perhaps tokenism is the best word. 5 trillion is well under a tenth of a percent of the global GDP over that period. If you invested at minimum 50-100 trillion, I might begin to think you were actually considering getting serious.

- On the energy reliability front, 3% is simply not nearly enough to matter, which is why the NERC stuff (that PDF link does work btw) is irrelevant as it relates to EVs. It's not irrelevant, as I've said, as it relates to a stable energy future, reliable grid is important, but they are two different if tangentially related issues. Both are needed to be handled, not one in isolation. It cannot simultaneously be the case that we are not transitioning much, and are also transitioning so fast as to cause widespread energy stability issues. One of those can be reasonably argued for, but not both at the same time. I would say the 3% figure demonstrates that the first is the case. If our grid can't handle a 3% transition, that means it's inadequate if no transition were being attempted.

The “Energy Transition� Delusion | Manhattan Institute

You can see where it's going by the loaded headline. I'd urge you to read it anyway.

I don't have a problem with the headline. I do have a problem with the bad arguments and bad use of data contained within it - I don't think dishonest is too strong of a term here. I can unpack that more if you don't think it would be a complete waste of time, but I will say that probably the central point of what they are arguing is not in dispute; energy transition is very difficult and will be very expensive & disruptive to the global economy. The problem is they explictly only deal with that side of the equation, present some of the data/arguments in a selective/slanted way, and don't deal with the reality that it's still a fantastic bargain at 10x the price, making the usual flawed assumption that we have the option of continuing on our current path indefinitely without paying a catastrophic price for it.

[flere-imsaho]

$750B is nothing. It's less (usually) than our defense budget.

It's nowhere near the ~$6T (trillion) in subsidies the fossil fuel industry receives annually, globally. (https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies#:~:text=Back%20to%20Top-,Size%20of%20Fossil%20Fuel%20Subsidies,generally%20larger)%20continues%20to%20climb.)

[Solecismic]

I appreciate the charity of this statement, but I also need to note that you didn't actually answer the question. It's not just a case of fundamental disagreement; I've had highly productive discussions with people I disagree with, and others that aren't so much.


Unproductive is a word I'd use here, yes. It's hard to read tone on the internet, but every time you go down this road, I read heavy condescension on your part. I try to ignore it, because it's not productive to respond in kind.


- You refer to this level of investment as massive. I would call it transparently not even really trying, perhaps tokenism is the best word. 5 trillion is well under a tenth of a percent of the global GDP over that period. If you invested at minimum 50-100 trillion, I might begin to think you were actually considering getting serious.

Serious about what? You're advocating replacing the global energy system. This is what has powered improvements in quality and length of life around the world.

We are already, 3% of the way there, experiencing serious reliability issues. That's because wind power doesn't work when the wind isn't blowing and solar power doesn't work when the sun isn't overhead.

Every single kilowatt hour from those sources must be backed up 100%, as a result. So every single kilowatt hour you depend upon during this transition either has a replacement, or it doesn't. Connector lines are very expensive and aren't completely efficient, and only mitigate the problem by a small amount anyway.

So they talk about battery farms. But the technology to do this on a large enough scale to cover need has yet to be invented. The battery farms in production now are well under 1% of what's needed.

In 2021, the subsidy alone amounted to about 1% of global GDP. Ballpark, within your range of serious, you're talking about maybe 10%. So we could go back and forth about what that would do to world economies. Arguments about socialism and inflation and printing money. Who would be hurt most, etc.

But the bottom line is that you'd be replacing a working technology with a failed technology. So you'd be destroying a significant percentage of the world's economy, reducing the quality of life for billions of people, to do something that would further reduce their quality of life.

As a result, if there is an impending deadline of no more fossil fuels (we agree it's somewhere, we don't agree on when), we are sacrificing our ability to meet that crisis.


I don't have a problem with the headline. I do have a problem with the bad arguments and bad use of data contained within it - I don't think dishonest is too strong of a term here. I can unpack that more if you don't think it would be a complete waste of time, but I will say that probably the central point of what they are arguing is not in dispute; energy transition is very difficult and will be very expensive & disruptive to the global economy. The problem is they explictly only deal with that side of the equation, present some of the data/arguments in a selective/slanted way, and don't deal with the reality that it's still a fantastic bargain at 10x the price, making the usual flawed assumption that we have the option of continuing on our current path indefinitely without paying a catastrophic price for it.

You think it's dishonest and you can unpack that. Fine. I think it's honest and have provided some sources and those sources contain lots and lots of footnotes. So unpack away - get at those footnotes if you like.

You keep saying you've proven all this is dishonest, over and over again. But it's more that you've written, over and over again, that these sources are dishonest and slanted, as if the conclusion is enough on its own. There's a lot of disagreement out there and that's how the opponent is painted. Maybe you'll find that an energy company was the source of one piece of one argument - I'm sure some of it was, and it wouldn't be surprising, since they'd be fools not to invest time and money learning about the entire energy market.

In the end, I'm sure, we agree to disagree. You think there's an immediate crisis and I don't. You think wind and solar are the answer and I don't.

[Kodos]

You think wind and solar are the answer and I don't.

Is it okay if they can be considered part of the solution? I have solar panels on our house, and they reduce my bill to just a service charge of $25 in the summer when my neigbhors were complaining on Facebook about having $700 electric bills. Obviously, in the winter, they don't help as much.

I think it's good to come at the problem from multiple angles. Solar/nuclear/geothermal/wind/cold fusion if it ever comes to pass/etc. It takes a village.

[flere-imsaho]

A strong and ongoing investment in a diverse set of renewable energy sources ends up delivering a lot more reliability than fossil fuels that experience cost and/or availability shocks every time an OPEC member does something geopolitical or a refinery has issues.

[Solecismic]

Is it okay if they can be considered part of the solution? I have solar panels on our house, and they reduce my bill to just a service charge of $25 in the summer when my neigbhors were complaining on Facebook about having $700 electric bills. Obviously, in the winter, they don't help as much.

I think it's good to come at the problem from multiple angles. Solar/nuclear/geothermal/wind/cold fusion if it ever comes to pass/etc. It takes a village.

You don't need my permission. Nor do you rely on solar energy when it isn't producing enough to power your home.

I don't agree with the subsidies often included with panel installation, and it's such a rabbit hole to talk about the slave labor involved in their production (or the village the slaves in question used to inhabit). But this is a decision you've made for your household - not a decision a government has made for its population.

As for the $700 your neighbors pay... either you live next door to mansions (and if they're complaining about $700, they're probably in over their heads for reasons having nothing to do with electricity) or they're starting to feel the pinch of this massive and ill-considered transition. It will get far worse, and quite soon. Energy security and energy poverty are likely to be the biggest stories of the second half of the '20s.

[thesloppy]

This conversation is thee absolute worst.

[flere-imsaho]

Well, I guess we all should just give up and wait for the inevitable exhaustion of fossil fuels or a magical pure & perfect energy source, then.

Edit: this was in response to Jim, not thesloppy.

[Kodos]

I don't agree with the subsidies often included with panel installation, and it's such a rabbit hole to talk about the slave labor involved in their production (or the village the slaves in question used to inhabit). But this is a decision you've made for your household - not a decision a government has made for its population.


Is life really much better for people who work in coal mines, or who have their livelihoods disrupted by oil spills/pipeline leaks? Or for the people whose lives are turned upside down (or ended) when superstorms hit their area due to climate change?

[Kodos]

This conversation is thee absolute worst.

Especially since it probably belongs in the climate change thread.

[cuervo72]

https://media3.giphy.com/media/NDIiWKEQEgr3VA7aqM/giphy.gif

[Solecismic]

Is life really much better for people who work in coal mines, or who have their livelihoods disrupted by oil spills/pipeline leaks? Or for the people whose lives are turned upside down when superstorms hit their area due to climate change?

1. Yes, because 1a. it's a safer than it used to be and 1b. it's still a choice and families aren't being divided.

2. No. But you should also consider the effects of massive amounts of green space converted for wind and solar. The noise issue from nearby wind turbines is significant.

3. Immediate climate attribution is a bizarre new twist, and mostly comes from the media. The number of people killed in weather events has steadily been decreasing for decades. The overall severity of hurricane and tornado seasons has been steady or dropping. This entire line of argument isn't an effective one.

[Brian Swartz]

every time you go down this road, I read heavy condescension on your part. I try to ignore it, because it's not productive to respond in kind.

It's not condescension though. A fundamental question to any discussion is what kind of reply you accept as valid. Are there any, or will the same dismissal result no matter what? I, multiple times in this discussion, have given examples of what I would consider valid rebuttals to what I've said. It's hardly condescension to insist on reasonable terms of debate.

Ballpark, within your range of serious, you're talking about maybe 10%.

No I'm not. Over the 20-year period you cited, the 50-100 trillion amount is less than 1% to about 1.5%.

You think wind and solar are the answer and I don't.

Nope, not true. I've never claimed this. I've repeatedly said otherwhise actually in this discussion.

keep saying you've proven all this is dishonest, over and over again. But it's more that you've written, over and over again, that these sources are dishonest and slanted, as if the conclusion is enough on its own.

Also not true. This is the only source I've described as dishonest. I've mostly agreed with the others you posted and pointed out why I disagreed with the other points, based on the quality and use of data in them. Meanwhile you've dismissed the dominant scientific consensus as a weird theory not worth taking seriously. Suffice to say I'm on exceptionally solid ground here.

A few specific items from the Manhattan Institute link:

the realities of the physics, engineering, and economics of energy systems are not dependent on any facts or beliefs about climate change.

This is 100% true. The reverse is also true; the facts and science regarding climate change are not dependent on the costs and difficulties involved in reducing reliance on fossil fuels. It's a handwavium approach that allows the analysis to proceed without considering the other side of the equation: the cost of continuing to use fossil fuels at an accelerating rate. They don't even mention the shortages issue or address in any way whether continuing the increasing rate of consumption is sustainable. By itself, this demonstrates the whole argument of the article to be intellectually unserious.

A second element is the section devoted to shale. The price difference between shale oil - other sources such as tar sands are also in this boat - and more conventional sources of oil is not addressed. There is discussion of price fluctuations, improving productivity with technology, and so on, but the long-term impact of relying more on sources such as shale is that the price of oil stays high, because unless it is fairly high, shale isn't viable. It is several times more expensive to extract than the oil that OPEC produces, about 5-6x by the best estimates I've seen. Oil at that price can only lower prices if there's a shortage of supply elsewhere, and the more the global supply comes to rely on such sources, the more consistently the price will be high. Shale oil can't survive in a cheap oil environment. That doesn't mean it isn't good - purely from a supply & price standpoint - to have it as a source, but the idea that it's a solution to rising prices is just wrongheaded.

Then we have the Top 10 Energy Truths:

- #8 is particularly egregious starting at 40% instead of 0% which is blatant data distortion, and also presenting an absurdly short 6-year time period.
- #7 assumes there will be no increase in global production of aluminum to meet demand, contradicting what is said earlier in the piece (rightly) about oil, and the fact that there are massive available aluminum deposits.
- #9 makes a similar error, focusing on China's market share instead of available deposits, assuming no changes will happen in resource development. Of course, when you look at available deposits, the scenario is flipped; what OPEC has is a far greater share of oil than what China has relating to mineral deposits used in green energy. All of this of course runs into the other point I've made repeatedly about how our current economy relies on a wide variety of resources from China and other countries anyway - that's just an unavoidable reality regardless of what we do.
- #4, no one, literally no one, claims green energy is carbon free. It's the kind of statement that shows you aren't really being serious about the issues involved.
- #5 Energy density is completely besides the point; batteries don't need to come close to the energy density of oil, because of how much more efficient they are compared to internal combustion engines. This is a near-complete red herring. Better battery energy density would obviously be a good thing, but it's not essential.

And so on.

Again, there are many valid points made in the article. But a valid point robbed of appropriate context doesn't get very far. When you look at the whole picture, it's clear the goal in this kind of piece isn't to take in all of factors involved and come out with a logical conclusion. It's what an exercise in bolstering a pre-determined conclusion looks like.

[Brian Swartz]

This conversation is thee absolute worst.

Since this seems to be a common view, I will cease my part in it.

[Solecismic]

It's not condescension though. A fundamental question to any discussion is what kind of reply you accept as valid. Are there any, or will the same dismissal result no matter what? I, multiple times in this discussion, have given examples of what I would consider valid rebuttals to what I've said. It's hardly condescension to insist on reasonable terms of debate.

...

Again, there are many valid points made in the article. But a valid point robbed of appropriate context doesn't get very far. When you look at the whole picture, it's clear the goal in this kind of piece isn't to take in all of factors involved and come out with a logical conclusion. It's what an exercise in bolstering a pre-determined conclusion looks like.

By engaging in the discussion I left it open to you how to respond and obviously expect the same. You often say a response isn't "serious", but it's usually an attempt to figure out what piece of this massive debate we're talking about. The alternative is a one-line quip intended to signal that one doesn't agree with something. I hope I never start doing that in any context.

Obviously, we're not talking about Twitter and Musk directly here. The Twitter Files show how Twitter and presumably other tech companies have worked with the government and establishment media to mute inconvenient debate.

The other half of that discussion involves Musk's own petty fights with establishment media - that half has received all the attention here, probably because Musk looks rather ridiculous. And that part isn't really going to get much debate. Where does the first half lead us? Some interesting areas - offshoots of Musk's massive wealth from government subsidies of Tesla. The actual Twitter censorship issue from pre-Musk. Is it worth doing this over Twitter in the first place because Twitter represents the absolute quippiest and most useless speech (though apparently many people get their news from Twitter, so maybe it is worth doing).

Point being, neither one of us can "win" this argument. The politically-inclined participants who have remained on FOFC can vote, and I'll obviously lose. I knew that going in. We can back-and-forth over pieces of various documents, and it will come down to dismissing one source over another source. And for reasons having more to do with whether we think climate change is a crisis and how much of it is natural and how much is caused by fossil fuel burning.

At any rate, I will conclude with this as well. I don't want to upset people.

[Edward64]

Nah, don't conclude. You guys are having a good conversation and, for the most part, a cordial one. I agree with both of you on some matters and disagree with both on others. And I am learning some new stuff. Just take it to the climate change thread.

There are some that would say anyone should be able to post whatever they want in whatever thread they want, and self govern. But I agree with recent posters requesting it moves to a more appropriate thread as this seems much more in depth and very different tangent than just Musk.

[Fidatelo]

I agree with the others, this conversation is the worst and has destroyed this thread. Remember when it was about Twitter or Elon Musk like the title says? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

[Bobble]

I like seeing the discussion. It was informative. It's a topic I want to know more about. I wish it would found a better middle ground BUT it really shouldn't be in this thread.

[Lathum]

I bailed on this thread when it because unreadable 3 pages ago.

[NobodyHere]

So back to the topic at hand?

Elon Musk hints at big changes to Twitter&#x27;s character limit | Fortune (https://fortune.com/2022/12/12/elon-musk-twitter-character-limit-changes/)

Good? Bad?

[GrantDawg]

So back to the topic at hand?

Elon Musk hints at big changes to Twitter's character limit | Fortune (https://fortune.com/2022/12/12/elon-musk-twitter-character-limit-changes/)

Good? Bad?
Completely unnecessary and won't improve the product. Since you create thread discussions, you can already do as many words as want in a discussion. A single tweet that is a wall of words is not going to improve anything.

[Brian Swartz]

After some of the conversations I've observed on this forum over the last couple of years, esp. in the Trump thread, all I can do is laugh uproariously at the assessment of this one.

Agree with GrantDawg on the character limit. Pointless.

[Mota]

I just come here to see what stupid thing Elon has done today.

[Ksyrup]

Good timing then. It appears some time Thursday evening or early Friday, Twitter deliberately disabled 3rd party access to feeds. I haven't used the Twitter app in a decade but now I'm forced to. No 3rd party app has access to the Twitter API.

[albionmoonlight]

So musk totally lied about Tesla’s ability to create self driving software. Which strikes me as pretty important and fraudulent, because he himself has indicated that self driving was a huge part of Tesla‘s value. I think he was brilliant to make himself a right wing MAGA culture warrior. Because he is soon going to need to rely on the tired old “the deep state is coming after me” defense in all of the inevitable fraud lawsuits coming his way.

[RainMaker]

So musk totally lied about Tesla’s ability to create self driving software. Which strikes me as pretty important and fraudulent, because he himself has indicated that self driving was a huge part of Tesla‘s value. I think he was brilliant to make himself a right wing MAGA culture warrior. Because he is soon going to need to rely on the tired old “the deep state is coming after me” defense in all of the inevitable fraud lawsuits coming his way.

He also said his cars would be flying by now. That his new truck would be out and able to be used as a boat. That he would land on Mars a couple years ago.

He's a pathological liar and anyone still falling for his scams sort of deserve what they get at this point.

[Ksyrup]

Twitter is really pissing me off with this For Me tab which they are force-defaulting to when I log in. It takes me a few minutes to realize I'm not seeing the usual feed - tonight, it was seeing 2 Jim Jordan tweets that hadn't been re-tweeted. For Me, my ass.

[Ghost Econ]

If you have the stomach, scroll through responses to people like Jim Jordan or other conservative personalities. It will be an endless line of blue checkmarks from otherwise non-descript people who support them.

Maybe theyre bots where the owners are willing to pay $8 a month or maybe they're actually normal people, but Musk did a great job of swindling conservatives for $100 a year for no tangible benefit.

[cuervo72]

Yeah, I dunno. It seems like I see some of my followed accounts in Following, and some in For You, which almost makes me have to check both.

[whomario]

Either he now managed to break it or the conspiracy nuts are, well, nuts. Or both.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">amazing things are happening on twitter dot com <a href="https://t.co/VIiwnINUNj">pic.twitter.com/VIiwnINUNj</a></p>&mdash; KnowNothing (@KnowNothingTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/KnowNothingTV/status/1620706384487784449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

(Sth about allegedly locked accounts being displayed more or sth, which Melon started testing by ... doing a study of 1, meaning himself.

[albionmoonlight]

We all thought this guy was the next Edison.

Turns out he's a snake oil salesman who probably couldn't program a VCR if he had to.

[RainMaker]

Those are the dumbest people alive.

[B & B]

12:00 Blinking on and off for years

[RainMaker]

Well turning off API access is going swimmingly today I see.

[Ghost Econ]

Yeah, I got a message yesterday stating I was above my tweet limit and to try again tomorrow. It was the first time I had posted anything in like 3 days.

Almost certainly a test to charging for tweets/tweet packs. It's like every idea is worst than the next.

https://fortune.com/2023/02/08/twitter-is-having-a-weird-technical-glitch-that-wont-let-users-tweet-because-they-are-over-their-daily-limit/

[PilotMan]

Deactivated my account a while back. Don't miss it one bit.

[albionmoonlight]

Neuralink transported brain implants covered in pathogens, group alleges | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/feds-probing-neuralink-for-allegedly-transporting-pathogens-on-brain-hardware/)

Neuralink is being investigated for exposing humans to antibiotic resistant bacteria harvested from tortured monkey brains.

Or, as Elon musk likes to call it, Monday.

[Ghost Econ]

I'm too lazy to read the article, were the monkeys subjected to torture, or were the monkeys tortured like a writer following up the great American novel?

[flere-imsaho]

In one instance in 2021, 25 of 60 pigs used in a study had devices that were the wrong size surgically implanted into their heads. It was an accident that internal documents and people familiar with the matter indicated could have been avoided if researchers were given the proper time to prepare for the experiment.

In two other incidents, Neuralink researchers accidentally implanted a device on the wrong vertebrae of two pigs in two separate surgeries, which could have been avoided if the researchers had simply counted the vertebrae before beginning the surgeries. The fact that it happened twice reportedly frustrated fellow researchers.

Reuters also identified four experiments, involving a total of 86 pigs, that were spoiled by human errors. The errors meant that experiments yielded less valuable research results and had to be repeated, requiring the use of yet more animals. Three people who spoke with Reuters attributed the errors to the researchers working in a "pressure-cooker environment."

But it's OK because move fast/break stuff in the pursuit of scientific progress, right? Well....

In all, Neuralink has killed roughly 1,500 animals since 2018, including pigs, monkeys, and more than 280 sheep, according to Reuters. The outlet noted that a rival, Synchron, has made better progress using far fewer animals—only about 80 sheep. Like Neuralink, Synchron launched in 2016, but it has less lofty goals for its device. Still, the company's device allowed paralyzed people to text and type with their thoughts after the company got approval to run human clinical trials in 2021. Musk recently said he hopes Neuralink will get regulatory approval to start clinical trials in six months.

TL;DR: Musk's company, under direct pressure from Musk himself, killed 19x more animals than a rival company, often after said animals suffered much more than was necessary, and often due to researchers not been given time to prepare for experiments properly, and still is technologically further behind the aforementioned more humane research company.

[Flasch186]

Doesn&rsquo;t matter

The bad guys win in the long run


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RainMaker]

If anyone else is annoyed with the algorithm that is promoting weird Twitter Blue accounts, you can subscribe to a blocklist that will block them all. The guys server is being hit pretty hard and it does take a few days to fully block all the accounts once you've subscribed. But it has cleaned up my feed a lot.

Block Together (https://www.theblockbot.com/show-blocks/9BjDYX6HOyx7e4_4NT6-Y4YylY3UmpojDxvo6Zu8)

[Lathum]

Elon fired a bunch more people and now Twitter is down. Top notch job

[Edward64]

Yup, Elon. Don't bite the hand that fed, feeds, and you need to continue feeding you in the future (btw, hear that Spare?).

You are definitely not bigger than the Chinese government (see the couple really rich Chinese billionaires that were put in their place).

#China Communist Party paper warns @elonmusk against pushing #COVID19 lab leak theory. @globaltimesnews posts on social media “Elon Musk, are you breaking the pot of China?” (“Breaking the pot after eating” is Chinese “biting the hand that feeds you.”)

[GrantDawg]

Yup, Elon. Don't bite the hand that fed, feeds, and you need to continue feeding you in the future (btw, hear that Spare?).

You are definitely not bigger than the Chinese government (see the couple really rich Chinese billionaires that were put in their place).
He can win some public good will by defying China, but he could also lose many billions of dollars.

[Atocep]

Elon Musk publicly mocks Twitter worker with disability who is unsure whether he's been laid off | CNN Business (https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/tech/elon-musk-twitter-employee-disability/index.html)

So a guy that works for twitter and has Muscular Dystrophy lost access to his work account 9 days ago when Elon fired 200 people, but he hadn't been contacted by HR to let him know he'd been fired and HR hadn't been able to even confirm for him that he was part of the group fired.

Elon gets on twitter and mocks him, saying the guy didn't actually do any work and used a disability as excuse that he couldn't type. Elon gets roasted, backtracks, and blames others for giving him bad/false information.

Oh, this guy also happened to be Iceland's person of the year in 2022.

The person of the year 2022 - Iceland Monitor (https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2022/12/31/the_person_of_the_year_2022/)

[Mota]

Yes, it's incredible that he's been locked out for 9 days, but Elon has the balls to ask him what work he's done during this time.
If I was 90% sure I was fired but never given confirmation, you can bet that I'd be doing as little as possible.

[Ksyrup]

I would detest being an attorney for a guy like him (or one of his companies). He just publicly disclosed an employee's medical condition to millions of people, mocked him for it, AND suggested he was faking it and was the reason he was fired. That's ... not ideal from an employment law perspective.

Apparently the guy is the founder of a company Twitter bought and would be owed millions if he was let go. I think he's going to be adding to that payoff.

[Toddzilla]

Anyone with a gap in their resume can now claim to be the Lead Engineer of Whatever at Twitter and there's no HR there to refute said claim.

[albionmoonlight]

Anyone with a gap in their resume can now claim to be the Lead Engineer of Whatever at Twitter and there's no HR there to refute said claim.

But then you'd have to admit you worked for Musk.

[Toddzilla]

Nope - I was there 2017-2022 as Head of EMEA Software Engineering.

[bronconick]

Elon Musk publicly mocks Twitter worker with disability who is unsure whether he's been laid off | CNN Business (https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/tech/elon-musk-twitter-employee-disability/index.html)

So a guy that works for twitter and has Muscular Dystrophy lost access to his work account 9 days ago when Elon fired 200 people, but he hadn't been contacted by HR to let him know he'd been fired and HR hadn't been able to even confirm for him that he was part of the group fired.

Elon gets on twitter and mocks him, saying the guy didn't actually do any work and used a disability as excuse that he couldn't type. Elon gets roasted, backtracks, and blames others for giving him bad/false information.

Oh, this guy also happened to be Iceland's person of the year in 2022.

The person of the year 2022 - Iceland Monitor (https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2022/12/31/the_person_of_the_year_2022/)

Musk's now begging him to come back because the guy sold his company to Twitter and took the payout in wages to put the money back into the Icelandic social system and was structured in a way which requires payment for the entire deal upon his termination.

[Mota]

I find it insane that he fired the lady who slept on her office floor in a sleeping bag and went viral for it.
First of all, I'd never sleep in any office that I worked in. The employer doesn't own the employee, they are paying them for services. If there was some sort of shift work that required weird hours, that's fine, but just to expect someone to work 24/7 as a test of loyalty is wrong. And the loyalty apparently only goes in one direction, as she was sacrificed just months later.

[albionmoonlight]

I read something today that seems like a pretty likely endgame. Since firing all of their compliance people, Twitter has been in open defiance of an FTC consent decree and about eleventy-billion EU privacy regulations. So within a year or so, Twitter is going to be hit with a metric ass-ton of fines.

At which point, Musk (who tried to get out of this deal as soon as he made it and who has not been enjoying himself because buying twitter did not make normal people stop making fun of him like he thought it would) will declare bankruptcy and declare that he was thisclose to turning twitter around, but the deep state bureaucrats took him down.

The MAGAverse and Elon fanboys will eat it up.

[GrantDawg]

I read something today that seems like a pretty likely endgame. Since firing all of their compliance people, Twitter has been in open defiance of an FTC consent decree and about eleventy-billion EU privacy regulations. So within a year or so, Twitter is going to be hit with a metric ass-ton of fines.

At which point, Musk (who tried to get out of this deal as soon as he made it and who has not been enjoying himself because buying twitter did not make normal people stop making fun of him like he thought it would) will declare bankruptcy and declare that he was thisclose to turning twitter around, but the deep state bureaucrats took him down.

The MAGAverse and Elon fanboys will eat it up.
That, and the idea the Saudi's and/or Russians are financing his destruction of the platform, seems less like a conspiracy theory and more like reality.

[RainMaker]

I find it insane that he fired the lady who slept on her office floor in a sleeping bag and went viral for it.
First of all, I'd never sleep in any office that I worked in. The employer doesn't own the employee, they are paying them for services. If there was some sort of shift work that required weird hours, that's fine, but just to expect someone to work 24/7 as a test of loyalty is wrong. And the loyalty apparently only goes in one direction, as she was sacrificed just months later.

I don't think much thought is going into the layoffs to be honest. They probably didn't even know she was let go. They are broke and just laying people off so they can try and make payroll.

Bankruptcy is inevitable. They've been stiffing their landlord and tons of vendors for months now. Only a matter of time before they have to do something.

[flere-imsaho]

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, albion.

[albionmoonlight]

I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter, albion.

There's no way I could come up with something that insightful on my own.

Here's the link (it was posting weird, so I xx'd it): hXXps://davekarpf.substack.com/p/how-long-does-twitter-have-left

[Edward64]

Not alot of faith in Meta able to execute on a Twitter alternative.

But competition is good. So hope they can come up with a viable alternative. Or maybe, just offer to by Twitter at a steep discount from a year ago.

Twitter could have a new rival — a platform created by Meta | CNN Business (https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/tech/meta-text-platform-twitter-competitor/index.html)
Facebook-parent Meta is exploring building a new, standalone platform for sharing text updates, the company confirmed to CNN on Friday, in what could mark the most high-profile new contender to take on Twitter as it falters under Elon Musk.

“We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CNN, which essentially described Twitter’s mission statement without naming the platform.
The platform, plans for which were earlier reported by Platformer and MoneyControl, would be decentralized, meaning users could ostensibly create different servers or communities, each with their own rules rather than one central platform controlled by Meta.

[flere-imsaho]

Why not? There's nothing about twitter that strikes me as technologically complex, except possibly scaling, but you'd figure there are plenty of engineers and architects at Meta who know how to scale technology (and they already have the infrastructure anyway).

[sterlingice]

Isn't that one of the common criticisms of Musk's acquisition (if you assume he was doing it in "good faith")? That he thought he was acquiring a tech company and not an advertising community. It wasn't Twitter's technology that made it valuable or difficult, but cultivating the community and maintaining sponsors.

SI

[albionmoonlight]

Totally.

I suspect that Meta had some R&D engineers code a twitter clone years ago and just kept it around for a day like today

Twitter was valuable because it--for whatever reason--was a community unlike other places on the internet. Not because coding a microblog is some impossible feat of software engineering.

Coming in and immediately-first-thing-before-you-even-unpack destroying that community was a choice. Either a choice based in incompetence or corruption. They look the same from the outside.

[GrantDawg]

I really don't trust Meta. The engineering isn't the issue.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[albionmoonlight]

I spent a little more time on Twitter last week to check in. A lot of the people I remember are there. But the vibe was off. Much less dynamic than I remember. And just not pleasant.

And a decent number of ElonBlue folks there posting about how AI is even more amazing than we realize and how Biden can't be trusted on Ukraine.

It's like a favorite old bar that got new ownership and pissed off a lot of the regulars so they left. Superficially, it does not look that different, but in all the ways that matter, it is nothing like the place you remember.

I am now of the opinion that his plan from the beginning was to turn Twitter into a right-wing pro-Russia techbro haven or kill it in the process of turning it into that and he does not really care which one it ends up being.

[sterlingice]

If the goal is to kill it, it doesn't matter if it still exists or not. If it's just a husk of its former self but with the veneer of what used to be, that's even better for that purpose. It's that much harder to explain in a few words how or why it's different.

SI

[Hammer]

Twitter was extremely wing biased. If you are orientated to the left the echo chamber you may fondly remember isn't what it used to be. It seems pretty neutral to me now. Surely that's a good thing. Probably more disagreements as the general public are now more evenly represented.

I believe Elon did sway towards the left. But I think Biden's favouritism of GM got up his nose. Plus the out of control wokeism seems an issue with him.

As an outsider it seems the need to be on team red or team blue has really got in to the head of some of my American friends. The division seems at an all time high. I think they would he a lot happier if they pulled out of that mindset. Disengage from that battle and got on with their own lives.

[cuervo72]

How would you like LGBTQ+, minority, or even women to "disengage" from these battles, as you say?

[Lathum]

Disengage from that battle and got on with their own lives.

How do I disengage from that battle when I have a gay son and a daughter and one side is literally trying to take both of their rights away?

Thankfully I live in a blue state and have the money to make sure my daughter could get the healthcare she needs regardless, but not everyone is so fortunate, and if the GOP regains power the status quo could shift.

They literally want a nation where a woman with a non viable pregnancy has to be on the cusp of death before giving her life saving care, let alone banning things like morning after pills, etc...

And this is just two issues, never mind their election nonsense, etc...This isn't the time to disengage. Democracy dies in darkness.

[RainMaker]

Part of it is Musk but I also think Twitter is just a social media platform that is on a downward trend. New platforms come out and the old ones get pushed asiide.

If you've been on TikTok, you know their technology and platform is blowing Twitter and everyone else out of the water.

[GrantDawg]

Part of it is Musk but I also think Twitter is just a social media platform that is on a downward trend. New platforms come out and the old ones get pushed asiide.

If you've been on TikTok, you know their technology and platform is blowing Twitter and everyone else out of the water.
...which is why Facebook is trying to get it banned.

[GrantDawg]

I'm going to say I haven't really noticed a major change in Twitter. There are a few people who have left, but for the most part I still have most of my sports people, my news people, my Twitter of Time friends, law gurus and a few political accounts I follow. Less celebrity interaction than there used to be, but that's about it. I only look at the "following" tab, because the algorithm for the "for you" feed is a hot mess. I feel like that will probably change soon. It is just a matter of time before he does away with the ability to just see post from people you want, and stop allowing chronological browsing. That is what killed Facebook for me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

If you've been on TikTok, you know their technology and platform is blowing Twitter and everyone else out of the water.

Despite having virtually no content that isn't so-so comedy, cat videos, and pron teasers.

edit to add: Oh wait, that's Instagram

[Ksyrup]

TikTok and Instagram make no sense to me. I hate photos, so an entire app devoted to influencers and narcissism sounds awful. My kids continually send me TikToks and I think I've laughed at like a half-dozen total.

Although worse was (is? Does it still exist?) Snapchat - like 6-8 years ago, my kids would take pics making stupid faces or of literally nothing, and while driving at night, it was repeated flashes in the dark. About all I got out of that was gossip from my kids telling me about X or Z person who Snapped getting drunk, doing drugs, or having sex.