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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • The systemic problems are a stroad which seems designed for high speeds, yet with many dangerous points of interactions with pedestrians and other drivers. There seems to be no infrastructure to protect pedestrians and no design features to limit speeds. As you point out, this wasn’t caused by a tank of a vehicle but a standard sedan.

    This is in stark contrast to Vision Zero, a strategy where it’s nearly impossible for vehicle collisions to cause fatalities. It doesn’t matter if a driver is impaired, we have the technology to engineer away these deaths. From the images in article, the road seems to follow almost none of the tenants of Vision Zero.








  • I think it’s more of a corollary that phone companies can incentivize people to buy more than they need. I live in Canada, where carrier locks have been outlawed for a decade, so we don’t typically get $100s off the phone, but they do often give interest free financing. This pushes people to get a brand new, top-of-the-line Galaxy or iPhone, when all they do is simple stuff that any basic smartphone could do. They just get used to paying “only an extra $50/mo” so once that phone is paid off, they finance a brand new, top-of-the-line smartphone.








  • Russia and the US have committed war crimes in their invasions of Ukraine and Iraq respectively, but the general consensus is that their militaries are still not terrorist organizations.

    War Crimes != Terrorism. Some acts qualify as both, but words have meanings, and I think it’s important we recognize that. I don’t think the actions of the US in Iran would make a reasonable person say the US Military is a terrorist organization, though they are definitely harbouring some war criminals.

    I think the other thing is asking, what’s the value in labelling an organization? Telling your friend with a substance problem that they’re an addict/alcoholic might just drive them away and towards worse influences. Or telling off your toxic coworker might be cathartic, but it’ll probably just make the situation worse.

    PS I’m pretty sure labelling the IDF as “similarly abhorrent” isn’t very helpful.






  • I actually do think EV range will come down in price faster than inflation, and probably at a pretty significant rate too. I just think the the $15K, 350mi EV is unlikely to ever exist because:

    • The other basic components of a car have a cost, and that’s increasing because of inflation, but also increased safety standards and the additional “standard” options the industry pushes. I think the price of a car before the drive-train is getting pretty close to that $15K.
    • Bigger battery packs have less range efficiency because they have to haul around the rest of the battery. People keep pointing out the BYD Dolphin is sold in China for the equivalent of <$15K, but the base range is 187mi, meaning a 350mi range would need significantly more than double the batteries.
    • I expect (or at least hope) that range will become less of an issue as charging gets better and more ubiquitous, and owners get used to charging at home. I know some people actually do need 350mi+ range, but I think that’s pretty rare so high range cars won’t have the economies of scale that cheap, mainstream goods get.