You know how you know when Newsom’s lying? His lips are moving. He knows Climate Change is an existential threat, but also that he’s rich, so his family won’t face the effects the way the 99% will. The closest he’ll get is his vineyard will use more water, but don’t worry, I’m sure there’s some PUC decision that will keep his water rates artificially low.

California’s current leadership doesn’t really care about climate change, because if they did, the PUC wouldn’t disincentivize rooftop solar through NEM 3.0 and would instead offer tax credits. It’s too bad the common citizens of this state aren’t valued like the profits of Newsom’s friends at PG&E.

Heck, if they really cared, electric vehicles would be progressively subsidized so more working class people could afford them. Instead, workers keep older ICE vehicles longer because they’re paid off (hopefully) and replacements are financially out of reach, even if they’re much cheaper to operate. It’s like housing. A reasonable mortgage payment is much cheaper than rent, but if you are paying rent, you likely don’t have the down payment to get an affordable monthly payment. A house down the street went into escrow the day after listing at $1.7 MM. The nearly identical house next door to them gets $4-5k a month in rent. How is anybody going to have enough money saved up to get their mortgage into a reasonable range, setting aside the $1500 a month for property taxes? The family living next door would need a down payment over $1MM to get even close to their current rent, which is already $50-60k a year! Just their rent is more than the median income for one person, so they likely wouldn’t qualify for a loan that’s exactly the same amount as their current rent even with that staggering down payment.

Also, for some hobbies/interests, there really isn’t another space. For instance, if you’re into tactical gear, there’s really not another community like r/tacticalgear. Lemmy has the promise of being free from Reddit’s admin and moderator madness, but doesn’t have the user base and neither do any other sites.

TwoXChromosomes has the same problem, though of course it has a much wider appeal. The moderators there protested the API changes and the gradual decline of Reddit in general, but they face two bad choices, and I genuinely don’t know the right answer:

1. Keep serving as a large and visible space for women within the confines of Reddit’s sinking ship

2. Abandon Reddit (ship) and let Reddit powermods run a space that they may be uniquely unqualified to operate. those same powermods/admins don’t care about doing the right thing in every other sub they control, so why would they ensure that women are protected from, say, tracking their visits to Planned Parenthood and selling that data to “advertisers” or hostile governments.

We need Reddit to truly self-destruct to ensure an Exodus, and right now it’s crumbling but not broken yet. It’s honestly sort of a mirror to society in general. We’re in the Crumbles, and every day we inch closer to the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Bring on the people movers and the monorails; I’m here for it, but I don’t want to get Covid again and as much as I despair of humanity, I have kids and so do millions of others so we should be working together to make a better world for current and future generations.

I don’t have images readily available, but there are little shopping centers surrounding parking lots where pedestrians go right from the sidewalks into the various restaurants/shops, if you can imagine a U shape for the shops and the parking lot and vehicular entrances inside the U. It just takes some planning and extra space, and you know, capitalism isn’t a huge fan of “wasted” space that isn’t generating revenue.

I absolutely agree with making more places pedestrian friendly, I just think a drive through makes too much sense to dismiss out of hand. Heck, I’m in favor of walk-up windows to better serve those of us who don’t want to go inside a restaurant even without kids.

You’ve lived in Alaska for multiple winters and you aren’t worried about the problem with exposing small children to extreme cold?

Tell me you live somewhere temperate without telling me where you live. Have you been to much of the US in the winter?

I respect your perspective but as a parent, trust me, life is really freaking hard as it is. Making it harder is unconscionable.

Try having small children; drive through a can be a lifesaver because you don’t need to unbuckle them, get their winter clothes on, get them into the restaurant, wait in line, order the food to go, then wait for the food, and then reverse the steps to get back into the car. It’s a giant PITA to just get some French fries, chicken tenders, and carrot sticks, let alone the drastically increased exposure to germs associated with a crowded restaurant. You may have heard, there’s a pretty bad wave of Covid, influenza, and RSV right now. Not sharing air with other people is a big part of staying healthy right now.

Have you read the Old Testament? The deity in that book is not what I’d consider benevolent. He’s also really insecure, requiring that his followers only worship him, which doesn’t at all sound like an abusive partner separating a person from their familial relationships to isolate them.

Heck, in the New Testament he (because somehow a sky deity has a penis) sent his son to be killed horrifically, and because he is both omnipotent and omniscient, he knew exactly what to do to stop said horrific death at the hands of the Romans.

It’s the UK. They long ago traded freedom for the illusion of security and don’t have the ability to forcefully remind the owning class of anything beyond their ability to ignore such inconveniences.

“ The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Written by Douglas Adams

Exactly. Stay safe my guy/gal/non-binary pal.

Spot on. I’m politically left of anybody in power, so I know I’m on at least a few lists of potential “dissidents”, let alone being openly Jewish in a Christofascist dictatorship and friends/family with people in the LGBTQ+ community and from various ethnic backgrounds. I always hope for the best, but that hope isn’t going to scare off a truckload of paramilitaries, so I have guns and ammo.

I also stockpile water, medical, food, and so on. If there’s an earthquake, I’m prepared, same for a medium term power outage, but in the most extreme case, I know I’ve done everything I can to keep my family safe in a dangerous time. Nobody else in my family is dying in a ditch if I can help it.

I know quite a few people who are pro gun and dislike Trump with a passion, including myself. I would argue Trump is a symptom of why many people keep guns; a fascist dictatorship is an immediate threat to communities who won’t benefit from the “warm embrace” of such a government. I bought my first AR the day after Trump won in 2016 because it was clear the future was not trending toward the light. It was a rabbit-hole, because I realized I needed enough to equip my family and friends for what’s coming, and I like piecing them together over time so the financial outlay isn’t as high due to the variou parts going on sale over time.

Do they, or is there a lack of an alternative in that niche? Again, I can only speak from my personal experience driving and riding in one; I’d choose pretty much anything else with four wheels.

I don’t think of myself as picky, but large panel gaps and cheap materials like on an armrest or the seats themselves just really grate on me. When I bought my last vehicle, I test drove like 15 vehicles, and while I liked the economy of the Prius V, the places they cheaper out (no air vents for rear passengers for instance) stuck out like a sore thumb. Hopefully my next vehicle can be an EV, I just can’t square the circle of trading in a reliable, paid off car for a new EV with a monthly payment.

I think you’re misunderstanding me. I continue to say there are probably good EVs out there, the Bolt isn’t one of them. That’s all I’ve ever said, and people keep interpreting that as an attack on EVs in general. I want an affordable EV with the usable space and interior quality of my 2010 Mazda3. Is that a condemnation of all EVs, and if so, what does that say about EVs?

The Hyundai/Kia offerings look interesting but the nearest dealership is 40 miles away and that’s more than I can do to go test drive a car. How’s the interior, equivalent to a Honda at least?

You must have GM stock to love the Bolt this much, it’s unbelievable otherwise that somebody would invest so much energy in such a bad product. The Bolt is a terrible car compared to other cars, plain and simple. It’s barely passable to drive, has a history of rather fatal flaws (two recalls for fire seems like more than most people want), and it has almost no space for luggage/shopping. It works great for short trips in a city without kids in tow, assuming you define great as getting from Point A to B.

A Bolt is the Spirit Airlines of cars, cheapened at every level and miserable to experience, but sure, it could work. It’s an illusion of progress, and most of what it does efficiently could be replaced by electric bikes. For anything else, it’s a poor substitute for a good car, ICE or EV. Now, could there be a good EV in that niche? Absolutely, but it’s running up against competing interests, affordability for the 99% versus fair wages for the workers building the thing. It can’t be a great car, it’s too cheap and has too much money wrapped up in its powertrain to be great on its own merits, but it could be much, much better, inside and out.

It doesn’t need to feel so cheap, that’s the MBA set dictating the corner cutting to eke out every cent of profit. Like I said in another comment, my first car was a base model Tercel, so I have a good idea of what a car can feel like even when built on the cheap. The Bolt doesn’t even hit that level of quality, and a Tercel isn’t exactly a luxury vehicle. But don’t believe me, go test drive a base model Civic or Mazda3 and then a Bolt. You’ll immediately notice the difference in everything you touch and see inside, let alone when you open the trunk/hatch to see the available space. But hey, I’m just a guy ranting on the Internet, having driven hundreds of thousands of miles in Toyotas, Hondas, Mazdas, and oh, right, some very unfortunate time in a Bolt.

I want a better economy car that’s an EV; I’d love to have better options. The current offerings just aren’t there yet, and there’s little reason to think they will get there when the motivation is profit instead of the planet.