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Messages - sluissa

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391
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 12, 2019, 03:44:17 pm »
I'd heard somewhere, months ago, that McConnell wasn't really doing much to speed things up either. He was allowing things to go slowly without forcing the democrats to all show up and push the issue. The republicans could try to make things speedier and force more democrats to actually attend the senate sessions in order to procedurally slow things down, but they were allowing the procedural slowdowns even when republicans had the numbers in attendance to force the speedier process.

Of course maybe this was just some backroom negotiation between him and Schumer to not make everyone be constantly in attendance. A sort of "Here's how the fight would go, so let's just not and pretend we did."

Also to go along with that, I believe Schumer was allowing things to happen unopposed that wouldn't normally be in democrats best interest.

In any case, washington politics. :P

EDIT:
 
Quote from: Dostoevsky on July 12, 2019, 03:33:46 pm
[Edit: yep, hundreds. Though a good portion of those are probably non-controversial ones confirmed by unanimous consent.]

Based on that link, looks like the number of nominations that the senate has to confirm really isn't out of line with previous presidencies. Trump's first year was a LITTLE higher than average on most first years in recent decades, but not absurd. This year seems to be a little below average if it continues at this pace.

392
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 11, 2019, 06:03:27 pm »
Quote from: hector13 on July 10, 2019, 05:19:22 pm
She’s telling her party it’s a good idea to not air its dirty laundry in public, in an election year.

Just a reminder. Dezpite all evidence to the contrary, it is not yet an election  year yet.

393
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 10, 2019, 12:05:27 am »
Double check your history, weird.

Pretty sure the 3/5 count was ONLY for slaves or people otherwise indentured or imprisoned.

Women who didn't fall into those categories were counted as a whole person for representation. (I do think there was some reading of the rules that would allow a state to not count women, if they so choose, but that would result in them having less representation in congress, so as far as I know, none of them chose to cut off their own nose to spite their own face like  that).

It also had NOTHING to do with citizenship or the right to vote. It was all about representation which was based entirely on population count. Not on citizen count or the count of people who could vote. Total population. The reason for this being is that the rules voted on by representatives still affect the people in that state whether they're citizens with the right to vote or not.

394
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 09, 2019, 07:28:09 am »
From Pelosi's point of view though, the border crisis was getting dangerously close to landing in her lap if the money didn't go through. They would have preferred to have more control over exactly how the money was used, but the border patrol keeps saying "Look, we're doing what we can with the money we've got." and to be fair, they are very much under funded for what they're having to deal with, thanks to Trump's policies. But if it became a simple case of "We need more money, and unless we get more money we can't do shit about giving out toothbrushes and beds." That would have landed in Democrats laps.

Now, if they provide the money, it gets misused. Kids are still packed in cages and people are still dying in rivers. Then it's Trump's fault again.

It's politics. It's disgusting. But it also makes some amount of sense. Holding back those few votes was nothing but publicity for them. Maybe it'll help them in the long run, but if it had come down to 4 votes actually mattering... that would be a different story.

Just to note, this really does seem like the exact same shit that Rand Paul pulls on the republican side. Talk shit about the party and the votes, and even vote against them if the vote doesn't matter, but for every vote that actually DOES matter, he falls in line. Now, that group doesn't have the record to go back and really judge if they'd ACTUALLY fall in line on controversial votes, but they haven't seemed to cause any issues thus far.

I don't like Pelosi. I was really hoping someone else would have taken over as speaker at the beginning of the year. But I'm starting to dislike Ocasio-Cortez even more. She went from a very intelligent person in interviews a year or two ago before she was elected to a politician that just spouts whatever she thinks will get her attention. That happened very quickly, and I'm not going to go so far as to say she got dumber overnight. I'm sure this is all planned by someone. But it is costing her in respect and support from... at least me personally. But that's how you play the game. You can't depend on the people who listen to politics podcasts to be a big enough base to get you elected. I respect that on some level, but it still pisses me off.

395
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 08, 2019, 11:40:07 am »
Quote from: Cthulhu on July 08, 2019, 11:12:08 am
Should just use a teleporter to fuse every dude but biden and yang together, maybe castro too.   The rest are indistinguishable, I'm not convinced they werent generated with an algorithm.  Maybe biden too honestly.

Putting all my money on marianne/JEB! 2020

(probably sarcasm)
I think there was an Alex Jones show about this, but a lizard crawled in as well and that's how we got Hillary.
(/probably sarcasm)

Yang isn't all that notable other than he simply doesn't have the political skills the others have, and that makes him stand out in the crowd. Even what he's saying is just a mix of different talking points from across the democratic spectrum while putting the absurdly risky UBI topic way out front. I would say there's probably more space between say... Harris and Warren than between Warren and Yang.

But yeah, at this point they're all so far from Trump that they all kinda seem the same.

396
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 07, 2019, 06:20:25 pm »
“War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed.
(...)
Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control. War…has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War…has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.”

Strip out the nanomachines and giant robots, and the situation we're in resembles a 10 year old video game plotline. Not identical... but resembles.

We're just a few years too late and a couple of cyborg ninjas short of being in a Hideo Kojima story.

397
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 07, 2019, 02:07:55 pm »
Harris wasn't the most "lesser known" out there. But she definitely drew some attention she didn't have before.

That debate wasn't really enough to give us much insight into what a candidate might actually do as president though. Personally, I was mostly judging them on their balance of being willing to take time to speak where they could but also not being an asshole and overdoing it.

Harris really pushed the envelope on overdoing it, but I think she would have to in order to get ahead of where she was. Probably worked out for her.

Warren on the other hand, also not really lesser known got a chance to show a side of herself that people don't normally get to see. After all the fox news bad mouthing of her as well as the weird attempts at social media-ing... she actually looked like a reasonable choice up on that stage. She was probably already as low as she could conceivably go without betraying her political stances and from there, a well answered question did a lot to assuage people of the fear that she might be some sort of unelectable robot.

Almost everyone else either died on stage or stagnated to the point where a few more months will kill them off.

I do have a problem with the expectations people have of a president though. A lot of what candidates promise still has to go through congress. They're all guilty of these promises that exceed their expected resources and powers, but at the same time, people continue to believe that a president can just get these things done on their own "if they try hard enough."

398
General Discussion / Re: A Game of Thrones: Every time somebody uses the spoiler tags take a shot.
« on: July 05, 2019, 02:02:55 pm »
I also always read it as a Skynet/Matrix style machine war which the humans eventually won and thus outlawed advanced computers to prevent it from happening again.


That said, I can see how you could read it as a luddite uprising type situation, especially with it written into a religious text and the potential for history to have been rewritten a bit by the victors.

I can see that angle, but it also is enough of a stretch that the machine war makes more sense without further context...

399
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 04, 2019, 09:11:50 pm »
Quote from: MrRoboto75 on July 04, 2019, 08:29:49 pm
Quote from: Yoink on July 04, 2019, 08:28:37 pm
What do you think he actually said?     

Hail Hydra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQkCH_C-7AM


EDIT: I went and looked up the video I think that was being spoken of. (A link would have been nice.) And as much as agree Biden can be a bit on the creepy uncle side, the video isn't really clear enough to make any judgements about. My gut opinion though? It feels faked. Something just off about it.

I'd link it myself, but the video I saw made my bullshit meter swing so far I don't even want to be involved in passing it around. searching for: biden hot mic, got it in the first result, though I feel dirty even giving that much of a direction to find it.

400
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 04, 2019, 05:28:33 pm »
I often picked the germans in WW2 games simply because I thought their tanks looked cooler.

That's it. That's my reasoning. I've since learned to broaden my horizons. Every nation has tanks that are cool in their own way. But when I was young, and foolish... Panzer Vor.

401
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 02, 2019, 07:54:55 am »
Quote from: Naturegirl1999 on July 02, 2019, 07:27:15 am
I’m confused why people want bigger vehicles, they use a lot more fuel, and are more expensive. If my visual impairment didn’t keep me from driving, I would get a small car. At least I have a bike, so hopefully I can live near wherever I work

Everyone has their own reasons. Some people feel safer in a bigger car, feel they can see around traffic better. Some people it's an ego thing. Some actually do need the space to carry people/things around. Some people just enjoy driving certain types of cars.

I fully admit, growing up, I loved driving the family's Ford pickup, even if I didn't necessarily have something to carry. It felt good to drive something that heavy compared to the little compact I normally drove to school. I still love driving bigger things than normal sedan cars. But there's a different sort of enjoyment to driving the super small ones as well. Not to mention the ability to find a place to park almost anywhere. But that's just me... and I love driving either way.

402
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 02, 2019, 07:23:19 am »
Quote from: Frumple on July 02, 2019, 07:05:08 am
Eh, as far as I'm aware the production costs for most vehicles is only tangentially related to its selling price. The parts and labor for most vehicles is a fairly small fraction of what people pay for a new one, so fluctuations on that front doesn't necessarily translate to a higher or lower floor price. S'kinda' like how insulin is fucking cheap to produce but the markups on it in the US market are basically heinously unethical, if currently legal. Though iirc car manufacturers don't gouge quite that hard.

https://carfromjapan.com/article/industry-knowledge/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-car/

This quotes a 2012 study saying that materials costs are 57% of a car's cost. Another 16% is R&D costs. After that you have advertising costs of about 1k per unit, dealer markup, which on this page is averaged at 1.5k but other sources suggest between 2-5% on a new car.

IF those numbers are right, manufacturers probably make a 15-25% margin on individual cars. Although I'd guess that vary a bit depending on if it were a luxury model(higher profit margin), or a minimally built economy car(lower margin).

They definitely make a profit, but still nowhere near the realm of pharma markup.

403
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 01, 2019, 12:13:19 pm »
Quote from: McTraveller on July 01, 2019, 11:33:54 am
Quote from: sluissa on July 01, 2019, 10:28:02 am
which will lower the costs of those vehicles in the long term.
Sorry, I'm laughing too hard at this part...


*whew* Ok - yes, the rest of your post I agree with - almost.  The main problem with high fuel taxes in the short run is that they are insanely regressive in the US.  We have a very interconnected system where our current infrastructure mans that if you can't afford the price of an electric vehicle (which is high compared to ICE vehicles) you are stuck, and because fuel costs more it will be even more difficult to save for an electric.

Regarding the part about "bringing down the cost of those vehicles" - we are well beyond the point in history where technological advancements are going to result in lower prices for vehicles.  Due to the massive barriers to entry to vehicle development, vehicle prices are just going to increase, not decrease.  We're also going to likely end up with a new three-letter agency (or new authority for the NTSB or something) to deal with autonomous vehicles; those vehicles are going to start costing the same as light aircraft at best. We're going to be forced to ride-share; the majority of the public is not going to be able to afford private ownership of autonomous vehicles.

So we can't just hike gasoline taxes - we need to start restructuring the entire system.  It's this lack of systems thinking that bugs me most about politics... the interactions between various "solutions" often have massive emergent results of questionable merit.

(Sluissa - for some reason I have this image now of you with uncontrollably shaking hands, preventing you from running for office... :D )

I agree that we won't see vehicles as a whole fall under what current ICE vehicles are going for. But your middle and lower class people who want a car don't typically go out looking for a new car. They're looking at the used market. If you inject a bunch of new EV cars into the market, even at prices the average person might not be willing to pay, in 3-5 years you're going to have a nice market of less expensive used vehicles, as well as a nice, developed set of mechanics who can repair those vehicles for less than the dealers ask. You can see examples even today. I can go out and get a decent condition used Nissan Leaf for under $10k. Even if you factor in a $3-8k battery replacement, that's still well below the $30-40k they're asking for them new. Increase that market and you'll just see more variety with some examples in worse condition pushed even lower.

Now am I expecting to see $500-$1000 beater EVs for sale by owner on the side of the road any time soon? Probably not. Eventually, maybe, but far enough out that it will leave some people in a bind because that's what some people depend on. The ability to go get a cheap car and drive it into the ground and then go get another one. I'm well aware that some people simply can't save up for much more than that. But I'm also not suggesting an overnight gas tax increase of any substantial amount either. Maybe 1% a year to start with. I would say adjust it depending on how the market handles it, but government isn't good about responding that quickly. You need set those numbers at the beginning, make them big enough to make a difference, but small enough that people aren't tempted to just rip the whole thing apart. Ease people into it. It's much easier to accept that things will be a little more expensive next year than they were last year. For most things that's just natural. It's weird that we've had gasoline fluctuate so much over the last couple of decades.

404
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 01, 2019, 11:21:29 am »
I'll pass on that one. I can't even say the pledge of allegiance without feeling sick. Not sure I could get through the oath of office without vomiting all over whoever gets the duty of swearing me in. Also I hate babies and shaking hands. I basically can't run a campaign without those.

405
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: July 01, 2019, 10:28:02 am »
Quote from: McTraveller on July 01, 2019, 09:10:16 am
Bunch of US states' gas tax increases take effect this month.  Good for hydrocarbon use, perhaps, but how the heck are we going to fund roads when we accelerate the reduction in fuel use?

I'm not a fan of odometer monitoring equipment, nor am I fan of a tax that will inevitably added to electricity in general.

Fun.

Good. We should have raised taxes back when the price started falling back down from $4+ a gallon. People had gotten used to that. Wouldn't have hurt that bad to just hold it steady there.

I do agree though, the road taxes should be spread out better among everyone rather than just the ones that use fuel heavily. Everyone uses the roads, either directly or indirectly, not just the people who drive. But a tax on fuel use is still good to help keep its use down. Consider it less an infrastructure tax and more a sin tax akin to alcohol or tobacco. Funnel that money into infrastructure improvement and technology advancement for the eventual transition to more alternative fuel/electric vehicles. Slowly increase the tax and as those vehicles become a viable option for most of the population, you subsidize them in a big short term push for a switch over from gas to electric/whatever. That'll lose you a lot of that tax revenue, but it'll also mean a large economy of electric car sales/resale/repair/maintenance has to spring up as well, which will lower the costs of those vehicles in the long term.

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