|
Firearms are quite profitable but I agree that the biggest part of their sticking power is their cultural import, and more importantly that someone who is seriously into firearms is also very likely to be - in this country at least - amenable to a lot more brand and consumption identifiers that are far more profitable. If someone buys a sticker to announce they have an AR-15 there's also a big truck it needs to go on, and the 60oz porterhouse on a $500 grill to be cooked to celebrate own the libs with. To say nothing about the manly manly supplements with margins in the thousands of percent. Firearms are unfortunately built to last by necessity in an economy that has moved beyond that sort of thing.Cranappleberry posted:The widespread propagation of EVs requires a stronger stronger populace. The need for expansive public gyms with free memberships/access for those in the community similar to libraries has never been greater. Austromarxism with Leninist Characteristics
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 16:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 13:36 |
|
|
I think there is also an inertial factor. Our society and government csnt solve problems that don't directly impact capital, because it isn't designed to and because of institutionalndecay, regulatory capture, etc. Said another way, congress could pass a law, but they won't, not just because guns are a hotbutton topic but also because our system defaults to inaction generally and guns are one of the many areas they are inactive about. If there were a banking crisis or something action would happen fast, but gun violence doesn't systematically harm capital, so our government is designed to not do anything about it. The gun lobby therefore seems a lot stronger than it actually is, because it wins by default and those victories make it look powerful.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 17:56
|
|
|
It also just is the case that it’s pretty hard to convince people that the constitution doesn’t protect gun rights, and that it’s extremely hard to change the constitution.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 17:59
|
|
|
Feels like it's really just a question of numbers at this point. How many kids are going to have to get Mozambiqued before either, the Rightwing gun lovers cave to the pressure in a significant enough way that actual effective gun control measures are passed OR everyone else, who doesn't prioritize gun accessibility over human lives, decides that "from my cold dead hands" sounds like a pretty good deal.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 18:23
|
|
|
Enough that a large majority of Americans have been directly, personally affected by gun violence, which is a lot of casualties
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 18:27
|
|
|
haveblue posted:Enough that a large majority of Americans have been directly, personally affected by gun violence, which is a lot of casualties I mean, is that even feasible when there are people directly affected by gun violence who don't have a commensurate revelation, and end up still championing gun rights even after those experiences? There's one Parkland dad who is still a gun nut, even after losing a kid. Hell, Steve Scalise got his balls shot off and he still came back to vote pro-gun. Seems like the cultural aspect is just too firmly ingrained in some portion of the population that even losing loved ones or limbs to gun violence isn't enough to turn them away, and I don't know how you get around those people at this point.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 18:47
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Re: Hotswapping EV batteries. There was a company in Israel that pioneered this over a decade ago and eventually BK’d. Better Place was a venture-backed international company that developed and sold battery charging and battery switching services for electric cars. It was formally based in Palo Alto, California, but the bulk of its planning and operations were steered from Israel, where both its founder Shai Agassi and its chief investors resided. The company opened its first functional charging station the first week of December 2008 at Cinema City in Pi-Glilot near Tel Aviv, Israel.[1] The first customer deliveries of Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars enabled with battery switching technology began in Israel in the second quarter of 2012,[2] and at peak in mid September 2012, there were 21 operational battery-swap stations open to the public in Israel.[3] Better Place filed for bankruptcy in Israel in May 2013. The company's financial difficulties were caused by mismanagement, wasteful efforts to establish toeholds and run pilots in too many countries, the high investment required to develop the charging and swapping infrastructure, and a market penetration far lower than originally predicted by Shai Agassi.[4] Fewer than 1,000 Fluence Z.E. cars were deployed in Israel and around 400 units in Denmark, after spending about US$850 million in private capital.[4][5][6][7] After two failed post-bankruptcy acquisition attempts,[8][9][10] the bankruptcy receivers sold off the remaining assets in November 2013 to Gnrgy for only $450,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 18:52
|
|
|
Class3KillStorm posted:I mean, is that even feasible when there are people directly affected by gun violence who don't have a commensurate revelation, and end up still championing gun rights even after those experiences? There's one Parkland dad who is still a gun nut, even after losing a kid. Hell, Steve Scalise got his balls shot off and he still came back to vote pro-gun. Sure there are going to be some. Parkland dad guy can't admit to himself that his beliefs on gun control might have partially contributed to his kid's death, so he doubles down. Scalise remains as well paid as before to vote the way he does, if not more so. His livelihood somewhat depends on his position staying the same (as he may lose his seat if he doesn't) and so his position stays the same. So sure, some people won't but enough would change their minds, I think. It would just be horrific in terms of casualties.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:21
|
|
|
Jaxyon posted:It's 3 feet off the ground. Tell me you've never been to Chicago in the winter without telling me you've never been to Chicago in the winter. (Or Detroit, or Buffalo, or Minneapolis, or...) Oracle fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Sep 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:23
|
|
|
Oracle posted:Tell me you've never been to Chicago in the winter without telling me you've never been to Chicago in the winter. (Or Detroit, or Buffalo, or Minneapolis, or...) Melrose, MA has installed similar ones that are 10 feet off the ground: https://patch.com/massachusetts/melrose/melrose-breaks-new-ground-looking-elevated-ev-chargers
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:37
|
|
|
-Blackadder- posted:Feels like it's really just a question of numbers at this point. Fixed that for you. Legislation on guns won’t change until Dems drop decorum / discontinue support of fascists and disband/pack the Supreme Court* and/or capitalists determine guns are bad. Unfortunately since gun violence typically impacts lower/middle class, poo poo won’t change. *No, disbanding or packing the Supreme Court is NOT an act of fascism if the court already made up of fascist ignoring the will of the people. If you still want to make the argument against disbanding/packing the courts because it would be doing a fascism, please refer to the “we should improve society somewhat” political cartoon and asking yourself if Paul von Hindenburg should have jailed Hitler when he had the chance even if he wasn’t legally at the time able to do so as a counter argument running on a loop. This will save everyone a lot of time. Thank you and have a blessed day. virtualboyCOLOR fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Sep 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:41
|
|
|
Riptor posted:Melrose, MA has installed similar ones that are 10 feet off the ground: Ten feet might work but Boston has had higher snow piled up than that in just the past decade. The problem isn't just how much snow falls total, its where you put it when you plow the streets and shovel the walks. That's usually in the medians and the area between the sidewalk and the street, which is where these chargers would also be located. 2015 saw 15 foot high piles of snow along streets. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:48
|
|
|
-Blackadder- posted:Feels like it's really just a question of numbers at this point. If that was going to happen, it probably would have by now. Even after poo poo like Parkland and Uvalde, gun culture types still care a lot more about expanding gun rights than everyone else cares about diminishing them. And no amount of mass shootings will convince gun culture types, because it's very easy to rationalize gun violence as being caused by something besides guns.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:53
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:If that was going to happen, it probably would have by now. Even after poo poo like Parkland and Uvalde, gun culture types still care a lot more about expanding gun rights than everyone else cares about diminishing them. And no amount of mass shootings will convince gun culture types, because it's very easy to rationalize gun violence as being caused by something besides guns. Sandy Hook taught us no amount of children, no matter the color or socioeconomic status, would be too many for gun-huggers to relinquish their arms.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 19:55
|
|
|
Oracle posted:Tell me you've never been to Chicago in the winter without telling me you've never been to Chicago in the winter. (Or Detroit, or Buffalo, or Minneapolis, or...) I've been to all those places and lived there. 3 Feet isn't the continuous state of snow in any of them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:04
|
|
|
Given the way the climate is going, I don't think you'll need to worry about EV stations being buried by snow for very much longer
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:18
|
|
|
plainswalker75 posted:Given the way the climate is going, I don't think you'll need to worry about EV stations being buried by snow for very much longer It's true there are places that will get less snow because of climate change, but some places are expected to get more. In particular, some places are expected to get more heavy snowstorms that produce a lot of snow in a short period of time, thanks to warmer air's ability to hold more water.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:25
|
|
|
I was talking to my father the other night and one of the things we talked about was the language surrounding climate change being a factor in its political dismissal. We talk about the "worst impacts of climate change" and give dates some ways off in the future; but meanwhile the effects of climate change are happening now, around us, and we can see how people respond to and talk about it. In some ways the rhetoric would be easier if there were a singular catastrophic shift but I think what we're seeing and will continue to see are isolated catastrophes of a non-final nature. I think it's time to discuss climate change as if it were already here because, yeah. Talk about not prevention, but mitigation, because it's already happening.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:30
|
|
|
Here's a pretty interesting interview with a guy from New York Magazine who just put out a book on Obama and Biden's rocky relationship from 2015 to 2020. According to him, Obama tried to stop Biden from running for President in 2016 and 2020, but only succeeded in 2016. He thought Hillary was a stronger candidate in 2016 and thought Biden was too old in 2020. Biden was apparently telling everyone that Clinton was going to lose and got his rear end reamed when he said in a CNN interview that Clinton had some weaknesses and one of them is that she is not authentic like Bernie Sanders. Some other interesting tidbits about the struggles they had politically, even though they liked each other personally. The most interesting ones are: - Biden had a really complicated plan to divide Iraq up into 3 regions, have the central government distribute oil revenue to all 3 regions, and the Shia/Sunni/Kurds essentially all run their own states and the U.S. could withdraw ASAP. He also wanted to leave Afghanistan in 2010. But, everyone thought his Iraq plan was absolutely crazy and unworkable. Plus, giving the kurds an effective state would piss off Turkey. And Afghanistan was "going well," so they needed to finish the job. - Biden was not happy about being boxed out of running for President by the party establishment in 2016 and spent most of his Vice-Presidency remaking his image to appeal to Obama's coalition with the plan of running in 2016. - Biden was against pursuing Obamacare at the start of Obama's presidency because he felt it wasn't considered "the economy" and they needed to be doing/messaging 100% on "the economy." - Obama truly believed he had the possibility for bipartisan compromise with the Republicans until around 2014. Then, he thought the earth was salted and gave up on talking to them at all. Biden was the opposite and argued that Obama shouldn't get too bogged down in talking to Republicans over healthcare reform, but thought that Obama was missing opportunities in 2015 and 2016 to get bipartisan wins on immigration and other issues by not talking and truly believed that there was a chance for success. - Harry Reid did not like Biden and didn't like the idea (that Biden promoted) that Biden was Obama's "Senate Whisperer" to get things moving in the Senate. There's lots of other interesting tidbits in the book excerpt (link at the bottom), but the excerpt is VERY long, so can't copy all of it. quote:Gabriel Debenedetti, national correspondent for New York magazine, whose new book comes out Tuesday. It’s called The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and it’s about their two-decade relationship — far more complex than the bromance of political narrative — that has shaped American politics in the 21st century. quote:Back at the start of his presidency, Obama sought to enact the most dramatic reform of the American health-care system in history, and he overruled the advisers who told him that he was being unrealistic about the political window — none of them resisting so loudly as Biden. Universal access to medical insurance was a priority for the left, but the vice-president argued that voters would give Obama “a pass on this one” if he focused on the economy, which was still teetering on the brink of ruin in early 2009. quote:Obama didn’t know that he was about to embark on a five-month slide that would turn his hope into the purest cynicism anyone had ever seen from him. Obama usually hid his anger or expressed it in sarcasm, but after the Sandy Hook massacre that December, and the failure to pass gun-control legislation the following April, he seethed. If the murder of 20 little kids wasn’t going to jar GOP lawmakers into cooperation, they were never going to get serious and work with him on anything, were they? No, he concluded. Nothing had changed. The full audio interview is about 50 minutes long and mostly just going over what is in the book. It's at the link below. https://www.joshbarro.com/p/why-barack-obama-and-the-democrats#details Longer excerpt from the book here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/gabriel-benedetti-the-long-alliance-book-excerpt.html
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:32
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:I think it's time to discuss climate change as if it were already here because, yeah. Talk about not prevention, but mitigation, because it's already happening. This is a very very good point.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:36
|
|
|
I don't think it should be taken for granted that Biden would have defeated Trump in 2016 as asserted here, nor should it be taken for granted that Biden's political instincts are so much better.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:39
|
|
|
Sodomy Hussein posted:I don't think it should be taken for granted that Biden would have defeated Trump in 2016 as asserted here, nor should it be taken for granted that Biden's political instincts are so much better. I agree on the first part. That is the author editorializing. But, everyone else's political instincts were so bad and off when it came to Hillary Clinton that being one of the people saying "I think she has a problem and could possibly even lose." puts your political instincts in another tier because the curve is set so low.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:41
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I agree on the first part. That is the author editorializing.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:45
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Ok I actually like Biden now knowing that he correctly thought Hillary would lose and that Bernie was the good one Biden is a land of contrasts.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:52
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Ok I actually like Biden now knowing that he correctly thought Hillary would lose and that Bernie was the good one Biden in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM3MgDTLqec
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:54
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Ok I actually like Biden now knowing that he correctly thought Hillary would lose and that Bernie was the good one He didn't even go that far. He basically said, "Bernie is trustworthy and real, but Hillary isn't (however, she has many other great qualities!) and that might prove a problem for her." Which turned out to be right, but got the political director upset that he said it on TV. The fact that Obama's own political director was: - Telling Biden to stop talking about it Hillary's trustworthiness problem because nobody cares about that. and - Arguing that Hillary could only lose in a low turnout election where the Republicans were energized, but that was never going to happen in 2016 because so many establishment Republicans were down on Trump, Hillary would be the first female President, and Obama won white working class voters, so they would be in the bag (and 2016 then turned out to be one of the lowest turnout modern elections, white women supported Trump, and white working class voters supported Trump). makes me wonder how Obama won by so much twice when he was running the political strategy. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Sep 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:54
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:He didn't even go that far. He basically said, "Bernie is trustworthy and real, but Hillary isn't (however, she has many other great qualities!) and that might prove a problem for her." Which turned out to be right, but got the political director upset that he said it on TV. As crazy as this sounds, Obama's opponents were weaker.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:Ok I actually like Biden now knowing that he correctly thought Hillary would lose and that Bernie was the good one Biden's Voting Record (FIlter for biden and go session by session) is uncannily right in the middle of the democratic field. Like, 45-55th percentile. For decades. Dude has polling guiding him and not much else, and he is very very good at triangulating his votes to follow the general consensus of the party.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
Sodomy Hussein posted:As crazy as this sounds, Obama's opponents were weaker. Obama had charism and got people excited about poo poo, even if it was all lies. Getting people pumped is the way to win elections, not to be slightly better than the alternative.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 20:59
|
|
|
Sodomy Hussein posted:As crazy as this sounds, Obama's opponents were weaker. Obama has his faults, but he's also an amazing campaigner and his natural charisma is off the charts. I'm sure he made a lot of political operatives look better than they are. It's like being a manager of a soccer team stacked with all stars.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 21:00
|
|
|
Also, Trump repeatedly managed to come out ahead in situations every single analyst thought would be the end of him. So... That guy had outliers on either side.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 21:22
|
|
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I agree on the first part. That is the author editorializing. I mean virtually every poster on this forum was saying Hillary vould lose at the time. We didn't think she would but we knew she could.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 21:37
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean virtually every poster on this forum was saying Hillary vould lose at the time. We didn't think she would but we knew she could.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 21:49
|
|
|
Sodomy Hussein posted:As crazy as this sounds, Obama's opponents were weaker. Right, the primary miscalculation of 2016 was assuming that Trump was a weak candidate. Everyone who laughed at him through the primaries, sure he would flame out, made that miscalculation. Everyone who figured Clinton had it in the bag for the general, because lol Trump, made that miscalculation. Even at the time it was obvious from the day he came down the escalator that he was the primary front runner, and as it went along that he tapped a vein of the Republican id and that other Republicans would fall in line once he was clearly on top. That made his victory possible (though not invevitable) with a lot of scary consequences if he did. The free media boosting actually helping him more than it hurt was obvious at the time too, if you really paid attention. I'm not gonna say I knew better. I figured Trump for a likely nominee from the start, but I was too optimistic about the general and figured it would be somewhat between a comfortable Clinton win and an uncomfortable Clinton win, especially with how the polling was. The loss caught me off guard. Anyone after the fact who said, or still says, "Haha, Clinton couldn't even beat Trump, how would she have done against a competent Republican?" falls for the same trap as the people who were sure he was going to lose beforehand, even if she genuinely had weaknesses her supporters overlooked. But far stupider, since they're willfully ignoring Trump's obvious strengths in hindsight just to get a dunk in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 22:06
|
|
|
Yeah I think Biden wins in 2016 because regardless of what we may think of her, misogyny and negative name recognition were extremely crippling to her chances. The margins were so razor thin in so many states, I don't think Trump gets quite as many people out to vote for him if there's no Hillary to vote against. Biden wouldn't have won by much IMO, but the negative name recognition alone was enough to get a lot of spite votes against Clinton. Those same people became Trump loyalists after the fact sure.
FLIPADELPHIA fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Sep 9, 2022 |
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 22:17
|
|
|
It could be said that the Anti-Hillary "Stay Home Don't Vote!" "pretend Bernie Bro's for TRUMP!!!" people and bots wouldn't have been as successful against Sleepy Joe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 22:26
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:I mean virtually every poster on this forum was saying Hillary vould lose at the time. We didn't think she would but we knew she could.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 22:46
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:I don't remember that. I think everyone thought it was going to be close but that she would narrowly win. There were a few people who thought Trump would win, but iirc they were mostly people with genuine anxiety disorders who periodically wandered into the thread begging to be talked off a ledge. They weren't taken terribly seriously, usually getting responses like "post your map."
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 22:56
|
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:I don't remember that. I think everyone thought it was going to be close but that she would narrowly win. there were people talking about how this could be the year texas was going blue. the people who thought it was even going to be close were a vanishingly tiny minority, because the polls would have to be incredibly wrong and universally in a way that favored trump. saying it was close would get you laughed out of the relevant threads and being told to post your map; saying that Trump was going to win was so laughable you had the last batch of committed conservative posters begging to be released from their trump toxxes because they didn't want to lose plat after the election. then it turned out that whoops! the polls were incredibly wrong, and universally in a way that favored trump, because the assumption "Hillary will get the same demographics of turnout Obama did" was terminally flawed, and the assumption "Trump will get the same demographics of turnout Romney did" was even more so.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 23:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 13:36 |
|
|
FlamingLiberal posted:I don't remember that. I think everyone thought it was going to be close but that she would narrowly win. It's easier to typo "vould" from "could" than "would", despite the v-similarity.
|
|
#
?
Sep 9, 2022 23:10
|
|
