i mean, if we look at a 1 year time scale of anything we can say there’s a trend in any direction we want. that’s why i’m looking at the trend starting from 2000s.

both can be true at once. they’re increasing use of fossil fuels as well as solar and wind. here is a chart of their emissions. they’re trying to transition away with it with some success and some challenges, but painting a picture like they are environmentally friendly is inaccurate.

fair but if china is buying it at such a rate they are not shifting to clean energy. i don’t think the supplier matters as much as the demand. and if 34% of emissions in the US are down but our energy usage hasn’t gone down then that 34% is still the US producing less emissions either because there’s less necessity or demand for it.

i mean, china produces more global emissions than the US totally. they produce less per capita but still. their percentage increase in global emissions since 2000 has been +223% while the US is down 34% in terms of emissions since 2000. subsidizing green energy would be good though.

i mean, if that’s the case it sounds like a valid security concern. it doesn’t make sense for the US to put themselves at a disadvantage in a potential war. but why would australia not also ban BYD considering they’re a US ally? don’t they also provide china more manufacturing that can be used in war?

just google things that have dropped in price. there’s been a few

my preference 🤩

you haven’t really address that the US is already dominated by foreign brands though so it doesn’t make sense to exclude china specifically unless there are other reasons beyond just keeping the US companies dominant. TryingToBeGood cited security concerns which i think is probably the more likely reason.

capitalism has had some examples of lowering costs in many sectors but also had increasing costs in other sectors. it isn’t always an increase though.

basically they’re going to try to maximize profit so they’re going to do a business calculation. if there is a segment of the population, (lets say 30% of people for example) don’t order an uber or food delivery because of the costs, and they can cut their costs by 40% per delivery by making cars self driving, they might lower costs for food delivery by $9 to get that 30% of people that are too price sensitive to use their service to become customers. i for one am one of those people that almost NEVER orders food delivery or ubers solely because of the cost. but if it went from $22 to $13 i might consider it. that’s just an example and im making up numbers to demonstrate the point. there’s always a business calculation when it comes to whether they lower costs or not. sometimes lower cost increases profit. when businesses make a new product or service usually when it’s new that service is really expensive, and their main goal is cutting the cost so they can sell to the average consumer and have a huge market share rather than just selling to an elite few.

walkabout cities dont really work with big outer neighborhoods and suburbs with single family homes on large plots of land, and those necessitate cars. personally i like living in the suburbs. that being said, if enough people want walkable cities they can build them. i personally prefer 15 minute drives more than 15 minute walks tho, lol.

Does this have to do with safety regulations or something? Like what is the reasoning behind it? Because I heard these Chinese cars dont have good safety regulations

how would you shift suburbs into walkabout cities and neighborhoods? personally i live in a suburb and i like it. but assuming they do suck, how would you transition already created suburbs into a walkable city? personally i think having the option to live in a suburb and being able to own your own car or in the future rent a self driving car would be preferred to having to live in a city.

true.

i agree it’s a valid concern. but i don’t think the solution to not getting a reduction in work hours is to halt technological progress. i personally like andrew yangs idea. instead of halting progress we put a tax on the robots that replace our jobs and use the money generated to give back to the people. andrew yang supported a universal basic income program. there’s a couple routes we can go. one is to halt the technological progress and keep the jobs that are currently here. that is status quo and personally it’s not the worse outcome, but it’s also not the best outcome. i’d rate it average, just staying where we are. (average scenario)

there’s option number 2. we allow the technological progress but don’t put any new taxes or regulations in place to let the new technological progress benefit the people. people lose their jobs and are not subsidized after losing their jobs and end up jobless, with no money, worse off than they were, while the rich tech people take even more profit than they’ve ever made before. goods will be produced at a much cheaper and more rapid rate, but less people will be able to afford their or basic living on their own. goods might also become cheaper because of the increase in supply and the lower cost of goods, but it doesn’t make up for the amount of money or meaning lost in people’s lives where they’re jobless and have no source of income. (worst case scenario)

and then there’s option 3, we allow the technological progress, but we regulate it and put taxes on the companies and corporations that profit from the new automation and machines. the money goes to the corporations partially, but a large chunk of it also goes to the people. in this scenario goods are produced cheaper, people that lose their jobs don’t lose as much value because they still get compensated through the taxing and spreading of wealth, and jobs that are repetitive and menial end up getting done by robots while more meaningful jobs that robots can’t do continue to be done by humans. (best case scenario)

personally i like option 3. i’d love to see self driving cars replace ubers, truck drivers, etc. i’d love to see fast food workers replaced by machines. all those shitty jobs that pay shit anyway and nobody wants to do get replaced by robots, and the people that lose those jobs still get compensated so they have a salary to live on.

what we’ve been doing is option 2, which is probably the worst case scenario. we need to move to option 3. more productivity is always good, we just need to spread the gains of our productivity to the people. you should look up andrew yang if you want to know more about this type of solution. the fact is though it’s not going to come by just trusting to corporations to tax themselves and spread their gains amongst the people, we need to elect someone that will enforce it. just like nobody would pay taxes in general if they didn’t have to.

we have public transit in the US, just not in low density suburban areas. because you can’t walk to a bus stop in the suburbs. it’s too far. you can’t just “invest” in that, at least not in an economically feasible way either. also there’s just annoyances, like a train can’t park in a parking lot. there’s a lot more walking to do. if public transit were this magical solution we would’ve already done it.

i agree with you they would try to profit more, (they’re a business so of course). but i think lowering operational costs allows them to lower their prices too, while also profiting more. we need a good way to ensure monopolies don’t just all agree to set a standard price and not compete with each other, i haven’t thought of one yet except outright monopoly busting. but i do think in general lowering costs to create goods allows goods to be cheaper especially when they’re facing and trying to undercut other competitors/competition.

it’d be more than thousands of people. but the thing is, when productivity is increased and more wealth is generated and people aren’t needed to do certain jobs anymore we have more free time or time to focus on stuff that we like or stuff that’s more productive like other work, that’s a good thing. the problem is when that excess wealth is generated it only going in the hands of the few. i would say it would be a good idea to tax the robots that start replacing jobs so that the wealth is spread amongst the people that lost their jobs and not just into the hands of the wealthy few. andrew yang talked about this a lot back in 2020 and a lot of what he predicted came true. he proposed a universal basic income to help redistribute wealth.

i think people should still be allowed to own their own cars, but getting rid of the need to own cars with cheap self driving transportation as an option sounds good to me. more options is always better. not everyone can afford to own their own car either. and if it also reduces deaths because self driving cars are better at driving it will also be a public service.

basically not having to pay delivery drivers, the work itself is cheaper, so they can lower costs. a lot of times high costs is due to operational costs which includes employees and if operational costs are brought down prices on things like doordash would go down too.