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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29605 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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It's only hard to avoid feeling that way if you are in a filter bubble that is pushing those narratives and subconsciously motivated to accept them.

Most people feel fine about those things, if they ever think about them at all. Or, more to the point, picking a few narrow interests where there have been some new regulations is a form of cherrypicking; it says little about the state of the world overall, you could find similar contemporary examples at any point in history.

If by "filter bubble" you mean "enjoyer of things some government flak wants to ban/fuck up" and by "subconsciously motivated" you mean "doesn't want things he enjoys banned/fucked up" then sure, I guess -- the point of the comment is that this tendency is spreading from niche issues (vaping lets say) to things that are less so (guns) and now seems to be at things that are decidedly non-niche. (cars, fucking up the economy)

it says little about the state of the world overall, you could find similar contemporary examples at any point in history.

Like, uh -- Prohibition, I guess? That went well.

I'm struggling to find a historical example similar to 'let's ban IC cars in five years' -- what did you have in mind?

Internal combustion cars are not going to be banned in five years. I don't where you're getting that from.

But think about McCarthyism or the Comics Code Authority, warning labels on music and stores refusing to stock albums after government investigations, etc. The government is always having a panic and going after something or other.

The point being that now they are panicing about many things at once -- which feels like walls closing in.

(Seems as though many governments are waver somewhat on their timelines, but 2030 was originally a popular date for banning sales of IC vehicles; looks like 2035 is the new 'real soon now', which is still absolutely insane and will be very unpopular to the extent that it's actually implemented. You think some Hollywood people being investigated for communism is equivalent to Greater London enforcing crippling taxes on vehicles they don't like?)

Ok, so by 'IC cars will be banned in 5 years' you meant 'several environmental agencies have suggested phasing out new sales of IC cars to consumers within the next 12 years'.

That is indeed much closer to what I expected, and pretty much demonstrates my point about filter bubbles distorting your perception of the world.

It is interesting that discovering this huge gap between what you thought was happening, and what is actually happening, does not seem to have changed your position or argument at all. I propose that it should have, and I would be interested to hear your thought process on how you reacted to learning this.

Anyway, if we're moving from 'actual laws on the book' to 'proposals by agencies for things they think we should do a decade from now', then yes, we've always had lots of crazy shit like that, and we can't remember most of it because most of it never actually happens.

No, I mean governments have committed to this and informed auto manufacturers that it will be the case. Read the fucking link man.

The UK originally said 2030; they've since slid it back to 2035 -- it's still uncomfortably close.

I'd add that numerous automakers have committed to going all electric between 2025-2035, including many announcing that they have no intention of developing any additional IC vehicles. Many cars on sale today have been labeled by their makers the last IC generation of cars.

Given the typical development window of an all new car lasts from 3-10 years, even if the industry were to reduce or reverse course there would still be a significant gap in development that would need to be filled. The EVs are being designed the factories are being retooled. While it might still be easy to buy an IC car today, suddenly it won't be in the not very far off future.

https://www.gearpatrol.com/cars/g38986745/car-brands-going-electric/

No, I think that Hollywood people being investigated by the US Congress for their political beliefs and losing their jobs is worse than London taxing vehicles that are harmful to the both the local and global environments.

OK, and the Holodomor was worse than the Armenian genocide -- the Armenians were still correct to be concerned.

This is a bit of an unfair retort - you're the one who asked him to make the comparison.

I don't really agree with him on that, in terms of number of people impacted -- but even accepting that framing, more than one thing can be bad at the same time! That's kind of my whole point, which he's been trying to minimize without really bringing any comparable examples to the table in terms of broadness of impact. (while simultaneously arguing that these concerns are niche -- I'm pretty sure 'drivers of IC vehicles' or even 'vapers' is a larger class than 'Hollywood Communists' ever was)

Of course more than one thing can be bad at the same time. But you're the guy coming along and asking him to compare two things.

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The London system exempts almost every vehicle made after 2006. That’s hardly crippling, almost nobody will pay.

If almost nobody will pay, then why waste all the money putting up cameras and whatnot?

Obviously they think they stand to make a profit on the enterprise, or they wouldn't.

That is not necessarily my impression of how the British government works.

That's silly. A trespassing fine will virtually never cover the cost of prosecuting the offence - but the point is not to turn a profit, it's to deter trespassing. Governments don't need to worry about turning a profit from law enforcement, they can just reach into your pocket and take what they want even when you've done nothing wrong.

The point is to boil the frog. They can't impose their climate goals all at once, that would piss off too many people. So they just slice off the oldest cars. Then they come back for the next oldest. And it ratchets up and up until we're magically living in the electric car utopia.

The London system exempts almost every vehicle made after 2006

The average vehicle age is 9 years (making the average vehicle on the road there a 2014 model), so the people who are still driving cars made in 2006 and earlier are also obviously poorer than average, since the 200,000+ km cars that are 20 years old are currently the only thing they can even afford (not that the shutdowns over the last 2 weeks weren't hardest on the poor to begin with, through the combination of banning the businesses they work at and directly causing consumer good prices to inflate through various means).

So it's a highly regressive tax by design, levied specifically against the people who can't pay it, for the explicit purpose of taxing their private transport away (and heavily enshittifying what they even can afford in the first place).

After all, nobody needs a high-capacity assault vehicle that can travel over 500km and recharges in 5 minutes. God forbid anyone ever want to spend the extra cash not to have to wait the extra time it takes for transit to get them anywhere, that's a privilege only environmentalists and bureaucrats should be able to afford.

For now it does -- do you think that this will be a static thing?

Already a fair number of people feel strongly enough about it to go after the cameras -- so some people are expecting to pay I guess? Both of my vehicles are pre-2006, and I'm making 6 figures -- are there no working poors in the LMA?

It's supposed to incentivise you changing your vehicles, so that the air becomes less horrible. I can understand poorer people being annoyed about ULEZ, but you can obviously afford to change your cars, so what are you actually upset about? I mean, would you say it's that you're concerned for the livelihoods of poorer vehicle users? Or is it a principle of liberty thing?

I am concerned about the governments of the world feeling that it is right and/or necessary to micromanage the activities of their citizens based on whatever hobbyhorse of the day is picked up by their mobs of faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats. Is the air in central london particularly bad? Are older cars actually causing this? Will the system have rolling standards eventually ratcheted up to include ICE vehicles in general?

I can understand poorer people being annoyed about ULEZ, but you can obviously afford to change your cars, so what are you actually upset about? I mean, would you say it's that you're concerned for the livelihoods of poorer vehicle users? Or is it a principle of liberty thing?

All of the above?

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