You’re right, 50k is the same as 30k, a 5ft tall hood is the same as 2.5ft, 40 mpg is the same as 20 mpg, and getting hit by a pickup is the same as a crosstrek. Look I ride a cargo bike most of the time and am very much fuckcars, but pretending like every since vehicle that isn’t a sedan is equally dangerous and polluting isn’t helpful.

So you’re saying that millions of fragile men are bullied into buying full size trucks and they have no agency whatsoever into their purchase? This is no different than exposing your kids to second hands smoke because you are afraid if you don’t smoke you won’t look cool. I seriously don’t understand why we’re making excuses and coddling these weak egos instead of actually supporting the victims of the violence these people inflict on other road users. I’m more than happy to criticize the regulatory bodies and the manufacturers for failing society as well, but that doesn’t mean the purchasers that make this all possible are innocent. It’s a rotten subculture that needs to be called out at all levels.

There’s a world of difference in pedestrian safety between a RAV4 and a Suburban or F150. Just because they call an e.g. CX30 a crossover doesn’t mean it’s as dangerous as a full size pickup truck. Your affordability argument doesn’t even make any sense - smaller vehicles are cheaper than larger vehicles. If affordability is such an issue why don’t we see more crosstreks? The mental gymnastics to avoid blaming a bunch of fragile dudes for buying ridiculously pickup trucks is absurd.

Americans don’t have the choice not to buy gigantic pickup trucks and SUVs? Gimme a break. I have never bought one, it’s not some kind of one weird trick thing, you just literally don’t fucking buy them and buy something smaller and cheaper instead.

Exactly. What I don’t understand is how everyone knows this, but somehow the stock is still high. Somehow Elon is singlehandedly keeping the stock up while doing literally nothing to help the company, make it make sense.

Well lucky for us they have the R2/R3(X) in the pipeline. Can’t come soon enough though, 2026 for the R2 seems like a lifetime away.

I think you’re conflating two different things. There are a variety of social factors that affect age cohorts differently, and a lot of that comes down to the experience during formative years. We are a product of our environment in many ways, and it’s not nonsense to study and opine on these shared experiences and how they shape us. Class solidarity is an entirely different subject. You likely do have more in common with your social class across generations, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything in common with wealthy millennials. I wouldn’t let lazy journalism own the concept of generations itself.

Their intention is to protest how we are ignoring climate change, you know, the civilization ending catastrophe. There are road delays all the time, for construction, crashes, event traffic, weather, floods, electricity outages, etc. Do you get this upset for every one of those events?

I’d argue “share the road” includes uses such as protests, marches, bike races, whatever. It’s a public good, you don’t have the final say on “approved” uses. Traffic in my town is insane on game day, do I get to jail the sports teams organizers for the disruption for 5 years? Someone probably shat their pants due to the delay, where is their justice?! Boggles the mind that a trivial delay causes this much outrage. Car brain is a hell of a thing.

Why is the road so sacred? Aren’t there multiple roads all going to the same places?

UCI takes a classic approach to racing so that the bikes don’t become the story, and that’s ok. Recumbents are weird, and nobody is stopping you or anyone else from creating a recumbent league. There has already been a gravel UCI WC since 2022 as well. Disc brakes weren’t universally praised immediately either - it took years for the pieces the fall into place, like carbon rims, wider tires, through axles, etc. and now everyone uses them. I really fail to see the harm here over “slow” adoption. You can’t please everyone.

You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.

As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.

Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.

Some of us also are against massive overuse of glyphosate.

They said it was orange corn flour all along, and they have a history of not actually damaging anything but using the appearance of “damage” to make a point. Corn flour is a very simple, inert substance. You’re actually demonstrating the hypocrisy that this group is trying to highlight - more concern over something like corn flour damaging these rocks than the damage done by millions of barrels of crude oil extracted every day. Where’s your outrage over acid/micro plastic in rain that falls on these stone every week? There will be new species of moss that grow on these rocks, or pollen that blows on them from invasive species, possibly damaging them as the climate heats up - are you worried about that? Why can folks summon outrage over something inert that touched a famous rock, but not for destruction of the actual biosphere? If Stonehenge is that fragile, why are people allowed anywhere near it? You’re more than welcome to disagree with them, but if you spend more energy complaining about Just Stop Oil than you do complaining about actual oil companies, you’re actually just supporting the oil companies.

https://professortorberts.com/shop/

If you’d been paying attention, you’d know it wasn’t permanent from the get go.

That’s just the reality of allowing presidents to serve two terms though. There’s an incumbent advantage, so to forgo that for the sake of choice every 4 years for both parties vs 4-8 years for both parties is a tradeoff. It’s just part of the reality of the framework.

I disagree, a vote for Biden is a vote for his whole apparatus - appointments, advisors, the people at EPA trying to regulate PFAS and carbon, etc. I’m happy to support the majority of this coalition because they are doing some good stuff. I don’t understand the need to try and paint Biden voters exclusively as anti-Trumpers, it just serves to gloss over the good that is going on.

Yes. Use stainless steel, cast iron, and carbon steel. You can cook everything with these just as easily once you learn some basic cooking skills.

You seem to supporting the concept though. More people didn’t keep voting left, they voted center/left which sounds like has been moving right, so things stayed the same/went right. Who you vote for matters too - we have multiple opportunities to vote between “dems”. To me OPs comment is a simple truism - we can’t move left by not electing leftist individuals (and parties by extension). Any other strategy is some pie in the sky game theory.

What does a Roth vs 401k have to do with any of this? I buy index funds in both accounts, nothing to do with company stock programs whatsoever.