Convenience über alles!...

[Ricky]

What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!

 

[Martin Brown]

On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:

What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of
entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly
poisoned.

Not true.

The Victorians also used lead piping for drinking water and were not
poisoned by doing that at all. Only the most acidic soft water off
peatlands will dissolve any lead from water pipes. Most ordinary tap
water has enough dissolved salts in it that the inside of the pipe furs
up within the first year of use and no lead then escapes. The very name
\"plumber\" comes from the usage of lead pipes until very recently.

The Romans were poisoned by using sugar of lead (aka lead acetate) as an
artificial sweetener. Sweet things were very rare in antiquity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener

Lots of other food adulteration was going on though since antiquity with
everything from brick dust to arsenic and white lead being used to bulk
up or colour foodstuffs. This was at its worst in the Victorian era.

200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and
suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without
regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now,
all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society
and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we
recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth
and waste.

Whilst things have improved a lot in the past half century I am not sure
that they will continue to do so. It is cheaper to ignore the problem.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic
auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the
planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in,
not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of
us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with
autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal
transportation convenience is a birthright!

Auto emissions are a part of the problem but aircraft and power plant
emissions are also major contributors to global CO2 rise.

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam
the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most
poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing
regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very
importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this
century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can
resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery
electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because
it is different, with different advantages and different
liabilities.

Mining the lithium for the batteries is a nasty business despoiling
various pristine habitats with little concern for the inhabitants. Out
of sight out of mind for those that want to pretend that there is no
downside to electric vehicles and growth of Lithium batteries. They also
end up with radioactive tailings in Peru (or uranium as a by-product).

https://www.mining-technology.com/analysis/cracking-lithium-triangle-will-new-legislation-open-gates-peru/

The main one from my point of view is severe lack of EV range even from
new, an absence of decent charging points outside of major cities and of
spare electricity in the UK with which to charge them. That charging hub
at York still isn\'t open! They are claiming just a few more days now.
(It is almost a year late, insanely over budget and cannot meet any of
its originally claimed pricing - you cannot buy electricity today at the
price that they were intending to sell it for)

https://yorkmix.com/yorks-electric-vehicle-charging-hub-set-to-open-nearly-a-year-late/

I\'ll let you know when/if it actually opens (and if it actually works).

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of
transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept
aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of
land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the
disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of
coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the
convenience of battery powered cars.

You have a strange imagination. Chances are if this technology had been
available back then only the very richest people would ever have had a
car. Until mass production petrol cars were rich men\'s expensive toys.

EVs have proved difficult to mass produce economically.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!

The next generation can pay for it. Politicians can\'t ever see any
further than the next election and often not even that far

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[server]

On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of
entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly
poisoned.

Not true.

The Victorians also used lead piping for drinking water and were not
poisoned by doing that at all. Only the most acidic soft water off
peatlands will dissolve any lead from water pipes. Most ordinary tap
water has enough dissolved salts in it that the inside of the pipe furs
up within the first year of use and no lead then escapes. The very name
\"plumber\" comes from the usage of lead pipes until very recently.

The Romans were poisoned by using sugar of lead (aka lead acetate) as an
artificial sweetener. Sweet things were very rare in antiquity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener

Lots of other food adulteration was going on though since antiquity with
everything from brick dust to arsenic and white lead being used to bulk
up or colour foodstuffs. This was at its worst in the Victorian era.

200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and
suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without
regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now,
all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society
and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we
recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth
and waste.

Whilst things have improved a lot in the past half century I am not sure
that they will continue to do so. It is cheaper to ignore the problem.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic
auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the
planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in,
not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of
us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with
autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal
transportation convenience is a birthright!

Auto emissions are a part of the problem but aircraft and power plant
emissions are also major contributors to global CO2 rise.

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam
the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most
poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing
regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very
importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this
century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can
resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery
electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because
it is different, with different advantages and different
liabilities.

Mining the lithium for the batteries is a nasty business despoiling
various pristine habitats with little concern for the inhabitants. Out
of sight out of mind for those that want to pretend that there is no
downside to electric vehicles and growth of Lithium batteries. They also
end up with radioactive tailings in Peru (or uranium as a by-product).

https://www.mining-technology.com/analysis/cracking-lithium-triangle-will-new-legislation-open-gates-peru/

The main one from my point of view is severe lack of EV range even from
new, an absence of decent charging points outside of major cities and of
spare electricity in the UK with which to charge them. That charging hub
at York still isn\'t open! They are claiming just a few more days now.
(It is almost a year late, insanely over budget and cannot meet any of
its originally claimed pricing - you cannot buy electricity today at the
price that they were intending to sell it for)

https://yorkmix.com/yorks-electric-vehicle-charging-hub-set-to-open-nearly-a-year-late/

I\'ll let you know when/if it actually opens (and if it actually works).

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of
transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept
aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of
land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the
disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of
coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the
convenience of battery powered cars.

You have a strange imagination. Chances are if this technology had been
available back then only the very richest people would ever have had a
car. Until mass production petrol cars were rich men\'s expensive toys.

EVs have proved difficult to mass produce economically.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!

The next generation can pay for it. Politicians can\'t ever see any
further than the next election and often not even that far

Lifespans, nutrition, crop yields, access to education and medical
care, human rights, practically anything you can name keeps getting
better. Oil and gas are major contributors to human well-being.

To appreciate how bad things were, read this:

https://tinyurl.com/563rtw9d



--

Anybody can count to one.

- Robert Widlar

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 2:12:54 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology..com wrote:

On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:

<snip>

Mining the lithium for the batteries is a nasty business despoiling
various pristine habitats with little concern for the inhabitants.

It can be be. It doesn\'t have to be.

> > Out of sight out of mind for those that want to pretend that there is no downside to electric vehicles and growth of Lithium batteries. They also end up with radioactive tailings in Peru (or uranium as a by-product).

They can. It is a matter of choice. The fact that uranium deposits were found nearby is a coincidence, and the choice about what to do with them is entirely independent.

https://www.mining-technology.com/analysis/cracking-lithium-triangle-will-new-legislation-open-gates-peru/

You have a strange imagination. Chances are if this technology had been
available back then only the very richest people would ever have had a
car. Until mass production petrol cars were rich men\'s expensive toys.

Battery cars were popular early on. There weren\'t many of them so they were just as expensive as petrol cars.

> >EVs have proved difficult to mass produce economically.

Twaddle.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!

The next generation can pay for it. Politicians can\'t ever see any
further than the next election and often not even that far

Lifespans, nutrition, crop yields, access to education and medical
care, human rights, practically anything you can name keeps getting
better. Oil and gas are major contributors to human well-being.

Oil and gas were major contributors to human well-being. Now that we\'ve burnt enough of them to generate appreciable global warming, the downsides are starting to become more obvious (not that John Larkin wants to know).

<snip - reversion to the Middle Ages isn\'t the only choice available>

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney (though in Nijmegen in the Netherlands at the moment).

 

[Rich S]

On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
Mining the lithium for the batteries is a nasty business despoiling
various pristine habitats with little concern for the inhabitants.
Out of sight out of mind for those that want to pretend that there is no downside to electric vehicles and growth of Lithium batteries. They also end up with radioactive tailings in Peru (or uranium as a by-product).
https://www.mining-technology.com/analysis/cracking-lithium-triangle-will-new-legislation-open-gates-peru/
You have a strange imagination. Chances are if this technology had been
available back then only the very richest people would ever have had a
car. Until mass production petrol cars were rich men\'s expensive toys.
EVs have proved difficult to mass produce economically.
Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!

Rick, your point about personal convenience reminded me of
the New Scientist article, \"33 reasons why we cant think clearly
about climate change\", and its theory of \"dragons of inaction\"
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730290-300-33-reasons-why-we-cant-think-clearly-about-climate-change/
(mostly behind a paywall)
Basically, we all tend to be subject to cognitive fallacies,
weak logic, short-term-time dominance. And (as many other articles have
explained) these weaknesses are exploited by political groups and big
business. We really need \"inoculation\" at a young age to be
critical thinkers. What schooling & parenting should be...
regards, rs

 

[bitrex]

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:

What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!

\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

For someone espousing some kind of green revolution you sure know how to
give lots of people who might otherwise be interested the big fuck you
from the window of ya luxury car..

 

[bitrex]

On 5/30/2022 9:13 PM, bitrex wrote:

\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor

In favor of the personal vehicle, rather

 

[Ricky]

On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 9:13:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"
Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

For someone espousing some kind of green revolution you sure know how to
give lots of people who might otherwise be interested the big fuck you
from the window of ya luxury car..

Well, how about a big \"fuck you\" here, instead? Is that what you think when you see someone driving a BEV, they are saying \"fuck you\"? What was I saying when I drove the same pickup truck for 20 years?

I don\'t really have a reason to say \"fuck you\" to you, personally. But I am happy to say \"fuck you\" to Google, who keeps making the usenet experience worse every time they change things. Not entirely unlike Tesla fixing things in the UI which aren\'t broken.

--

Rick C.

+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 1:09 AM, Ricky wrote:

On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 9:13:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"
Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

For someone espousing some kind of green revolution you sure know how to
give lots of people who might otherwise be interested the big fuck you
from the window of ya luxury car..

Well, how about a big \"fuck you\" here, instead? Is that what you think when you see someone driving a BEV, they are saying \"fuck you\"? What was I saying when I drove the same pickup truck for 20 years?

I don\'t really have a reason to say \"fuck you\" to you, personally. But I am happy to say \"fuck you\" to Google, who keeps making the usenet experience worse every time they change things. Not entirely unlike Tesla fixing things in the UI which aren\'t broken.

I think there should be a birthright to a lot of things in the so-called
\"Greatest Country\" in the world. Right to nutritious food to eat, a
place to live, affordable healthcare, an education, the right to not be
gunned down by some whack job while trying to get said education, the
list goes on.

And if transportation is required to get any of those other things then
yeah there should be a right to affordable transportation, also.

But, far from being the \"Greatest Country\" (more like a shithole
country) people will tell you its the greatest country while meanwhile
saying that as citizen of said greatest country you don\'t have a right
to shit. Might be funny, if it weren\'t so sad..

\"if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass,
we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation.\"

Who\'s \"we\"? If a gas-burner is what someone is currently using to
approximate their right-to-transportation such that they can afford it
what should they do differently. Buy a BEV they can\'t afford? You gonna
pay for it? Elon Musk gonna pay for it?

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

On 2022-05-31 01:05, Rich S wrote:
[...] We really need \"inoculation\" at a young age to be

critical thinkers. What schooling & parenting should be...
regards, rs

Disagree. Ideas drilled into you at a young age are
uncritically accepted as beliefs. Critical thinking
comes later. Weak logic and cognitive fallacies are
of all ages, but advanced education helps, even if
it\'s no panacea.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 30 May 2022 21:13:30 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

Bicycles, trains, steamboats, tractors, busses, cars, airplanes, and
electric unicycles just followed the trend.

Here we have more public transport infrastructure than ever and are
planning more. Some people do fine without cars.

There is no conspiracy to shape our transportation systems. Companies
and (sometimes) governments do what people want.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
\"Bunter\", he said, \"I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason\"

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 10:09:20 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:

On 5/31/2022 1:09 AM, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 9:13:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"
Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

For someone espousing some kind of green revolution you sure know how to
give lots of people who might otherwise be interested the big fuck you
from the window of ya luxury car..

Well, how about a big \"fuck you\" here, instead? Is that what you think when you see someone driving a BEV, they are saying \"fuck you\"? What was I saying when I drove the same pickup truck for 20 years?

I don\'t really have a reason to say \"fuck you\" to you, personally. But I am happy to say \"fuck you\" to Google, who keeps making the usenet experience worse every time they change things. Not entirely unlike Tesla fixing things in the UI which aren\'t broken.

I think there should be a birthright to a lot of things in the so-called
\"Greatest Country\" in the world. Right to nutritious food to eat, a
place to live, affordable healthcare, an education, the right to not be
gunned down by some whack job while trying to get said education, the
list goes on.

And if transportation is required to get any of those other things then
yeah there should be a right to affordable transportation, also.

But, far from being the \"Greatest Country\" (more like a shithole
country) people will tell you its the greatest country while meanwhile
saying that as citizen of said greatest country you don\'t have a right
to shit. Might be funny, if it weren\'t so sad..
\"if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass,
we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation.\"
Who\'s \"we\"? If a gas-burner is what someone is currently using to
approximate their right-to-transportation such that they can afford it
what should they do differently. Buy a BEV they can\'t afford? You gonna
pay for it? Elon Musk gonna pay for it?

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

Sorry that you are not able to understand what I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything about prying cold, dead hands off steering wheels. I guess you have an ICE reaction like some people have when trying to discuss gun control.. No one is trying to take your guns, but we want to have more controls over who can buy them.

Likewise, with BEVs, no one is going to be forced to give up any vehicles. But we can\'t continue to keep making the same nasty, pollution machines that we\'ve driven for the last hundred years. So, at this time, everyone has full choices. Buy and drive what you want. In 15 or so years, some jurisdictions will, in the interest of the greater good (as is not at all uncommon), there will be restrictions on what is sold, but none on what is driven. I don\'t personally see a reason to restrict what is driven, other than the typical safety based restrictions. ICE will surely fade out once the number of gas stations is a small fraction of today. You can\'t drive what you can\'t fuel.

I think most of your rationale comes from the fact that we *have* been driving gas burners for over 100 years, and in spite of what the courts say about it being a \"privilege\", people like you seem to feel it is a \"right\". The only difference between guns and cars is that cars were not mentioned in the Constitution. Other countries don\'t have that particular legal precedent, so they are not so fundamental in their objection to restrictions on things that are already restricted.

Try driving a wood burning car. You won\'t get far before being pulled over and towed off the highways.

--

Rick C.

-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ed Lee]

On Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 9:12:54 AM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 29 May 2022 15:51:37 +0100, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 29/05/2022 14:19, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of
entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly
poisoned.

Not true.

The Victorians also used lead piping for drinking water and were not
poisoned by doing that at all. Only the most acidic soft water off
peatlands will dissolve any lead from water pipes. Most ordinary tap
water has enough dissolved salts in it that the inside of the pipe furs
up within the first year of use and no lead then escapes. The very name
\"plumber\" comes from the usage of lead pipes until very recently.

The Romans were poisoned by using sugar of lead (aka lead acetate) as an
artificial sweetener. Sweet things were very rare in antiquity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate#Sweetener

Lots of other food adulteration was going on though since antiquity with
everything from brick dust to arsenic and white lead being used to bulk
up or colour foodstuffs. This was at its worst in the Victorian era.

200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and
suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without
regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now,
all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society
and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we
recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth
and waste.

Whilst things have improved a lot in the past half century I am not sure
that they will continue to do so. It is cheaper to ignore the problem.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic
auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the
planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in,
not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of
us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with
autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal
transportation convenience is a birthright!

Auto emissions are a part of the problem but aircraft and power plant
emissions are also major contributors to global CO2 rise.

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to
walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam
the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most
poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing
regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very
importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this
century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can
resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery
electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because
it is different, with different advantages and different
liabilities.

Mining the lithium for the batteries is a nasty business despoiling
various pristine habitats with little concern for the inhabitants. Out
of sight out of mind for those that want to pretend that there is no
downside to electric vehicles and growth of Lithium batteries. They also
end up with radioactive tailings in Peru (or uranium as a by-product).

https://www.mining-technology.com/analysis/cracking-lithium-triangle-will-new-legislation-open-gates-peru/

The main one from my point of view is severe lack of EV range even from
new, an absence of decent charging points outside of major cities and of
spare electricity in the UK with which to charge them. That charging hub
at York still isn\'t open! They are claiming just a few more days now.
(It is almost a year late, insanely over budget and cannot meet any of
its originally claimed pricing - you cannot buy electricity today at the
price that they were intending to sell it for)

https://yorkmix.com/yorks-electric-vehicle-charging-hub-set-to-open-nearly-a-year-late/

I\'ll let you know when/if it actually opens (and if it actually works).

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of
transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept
aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of
land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the
disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of
coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the
convenience of battery powered cars.

You have a strange imagination. Chances are if this technology had been
available back then only the very richest people would ever have had a
car. Until mass production petrol cars were rich men\'s expensive toys.

EVs have proved difficult to mass produce economically.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to
our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in
ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount!
Convenience über alles!

The next generation can pay for it. Politicians can\'t ever see any
further than the next election and often not even that far
Lifespans, nutrition, crop yields, access to education and medical
care, human rights, practically anything you can name keeps getting
better. Oil and gas are major contributors to human well-being.

Absolutely, oil and gas are too valuable to be burnt in cars. Better to save them for other industrial uses. EVs are only half of the solution, but better than none.

 

[Rich S]

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 2:52:31 PM UTC, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2022-05-31 01:05, Rich S wrote:
[...] We really need \"inoculation\" at a young age to be
critical thinkers. What schooling & parenting should be...
regards, rs

Disagree. Ideas drilled into you at a young age are
uncritically accepted as beliefs. Critical thinking
comes later. Weak logic and cognitive fallacies are
of all ages, but advanced education helps, even if
it\'s no panacea.

Jeroen Belleman

I agree, partially, Jeroen. To me \"young\" is as \"old\" as 18 y.o.
Anyway, I hypothesize, we (educators in U.S., in particular)
generally underestimate the age at which the brain
can begin to think critically. True, you don\'t want the
students to be disruptive, and begin challenging everything
being taught. But if we (in U.S.) are treating 18 y.o. as an
adult, legally, with some serious responsibilities and decisions
(that affect them, me, and everyone around them)
then we better prepare them accordingly. Unfortunately
the source for this preparation is increasingly dependent
of the public schools.
regards, RS

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 11:34 AM, Ricky wrote:

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 10:09:20 AM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/31/2022 1:09 AM, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, May 30, 2022 at 9:13:40 PM UTC-4, bitrex wrote:
On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"
Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

For someone espousing some kind of green revolution you sure know how to
give lots of people who might otherwise be interested the big fuck you
from the window of ya luxury car..

Well, how about a big \"fuck you\" here, instead? Is that what you think when you see someone driving a BEV, they are saying \"fuck you\"? What was I saying when I drove the same pickup truck for 20 years?

I don\'t really have a reason to say \"fuck you\" to you, personally. But I am happy to say \"fuck you\" to Google, who keeps making the usenet experience worse every time they change things. Not entirely unlike Tesla fixing things in the UI which aren\'t broken.

I think there should be a birthright to a lot of things in the so-called
\"Greatest Country\" in the world. Right to nutritious food to eat, a
place to live, affordable healthcare, an education, the right to not be
gunned down by some whack job while trying to get said education, the
list goes on.

And if transportation is required to get any of those other things then
yeah there should be a right to affordable transportation, also.

But, far from being the \"Greatest Country\" (more like a shithole
country) people will tell you its the greatest country while meanwhile
saying that as citizen of said greatest country you don\'t have a right
to shit. Might be funny, if it weren\'t so sad..
\"if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass,
we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation.\"
Who\'s \"we\"? If a gas-burner is what someone is currently using to
approximate their right-to-transportation such that they can afford it
what should they do differently. Buy a BEV they can\'t afford? You gonna
pay for it? Elon Musk gonna pay for it?

Elon Musk doesn\'t give a fuck if any particular person can get to the
grocery store or not.

Sorry that you are not able to understand what I wrote. Nowhere did I say anything about prying cold, dead hands off steering wheels. I guess you have an ICE reaction like some people have when trying to discuss gun control. No one is trying to take your guns, but we want to have more controls over who can buy them.

I don\'t own any guns. But the gun control hoopla is something both
factions in the US tend to get wrapped up in while ignoring the entirely
more relevant point that the US has a peculiarly violent culture made up
of large numbers of peculiarly violent and self-centered people, and
that can\'t be changed in a day by legislation or the Supreme Court.

Most intelligent people can see that with estimated 400 million guns
already in circulation whether there are 300 or 500 or what the number
is precisely probably doesn\'t matter too much once you\'re into the nine
figures.

It\'s just something people like to squabble about & accomplishes nothing
but it feels good to squabble about after every mass shooting because it
feels like _some_ kind of song and dance needs to occur instead of
nothing, \"mission accomplished.\"

> Likewise, with BEVs, no one is going to be forced to give up any vehicles. But we can\'t continue to keep making the same nasty, pollution machines that we\'ve driven for the last hundred years. So, at this time, everyone has full choices. Buy and drive what you want. In 15 or so years, some jurisdictions will, in the interest of the greater good (as is not at all uncommon), there will be restrictions on what is sold, but none on what is driven. I don\'t personally see a reason to restrict what is driven, other than the typical safety based restrictions. ICE will surely fade out once the number of gas stations is a small fraction of today. You can\'t drive what you can\'t fuel.

If the US government cared about getting gas-burners off the roads any
more than it cares about reducing the number of guns in circulation it\'d
offer an attractive buy-back/incentive program to encourage people to
trade them in for a cleaner alternative. Hey you could bring both and
get double the points towards your purchase.

But the US government whether Democrat or Republican cares about
neither. Joe Biden has even been known to exclaim \"When in God\'s name
will we stand up to the gun lobby?\" like he forgets who the leader of
the so-called Free World is, sometimes. He probably does.

> I think most of your rationale comes from the fact that we *have* been driving gas burners for over 100 years, and in spite of what the courts say about it being a \"privilege\", people like you seem to feel it is a \"right\". The only difference between guns and cars is that cars were not mentioned in the Constitution. Other countries don\'t have that particular legal precedent, so they are not so fundamental in their objection to restrictions on things that are already restricted.

For most of US history a 2nd Amendment interpreted to mean \"a personal
right to bear arms\" was never codified, and that the \"shall not be
infringed\" part applied to anyone but the Federal government was not
clear either, these things were only clarified by the Supreme Court very
recently (and with a lot of work put in by the NRA etc. cajoling them in
that direction.)

That is to say that firearms were regularly restricted and this was
understood to be entirely congruent with the Constitution throughout the
bulk of US history is no big deal to these \"strict textualists\" and you
can rewrite that but that abortion was restricted for the bulk of US
history is somehow a matter of great importance that has to be respected
from a historical perspective. /shrug

Personally I think Supreme Court justices tend to be paid hoes, prove me
wrong.

Try driving a wood burning car. You won\'t get far before being pulled over and towed off the highways.

Cars are a pretty poor solution to getting large numbers of people where
they need to be in general, and the electrified self-driving kind are a
typically American over-complicated solution-looking-for-a-problem.

 

[bitrex]

On 5/31/2022 11:05 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 30 May 2022 21:13:30 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

Bicycles, trains, steamboats, tractors, busses, cars, airplanes, and
electric unicycles just followed the trend.

Here we have more public transport infrastructure than ever and are
planning more. Some people do fine without cars.

Trolleys and light rail used to be an integral part of urban life, now
they tend to be amenities. That is to say planners tend not to build out
light rail to make bad neighborhoods better, but good neighborhoods
amazing; once there\'s a rail connection you can charge $3400 for a
two-bedroom apartment in this neighborhood instead of $1800.

There is no conspiracy to shape our transportation systems. Companies
and (sometimes) governments do what people want.

Urban planners wanted to build an inner beltway called 695 in Boston
that would\'ve sliced through and cut up by eminent domain a number of
the kind of classy old neighborhoods hipsters like to pay a premium to
live in these days, and also extend I-95 right up to the city center
through the same kind of \'hoods, instead of terminating it in the 128
beltway about 20 miles south of the city center as does now.

And it would\'ve happened if there hadn\'t been a massive outcry about it
at the time to knock it off. The people got a compromised highway system
but it was more in a bottom-up kind of screaming at government &
corporate interests to stop kind of way, than any kind of top-down sense
of planning for the common good.

That is to say in the US companies and governments tend do what \"the
people\" want if you define \"the people\" as \"the people with the most money.\"

 

[Don Y]

On 5/31/2022 7:52 AM, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 2022-05-31 01:05, Rich S wrote:
[...] We really need \"inoculation\" at a young age to be
critical thinkers. What schooling & parenting should be...
regards, rs

Disagree. Ideas drilled into you at a young age are
uncritically accepted as beliefs. Critical thinking
comes later.

Much of that depends on the exposure the individual
is given to \"alternative ideas\" as well as their inherent
personality; some folks don\'t *like* re-examining
their \"beliefs\" (and, for those folks, this often
persists through adulthood to death)

Weak logic and cognitive fallacies are
of all ages, but advanced education helps, even if
it\'s no panacea.

Being *in* an environment where you are exposed to alternatives
goes a long way, even if that exposure isn\'t via \"structured
learning\".

But, again, if your mind is closed to other possibilities,
you\'ll find a way of dismissing even those alternatives.

 

[Don Y]

On 5/31/2022 10:14 AM, Rich S wrote:

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 2:52:31 PM UTC, Jeroen Belleman wrote:
On 2022-05-31 01:05, Rich S wrote:
[...] We really need \"inoculation\" at a young age to be
critical thinkers. What schooling & parenting should be...
regards, rs

Disagree. Ideas drilled into you at a young age are
uncritically accepted as beliefs. Critical thinking
comes later. Weak logic and cognitive fallacies are
of all ages, but advanced education helps, even if
it\'s no panacea.

Jeroen Belleman

I agree, partially, Jeroen. To me \"young\" is as \"old\" as 18 y.o.
Anyway, I hypothesize, we (educators in U.S., in particular)
generally underestimate the age at which the brain
can begin to think critically. True, you don\'t want the
students to be disruptive, and begin challenging everything
being taught.

You can encourage \"free thought\" without inviting outright
challenges to (ahem) \"dogma\".

Even activities like \"choosing a science fair project\"
require some initiative on the part of the student;
what do you want to do and what do you expect to show, etc.

But if we (in U.S.) are treating 18 y.o. as an
adult, legally, with some serious responsibilities and decisions
(that affect them, me, and everyone around them)
then we better prepare them accordingly. Unfortunately
the source for this preparation is increasingly dependent
of the public schools.

And, \"know-better\" legislators want to lay a heavy hand on WHAT
they can be exposed to and, by extension, be able to \"think for
themselves\" about.

Imagine a whole class of people terrified of certain *books*
(likely because you can\'t SHOOT a book!) or *concepts*...

Gotta pity the poor children so constrained in their thoughts.
Wonder what life will be like when they are LATER, exposed to
people (in positions of power/influence) who espouse DIFFERENT
\"beliefs\"?

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 31 May 2022 14:00:41 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 5/31/2022 11:05 AM, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 30 May 2022 21:13:30 -0400, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

On 5/29/2022 9:19 AM, Ricky wrote:
What is amazing in the debates over BEV adoption, is the sense of entitlement.

2,000 years ago, the Romans built pipes of lead and were slowly poisoned. 200 years ago, we tossed our trash anywhere we felt and suffered the disease. 100 years ago we mined resources without regard to the damage done and lived with being slowly poisoned. Now, all of those things are recognized as being harmful to our society and none are allowed. It costs us convenience and even money, but we recognize that it is important to not live in an environment of filth and waste.

Come the year 2000, we have despoiled our air with the fumes of toxic auto emissions, released enough CO2 to raise the temperature of the planet and are on our way to the blackening of the world we live in, not so different from the poisonous fogs of London. Yet, so many of us deny this reality and refuse solutions. In particular, with autos, they act as if spewing noxious emissions for our personal transportation convenience is a birthright!

There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk. We have reached a point where, if we want to continue to roam the world in cages of steel and glass, we must abandon the most poisonous forms of transportation. Even with the existing regulations, fossil fuels continue to spoil our air and very importantly, release CO2, the most serious form of pollution in this century. Meanwhile, we are presented with a paradigm shift that can resolve much of the impact of our transport plight, the battery electric vehicle. Yet, so many refuse to consider it, simply because it is different, with different advantages and different liabilities.

If this were 120 years ago and we were presented with this sort of transportation, the world would jump at it and it would have swept aside all the noxious gas burning autos to become the only form of land transportation. We would have never known about smog or the disasters of oil spilling into our water ways, destroying miles of coastline environments. But mostly, we would all be enjoying the convenience of battery powered cars.

Instead, many of us think spoiling our environment is secondary to our convenience, as if we had a birthright to roaming the earth in ways that destroy the environment, our \"convenience\" is paramount! Convenience über alles!


\"There is no birthright to transportation, other than the right to walk.\"

Then again, nobody ASKED to be born into a country called the USA that
was designed around the automobile and had much of its public
transportation infrastructure dismantled in favor a long time ago.

No. The USA was \"designed around\" horses and mules and canoes and
sailing ships and wagons. People like to move themselves and their
stuff around. If anything designed our country, it was the collective
personal preferences.

The roads in many areas of Boston tend to be laid out about where the
carts went, there doesn\'t seem to be a lot of design to it though.

San Francisco is a nightmare. In some neighborhoods the streers follow
the contours of the hills. Some places are brutally rectangular,
topography be damned. Some streets just change name for no reason,
some look like dotted lines, come and go at random.

This is fun, St Mary\'s Park.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mhmlrn456unoto/St_Marys_Park.jpg?raw=1

It\'s amazing that all the houses were built on hillsides, streets with
30% grades, using horses and people to haul wood and bricks.

Bicycles, trains, steamboats, tractors, busses, cars, airplanes, and
electric unicycles just followed the trend.

Here we have more public transport infrastructure than ever and are
planning more. Some people do fine without cars.

Trolleys and light rail used to be an integral part of urban life, now
they tend to be amenities. That is to say planners tend not to build out
light rail to make bad neighborhoods better, but good neighborhoods
amazing; once there\'s a rail connection you can charge $3400 for a
two-bedroom apartment in this neighborhood instead of $1800.

There is no conspiracy to shape our transportation systems. Companies
and (sometimes) governments do what people want.

Urban planners wanted to build an inner beltway called 695 in Boston
that would\'ve sliced through and cut up by eminent domain a number of
the kind of classy old neighborhoods hipsters like to pay a premium to
live in these days, and also extend I-95 right up to the city center
through the same kind of \'hoods, instead of terminating it in the 128
beltway about 20 miles south of the city center as does now.

And it would\'ve happened if there hadn\'t been a massive outcry about it
at the time to knock it off. The people got a compromised highway system
but it was more in a bottom-up kind of screaming at government &
corporate interests to stop kind of way, than any kind of top-down sense
of planning for the common good.

That is to say in the US companies and governments tend do what \"the
people\" want if you define \"the people\" as \"the people with the most money.\"

300 million people have the most money.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc trk

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
\"Bunter\", he said, \"I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason\"

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Tue, 31 May 2022 14:30:51 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:

....

This is fun, St Mary\'s Park.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5mhmlrn456unoto/St_Marys_Park.jpg?raw=1

It\'s amazing that all the houses were built on hillsides, streets with
30% grades, using horses and people to haul wood and bricks.

I just came back from Portugal. Here is a historical example of just
that:

..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto#/media/File:Ribera_area_along_the_river_Duoro,_Porto,_Portugal,_2019.jpg>


The whole Douro River is like that, only vineyards not buildings. Lots
of olive and almond trees as well. The slopes often exceed 30%, and
it\'s mostly to all hand work.

..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douro#/media/File:Rio_Douro_-_Portugal_(32615481975)_(cropped).jpg>

..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douro#/media/Fileouro_Valley_Regua.jpg>


Joe Gwinn