I've always been a big fan of public domain. I was the Project Manager on over 50 books at Project Gutenburg. I am also a Winnie-ther-Pooh fan as well. So the second book (and final) book "The House at Pooh Corner" of the two book series also reached public domain in the United States on Jan 1, 2024 giving us access to Tigger. Tigger only first appears in the second book.

I choose my login name "GnuPooh" in the 1990's hoping that some day the bear would be some day be Free. I got that two years ago and I'm glad his cheerful friend has joined him as well this week.

Wow you are just an asshole.

And that would be different from what we have now how exactly? Never had a female president in the US, the vast majority of corporate management is male, women are paid less for equal work, they cannot be priests, huge percentages of them have been raped, and the list goes on. And that's in an ostensibly free society. Head over to Saudi Arabia and things get much worse. They have to cover their bodies. They cannot leave the house without permission and an escort. Etc. By all means please show me the evidence that women aren't at a real and measurable disadvantage in our society.

We already ARE in a "real patriarchy" and that's the problem.

Why would you need to defend someone who wasn't accused of anything? I'm not disputing your (I think largely correct) assessment of what happened but publicly defending someone in a context like this carries risks that you have to be incredibly naive to be unaware of. Stallman is a prominent public figure with experience in media relations who waded into a serious debate where he really had nothing to contribute and that carried significant PR baggage. Frankly he should have known better unless he really felt passionately that he was doing something worth falling on his sword for.

You seem to be under the delusion that sex crimes and legitimate harassment are things that don't actually happen to women. Just because it makes you uncomfortable and doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it isn't real. You really need to get out and talk to some actual women because it's pretty clear you have no concept of the scope of the problem or what they have to put up with from far too many men. Most men are well intentioned decent people but make no mistake that there are a LOT of assholes out there too ruining it for the rest of us.

And your characterization of feminism as a hate movement shows you have NO idea what the term actually means. That's like saying all muslims are evil because a few assholes flew planes into some tall buildings. WAY too broad a brush there my friend.

We can do that when shaming of women ends as well. Or are you so naive as to think that doesn't happen to an equal or greater extent? And let's be frank - a LOT of the behavior of men SHOULD be shamed because it's reprehensible. I don't disagree that sometimes it goes to far (probably here in fact) but by all means explain the reason why we shouldn't shame both the people who commit crimes (Epstein, Weinstein, Cosby, etc) as well as those who protected and enabled them. When it rises to that sort of level you defend them at your own risk publicly and you have to be an idiot to think that people won't judge you for it regardless of the facts.

That is far too general a statement to be true or useful.

People can, do, and should get fired for expressing opinions every day. Privately and publicly. The notion of a privately expressed opinion is naive. The old saw about the only way to keep a secret when two people know it is if one of them is dead applies here. Opinions expressed in a private setting may not remain private and you don't control that once you express them. Especially if it is posted anywhere on the internet. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from the consequences of that speech except for a few protected circumstances. Opinions expressed that are incompatible with the mission of an organization or that bring shame or undesired negative attention or that simply offend the sensibilities of those you work for/with are all valid grounds for dismissal. And context matters as well. There are plenty of things I can say that can and should get me fired from my job which in another context might be entirely innocuous or appropriate. And even if what you say is true and entirely appropriate, if it results in substantial negative PR for a company it won't matter at all.

ANY time you express an opinion you are taking a risk. It might be worth the risk or it might not be a big risk but it's a risk all the same. The ONLY way to ensure your opinions don't have any chance of getting you fired from a job is to keep them to yourself. This is a fact and always has been. Has nothing to do with people being oversensitive or reactionary. Your expressed opinions necessarily always carry a risk and that is the way it should be. People who bear no risk for their opinions quickly turn into asshats (for evidence see The Internet).

And unions do very much the same thing when they are doing their job. Companies that do not adequately consider the value of workers in relation to other stakeholders make the whole system work less efficiently. A happy and secure and well paid work force is a real asset. When management starts regarding their workers as a barrier to success instead of a partner THAT is when there are problems.

A) No it is definitely not a zero sum game. Employees having a real seat at the table with a real say in what happens has measurable positive benefits to all stakeholders. These benefits might take longer than the next financial quarter to realize but that makes them no less real.
B) Why should every stakeholder in the company get a say in the company profits and actions except the workers? Unions exist because management is often perversely incentivized and behaves in ways that are quite literally abusive of the people that work for them. That is seldom good for a company in the long run.
C) Management "looks out for their members" so why should it be bad for workers to do the same?

Yes their efforts are actually vital to the proper functioning of our economy. Finance and capital allocation is what makes everything work. If you step back for a moment and consider what the purpose of these financial activities actually is then you'll see that in spite of all the shady shit that happens, it serves a truly vital and irreplaceable role. None of the big (and most of the small) companies you know the names of would exist in recognizable forms (if at all) without finance. It really is incredibly important which is why we put up with so many shenanigans. So yes all their hard work serves a vital purpose and we would be worse off without it.

HOWEVER, there is a lot of baggage that comes along with that and that is what people tend to get cynical about - and rightfully so much of the time. There are a lot of agency problems and opportunities for bad actors to do inappropriate things with other people's money for their own benefit.

A bit of both really and the proportions vary by case. There is a meritocracy of a sort at work but you have to consider what they are being incentivized to do. Merit on Wall Street means the individual brought profit to the firm. Investment banking and other dealing in financial products is really just sales at the end of the day. They get rewarded for being good at selling things that are profitable (or perceived as such) to the firm. Fail to sell or fail to support those who do and Wall Street can be pretty Darwinian.

You're making the wrong comparison. The companies we collectively refer to (inaccurately) as Wall Street aren't the gamblers in Vegas, they are the house. And the house always wins.

Try it for a while before jumping to conclusions. Yes you can turn it off but you won't want to most of the time. Seriously, once you get used to it you'll probably use it all the time. I was a bit dubious at first but I own a Bolt EV and now I'm annoyed when I drive cars that don't have regen braking. It makes it actually easier to drive, saves considerable wear on your brakes, and makes it far less annoying in stop and go traffic, and is very helpful on the highway too. I've actually driven the entire 20 miles from my house to work and never actually touched the brake pedal once (just to see if I could). As it is I generally only have to apply the brakes a handful of times on most trips. It's a great feature.

You already have it via wind resistance - it's just not very effective. The slowdown with regen braking is predictable and quite helpful. You don't think you'll like it probably because you haven't tried it.

Good for you. If that suits your needs then go buy one. Nobody is going to think badly of you for it. But that isn't the car most people actually buy

Currently around $30K. Price drops to at little as $22.5K with the rebate. I purchased mine for ~$37.5K new and got the rebate bringing the price to ~$30K.

A) Per your your argument the difference is $17K, not $37K.
B) The lifetime maintenance costs of an ICE plus fuel costs will easily save more than $17K over the average 11 year lifespan of a typical car. My own EV saved me close to $1400 in fuel and lubricant costs last year alone. That means if my EV lasts the US average of 11 years I will save roughly $15.4K in just fuel. Given that EVs also have lower maintenance costs (first recommended maintenance is at 150,000 miles) I'm going to come out ahead even in your contrived example and be driving a MUCH nicer car the entire time.
C) EVs are getting cheaper and better every day. ICE vehicles not so much.
D) The average sale price of a new car in the US is around $34K so you can already buy an EV for less than that.
E) Comparing current EVs the cheapest (and shittiest) car on the market is a strawman argument.

And with my EV I NEVER have to stop at a gas station and it's full of fuel when I get in every morning. What exactly is your point? It's no secret that ICEs are generally better for long distance travel currently. That isn't going to remain the case forever. I happen to own an EV and have put 20K miles on it. The number of times your situation has been a problem for me is precisely zero. I've also saved weekly trips to the gas station, won't have to stop for an oil change ever, and the first scheduled maintenance I can't do myself is at 150,000 miles. On the occasions where I need an ICE for a long trip or other specialty use I can rent one and I'll still come out ahead financially. Personally I still own a ICE powered pickup as well because there isn't an EV option available to buy yet. But when there is I will trade my pickup in and if I need a ICE powered car I'll rent one. EVs are just better in so many ways for 99% of use cases that I'm not going to settle for an inferior vehicle just for the rare occasion when I need to make a long trip.

I certainly hope Harley goes 6 feet under. The people that ride them are inconsiderate assholes who make unnecessary noise for no reason other than self gratification. Actually that sounds like a lot of the Boomer generation now that I think about it.

Short term not many. It's going to take at least a decade (probably more) for EVs to really start grabbing major market share. Average age of a ICE vehicle in the US is around 11 years. They aren't going to go away any time soon even if we stopped selling ICE vehicles today - which we couldn't do even if we tried since there isn't enough production capacity available.

Compared to EVs even reliable ICEV powertrains require substantially more maintenance (to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars) and will typically not last as long. They have literally orders of magnitude more moving parts (something like 2000 vs 20). While ICEs are (no joke or snark) works of genius, they simply cannot be as reliable as an electric motor on a car with one gear if made to similar quality standards. The fact that ICEs work as well as they do is extremely impressive but the writing is on the wall. Electric motors are simply a better and more economical solution.

They're called taxis and no they aren't going to be the difference people are imagining. People keep thinking electrified autonomous vehicles are somehow going to result in us all carpooling together and nobody owning their own vehicle which is absolutely ridiculous in most places. Only in the most dense urban areas does even a fraction of that future make any kind of sense. It makes no economic sense at all when you get out into the country - you know the sorts of places where people grow crops. Nobody is going to wait around 2 hours for an Uber vehicle to drive out to them. Even in the suburbs where I live I don't really see it making much economic sense. You need a certain density of population for taxis to be economically viable as a major portion of the transportation infrastructure. That's why you don't see them outside of major cities and when you do they are VERY expensive. Taking the drive out of the equation or electrifying the vehicle doesn't change the fundamental economics of that.

It's going to take many years for EVs to capture major market share. (which is a problem for different reasons) ICE vehicles aren't going to disappear from the roads overnight. Even if we started selling nothing but EVs as new vehicles today (clearly not going to happen) it would take over a decade for the average ICE vehicle to disappear from the road since the average age of a vehicle right now is around 11 years. I don't see EVs really capturing major market share for another 10 years so that means we're talking another 20+ years (minimum) of work for mechanics in their current roles. That's a career and if they don't see the writing on the wall in that amount of time then they are just idiots who deserve what's coming.

Oh I'm aware but if they want to do that they can take them to the racetrack where they can let their inner 6 year old out to play to their hearts content. The rest of us don't need the noise pollution from their smog machines.

And consumers too. Would you rather buy a car that gets worse fuel economy, has far higher maintenance costs, requires constant maintenance of toxic fluids, accelerates slower, is noisy and emits lots of nasty fumes? Sounds like a no brainer to me if the cost to purchase is even close. EVs have some technical issues and infrastructure to work out for long distance travel but even as they stand already they are just simply better in almost every way that matters.

Yes there probably will be a drop in the need for auto mechanics and certainly will be a shift in skill set if/when EVs start gaining major market share. I don't see that as a bad thing. Mechanics who worked on steam locomotives had to find new skills and new jobs when we transitioned to diesel-electric. We should not be maintaining ICE vehicles as a jobs program.

Electrons are electrons. Nobody buying them cares how they were generated and there is no difference between them. So if they are paying a cheap price it's because it's cheap to produce or someone is subsidizing it. Has nothing to do with lack of demand.

Only if that was the only available option and demand exceeded supply. Adding supply tends to depress prices, not raise them.

Can't say but it has nothing to do with the price being paid. The amount you pay for something and what it costs to make it are not actually related. You can charge a lot or a little for something regardless of what it cost to make. Sales price is an arbitrary decision at the end of the day. Maybe it's profitable and maybe it isn't but that isn't directly tied to the price being paid. Uber offers rides for less than it costs to provide them. Their sales price is a choice, not a function, at least in the short term.