This surprises you? The only way to 'force' values like that is to give government more power than it should ever have. We have seen throughout history what governments do when they can do anything, and it is not pretty.

I do not have a recommended solution, but I am glad that you brought the subject up.

Anti-trust doesn't work very well when a few pools of money own everything. Anti-pooling needs to become a thing, but that potentially breaks the freedom of association that we have all come to love and adore. It is messy; but, no matter the economic system proposed, this pooling of resources can break all/any version of any proposed economic system..

And I have noticed no benefit. WTF are they actually committing? More antisocial shit? More rearranging of the UI? More user hostile stuff? It may just be time to leave the fucking Internet forever. Everyone and everything just fucking sucks.

Hey great. Wonderful news. Yes, I will admit that the Democrats are a MUCH better deal than the Republicans.... but

Your measurements are relative. I do consider the relative, but first and most important, I check the absolute. The absolute contains Democrats fully owned by wealthy people who vote for laws that further enslave the mind and body of humans.

Is it better to vote for a Democrat than a Republican? You betcha. Is it okay to vote for a Democrat because they are a Democrat? Absolutely not.

I will vote for absolutely zero people with an R next to their name. Unfortunately, I will be voting for absolutely zero people with a D next to their name either. I would vote for a few people with a D next to their name, but they are not eligible to receive my voted. I would love to vote for AOC or Jasmine Crockett. Are either really capable of running a competent government? Doubtful, but their voices are better than the rest of the Democrats... and FAR FAR superior to anything the Republicans have said. They have gone full genocidal maniac at this point. WTF is up with Trump begging the Supreme Court to not force his administration to make SNAP payments? Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick. The Supreme Court agreed in less than 24 hours. I am personally not affected yet, but I see a LOT of death in the near future as people start getting desperate.

Think about it for a minute: They are forgoing FREE work by humans, to PAY a machine to do it. Something doesn't add up here. Why are they willing to throw money away to make an inferior product?

Most importantly, why would anyone volunteer to help Mozilla ever again?

Truly psychopathic and sociopathic at the same time. Money has fucked up Mozilla.

You can lament all you want, Ken Fluffernutter, but I will not work to pay for your vacation. That's not going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.

No amount of definition twisting and and grandstanding will change the fact that no, I will not pay for your plane tickets and parcel deliveries.

The taxes I pay are extracted from my income. And my income is compensation for the time I spend working away from my family, breaking my back or numbing my brain and a return on the the skills and education I spent years and many thousands of bucks to get. With the costs of living and housing rising sharply, it's difficult enough as it is. I will NOT spend a single dime on taxes to pay for the vacations of other people.

Not happening, Ken. Pay for your own stuff.

Where did you learn to use a calculator? I didn't even check your sources and values, because the math, logic and subject area knowledge alone are terrible enough.

First, maths: you're off by one order of magnitude. 26,8 billion dollars for 16,4 million flights is 1'634 USD per flight. So it's 1,6k per plane, not 16k.

Second, logic: you've duly noted that only 55% of those 16,4 million flights are passenger flights, but calculate them as if they're all passenger flights with 104 pax average per flight, even compounding rounding errors as you go, omitting the 45% cargo-only flights and pretending that shippers for cargo don't need to pay for air traffic security.

Third, subject area knowledge: there are no true scheduled "passenger-only flights" in commercial aviation. What laypeople call "passenger flights" are actually only flights where some air cargo capacity is used by passengers and their luggage. Especially on transcontinental and long-haul flights, "passenger planes" carry an extraordinary amount of air freight and their profitability is hugely dependent on that as well. Making the airline passengers pay the entire flight security tax of that flight would mean the cargo shippers ride tax-free. That's not what we're after.

Cargo shippers, commercial operators, producers, assemblers, too, have their choice of using long-haul trucking, trains, air freight, boats, pigeon carriers or switching to localized production, bulk transport, to and from just-in-time logistics etc.. If company A wants to avoid setting up a warehouse near their production facilities to store all the bits and pieces they need on-site and with sufficient stock to allow for bulk transport, that's their prerogative. Only they can know if the capital assets locked in raw materials are too much compared to just-in-time logistics buying and transporting only the part that's actually needed right now. And air freight costs and air traffic costs play right into that. If company A wants to do just-in-time logistics and company B and C optimize their logistics, localize their production, keep reserves on site? Guess what, A pays the air traffic safety tax, B and C don't.

Same thing. And we can't count the number of boxes or metric tons of cargo vs. passenger counts and the number and weight of their luggage to even properly estimate the actual cost per passenger.

To re-use your simplification to get the absolute upper bound of that tax: if all those 16,4 million flights were passenger-only, air cargo didn't exist like you pretended, and all the flights had 104 passengers on average, then the cost would be 1,6k per flight or 15,71 USD per flight per passenger. Fifteen bucks per flight, at the very maximum, if air cargo didn't exist or was tax-free. And 104 passengers per plane is an absolutely ridiculously low number that applies only to the US domestic market. It doesn't even include the transcontinental flights coming and going to the US, because those are wide-body twin-aisle aircraft that have a LOT more than 104 seats. The top 10 current wide-body aircraft models for long-haul routes have over 200 (737) or over 800 seats (A380). Except these two extremes, most other types carry between 300 and 400 people. They're not flying 70% empty for that "104 passenger on average" number. If airlines actually allow to fly their planes half-empty, that's not a problem for the taxpayer to fix.

No taxation without representation. No taxation to correct or support voluntary and luxury decisions by others. You want it, you pay for it. End of story.

What SPECIFICALLY do you haul that you presume to speak for all users who "haul things"?

Four door vehicles including Suburbans (whose "bed" is internal) are popular with businesses for many good reasons. They haul a three-person crew plus their personal items, have room for cargo (which a short bed crew cab equivalent does with extra clearance for outsize items) and make excellent towing vehicles.

There are many ways to roll one's own work truck besides single cab long beds. (I've one of those, too.) Short beds do not exclude long cargo else I'd not use mine for that (I've multiple trucks in various flavors). Accessories like lift gates work well on either (and on vans and box trucks) and in the case of liftgates extend the bed when travelling with the gate down.

Is it so terribly difficult to understand buyers who already have those choices buy what we do?

BEV proponents don't care about people who use trucks as trucks or why that used market requires ICE.

They don't use liftgates (I find it odd more truck buyers don't install them but attribute that to ignorance of how very useful they are) so hauling the weight of same plus cargo and often towed loads is not their concern. I quite like mine which is a major back saver.

Their sole agenda is forcing you to obey them. That's typical and a major reason people who would not otherwise vote right wing consider they've no other way to defend themselves.

Selling new trucks requires sufficient demand from the USED market to make new trucks a wise economic choice.

Same here but I renovated my houses and built my workshops.

I can retain my paid-for gassers for another 50 years (in the case of my '75 F350) or another ~26 years (F150s and one 5.3 Silverado) at trivial cost because they are designed to be repairable and are not vendor locked by electronic feature bloat.

Early 2000 LS drivetrain trucks and vans already fetch high prices because later years are so intensely mechanic-hostile. (Mechanic of many decades here.)

Driving used trucks let me easily pay off my homes and acreage then retire early. Buying even one new truck would have delayed my financial freedom by years.

When Slashdot was a techie site more viewers understood such things.

Function is the issue, not being a pickup. This may be painfully difficult to understand for BEV zealots but not everyone WANTS what leftists (it's political, you want social control by regulation) attempt to coerce people into buying. Build what customers want, not what someone who is not a customer wishes they should want.

Compete or be cast out.

I and millions of others would be delighted to buy a BEV truck that equals or surpasses gassers in EVERY way with zero sacrifice of functions WE (not you) care about. When one pays that much excuses won't do.

There is no current coldly pragmatic personal reason to buy a BEV pickup truck no matter how much frothers screech otherwise. They're not good enough at truck tasks yet. People who don't use trucks pretend they know what's best for people who do and vilify gasser pickups (though the same drivetrain in a van triggers no one).

I would, but they keep running over people that they can't see... so it is kind of my problem to worry about.

Who cares? The people that invested unwisely get wiped out and the people who didn't carry on as if nothing ever happened. Gambling is the gambler's problem, not mine.

I am continuously flummoxed by people like you thinking that you or your opinion matters. The only thing that matters as far as people in your position are concerned are what the masses do as a whole. As a whole, the masses prefer cheap shit regardless of external costs because the masses are unable to put 2 and 2 together to get 4.

YOU DON"T MATTER. The only thing that matters is what can be manipulated. None of our leaders are leading. They are taking. From you. So I guess you matter a little bit.

Republicans have guaranteed that nobody wants to vote for them ever again. Look at the most recent elections: Democrats swept almost every single race with historic levels of votes.

I am certain the Republicans will die as a party in the next few years; however, that just means that the top Democrats will be just as fully corrupt as the Republicans are now. Where do you think all of that 'campaign' money will go and with what strings attached?

Deeper change is needed.