More simply, it's something else to bitch about 2x a year.
I am coming to believe seriously that's the only reason social media exists anymore. Or maybe ever did.

Because there are precisely 2 places on the moon that have a) uninterrupted solar power and b) uninterrupted line of sight to earth: the poles.

First to occupy either permanently wins a prize location that could be important for a century or more.

"I am going to pretend I didn't understand how idioms work, nor common English vernacular so I can bitch about musk."

CS Lewis: "Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper... ...Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black."

(tsia)

And yet in 2025 a lawyer censured for using chatgpt to make his case, was found using chatgpt in his pleading against that, and still hasn't been disbarred.

So what good is the bar doing, again?

The anti-global-warming whackos don't give a shit about Bill Gates and haven't for some time, if that's some comfort.

Here's the funniest part: we don't need 'famous person affirmation'.
I've been calling global warming complete bullshit all on my own for years, baby.

It's funny how the left instantly accuses anyone they disagree with of selling out, without the slightest self-reflection that - if selling out for convenience/advantage is so effortless - that was going on 2021-2024 as well.

Histrionics don't convince anyone anymore.
Screaming that the sky is falling for 30y when it patently isn't just means people stop listening.

You can't insist people are "having trouble getting by" when they're cheerfully paying a 25% upcharge for food.

(Formerly this was "paying $5 for a 35 cent cup of coffee")

Conservative, religious people are generally happier than liberals and atheists in every study.

Corporations don’t exist to hand out jobs — completely agree. They hire people because human creativity, judgment, and problem-solving generate more value than they cost. That’s the foundational engine of economic growth.

But saying “companies don’t create work to hire people” assumes the amount of work is fixed, like slices of a pie. History tells a different story. Every major leap in technology — electricity, assembly lines, computers, the internet — didn’t eliminate work overall. It created whole new industries, new products, new forms of demand, and millions of jobs that never existed before someone imagined them.

The real question today is: will companies use automation to expand opportunity, or will they let fear and short-term profit pressures shrink their vision to whatever fits after payroll cuts? Treating workers as a cost to minimize is the fastest way to shrink your own future. Redeploying them to innovate, build, support customers, and explore new markets is how productivity becomes prosperity.

Humans haven’t become too expensive. What’s become too expensive — at least in the corporate mindset — is patience. Investment. Shared success. The belief that people are not just an expense line, but the actual source of value creation.

If we want a thriving economy, the answer isn’t fewer workers. It’s smarter, more meaningful roles that turn technological progress into shared wealth rather than shared precarity.

It’s definitely true that a lot of companies are cutting workers right now — and that creates real anxiety about where things are headed. But I think the narrative that “humans have become too expensive” flips the real issue upside-down.

Labor isn’t what’s skyrocketed in cost. CEO pay, shareholder expectations, and relentless targets for profit growth are. Companies keep raising prices even while laying off thousands, not because they can’t afford workers, but because they prioritize margins over stability for the people who actually create value.

The biggest missed opportunity here is that automation doesn’t have to be a replacement strategy — it can be a redeployment strategy. When new technology lets humans spend less time on low-value labor, companies can empower them to drive innovation, serve customers better, develop new products, and ultimately create more wealth. That’s how productivity gains should work.

But too many businesses think like accountants, not builders. They treat labor as a line item to subtract, instead of a force multiplier. They cut payroll and congratulate themselves for “efficiency,” even as they shrink their own future potential.

AI and automation could give us shorter weeks, better jobs, and broader prosperity — but only if we stop treating human well-being as an inconvenient expense and start seeing workers as the engines that turn technological progress into shared abundance.

The future isn’t precarious because humans are too expensive — it’s precarious because profit has become priceless, and imagination too cheap.

Well, large trucks have 1.3-1.4 accidents per 100 million vehicle miles, vs 1.5-1.6 for passenger cars, so... better than everything else on the road?

Also, maybe if we are a little better at stopping illegal and illiterate drivers that might improve even more.