This is just such an astonishing level of cope. The Chinese are “dumping” these EVs in the same way they “dump” smartphones, ie they’re selling them in global markets and everyone outside the US is buying them.

Are you really that stupid that you think it’s only South American consumers who are buying Chinese EVs? If you are, let me disabuse you of that notion. Chinese EVs are selling well in the UK, in SE Asia, in APAC, and pretty well in the EU despite tariff and non-tariff barriers. The only place they don’t sell is the US, because of Donica.

The infrastructure required to perpetually get decent to good quality petrol to where it's needed is insane. For electric you just need a battery, some solar cells and you're good to go. Petrol throughout south America is notoriously bad, often mixed with (bad) (m)ethanol and often a gable to fill in your tank. Its not uncommon for adventure bike riders to bring an extra spare piston and cylinder along in case you frag yours beyond repair and need to replace it somewhere in the ass-end of Patagonia.

That doorstep countries around the world are moving to solar and electric vehicles faster than developed countries makes perfect sense.

>"Just an acknowledgement that there is more money to be made serving the rich."

Oh, there certainly is more money to be made there. But with far less volume. Most companies will try to have products of all ranges to cover all the market. That is true for most car manufacturers as well.

>"He's pointing out the obvious that there are lots of important issues and that isn't one of them."

It isn't terribly important to you or him (apparently). And it isn't all that important to me, either. But to many, it is very important.

>"Its being used to distract from those more important issues. Just as it is here."

His bringing it up here *is* a distraction. I am interested in the conversation about vehicle sales...

>"Yes. Why else do you Chinese cars are outright banned in this country? Plenty of people on Youtube drive these cars and yes they are better quality and literally half the price. Domestic auto makers are scared shitless."

Oh, I don't doubt that the banning of Chinese cars is protectionism but also security related. We aren't banning Korean or Japanese cars... or cars from anywhere else. Just China. More than one thing can be true at the same time.

I honestly don't know if the Chinese car ban is a net/overall good or bad. I can see both sides of the arguments are valid and neither seems substantially better than the other.

You could ride a long for while claiming to recognize people but have poor name recall by saying "Hey! It's you!" to everybody, but then they could slip in someone you could not have ever met.

>"I'd say the biggest factor discouraging parents from being more involved in their kid's lives is time"

As far a devices, I think it is mostly just lack of awareness and available tools. I would like to see awareness rise a LOT and tools become more visual and available. A parent shouldn't need to know a whole lot of "tech" to get an appropriate device for their child. When they get a phone/tablet/whatever, it should ask if this is going to be used by a minor and walk the parent through setting up remote controls by their account and whitelisting/restrictions.

>"If they had the slightest fear of competition then they wouldn't take that risk because a competitor might work their way up in the cheaper markets and then jump into the more profitable ones"

There are many manufacturers that sell all kinds of vehicles in the USA. Some made completely abroad from various different countries. Some domestically. And a lot are a complex mixture of the two. But you think there is a grand conspiracy/collusion among them all of them to deprive consumers of lower-priced/lower-end models?

>" but since we don't enforce antitrust law because we're busy freaking out about trans girls playing field hockey in the Midwest you can kiss that goodbye."

1) Do you seriously think that having concern about "trans sports" is preventing antitrust enforcement? That is quite an assertion, and a ridiculous one at that.
2) They are not "trans girls" playing, they are males. And they have many or most (if not all, in many cases) of the sports advantages of males, and it greatly diminishes the value of female sports competition.
3) It is far from just "field hockey in the Midwest", it has been across all kinds, ages, and levels of sports, except where it is finally being stopped.

>"Yep, because itâ(TM)s not just EV itâ(TM)s also gas vehicles [cnbc.com]. The average went from 30k in 2012 to 48k in 2022 and they arenâ(TM)t coming down much because of greedflation."

Part of that is due to the inclusion of ever more and more features and safety equipment. Even the lowest-end vehicles, regardless of propulsion method, are packed with stuff that used to be seen only on higher-end models. Another part is that vehicles kept getting bigger and bigger. For example, look at the Civic, it is bigger than the Accord used to be.

Also, you need to adjust the prices for inflation or they are meaningless for comparisons. $30k in 2012 is now $42.4k. (I wish my salary were also adjusted accordingly).

>"Woohoo! And, how well do 'public service announcements' help with girls in high school or before getting pregnant? Same for smoking."

The service is targeted at adults, not minors. We know they are not effective on minors. Minors have poor judgement, focus, reasoning, wisdom, etc. Which is why they shouldn't be accessing the internet on unrestricted devices.

>"Maybe not give the kid an $800 cellphone... give'em a flip phone [...]"

Or a $200 phone/tablet, but with appropriate parental controls and whitelisting enabled/enforced.

It's not just greenflation. Companies have realized that they can make more money focusing on the top 10% of consumers and just what the bottom 90 go to hell. If they had the slightest fear of competition then they wouldn't take that risk because a competitor might work their way up in the cheaper markets and then jump into the more profitable ones, but since we don't enforce antitrust law because we're busy freaking out about trans girls playing field hockey in the Midwest you can kiss that goodbye.

During incognito browser mode. So that's fun. As usual we found out as part of a lawsuit and settlement.

>"What undue burden? most social media isn't even readable now without creating an account for each platform. As part of their required account creation they can add a verification feature."

Creating an account is one thing for them, and quite easy. Trying to validate actual identity/age for every user is a whole other complicated and expensive process. I run a web forum. Is that "social media"? I wouldn't begin to know how to "verify" people (and certainly would never try to).

>"they [social media companies] brought this on themselves."

How so? Why are children using social media or browsing the open web or installing any apps they want or sending and getting nude photos to strangers? Answer: Because their parents/agents GAVE THEM that ability by giving them unrestricted devices. The parents/agents "brought this on" their own children.

>"If one wishes to play devil's advocate:
Because many parents don't do this. If the parents won't do a good job bringing up their kids, someone has to."

There are so many other more effective things that could be done. Some examples that pop into my mind:

1) Spend some money on public service education that it is NOT OK to give children unrestricted or unsupervised access to the internet.
2) Incentivize development of additional age-controls and whitelisting functionality ON DEVICES, under parental control
3) Foster development of VOLUNTARY flags on sites so locked-down devices can detect inappropriate content and add to filters.
4) Make it an actual crime for parents/agents to give devices to children that have unrestricted access to the internet.

Of those, I think #1 is the most important. We need to change the culture and norms to be that parents/agents should be responsible and restrict children's devices. They will then be shamed by others, and probably seek out tools, and hopefully the market will respond with more/better tools.

Personally, I think giving children unrestricted/unsupervised access to the internet is child abuse, or at least child endangerment. Both of which are already ILLEGAL.

Back in the '80s which kept the economy going and then we followed that with two huge economic bubbles that kept things going. There was also a lot more government assistance back then in a lot of ways that we don't think about. I'm not talking about food stamps I'm talking about heavy duty subsidies like the aforementioned infrastructure spending that made it easier to get jobs.

We were in a much better position to weather 12 years of Republican rule back then. The Republicans have been building up to this for 60 years, ever since Goldwater lost. Trump is the final form of the party. A pedophile pretending to be godly while openly admitting he will burn in hell and still somehow tremendously popular with the party.

It's not just about how terrible Trump is it's about how voters would let somebody like that have that much power. It's a sign that our civilization is near collapse. A fundamental breakdown in the institutions that have been protecting all of us for our entire lives.

I think a hog in a trough would work.