Just because he dropped out of school at the 5th grade doesn't mean you have to call him dumb.

If that's the case, can we ride them on the freeway, even though the really tweaked out ones can't even reach highway speeds for any meaningful amount of time (the batteries and motor needed will make it heavier than what most roof racks can handle.)

Unless we do what the state already does with rifles, where certain cosmetic features are banned.

What they already do around here is illegal, so I'm not sure what they're supposed to gain from this other than tax revenue. I've literally seen teenagers ride around in circles in intersections just to harass random drivers, particularly near veteran's park, which is right by where I live. They also ride around the Redondo pier where you're not even supposed to ride a bike at all.

One thing that's kind of dumb is there's an 8mph speed limit for bikes in the actual dedicated bike lane (as in, no pedestrians allowed) in the area around the marina, but only enforced against e-bikes. I can literally take the battery out of my e-bike, which is much heavier than a regular bike, and pedal at 12mph comfortably. A commuter bike with racing wheels I could probably do more like 20, which is exactly where the law already requires e-bikes to stop assisting.

Meanwhile, cars will zip right past you at 40mph in a 30 zone. Cops will probably ignore the car and ticket the e-bike for going 15mph.

This is one reason I'm wanting to move out of California. People just block intersections like it's nothing, and the police don't ever do anything. I was in Cape Canaveral during the Artemis II launch, had a similar situation happen, a cop yelled at a guy doing this while hauling a boat, wrote him a ticket, then made him yield to several cars for several minutes after. Why can't we do that here?

Another thing that's common here in California, is people get the loudest, most obnoxious motorcycle they can afford or otherwise buy, attach the loudest boombox to it, then make enough noise that you can hear them from inside of an office building a mile away. They like to do it along the coastline as well. Nobody does a damn thing about it.

But a fucking e-bike is enough to piss them off? Enough so that you have to pay for registration and insurance. What a load of shit. May as well get the loudest, most obnoxious, carbon belching motorcycle you can buy. I'm sure they'll be much happier with that.

Here's a better idea: Enforce the existing laws, which already don't permit everything they hate about e-bikes to begin with.

This is the OJ trial, slashdot edition.

He literally quoted that. What on earth tells you that it's missing when it's literally right there in the post you replied to?

Oh, in fact there has been, and I'll show you why in a second. But first, an English lesson, because you obviously need one:

https://www.merriam-webster.co...

In other words, it's when something is presented as going in one direction or another, but never anything else, when in fact there are multiple options. But I suspect this language is too complicated for you, so here's the ELI5 version, just for you:

https://inoculation.science/in...

Then let's do exactly that, let's start from the top. The very first post:

To wit, providing two options: You're either a diehard fanboy, or you're just not going to use it. Nothing else. That's a textbook false dichotomy. (Actually he did a lot worse than that, but I only counted one.) What's more is that, this comment apparently didn't even bother you. In other words, you're apparently fine with that statement. So what did bother you? Namely, the comment about partisan politics, which was just another option that I made available. He asked a question, I gave a possible third option, and that set you off.

In a word? Bullshit.

Why do I say that? You guys didn't start painting swastikas or otherwise vandalizing the cars of people you don't even fucking know, or torching EV chargers or throwing Molotov cocktails at showrooms, or protesting in front of SpaceX offices, until after Elon did that whole thing with the GOP. That's precisely when all of that started. It was well before DOGE, so you don't even get to channel that into something like "he killed USAID" because none of that even happened by then.

But let's suppose for a second that you're actually being honest here, and in your case and your case only, that it's about Elon being "a lying grifting rich fuck": You yourself invoked yet another false dichotomy. Namely, you yourself are arguing that, for everybody involved, partisan politics is just not an option, therefore narrowing it back to two. What do you know? A false choice. Like I said:

That's not at all why, it's because of red tape. It takes over two years just to get permitting to build a single family home in California. How long do you think a project like this will take? Somebody linked a map earlier showing the "progress", that alone gives you a few strong hints.

Florida has already demonstrated that not only can it build rail networks in a timely manner, but it can do it at a much lower cost, and if that's still not good enough for you, with reasonable upkeep costs as well. And if that's STILL not good enough, it's used by everybody, including people with a decent income.

California usually misses the mark on all four. As narcc says, it's "terrifyingly efficient".

Oh, wait until you see the way California manages rail systems after they're already built:

https://www.city-journal.org/a...

The answer to every incompetent leadership problem here is ALWAYS more taxes. That's just how the system works.

This isn't an argument against public transit by the way, rather it's an appeal to voters to pay fucking attention to things beyond the fucking letter next to a name. If you can't, or won't, it's probably better to just not vote. I personally do exactly this: If I've never heard of somebody on the ballot, I won't check the box, I'll just skip that office. I don't care which letter it has.

*sigh* You just...don't understand the finer points about job creation. Economies aren't supposed to create value, they're supposed to create busy hands. You need money to do that, and that has to be taken from other busy hands. The government just needs to repeal the second law of thermodynamics and it will all work out.

Cheese...Don't you know anything?

It's also worth mentioning that this state voted for prop 8 during a massive turnout on the same ballot it used to elect Obama.

Progressives keep saying that we don't need representative democracy anymore because technology. Whatever.

Not everything has to be made public -- when trade secrets are involved, you can request a sealed courtroom. By the way, this is the same judge who threw the book at apple after they decided to fuck around in the epic lawsuit. Fucking around on anybody's part is only asking to find out, especially considering the jury doesn't even decide the ultimate outcome.

Put it this way: Is there anything in the source material you believe to be false? If so, what basis for it? What is your evidence of it?

So far the only thing you guys have produced are a few dozen false dichotomies and various other logical fallacies. Nothing substantive in any event.

That's fine and all, but the ones creating the problem aren't the ones being hit by this tax. Period. That would be the ones who live next door. You see them every day, you interact with them face to face every day. They're the good ones to you. Some of them are on your ballot, you've voted for them, and they in turn point the finger at somebody else. It's called NIMBY, and you and they both believe it's a good idea. Disagree? Go tell your city council that you want low income housing built on the block next to yours. See how well that goes over. Even if it somehow did by some miracle, California law allows any random person to sue the builder to stop it from happening, as somebody inevitably does. You also don't want that to change, because the environment. But don't let me interrupt the conversation you guys are having about billionaires you can't even name creating this mess, nor can you explain how they did. You're just certain they did.

Even if this goes ahead as planned, and somehow doesn't break anything, it still doesn't solve anything either. If this were the Titanic movie, you're the guy suggesting the bilge pumps, I'm the guy telling you that they only buy you time, and it's a mathematical certainty that at the current rate, you're going to sink. This is already the highest taxing state in the country, and instead of stopping the bleeding, your idea is to cut somebody else, especially the hand that feeds you.

I've already told you what's going to happen, and that's the one and only thing that I can do, which included a pragmatic option that doesn't require a literal act of Congress. The only person who needed be be on board with it is you. You're choosing not to. Oh well.

If this passes, then given your future history of cutting scapegoats, I'm leaving before you decide to come after me should this not work. You probably won't, but staying to find out does me no favors.

Mob mentality. You don't understand how scapegoating works. Basically, you point the finger at somebody or something else. Whether they have anything to do with it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is diverting attention away from yourself while giving yourself more popularity. This is why the French Revolution was called the reign of terror. This is why Hitler targeted the Jews. This is why Mao tried to kill off all of China's sparrows. These were all popular movements, despite the respective disasters their leaders created.

Honestly, I want to see this pass just as much as you do, but for a totally different reason: I just want to see what happens. For better or for worse, the outcome will make for an interesting economic data point. Historical lessons are good when they happen in a way that can only result in a localized disaster at the worst. Right now Trump is teaching Europe why they shouldn't have been neglecting their own militaries for the last half of a century -- many presidents tried and failed to do that, and what's great about it is it's simultaneously going to likely result in the final end of the Russian Empire, the last remaining destabilizing regime from the 19th century.

Good or bad, it will inform whether this should be done at the federal level, and hopefully settle the matter. We've already seen what this does in other countries, and it has never been good. But you guys are convinced that it will work this time, because this is somehow different, because reasons, just like you guys keep saying about socialism.

We shall see.

In any case:
- I will not be voting on this, one way or another.
- I'll be long gone from this state by the time the consequences arrive, no matter the outcome, hence I've recused myself from voting at all the entire time I've lived here.
- Rest assured, little frog, this pot you're in is not already getting warm. Gently remind yourself that this: https://blog.hireahelper.com/2... is fake news. Educated people are not leaving, and homeless people are not moving in. Don't forget to remind yourself that I'm just maga, uneducated, fascist, was never needed here to begin with, or whatever helps you convince yourself that you're on the right side of history.