Baloney. AI and robotics will create more jobs, by far.

A $5 trillion dollar company wants subsidies? Raise capital and build some power plants. If you want subsidies that has to come at the price of either you paying more tax, or the government getting some shares.

You are correct about the fascist project, but do you understand that if your alternative is a party (the dems) who have been vocally opposed to the free speech amendment, play with definitions in a weird way a la 1984 (they look stupid when asked to define what a woman is) and doubled down on cancel culture as a way to stifle political speech. So while I agree that Trump and his cronies are fascist, the other side only looks marginally better, and I wouldn't trust them at all. Yes, I would vote democrat, but they're pretty horrible too. I would easily vote a moderate left or moderate right party over either of these alternatives, and I suspect most people would.

Waymo has the honk part down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

(well sort of).

My more plausible but still less nefarious guess is that Trump wants things to brag about, and with Isaacman running it, NASA has a chance of actually doing something worth boasting about. Though not in 3 years.

There are worse situations like that in Chinese driving, yet they have self-driving cars and even trucks delivering goods: https://www.youtube.com/shorts...

And you can't post that if you understand nuance.

I don't know. When Isaacman was first nominated, pretty much everyone in the space enthusiast community was like, "oh, that's interesting..." and were genuinely surprised and hopeful because he's generally regarded as a space exploration idealist. Then when Trump revoked the nomination the assumption was that Trump didn't like him because he actually was an idealist and wasn't just a sycophant. I'm not sure why Trump has changed course again, and I do agree there's probably a deal or a mutual understanding that's been agreed to, but Isaacman is still one of the better choices to actually get NASA exploring again.

I agree it was a terrible terrible decision, I hated it at the time and I believe it's been responsible for millions of deaths, but I think the motive wasn't as bad as you suspect.

Basically, the Middle East outside of Israel was a bunch of dictatorships, some theocratic, some military, and many awkwardly allied to the US, but none of the Arab nations had a functioning liberal Democracy.

The neocons believed that they could go in, overthrow the dictator, and a functioning Democracy would pop up in it's place and they'd have a grateful ally, one whom they didn't need to look away as they went around murdering dissidents.

The initial returns on Afghanistan seemed to support the idea is would work, the Taliban melted away from the major urban centres and there was a government in its place.

WMDs and terrorists were both an excuse to go in and try this grand experiment in one of the few friendless dictatorships in the Middle East (the other being Iran, which they were planning, but was a much tougher target).

The problem of course was arrogance, they failed to understand the country they were attempting to launch a revolution in, and they failed to realize the kind of situation you needed for a Democracy to take place.

I think if they just stayed focused on Afghanistan, and basically ruled them by edict for a decade while they nurtured local political actors, then they might have had a shot.

But instead, it was an incompetent administration attempting to implement an extraordinarily ambitious and difficult plan.

As a Canadian who was working in the US at the time, I can say that this period (2001 to ~2004) was just "weird". In particular, the pivot from a focus on Afghanistan to a sudden focus on Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan made sense simply because Al Qaeda was known to be operating out of there and was being supported by the Taliban. There was broad international support for this.

The sudden push to invade Iraq came out of left field and didn't make any sense to me. Almost all of the 9/11 hijackers were actually Saudi Arabian. The Iraqi regime, while certainly evil, was contained and the no-fly zones over the north and south of the country were keeping the minority groups safe. And the presentation that the US did at the UN to provide evidence that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" was unconvincing. I had previously respected Colin Powell, but after that presentation I really lost respect for him. So there was no UN support. The US went ahead with the invasion, but lost a lot of credibility in the process.

Yes, there was oil involved, and Cheney had ties to the oil industry. That's certainly part of it. But I've never been 100% satisfied that this was the only reason for the invasion. I heard a more nuanced theory, that the US was dealing with terrorist organizations who could cross borders with impunity, and trying to fight them from country to country would be almost impossible, so they needed a way to convince the countries of the middle east not to let these organizations operate in their countries. The solution: a show of strength in Iraq... "this is what we could do to you if you give us a reason."

I still think the 2nd Iraq war was a terrible decision because it was the beginning of the end of the rules-based world order, which is something the US created for its own benefit, and benefited the most from, even if it was costly to support. And Cheney was an undeniable hawk when it came to Iraq. He wanted the invasion, and was looking for any excuse. His legacy will always be overshadowed by that reality.

Note quite. Manufacturing is becoming ever more highly automated, yes, and farms are too. But as someone who works in automation, this actually makes it easier to employ really low IQ people to do the job. We push really hard to remove all decision-making from the entry-level positions because the decision-making capacity of many people graduating from high school is exceptionally poor. Not to say there aren't a few bright lights in the bunch, but we look for those and try to move them up into area leader positions rather quickly. That's why manufacturing is so important... it allows people who make really bad day-to-day decision to do something valuable enough to earn $20 or more an hour instead of just collecting welfare.

What we're talking about here, though, is skilled trades, like plumbers. By definition these are people who need to be able to make good day-to-day decisions. The thing is, while there are some skilled trades needed in manufacturing, mostly in maintenance and service, what really drives demand for skilled trades is growth. Building new factories. Re-tooling existing lines for new products. And this includes engineers too. That's why steady and sustainable growth is important. Feast and famine sucks.

Universal Basic Energy .. That is pretty amazing. If they keep building solar capacity they may be able to either get the cot to be super low or provide it free for 18 hours a day. That's an amazing safety net.

What a wuss, it couldn't stay and fight like a real man?

I'm sure they did a market study and there'll be people ordering them just like in other cities .. so yes.

I think you're correct that only some plumbers are doing exceptionally well (the ones who own their own business). But I can assure you they're all busy. Have you tried hiring a skilled trade to fix something around your house recently? Good luck. Many will just ghost you. Also, your comment "we don't build cities anymore" is absurd. In fact the US has seen a massive increase in construction spending in the last few years. This is fueled mostly by the end of globalization, which was already starting to happen before COVID, but was amplified by the pandemic. In fact this surge in re-industrialization was expected to continue to grow, but a certain president's tariffs have caused a lot of trepidation in new capital spending, and everyone is holding their breath waiting to see what actually happens. But long term, China is in a decline driven by demographics which simply cannot be reversed, and Europe is close behind. Even if they started having more kids now, you still can't turn that around for 18 years. And even if you don't like the US, it's still the safest place to park your money worldwide these days, so construction of the new US industrial plant is going to continue no matter who's in office.