And even people who don't drive stick regularly (but know how) quickly stop having to pay attention. I haven't owned a stick shift since the mid 90's, but I often get them when renting cars overseas. It takes a day or two of paying attention, and then it just becomes automatic and effortless.

BTDT when coming home from a trip where I'd been driving a manual for a couple of weeks.

About 3% of registered road vehicles are motorcycles. When you include dirt bikes the number of riders is higher, but it's still very low compared to the number of automobile drivers. I don't think motorcycle riders are likely to shift the overall numbers very much.

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, I see.

in the free market businesses form and compete for consumer money with other businesses, it is the competition that is pro consumer. Unions, like any other political formation, exists to protect special interests, preventing businesses from competing to the best of their ability and pushing prices up - anti consumer.

They're still being made for vehicles. The wife wanted a cd player for her car so I found one from good old Crutchfield. They know which wiring harness adapters you'll need and even have adapters for making the steering wheel controls work. Besides playing cds the radio also has usb and bluetooth.

Flash memory doesn't work like that. You would need to read and rewrite every bit to "freshen" the charge. Just powering up a drive for a while does not accomplish that.

Businesses are pro-consumer by definition, unless they are government subsidized. Being anti-union (as I am) is being as pro-consumer as possible. Unions push prices up, consumers want lower prices, unions are anti-consumer.

You haven't seen what Claude is capable of.

Used to be that automatics shifted poorly, had fewer gears, losses to make it less fuel efficient, and higher maintenance.

Now they shift well (if they "shift" at all, CVT and single speed EV transmissions), let the operator manual shift all they want, and between more gear ratios and better tech all around, they are more efficient. They will tend to out last a typical human operator clutch nowadays too.

I still love driving stick, but I must confess there's no good practical defense any more.

By your reasoning it makes sense to get 1000 monkeys to randomly type out a story and look for Shakespeare.

The practical limitations you admit make your idea worthless.

Cramer is not someone I respect. There is a study that says if you invest the opposite of what Cramer advises on TV you make more money than if you follow his advice. He is an entertainer more than a financial adviser.

That said, I do agree with Cramer that many people are doing stupid things with AI and making bad assumptions.

Humans do higher quality work than AI, AI's advantage is SPEED.

Sometimes speed is an advantage. Sometimes it is a bad idea. Do you think it is a good idea to travel at 90 mph all the time? Do you want your doctor to take extra time considering your illness, or make an instant snap decision? Would you prefer to accept an AI's diagnosis or would you rather have a human do it?

I have no doubt many businesses will make a ton of money because they use AI. I also have no doubt many a business will bankrupt themselves trying to do the same thing.

It is true that millions of protein foldings were first calculated using the first AI. I am sure there will be many other good uses of AI. But in addition tho that Lawyers are being fined and fired for using AI. Kids are using it to cheat at school.

Corporations need to prove they are making good use of the new technology rather than just hoping on the bandwagon and wasting a ton of money.

That was true maybe true 30 years ago. I owned a 1996 Acura with a 5 speed. According to the specs the 5 speed manual got 1mpg better than the automatic. Buy a car with a bulletproof ZF8 transmission and you'll be amazed. It's used in tons of different vehicles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There is zero demand for anything that old and decrepit.

I drove a manual car for almost a decade. My wife practiced in a parking lot and only stalled it twice before getting the hang of first gear. I also live in area with some of the steepest streets in the country. 25% grade anyone?

The VW crowd is a strange bunch. Denim seats?