(Almost) everyone who's driving on the roads is paying for them, roughly in line with the damage they're doing (larger vehicles consume more gas, and the roads are maintained with gasoline taxes). A few rich assholes leaving the roads won't mean they aren't maintained.

He clearly either isn't interested in organically building popular support for his app, or fundamentally doesn't understand that that can be done. But my fear is that he finds a way to force the issue, by finding things Americans *need* to pay for and arranging with his billionaire cronies for X to be the only convenient way to make payments.

This would be an extreme example, but imagine if next year it was cheaper to pay your federal taxes through X, because Musk gave Trump a gold-plated Tesla limousine or something.

People who don't know how get people to like them sometimes resort to coercion, and that definitely feels like Elon's MO. He doesn't respect you, and he *does* feel entitled to your money and the knowledge of everything you do in your life.

If the value gained from the datacenters truly does dwarf the cost of all this ad-hoc power generation (INCLUDING externalities), then surely every single one of these operators can pay to fully remediate the damage and still have value left over. Right? Right?

How on earth does he think people will feel more connected to him, talking to a digital simulacrum? Fundamentally, how does someone who made himself a billionaire on the back of our social connections to each other not know what it is human beings want from connection?

And he stole the company from the nonprofit set up to keep tabs on its ethics. Perhaps one of the biggest thefts in history. I don't know why anyone trusts this guy.

Other responders have done a good job of responding to most of this, so I won't try, except to say that being a luddite isn't a bad thing. Go look up who the Luddites were. For all the shit we give them on this site, they weren't wrong.

They didn't say "expect it not to work", they said "expect it not to work for you". As in, it's working for the manufacturer/software owner, with their interests in mind first and foremost. And it is likely to eventually start doing things that make your life worse and their lives (and bottom line) better, because only they have control over it and why wouldn't they start to extract more value at your expense if they can?

Laptops still let you install what you want. Android tablets and phones (now with a bunch of ugly, concerning hoops) still let you install what you want. Hell, even Steam decks let you install what you want, up to the point of replacing the operating system! Lots of consumer electronics let you install what you want and therefore work for you. To claim otherwise is to be defeatist.

And further, plenty of things either don't have a screen (including refrigerators) or, in the case of TVs, can have their internet connections disabled and be connected to other devices which you do control. Don't give up and assume you have to cede the right to every surface in your home to companies trying to extract more value from your life!

It's not sensible to steal money that people have paid in with their taxes, and which the people's representatives have decided for a different project. It may be a shitty project, but the people all had at least an indirect say in it. Only a dictator takes the money and uses it how he pleases.

It's not bad to be a luddite. The original Luddites were correct in their belief that new machines were going to make their lives worse, and to *notice* that a new machine will make your life worse and refuse to use it and advocate against its use is an excellent thing to do.

New technologies can be wonderful. But if they are, it is not *because* they are new, but because they make our lives better than they were. Our cars knowing who we hooked up with last weekend is not that.

In case anyone is curious, this is illegal. The executive branch can't suddenly decide to reappropriate funds for a new project. Under the constitution, *congress* decides how public money will be used, and the executive branch carries that out.

Do we need police? This country didn't always have them, and they began life as an institution as slavecatchers.

I hope someday people aren't saying "well, I won't say 'defund TSA', because we need them."

I mean... yes? That's 210 miles, and that's without significant wind resistance. Given that I can do that at highway speeds, I could almost certainly run much *longer* than that at 35 mph. And that's in a not very impressive bottom of the line EV.

The predictions of science led to every single thing about whatever device you're typing this drivel on. They led to the microwave you nuked your dinner in and likely to most of the food you put in there. They also led to whatever lifesaving treatments have kept you from dying from any of the numerous ailments that left most families with at least one dead child until very recently. They're why you don't have smallpox and never will.

Absent the predictions of science, you live in a hut farming the same land your great grandfather did for the same wealthy landowner. Just exactly how did the predictions of science "not live up to the hype"?

Pretty much universally, everyone hates Comcast. Their business model has for years been, "do everything possible to suppress competition, then raise prices and reduce the level of service". Everywhere they're being competed with, they have excellent service and low prices (and are fighting hard to get other players out of their market and lobbying against municipal broadband). Everywhere else, you pay them because they're the only option, and you get what you get.

Now they're starting to notice that when large swaths of their customers have *any* other choice, even if it's a worse one on paper, they'll leave. When you force people to be your friend, they're not your friend and they'll resent you forever. All this time they'd have done better to be loyal to their customers, if they wanted to see that loyalty back from them.

You want people to stick around? Don't merge your support and sales departments. Don't offer price guarantees then break them. Don't degrade traffic to website that haven't paid you a kickback. And, jesus christ, gigabit service should never, ever struggle to keep up with *netflix streaming*.

I recommend trying living in a city! You can make a very cozy and welcoming home in close proximity to others, and it also guarantees a neighborhood where you can walk to know your neighbors and most likely to get your groceries to. Having lived in an apartment in a city now Iâ(TM)d never trade it for a house. The friction to seeing other people and doing things is just too high. And man, not being required to drive everywhere is just so nice.