aggievaulter07 said:
Kvetch said:
aggievaulter07 said:
Medaggie said:
I wish the gov would stay out of EV and just let capitalism make the decision but its way toooo hard when they are pandering for votes.
Can you explain how promoting EVs is "pandering for votes"? Explain like I'm 5, if you're willing.
The Democrat party believes in a "climate catastrophe" that requires we move away from fossil fuels and ICEs immediately. Therefore, they rally behind dumb **** like EVs that do absolutely nothing to solve their purported problem because "electricity good, oil bad."
So yes, the subsidization of EVs is political pandering. If there were nothing to gain from it politically, politicians wouldn't insert themselves into the market.
I hear you, but I don't see how this validates the other poster's statement that it's "pandering for votes". His statement made no functional, or logical sense.
Was there a large demographic of voters that typically voted Republican that were magically going to change their votes to Dem because of a governmental push for electric vehicles?? See how that makes no sense?
Also, as a valid point regarding "let capitalism make the decision", in general, I agree with that statement. But, there's also a point to be made that the "cheapest thing" isn't always the best horse to hitch your wagon to for the long term.
O&G is a very mature industry with decades (centuries?) of refinement, making fossil fuel a fairly inexpensive form of energy at this point in human history. So, right now, it's "the cheapest thing". Batteries, on the other hand, are a comparatively 'young' technology at this same point in human history, which makes them a much more expensive technology to manufacture at scale.
Given that there is some (at least perceived) urgency with regards to lowering our reliance on fossil fuels due to concerns about climate change, there's just not enough time to wait decades or centuries for battery technology to mature, & match or exceed the low cost of fossil fuels. Significant investment is required to make it happen now.
We should always default to letting capitalism carry the most weight, but there are times where capitalism's incentives aren't naturally aligned with what's best for the country, or humanity, so we have to make investments were capitalism isn't.
Capitalism is awesome. It's obviously a huge part of why the US rose to prominence. But capitalism isn't perfect. Surely nobody here would argue that it is. Sometimes we have to fill in the gaps.
agree with much of what you said above, however--
there are two distinct groups of people
1) those that are convinced that man-made climate change is destroying the earth (include in this those that know better, but are power-drunk and using climate change hysteria to get money and power)
2) everybody else
Group 1 believes that since we have a man-made climate crisis that we need to "fill in the gaps" and tweak capitalism to effect some change that fixes the evils caused by man-made carbon emissions, etc. this results in doing everything possible to increase the cost of gasoline and oil based products so the only viable path forward is by some other technology, i.e. battery power cars and trucks.
Group 2 is not convinced or doesn't care and is willing for capitalism to sort out the best, most efficient means of transportation (or entertainment for you gearheads). This might also result in belching smoke out of unfiltered coal-fired plants of various sorts. Include in this the unabated dumping of chemicals into rivers and cutting down the Amazon forests which are also bad environtmental outcomes.
In my opinion, Group 1 is trusting supposed scientists for their answers, but those scientists are incentivized by crooked politicians who are on the take by power hungry string pullers in the background trying to gain control of a population for power or money's sake. Their science is highly tilted and not based in fundamental physics principles.
Group 2 has a sense of fairness, but some level of regulation is needed to avoid the "tragedy of the commons" issue that causes dumping chemicals, pollution filled skies, cutting down forests and strip-mining the land. That regulation is controlled by politics.
BTW, strip mining the land occurs because of Group 1's unabated desire to get battery powered everything on the road right now before a more environmentally suitable solution is developed that doesn't require lithium and other materials that are buried below the earth.
What we are faced with is to what degree do we allow legislation to control our path forward toward battery powered everything vs ICE/gas powered things. Whether you are in Group 1 or Group 2 goes a long way in saying how a person votes. Capitalism by itself doesn't shape the final result.
Obviously Group 1 comes with a LOT of other issues as well far beyond the scope of this thread...
