They can't force people to buy SUVs, but when it's much more profitable for car companies from the USA to make SUVs, thanks to that EPA loophole, then they are going to do everything to make sure everyone "wants" SUVs.

nobody is forcing anyone to purchase these cars. they choose to do it.

Decades of propaganda advertisements telling people they need to buy an SUV, plus the (real or not) perceived danger of having a smaller car... that might not technically count as "manufactured consent", but imho it's not too far off.

Wasn't there some news a while ago that talked about how bad car companies handle user data?

Mozilla’s latest edition of *Privacy Not Included reveals how 25 major car brands collect and share deeply personal data, including sexual activity, facial expressions, and genetic and health information

[...]Says Jen Caltrider, *PNI Program Director: “Many people think of their car as a private space — somewhere to call your doctor, have a personal conversation with your kid on the way to school, cry your eyes out over a break-up, or drive places you might not want the world to know about. But that perception no longer matches reality. All new cars today are privacy nightmares on wheels that collect huge amounts of personal information."[...] (source)

Not sure if this was the one I was thinking about. There was also this revelation made by the German CCC (Chaos computer club, pretty famous) about Volkswagen and some leaked GPS data. Here is an English article about it. (There is also the German CCC video, but the English doesn't sound very good. It includes an interesting part where they show examples of how bad this GPS leak actually is. E.g. finding the cars of catering companies for important people.)

Criminals or spies could potentially use such data to create a detailed movement profile of the car owners. For foreign intelligence agencies, for example, it may be of interest to see whose cars are parked daily between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. near buildings belonging to the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Or those which are driven regularly to the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein. The Cariad data provided such information.

Btw. Any person who in the year 2026 response to privacy concerns with "I have nothing to hide" is a certified moron and shouldn't be trusted with anything. They also have so little imagination that it should make everyone sad.

If only there was an entity that could make rules about who and what can be driven on public roads.

I know it sounds impossible, but what if this entity could have stepped in before companies tread public roads and other drivers as beta testers for their half finished commercial products? They could have forced companies to either make this stuff work, or keep it off the roads.

Real talk for a moment: The world, but especially the USA has been on fire over the last decade. Sometimes I wonder how different the introduction of certain technologies could have been if everyone wasn't distracted by all the craziness and governments had actually done their job. I'm not just talking about self-driving or AI, as another example, but also crypto and social media in general. Would things be much different, if this stuff appeared during "boring times"?

Sorry, I'm just rambling here ...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but McAfee must have been at least somewhat skilled in the past, no? That doesn't sound much like Musk.

On 23 June 2021, he was found dead due to an apparent suicide by hanging in his prison cell near Barcelona shortly after the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to the U.S.[16][17][18]

I guess there is one way he could become the next McAfee...

If the left in the US was only a tenth as "radical" as they claim, people like Musk and his billionaire friends would have to dodge bullets wherever they go.

I wonder if the first guy is just engagement farming or genuinely confused. Either way, there probably are plenty of people who are so "brainwashed" that they can't fathom that "happiness" and "tax rates" aren't linked by some law of nature.

I have this great business idea. I only need to be allowed to enslave people against their will to save on those pesky wages.

Among all the things you can mock the USA for, this is probably pretty low on the list ...

Besides, King Trump would love to throw addicts in camps. Only the poor ones, obviously.

Don't forget that we are actually skydiving in tandem with someone who either doesn't believe in gravity, is trying to hit the ground on purpose, or both.

Ok, but the genie is already out of the bottle. Arguing like this is kinda pointless.

I don't think it will be possible to get them off social media (or the internet in general), so you need to find ways to make it work.

E.g. minors can not be advertised to, no algorithmic content, no doom-scrolling, and heightened data protection. I think teenager should get access to as much as possible to reduce the "risk" of them trying to go around it. "Their" version of social media might even be the superior one in the end.

If the world wasn't on fire at the moment, people could calmly discuss possible solutions and propose laws in every country to actually protect their children from e.g. the stuff mentioned in the linked article. Sadly, this isn't going to happen ...

I agree, but in this case, I think it doesn't really matter if it is true. Either way, it is hilarious. If it is false, it shows how shitty AI hallucination is and the bad state of AI.

Should the authors who publish this mention how likely this is all just a hallucination? Sure, but I think Musk is such a big spreader of misinformation, he shouldn't get any protection from it.

Btw. Many people are saying that Elon Musk has (had?) a small PP and a botched PP surgery.

I remember seeing this graph about posts on r/conservative and how two power "users" responsible for 30%+ of all posts both coincidentally were offline during another power outage in Moscow two months ago.

Maybe they learned from their mistake by now.

So, stop upvoting those luigi memes. How sad

Here is a video: "Clips from The Hole interview with Noel Casler, who worked with Trump on beauty pageants and Celebrity Apprentice."

I don't know if this is true, but Trump is extremely sue-happy and I can't imagine a world where he wouldn't have sued people for this, if it wasn't true.

I'm no expert on this topic, but you should keep in mind that Netanyahu's government is extremely right wing. These types of wannabe dictators only care about themselves.

Also, it benefits him if Jewish people can't feel safe outside Israel. "Us vs. them" is a powerful tool to keep his people in check.

You forgot another important part: Ample opportunity for stock market manipulation.

What annoys me, is how obvious this is. It's not like most people who e.g. hate trans people even pretend to not hate gay people or women...

What has time to do with anything? You can spend one hour a month on social media and still make your disdain for Trump and MAGA clear.

You do know that the world isn't black and white, right? Both sides can be bad ...

Anyone who is even the slightest bit surprised by this wasn't paying attention.