A political theory being popular doesn't mean it's a good or inherently sound theory. For example, fascists have made the "immigrants are ruining our country" theory very common in the mainstream and people have latched on to it to explain their lived experience. Fascism is "challenging" classical liberalism pretty successfully. That doesn't make it logically sound or a viable strategy.

The problem I have with Marx discussions are people cherry picking across his work. Some of it is philosophical, some is economic analysis and some is aspirational politics. Usually along the lines of "his theoretical economic framework is mostly sound in X case, therefore his political prognosis is correct".

Marx was living in a certain time with certain quantifiable constraints and a specific lived perspective, writing on contemporary economic conditions. When I point that out I'm always met with "Well he didn't need to know about [modern human cognitive research / studies on the specific limitations of earth's resources / the scalability of technical surveillance & media distribution] to project its effects".

I vehemently assert that our modern perspective fundamentally outmodes some of his base arguments.

As an example, Marx's theory has important pieces built around his concept of Gattungswesen and it's role in alienation of labor. The friction of that alienation can be traced to forces used to pacify labor. His work views it as something that, while malleable with biological aspects, is fundamental to the human experience.

That makes sense from a perspective of the mid 19th century, where phrenology was still a cutting edge science and opium was a crude panecea for most behavioral illness. But in the 21st century we've mapped the human genome & are delving into gene editing, are gaining an ever deeper biochemical understanding of the human brain, refining models of addiction, and incrementally advancing pharmaceutical treatment of neuroses. Humans are looking more and more like a solvable biological problem.

Marx assumes that one clear reason we cannot reach a stable society under capitalism is the sheer weight of labor discontent. But as of 2026, I'm of the opinion that we're far closer to total pacification than liberation of the working class. If you can prescribe serenity to the ruling class while the masses clamor for biological contentment, your political prognosis wildly changes.

Theorists in Marx's lineage will try to account for this (or similar arguments) by refining his theory to fit reality. But they do so with the prior bias of intending the inevitable victory of the proletariat. That's not a sound foundation for constructing a theoretical framework and it makes these debates pointless and frustrating.

The plane trip is a great analogy. There's probably plenty of data on which aircraft can fly it and, optimizations aside, you might have the option of over-fueling to be sure you can accomplish it.

With a BEV your pitiful energy limit might mean doing all those cross country calculations just to reach the other side of the state. And even then the sheer number of variables (Will I hit traffic? Will a fast charger spot be available at X? When exactly will it drop below freezing? Will my battery be conditioned at start? Does M miles of ~N mi/kWh surface streets beat M-Y miles of highway...) makes it impossible to precisely say.

You basically have to drive by feel, hence my reckoning of my car needing 1.5-2x dashboard mileage buffer for critical margin trips. I've personally made the exact same trip in different conditions and pulled in from as low as 3% up to 35% battery remaining.

The only solutions are way better/larger batteries, much smaller cars, or massively expanded charging infrastructure. Unfortunately nothing [affordable] in the market is addressing any of those.

Miles are a bad way to track performance because real life conditions can wildly impact BEV efficiency. I can tell you from first hand experience that towing, elevation changes, or moving at highway speeds in winter can cut per kWh efficiency in half.

And beyond that, you're supposed to be capping your daily charge limit below 100% for battery longevity. 200 theoretical miles can turn to 160 miles and down to 70 real quick. That can get uncomfortably tight if you miss an overnight charge.

Frankly, its dumb to criticize people who expect their personal vehicle to perform reasonably well in situations where a personal vehicle should excel. Why own a car if it can't do a round-trip weekend excursion or haul a bit of furniture?

By your logic everyone should only need a tiny moped with a rain jacket and a backpack. It's irrational to worry about climate control or passengers or suitcases, you statistically never need them.

I'm fairly sure some spying is required by law, like the new driver cam legislation. Wonder how they'll get past that.

True, but its illegal for me to wander my neighborhood and pick berries from "private property"

So you're telling me without alcohol I could have spent my life picking berries before I died of a toothache at 25? And instead I'm reading excel sheets and will die a prolonged death after years of chemo at 85?

Damn alcohol really is the cause of all my problems...

There's videos of them with a backhoe scraping the river bed and indiscriminately hacking up plants on the riverbank. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

You don't have to work for a three letter agency to be an expert. I guarantee you that if they took the time to consult anyone remotely connected to ecological science they would have said no to hacking up the river bed without a proper survey and sampling.

Is it morally wrong to ask a bait question on a public forum?

Let this be a lesson everyone: if you're going to punch a fascist make sure you don't stop until his stupid mouth can't say any more dumb shit

That has to be one of the worst guillotine designs I've ever seen, send this child back to school.

• no mouton
• curve is simultaneously less effective than a diagonal and harder to make
• tiny contact point with groove on the narrow blade side, basically guaranteed to jump on the way down or slip on impact
• no head basket or splatter shield
• no bascule, good luck shifting that body kid
• no stabilizing supports

This thing is gonna paralyze the guy, send the blade flying into the crowd, and cause a slow bleed death (if any)

Reminds me of this galaxy brain ben moment

"Stop acting like this is normal" says rag sane washing every step in our descent to fascism

20k attended? Damn, they could have just given everybody $2000 and skipped the $40m parade. I'm sure people would have enjoyed it more.

An interesting thing to note before people get upset: this is literally one dude with a megaphone while Good's vigil had thousands.

In a million years I couldn't come up with a more poetic representation of USA's political atmosphere: one angry white guy with a microphone and a wall of bulletproof vests against thousands of people unified in the cold dark night.

I love how fucking amateur and unqualified they are even with all their big scary guns and kit. What, like 7(?) dudes all lined up in a queue directly out from the door? Just pointing their waaaay too-cumbersome-for-raiding long rifles straight up in the air? Nobody remotely covering any windows or other exits?

They look more like fucking trick or treaters than anything. Probably feeling invincible because they know they're there to kidnap a 120lb woman or some shit.

I never heard of a submarine on the 101 so this must work pretty well

Once the left wanted higher taxes for everyone; Gen-Z socialists demand handouts funded by billionaires

Fucking crazy take. Billionaires have been paying far less than their share for decades. A regular person might pay 33% on their annual wealth gains while billionaire accounting and tax dodging leaves them near 0%.

People "demand handouts from billionaires" because 31.7% OF ALL WEALTH IN THE USA is tied up in the personal assets of 1% of the population. There is quite literally nowhere else to get the money.