Oh yes I was not commenting on any of that. Data privacy and the reliability of computer hardware and software over time are separate issues.

I was just speaking from the basic-level user experience of operating a vehicle- touch screens are terrible. Pretty much everything you want to do in a car should have 3 requirements:

1. Keep your eyes on the road. Controls need to be in consistent locations and have some other way of communicating what they are and what their status is non-visually. Dials, knobs, buttons that lock in-or-out, switches, levers, sliders. Anything close together needs to be differentiated- buttons with different textures, shapes, or resistance for example. This is very difficult and almost antithetical to touchscreens. The strength of the touchscreens is their flexibility- they can have deep menus that re-use a small amount of space efficiently, but the trade-off is that they need the user’s vision to work.

2. Non-visual feedback to the user for their activation. Touch screens CAN do this with haptics and sounds. And there are physical inputs where this can be a problem, like regular buttons or knobs with uniform shapes. Levers, sliders, switches, and dials have this as inherent properties

3. Response time. Touch screens on vehicles are usually underpowered and seem to take seconds to register an input, then apply it. If the music changes and is suddenly way too loud, it’s annoying to be subjected to that for 5 seconds while navigating the touch screen and waiting for it to work, in contrast to a regular old volume potentiometer that operates basically instantly. Really any music or audio controls can get really annoying with delay, though I’ll admit those are a luxury. Things like the lights are not.

4. Not a requirement, but cars should be judged on whether these things FEEL good. Touch screens have improved slightly over time with better materials and haptics, but that only applies to higher-end ones and still isn’t great. Cheap physical inputs can suck too, though they are usually still better than touch screens.

“No touchscreen” is a really great selling point imo

Yeah it’s a fine line to walk. There are people who are non-functional, who spend their entire lives unable to take care of themselves and function.

My older sister was a genius who, every couple of years, would have mental breakdowns and need to be institutionalized until she was diagnosed in her mid-30’s. Before the diagnosis I always considered myself a milder version of her- smart but not on her level, introverted but functional. Others in my life, without knowing about her have said they think I’m on the spectrum. So that’s a round about way of saying “there’s a good chance I’m on the spectrum too, but I don’t like self-diagnosing and haven’t had enough reason to get diagnosed.”

I think the real key is giving people the freedom and technology to choose. I could envision a world where people move along the spectrum from day-to-day based on what best serves them. And I think a lot of non-autistic people would find a bit of the spectrum helpful. But that’s probably just a utopian dream.

Yeah my first thought reading the headline is “oh so we can spread it to more people and actually have a functioning society?”

Of course I don’t mean to offend those who suffer from it. But in small doses…

Oh yes I see I got distracted and didn’t get to my conclusion: perhaps it is unwise to ostracize the creations of evil people and evil corporations.

The Cybertrucks are here. I don’t want to toss a bunch of EV’s (even bad ones) in a landfill prematurely just because the CEO is a fascist.

Definitely sucks for the people who thought they were doing the right thing by going electric and ended up driving Swasticars.

I know there’s an argument that those folks should have known what they were in for by the time the Cybertruck in 2023, but some people just don’t pay much attention to current events.

I drive a Subaru and couldn’t tell you who the CEO is, although in retrospect perhaps I should have done more research before buying. But even without looking I can guess that it’s some shitty billionaire who donated heavily to both the GOP and DNC. Subaru itself has a history that involves… Being a Japanese manufacturer during WW2.

You could also look at the Nazi Henry Ford and all of those gigantic pickup trucks clogging the US while also buying fossil fuels. It helps that Henry Ford is long dead, but are they really that much better than Cybertrucks?

I mean morally. Objectively, Cybertrucks are just badly designed and manufactured vehicles but that’s separate from my point. Although if I may also rant- we already know that he used the Boring company to purposely sabotage high-speed rail projects in the US. We know that he bought Twitter not to make it profitable, but to gain power over social media. When you look at Tesla- the QC issues, the labor relations issues, the missed deadlines, the proprietary charging connector, the complete mess of a car the Cybertruck is, and how he is now very actively supporting a president who seems to be trying to destroy EV’s and prop up fossil fuels… Was Elon EVER actually trying to push EV’s, or was he actively trying to sabotage them? I know this is borderline conspiratorial thinking, but a lot of his madness seems to make a lot more sense in that context.

Imagine believing that Democrats are homogenous

Exactly. The whole world suffers from that. And I’ve seen a LOT of Democrats get absolutely destroyed by their bases for supporting it. Fetterman went from being a folk hero of work class Pennsylvanians to a genocide-mongerer. Cory Booker just pulled off a pretty amazing feat of giving a 25 hour filibuster and yet the news cycle very quickly shifted to how he voted with Republicans to continue bombing Palestine.

This meme doesn’t make sense to me because I’ve never seen Republicans send that accusation towards Democrats. If anything, Republican criticisms tend to go the other way: that Democrats should mind their own business and that there is a moral obligation to limit the scope of government (not that they actually care about that, but they say they do).

Imagine believing that a party can have a policy that doesn’t affect you.

That’s easy for someone who can afford more expensive protein sources to say.

Eggs used to be one of the best protein per dollar values available. You still have flour (and flour products), lentils, and pinto beans as options. Maybe oats and peanut butter, although that’s starting to transition from “protein per dollar” to “calories per dollar” to make sense. And those other sources will start to get more expensive as people move to them.

It hasn’t gotten as much press, but the cost of chicken meat rises with the prices of eggs too. That has historically been the cheapest available meat, so I would expect people moving to alternatives to drive up the costs of pork, lentils and beans. Maybe beef and seafood too.

It’s a significant blow, especially to people who do a lot of physical labor and need that protein. This isn’t just as simple as “don’t buy the videogame that’s overpriced” or “don’t watch the movie with the problematic actor” or “don’t buy the low-quality fast fashion products made by slave labor”. This is messing with people’s food. Go look up all of the long-term ramifications to populations after famines.

Society is never more than a few hungry days from collapse. This could very well push America closer to that.

All of Biden’s “lies” are the equivalent of when my mom describes an event that happened “a week or two ago” that was actually 3 months ago. They’re minor unimportant details, or just simplification for the sake of giving speeches.