I’m sure there are Americans, albeit a minority, who believe that Elon Musk’s activities in the U.S. federal government are selfless, and aimed at making our country a safer, healthier, and overall better place for the common person to live in.
They’re called “idiots.”
A reader notes: Here is a 10 MB hard disk from the 70’s that I was told cost $40k. Sitting on it is the 1 terabyte hard drive from my laptop.
The cost (and size) of data storage is a problem we beat the snot out of over the last few decades. Now let’s hope we can be as effective with energy storage. We have better, more cost-effective storage for sushi than we do for energy.
Hate to say it, but I’m not sure that I fully believe this fellow. If he’s a Trump supporter (and he sure does look the part), he’s going to have a tough time with me and my beliefs as a typical woke, science-based, citizen-of-the-world progressive.
Maybe “hate” is too strong a word, but certainly I’d be shocked if he wouldn’t resent the hell out of me.
Well, that didn’t happen, did it?
Human society is so deeply wedded to capitalism that we seem to be 100% incapable of reversing the collapse of our environment.
The top priority of rich people is to become richer. Actually, it’s their only priority.
There were, of course, a few other things, like the lies about grocery prices, and the end of woke/DEI education and other governmental programs.
Then there are the mass deportations; his people love this.
Of course, it’s impossible to predict the future of climate change, but it’s improbable that this young lady will die of it. The only way affluent white Americans will get killed by the effects of global warming is if they are unlucky enough not to be able to escape the wildfires, hurricanes, floods, etc. that are becoming more extreme as time passes.
Yes, things will soon go from bad to worse for the world’s poor. They will be becoming increasingly subject to disease due to the exponential growth of the populations of infection-causing insects. They will be losing their homes to sea-level rise and running out of food and potable water due to desertification.
But no matter how bad things get for the poor, we relatively wealthy Americans can always move to parts of the world that are well protected from these threats.
Re: the meme here, the precise opposite is true. If you interview the president’s supporters and ask them if they “do research” into Trump’s actions and statements, almost all of them would say, “Of course! That’s why I trust him to Make America Great Again.”
The same can be said for virtually all climate deniers and anti-vaxxers. Of course, it’s research in a fundamentally different sense of the word from what the word used to mean, i.e. reading the peer-reviewed publications of the scientists who study the relevant field. Now it means watching a few YouTube videos put together by crackpots.
There are probably many ways of going about trying to answer this question. I would head for the Freedom House, which “rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in 210 countries and territories through its annual Freedom in the World report.”
At the top of the ratings (scale from 1 – 100) is Finland, scoring a perfect 100, followed by Sweden and New Zealand, both at 99.
The United States is tied for 76th, with a score of 83. And given what’s happening here in the U.S., this figure will be taking a plunge, as Freedom House has disdain for authoritarian regimes.
We Boomers grew up at a time when lush green grass lawns and large expanses of concrete were the paradigm for our yards.
Yet many of us today, if we had the chance to do all this over and re-invent home ownership, would opt for something far more eco-friendly, perhaps sprawling vegetable gardens.
Things are moving very quickly at this point.
At this rate, government of, by, and for the people will be extinguished in fairly short order.
