• Insekticus@aussie.zone
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      12 days ago

      They can push laws rapidly when they want to (i.e., being paid by lobbyists), but when it comes to picking up rubbish, making the water drinkable, or holding pedo billionaires accountable, suddenly the gears of government are slow and need thorough “debate”.

    • Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 days ago

      The free market is when you jam your invisible hand on the lobbying scale, right?

    • gankouskhan@bookwyr.me
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      12 days ago

      Right? These cunts love to tell us of the benefits of capitalism and the free market such as lower prices from competition driving the market, but then they cut off said competition that is not in their price fixing enshitification club. Can’t wait for them to tell us we do not own the vehicles we purchase because the software on them is a license. Basically like a mobile phone or a console.

      • leftOverLife@lemmy.ml
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        11 days ago

        This sentiment is why I use Linux, build my own PCs, and use aftermarket OS on phones…I hate it too, and wouldn’t be surprised if somehow they’re already doing this or will soon if not.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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        12 days ago

        “Them” is different in the two cases. In this case it’s to benefit a few oligarchs. In the case of socialism it’s to benefit the general public.

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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          10 days ago

          I read that comment completely differently. The “socialism” in “Sorta like socialism” is supposed to replace “free markets” in the previous comment.

          “They” only want “socialism” when it’s corporate bailouts. Privatized profits, socialized losses.

        • AfterlifeAdventures@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          That’s the way it’s supposed to be until the wealthy cunts need something, it’s their profits, and our losses wgen we have to bail them out, c’mon man get it together, that’s what I was implying at least

          • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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            11 days ago

            In a socialist system the “wealthy cunts” are not in charge. If they are then the label “socialist” isn’t really correct any more.

            Though in some circles the label “socialist” actually corresponds to “a political structure or philosophy that changes based on context but always means whatever I don’t like”, in which case I guess go ahead and use it. I find this definition to be somewhat less useful, however.

            • AfterlifeAdventures@lemmy.world
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              11 days ago

              Do you know how many times they say we need your money so together we can beat socialism. I know wtf it means numb nuts, sorry reading too much doom scrolling and my patience is wearing thin, very thin. So don’t reply numb nuts I’ve said for years prior to this hell on earth (I’m atheist fyi) that I make Democrats look like Republicans, I’m for helping people not hurting, and everyone one with over 500mil should be [redacted] and that ia a good start.

              • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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                11 days ago

                There’s that nebulous “they” again. And now childish ad hominems too, and a demand that I “don’t reply.” I get the impression that continuing to discuss would be pretty pointless, yeah.

                • AfterlifeAdventures@lemmy.world
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                  11 days ago

                  So are you defending the wealthy? cause if so you’d be correct, this no longer needs to be a conversion to have. I’m probably older than you, I’m not like a majority of my peers, but if I’m older then yeah I got an education before they started to dumb it down. Smartest guy no, but not an average nor below average intelligence. There’s the old saying you might be better educated than me aka college but you’re not smarter than me. So again eat the wealthy, fuck gop and a majority of the democrats

  • SoupBrick@pawb.social
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    12 days ago

    It makes sense. The investment in and development of EVs and EV manufacturing has been fully kneecapped by the American auto and oil industries.

    If China came in, the American auto industry would be destroyed overnight due to the lack of competitive vehicles.

    The propaganda of “Chinese vehicles are cheap and dangerous” only works when people don’t have the product in front of them.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-jim-farley-xiaomi-tesla-chinese-ev-2026-4?op=1

    • urno@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      I live in a country with Chinese vehicles, and I would say that they were, initially, a bit crappy, a little less technically safe but cheaper.

      Now though they’re pretty much even, especially BYD.

      This is the confident opinion of one who has never owned a Chinese vehicle!

      • someone@lemmy.today
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        11 days ago

        It’s too bad they can’t just let them into the USA. I believe US car manufacturers would learn to compete over time.

    • Taasz/Woof@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      12 days ago

      The propaganda of “Chinese vehicles are cheap and dangerous” only works when people don’t have the product in front of them.

      Plus they’d have to pass whatever requirements in the US to be sold, the same ones that the ‘domestic’ manufacturers do.

      • Prox@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Is this even a concern anymore? Haven’t we pretty much gutted any requirements that would actually matter / wouldn’t already exist in Chinese cars?

        • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          There are some American safety requirements that are based on protecting the safety of the driver at the expense of everything else that cheaper vehicles might not meet.

            • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
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              12 days ago

              One example is a strong A-Pillar on a car–the metal post to the left and right of the windshield. Most manufacturers meet the standard by making it really beefy and wide. It protects the driver from collision but makes collision more likely by obstructing the driver’s vision.

              Car safety standards in the US are actively hostile to anyone outside a car.

      • Greyghoster@aussie.zone
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        11 days ago

        As they sell them in Europe we can be sure that that meet the more stringent European standards too. The idea that Chinese vehicles are all crap has passed its use by date.

        • Taasz/Woof@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          10 days ago

          Yeah from a performance and safety standpoint I don’t think there’s much difference. There is some argument that repair parts availability might be worse with Chinese vehicles, but the usual domestic manufacturers are also actively hostile to repairs now anyway so I don’t know how different that will really be.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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      11 days ago

      i have a BYD at home in Australia, i charge it 90% of the time off the solar panels on my roof. I travel SE Asia a fair bit (and work remotely) I am astounded by the number of Chinese EVs in Phnom Penh (I’m currently in Cambodia) as well as quite a few Mazda EVs (sedan and SUV) which i think are made in China anyway. So many brands, actually competitive :) I have seen one Toyota EV and lots and lots of used Prius.

      Another thing is so many Bentley’s and Lamborghinis.

  • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org
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    12 days ago

    You know, all the reasons I didn’t want a Chinese car are now also present in American cars…

    We need to start raiding junkyards for old cars, and working on making electric conversions without corporate cloud connections and integrated spyware more accessible.

    • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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      12 days ago

      Or, and hear me out on this, push our useless elected officials to fucking do something for the people instead of the highest bidder.

      • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org
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        12 days ago

        They’re all bought, pushing them only gets pointless promises during campaigns that will be ignored as soon as they get your vote.

        Whether it’s a pedophile MAGAt, or that piece of shit Jeffries, they’re all a joke…

        And it’s not funny.

        • CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          Thats because people only vote for one of two parties therefore neither party needs to do anything to secure their votes. All they have to do is convince you that the other party is/would be worse rather than actually doing things that benefit people or have a real impact.

          • Hakuso@scribe.disroot.org
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            12 days ago

            We need universal ranked choice voting.

            Or at least people showing up to the PRIMARIES and kicking these pieces of shit out before they become the DNC annointed one.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    YEAH CAPITALISM - no competition allowed. Protect us from those damn commies …… and their free market competition

    • EnsignWashout@startrek.website
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      11 days ago

      Fucking communists and their free markets and open competition! None of that for us, please.

      (Poe’s law: This is meant to be taken as absurdist humor.)

  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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    11 days ago

    If they paid us fairly, then we could afford to buy their expensive cars. Then, the competition from cheap Chinese cars wouldn’t be nearly so big a problem for them.

    Their greed keeps coming back to bite them in the ass, but they’ll do anything at all to avoid sharing the wealth.

    • zbyte64@awful.systems
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      11 days ago

      And if we had universal healthcare it would actually be cheaper to produce those cars. Canada is proof of this.

    • DisasterTransport@startrek.website
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      11 days ago

      The CEO of Ford drives a Xaomi. He could have any car he wanted, and he chooses a Chinese car. It’s ostensibly for market research but he’s said he really doesn’t want to give it up. So yeah they’re cheap, and also I think China might just genuinely make better cars at this point. While China has been investing into manufacturing and consumer tech the big three have been dragging their heels and kicking and screaming because they see engineers as cost centers and that is biting them in the ass as well.

    • myyass@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Exactly. If you look at videos of what Chinese EVs are like. There’s no competition to them now.

        • myyass@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          I agree. Even in a Korea EV I tried out, I was surprised how much fun it was. Definitely not a car for me, I need something very throttled. As in this idiot drove cars at 140+ mph, don’t worry safely except for the potential of deer.

            • myyass@lemmy.world
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              11 days ago

              I think at this point the acceleration is the fun part, graying out or even reding out isn’t out of the question now. Odds are the tests might be done with auto pilot. I’m sure there’s some firmware hacks that already exist to remove the current limiters. I bet higher speeds will be reached with more complicated transmissions.

    • willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 days ago

      It’s free in the sense that the wealthiest businessmen are free to decide how the rest of the country shound live.

      Maximum freedom for the maximally wealthy.

      And getting the big money out of politics is communism, according to these fascists.

      • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        It literally is communism, in the sense that capitalist states are always controlled by big money, and the only way to prevent that is to do a communist revolution.

    • isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      10 days ago

      Capitalism needs protection because the socialists are better at capitalism than the capitalists are. After all, capitalism only works long term with a strong state to ensure market competition. Who better than a bunch of literal communists to see this and actually try and create a long term functional market economy?

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        China is straight up capitalist. They produced more billionaires than the US for the third straight year. The people do not own the means of production. The government shares more in common with fascism than it does socialism.

      • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        Try repairing any modern car. Try repairing a six year old car. Without the proprietary software to interface with the car computers, there aren’t a lot.of repairs you can do on your own.

        I have a 19 Volvo and a 13 Volvo. You can’t do much of anything to either without the software and a cryptographic PIN that locks the central electronics module. The only way you can access the cem is buy “renting” Volvo software. Even then, they charge for individual transactions. Want to make a key for your car? Pay for the software then pay another $250 for access to the key making module. BTW, that only permits you to make ONE key.

        You’ve been locked out of your own cars for a long time now. More and more goes behind the dealer paywall over time.

      • gankouskhan@bookwyr.me
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        12 days ago

        They are in the way that you can purchase the parts for them from sources including the manufacturer, but also third parties. Until I have that I will not be buying EV in the US. If that expands to ICE vehicles then I will not purchase those either.

          • gankouskhan@bookwyr.me
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            12 days ago

            It’s better than many US cars yeah, but not most ICE cars currently on the road today. Most ICE vehicles can have a vast majority of their internal components replaced with a stop to advanced auto parts or a specialist store to buy things like an ECU. Not with Tesla however or pretty much any EV we can get here. So for EV cars here yeah that’s absolutely better than any we have here.

  • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    The USA is Capitalistic Communism. Drug Companies do research with taxpayer money then reap profits.

    Bailouts and market manipulation like not allowing Chinese cars.

    AI is gonna crash hard and the companies already have their hands out.

    • Polisheocket@lemmy.zip
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      11 days ago

      Legacy pensions funds make them unable to compete. Or atleast it used to, not deep diving on that

      • EnsignWashout@startrek.website
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        11 days ago

        Yes, it’s the people who put in decades of hard work, not the cocaine snorting golden parachute executives, costing US auto makers their chance to compete. That might be it.

        Edit: If only there were some way for citizens united to do something to help those poor executives.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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          10 days ago

          I mean, both are bad for legacy automakers. AFAIK even engineers at BYD get paid less than factory workers do at any UAW plant and they don’t have pension funds to worry about. But on the other hand, the executives at BYD also don’t make what the execs at Ford and GM do.

          That’s why you tariff shit from countries with really low wages if you want to protect your own industry. Not grounds for a ban on Chinese EVs in my eyes, but grounds for higher tariffs for sure.

  • toiletobserver@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    I paid a 15% baked in tariff on my non us manufactured electric car. Worth every penny.

    GM has never made a good car. Ford forgot they are a car company. Fuck em all.