u/the_swagmaster

Not sure what market your in but in Europe the price gap is not that huge, 30% max far as I can tell. Obviously that's still quite a bit when we are talking about car money but 20 vs 60 as you mention is not realistic as long as your not comparing the byd dolfin to a Mercedes.

I also never mentioned Chinese cars are poor quality. Actually they seem like quite good quality and as others have said their software seems good too though I've never driven one so I don't know. The current automakers, whilst they have the build quality sorted, the software and a few is lacking

One suggestion no one seems to suggest is to buy a second hand car. Imo, you get much more value for your money and since the car is already made you help the environment out too by not consuming something that needed to be made just for you

Aquire, own, however you want to describe gaining a car in this alternative system. The point is, getting a product that is able to be acquired for an unfair price due to the CCP propping up and protecting their own companies would still be unfair.

I agree with your want for having everyone be more cooperative. The Chinese started by being quite cooperative in building cars with western companies. I used to think that was good but now that CCP has turned it around and doesn't want to share any of their developed tech with other players, I think western business greed got the better of us. I'm not as pesemistic as others that the west is very far behind. European brands do make some killer electric cars but they may not have quite the range or quite the low price and they have not been on the market for that long.

Finally, I'm not trying to make bad faith arguments. I just disagree with your position that I'll buy a dumped Chinese car because fuck the current players for not innovating. That is how I understand your position anyway, if that's not right please explain the neuance I'm missing rather than attacking me

So your solution is change the whole system so you can buy a dumped Chinese car without any guilt?

Whilst I agree the system is broken, buying dumped goods only makes the situation worse as it means those players and playing on an uneven playing field

Disregarding the idea of base load is crazy. Sure, wind and solar can provide enough energy but their supply is still not as consistent and a powerplant. We also don't have battery technology good enough to store the exces and release it when needed. We saw in spain that if your power system is too reliant on wind/solar and there is a sudden change in the supply/demand that it can cause the system to fuck up. We need base load it fill in those gaps of low supply.

Of course there are alternatives. Pumped storage is the most reliable energy storage system. Could use geothermal too. But both require the geography. Nuclear just needs a big body of water which the UK has.

Another thing to consider is the security risks offshore wind/solar have. The Russians could decide to cut the power cables leading from a big wind farm and that could fuck up the power system until it's fixed. If we had base load in the form of nuclear then the impact such an attach could have may be minimise.

Is nuclear perfect, fuck no. But the technology is well understood and until hydrogen or nuclear fusion are realised, we can be building something that can replace fossil fuel base load

Agreed, we need to replace any fossil fuel baseload we currently have with something and nuclear is a good (though not perfect) option

Sure, we could buy lots of solar and wind but we need to diversify our energy supply. If we only had wind and solar and one day all of a sudden there happens to be not enough wind and solar that could cause huge energy instability. Or, what if the Russians cut a cable that brings energy from a large offshore wind/solar farm leading to power uncertainty in the country.

Obviously those scenarios are unlikely but that doesn't mean they can't happen. Having solid, reliable energy is one of the most important things a country needs to be prosperous. Is nuclear perfect? Fuck no, but it's way better than coal, LNG, or any other fossil fuel energy source that we currently use. I believe having more nuclear power stations to provide a solid fallback option is always beneficial even if they are expensive and are imperfect

Can confirm your point on Manchester busses in the past. Woohoo much better now with the bee network

The interconnection between the modes of transport is another great point. At least starting with having train transfers be more coordinated (since they wouldn't be run by different companies) is a good start.

Unsure how coordinating all the different privat bus networks would go but definitely something the government should prioritise too. If the system can actually work then hopefully that means we can get people out of cars.

I like nationalisation as a concept. I don't like that currently it is still a concept as Labor has not made clear, concrete commitments for what it could mean.

I understand that ticket prices are unlikely to come down. It sucks but I hope they can at least commit to freezing prices for a while or something. I think nationalisation offers the opportunity to rework the ticketing system as a whole to have it be completely integrated. I hope this would mean you can just tap in and out of stations and have the lowest price automatically calculated like they are in some European countries (the Netherlands for example).

Unfortunately Labour hasn't said anything clear about their plans other than "we want to make it better". Hopefully we find out more in the Autumn.

I'm doing my part too 🫡

Fuck the Israelis, they don't need any more funding for their invasion.

As for other places, I'm glad they are still letting some money go outside the EU. Hopefully this results in joint development of stuff rather than reliance on those external partners

Fair enough, makes sense

Why do I feel like they meant 'glowing' instead of 'blowing'? Weird phrasing

What? I am genuinely confused by your position

Had me in the first half not gonna lie

After WW2 they were given some land. Of course the powers at the time didn’t give a shit that Palestinians were already living there which is why we are in this mess today.

But if you look back to what happened to the Jews during WW2, it’s no wonder they were given something as a “sorry this happened to you, here’s some land you wanted”. I’m not saying it’s right (definitely how it panned out is not) but given that was their wish it’s not surprising it happened. It is very ironic that they have become the very beast that was persecuting them

Sounds interesting but how do you know all this? Just a theory of the current vibe?

The territory they occupy in Ukrain is not theirs. They literally gave it to the Ukrainians during USSR era.

That's very fair, I wasn't clear enough that I meant it was fine to support Israel in the fact they are allowed to protect themselves. Every country has that right.

Unfortunately, the Israeli's have gone crazy with the leeway the west has left for them. It's also funny that though the EU supports Israel overall, they still send lots of aid to Palestine cause they recognise that Israel is destroying that part of the world

With regards to supporting Israel, at first it was fine (since the last attack) but how they can continue to support a regime conducting genocide upon Gazans is beyond me. However, in many UN calls for the conflict to end, it was ever only the US that voted in favour of Israel. I don't think they abandoned the rules, its just that a rules based worked order is only as reliable as those who enforce it

It does seem to me that a rules based world is not viable (for now) because none of the big players actually follow the rules. Ex: China for a while has not followed trade rules and subsiquently neither has the US (since they became scared of China's rapid development). With trump 2.0, the world policeman is starting to look very fascist which is not a situation any EU leader could have fathomed a decade ago.

If anything, the EU has been trying to bolster the EU as an entity inorder to protect itself. It's just not everyone in the EU agrees on that course and due to the unanimity requirements, things just can't change. Since the end of WW2 Europe has been a vassel for the US and even until now that's not markedly changes even if it's gotten a little more difficult with the creation of the EU.

That being said, if the EU cannot finally get their shit together then I agree with your last point, they will be eaten alive by the US and China