AugustDeRosa
20hr ago
I think the more important question in the coming fallout - if this is permanent, as Trump has demonstrated a pretty remarkable willingness to 'get over' stuff like this in the past (Cruz, Rubio, Vance, basically anybody that isn't Barack Obama or Rosie O'Donnell), and Musk could potentially try and undo this by groveling - will be what happens amongst the other assorted figures within the tech world. Thiel is clearly closely integrated into the Trump admin, but figures such as Zuck, Huang, Bezos, Ellison who hold an immense amount of clout, power, and capital that spans far beyond the borders of the USA have been very friendly to the admin this time around but are far less intertwined with it.
My prediction: this doesn't fizzle out, Elon remains on bad terms with the admin, Trump makes an example of him albeit not in the most extreme sense, the tech world meekishly maintains its closeness with Trump for fear of retribution, and the economic position of the USA worsens as it demonstrates more dysfunction - and, most importantly, humanity takes a few more steps backwards from any end goal of expanding beyond the rock we are currently stuck on.
AugustDeRosa
2d ago
Sure, but we're talking about the average person who buys an EV, which is already a very small portion of the population in the first place.
AugustDeRosa
2d ago
That makes sense and in itself reflects a much larger problem: often, policies regarding EV mandates are made with urban areas in mind, where the infrastructure is in the process of being entirely revamped to suit them at the expense of ICE vehicles, whereas once you drive five minutes outside the capital, you can't find a charger, you can't find an EV dealer, and your income drops below the required amount to purchase one in the first place.
Even though my preference is towards EVs for a multitude of reasons, if I lived rural there's no chance in hell I'd use one. Getting off-topic here but it's one of the major reasons I feel EVs have found less uptake in the USA, Canada, and Australia when compared to Europe, which then gets retrofitted to more sensationalist cultural/political lines.
Firstly the choice to want an EV in the first place is purely virtue signalling - nobody I know ever justified it with anything other than highfalutin saving-the-planet rethoric
This could very well be true in the US, but at least in Western Europe, governments subsidise the hell out of EVs through either direct subsidies to the manufacturers and distributers or indirect tax subsidies, and some cities (London, Paris, I assume others) explicitly discourage or even disallow non-EVs from certain areas.
Because of this, if you are in Europe and are:
- A company purchasing a fleet of cars,
- An urban professional,
It's probably in your best interest financially to buy an EV, or at the very least a hybrid.
You could argue this is second-hand virtue signalling, but the end purchaser who will make the decision as to what they buy is probably thinking mostly of practicality. I currently drive a hybrid purely for financial reasons (and since having owned it, I am far more partial to EVs and would consider them in future), and most of the people I know who drive EVs do so either for tax purposes or because they live in an urban area.
And both of these purchasers would be particularly attuned to the inverse-virtue-signalling presently associated with purchasing a Tesla (e.g. I am aware of a European company that has this year taken every Tesla off of its 'approved vehicles' list for company cars, and when pressed on why, they said they didn't want the brand "associated with any political direction"). This means that even if the initial purchase was primarily a financial decision rather than virtue signaling, you can still then be swayed by "Musk man bad".
I obviously have no means of demonstrating this, but this isn’t an alt, I just genuinely got that baited by your bizarre analogy.
That also doesn’t really explain what you meant, either. What is Vance doing in this situation? How is he Agrippa? You’ve just put names to figures without any actual connection.
The Putin-Medvedev analogy makes far more sense, but Medvedev worked as a patsy precisely because he was seen as “responsible” and “conciliatory” towards the West as opposed to Putin, which gave Putin time and space to breathe while cementing his power. Don Jnr. ain’t that. In that situation someone other than Don Jnr., perhaps Ivanka if you want to keep it in the family, would be the pick. Rubio would be the obvious choice though, and in fact, Rubio seems to be getting Trump’s blessing as a successor. (https://tass.com/world/1952703)
This is why getting your analogies right actually helps - it lets you consider what strategy worked or failed in the past.
AugustDeRosa
2d ago
I am also currently rereading Caesar’s ‘The Civil War’ so suppose I was particularly primed to react, however, if that dated meme is anything to go by, we’re all only a few hours gone from thinking about Rome anyway.
AugustDeRosa
2d ago
I've lurked the Motte in its various incarnations over the past however many years and have felt strongly about many of the things posted, however, I have never felt any strong enough need to post that I thought it necessary to make an account - until your description of 'The Octavian Strategy'.
What would this strategy have to do with Octavian? Octavian was a complete nobody politically until Caesar died, at which point, Caesar certainly wasn't "backseat driving", because Caesar was dead. There was absolutely no sense that people 'didn't care' about Octavian because they thought Caesar was in control, since, as mentioned, he was dead, and many of the key Caesarians had either taken part in the assassination conspiracy or ended up as Octavian's opponents, so they also weren't in control.
Or are you saying that it's the 'Octavian strategy' just because Donald Junior bears his father's name, in the same way Octavian was given Caesar's name by virtue of his adoption? Sure, I guess, but it's far more accurate to describe this strategy as literally any other political dynasty that isn't Caesar's, given that "son takes power after his father dies / exits the scene" is an incredibly common historical occurrence, and again, your primary point is that the father is still in the driver's seat, which definitely doesn't apply to Octavian.
And that's not even getting onto the Marcus Agrippa comparison. Agrippa had very little to do with Caesar, and was incredibly close to Octavian throughout his life. That does not map whatsoever onto Vance and Don Junior. I don't even understand what you're trying to imply with that.
I know some might view this as nitpicky or irrelevant but I honestly can't think of a less apt historical comparison I've seen here, ever, and I've seen some bad ones. Trying to just hamfistedly map scenarios onto what you think happened in Rome just leads to very bad conclusions, since you're evaluating strategy based on outcomes that never happened.
Trump barely posts on Twitter as it is. He's still full-bore Truth Social, although I have never heard of anybody using the website for anything other than seeing what Trump has posted on it.
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