I continue to be confused as to how one dimwit can make so many consequential decisions for all of us. And we just have to sit here like idiots and can't seem to do anything about it.
It's supposed to be the work of 535 dimwits, but each half of those 535 spends its time ensuring that the other half doesn't get anything done.
So the executive branch has assumed a lot of functions that by right belong to the legislative branch. That's not great, but it has mostly worked out, because the executive branch is made up mostly of bureaucratic civil servants who really just want to do their jobs.
There were always appointed political functionaries at the top of the departments, who in theory had a ton of power but in practice frequently deferred to the subject matter experts within the department.
But that was always tenuous, and now that has broken. Which means that a single dimwit can override all of the experts. They always could, but were generally smart enough not to.
It's not really _supposed_ to work that way, but as it turns out, the safeguards against it working that way don't really work properly. See also Weimar Germany in particular, but more generally most failed democracies; it's usually due to an insufficient structure.
Because a bunch of other dimwits voted for him and then another group of dimwits have no scruples and are too scared to stand-up to him and then these other dimwits… you get the point.
Because it isn't just one person? And I'm being serious right now, if all you contribute and believe is that the dude who got himself elected leader of the free world is a simpleton dimwit: You are the Problem
It's not hard to imagine that he did this on a whim; that's his nature. He does it all the time, including with important economic policy, such as tariffs. Impulsively making important decisions without a sound reasoning process is dimwitted behavior. Isn't it obvious that Trump is an impulsive decision maker?
Elections have consequences. The American center has been lulled into thinking that nothing matters.
It honestly feels like we are adrift at sea, nobody sensible is in change, and there is little way to get back in control of our destiny. I suppose this is what it felt like for most sensible folks for most of history before liberal democracy took hold.
But that’s not what is happening. The Republican Party is following project 2025 almost to a t. Their goal is a complete dismantling of government because they think the country should be ruled, not governed.
A lack of government functioning isn’t a dysfunction, it is an active plan perpetrated by the absolute worst kinds of people And if you feel disillusioned and like “government doesn’t work” - that’s by design by exactly one party. The democrats frequently don’t help themselves, likely because they know they still need money to win elections. But they aren’t actively trying to subvert democracy.
Ultimately we either overturn citizens united, and ban basically all lobbying, or the only way i see this ending is unfortunately through violence. Over the last two months I think a lot of Republican representatives are starting to feel the same way.
Literally it doesn't matter though. The answer to carbon emissions is market based. Solar and batteries are cheaper due to the normal cadence of technical improvements.
Global climate change is something that will be fixed by technology.
It's 2025... You'd think malthusian thinking does decades ago, but I guess not
To be honest, this is the inevitable downstream result of the dysfunction in US government. If you can't get your policy positions legislated and instead use executive power to regulate through things like the EPA you have to assume those regulations will be reversed by the next executive. It's the same sort of dangerous game the GOP has played by trying to legislate through novel arguments in the Supreme Court - yes you get what you want today, but longer term all you're doing is establishing that the Supreme Court change just dictate policy based on political positions. All of these novel approaches weaken the democratic core of American government.
I mean, presumably some future Democratic administration will reinstate the rule. But with this precedent set, this might become a switch that turns on and off every time the political winds change. When Republicans are in power, the US will do nothing at all to fight climate change. When Democrats are in power, they will belatedly try to undo the damage.
And of course there will be knock-on effects from other countries. Why should (for example) Mexico do anything at all to fight global warming, when the US (which is much richer, and a much larger polluter) declines to help?
China is building so fast it won’t matter. They destroy 1M barrels a day in global oil consumption for every 24 months they build EVs at current production rates (which continue to increase), for example. ~25% of global light vehicle sales are EVs as of 2025, ~50% in China (the largest auto global auto market). The world is approaching 1TW/year of global solar PV deployment. Solar and storage are the cheapest form of generation, and will only continue to decline in cost.
Consider it a case study in governance failure. The US' failure is China's opportunity, and they appear to be taking it.
I hope you are right but China needs to block the US' influence on international policy. Its strange to see countries adopt policies in a direction the US has obviously chosen to screw everyone else instead of going so far into free trade the US can't stay relevant.
Certainly, diplomacy is the art of saying "good dog" until you make it to the rock [to throw at the dog] as the saying goes. Counterparties are still headed towards the rock. Once they have sufficiently decoupled from the US, their policy and destiny are in their hands. Easier to say no to a bully when you're beyond their reach and the harm they can cause is immaterial.
It sucks that Congress don't do their job of making reasonable laws. I hate that the executive and judicial branches have to do so much work that should be done by Congress.
> I hate that the executive and judicial branches have to do so much work that should be done by Congress.
In recent years the Supreme Court has turned against the use of regulatory agency rule making authority to stretch the meaning of older statutes and accomplish what Congress is too gridlocked to do. Most notably was the 2022 decision striking down Obama-era EPA power plant carbon emission limits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_v._EPA), but there are many other decisions in a similar vein (e.g. overturning Chevron), and more coming down the pipe (see https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/10/supreme-court-allows-epa-...).
Between SCOTUS decisions limiting how older statutes can be reinterpreted to encompass global warming on the one hand, and fundamental economic incentives on the other (the West Virginia decision didn't result in a rush back to coal), this move by the Trump administration is unlikely to change the course of things, except to perhaps spur Congress to involve itself more heavily one way or the other.
Rather than handwringing, the left needs to finally accept that relying on lawsuits and aggressive Federal regulatory agencies, rather than the ballot boxes (plural--not just the presidential election), to enact their social and environmental policies is no longer viable. But it's going to be a difficult change because the Democrats sacrificed a ton of grass roots support (real, substantive support, as opposed to professional class and social media popularity contests) as they came to rely almost exclusively on imaginative legalistic and technocratic solutions, an evolution that started decades before the courts took their sharp conservative turn.
I, for one, invite diminished environmental regulatory agencies. In so far as it concerns global warming, renewable energy, and land use (e.g. mass transit, housing, etc), they've become impediments much more than enablers of (net) environmentally friendly change. What does it matter if an agency favors one set of policies over another when it takes years if not decades for projects to make it through the thicket of red tape? For energy policy specifically, the economics favor renewables, so less regulation can only hasten the transition.
The administrative state worked extremely well before Trump dismantled it.
Do you really want Congress to use legislation to make decisions about day to day technical rules and regulations that they quite obviously have no chance of understanding?
The whole point of the administrative state is to put non-political experts in charge of hashing out the specifics of rules and regulations while Congress legislates the broad process of making those rules.
An analogy to “making Congress do it” would be like if you had to raise every pull request you wrote to the board of directors of your company and check if they were okay with it. That is insanely inefficient and your board of directors would make the wrong decision most of the time. Instead, your company’s board of directors hires competent people and sets the general goals of the company and directs everyone to work toward them, trusting them with the implementation details and putting in places systems that ensure good performance is rewarded.
In the past we just trusted presidents to operate at some bare minimum level of basic good faith that they were non-traitor citizens who actually wanted this country to succeed, rather than being completely apathetic to the future and viewing American society purely as an asset to exploit.
The idea of a president who would make the country worse on purpose, going as far as making it worse for the wealthy in addition to common people, was unheard of.
But then we elected the New York Russian mafia’s real estate guy. And now we have found out that it’s very likely that his best friend’s sex trafficking operation was potentially used to compile kompromat [1]. The probability that the Russian intelligence apparatus is directly instructing Trump to sabotage the geopolitical position of the USA is astronomical. Part of that sabotage is almost certainly the dismantling of the administrative state.
Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but we’ve crossed this conspiracy theory bridge many times with Donald Trump and he has never really given any of us a good reason to not trust the idea that “oh, it’s actually worse than we thought…”
Bold of you to assume that any other party will ever be in power - why do you think there's been talk about taking control of the elections? It's certainly not to make it easier to depose Republicans.
The idea that AGI will care to fix this, or that the US government will allow an AGI who wants to fix this to exist, feels a little like escapism to me.
Then why don’t you imagine that and tell me instead of just making a comment that says “nuh uh!”
I submit the idea that even if the AI can electronically secure the building, lock the doors, and has automatic defensive weapons, humans can physically cut power as in cut power lines. Or they just stop feeding the power plant with fuel.
The computers don’t exist in physical space like humans do.
Humans would also not ever design critical physical systems without overrides. E.g., your MacBook physically disconnects the microphone when the lid is shut. No software can override that.
you're asking about what a hypothetical smart-than-myself adversary would do against me, it should be expected that any possible answer I could ever provide would be less clever than what the adversary would actually do.
in other words, when dealing with an adversary with a known perceptual and intellectual superiority the thought exercise of "let's prepare for everything we can imagine it will do" is short-sighted and provides an incomplete picture of possibility and defense.
My 0.02c : given that the thing would operate at least partially in the non-physical world, I think it's silly to pre-suppose we would ever be able to trap it somewhere.
Some fiction food-for-thought : the first thing the AGI in 'The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect' does it miniaturize its' working computer to the point of being essentially invulnerable and distributed (and eventually in another dimension) while simultaneously working to reduce its energy requirements and generation facility. Then it tries to determine how to manipulate physics and quickly gains mastery of the world that its' physical existence is in.
The fear here isn't that the story is truthful enough, the fear here is that humans have a poor grasp on the non-linear realities of a self-improving & thinking entity that works at such scales and timespans.
Of course, the issue is still that this is all science fiction.
In this present moment we only see the power consumption of AI systems rising dramatically.
The underlying silicon chips have slowed in progress dramatically. Moore’s Law is dead.
The AGI if it were to exist today exists on silicon that is crude and wildly energy inefficient compared to organic beings, but we are making a Sci-Fi assumption that it will be able to evolve faster design better despite this massive inferiority in its hardware. IMO this is like saying “Hey my dog learned to roll over, sit, and fetch today! At this rate he’s on track to design a better sports car than Enzo Ferrari!”
Even the assumption of an adversary is a major assumption. If the majority of humans on earth can be goaded into believing that some random dudes named Muhammad/Jesus are the most important prophet/literally god, how hard could it be to convince a computer program that humans are infallible gods that must be protected at all costs?
ChatGPT already won’t let you query illegal stuff as an basic built-in feature, and all the AGI proponents think that somehow the tech will somehow just lose that basic feature and build up a robot army to turn society into The Matrix. To me, that’s kind of like saying that Microsoft Word will lose its spell checker someday.
I think you are misinformed on what the term AGI means. All the things you say it can't or shouldn't be able to do. Are the definition of AGI. and you seem incapable of addressing to the point the AGI will be smarter and more manipulative than us with the ability to self improve much more rapidly than human generation evolution and growth. This needs to be thought of more like micro organism containment .
I could imagine that, but I haven’t witnessed that.
What I’ve witnessed is a very conventional client/server web application that runs in a very conventional hosting scheme where best practice security IAM controls are still applied just like everything else I’ve ever deployed.
What I’ve withessed is a system that won’t allow you to ask for anything that’s remotely illegal, and the assumption that those controls would just disappear seems unlikely to me. That’s kinda like saying YouTube is going to start allowing you to upload copyrighted movies again like the good old days.
AGI fanatics are like dog owners who saw their dog learn to sit and now believe he’s on pace to get a PhD.
As a non-American this seems very similar to what happened with Roe vs Wade.
> With a divided Congress unable to agree on legislation to tackle rising global temperatures, the EPA finding became central to federal efforts to rein in emissions in the years that followed.
Trying to get the right outcome via (arguably) the wrong process has left these policy initiatives sitting on wobbly foundations and subject to reversal. Moreover, it provides ammunition for those who would rally their base with criticism of the "technocratic elite."
Easier said than done, but Americans need to fix their democracy. If the majority of Americans want action on climate change then Congress must reflect and enact the will of the people.
One theory is that since China "won" the green energy race, the current US regime plans are to keep others dependent on oil and hence US shale, which would explain Trumps asinine comments about EU wind power. Not sure I buy it, but it seems to fit the bigger picture.
I have a feeling you're right, and I actually think the rest of the world will continue to move on with renewables just because they're cheap, effective and reduce dependency on terrorist petro states.
No: they’ve campaigned for years on behalf of their fossil fuel industry donors. The major oil and coal companies started a multi-decade push when the climate science debate was settled around 1980, with an end goal of protecting profits for as long as possible. The Republican Party has been trying to protect those donors but never had such strong backing to just ignore the scientists and EPA rule-making process before.
I think it's largely supported by the rural/agriculture community. I have zero emissions controls on my diesel engine because it's more reliable out in the middle of nowhere and it lets you fall back to gloriously almost purely mechanical engine without ECU which is easy to work on. For the same reason, the government themselves exempt themselves from emissions controls which is why most the diesel trucks you can buy from government auctions are 'deleted.'
I think the idea that vehicles with emissions controls are inherently less reliable in any statistically meaningful way is highly suspect.
In addition, the most common failure points of vehicles are usually not related to the engine being unable to operate.
It’s usually accessory and wear issues: batteries, belts, tires, alternator, etc.
As a counterexample for you, the third generation Prius (2009-2014) has about the most bulletproof powertrain imaginable. Every UberX on the road is driving one with 300,000 miles on it and complete neglect-level maintenance.
eCVT transmissions in plug-in hybrid vehicles are simpler and more reliable with fewer wear parts (basically no wear parts) than pretty much every other transmission type, including manual transmissions.
I will also point out, being in the middle of nowhere should be ideal territory for electric vehicles if rural society had a little bit more imagination. They need minimal maintenance compared to any sort of combustion vehicle. You can avoid trucking gas and oil to remote locations, instead installing solar panels/batteries once (lord knows you’ve got plenty of land), set and forget it. Panels are dirt cheap and last 25+ years, batteries last 15+ years. Your oil deliveries are used once and depleted. Even without solar and battery, rural locations are far more likely to have electric utility service than any other utility.
Some examples that come to mind: EGR (exaust gas reciculator) valves tend to get stuck in older vehicles, I know I've had a couple old beaters with this tech die and the solution on a budget is to close the pipe and ignore the check engine light.
Diesel engines went from crude mechanical fuel pumps to higher pressure (better atomization) but then the $1500 pump becomes a wear item that needs a rebuild several times over the life of a vehicle, back pressure from DEF systems takes some efficiency away and I've seen claims that they significantly shorten the usually long life of a diesel engine. I'm all for electric that's less mechanically complex, we've been going towards it, but a lot of funny stops along the way (a 12v lead starter battery in a hybred car with a sizable EV battery pack etc.)
300,000 is a joke compared to what most (non-hybrid) diesel engines last. Those are the ones that are most impacted by DPF and SCR systems that reduce reliability (in case of SCR, also DEF fluid you have to have accessible and add). Gasoline engines are not nearly as much impact by emissions controls IMO since as you say even the best case they normally not last past 300,000 (Toyota Tundra an exception that might even curb stomp the Prius, non-hybrid though) and emissions controls for those are more likely to last the life of the engine. It seems based on your comments that gasoline engines must be what you were familiar with but perhaps limited experience with [the usually more reliable] diesel engines.
The other bit about electric I see as a red herring. Obviously electric is superior if you have capacity and grid or battery for it, but it's a sideshow from emissions controls on outputs of petroleum engines. It's not an emission control on the output of the engine but rather displacing much of the work the engine is doing. It's still far from ideal for many rural/ag purposes. I've ran ag machinery in places where there isn't even roads let alone power panels or a place to hook in, either you haul diesel or you are fucked, and in fact it is often there so you can establish infrastructure in the first place.
I have owned a diesel passenger vehicle, if that makes me sound more qualified ;-)
I didn't realize we were talking about this level of heavy equipment, this level of remoteness (e.g., you're basically playing SnowRunner in real life), so yeah, obviously electric doesn't really make any level of sense there. For my comments on electric, I was really thinking about some of the farmer-types I know who are close enough to civilization to have electric service but far out enough to have no piped natural gas, no city water/sewer, etc.
From what I read/understand about SCR and DPF systems, you do your maintenance properly and follow your service manual and there shouldn't be that much of a longevity difference.
And what I gather, SCR in particular can improve engine longevity.
As a generality, I'm highly skeptical of the motivation to disable things like this. A lot of times it's done just because it's the new fangled thing, not really because the person is actually benefiting by disabling it. Or it's just groupthink, people do it because everyone they know swears by it. Do I take the little safety thing off my Bic lighter because I really need to or is it because someone showed me how and it felt good to do it?
And, I dunno, maybe after all of this, you’re still right as I’m wrong, but maybe more of us should believe that sacrificing some reliability is worth it to reduce NOx emissions by over 95%? NOx is a horrible emission from diesel engines.
I do realize there are technologies worth rejecting, like the cylinder deactivation on the V6 Honda Odyssey which is worth disabling.
Au contraire
The guy is slick.
Sleight of hand trick.
A magician makes you look where they want while the magic happens elsewhere.
I would be surprised if he was not in charge in 2030 still. It seems everybody else ate too much plastic too be able to think straight.
At this point I would be surprised if he wasn't still there in 2036.
Unrelated, but it reminds me that he captured maduro, and Chavez and maduro were able to stay in charge by destroying the Congress, support of lobbying companies and accusing other parties of corruption and frauding the elections.
Because of that, like many others. He was able to push elections far from view and there was always a war to be fought or an enemy to defend against.
At some point, I kid you not, those guys accursed every single immigrant living in Venezuela of being a conspirator. All those who questioned any of this were accused of treason and the army was right there to defend the president. Sorry I mean country. Maduro lost too much gas to keep it going
Of all the terrible things that the Trump Admin has done, this is perhaps the worst of all, with the gravest repercussions for humanity.
But who cares about science, or humanity for that matter, so long as big companies can increase their profits and keep greasing the wheels of corrupt politicians!
I doubt it will end up accomplishing much more than letting 'delete' kits go legal again which have relatively weak penetration into the market. 3 years isn't enough runway to start manufacturing things without emissions unless they can get green-light to import foreign models that fast, which due to protectionism will probably get delayed as much as the admin can.
>Reversing the finding would reduce automobile manufacturers' spending by $2,400 per vehicle, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
If this is true, that is a monstrous 5% of an average new vehicle. And it's not just the cost of the vehicle, emissions equipment also can make the vehicle slightly less reliable, especially diesel engines, so it's likely to reduce the cost of vehicles by more than the initial 5%.
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I know for a fact the prices are lower non-emission vs emission. I own a tractor that is detuned 0.1 HP under the emission limit and with zero emissions controls. They sell the exact same tractor with the exact same engine with a fuel screw turned up over the limit to increase hp, plus emissions controls, and it's about $4,000 more. Manufacturers absolutely will charge more for emissions models than non-emissions models.
> I know for a fact the prices are lower non-emission vs emission. I own a tractor that is detuned 0.1 HP under the emission limit and with zero emissions controls. They sell the exact same tractor with the exact same engine with a fuel screw turned up over the limit to increase hp, plus emissions controls, and it's about $4,000 more. Manufacturers absolutely will charge more for emissions models than non-emissions models.
This is flawed logic.
BMW tried charging a subscription fee for heated seats (https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-commits-to-subscriptions-e...). All the cars had the seat heaters; "exact same [car] with the exact same [seats]". (I'd also note that you yourself acknowledge that people are paying for the extra horsepower, not the emissions controls.)
No they're paying for the emissions controls. The people that buy the tractor I have, usually illegally turn the screw and get the horsepower back. Nothing is stopping them from doing it, it is all over youtube, can be done in a few minutes.
If it was actually about "price discrimination" they would do something to stop you from tuning them back to the full horsepower other than "please definitely don't do this thing we made it super easy for you to do, hint at in your repair manual, and is plastered all over youtube probably indirectly by advice of our own mechanics."
To use your BMW analogy, it would be "we put a screw to turn on the heated seats, but please don't do that". That would not indicate someone actually seeking price discriminations, but rather providing people a way to save money getting around an expensive rule, but also they will charge you $4000 if you really want to comply with the law and add a big "save the environment" doohickey on to the seat heater.
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You cutoff my quote to change the context of what I was saying. Preponderance of the evidence is pretty clear what you're saying doesn't apply here, even if it applies to something else.
> If it was actually about "price discrimination" they would do something to stop you from tuning them back to the full horsepower…
No, not necessarily. Plenty of price discrimination is the exact same thing sold to different crowds at different prices, like pink razors or "dude wipes".
Acidified oceans, poisonous air, and frequent multibillion dollar extreme weather events are a small price to pay for a purely hypothetical $2,400 off my next car, which I am forced to own because the same companies that lobby against climate change regulations are the ones that tore up all the public transit infrastructure that would otherwise allow me not to own a car at all. Americans love getting fucked by our corporate overlords, we can’t get enough of it, it’s our way of life.
You really think big business will pull back pricing with this? It is as reasonable to believe that removal of the tariffs will bring back the lower prices on goods.
CEOs want to maximize their golden parachutes and their stock value ... prices will be the same or go up. USA capitalism is about maximize profits not the buying power of their citizens.
Are you fantasizing that they'll reduce the price of cars because of this and somehow benefit people?
And they'd have to take the time to redesign. And Democrats will (hopefully) reinstate it in a few years, and carmakers probably recognize that. Along with the threat of legal challenges by environmental groups.
And, further, if we eventually do get these inefficient polluting cars - who's going to want to buy them? They certainly wouldn't be able to sell them in same countries. Seems pointless overall for carmakers, generally.
Just a gift to polluting corporations and billionaires who want profit at our expense.
Wonderful. And will these amazing cost savings offset the costs of future disasters related to climate change? Or are we taking more of "the band played on" Titanic approach, now?
I continue to be confused as to how one dimwit can make so many consequential decisions for all of us. And we just have to sit here like idiots and can't seem to do anything about it.
It's supposed to be the work of 535 dimwits, but each half of those 535 spends its time ensuring that the other half doesn't get anything done.
So the executive branch has assumed a lot of functions that by right belong to the legislative branch. That's not great, but it has mostly worked out, because the executive branch is made up mostly of bureaucratic civil servants who really just want to do their jobs.
There were always appointed political functionaries at the top of the departments, who in theory had a ton of power but in practice frequently deferred to the subject matter experts within the department.
But that was always tenuous, and now that has broken. Which means that a single dimwit can override all of the experts. They always could, but were generally smart enough not to.
It's not really _supposed_ to work that way, but as it turns out, the safeguards against it working that way don't really work properly. See also Weimar Germany in particular, but more generally most failed democracies; it's usually due to an insufficient structure.
Because a bunch of other dimwits voted for him and then another group of dimwits have no scruples and are too scared to stand-up to him and then these other dimwits… you get the point.
Because it isn't just one person? And I'm being serious right now, if all you contribute and believe is that the dude who got himself elected leader of the free world is a simpleton dimwit: You are the Problem
I don’t think anyone believes that in its entirety. But if you don’t think green house gases are a problem you are, on that topic, a dimwit.
It's not hard to imagine that he did this on a whim; that's his nature. He does it all the time, including with important economic policy, such as tariffs. Impulsively making important decisions without a sound reasoning process is dimwitted behavior. Isn't it obvious that Trump is an impulsive decision maker?
Elections have consequences. The American center has been lulled into thinking that nothing matters.
It honestly feels like we are adrift at sea, nobody sensible is in change, and there is little way to get back in control of our destiny. I suppose this is what it felt like for most sensible folks for most of history before liberal democracy took hold.
Truly maddening how we have not been able to come together as one during this critical time.
The time is critical because the only time in American history we've been more divided was arguably in the lead up to the civil war
But that’s not what is happening. The Republican Party is following project 2025 almost to a t. Their goal is a complete dismantling of government because they think the country should be ruled, not governed.
A lack of government functioning isn’t a dysfunction, it is an active plan perpetrated by the absolute worst kinds of people And if you feel disillusioned and like “government doesn’t work” - that’s by design by exactly one party. The democrats frequently don’t help themselves, likely because they know they still need money to win elections. But they aren’t actively trying to subvert democracy.
Ultimately we either overturn citizens united, and ban basically all lobbying, or the only way i see this ending is unfortunately through violence. Over the last two months I think a lot of Republican representatives are starting to feel the same way.
Literally it doesn't matter though. The answer to carbon emissions is market based. Solar and batteries are cheaper due to the normal cadence of technical improvements.
Global climate change is something that will be fixed by technology.
It's 2025... You'd think malthusian thinking does decades ago, but I guess not
There is no evidence to back up what you are saying, there is lots of evidence that says the opposite will be true.
To be honest, this is the inevitable downstream result of the dysfunction in US government. If you can't get your policy positions legislated and instead use executive power to regulate through things like the EPA you have to assume those regulations will be reversed by the next executive. It's the same sort of dangerous game the GOP has played by trying to legislate through novel arguments in the Supreme Court - yes you get what you want today, but longer term all you're doing is establishing that the Supreme Court change just dictate policy based on political positions. All of these novel approaches weaken the democratic core of American government.
This is awful news.
I mean, presumably some future Democratic administration will reinstate the rule. But with this precedent set, this might become a switch that turns on and off every time the political winds change. When Republicans are in power, the US will do nothing at all to fight climate change. When Democrats are in power, they will belatedly try to undo the damage.
And of course there will be knock-on effects from other countries. Why should (for example) Mexico do anything at all to fight global warming, when the US (which is much richer, and a much larger polluter) declines to help?
China is building so fast it won’t matter. They destroy 1M barrels a day in global oil consumption for every 24 months they build EVs at current production rates (which continue to increase), for example. ~25% of global light vehicle sales are EVs as of 2025, ~50% in China (the largest auto global auto market). The world is approaching 1TW/year of global solar PV deployment. Solar and storage are the cheapest form of generation, and will only continue to decline in cost.
Consider it a case study in governance failure. The US' failure is China's opportunity, and they appear to be taking it.
Ember Energy: China Cleantech Exports Data Explorer - https://ember-energy.org/data/china-cleantech-exports-data-e... - (updated monthly)
Our World In Data: Tracking global data on electric vehicles - https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales (updated annually)
Bloomberg: China’s Four-Year Energy Spree Has Eclipsed Entire US Power Grid - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-28/china-s-f... | https://archive.today/H0oos - January 28th, 2026
Ember Energy: The EV leapfrog – how emerging markets are driving a global EV boom - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/the-ev-leapfrog-how... - December 16th, 2025
Ember Energy: Over a quarter of new cars sold so far this year are electric as emerging markets reshape the global EV race - https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/over-a-quarter-of-ne... - December 16th, 2025
Ember Energy: Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-electricity-e... - June 21st, 2025
Bloomberg: The World Hit ‘Peak’ Gas-Powered Vehicle Sales — in 2017 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/world-hit... | https://archive.today/p2hl1 - January 30th, 2024
Bloomberg: Electric Cars Pass a Crucial Tipping Point in 23 Countries - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-28/electric-... | https://archive.today/e8XSt - August 27th, 2023
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46544375 (citations)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423660 (citations)
I hope you are right but China needs to block the US' influence on international policy. Its strange to see countries adopt policies in a direction the US has obviously chosen to screw everyone else instead of going so far into free trade the US can't stay relevant.
Certainly, diplomacy is the art of saying "good dog" until you make it to the rock [to throw at the dog] as the saying goes. Counterparties are still headed towards the rock. Once they have sufficiently decoupled from the US, their policy and destiny are in their hands. Easier to say no to a bully when you're beyond their reach and the harm they can cause is immaterial.
Global Trade Is Leaving the US Behind - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-02-12/on-tra... | https://archive.today/CFwlf - February 12th, 2026
(no dogs were harmed in the course of this comment)
It sucks that Congress don't do their job of making reasonable laws. I hate that the executive and judicial branches have to do so much work that should be done by Congress.
> I hate that the executive and judicial branches have to do so much work that should be done by Congress.
In recent years the Supreme Court has turned against the use of regulatory agency rule making authority to stretch the meaning of older statutes and accomplish what Congress is too gridlocked to do. Most notably was the 2022 decision striking down Obama-era EPA power plant carbon emission limits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_v._EPA), but there are many other decisions in a similar vein (e.g. overturning Chevron), and more coming down the pipe (see https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/10/supreme-court-allows-epa-...).
Between SCOTUS decisions limiting how older statutes can be reinterpreted to encompass global warming on the one hand, and fundamental economic incentives on the other (the West Virginia decision didn't result in a rush back to coal), this move by the Trump administration is unlikely to change the course of things, except to perhaps spur Congress to involve itself more heavily one way or the other.
Rather than handwringing, the left needs to finally accept that relying on lawsuits and aggressive Federal regulatory agencies, rather than the ballot boxes (plural--not just the presidential election), to enact their social and environmental policies is no longer viable. But it's going to be a difficult change because the Democrats sacrificed a ton of grass roots support (real, substantive support, as opposed to professional class and social media popularity contests) as they came to rely almost exclusively on imaginative legalistic and technocratic solutions, an evolution that started decades before the courts took their sharp conservative turn.
I, for one, invite diminished environmental regulatory agencies. In so far as it concerns global warming, renewable energy, and land use (e.g. mass transit, housing, etc), they've become impediments much more than enablers of (net) environmentally friendly change. What does it matter if an agency favors one set of policies over another when it takes years if not decades for projects to make it through the thicket of red tape? For energy policy specifically, the economics favor renewables, so less regulation can only hasten the transition.
The administrative state worked extremely well before Trump dismantled it.
Do you really want Congress to use legislation to make decisions about day to day technical rules and regulations that they quite obviously have no chance of understanding?
The whole point of the administrative state is to put non-political experts in charge of hashing out the specifics of rules and regulations while Congress legislates the broad process of making those rules.
An analogy to “making Congress do it” would be like if you had to raise every pull request you wrote to the board of directors of your company and check if they were okay with it. That is insanely inefficient and your board of directors would make the wrong decision most of the time. Instead, your company’s board of directors hires competent people and sets the general goals of the company and directs everyone to work toward them, trusting them with the implementation details and putting in places systems that ensure good performance is rewarded.
In the past we just trusted presidents to operate at some bare minimum level of basic good faith that they were non-traitor citizens who actually wanted this country to succeed, rather than being completely apathetic to the future and viewing American society purely as an asset to exploit.
The idea of a president who would make the country worse on purpose, going as far as making it worse for the wealthy in addition to common people, was unheard of.
But then we elected the New York Russian mafia’s real estate guy. And now we have found out that it’s very likely that his best friend’s sex trafficking operation was potentially used to compile kompromat [1]. The probability that the Russian intelligence apparatus is directly instructing Trump to sabotage the geopolitical position of the USA is astronomical. Part of that sabotage is almost certainly the dismantling of the administrative state.
Call it a conspiracy theory if you want, but we’ve crossed this conspiracy theory bridge many times with Donald Trump and he has never really given any of us a good reason to not trust the idea that “oh, it’s actually worse than we thought…”
[1] https://www.aol.com/articles/exclusive-spy-jeffrey-epstein-p...
Bold of you to assume that any other party will ever be in power - why do you think there's been talk about taking control of the elections? It's certainly not to make it easier to depose Republicans.
People are worried about AGI, I am worried what will happen if we don't achieve AGI.
The goal was to have computers become "intelligent" and instead what we got is world leaders becoming dumber.
The idea that AGI will care to fix this, or that the US government will allow an AGI who wants to fix this to exist, feels a little like escapism to me.
The idea that the us government (OR ANY HUMAN)would have any control over AGI at all is silly.
How do computers in a data center stop humans from rolling up with the keys to the building and turning off the power?
By employing humans with guns to act as security to those buildings.
Computers that can out think you? Doesn't seem hard to imagine how that might play out ?
Then why don’t you imagine that and tell me instead of just making a comment that says “nuh uh!”
I submit the idea that even if the AI can electronically secure the building, lock the doors, and has automatic defensive weapons, humans can physically cut power as in cut power lines. Or they just stop feeding the power plant with fuel.
The computers don’t exist in physical space like humans do.
Humans would also not ever design critical physical systems without overrides. E.g., your MacBook physically disconnects the microphone when the lid is shut. No software can override that.
you're asking about what a hypothetical smart-than-myself adversary would do against me, it should be expected that any possible answer I could ever provide would be less clever than what the adversary would actually do.
in other words, when dealing with an adversary with a known perceptual and intellectual superiority the thought exercise of "let's prepare for everything we can imagine it will do" is short-sighted and provides an incomplete picture of possibility and defense.
My 0.02c : given that the thing would operate at least partially in the non-physical world, I think it's silly to pre-suppose we would ever be able to trap it somewhere.
Some fiction food-for-thought : the first thing the AGI in 'The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect' does it miniaturize its' working computer to the point of being essentially invulnerable and distributed (and eventually in another dimension) while simultaneously working to reduce its energy requirements and generation facility. Then it tries to determine how to manipulate physics and quickly gains mastery of the world that its' physical existence is in.
The fear here isn't that the story is truthful enough, the fear here is that humans have a poor grasp on the non-linear realities of a self-improving & thinking entity that works at such scales and timespans.
Of course, the issue is still that this is all science fiction.
In this present moment we only see the power consumption of AI systems rising dramatically.
The underlying silicon chips have slowed in progress dramatically. Moore’s Law is dead.
The AGI if it were to exist today exists on silicon that is crude and wildly energy inefficient compared to organic beings, but we are making a Sci-Fi assumption that it will be able to evolve faster design better despite this massive inferiority in its hardware. IMO this is like saying “Hey my dog learned to roll over, sit, and fetch today! At this rate he’s on track to design a better sports car than Enzo Ferrari!”
Even the assumption of an adversary is a major assumption. If the majority of humans on earth can be goaded into believing that some random dudes named Muhammad/Jesus are the most important prophet/literally god, how hard could it be to convince a computer program that humans are infallible gods that must be protected at all costs?
ChatGPT already won’t let you query illegal stuff as an basic built-in feature, and all the AGI proponents think that somehow the tech will somehow just lose that basic feature and build up a robot army to turn society into The Matrix. To me, that’s kind of like saying that Microsoft Word will lose its spell checker someday.
I think you are misinformed on what the term AGI means. All the things you say it can't or shouldn't be able to do. Are the definition of AGI. and you seem incapable of addressing to the point the AGI will be smarter and more manipulative than us with the ability to self improve much more rapidly than human generation evolution and growth. This needs to be thought of more like micro organism containment .
It will use robots to replace pesky humans. The robots can refuel and maintain the power plant etc.
Why could an AGI system not design better robots, convince us we need to give it control of a robot army for our own protection and then mess us up??
Could you imagine how convincing an AGI would be?
I could imagine that, but I haven’t witnessed that.
What I’ve witnessed is a very conventional client/server web application that runs in a very conventional hosting scheme where best practice security IAM controls are still applied just like everything else I’ve ever deployed.
What I’ve withessed is a system that won’t allow you to ask for anything that’s remotely illegal, and the assumption that those controls would just disappear seems unlikely to me. That’s kinda like saying YouTube is going to start allowing you to upload copyrighted movies again like the good old days.
AGI fanatics are like dog owners who saw their dog learn to sit and now believe he’s on pace to get a PhD.
As a non-American this seems very similar to what happened with Roe vs Wade.
> With a divided Congress unable to agree on legislation to tackle rising global temperatures, the EPA finding became central to federal efforts to rein in emissions in the years that followed.
Trying to get the right outcome via (arguably) the wrong process has left these policy initiatives sitting on wobbly foundations and subject to reversal. Moreover, it provides ammunition for those who would rally their base with criticism of the "technocratic elite."
Easier said than done, but Americans need to fix their democracy. If the majority of Americans want action on climate change then Congress must reflect and enact the will of the people.
GOP dēlenda est.
One theory is that since China "won" the green energy race, the current US regime plans are to keep others dependent on oil and hence US shale, which would explain Trumps asinine comments about EU wind power. Not sure I buy it, but it seems to fit the bigger picture.
I have a feeling you're right, and I actually think the rest of the world will continue to move on with renewables just because they're cheap, effective and reduce dependency on terrorist petro states.
Is this another Epstein distraction?
No: they’ve campaigned for years on behalf of their fossil fuel industry donors. The major oil and coal companies started a multi-decade push when the climate science debate was settled around 1980, with an end goal of protecting profits for as long as possible. The Republican Party has been trying to protect those donors but never had such strong backing to just ignore the scientists and EPA rule-making process before.
They still don't have strong backing to do this, they just don't have anyone to stop them.
I think it's largely supported by the rural/agriculture community. I have zero emissions controls on my diesel engine because it's more reliable out in the middle of nowhere and it lets you fall back to gloriously almost purely mechanical engine without ECU which is easy to work on. For the same reason, the government themselves exempt themselves from emissions controls which is why most the diesel trucks you can buy from government auctions are 'deleted.'
I think the idea that vehicles with emissions controls are inherently less reliable in any statistically meaningful way is highly suspect.
In addition, the most common failure points of vehicles are usually not related to the engine being unable to operate.
It’s usually accessory and wear issues: batteries, belts, tires, alternator, etc.
As a counterexample for you, the third generation Prius (2009-2014) has about the most bulletproof powertrain imaginable. Every UberX on the road is driving one with 300,000 miles on it and complete neglect-level maintenance.
eCVT transmissions in plug-in hybrid vehicles are simpler and more reliable with fewer wear parts (basically no wear parts) than pretty much every other transmission type, including manual transmissions.
I will also point out, being in the middle of nowhere should be ideal territory for electric vehicles if rural society had a little bit more imagination. They need minimal maintenance compared to any sort of combustion vehicle. You can avoid trucking gas and oil to remote locations, instead installing solar panels/batteries once (lord knows you’ve got plenty of land), set and forget it. Panels are dirt cheap and last 25+ years, batteries last 15+ years. Your oil deliveries are used once and depleted. Even without solar and battery, rural locations are far more likely to have electric utility service than any other utility.
Some examples that come to mind: EGR (exaust gas reciculator) valves tend to get stuck in older vehicles, I know I've had a couple old beaters with this tech die and the solution on a budget is to close the pipe and ignore the check engine light. Diesel engines went from crude mechanical fuel pumps to higher pressure (better atomization) but then the $1500 pump becomes a wear item that needs a rebuild several times over the life of a vehicle, back pressure from DEF systems takes some efficiency away and I've seen claims that they significantly shorten the usually long life of a diesel engine. I'm all for electric that's less mechanically complex, we've been going towards it, but a lot of funny stops along the way (a 12v lead starter battery in a hybred car with a sizable EV battery pack etc.)
300,000 is a joke compared to what most (non-hybrid) diesel engines last. Those are the ones that are most impacted by DPF and SCR systems that reduce reliability (in case of SCR, also DEF fluid you have to have accessible and add). Gasoline engines are not nearly as much impact by emissions controls IMO since as you say even the best case they normally not last past 300,000 (Toyota Tundra an exception that might even curb stomp the Prius, non-hybrid though) and emissions controls for those are more likely to last the life of the engine. It seems based on your comments that gasoline engines must be what you were familiar with but perhaps limited experience with [the usually more reliable] diesel engines.
The other bit about electric I see as a red herring. Obviously electric is superior if you have capacity and grid or battery for it, but it's a sideshow from emissions controls on outputs of petroleum engines. It's not an emission control on the output of the engine but rather displacing much of the work the engine is doing. It's still far from ideal for many rural/ag purposes. I've ran ag machinery in places where there isn't even roads let alone power panels or a place to hook in, either you haul diesel or you are fucked, and in fact it is often there so you can establish infrastructure in the first place.
I have owned a diesel passenger vehicle, if that makes me sound more qualified ;-)
I didn't realize we were talking about this level of heavy equipment, this level of remoteness (e.g., you're basically playing SnowRunner in real life), so yeah, obviously electric doesn't really make any level of sense there. For my comments on electric, I was really thinking about some of the farmer-types I know who are close enough to civilization to have electric service but far out enough to have no piped natural gas, no city water/sewer, etc.
From what I read/understand about SCR and DPF systems, you do your maintenance properly and follow your service manual and there shouldn't be that much of a longevity difference.
And what I gather, SCR in particular can improve engine longevity.
As a generality, I'm highly skeptical of the motivation to disable things like this. A lot of times it's done just because it's the new fangled thing, not really because the person is actually benefiting by disabling it. Or it's just groupthink, people do it because everyone they know swears by it. Do I take the little safety thing off my Bic lighter because I really need to or is it because someone showed me how and it felt good to do it?
And, I dunno, maybe after all of this, you’re still right as I’m wrong, but maybe more of us should believe that sacrificing some reliability is worth it to reduce NOx emissions by over 95%? NOx is a horrible emission from diesel engines.
I do realize there are technologies worth rejecting, like the cylinder deactivation on the V6 Honda Odyssey which is worth disabling.
Two separate things can occur without relation.
Au contraire The guy is slick. Sleight of hand trick.
A magician makes you look where they want while the magic happens elsewhere.
I would be surprised if he was not in charge in 2030 still. It seems everybody else ate too much plastic too be able to think straight.
At this point I would be surprised if he wasn't still there in 2036.
Unrelated, but it reminds me that he captured maduro, and Chavez and maduro were able to stay in charge by destroying the Congress, support of lobbying companies and accusing other parties of corruption and frauding the elections. Because of that, like many others. He was able to push elections far from view and there was always a war to be fought or an enemy to defend against. At some point, I kid you not, those guys accursed every single immigrant living in Venezuela of being a conspirator. All those who questioned any of this were accused of treason and the army was right there to defend the president. Sorry I mean country. Maduro lost too much gas to keep it going
I'd be surprised if he lives that long. He's clearly declining quickly.
I hope not. It might be worse if it happens.
Of all the terrible things that the Trump Admin has done, this is perhaps the worst of all, with the gravest repercussions for humanity.
But who cares about science, or humanity for that matter, so long as big companies can increase their profits and keep greasing the wheels of corrupt politicians!
I doubt it will end up accomplishing much more than letting 'delete' kits go legal again which have relatively weak penetration into the market. 3 years isn't enough runway to start manufacturing things without emissions unless they can get green-light to import foreign models that fast, which due to protectionism will probably get delayed as much as the admin can.
It’s not just cars, it’s everything else
>Reversing the finding would reduce automobile manufacturers' spending by $2,400 per vehicle, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
If this is true, that is a monstrous 5% of an average new vehicle. And it's not just the cost of the vehicle, emissions equipment also can make the vehicle slightly less reliable, especially diesel engines, so it's likely to reduce the cost of vehicles by more than the initial 5%.
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I know for a fact the prices are lower non-emission vs emission. I own a tractor that is detuned 0.1 HP under the emission limit and with zero emissions controls. They sell the exact same tractor with the exact same engine with a fuel screw turned up over the limit to increase hp, plus emissions controls, and it's about $4,000 more. Manufacturers absolutely will charge more for emissions models than non-emissions models.
Now do the cost of unchecked emissions.
(And Leavitt is hardly a reputable source.)
> I know for a fact the prices are lower non-emission vs emission. I own a tractor that is detuned 0.1 HP under the emission limit and with zero emissions controls. They sell the exact same tractor with the exact same engine with a fuel screw turned up over the limit to increase hp, plus emissions controls, and it's about $4,000 more. Manufacturers absolutely will charge more for emissions models than non-emissions models.
This is flawed logic.
BMW tried charging a subscription fee for heated seats (https://www.thedrive.com/news/bmw-commits-to-subscriptions-e...). All the cars had the seat heaters; "exact same [car] with the exact same [seats]". (I'd also note that you yourself acknowledge that people are paying for the extra horsepower, not the emissions controls.)
You're describing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination, not necessarily an actual difference in the BOM.
No they're paying for the emissions controls. The people that buy the tractor I have, usually illegally turn the screw and get the horsepower back. Nothing is stopping them from doing it, it is all over youtube, can be done in a few minutes.
If it was actually about "price discrimination" they would do something to stop you from tuning them back to the full horsepower other than "please definitely don't do this thing we made it super easy for you to do, hint at in your repair manual, and is plastered all over youtube probably indirectly by advice of our own mechanics."
To use your BMW analogy, it would be "we put a screw to turn on the heated seats, but please don't do that". That would not indicate someone actually seeking price discriminations, but rather providing people a way to save money getting around an expensive rule, but also they will charge you $4000 if you really want to comply with the law and add a big "save the environment" doohickey on to the seat heater.
----------- re: below due to throttling-----------
You cutoff my quote to change the context of what I was saying. Preponderance of the evidence is pretty clear what you're saying doesn't apply here, even if it applies to something else.
> If it was actually about "price discrimination" they would do something to stop you from tuning them back to the full horsepower…
No, not necessarily. Plenty of price discrimination is the exact same thing sold to different crowds at different prices, like pink razors or "dude wipes".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_tax / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude_Wipes
Or how Teslas let you pay for more range in an existing car, with no physical difference, just some code. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/business/teslas-pricing-h...
Acidified oceans, poisonous air, and frequent multibillion dollar extreme weather events are a small price to pay for a purely hypothetical $2,400 off my next car, which I am forced to own because the same companies that lobby against climate change regulations are the ones that tore up all the public transit infrastructure that would otherwise allow me not to own a car at all. Americans love getting fucked by our corporate overlords, we can’t get enough of it, it’s our way of life.
You really think big business will pull back pricing with this? It is as reasonable to believe that removal of the tariffs will bring back the lower prices on goods.
CEOs want to maximize their golden parachutes and their stock value ... prices will be the same or go up. USA capitalism is about maximize profits not the buying power of their citizens.
A new $2,400 dealer adjustment fee! Not looking forward to replacing my car I got before COVID
So what?
Are you fantasizing that they'll reduce the price of cars because of this and somehow benefit people?
And they'd have to take the time to redesign. And Democrats will (hopefully) reinstate it in a few years, and carmakers probably recognize that. Along with the threat of legal challenges by environmental groups.
And, further, if we eventually do get these inefficient polluting cars - who's going to want to buy them? They certainly wouldn't be able to sell them in same countries. Seems pointless overall for carmakers, generally.
Just a gift to polluting corporations and billionaires who want profit at our expense.
Wonderful. And will these amazing cost savings offset the costs of future disasters related to climate change? Or are we taking more of "the band played on" Titanic approach, now?
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995