Yet he still managed to overturn Roe, stack the scotus and thousands of judgeships for a generation, and sabotage countless government agencies which has been a nightmare for our rights, environment, and the rule of law. We’re still feeling the repercussions and this time is shaping up to be an order of magnitude worse.

I was about to switch all my windows machines to Linux but then you had to tell me this…

Yet still VASTLY cheaper than Grainger.

I saw old women with straw brooms sweeping the side of the (active) freeway.

Gas engines generally lack the immediate throttle control/thrust response necessary for use in a multicopter. Why didn’t we see gas RC quadcopters before electric ones? My sniff smells ok.

Would you want a centralized gas engine powering your 4+ rotors causing them all to fail at once or would you like the complexity of 4+ separate ICE engines trying to work in concert with precise torque output?

The lack of imagination in this post is astounding. In this wall of gibberish you only really made three points: range, excess range, and noise.

Range: evtols are not trying to replace GA aircraft, at least initially. They will start out as air taxis and toys for the ultra rich, but most people dramatically underestimate the rate at which battery technology is improving. Being able to travel 100 miles in 30 minutes without spending an hour on each end dealing with the airport is something unavailable today.

Minimum fuel requirements: rules are meant to serve us, not be handed down from on high. If this does apply to evtols it will be changed. It’s a completely different use case. For example the emergency landing options for an evtol are vastly more available than for a Cessna.

Noise: I mean, agreed overall if not in detail. Realistically these things are going to be quieter than a traditional helicopter for sure, but will be higher pitch and swarming around in greater numbers. Annoying AF.

My impression is informed primarily by visiting several small and medium sized businesses across China. What I saw in these industrial regions was an incredibly widespread entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone wanted to get ahead and have their own business. When the money gets really big, I don’t have direct experience, but it stands to reason the autocracy takes control. Greedy pieces of shit who Elon it up like Jack Ma find this out when they get too big for their britches.

As I’m sure you’re aware, many democracies around the world are largely performative (see e.g. USA) and based on fear, lies, and social engineering. Nothing and nobody in the world could honestly achieve a 90 percent favorability rating, and having observed thousands of workers in China I cannot believe such a number.

The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn’t significantly change this. It doesn’t matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.

What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.

Now joined by Not-Saruman

But they’re Sooo cool!

The US MIC doesn’t give a fuck because the DOD will never pay a reasonable price for anything, ever.

Solar panels don’t use any “rare metals.” Solar carport projects simply cost 3-4x more on a per watt basis than large “green field” ground mount projects. This is due to the increased structural, permitting, and install costs. Carports also cannot track the sun, which reduces their output by about 20%.

Tens of thousands of innocents dead? Uh… No. I would think there were far more effective methods that should have been used.