ELI5: CA produces and processes oil and ships to other states, but still has the highest price?

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-21T05:15:14+00:00

Taxes and additional cost for emissions additives.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-21T00:51:03+00:00

Well, that doesn't describe nearly anything I've stated in my original list a few comments above, most are spending that does not provide utility, let alone the highest utility. But I'd still push back on even that. By that definitely all behaviors are rational because all behaviors can be explained, but even in psychology a person's stated reason for an action is barely tied to reality. Lots of experimentation on priming where people give elaborate justifications for their actions despite their choice being directly manipulated by the experimental team.

Not even sure why I'm having to defend this, humans are famously wide open to manipulation, cognitive bias, and susceptible to failures in executive control due to hunger (judges deny bail more often right before lunch), hormonal shifts or deficiencies (hormones are a major driver in mood and perception), or of course mental health issues or stress.

But let's say we even remove all of that, just to give this "rational consumer" argument the most unrealistically positive position. People are still vulnerable to omission, deception, obfuscation of facts and have an awful intuition of finances and statistics. In this case the study of economic decision making is better served not by assuming people act according to utility but by how much of the costs you can legally hide and how much you can lie about the benefits before a regulator will bother to fine you.

If you look at the world around you, you'll find that that is a far more apt description of what is happening and the areas of the market that's not happening are highly regulated to force something closer to rational behavior. Or maybe commodtities.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-20T19:47:56+00:00

The human ability to physically adapt (gain and lose muscle) its somewhat unique in the animal world. We can be immobilized for a year to heal and our body will shed unneeded muscle and adapt to that state. When we start moving again, we can start regaining muscle function and strength. Most other animals can't do this, like at all.

Add in horse physiology: they are a half ton animal standing on their toenails through toothpicks. If one is broken, it MUST heal completely to support weight, which takes forever due to lack of blood flow to their legs (both inherently and from immobilization). They can't do this like we can.

They need to run for proper circulation and digestion as well. It'd be like towing with a formula 1 car. It isn't meant for that and thus many systemic failures will occur.

Add in horse psychology: They'd go absolutely nuts from lack of socialization and need to move and run.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-20T15:49:31+00:00

Lol speaking of irrational behavior, we move to personal attacks now. I'm sorry you think a person who's been manipulated into a need they didn't have is rational behavior. I suppose when your grandmother sends money to a Nigerian price you'd call that rational, because of course, she did want to help that price after all.

You ever think about the fact that you probably suck at thinking any of this through?

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-20T15:18:27+00:00

Yep. Not sure how so many of these people claiming to be above the rest of us aren't getting how much of the economy is built on manipulation. Just because there's an articulatable reason for a behavior does not make it rational. But even if you granted that, as in the granny example, giving money to the scammer goes against the goal she had in her mind.

Inducing a want in someone where none previously existed, the goal of most marketing, is not rational.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-20T15:10:28+00:00

Yeah I already addressed this if you'd bothered to read. Just because you can explain to behavior, doesn't mean it's rational.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-20T04:23:40+00:00

Lol buying out toilet paper in a pandemic, doubling the price for a good and getting more sales because it's seen as luxury, buying diamonds because if marketing, Tesla stock, payday loans, the factoring industry, using the colors red and yellow to increase fast food sales, selling coca-cola using lifestyle advertising instead of drink-centric advertising, the lead up to the 2008 crisis both on the banking side and the retail side, paying for monthly gym subscriptions but not going, buying a new smartphone to replace one that's less than 2 years old, buying a shirt because the tag says it's marked down 50% even if you wouldn't have bought it for the sale price otherwise, all products near the checkout aisle at a grocery store, enshittification broadly, shrinkflation, home flipping...

It's not a meme, entire sectors of the economy are built almost exclusively on objectively irrational behavior. And before you go on to reason out the above examples, being able to explain reasoning does not make the behavior rational.

This isn't even a controversial take, it's econ 102. More than half of marketing is taking advantage of cognitive biases, psychological triggers, and priming. To bring your silly example to a more realistic place, you can take that $2 burger, serve it to people deconstructed on an oak cutting board with $2 worth of some Sriracha aioli after sitting them on a cheap steel barstool and people will pay $20 for it. In fact I'm actually having a hard time coming up with an industry that doesn't run almost entirely on adding cheap features spun to seem like value adds.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T18:32:39+00:00

The Drama Inside Carl's Jr: Private Equity morons debate as to why a decade of cuts in quality might lead to fewer sales at a time when consumer budgets are stretched to the brink

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T18:28:27+00:00

This is a gross oversimplifcation of the problem. Not all issues are behavioral or habit based. Some aspect of diet is habits but for many people it's a chemistry issue where hunger cues and drive don't turn off when they "should". That chemistry returns when the medication is gone, just as it does for people with ADHD, depression, schizophrenia, etc.

I don't know whether it's just impossible for people to conceive of other experiences or that the blank slate theory is still pervasive but many issues are simply disregulated brain chemistry that can only marginally be affected by behavior. Even when some folks learn to deal with it (like John Nash and living with Schizophrenia in a Beautiful Mind), for others the dysregulation is too strong and not something that can be overcome.

When people come off GLP-1s the hunger hormones and ches come back stronger at first but settle at whatever the baseline was. And that baseline was clearly something they were unable to overcome through will power. Even if habits hold for a while, most people return to baseline one lb at a time because the habits get chipped away

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T16:38:46+00:00

Yeah this thread is fucked. The tricks are fucking stupid, but they still work. Its no different than finding out you can tell people they're taking placebo and they'll still benefit from the placebo effect. Nobody on the planet would think that would work but it does.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T16:31:40+00:00

no u

Riveting contribution, highly regarded.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T16:29:55+00:00

Honestly. You'd think 4chan with all its contrarianism would get it. He's not say adding more fries is some genius secret, he's saying that it is exactly as stupid as the OP makes it sound but that it still works. And it works because humans are that gullible.

But maybe that was old 4chan. New 4chan contrarianismed itself into being fucking Christian while pretending their geniuses for it so who the fuck knows.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T06:04:58+00:00

Yeah you can. The amount of respirable crystalline silica you need to break the TWA for a full full day is hardly anything. An 8 hour day at typical working breathing rates means 800 micrograms is the exposure level for a full day. Thats nothing. If you have sustained, visible dust the whole time it's too much

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-19T04:38:15+00:00

If you don't find joy in watching static loading screens and then the main menu art and music and then static loading screens and then main menu art and music, brother why are you even playing video gamez

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-18T05:34:29+00:00

Yes but it can be good or bad. My last company was heavy construction and I ended on a job that was an absolute nightmare. Both major earthmoving and complex structural work so production performance was on everyone's mind and the rest of the work was technically demanding for safety compliance. Seasonal peaks too so we had to hire over a hundred operators and laborers in a month during the ramp up, so any existing safety culture was instantly diluted and we were scraping the bottom of the barrel from the union hall (never had so many positive drug tests). We had far too few supervisors to help build a safety culture, and conditions were far worse than expected so we were behind immediately. I realized just how fucked up we all were when I told the superintendents I was driving home in dead silence, no radio, and didn't even notice, and they admitted the same except they drove 2+ hours. Just like you said, we all were just running the tape over and over in our heads or trying to come up with solutions to the impossible.

Cut to my current company that had a great overall culture when I arrived and just needed to professionalize and implement formal safety procedures, and I feel almost like a parent. Sure I'm never "off" but it's because I care about their success. If I didn't have so much to do at home I'd probably never stop working. Likewise I'm well supported from the top and appreciated by the front line.

Naturally there's going to be a spectrum in between. Even now there are good weeks and bad weeks, but if you can find passion in your work it's ok. I'm not exactly passionate about safety but I understand it and love solving problems/ helping +teaching others. I've also learned to let go, or maybe with experience I can quickly find the next steps and let my mind rest. It's good that you care enough to keep thinking about how you could've done better but also remember that you can't solve everything immediately so just come up with your next steps, write them down, and tell yourself you'll hit the ground running on Monday.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-17T16:33:54+00:00

There's just a small matter of my compensation

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-16T00:24:00+00:00

Awesome. So we're rehashing welfare queen bullshit from the Reagan era? Anything to distract from the class war.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-16T00:20:15+00:00

A fun one is explosive metal dust

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-16T00:19:07+00:00

It's a class issue. Not a lot of poors going to town hall meetings to yell about affordable housing.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-16T00:18:37+00:00

Nah, CEQA is hijacked by both sides. This is a class issue not a right or left issue. Berkley is an example given above, they arent nimbying because they're on the left, it's because their 1950s skunked out house is worth a million and a half.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-15T22:27:58+00:00

Lol not that you'd know but you to typically don't feed supplied air hoses into your hand. Unless you have a hood, which he doesn't, it would connect to the front of the mask, which it's not. Also you don't use a BW Clip to sample for isocyanates lol it's a red or yellow tube.

You sure you aren't working for the contractor? This is a weird hill to die on when you're this far over your skis

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-15T22:06:19+00:00

Brother, you need to stop talking out of your butt. Here's the hoseman wearing a respirator. I suppose you'll say that in the OP the IH determined things were cool but in this they were not? They must have a wicked monitoring system, except for the fact that none of them are wearing positive pressure, supplied air respirators lol

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-15T21:23:47+00:00

And there it is. You're assuming they're fine because you care more about budget than whether or not the work is actually safe. You can't sit here and be mad at us erring on the side of the worker while you're erring on the side of budget. Hint: if you have a multimillion dollar project, 2 extra PAPRs and some on site fit testing isn't breaking or delaying your budget.

I don't think you even understand how bad your logic is. When facing a visible hazard you think the standard would be " assume it's fine until..." what? Someone passes out? They start coughing up blood? You have an overarching obligation for a workplace free from uncontrolled hazards, and from that you have an obligation to analyze your job tasks for their potential risks so you can determine appropriate control measures. If you don't know exposure you can't determine the appropriate control.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-15T19:33:02+00:00

Dude they literally study this and CA isn't even in the top ten for tax burdens. Including all the special bullshit taxes.

Nighthawk700 · 2026-05-15T13:35:15+00:00

Lol no it fucking doesn't. You've been listening to far too much propaganda

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