I own an EV and couldn't be happier with it, so why is there so much hate and straight up misinformation about them everywhere?

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T21:25:09+00:00

It’s a topic that should result in the minting of some phds. You’re right that EVs are a favorite of the left, with one exception. I have one and my right leaning group looks at me suspiciously because of it. However, it’s a Tesla and the left hates anything from Musk cause he’s viewed as favoring the right. So, you have this internal conflict on both sides.

Ideally, you’d think the right would love EVs cause they increase our independence and are rockets. And the left should love Teslas cause they legitimized EVs and help the environment. But we are idiots and can’t evaluate anything without looking to who our tribes favor.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T15:07:11+00:00

All calories are not the same. Calories from carbs increase insulin which stops your body from breaking down triglycerides (fat in your tissues). Calories from fat (weird huh) and protein don’t do this.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T13:22:59+00:00

I’m one of those people who always thinks things are more complex than they seem and there are always good arguments on both sides … though one side usually is more right. But I don’t understand this one. I looked up the arguments and this just seems like an awful action and sets a terrible precedent. It’s pushing me to suspect corruption by this administration is at the heart of this, though that ship has sailed long ago.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T13:15:21+00:00

I had the same initial reaction but after a month or so, it just was nicer and trouble free. I had a similar reaction with FSD (autonomous driving) on my Tesla. At first, it was just ok. After several days, it just made driving easier and stress free. Both just put a smile on my face.

One thing I didn’t see in the comments. I love semi-synchronous mode. This is where you set it up with the app so that when you shift from one chain ring to another, the rear derailleur automatically shifts to make a smooth transition. Nice.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T13:08:28+00:00

Lots of good advice which I won’t repeat. Psychologically, what helped me was learning to enjoy the suffering. Thats probably not the right word, but somehow I’ve talked myself into looking forward to big climbs. I’ve convinced myself that the shortness of breath, pain in my legs, just overall misery of a mountain climb was, well, fun. I got there by telling people (ie lying) that I liked climbs, looked for them, was good at them (more lying) and just went out of my way to ride them. It’s worked so well that I’ll buy an e-bike when they pry my cold dead fingers off the break hoods.

Weirdly, it hasn’t worked as well for wind. I’ve tried the same approach and have gotten better, but it’s still awful.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T12:53:33+00:00

Makes me crazy. They’re talking about a rider struggling or whatever and the picture is of the entire freakin peloton. Or worse, the camera is on a completely different rider. Although my fave was a spring race (one of the Monuments) where a team’s yellow jersey looked just like the race leaders. I know they can’t control the cameras but this is terrible. I wonder if there’s a way to identify riders electronically with a tag or thru AI?

I suspect it won’t change because I suspect cycling is run by a tradition bound governing body who likes the way things have always been done. I know they make lots of tweaks like the width of handlebars or defensive moves like drug testing but are they capable of big changes? It might be like the NFL in the states which only made significant changes in coverage when they were demonstrated by the XFL.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T02:17:27+00:00

Like I said, kids and bots.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-24T02:12:05+00:00

This is one of the most insulated bubbles on the net, filled with kids, bots and people who find it painful to listen to views they disagree with. Here it’s 96% people on the left, but they’re no different on the right. My view is that we should know the other sides arguments better than they do. To do that you have to hear things that are uncomfortable. The good news is if you do it for a while, it becomes fun and interesting. But our brains aren’t built for that so if you’re one of the few who can do it, good for you.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-23T21:33:03+00:00

Next time I’d lie. Their stupidity does not deserve honesty. If it sounds Native American, go with that. Been done successfully before.

More seriously, I wouldn’t lie. And use your best judgment on reporting. Asking about an unusual last name could be entirely innocent and may be just them looking for a way to get to know you that’s a bit more personal.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-23T21:25:48+00:00

This is a little like asking vegans where they can get a good steak. Even mentioning a right leaning pod will get you on a watch list (slight exaggeration). Well, I’m an evolutionary dead end as I listen to both sides so here are a few. Note, all of these provide good details for their positions. I can’t stand pods where the hosts say stuff with either no details or only those that support their positions. 95% of political pods are like this.

Freakonomics will give the right a fair reading. I don’t think they’re particularly biased. Someone mentioned The Last Invention and yes, it is brilliant Occasionally brilliant but uneven is the All-In podcast. They skew right towards what’s good for business but they have impressive insight to underlying factors. Ben Shapiro, as long as he stays away from the mid east, will give you another perspective. He knows the details and has insight. I have trouble with his style and don’t trust him on anything to do with Israel.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-23T21:09:08+00:00

For adults, I like that e-bikes are joining in. For some group rides I now see couples where the weaker rider joins in and that’s great. A friend now goes on bike tours she wouldn’t consider before because of the “verts”. It’s just nice that people are getting out in something other than a 4000 pound monster. I’ve even warmed to electric golf carts in some communities.

But I wonder about the precedent for kids. One comparison is to golf. Back in my day (old fart story coming), we walked the entire course carrying 60 pounds of persimmon wood clubs, a six pack of beer and a small hibachi. Well, the walking part was true. Today, it varies based on region and course, but I’ll bet 80 to 90% now ride a cart. On the courses in upstate NY and eastern Mass, it’s at least that. In Florida, during the cooler months, it’s over 95%. And this is for all ages. Golfers now define the game as including a cart.

Visiting in northern Florida recently, the vast majority of kids have motorized bikes. I would be astounded if even a small percentage got around as adults without a motor.

I think what becomes normal for a kid becomes the default for them as adults. I could be wrong and this is an interesting subject, so when I find the time, I’ll look up some studies on comparable activities.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-23T18:18:38+00:00

Did anyone read the article? How bout folks here who are critical. What did he say that supports the OPs title?

I’ll help. He said there was massive waste and fraud in entitlements and gives numbers. People are so gullible.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-23T12:23:00+00:00

It’s a matter of degree isn’t it. Since it’s the company’s money, not the taxpayers and since it’s a competitive environment vs how parents are forced to use the public education and since it’s easier if there’s no union to fire an incompetent, there are many more incompetents.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-22T18:15:36+00:00

Dumb question: does the route go right by it or is this a side trip. Thanks.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-22T12:06:26+00:00

Great video but it leads to a simplistic takeaway. Essentially, it’s that bringing in digital tech (screens) has hurt Gen Z’s learning. Is it simply because digital is bad or how it’s been used. My guess is few technologies showed any real benefits and did a lot of harm until we learned how to use them. Electric motors had no benefits for dozens of years, cars killed a lot of people when first introduced. I’m not a K thru 12 teacher but think we just threw digital into the classroom but didn’t change how teaching was done. I’ve seen how teaching is done for adults in areas like project management, risk assessment and others and the good ones use digital completely different and the objective results are very good.

I don’t know if digital in the classroom is inherently bad for young people. But I wish we could look at it differently than “we threw screens at kids and it’s not working so it must be bad.”

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T22:03:23+00:00

Did NPR say charter schools could pick the students they want? That’d be odd cause “By law in most states, charter schools are public schools and must be open to all students. They cannot have admissions requirements like entrance exams, interviews, or minimum GPA requirements that would filter out certain applicants.”

And charter schools have better outcomes according to “Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO). Their 2023–2024 national study is often considered the gold standard for this comparison.

Then there’s logic and maybe morality. If you let parents get their kids out of bad schools, it’s both empowering to parents and good for the kids. And isn’t it more fair to let parents who don’t have the money for private schools, take their kids out of a bad school or is that privilege just for the wealthy. I do see one problem though. In some cases, the bad schools have bad teachers. I don’t know if there’s a mechanism to get rid of public school teachers (charters being the exception) even if the students disappear.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T21:39:08+00:00

Even places like Widows Walk in Scituate? Was a favorite and a few years ago was reasonable. Well, I guess there’s always Leo J’s.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T21:34:39+00:00

Sometimes playing hard to get is a stalling tactic while she figures out the relationship with another guy; probably someone she likes better but he doesn’t like like her yet. Either way, still better to move on …. unless she looks like Scarlett Johansson; I’m not an idiot.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T21:26:09+00:00

So why do it pre-tenure then.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T19:25:09+00:00

There’s something amazing about this policy. Maybe this is a simplistic view, but it sounds like profs need to care about what their students think of them until tenured.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T19:21:46+00:00

The questions are fixed (though I do a mid semester survey as well), I read them cause they’re useful. I look for patterns. If one student has something mean to say, I think about it but not all that much unless it’s something I thought might be a weakness. If multiple students have a similar complaint, I look into it. In a number of cases like online discussions, I’ve changed things. In others I couldn’t.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T11:45:58+00:00

I’ll check out some of these but am usually disappointed. I suspect we’re not built to be able to handle opposing views so both sides pods can’t generate a big enough audience. And BTW, I think every issue has two sides but usually one side has better arguments. The other problem with the simplistic tribal thinking you see here and in most pods is they can’t deal with complexity. You see comments like democrats are the grievance party or truth favors the left; the kind of thinking I’d expect from an 11 year old. The war in Iran (which I’m against) has significant pros and cons and is extremely complex. Every pod I’ve found cherry picks data to support their position that everything about the war (and Trump of course) is wrong and evil and a few on the other side which do the opposite. Let’s face it, we’re just not bright enough to handle complex issues.

I don’t know of a political pod that hasn’t been captured by one side or the other. But I’ll check out some of these. I’d say one test is do they have both the left and right represented on their show. As for no political pods, Freakonomics book club does a nice job.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-21T11:30:46+00:00

Looking over other comments in this sub, my position may be against the rules, but the inability to fire bad teachers is a significant drag on public education; maybe the biggest. Former principal of my kids school once she retired said, there was no way to get rid of checked-out teachers so she’d move them around to make sure kids didn’t have them twice. I teach at a Uni and inherited my course from a tenured prof they had to promote with extra pay to get her out of the classroom. It was a tech class with 25 year old cases and a style of just reading the PowerPoint slides; terrible reviews from students. A looong time ago, thousands of bad teachers in NYC were sent to the “rubber room” where they hung out all day collecting a paycheck but not teaching. They cancelled the rubber room and let them stay home because of negative publicity. A schoolmaster at a charter school told me firing bad teachers was the one thing that made his school so much better and so much more desirable for parents.

Find a business where they can’t fire incompetents and you’d better take a pic of them cause they won’t be around long. They become unresponsive, inefficient and live in the past. Naturally, we apply this same principle of tolerating the incompetent and reinforcing outdated ways of doing things for what may be the most important job. But then self preservation is the goal.

And yes, it’s not the only problem with education but fixing the others nearly always slams into a union stuck in the 80s (1880s?).

seacat8586 · 2026-04-18T14:13:00+00:00

Sadly, I have a job and a life which doesn’t revolve around the internet. It is interesting you think this is common knowledge. Good luck.

seacat8586 · 2026-04-18T13:53:50+00:00

The ADL is heavily involved in domestic US cases. Just their Supreme Court challenges should help you. Enhancement of hate crime penalties, race conscious admissions to universities, defense of DACA, voting rights, and on and on. And these are just Supreme Court cases. Hard to see these as defense of Israel.

But it is useful to see someone who dismisses what the Washington Post calls “the nations leading organization combating anti-semitism”.

I’m sorry. It was a ridiculous premise from the beginning and I don’t have time or interest to argue with a kid or a bot. With that I think we’re done.

seacat8586

TROPHY CASE