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[a'la mode]

No EU nation is getting free money. They're paying into the budget. This shouldn't mean that EU laws supercede national laws. EU member nations should be sovereign. I think that's even more important for Poland given their history.

It's not quite true that the EU was born as a political project. It started as an economic project with the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 and then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957.

I wouldn't say it became truly a political unity until the Maastricht Treaty of 1993 that established the European Union.

Our general understanding of states is not the end all be all evolution of statehood, and thinking of the EU in terms of the unitary/federal state binary is a bit old fashioned. It sits kind of in between, with key differences of course, like the ability to actually leave the EU whereas states couldn't leave a federation (without a civil war). Also, member states still continue to be sovereign unitary states, but through their membership delegate some of that sovereignty into the EU to ensure that common policy can be adequately created and enforced, and yes, primacy of EU law is also in the package. You can't really apply old "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts" to it, because it's really just a collection of states going "fuck it, let's try something new". It's a new construct, an evolution or an experiment, and in the long run it could prove to be better or worse than what came before. So far my impression is that most EU residents, aside from the more nationalistic-populistic leaning parties and groups, have been quite happy with how the EU has turned out to be.

Clinging to the old school of thought in regards to sovereignty is a fair position to have, I'm not telling you you are necessarily wrong, but it can't be denied that a construct like the EU can (and has been so far) be more stable and wield more power and leverage collectively and be a bigger player globally, than a collection of random states jerking left or right on the whim of the current political climate. If all these little countries were alone, the US, Russia, and China would not give two flying shits about what the president from Noonecaresland with less people than these countries have in one city would have to say.

 

[a'la mode]

And maybe a little more on topic, here's a good video for non-techies to explain what lidar is, and to demonstrate why relying only on cameras can never compete with systems that also uses lidar/radar. Musk promises the moon from the sky in driving automation, but FSD and Robotaxi are already outdated, and dead when compared to the advances made by competitors such as Waymo and Zoox.

 

[Hudo]

Sweeping claims, by that you mean the fundamentals of economics which continue to apply in large economies.


Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics:

Strangely familiar.

TL;DR?

 

[Bojji]

TL;DR?

Tariff wars fuck up everyone and can create global recession.

 

[Rentahamster]

that’s an oversimplification if I've ever seen one.

The U.S. absolutely plays a massive role in tech and medical innovation, however Europe isn't as stagnant as you suggest. Germany and Switzerland are leaders in medical devices and pharmaceuticals, the U.K. is strong in biotech, greentech from Sweden and the Netherlands etc.

I agree that some nations in Europe, especially those tied to the overly bureaucratic and undemocratic EU, but dismissing Europe entirely ignores some of the world-class research and breakthroughs happening here.

True. I mean look at TSMC. This Taiwanese company makes the world's best computer chips using machines from ASML Holding, which is a Dutch company, IIRC. A ADiTAR

 

[Unknown Soldier]

And maybe a little more on topic, here's a good video for non-techies to explain what lidar is, and to demonstrate why relying only on cameras can never compete with systems that also uses lidar/radar. Musk promises the moon from the sky in driving automation, but FSD and Robotaxi are already outdated, and dead when compared to the advances made by competitors such as Waymo and Zoox.

 

[a'la mode]

Someone called the Tesla Defense Force

 

[ADiTAR]

True. I mean look at TSMC. This Taiwanese company makes the world's best computer chips using machines from ASML Holding, which is a Dutch company, IIRC. A ADiTAR

Well, I said barely has a pulse. It's still breathing but you can't compare the entrepreneurship in America to Europe. There's much more push for innovation with much less tape.

 

[YCoCg]

Well, I said barely has a pulse. It's still breathing but you can't compare the entrepreneurship in America to Europe. There's much more push for innovation with much less tape.

Scientists in the UK are working on teleportation.

 

[jason10mm]

Under that tough stainless steel "space-grade" exterior is just a cuddly little disaster made out of aluminum and glue. Lipstick on a pig indeed.

I'm sure tesla would say it's "high tensile strength industrial grade epoxy" but if you wanna be disparaging about it, then call it glue.

Like I don't call JB weld "glue" but I guess you can choose your bias in how you want it to sound.

 

[a'la mode]

I'm sure tesla would say it's "high tensile strength industrial grade epoxy" but if you wanna be disparaging about it, then call it glue.

Like I don't call JB weld "glue" but I guess you can choose your bias in how you want it to sound.

I'm not drinking water out of a glass, I'm drinking dihydrogen monoxide out of a rapid-quenched low thermal expansion coefficient container made out of a silica-boron oxide compound.

 

[jason10mm]

I'm not drinking water out of a glass, I'm drinking dihydrogen monoxide out of a rapid-quenched low thermal expansion coefficient container made out of a silica-boron oxide compound.

Don't you know that dihydrogen monoxide is TOXIC!?!?!?

It's all about

 

[nbcjr]

Lol, this tesla defense force is pathetic. LIDAR is simply better than cameras, coat as you wish.

 

[Goalus]

Lol, this tesla defense force is pathetic. LIDAR is simply better than cameras, coat as you wish.

Ever since I have seen Huawei's system in action, I tend to agree.



At 36:30 there is an impressive situation.

 

[Zathalus]

I'm sure tesla would say it's "high tensile strength industrial grade epoxy" but if you wanna be disparaging about it, then call it glue.

Like I don't call JB weld "glue" but I guess you can choose your bias in how you want it to sound.

The Cybertruck is well know for having various build and QA problems. It fairs poorly against a lot of other trucks out there because the cast aluminum is worse then forged aluminum (or solid steel) and the "high tensile strength industrial grade epoxy" (also known as glue) is prone to breaking and having panels come off. There is a lot to admire about the Cybertruck in terms of feature set, but the build quality is not one of them.

 

[EviLore]

Cyberglue probably not ideal.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Completely out of context clips with no specific details at all.

What is the context and what are the details, then?

If Musk thinks they have points of agreement he should go to Congress and publicly lay it all out in an advisory capacity only.

I think the point is they agree that there is "waste, fraud, and abuse" in well-regarded social welfare programs. But it's not as if there are any string of words that Musk could put together that would cause them to support him or anything he suggests.

And really he doesn't need to go to congress, because the current president is using executive orders far beyond their original intent, just like Biden before him, Trump's first term in office, and Obama before him. It just gets worse and worse with each consecutive president making a larger and larger power grab, but until congress passes laws to change the rules and limit that sort of power, I don't expect any of that to change anytime soon.




I think the real thing that led to this current situation is the fact that you can't spend money through executive orders. As they say, congress has the power of the purse. But I don't think anyone ever accounted for using executive orders to save money rather than spend it.

He literally already said publicly he wants to eliminate those programs.

Do you have a clip of that or a tweet? Are you saying that the full context of what you're talking about is Musk expressing the intent to fully eliminate social security and medicare, and not even replace them with a different social entitlement program? Considering the elderly vote more often than any other group, I can't imagine any political party who would screw with people's retirement money like that. I don't think they'd win another election for a very long time.

 

[a'la mode]

Lol, this tesla defense force is pathetic. LIDAR is simply better than cameras, coat as you wish.

Yes, and it's not like it's about which one is simply better either.

All self-driving begins with building and updating a model of world, and that's done by using sensors to sample the real world. It's pretty self-explanatory really; the more sensors you have, and the more types you have, the more data you can collect and the more accurate and robust your model is. You get three main types; cameras, lidar, and radar.

Camera-only solutions will have just that, visual data, and will have to spend considerable effort just trying to interpret and determine objects of interest from plain image data. You have lots of challenges like protrusions, dividers, curbs, objects looking like other objects, and you don't even know the distance to objects - you have to try to figure it out. It will inevitably miss some details, hallucinate, and get distance wrong. Meanwhile, a lidar can build a much more accurate representation of the actual environment. You no longer have to guess what might be a divider or a curb or how far things might be, and it doesn't even matter what the object looks like, it's gonna bounce that ray back at you anyway. You can even detect potholes and uneven road shapes. Radar works on a similar principle, and is a good backup for lidar for more severe weather conditions.

Waymo/Zoox use all three at the same time - they have cameras, lidar, and radar. The Avatr car linked above couples lidar with a camera. Even that duo is much more superior to camera-only. More sensors and more types are simply objectively better and give you a more accurate model of the real world no matter what the Tesla cult will try to argue, as they try to cope with the fact that they put considerable money into their wrong bet, made the whole brand their personality, and no one thinks they are cool anymore. They don't even want to admit that competition is using multiple sensors at the same time because any arguments they have would self-destruct gloriously on the spot - I mean, duh, how did you think the "lidar car" still knew where the lane markings were and what state the traffic lights were in?

Tesla bots are in shambles with their old, outdated tech and stuck at self-automation level 2, whereas the competition is using multiple at the same time and hitting self-automation 4 (where 5 is absolute full automation, the dream).

 

[LegendOfKage]

Sweeping claims, by that you mean the fundamentals of economics which continue to apply in large economies.


Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics:

That was a good read. I'd be interested to hear what he has to say about the current situation, but he's 94, so I think he's probably retired.

So what are the chances that Trump doesn't actually want long term tariffs, and he's doing this to push others into reducing their tariffs on the US? And would other countries ending their tariffs always lead to good things for those countries and their economies?




I also thought this was an interesting exchange:




For those who feel the country was screwed over by decisions like NAFTA allowing and encouraging jobs to go overseas, I can see why people would hear about tariffs and put their faith behind the idea. But if not through the use of tariffs, what would be the right way to reverse the effects of trade agreements that caused almost all American manufacturing to leave the country?