This is just not true. The only chugging back then was reading from disks, and the entire Office suite was only a handful of 3.5" floppies. If you had already started Excel earlier, then it was likely still cached in RAM and would start nearly instantly. If not, then it was still only a few seconds.
Now what was slow was actual computations. Like try running a big spreadsheet in Excel or counting words in a big Word document on that hardware. It takes a very long time, while on modern hardware it's nearly instant.
This does not match my memory of using Windows 3.1. Excel would likely not have been cached in RAM from a previous run because a typical Windows 3.1 machine only had 4 megabytes of RAM.
This is why I'm using LLMs to help me hand code the GUI for my Rust app in SDL2. I'm hoping that minimizing the low-level, drawing-specific code and maximizing the abstractions in Rust will allow me to easily switch to a better GUI library if one arises. Meanwhile, SDL is not half bad.
The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
At the limit, not growing the productive population puts younger generations in a position of existing solely for the purpose of serving the non-productive population. At some point, they will simply choose to opt out and the whole thing collapses.
But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually. Maybe we overshot the maximum comfortable population by a bit and we are going to rebound for awhile.
Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.
> But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually.
Or not. It could be oscillatory and humanity could cyclically reverse-decimate itself while the descendants of the survivors get to enjoy millennia of the fun part of the pyramid scheme.
The big losers are whoever is part of the "perish in a holocaust" generations, and probably the first couple bootstrapper generations afterwards.
How many years/generations are you willing to spend on a ship in the middle of space? Remember, Biodome didn't work. Are you going to join that prison for the off chance of your progeny occupying a land that we haven't even discovered yet?
And, before you suggest it, no, there will never be faster-than-light travel, and even relativistic travel is super unlikely.
The generation ship genre of science fiction is very interesting to me, but I've never read one that didn't seem absolutely horrifying. I don't think it is a realistic option. Especially if we aren't even capable of stabilizing our "closed system" known as Earth. A generation ship would be the same problem but 100 times more difficult.
I think it's inevitable, the model is unsustainable and going to fail. In a finite world we can't have social models that rely on infinite growth. I'm sure the changing demographic is going to cause pain (probably right when I'm getting ready to retire), but historically pain is the real catalyst for change so maybe some good will come out of it.
> The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
Economic growth is the result of productivity, which is the product of the number of people working, times their per-capita productivity. If each successive generation is more productive per capita than the last, then each generation can support successively more non-productive people.
But future generations won’t need to support as many non-productive people as we do now, because the Baby Boom will die off. In the U.S., the peak of non-productive populace is only the next decade or so.
That tells a quite grim story, with an outcome thats totally inevitable but will take 20 years to play out. the die is already cast, and I cant see how the country survives.
What does it mean for a country to not survive? There will be people there. There will be a system of governance. Sure, there will be hardship and suffering, but I don't see how this equates to extinction.
Yes, probably not people extinction. But economic extinction - the tiny amount of young supporting 10x the amount of elderly will lead to economic collapse. On top of the collapse in raw productivity. It’s not hard to imagine that level of disruption leading to a failed state scenario.
> At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
But productivity for productive people is increasing. Is there an assumption that retiree spending is also going to increase to match?
Realistic solutions look something like:
- we increase productivity of the working population
- we lock or decrease the per-year, per-person spending on retirees
- we decrease the % of their lives that people spend retired
I am not remotely worried about birth rates. Every tech executive hyperventilating about it is extrapolating social trends decades ahead, which is the same mistake Erlich made when he published the "The Population Bomb". The total fertility rate has limitations as a metric too (it assumes constant birth timing).
The fact that they do this coercive paternalism on the very platforms that substitute for real life social interaction is very rich to me. I'll listen to them when they divest from the social corrosion machines.
Predicting population decline is safer than overgrowth. Since with low birth rates we know we need substantially higher than replacement rates to make up for the deficit. Which seems unlikely
Safer in the sense that its better to be overcautious than under? I definitely agree! I'm just saying we could do without the finger wagging. Either we commit to fostering relationships or we commit to their substitutes. I'm just saying I call their bluff.
I think the solution is in adjusting our ways of life. Simpler living, smaller houses and more density, being able to walk and bike, shared common areas, increase health span, being able to live independently for longer, simpler hobbies, not needing so much stuff, etc.
Despite the hype cycle around humanoid robots it's unlikely that they'll advance enough to be capable of replacing many human workers in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities within our lifetimes. Expect to see lots of really sad stories about elder abuse and neglect because as a society we simply won't have the resources to adequately care for them all.
Paid by whom? That's the problem. The people with money won't be willing to pay more taxes to fund workers to care for a growing indigent elderly population. It's already causing shortages today and will only get worse.
it isn't just about money, it is about production. Even if the money is evenly spread, if there isn't enough production (because not enough people providing goods and services) you'll just have inflation. But ya, if all the money is concentrated and billionaires are indulging in most of the production while the elderly starve, most of us are still screwed.
They don’t have to. If say robotaxis become widespread, you’ve freed up some portion of the labor market to do something else. They don’t have to automate all jobs, just some.
The evidence has shown that this thinking is flawed - disruption of jobs in an industry causes a slow, wrenching, scarring adjustment process that increases the load on welfare programs and makes quality of life broadly worse: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/g-s1-47352/why-economists-got...
It won't. The economic gains of automation will continue to be captured by the capital-owning class. It's simply too valuable to just give over to the masses.
If they were only eating there would be no problem. But they want fancy vacations. They want houses. They need drugs. They need MRI machines. And they need these things for decades for minimal cost irrespective of ability to pay. And, when they do die, they expect to pass estates tax-free to thier children. Supporting the retired population is one thing, but the day may soon come when we revisit what it means to be retired.
Ya but those countries also do not enjoy private health insurance and for-profit care providers. The ability to purchase shares in both the hospital that is treating you and the company that authorizes your treatment is a uniquely american priviledge.
You jest but to play devil's advocate every system has its supporters. One of the reasons we didn't get a public health plan option is because the Senator for Connecticut was representing his constituents such as Cigna and Aetna. If you provide an easier exit for the former death panel workers in the form of working at the public option administrator, re-training, etc. you might be able to assuage unemployment based opposition to reform.
People don't gloat at privatization but aforementioned wealthier retirees rely on corporations squeezing ever more money out of customers, employees, and vendors.
Those other countries are still paying for those things somehow. (or they really have the alleged death panels critics talk about) You can shove the cost in different places, but somehow they still have to be paid.
Basically it makes people feel good. Growth is exciting and motivates people to do stuff. Shrinkage makes people sad, depressed and more likely to try to protect what they have. It's often irrational, but that's just the way it is.
Growth isn't sustainable, of course. If you're a gardener you get to experience the joy of growth every year, but you have to "pay it back" in autumn and winter as everything dies back and resets. The seasons force it on you in the garden, but we can't force it on ourselves. We'll just keep having summer after summer until it all goes boom.
This might be a really good analogy - we're in an endless summer and we have people who are now dying having lived in it their entire life - we don't even know what fall is like, let alone winter.
On a personal level it might be possible to "bring winter back" - I'll have think on what that might mean.
That's the way the system is set up but basically it's not sustainable. You can have more young people now to fix the problem of funding older people. But what happens when these young people get old? Now you need even more young people.
Look at the problems South Korea is having, where there are not enough young people to support and care for the elderly. Elders face economic hardship and the healthcare system is buckling under load.
The Social Security system relies on creating a debt of unborn children to older people based on those older people having already paid now dead people, so keeping it solvent requires more meat for the tax machine.
A pyramid inversion means the old keep voting for OPM from the young, using their numbers to crush them, meanwhile there are fewer and fewer young to actually pay it. Eventually creating instability, couple this with entitlement "I paid that dead guy, so that kid owes me!" (of course, abstracted, as "the government owes me" to hide the kinetics) and you are in a bad spot.
---------- edit: reply to below since I am throttled -----
yes under any system youth are needed. But SS creates a tragedy of the commons. Because retired get benefit obligation of children whether they have/adopt/foster the children or not. In most other systems, the link is more direct, so there is greater incentive to have or adopt child and provide investment in the child, as their success is directly linked to yours. In SS system you can reneg on most of the responsibility of creating the engines of the next generation but still simply scalp that investment off someone else, and indeed still get roughly the same share without making the investment. Obviously there is great moral hazard to simply scalp the benefit of children without having to make the investment yourself, and SS is all to happy to provide that.
Mentioning Social Security and government implies there is some other form of retirement that doesn't inherently depend on younger people still working, doesn't it? I mean, who else going to grow the food and sweep the streets?
Even if you don't go to that extreme, you look back only a few generations and even today at immigrants, and you see that the old people never stop working until they're literally bed-ridden.
They might not have GDP-increasing jobs that show up on balance sheets, but grandma watches the kids (effectively working as daycare, off-books), grandpa fixes things, and so on.
By demanding everything be reduced to the nuclear family (or smaller) we've created an unnatural situation on never seen before on a global scale.
> They might not have GDP-increasing jobs that show up on balance sheets, but grandma watches the kids (effectively working as daycare, off-books), grandpa fixes things, and so on.
Yes I believe this brings up one of the more poisonous elements of social security, even if it is worth it. It completely decouples the mutual assistance where the parent and grandparent form a symbiotic relationship in the interest of raising the child. Instead of a quid-pro-quo, the government violently enforces a one-way transaction and the older generation can simply tell the younger generation to kick rocks.
Obviously I don't think the elderly have any responsibility to do daycare or fix things, but the fact they can simply not do so while demanding the counterparty still keep up their end of the bargain -- has consequences. If the older generation can tell the younger generation to kick rocks, then the younger generation ought to be able to tell the older generation they can kick rocks back to whatever private savings/investment they have.
That's always been my deep unsettling feeling about the whole idea of "mass-market social security nets" of the type Americans call "social security" - it's one thing to provide for those who literally have nothing and nobody; it's another to blanket everyone with it and disrupt natural processes that are as old as time.
Of course, many actual families do NOT go to extremes, and in fact USE the social security they get to help fund the grandchildren, in all sorts of ways. But you have to actively fight against the status quo to do so.
It's interesting to note that even though everyone 'knows' you don't pay SS payments into some account somewhere that is drawn from later, it's transfer payments now - it is still marketed and sold as the former.
Forms of retirement that don't have the force of law can be adjusted on the fly to match the available resources. When the government forcibly requires that each elderly person be paid a fixed amount of resources yearly, it's possible for there to be literally zero surplus for the young people making the resources. That can't happen under systems where the transfers are voluntary.
More seriously, I think there is a before-and-after point with AI, before some point the automation is just a "normal technology" and we need humans for a lot of jobs, pensioners can only get meaningful pensions when a new generation is present to pay for it all, otherwise pension ages need to keep rising; after that point, automation is so good we can do UBI (AKA "set the pension age to birth")… well, provided the state owns the automation, otherwise good luck demanding free access.
(I am a social democrat, not a libertarian) All models require to some extent the youth working, but not all require a part of the youth's fruits of their labour being taken and put into social security. A libertarian might say that the onus is on the boomers to save enough money to fund their own retirement so that they're not reliant on the social security safety net.
It doesn't really matter on a macro scale if you have social security doing it, or "retirement accounts" doing it - at the base there is capital and value-add (work) and you're transferring from one to the other.
Now perhaps 401ks owning stocks is effectively "lending" capital to the working-class for a fee - but you'd have to argue that.
The point is that money is still just an abstraction. When you take a step back and analyze things in terms of goods and services being the value, you end up with the same types of questions as when analyzing social security in terms of money.
GDP is correlated only while good things are increasing - forcing every married family to divorce at gunpoint and become two family households would greatly increase GDP - but I don't think we'd agree that's good.
This. The prospect of a brighter future at least means capital and labor are fighting for slices of a bigger pie. If the pie per capita stays constant or shrinks there will be a lot more anti-social behavior to response to the zero-sum environment.
I think people really fail to understand the gravity of an inverted demographic pyramid, going from 2 young people supporting 1 old, to 1 young person supporting 2 old. That's .5 -> 2x, a 4x increase in burden (taxes / extra work).
If you planted an apple tree and it never produced apples, you might start to wonder what's wrong with the tree. Maybe there's something wrong with the soil?
How do you know if an organism is thriving in its environment? You count the offspring over generations.
American capitalists and economic planners fret about "Japan Syndrome". To have more productivity and more consumption i.e. GDP growth, you need more people as a core driver. We don't actually need this, we could do fine with a stable population, but capitalism needs to grow or perish.
Declining populations are trickier for most economic concepts though. Less labor, less consumption. That said, a slight decline can leave more houses unoccupied which can be good. A major decline would mean so many unoccupied houses that you would have broken and abandoned houses though because it would be too costly to deal with the abandoned units.
If you or anyone you care about is or will be elderly and is not financially independent, you should care.
This has nothing to do with capitalism; it's a resource allocation problem. We spend inordinate amounts of money on end of life care, and any changes are currently unacceptable to voters.
You're talking about age structure, but overall population age-structure can be adjusted by immigration flows, births, deaths, etc. My point was about the total population number.
You can imagine a steady-state population where the age structure is stable and productivity is high enough to sustain the retirees, trainees, and disabled.
The line has to go up every year forever, even if it causes cyclical market instability and consolidation into mega conglomerates. Creating sustainable wealth across all sectors of society just isn't profitable enough in the short term.
These are amazing illustrations, but I don't understand the emphasis on pressure differentials. That is not how wings generate lift. Due to attachment they deflect the flow, and the momentum change generates an upward force [1]. The practical point of understanding the flow over the wing is to keep that flow attached so that you can deflect it or reattach it if you get out of sorts.
The explanation you described is the greatly simplified "high school friendly" explanation. It's not wrong, per se, but it's incomplete.
Even your link explains: "The net fluid force is generated by the pressure acting over the entire surface of a closed body. The pressure varies around a body in a moving fluid because it is related to the fluid momentum (mass times velocity). The velocity varies around the body because of the flow deflection described above."
I.e. pressure differential is experienced as lift and is caused by the flow turning.
Explaining the actual cause of the flow turning and resulting lift (and why attachment is maintained along top surface) requires looking at fluid dynamics/navier-stokes including pressure differentials, viscosity etc. The pressure differentials allow a more comprehensive way of breaking down the forces at play.
He should have started his lecture with the chart shown at the 26 minute mark. Saying when we measure the pressures on the airfoil, we see high pressure at the front and bottom of the airfoil. Let me explain what is going on…
I found his explanation at the 13 minute mark to be hand wavy. He talked about flow turning and momentum change but just hand waved away why pressure is higher at the bottom of the wing.
You are correct in that the deflected airflow exerts an upward force on the wing (or at least a force with an upward component; there's also a backward component (called induced drag if my memory serves me well)).
The way the airflow exerts that force is through pressure differentials: air under the wing having higher pressure than the air above it.
Momentum change can describe physical interactions, and it's often easier to calculate things that way, but actual physical forces still exist, and can also be used to describe the same physical interactions.
Momentum change is literally the same thing as a force. That makes what you said nonsensical. The first thing physics students are taught is that F=ma, which is F=dp/dt.
How do you square this bizarre and obviously false hypothesis with all the times that San Francisco did not have high cost of living, had declining population, etc?
SF has a relatively high ratio of housing units to population compared to other cities in the US and a 9.7% vacancy rate. By the numbers, it has an oversupply of housing.
That is not a valid interpretation of the data. The ratio you cite, which is a pointless one, is mostly influenced by household size. SF has a relatively small household size compared to the state and nation. The vacancy rate you cite is also not a useful one that people generally understand. There were 19000 units for sale or rent during the last ACS survey, out of 418000 physical dwellings, and that's only 4.5% which is very low by historical standards.
I get your point, but those tow numbers are notoriously optimistic. Most people I bet would not be comfortable towing 4000 lbs with a Maverick, and it would struggle on grades or in heat. You can even feel that kind of weight with a full-size truck. Above 5000 lbs in most places you need independent trailer brakes.
The real issue that limits the Maverick for a wider audience is the rear is too small to comfortably fit kids, especially in car seats. Adding 4 in of leg room to the rear and making the whole truck 4 in longer would've made in a great homeowner family option without sacrificing much agility.
Most people don't need to tow 4000 lbs period. If I had a Maverick and needed to tow 4000 lbs I would absolutely do it though. I've towed more than that in an older Tacoma that's not that different from the Maverick. Would I do it at 75mph? Probably not. Would I be towing 4000 lbs going 65 up an 8% grade in the heat at high altitude in Arizona? Again probably not, but the idea that a small truck needs to be able to do everything is just against the concept of a small truck. If you must have the ability to do that, get something bigger.
I agree that the Maverick's bed is small and the back seat is small. IMO they would have been better off making a regular cab or an "access cab" thing with two doors and fold-down seats, and used the extra length to add to the bed. Those are great if you're single or don't have kids, and you just need to carry passengers very occasionally. If you're regularly hauling kids around you definitely want the next step up. A lot of tradesmen essentially never even use the passenger seat though, and the back seat is just lost bed space unless you're using it for locked storage.
You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money without a reason.
There's a reason these "luxobarges" are the best selling vehicle in the U.S., and the answer is not virtue signaling.
Brother, people are scraping by right now. Auto loan defaults are nearing all-time highs. Car loan lengths are longer than ever. The average age of a vehicle on the road is something like 14 years old now.
I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
I don’t get the recent internet trend of trying to excuse any bad behavior by saying it’s all actually very logical and simply a tragedy of reality. Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle because it has seats that are easy to clean. Nobody is buying an expensive ride because they just NEED those auto rain wipers.
People are bad with money, and keeping up with the Joneses has always been a high priority in American culture. I see people making $20-25/hr driving brand new Cadillac SUVs. I talk to my car selling friends, and they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years. Nobody does those anymore.
Of course there is an enormous amount of virtue signaling around cars. It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> they have the loan rates for 6-10 years memorized, not 3-5 years
Playing Devil's Advocate, if you're going to be fucked either way, why not be fucked and have a nice truck than not?
It seems like, at least from an uninformed EU perspective, that if the "system" gives you the ability to get a big truck for no worse off that if you weren't going to get it, why wouldn't you?
It seems like auto manufacturers overly inflated their prices, and the loan issuers are mopping up said inflation back - so in the end the borrower (at least if poor and they're going to default either way) is better off getting more truck for their buck than less.
Because most people who are fucked, are fucked due to terrible money spending habits. Tons and tons of people who make six figures are living paycheck to paycheck. Not because they must but because they won't stop spending poorly.
Again, I don't understand the desperate internet trend of defending terrible choices by focusing on the, like, 0.001% of people who do everything right and still fail. We've got the highest living standards on the planet. It's absolutely a choice.
I was hoping for some genuine counterpoints but this just feels like a rant? It feels like the stereotypical response that millennials could afford property if only they didn’t spend their money on avocado toast at Starbucks.
Let’s say a normal car costs you $200/month and a big truck costs 400.
200 is not going to make a difference in your situation - you are either good either way or close to breaking point and therefore fucked either way (if not this month, then the next one when you have an unexpected large expense).
If you’re fucked, why not take advantage as much as possible and get the most truck for your buck? Well “your buck” in quotes but you get my point.
If my budget was at breaking point and for only 200 bucks extra (one time payment since I’m gonna default next month) you can bet I’m gonna take advantage and get another ~20k worth of truck that I’ll get to keep until the bankruptcy proceedings complete (at which point the extra would’ve depreciated off anyway). Or is there something I’m missing?
The thing you’re missing is that it isn’t a $200 difference. Auto loans above $1k/mo are becoming common now vs the $400 for something “affordable”. Since people don’t have large down payments, the monthly rate scales beyond linearly to offset default risk with the loan upside down.
You’re also presenting a false scenario of “screwed either way”. One decision is getting a car that doesn’t leave you with $10k+ negative equity in a year because you did $1000 down on a $85k truck financed over 10 years with an 8% rate. That’s a decade long financial albatross that will cost you $150k by the time it’s done.
The alternative is you put $1k down on a $30k vehicle over 4 years with the same monthly payment and never end up with negative equity.
The gulfs here are enormous and the “screwed either way” altitude is pure defeatist financial ignorance.
I don't think most people are buying trucks and then defaulting the next month either that's a bizarre argument to make. And 200 a month is a lot of money!
200 * 12 = 2400 * 4 years( let's be real it would be longer ) = 9600. That IS a lot of money, it's not going to solve every problem immediately but applying the mindset of whatever Im screwed so I might as well set my money on fire is exactly how people keep sinking into the hole. You take the 200 extra on the car, on the apartment, the 150 pants. Its death by a thousand paper cuts and it will make a bad situation much worse.
If you think people are spending just $200-400/mo on a car, I can see why you don't understand how bad this situation is. Most people are spending more like $700-1000/mo.
It has nothing to do with avocado toast, though that wasn't nearly the zinger you thought it was. As it turns out, eating out is insanely expensive. Cook most of your food and you can save a TON of money. The fact that this simple idea is so hard for people to pull out of the avocado toast comment continues to astound me.
And you're right - you can certainly scam the system for 6 months of "more truck". That's exactly the kind of monetary responsibility that got us into this situation in the first place. Thank you for showing everyone a perfect example, I suppose.
Yes some are, but not everyone with a big truck. I'm in truck country and most people can afford their big trucks no problem at all. It's not virtue signaling, they are do-everything cars. Nothing else beats them.
You can go to a off-road work site during the day, and take it downtown for dinner after. Lots of people are making good money and can easily afford them.
> I promise you with all my heart, those luxobarges are not being purchased because they’re practical in any way, shape, or form. It’s 110% virtue signaling.
not sure virtue signalling is best description here. I think "conspicuous consumption" is far better description of the process
You have such a deep misanthropic view that it's prevented you from seeing anything outside of it. You're preaching a faith not practicing an understanding of the world.
> Nobody is buying a gigantic vehicle
There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle. The reason these vehicles sell well is because they come in _tons_ of configurations.
> because it has seats that are easy to clean
No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there, it helps them sell more vehicles by expanding their options.
> People are bad with money
Just.. like.. universally? Then how do you explain the number of billionaires and millionaires in this country? Let me guess.. from your heart it's 110% graft and corruption and 0% skill and sense and building wealth?
> I talk to my car selling friends,
Who has "car selling friends?" Your access to anecdotal information may not be helping you.
> It’s one of the strongest social signals people purchase.
> According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less.
> So what do people actually like about trucks? According to Edwards, the answer is counterintuitive. Truck drivers use their trucks very much like other car owners: for commuting to and from work, presumably alone. The thing that most distinguishes truck owners from those of other vehicles is their sheer love of driving. “The highest indexed use among truck owners is pleasure driving,” says Edwards. Truck drivers use their vehicles this way fully twice as often as the industry average. “This is the freedom that trucks offer,” says Edwards.
The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
>The F-series is the best selling car family in the US. Some of them are using it for its intended purpose sure, the majority are just using it as parent said, a luxobarge.
A F550 box truck and a crew cab shortbed F150 are both F-series as well as everything in between.
If not the best selling it had better be damn close with all the different vehicles that exist under that one nameplate.
The F-150 alone has been Americas best selling vehicle for 47 years straight until getting dethroned by the RAV4 in 2024 (unless you add any of the other F-series trucks). It appears to be back on top in 2025.
one time a year or less was the suffix for each of these, many more people fall into the once a month or so category. The economical thing to do is buy a civic and rent a truck the one time a year you use it for truck things.
If your argument is that most Americans should be on public transit and save the average $500,000 they spend during their lives on private vehicles then I completely agree.
If you're saying "a less bad thing is still bad!" then your comment reads more like the "We should improve society somewhat. / Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent." meme.
The argument seems to ve that trucks are bad because people don't use them to 100% capacity all the time.
People generally buy vehicles for to fit all of their needs not 95% of them. My back seat and trunk are almost always empty and my passenger seat is mostly empty.
For being certain about something based on industry data?
>There are tons of contractors, laborers, small business and property owners who need the space or the utility of the vehicle.
And if that was the majority of these purchasers, this would be a reasonable response, but the extreme majority of truck owners use their truck for its intended purpose ONCE A YEAR. Bro just rent it from frickin' Home Depot and drive a Camry.
>No, that's why the manufacturer puts them in there
Ah, and of course the cheaper cars are purposely given seats which aren't cleanable? Or is it still correct that in the context of our conversation, it's nothing special and completely unrelated to how most people use their car? It's not within a million miles of a decision point.
>Just.. like.. universally?
Yes. You got it. I literally meant that every single person on the planet, rich, poor, and everything in between, is bad with money. I certainly wasn't making a hyperbolic point to bring an idea to the forefront - incredible detective work.
>Who has "car selling friends?"
I buy a lot of cars, and eventually made friends with the people I keep buying them from. We hang out sometimes. Do you just... not make friends with anyone?
>We know this.. how?
Who knows? My friends actually sit around talking about the specs on their refrigerators and the color options. They tinker in the garage on the cooling coils for hours a day. You should see how smooth the drawers in mine are.
On the out of touch point, I will just note that every time we drive to West Virginia or Pennsylvania you can see when you leave the rich exurbs because it goes from $80k vanity trucks to fuel and maintenance efficient sedans, old Toyotas and vans, and the heavy trucks guys like welders use. There is zero question that they’re using those trucks from the wear patterns, whereas the luxury trucks in the areas where the average house is a million plus are spotless.
It’s not “virtue signaling”, it’s lifestyle messaging like wearing cowboy boots or walking around with DJ headphones as if you’re going to drop a set after the morning standup.
Here (southeast US), lawn services use pickups, often also with a trailer. Most other services (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) use vans. Less sure about contractors, I interact with them less.
Most commercial services near me use trucks with or without a trailer. Painters tend to use vans, and some electricians. Everyone else has a truck with a logo on it. You can't tow well with a van, so it has to be a company that never tows.
Granted probably most people on here are CA or SV adjacent, which has a fairly idiosyncratic relationship with its service industries and stricter emissions regs.
Now what was slow was actual computations. Like try running a big spreadsheet in Excel or counting words in a big Word document on that hardware. It takes a very long time, while on modern hardware it's nearly instant.