This tech doesn't work. States had better have the authority to block them or there will be a lot of injuries and deaths, or as Musk would say, the cost of doing business.
There's this really interesting stuff I've come across from today and from the past. All vast territorial systems have formal (and informal, and theres links between the two) internal sub-territorial trade, investments, political, academic, and some other "frictions" (and they can vary within the country but their typically at least sort of rhyme). China and India have, it turns out, have quite different forms of frictions. Theres a whole lot from hundreds of years ago (some less old) in America that describes current day India and China's internal frictions. Its a very old and very studied thing. The USA's internal frictions, by state and its important to note by locality as well, were remarkably similar to the ones China has had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co are trying to change things, their trying to deeply centralize power and decision making). Some trade frictions increase trade and some trade frictions decrease trade. There detailed concrete explanations for why and numerous comprehensive case studies that map right onto those explanations. And this also applies to innovation. Academic high quality production. Cultural matters. And more
The recent corporate hype cycles—like flashing a green light for highly speculative "Robotaxis" to trigger an artificial stock surge—are not standard market behavior; they are legal pump-and-dumps engineered through SEC Rule 10b-18 and Rule 10b5-1 executive loopholes. These corporate safe harbors allow tech monopolies to weaponize regulatory hype, artificially pump their stock values, and automatically dump shares onto everyday retail investors while remaining completely immune to insider trading prosecution.
- .This reckless financial gambling carries devastating consequences for everyone’s retirement accounts, but it strikes a particularly cruel blow to those already retired, who are left watching their fixed incomes and life savings eroded by billionaire-engineered stock volatility. Unchecked by a hollowed-out Congress, these monopolies have expanded their corporate warfare on the public—crushing small business competition through predatory pricing, wiping out consumers' right to sue through forced arbitration loopholes, and using algorithmic price-fixing to artificially inflate the cost of basic groceries and rent.
- This weaponized financial engineering is not an accident of the free market, but the direct consequence of a re-engineered legislative branch that was intentionally stripped of its power thirty years ago.
Lobotomy by design" is the exact historical framework we need to look at.
When Newt Gingrich took power in 1995, he didn't just trim government fat; he systematically dismantled the entire internal nervous system of Congress. To understand how we lost representation, you have to look at the specific institutions he targeted. These were the essential tools lawmakers needed to craft policy for the common good—and they were the exact institutional guardrails big business needed removed so it could expand unchecked, exploit human labor, and hollow out our society.
◆ Gingrich cleared the floor for corporate dominance by systematically crushing:The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA): Completely defunded and destroyed. This was Congress’s independent, nonpartisan science and tech shield. Without it, lawmakers became blind to complex industries like telecom, energy, and medicine, allowing corporate actors to dictate the terms of tech and environmental policy.Legislative Service Organizations (LSOs): Gingrich outright banned these crucial internal congressional study groups and caucuses. These were the internal research hubs where lawmakers collaborated on civil rights, environmental protection, and working-class policy—the very birthplace of laws meant to shield the public from predatory corporate interests.Committee Staff Budgets: Gutted by one-third. He fired thousands of career, nonpartisan subject-matter experts who knew how to audit corporate data, track monopoly behavior, and write objective policy.The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR): Completely defunded and erased. This agency was the vital bridge protecting state and local public infrastructures from federal corporate overreach, ensuring public resources actually served local communities rather than being cannibalized by private interests.Three Full Committees and 25 Subcommittees: Permanently abolished. By axing dedicated bodies like the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, Gingrich eliminated the precise legislative arenas that held immense leverage over environmental regulations and maritime corporate power.Institutional Memory and Staff Continuity: Gingrich broke a long-standing tradition of nonpartisan committee expertise, strictly forbidding incoming chairmen from retaining legacy staff. Decades of deep oversight memory were wiped clean in a single sweep, ensuring new lawmakers lacked the institutional teeth to challenge corporate titans.Committee Chair Longevity: He instituted strict six-year limits on committee chairpersons. While framed as reform, it intentionally stopped lawmakers from building deep, long-term expertise in complex areas like anti-trust or banking regulation, rendering them perpetually dependent on corporate trade groups for technical guidance.
◆ This was a structural coup. By stripping Congress of its own brains and tools, Gingrich forced lawmakers to outsource information. Corporate lobbyists, Wall Street trade groups, and billionaire-funded think tanks immediately filled the void. They didn't just come to lobby; they came bearing fully drafted bills, effectively allowing big business to write the very laws meant to regulate them.
◆ This is the missing link that connects the 1995 structural cuts directly to thirty years of human and environmental exploitation. The devastating reality is that since that fateful year, we have not had a government that truly represents the citizens who elect them. Instead, this institutional blind spot handed the keys directly to big business, fueling the rise of runaway monopolies. It targets the real-world consequence: the systematic destruction of choice, competition, and public leverage.
◆ By crippling the tools of public protection, this engineered vacuum cleared the path for corporations to aggressively dismantle unions, suppress living wages, erase work-life balance, and treat human beings as disposable cogs—all while devastating our shared environment for short-term profit. They systematically destroyed secure pensions, forcing entire generations to depend on a volatile stock market rigged and manipulated by the very elites who control it. They hollowed out healthcare, rationing coverage and stripping away choices to pad their bottom lines, all while skyrocketing administrative overhead and inflating obscene CEO compensation packages. When Congress lost its independent experts, big business successfully lobbied to deregulate higher education lending and allowed Wall Street private equity firms to buy up family homes, turning basic human needs into speculative assets and transforming the American dream of homeownership into a corporate rent-trap.
◆ This fundamental corruption of our legislative architecture is precisely why the modern political landscape is so fractured. Rather than fighting this corporate takeover, the 1990s Democratic establishment chose to adapt to it through a strategy known as "triangulation."
◆ Pioneered by Bill Clinton, triangulation was the strategy of positioning the party "above and between" the traditional Left and Right. To win elections and court wealthy donors, the Democratic establishment abandoned working-class protections and actively embraced corporate deregulation. The devastating, real-world evidence of this betrayal can be seen in three massive pieces of legislation passed in the wake of Gingrich's reforms:The destruction of American manufacturing (NAFTA, 1993): Bypassing intense labor union warnings to sign a corporate-drafted trade agreement that allowed giant monopolies to easily outsource millions of American union jobs to maximize profit margins while hollowing out local communities.The consolidation of information (The Telecommunications Act of 1996): Stripping away public ownership protections to allow a handful of massive media conglomerates to buy up local radio, TV, and news stations, destroying media competition and narrowing consumer choice.The casino capitalism of Wall Street (The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 1999): Repealing the vital Glass-Steagall firewall separating everyday consumer savings from high-risk Wall Street investment gambling, directly clearing the tracks for the catastrophic 2008 financial crash.
◆ This historical pivot explains the bitter, ongoing war between Wall Street Democrats and progressives today. The establishment wing of the party remains fiercely loyal to this corporate donor pipeline because their campaigns, careers, and power structures depend on it. They fight tooth and nail against progressives because progressives want to smash this pipeline entirely—rejecting corporate PAC money to rebuild a party that actually aligns with the people to protect human lives, restore labor unions, and save our environment.
◆ The system isn't broken—it was intentionally re-engineered in 1995 to strip power from the people and hand the keys to corporate monopolies. If we want to fix our democracy, we have to stop treating symptoms and start rebuilding the structural oversight tools that were stolen from us thirty years ago.
◆ Which industry do you think best illustrates the devastating real-world cost of this corporate capture today?
I foresee lots of trouble if robocars have no provision for being driven locally — when they get stuck, have an accident, or need to be pushed. Too many of these systems assume perfect operation at all times.
This is so incredibly dangerous and will be deadly. Combined with the gutting of all consumer protection levers and the complete criminality in the Justice department the combination is catastrophic.
San Francisco we already have Zoox without the manual controls, steering wheel, foot brake... etc. You just pop into a pod and go....
The big thing is Tesla just wants to use the small cameras on their cars, not the way better lidar that everyone else here in San Francisco uses.... I do like using Waymo and Zoox services...
But it still needs some work, was a big mess on the roads here on the 4th of July when over 100,000 people gathered along the bay to watch the fireworks show on the Golden Gate Bridge.... When the show ended everyone left at once... Was a mad house, and a lot of Waymo's got stuck... Computers couldn't figure out what to do with all the thousands of random humans walking around...
The cars are really great to ride in, I've been doing it for years here in San Francisco.. Especially myself also a bicyclist I'd rather have a Waymo or a Zoox on the road with me then a regular car driver.....
I don’t detect much room for passengers. Is there at least room for their luggage? They might be going to/coming from the airport or the bus/train station.
And what about disabled people who have walkers and wheelchairs? Personally, I would not use this service. Someone ahead of me commented that they’re flammable.
There's this really interesting stuff I've come across from today and from the past. All vast territorial systems have formal (and informal, and theres links between the two) internal sub-territorial trade, investments, political, academic, and some other "frictions" (and they can vary within the country but their typically at least sort of rhyme). China and India have, it turns out, have quite different forms of frictions. Theres a whole lot from hundreds of years ago (some less old) in America that describes current day India and China's internal frictions. Its a very old and very studied thing. The USA's internal frictions, by state and its important to note by locality as well, were remarkably similar to the ones China has had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co are trying to change things, their trying to deeply centralize power and decision making). Some trade frictions increase trade and some trade frictions decrease trade. There detailed concrete explanations for why and numerous comprehensive case studies that map right onto those explanations. And this also applies to innovation. Academic high quality production. Cultural matters. And more
Screw Trump and Musk. Don't care what THEY want. I don't want the damn things on the road. Ever. And I absolutely don't want to be in some grouping with states like Arkansas and Oklahoma who haven't seen a rich guy they don't like and bend the knee to. No thanks. Why don't states have authority over this like they do other vehicles?
Here’s the rule: NO SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES…EVER.
This tech doesn't work. States had better have the authority to block them or there will be a lot of injuries and deaths, or as Musk would say, the cost of doing business.
When is enough enough?
There's this really interesting stuff I've come across from today and from the past. All vast territorial systems have formal (and informal, and theres links between the two) internal sub-territorial trade, investments, political, academic, and some other "frictions" (and they can vary within the country but their typically at least sort of rhyme). China and India have, it turns out, have quite different forms of frictions. Theres a whole lot from hundreds of years ago (some less old) in America that describes current day India and China's internal frictions. Its a very old and very studied thing. The USA's internal frictions, by state and its important to note by locality as well, were remarkably similar to the ones China has had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co are trying to change things, their trying to deeply centralize power and decision making). Some trade frictions increase trade and some trade frictions decrease trade. There detailed concrete explanations for why and numerous comprehensive case studies that map right onto those explanations. And this also applies to innovation. Academic high quality production. Cultural matters. And more
Another “legal” pump and dump scheme.
The recent corporate hype cycles—like flashing a green light for highly speculative "Robotaxis" to trigger an artificial stock surge—are not standard market behavior; they are legal pump-and-dumps engineered through SEC Rule 10b-18 and Rule 10b5-1 executive loopholes. These corporate safe harbors allow tech monopolies to weaponize regulatory hype, artificially pump their stock values, and automatically dump shares onto everyday retail investors while remaining completely immune to insider trading prosecution.
- .This reckless financial gambling carries devastating consequences for everyone’s retirement accounts, but it strikes a particularly cruel blow to those already retired, who are left watching their fixed incomes and life savings eroded by billionaire-engineered stock volatility. Unchecked by a hollowed-out Congress, these monopolies have expanded their corporate warfare on the public—crushing small business competition through predatory pricing, wiping out consumers' right to sue through forced arbitration loopholes, and using algorithmic price-fixing to artificially inflate the cost of basic groceries and rent.
- This weaponized financial engineering is not an accident of the free market, but the direct consequence of a re-engineered legislative branch that was intentionally stripped of its power thirty years ago.
Lobotomy by design" is the exact historical framework we need to look at.
When Newt Gingrich took power in 1995, he didn't just trim government fat; he systematically dismantled the entire internal nervous system of Congress. To understand how we lost representation, you have to look at the specific institutions he targeted. These were the essential tools lawmakers needed to craft policy for the common good—and they were the exact institutional guardrails big business needed removed so it could expand unchecked, exploit human labor, and hollow out our society.
◆ Gingrich cleared the floor for corporate dominance by systematically crushing:The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA): Completely defunded and destroyed. This was Congress’s independent, nonpartisan science and tech shield. Without it, lawmakers became blind to complex industries like telecom, energy, and medicine, allowing corporate actors to dictate the terms of tech and environmental policy.Legislative Service Organizations (LSOs): Gingrich outright banned these crucial internal congressional study groups and caucuses. These were the internal research hubs where lawmakers collaborated on civil rights, environmental protection, and working-class policy—the very birthplace of laws meant to shield the public from predatory corporate interests.Committee Staff Budgets: Gutted by one-third. He fired thousands of career, nonpartisan subject-matter experts who knew how to audit corporate data, track monopoly behavior, and write objective policy.The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR): Completely defunded and erased. This agency was the vital bridge protecting state and local public infrastructures from federal corporate overreach, ensuring public resources actually served local communities rather than being cannibalized by private interests.Three Full Committees and 25 Subcommittees: Permanently abolished. By axing dedicated bodies like the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, Gingrich eliminated the precise legislative arenas that held immense leverage over environmental regulations and maritime corporate power.Institutional Memory and Staff Continuity: Gingrich broke a long-standing tradition of nonpartisan committee expertise, strictly forbidding incoming chairmen from retaining legacy staff. Decades of deep oversight memory were wiped clean in a single sweep, ensuring new lawmakers lacked the institutional teeth to challenge corporate titans.Committee Chair Longevity: He instituted strict six-year limits on committee chairpersons. While framed as reform, it intentionally stopped lawmakers from building deep, long-term expertise in complex areas like anti-trust or banking regulation, rendering them perpetually dependent on corporate trade groups for technical guidance.
◆ This was a structural coup. By stripping Congress of its own brains and tools, Gingrich forced lawmakers to outsource information. Corporate lobbyists, Wall Street trade groups, and billionaire-funded think tanks immediately filled the void. They didn't just come to lobby; they came bearing fully drafted bills, effectively allowing big business to write the very laws meant to regulate them.
◆ This is the missing link that connects the 1995 structural cuts directly to thirty years of human and environmental exploitation. The devastating reality is that since that fateful year, we have not had a government that truly represents the citizens who elect them. Instead, this institutional blind spot handed the keys directly to big business, fueling the rise of runaway monopolies. It targets the real-world consequence: the systematic destruction of choice, competition, and public leverage.
◆ By crippling the tools of public protection, this engineered vacuum cleared the path for corporations to aggressively dismantle unions, suppress living wages, erase work-life balance, and treat human beings as disposable cogs—all while devastating our shared environment for short-term profit. They systematically destroyed secure pensions, forcing entire generations to depend on a volatile stock market rigged and manipulated by the very elites who control it. They hollowed out healthcare, rationing coverage and stripping away choices to pad their bottom lines, all while skyrocketing administrative overhead and inflating obscene CEO compensation packages. When Congress lost its independent experts, big business successfully lobbied to deregulate higher education lending and allowed Wall Street private equity firms to buy up family homes, turning basic human needs into speculative assets and transforming the American dream of homeownership into a corporate rent-trap.
◆ This fundamental corruption of our legislative architecture is precisely why the modern political landscape is so fractured. Rather than fighting this corporate takeover, the 1990s Democratic establishment chose to adapt to it through a strategy known as "triangulation."
◆ Pioneered by Bill Clinton, triangulation was the strategy of positioning the party "above and between" the traditional Left and Right. To win elections and court wealthy donors, the Democratic establishment abandoned working-class protections and actively embraced corporate deregulation. The devastating, real-world evidence of this betrayal can be seen in three massive pieces of legislation passed in the wake of Gingrich's reforms:The destruction of American manufacturing (NAFTA, 1993): Bypassing intense labor union warnings to sign a corporate-drafted trade agreement that allowed giant monopolies to easily outsource millions of American union jobs to maximize profit margins while hollowing out local communities.The consolidation of information (The Telecommunications Act of 1996): Stripping away public ownership protections to allow a handful of massive media conglomerates to buy up local radio, TV, and news stations, destroying media competition and narrowing consumer choice.The casino capitalism of Wall Street (The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 1999): Repealing the vital Glass-Steagall firewall separating everyday consumer savings from high-risk Wall Street investment gambling, directly clearing the tracks for the catastrophic 2008 financial crash.
◆ This historical pivot explains the bitter, ongoing war between Wall Street Democrats and progressives today. The establishment wing of the party remains fiercely loyal to this corporate donor pipeline because their campaigns, careers, and power structures depend on it. They fight tooth and nail against progressives because progressives want to smash this pipeline entirely—rejecting corporate PAC money to rebuild a party that actually aligns with the people to protect human lives, restore labor unions, and save our environment.
◆ The system isn't broken—it was intentionally re-engineered in 1995 to strip power from the people and hand the keys to corporate monopolies. If we want to fix our democracy, we have to stop treating symptoms and start rebuilding the structural oversight tools that were stolen from us thirty years ago.
◆ Which industry do you think best illustrates the devastating real-world cost of this corporate capture today?
The most significant danger here lies in granting Musk any autonomy and a complete lack of accountability.
I foresee lots of trouble if robocars have no provision for being driven locally — when they get stuck, have an accident, or need to be pushed. Too many of these systems assume perfect operation at all times.
I’ll wait for a Japanese or German self-driving vehicle. Elon Musk has demonstrated with his DOGE values that he is perfectly happy with dead people.
This is so incredibly dangerous and will be deadly. Combined with the gutting of all consumer protection levers and the complete criminality in the Justice department the combination is catastrophic.
This is a dangerous precedent!!
San Francisco we already have Zoox without the manual controls, steering wheel, foot brake... etc. You just pop into a pod and go....
The big thing is Tesla just wants to use the small cameras on their cars, not the way better lidar that everyone else here in San Francisco uses.... I do like using Waymo and Zoox services...
But it still needs some work, was a big mess on the roads here on the 4th of July when over 100,000 people gathered along the bay to watch the fireworks show on the Golden Gate Bridge.... When the show ended everyone left at once... Was a mad house, and a lot of Waymo's got stuck... Computers couldn't figure out what to do with all the thousands of random humans walking around...
Maybe we and computers are more alike than I knew ...
"Computers couldn't figure out what to do with all the thousands of random humans walking around..."
They're highly flammable 🔥
One ponzi scheme after another.
I will NEVER ride in one of those.
The cars are really great to ride in, I've been doing it for years here in San Francisco.. Especially myself also a bicyclist I'd rather have a Waymo or a Zoox on the road with me then a regular car driver.....
Also I don't trust anything that man has had his hands on
I don't trust them. Especially since musk didn't want to use lidar
I don’t detect much room for passengers. Is there at least room for their luggage? They might be going to/coming from the airport or the bus/train station.
And what about disabled people who have walkers and wheelchairs? Personally, I would not use this service. Someone ahead of me commented that they’re flammable.
There's this really interesting stuff I've come across from today and from the past. All vast territorial systems have formal (and informal, and theres links between the two) internal sub-territorial trade, investments, political, academic, and some other "frictions" (and they can vary within the country but their typically at least sort of rhyme). China and India have, it turns out, have quite different forms of frictions. Theres a whole lot from hundreds of years ago (some less old) in America that describes current day India and China's internal frictions. Its a very old and very studied thing. The USA's internal frictions, by state and its important to note by locality as well, were remarkably similar to the ones China has had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co are trying to change things, their trying to deeply centralize power and decision making). Some trade frictions increase trade and some trade frictions decrease trade. There detailed concrete explanations for why and numerous comprehensive case studies that map right onto those explanations. And this also applies to innovation. Academic high quality production. Cultural matters. And more
Problem for Tesla is that they are years behind the competitors because their software relies only on vision. Just more Musk BS.
Screw Trump and Musk. Don't care what THEY want. I don't want the damn things on the road. Ever. And I absolutely don't want to be in some grouping with states like Arkansas and Oklahoma who haven't seen a rich guy they don't like and bend the knee to. No thanks. Why don't states have authority over this like they do other vehicles?