I’m amazed how much young people eat out and their size. Do we still cook? But people eat out in Japan too without a culture of trash or being overweight. The petroleum industry is all about convenience for mobility, the liters/takeout number for supersized food and SUVs-mobile dining rooms- is informative. Also unlike Japan an increasing population live in cars and cities wrestle with safe parking lots to temporarily store them.
The fact that Japan doesn’t “have a culture of trash or being overweight” hits on the very issue that separates us as nations: CULTURE. The Japanese people and their culture value conformity, which is something that facilitates compliance when it comes to recycling and maintaining a clean environment. They have a very mono-ethnic society, so when everyone LOOKS the same and BELIEVES the same things then it’s far easier to get everyone to ACT the same. Americans are individualistic and our leaders emphasize “diversity” over rule following, so don’t ever expect the U.S. to be like, think, or act as if they were Japanese.
Personally, I’m a firm believer in the need for Americans to get back to more cooperative relationships, especially when it comes to “the greater good” of personal responsibility—pick up your trash, put it where it belongs, don’t do or embrace graffiti, etc. Basically, “don’t shit where you eat” is the motto that a large number of certain ethnographic people have ignored for over 30+ years, and which explains to a large extent our current societal rot.
Just a quick note to say thanks for this. My work is so focused on other topics recently that I rely on sources like this to keep informed on ee challenges and strategies.
Maybe, we should support local and Tims is not local or really Canadian anymore. Park the car (or bike) take our reusable Yeti or Stanley to the locally owned coffee shop and ask for a full up? Our own actions guide change. The coffee local coffee shop will actually appreciation of our actions and thank us genuinely for parking the car and not expecting to just idle in a line up for 4 minutes. And we know the local dollars flow better within our local community.
And I would be remiss if I left out my normal question:
"Who is the 'we' that is going to be the change agent? Will it be individual folks like you persuading other individuals or will it be individual folks like you that demand that Govt change the rest of us at your behest?"
I never seem to get an answer to that question. It seems an easy question to formulate and far easier to realize what the unspoken answer is just by being cognizant of the current political atmosphere.
But will you, Lloyd, now being freed of your TH Master, be truthful? How about the other commenters here. There's much discussion of the "what" but, mysteriously, very little on the "who, and by whom".
I will be honest. I like clean streets and fresh air and trees. I dislike fossil fuel companies that promote plastic production. I try to persuade people, but we need nudges and regulations if we are going to get change. There, I said it.
I don’t think you’re going to find *anyone* who DIS-likes clean streets and fresh air and trees or litter-free spaces. The problem is that you’re wasting your time arguing about the “need” to remove the products’ availability from public sale when it’s the BEHAVIOR of certain consumers who are too stupid, lazy, or inconsiderate to do the right thing that should be addressed instead.
At one time we had PSA announcements on the TV and radio condemning littering and pollution; we no longer have them. I ask you, Why is that the case? Were they ineffective? Or were they simply not reinforced enough the way that global warming has been rebranded into the present-day climate “crisis”?
The more society fractures, the more that people eschew certain rules of common sense conduct that we once all agreed upon because it benefited everyone, the less we emphasize the truth that EVERYONE is accountable for their OWN actions, the less likely we will be at achieving noble and attainable goals that underpin a cohesive, effective, and ethical society. That doesn’t mean we should then abandon SOCIAL NORMS AND VALUES in favor of heavy-handed governmental policies restricting essential freedoms, it means we should focus on realigning ourselves with traditional values and morality that served society for generations rather than give in to the immediacy of id self-gratification.
Well, I applaud the personal approach of persuading one person at a time - that should always be the Lesson of First Approach. However, I certainly hate the Second Approach that you believe that Govt should control our lives, at least I can applaud you for being [finally] honest about it.
The problem is "nudging" and then "declaring" by Govt is that it ends up being the one-size-fits-all result that doesn't help anyone. In most cases, as we are seeing on the US Supreme Court docket, we have an out of control set of agencies that have gone FAR beyond that statuatory Powers and are about to get slapped down HARD for it for not "governing but Ruling".
And your Trudeau just got nailed HARD for abusing the Canadian Emergency Powers Act for outright abusing the Govt's Powers against the truckers.
What I have intently watched over the last 20 years is the fulfillment of "The Slippery Slope" and "We need to justify our salaries by doing more stuff [than what was allowed]".
So the next question is how to prevent those from happening? My quick answer is to never give folks those Powers (or those in close proximity to them] in the first place.
After all, the US Constitution was never about specifying the form of our Federal Govt, it was the most spectacular and insightful sociological document in history to keep Power from being aggregated into a few set of hands. Much of our problems stem from people who wish to ignore its precepts even as they swore an oath to defend it.
"Our cars adapted too, getting bigger to accommodate their transformation into mobile dining rooms."
A proxy for "bigger" is weight. After all, if they are getting wider (which I doubt cars are, given constraints on our roads and governmental regulations on gas mileage), the weight increases as cars get wider and longer.
I grew up when cars were MUCH larger than they are now. Go ahead, compare a Toyota Corolla to a 6 Caddy El Dorado (2 door, convertable, and enough trunk room to stash bodies inside). Even intermediate cars back then would dwarf today's "large" cars. Now tell me that sedans-cars are now increasing in size...
But to be factual, I decided to ask Bard (Google's AI). The query:
Using a table, show the average weight of US sedan base models sold over the last 10 years.
The result? Not much different at all over that span of time:
Year Estimated Average Weight (lbs) Methodology
2014 3,250 Weighted average based on top 10 selling sedan
models' base weights and their market share.
2015 3,270 Updated based on top 10 sellers for that year.
2016 3,290 ...
2017 3,310 ...
2018 3,330 ...
2019 3,350 ...
2020 3,370 ...
2021 3,390 ...
2022 3,410 ...
2023 3,430 Estimated based on current trends and new
Ah, you said CARS rather than trucks of any type. The preciseness of words matters!
So here's another question for you: how much of that weight gain is due to the increasing number of Government regulations? Show all work (as you might say on a regular basis - I certainly did!).
As I understand it, cars are a superset of trucks, and includes sedans, hatchbacks, sports cars, and station wagons.
Government regulations apart from fuel economy and emissions are the same for passenger cars and light duty trucks, so if sedan weights aren't increasing, it's safe to say that goverment regulations aren't a factor for trucks or cars as a whole.
As for showing work, I don't think querying an LLM like Google Bard for factual data counts. LLMs are (within limits) great for creative work but awful for factual queries.
No, cars are a subset of vehicles - not trucks. But yes, there are various subsets of cars as you pointed out. However, in the US, most cars by American manufacturers are being phased out. For instance, Ford offers only one model - the Mustang.
"so if sedan weights aren't increasing, it's safe to say that goverment regulations aren't a factor for trucks or cars as a whole"
Point taken but it wasn't me making the call that cars are getting bigger to hold more cups of coffe/whatever (e.g., heavier) - that was Lloyd.
As far as LLM's are concerned, I would hold that you are woefully wrong. After all, to be creative means having (no pun intended) a "Large" knowledgebase" to pull from. However, if you believe Bard's facts are wrong...
...prove it. Show us all your work in arriving at a different result.
Right on and I love the numbers. Since I teach this topic I can show students how they can get to the same answers. I recommends listening to "The Great Simplification" by Nate Hagens, who interviews many people related to the energy, materials and climate change topics. One of the latest was with Jan Muncke, chief science officer of the Food Packaging Forum, based in Switzerland. She confirms and adds a lot of practical chemistry to your point about plastic/paper coffee cups: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/104-jane-muncke
I’m amazed how much young people eat out and their size. Do we still cook? But people eat out in Japan too without a culture of trash or being overweight. The petroleum industry is all about convenience for mobility, the liters/takeout number for supersized food and SUVs-mobile dining rooms- is informative. Also unlike Japan an increasing population live in cars and cities wrestle with safe parking lots to temporarily store them.
The fact that Japan doesn’t “have a culture of trash or being overweight” hits on the very issue that separates us as nations: CULTURE. The Japanese people and their culture value conformity, which is something that facilitates compliance when it comes to recycling and maintaining a clean environment. They have a very mono-ethnic society, so when everyone LOOKS the same and BELIEVES the same things then it’s far easier to get everyone to ACT the same. Americans are individualistic and our leaders emphasize “diversity” over rule following, so don’t ever expect the U.S. to be like, think, or act as if they were Japanese.
Personally, I’m a firm believer in the need for Americans to get back to more cooperative relationships, especially when it comes to “the greater good” of personal responsibility—pick up your trash, put it where it belongs, don’t do or embrace graffiti, etc. Basically, “don’t shit where you eat” is the motto that a large number of certain ethnographic people have ignored for over 30+ years, and which explains to a large extent our current societal rot.
Just a quick note to say thanks for this. My work is so focused on other topics recently that I rely on sources like this to keep informed on ee challenges and strategies.
Maybe, we should support local and Tims is not local or really Canadian anymore. Park the car (or bike) take our reusable Yeti or Stanley to the locally owned coffee shop and ask for a full up? Our own actions guide change. The coffee local coffee shop will actually appreciation of our actions and thank us genuinely for parking the car and not expecting to just idle in a line up for 4 minutes. And we know the local dollars flow better within our local community.
Indeed!
"It's Pizza! But in a cup!"
Do I get bonus points for knowing which movie this is from? :)
And I would be remiss if I left out my normal question:
"Who is the 'we' that is going to be the change agent? Will it be individual folks like you persuading other individuals or will it be individual folks like you that demand that Govt change the rest of us at your behest?"
I never seem to get an answer to that question. It seems an easy question to formulate and far easier to realize what the unspoken answer is just by being cognizant of the current political atmosphere.
But will you, Lloyd, now being freed of your TH Master, be truthful? How about the other commenters here. There's much discussion of the "what" but, mysteriously, very little on the "who, and by whom".
I will be honest. I like clean streets and fresh air and trees. I dislike fossil fuel companies that promote plastic production. I try to persuade people, but we need nudges and regulations if we are going to get change. There, I said it.
I don’t think you’re going to find *anyone* who DIS-likes clean streets and fresh air and trees or litter-free spaces. The problem is that you’re wasting your time arguing about the “need” to remove the products’ availability from public sale when it’s the BEHAVIOR of certain consumers who are too stupid, lazy, or inconsiderate to do the right thing that should be addressed instead.
At one time we had PSA announcements on the TV and radio condemning littering and pollution; we no longer have them. I ask you, Why is that the case? Were they ineffective? Or were they simply not reinforced enough the way that global warming has been rebranded into the present-day climate “crisis”?
The more society fractures, the more that people eschew certain rules of common sense conduct that we once all agreed upon because it benefited everyone, the less we emphasize the truth that EVERYONE is accountable for their OWN actions, the less likely we will be at achieving noble and attainable goals that underpin a cohesive, effective, and ethical society. That doesn’t mean we should then abandon SOCIAL NORMS AND VALUES in favor of heavy-handed governmental policies restricting essential freedoms, it means we should focus on realigning ourselves with traditional values and morality that served society for generations rather than give in to the immediacy of id self-gratification.
Interesting, where would you draw the line in the government telling you what you can, have, or should do?
Well, a Cass Sunstein, then!
Well, I applaud the personal approach of persuading one person at a time - that should always be the Lesson of First Approach. However, I certainly hate the Second Approach that you believe that Govt should control our lives, at least I can applaud you for being [finally] honest about it.
The problem is "nudging" and then "declaring" by Govt is that it ends up being the one-size-fits-all result that doesn't help anyone. In most cases, as we are seeing on the US Supreme Court docket, we have an out of control set of agencies that have gone FAR beyond that statuatory Powers and are about to get slapped down HARD for it for not "governing but Ruling".
And your Trudeau just got nailed HARD for abusing the Canadian Emergency Powers Act for outright abusing the Govt's Powers against the truckers.
What I have intently watched over the last 20 years is the fulfillment of "The Slippery Slope" and "We need to justify our salaries by doing more stuff [than what was allowed]".
So the next question is how to prevent those from happening? My quick answer is to never give folks those Powers (or those in close proximity to them] in the first place.
After all, the US Constitution was never about specifying the form of our Federal Govt, it was the most spectacular and insightful sociological document in history to keep Power from being aggregated into a few set of hands. Much of our problems stem from people who wish to ignore its precepts even as they swore an oath to defend it.
And your thought on the "nudges" that California has placed upon its subjects:
1. California Democrats choose your cars.
2. California Democrats choose your fuel.
3. California Democrats limit your speed.
4.And they know where you are at all times.
What does that remind you of?
(https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/01/26/now-lefty-lawmakers-are-literally-trying-slow-down-people-fleeing-california-n4925870?bcid=b43fe408e18c12b9dd5ccc06fae3de98b0303fd801a8d22de66a26388d5e2e82&recip=3587434)
When people are trying, EVEN IF WITH "GOOD INTENTIONS" are demanding that behaviors change, one should always ask oneself that last question.
Sadly, very few do.
We have had several reusable cups for years now and I think we need to mention that you need cup holders in your vehicle that can accommodate those.
"Our cars adapted too, getting bigger to accommodate their transformation into mobile dining rooms."
A proxy for "bigger" is weight. After all, if they are getting wider (which I doubt cars are, given constraints on our roads and governmental regulations on gas mileage), the weight increases as cars get wider and longer.
I grew up when cars were MUCH larger than they are now. Go ahead, compare a Toyota Corolla to a 6 Caddy El Dorado (2 door, convertable, and enough trunk room to stash bodies inside). Even intermediate cars back then would dwarf today's "large" cars. Now tell me that sedans-cars are now increasing in size...
But to be factual, I decided to ask Bard (Google's AI). The query:
Using a table, show the average weight of US sedan base models sold over the last 10 years.
The result? Not much different at all over that span of time:
Year Estimated Average Weight (lbs) Methodology
2014 3,250 Weighted average based on top 10 selling sedan
models' base weights and their market share.
2015 3,270 Updated based on top 10 sellers for that year.
2016 3,290 ...
2017 3,310 ...
2018 3,330 ...
2019 3,350 ...
2020 3,370 ...
2021 3,390 ...
2022 3,410 ...
2023 3,430 Estimated based on current trends and new
model introductions.
Wanna try that assumption again?
Nobody buys sedans anymore, it's all pickups and SUVs and the average has gone up by 175 pounds just in the last 3 years. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-08/american-cars-are-developing-a-serious-weight-problem
Ah, you said CARS rather than trucks of any type. The preciseness of words matters!
So here's another question for you: how much of that weight gain is due to the increasing number of Government regulations? Show all work (as you might say on a regular basis - I certainly did!).
As I understand it, cars are a superset of trucks, and includes sedans, hatchbacks, sports cars, and station wagons.
Government regulations apart from fuel economy and emissions are the same for passenger cars and light duty trucks, so if sedan weights aren't increasing, it's safe to say that goverment regulations aren't a factor for trucks or cars as a whole.
As for showing work, I don't think querying an LLM like Google Bard for factual data counts. LLMs are (within limits) great for creative work but awful for factual queries.
No, cars are a subset of vehicles - not trucks. But yes, there are various subsets of cars as you pointed out. However, in the US, most cars by American manufacturers are being phased out. For instance, Ford offers only one model - the Mustang.
"so if sedan weights aren't increasing, it's safe to say that goverment regulations aren't a factor for trucks or cars as a whole"
Point taken but it wasn't me making the call that cars are getting bigger to hold more cups of coffe/whatever (e.g., heavier) - that was Lloyd.
As far as LLM's are concerned, I would hold that you are woefully wrong. After all, to be creative means having (no pun intended) a "Large" knowledgebase" to pull from. However, if you believe Bard's facts are wrong...
...prove it. Show us all your work in arriving at a different result.
That should have been a 64 Caddy El Dorado - keyboard failure...
BTW, I really wish Substack would offer better text tools for replies for better formatting.
Right on and I love the numbers. Since I teach this topic I can show students how they can get to the same answers. I recommends listening to "The Great Simplification" by Nate Hagens, who interviews many people related to the energy, materials and climate change topics. One of the latest was with Jan Muncke, chief science officer of the Food Packaging Forum, based in Switzerland. She confirms and adds a lot of practical chemistry to your point about plastic/paper coffee cups: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/104-jane-muncke
I haven't heard that episode, will listen to it, thanks!
If you are worried about ‘cupflation’ on cars how about cup holders on shopping carts?
I mention those! They are everywhere on everything now.
And child seats on shopping carts! I haven't yet seen a child for sale on the shelves, let alone one that would fit such a seat ;-)