Aceticon
A small correction on USB PD…
It’s not just USB PD that supports power delivery: Standard USB from way back in 1.0 also supports power delivery to devices as standard, but it’s only up to 100mA in USB 1.0, 500mA in USB 2.0 and 900mA in USB 3.0, all at 5V.
USB PD is a dedicated power delivery USB protocol that supports much higher currents (up to 5A) as well as dynamically configured voltages (so, not fixed as 5V anymore) though it’s all negotiated so your 5V-only phones isn’t going to just get burned with 20V from a USB PD charger.
Since Power = Current * Voltage USB PD can put out quite a lot of power for supporting devices (the maximum depending on what both sides support), which means much faster transmission of power via USB which for example means faster charging of chargeable devices via USB with USB PD.
Anyways, the point being that even really old USB 1.0 can charge your device (just really really slow, though you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that doesn’t support at least USB 2.0 which can send 5x the current of 1.0 hence charge 5x faster than it), and that standard charging speed goes up with each new Standard USB generation since each has a higher maximum current than the previous one, so for example a standard USB 3.1 charger without USB PD support can still push a nice amount of power down the line to charge devices. It’s just that with USB PD things really take off (though only up to a shared maximum that both sides support) and it can push enough power to support larger devices such as full-blown monitors or even charging notebooks.
When watching the TV Series The Handmaid Tales I kept thinking that things like their very heavy security appartus, military for the continuing seccession war and heavy use of dedicated manpower doing manual work in house chores (at least for the upper classes) would use too much manpower, taking it away from actual productive activities and thus making a modern nation level of life (in the material sense, not other senses) unsustainable, though Gilead could sorta keep going for a while drawing down on the wealth of the part of the US from were it was formed, before falling down to mid-XX century South American levels of wealth or worse.
However temporary slavery like this “national duty field work” might actually “solve” some of the agricultural production manpower shortage problems in such a society.
So it actually makes sense (in a sick way) that it’s appealing to the most extreme Fascist amongst the Republicans.
People in University or with University Education will “of course” be exempted from this duty which, by an amazing coincidence will exempt the scions of the rich and upper middle class.
It’s a similar technique as what’s used in not just the US but also countries like the UK to make sure the children of “upper” classes don’t have to endure certain hardships and have enhanced future opportunities even in accessing Upper Education: it’s not at all *cough* *cough* because they’re the children of wealthy parents, it’s purelly because they frequent (expensive) private schools and the children of the poor and working class too when they frequent such schools have access to those things (the “small” detail that the poor and working class cannot actually afford it, remains unsaid).
Whenever a Neoliberal talks about how meritocratic their system is, remember that they defend privatised education, something which as I explained above just means a two tier system were those who can afford it purchase for their children easy access past certain gatekeepers of future opportunities such as access to certain Universities whilst the rest are in a different track - the state school system - with far lower chances, all of which is the very opposite of a merit-based system.
In my own experience inside political parties (granted, small ones in Europe rather than a big US one) is that actual merit is almost never how people are selected for most responsabilities, especially at a local level.
You’re not going to get the same quality of work out of people who basically volunteered to do something or got picked because they’re mates of the guy or gal running the local party office, and are doing it for free, than you would get when the necessary skills are determined, an advert for a PAID position is posted with those skills and from the candidates responding to it one is selected via a half-way decent interview process.
Judging by the looks of that poster that’s very much an amateur job done by a local voluntary, not something created at national level where it’s more likely (at least for big parties, not so much for smaller ones) that people are actually employed and were properly selected to do it (not that there’s not plenty of cronyism at national level in political parties, but that’s not usually for what are seen as “lowly” “auxiliary” positions in a Political Party such as a Graphics Designer position would).
Then, of course, on top of that comes the “small detail” that the average level of formal Education and even breadth of Life Experience is significantly lower in the Far Right, so the average Republic Party amateur is more ignorant at all levels than the average Democrat Party amateur.
Plenty of people originary from South America have “old fashioned” values and principles (family, religion, homophobia, racism, expectations of a certain kind of “strong” “leader”) which map into ideologies well into the Conservative Right in countries which already went through a moral liberalization stage, and in some cases they even hold pretty much Fascist “values” which would map very well into what Trump sells nowadays.
I live in Portugal, which nowadays manages to be more morally liberal that the US, at least amongst the younger generations (mostly because the US went backwards), were the greatest immigrant group are Brasilians (same language) and in the last two elections in Brasil the ones who voted from Portugal were far more pro-Bolsonaro than the ones living in Brasil, which puts them to the Right of the Portuguese Far-Right (which doesn’t actually sell a return to a Fascist Dictatorship like Bolsonaro does, are pretty much mute on the subject of Religion and are comparativelly mild when it comes to Nationalism)
Similary when I lived in Britain during the Leave Referendum and worked in a Tech Startup in London, the only guy there who voted Brexit was a dual national British-Indian who, judging by things his kid let slip before daddy shut him up, was an Indian Nationalist (who had even attended a Military College as a kid in India).
Further, if I look at the immigrants that my own country sent abroad during its previous time of heavy emmigration (back in the 60s/70s) those are people who mainly had pretty backwards (“traditional”) values compared to those of the countries they moved to, and who since then if they did not deeply integrate in their host country (which, as far as I can tell, having been an immigrant myself, is quite common amongst people who immigrated due to economic need rather than a yearning for broader horizons) have kept more or less calcified certain values that even in their country of origin people moved away from over time - in other words, not only do people come in from other countries with values which are “old fashioned” in more modern countries, but it’s not at all uncommon for people who have been immigrated for decades still thinking in many ways like people in their country of origin did all those decades ago even though in the meanwhile their country of origin society has evolved away from that kind of thinking.
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I’m starting to like this AI thing…
They wanted to keep the juicy margins of SUVs whilst being forced (whist bitching and moaning all the way) to transition to EV technology, so ended up pushing EV SUVs.
Their EVs are expensive mainly because of them targeting higher market segments instead of making an “EV for the people”, all the while that was exactly what most Chinese car-makers were aiming for.
The “great industrial leaders” heading these companies have been protected and mollycoddled by the German State, especially at the time of the Emissions Scandal (were the only person to get convicted was a lowly Engineer), so they interiorised well the “we’re too big to fail” message and proceeded to go into full-on extractive mode in the full knowledge that no matter what the German and even European taxpayer will pay for saving their mismanaged and bled dry companies.
The result is entirely what invariably happens in such situations.